Hokey religions and ancient weapons. [IC]

[TheThan]

Tatooine – the Lars Homestead

The ancestral home of the legendary Luke Skywalker rests in the great chott salt flat, in the outskirts of the judland wastes. This moisture farm has switched hands several times since Luke Skywalker left it to embrace his destiny. Now it’s become a small Jedi enclave ran by Jedi Master Alicia Munro, “the desert rose” as she’s sometimes called.

Tatooine is a harsh and dangerous world, but also a world of great beauty, the painted walls of Beggar’s canyon and the golden double sunsets are but two simple reminders of the beauty, peacefulness and serenity that can be found here.

The temple lies mostly underground, with a garage, sleeping quarters, kitchen and small vegetable garden, meditation chamber, and of course the outdoor court yard. Nearly all that is viewable from the surface is the entrance dome and a handful of moisture vaporators.

Life at the temple is slow, you spend your days meditating, training and doing the various chores that a functioning moisture farm has to have done.

This morning you awoke expecting the day to be no different than most days. However Master Munro had other plans. She awoke each of you earlier than you usually get up and told you to prepare for a trip out into the desert. Once dressed, you get several rations of water, that rare life giving fluid. Once in the speeder, a simple craft that can fit four, you are on your way, with Master Munro at the controls. The four of you speed out into the jagged mountains of the judland wastes, occasionally stopping for Master Munro to look around. Eventually she comes to a stop and gets out, taking with here a small metal box and a picnic basket.

She leads you into the hills and you follow along behind, eventually coming into a small box canyon. Inside, the rocky ground is littered with sharp ragged boulders strewn about the floor of the canyon, the only vegetation are small spiny desert plants sparsely spread out and poking out of cracks in the rock.

After surveying the surroundings for a moment she declares the area “perfect” and sets her containers down. Turning to the group she says.

“Today I want you all to practice with your lightsabers. First we’re going to practice defense against blaster fire, then maybe move on to some more advanced techniques. I want you to use what I taught you, mind the terrain, and be open to the force.”

She opens up the little metal box and three spherical remotes lift into the air and start spreading out.
“These are training remotes, they aren’t dangerous but they pack a sting. I want you to practice deflecting their shots, you don’t have to send them right back at the remote, that will come later. Well get to it!” she says. Then she turns away to climb onto the flat boulder she placed the box and the basket on, sits down cross legged on the boulder and watches.

[JusticeZero]

Karai takes the long hilt off her belt and looks around at the others, then lights it and stands in the clear. "Okay. I'm ready." She takes a deep breath, then considers the remotes with sorrow, tilting her head down slightly and sinking into her ready position defensively.

[Nesori]

Grush looks between his teacher and the remotes as they begin to spread out, giving a curt nod and unlatching his lightsaber from his belt. "As you say.". Grush follows the remote which moves the farthest away from the other two, intent to keep an eye on all three probes while he deflects the bolts from the one nearest to him. He takes a wide stance and ignites the pale blue blade of his lightsaber, keeping it between himself and the probe.

[OracleofSilence]

"Yeah. Lets do this." Kethar looks somewhat less then enthused. On one level, he knew the remotes were excellent practice, and the broken terrain only made things more interesting, on the other, fighting non-living opponents felt so boring. Regardless, he ignites his blade, holding it one handed and with the blade angled across his body, presenting a narrow profile to the remotes.

[TheThan]

The remotes drift through the air and take up positions, slowly gliding towards you. Once they get close enough they become evasive, and drift sideways, move in and out and change height. Eventually the shots come, but each of you is prepared and the stinger blasts are deflected harmlessly away.

You practice lightsaber deflection over the course of the morning, the remotes slowly increasing in speed, aggressiveness and intensity. You and your remote begin to range over the area. you can hear Master Munro speak on the force, something she is in the habit of doing, teaching spiritual spiritual lessons while you're in the middle of concentrating or doing something rather physical. this has the effect of splitting your attention between her words, and whatever you're doing. she also has the strange effect of being heard from far away, despite her voice never raising beyond a conversational volume.

“A Jedi can feel the force flowing through him. Let your conscious self go and act on your instincts. Don’t try to predict where the shot will come from, that’s impossible; instead trust in the force to guide your hand.

You must feel the living force around, between you and the remote, even between the boulders and the ground. It surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. "

[JusticeZero]

Karai sighs, still more or less in the same place she started in, looking sleepily over at the remote from behind her saber blade and breathing slowly as her saber flows back and forth to weave between bolts. This isn't an exercise unfamiliar to her, though the first time was with a staff and with very different spiritual advice. Blaster bolts twist off her blade to scatter into the rocks around her as she stands in place, sunk low and twisting to track the remote, hypnotized by the feel of the remote's power pack slowly emptying toward her, and her saber finding its way to spread it further, relaxed.

[OracleofSilence]

Kethar slows his defense somewhat, almost languidly batting bolts away. He can feel the terrain, feel the remotes, feel when and where the blaster bolts will come from. Beneath it all, his form is almost hilariously relaxed, giving little or no thought to conventional defensive postures or normal footwork, each movement instead geared towards ensuring that his movements are synced with the drones, and any stinger shot his blade is out of position to deal with will simply miss with no wasted effort on his part. "Master, a question?" A fractional shift of Kethars shoulders allows a shot to miss by inches, and brings his blade into position to easily deflect two more. "What is the goal of this training? Are we simply to hold out as long as we can, or is there some objective we must decipher?"

[Nesori]

Grush refuses to sit still for more than a second during the morning training drill, constantly moving to close in on the orbiting remote before it backs off in response. He gives a respectful amount of space two his fellow apprentices, aware that it is just as much their training as it is his. Relying equally on dodging the blaster bolts as he does using the ignited blade to block them. He moves with a hunter's mentality, always moving briskly and erratically to keep an imaginary foe on his toes. He shortly enters a cadence of moving and shuffling in circles around the remote, letting his survival instincts take over and keep him out of harm's way. He snaps back to attention of his comrades only when Kethar speaks up. "Goal of training is to improve, no? Improvement comes by repetition, practice, and experience."

[TheThan]

Master Munro almost drones on as she continues lecturing.

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put water into a kettle, it becomes the kettle. Water can flow and it can crash. It can bring life, but it can also take it away. Be like water.”

When Kethar asks his question, it seems to snap Master Munro back to the present.

"I have found that objectives and goals are rarely so easy to define. Its’ very easy to begin an endeavor expecting to achieve a certain goal, only to finish and discover that that the goal you originally sought is not the one you have achieved. Therefore I suggest to you that the goal of this exercise is to discover a goal or, more accurately to discover how to achieve goals.. A Jedi cannot always keep his mind set on the future, or he can easily forget or even ignore the past and the present."

[OracleofSilence]

"Very well." An objective, hmm? Well this practice didn't seem to be ending any time soon, so... "Karai! I'd like to try something. We sync our defenses, and force the drones to focus us. Grush, do you think you disable them if we have their attention?" Kethar doesn't act yet, but he does shift the nature of his defense. Instead of focusing purely on avoiding and parrying his drones stinger blasts, he begins batting a few towards the drone targeting Grush. The AI in these training remotes was fairly primitive, but this should be enough to trigger their threat-recognition protocols, and hopeful draw their attention.

Rolling Fight for Create an Advantage, trying to make a Situation Aspect, lets say Harried Attackers on the drone focusing Grush. I'm a little new to Fate combat, so if thisn't kosher, let me know and I'll rewrite the post.

[roll0]+3 from Fight (1 as an end result. dammit.)

[Nesori]

Grush grunts and slowly starts to back away from his designated remote. "Distract them." He keeps up his rudimentary defense, deciding that Kethar's plan was a fairly reasonable one worth following. Or at least it would be one to help build team-work skills. "Droids have off switch?" Grush's watches intently at the floating orbs, waiting for an opportunity to take one of them out without encountering resistance.

[TheThan]

The drone manages to dodge the shots directed at it. It moves to retaliate however it stops in mid flight and then backs off along with the others and stops, floating in mid air.

You notice that Master Munro is holding a controller in one hand and is motioning you to come back to her. The three of you gather as you do, you realize it’s about noon, the twin suns blaze over head and you feel your stomach rumbling as you approach.
Master Munro is once again sitting on the rock. She opens up the basket she brought; there are some steamed buns inside as well as baked, stuffed mushrooms that she picks off the vaporators. The meal is simple but quite good.

As you eat she begins speaking again
“A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. Anger, fear and aggression are of the dark side. Serenity, bravery and peace are the ways of the light.

A Jedi does not let one’s emotions control his actions, but through serenity, wisdom and patience one can see his way through any encounter, even violent ones. Trust in the force, and your pathway will always be made clear to you.

The Lightsaber is a Jedi’s preferred weapon because it provides you with an excellent defense, the ability to deflect blaster shots, either harmlessly away or back at your attacker, as you just tried to do. It can also be a ferocious offensive weapon, with the ability to cut through nearly anything.

However the lightsaber does have its weaknesses, it’s a melee weapon, meaning you can be out reached by those armed with blasters, forcing you completely on the defensive. They have no stun setting, meaning that it's very difficult to subdue people with them without inflicting serious harm. Legend has it a jedi once uilt his lightsaber to be heavy and sturdy enough to use as a cudgel for subduing others without using the blade. I honestly don't know how effective this is, i wouldn't recommend it unless you build your lightsaber for it like he once did.

Also as you’ve probably noticed, lightsabers are rather difficult to control, with no weight on the blade, it’s difficult to feel where the blade is. Only force users like the Jedi wield them for this reason, one must draw upon the force to be able to perfectly control that blade in the chaos of battle. Without the force guiding your actions, you’re more likely to kill yourselves than your enemy.”


She falls silent as she picks apart one of the steam buns, her face appears distant and somewhat worried. after everyone seems to have finished eating, Master Munro stands up, dusts the dirt off of her robe and hops lightly off the rock she's sitting on.
"So," she says, "who's up for a little sparing?"

[JusticeZero]

Karai looks around uncomfortably, biting her lip a bit. She doesn't actually like sparring, after all, for much the same reasons that were just summarized. Her eyes flick over the ground a bit; she would stand *there* if she were called. Her eyes brush across the boys, as she considers their favorite openings, and reviews the counters for them, then takes a slow breath and waits quietly to see what happens next.

[Nesori]

"Master, if the jedi are so focused on the idea of peace and defense. Then why is it that there are those in the order whom work to master the opposite?" A confused look crosses Grush's face, remembering one of the first texts he learned to read was one based on the many different lightsaber forms. "I understand that there are those whom believe that peace can be achieved through...fear of conflict, but that doesn't sound like what you're trying to convey."

When sparring is brought up, Grush eagerly nods his head. "I have no qualms with trading blows, as long as they are up to it." He tries to hide the eagerness in his voice, traditional sparring always made Grush feel more comfortable than constant drilling. To him it felt more natural and life-like to cross weapons with another person, which made it feel more applicable in a real combat situation.

[TheThan]

The jedi master contemplates for a moment before answering Grush's question.
“The galaxy is a dangerous place, so anyone that travels may be accosted by all manner of enemies. Being able to protect oneself is necessary for survival. So learning how to fight is important.

However, some Jedi have taken it a little too far, maybe they enjoy it, maybe they feel they can enforce peace through violence or threat of violence, maybe they just follow in their footsteps of their teachers and never consider taking another path. It really depends on the individual. So I can’t really tell you the why.

But I can tell you that there has always been a martial aspect to the Jedi. The old texts have imagery of the earliest Jedi wielding primitive lightsabers. Aside from the physical exercise of martial training and a certain amount of meditation that comes from it, a Jedi can and should use his lightsaber to protect others from harm, especially those that can’t protect themselves.

Once upon a time the Jedi had branched into different pathways, they Jedi were more diverse, some become healers, diplomats, archivists, biologists you name it. The force was applied in many diverse ways. But those days are long gone, the Great Purge saw to that. Now most Jedi become warriors, they have become a bit more aggressive, I think it’s a reaction to the turbulent times the galaxy is in. “

“Who said you would spar against them?” Master Munro asks, amusement in her voice.
You suddenly realize that she’s holding her unlit lightsaber.