alternate ways the jedi order could be setup that would have made for an interesting

[Traab]

I was just thinking about it and realized there were a number of ways the jedi order could have had different rules and still had the same general storyline. For example, The jedi order encourages jedi to pair off with jedi. This leads to a very harry potter-esque universe where you have padawan john smith who is a 15th generation jedi, versus the muggleborn jedi that get found and brought into the order like anakin. Anakin is absurdly strong with the force, preternaturally skilled, a fast learner, etc etc etc. The students and even knights who come from a long lineage are jealous and look down on this new blood and it helps cause the bad feelings that lead to his fall. Its not as blatant or open as in harry potter as the order is supposed to be above such things, but its still there. John smith gets off light on chores and punishments because his teacher is friends with johns parents and was taught by johns grandpa, that sort of thing and so is treated with more lenience while anakin gets shorter shrift because as an outsider he needs to learn the rules and follow them quickly.

[Aliquid]

Showing that story line would help explain how Anakin, Luke and Rey are special, and explain why the Jedi academy exists in the first place.

You look at Luke and Rey picking up Jedi skills intuitively, and very quickly... and then you have Jedi who went to the academy, and it took them years to pick up what Luke figured out in weeks.

If everyone with force powers was like Luke/Rey/Anakin, then the Academy would only have to be a 2 year night-school program (at most).

[Traab]

Showing that story line would help explain how Anakin, Luke and Rey are special, and explain why the Jedi academy exists in the first place.

You look at Luke and Rey picking up Jedi skills intuitively, and very quickly... and then you have Jedi who went to the academy, and it took them years to pick up what Luke figured out in weeks.

If everyone with force powers was like Luke/Rey/Anakin, then the Academy would only have to be a 2 year night-school program (at most).

It would also explain why the jedi order has fossilized over the centuries since the reformation. More and more of the jedi order are sons and daughters of other jedi who also grew up in the temple and have limited experience with the outside galaxy, so their isolation has grown stronger. Its like, hmmmm, this came up awhile ago on a news article, talking about people in the american congress who had spent a few decades in office, and how they were basically helpless to take care of themselves because they had spent so long in their ivory tower, with everything done for them in way form or another, that they didnt know the first thing about living on their own. They dont even remember how to drive because its been decades since they last went without a driver, stuff like that. Isolation in the halls of power, combined with a hereditary progression of jedi means problems like the order faced in canon. Yeah they go out on their missions, but they are like intergalactic aes sedai if there are any wheel of time fans here. they are accustomed to being treated a certain way, people behave a certain way around them and so they dont get to experience what real life in the galaxy is like.

[KillingAScarab]

Yeah they go out on their missions, but they are like intergalactic aes sedai if there are any wheel of time fans here.Technically, that would be intragalactic. The only time a Jedi left the galaxy in the films is, arguably, when Luke is on the medical frigate at the Rebel Alliance rendezvous point, looking down on the galactic plane.

Focusing on the Knight part of Jedi Knight was what I felt the Expanded Universe did and what I wished the prequels had done. There were different schools of thought (Corellian Jedi), specific lineages (the Halcyon family) which had their own traditions and ways of cementing people in power. The way Luke was able to test for Force sensitivity was dangerous and could only be performed by a Force user, and wouldn't have involved dependence upon Republic laws and manufactured devices which suddenly no one remembered after less than twenty years. Corruption could have been shown to have existed within the lines of Knights, growing from complacency and promises of greater power from a strange benefactor who actually turns them all against each other. Then Darth Sidious could have revealed his clone army to wipe out the stragglers after the Jedi had largely destroyed themselves and turned the Republic against them (except for small portions such as Alderaan).

[Dragonexx]

The Jedi Order as set up in the movies works to tell the plot it needs to, as most jedi join the order as infants post reformations, and thus never know any other viewpoints, causing them to become increasingly dogmatic and divorced from the rest of the galaxy. It's just sad that this is mostly glossed over. We see some of it in Qui-Gon in how he disagrees with the methods of the council, though it's kinda downplayed, even in the clone wars.

Pre-Ruusan Reformations it's an interesting story. The Jedi order is a lot more decentralized, meaning that it could survive the Sacking of Coruscant (seen below) without that serious of a blow.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdgmH9Vv2-I

Back then, Jedi were a lot more involved in the Republic. They could consistantly hold military rank, and had their own fleets, armies, and fortresses. Training was a lot less structured and Jedi came from all walks of life, not just joining as infants (Kira Carsen joined at ~20). Relationships weren't forbidden back then either. While this had benefits in versatility and capability, it also came with it's own problems in that Jedi could fall to the dark side a lot easier.

Luke and Rey's new order could be set up in a lot of ways to avoid these problems, and that could be an interesting story, examining the failings of the past and learning from them.

[Aliquid]

It would also explain why the jedi order has fossilized over the centuries since the reformation. More and more of the jedi order are sons and daughters of other jedi who also grew up in the temple and have limited experience with the outside galaxy, so their isolation has grown stronger.And they grow weaker and weaker, since they are never getting in new blood. Just because your great grandfather was strong in the force... doesn't mean you are. Lineage is a bad reason to fill the halls with ineptitude.
And at the same time, the people in the galaxy who are strong in the force naturally, and start to figure it out intuitively are not allowed into the Academy... because they are "too old" when they figure out that they have powers. So any chance to bring in new strong blood is blocked by bureaucratic traditions of nepotism.

[Clertar]

The way the Jedi Order is presented in the prequels as a new-agey monk sect makes sense in the same way that George Lucas forgetting that the Jedi were Knights and that Obi-Wan looks like a hermit monk because he's hiding and is dressed in the local rags (https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/66/Owen_Luke.jpg), not dressed in the Jedi knight's uniforms.

The Jedi Order should have been presented as an order of chivalry, or a military noble class like the samurai. But Lucas went ahead and retconned his own canon.

[Hopeless]

I pictured it slightly different.
The monastic orders including Yoda would want nothing to do with the political centres of the Republic seeking to remain neutral rather than take sides in dubious disputes with the Jedi Families using their prestige and power to assume positions of wealth and eventually seeing themselves as the true leadership of the Republic.

Those cases where kids were taken from families that would be the Jedi Families seeking to maintain their position as they want to maintain the Republic under their control.

Those families seeking to protect their children naturally gravitate towards the monastic orders who unlike the Jedi Families help their children cope with their abilities and continue their lives without the Republic butting in because their Senate see them as a threat to their rule.

The Sith the ancient Jedi bogeymen were rendered extinct almost a millennia ago but the Republic through the Jedi Families maintain a black ops unit who use this reputation to their advantage.

Back then there were no Jedi Knights, they were called the Republic Knights and they served the Republic with many members joining the monastic orders to deal with the problems they face through their missions on behalf of the Republic.

This comes to a head with the Separatist movement originally founded to try and persuade the Republic to make the changes to their growing dictatorship but the "Sith" arrange things to escalate the war allowing the Jedi Families to target the monastic orders to end the threat they pose.

Palpatine originally an advisor to the Sith leader namely Darth Maul whose actually one of a series of clones using actual Sith genetics uses the war to assume the Chancellor role and turns on the Jedi Family leader Dooku turning the people of the Republic against all of the Jedi which ends tragically since it doesn't take much to goad the leadership of both sides to arrange safety measures should their worst fears of the Jedi come about.

Palpatine made that happen.

Anakin actually a scion of a long thought deceased Jedi Family was replaced by a clone who was killed by Obi-Wan by Mustafar.
Kept in suspension and brainwashed into thinking the Jedi turned on him it took little to persuade him to assume his clone's identity with Obi-Wan unaware of the duplicity explaining why they didn't even consider he could be turned back to the light by his son!

So the Republic Knights become the Imperial Knights with the Inquisitors serving to keep them honest as those who refuse to join the empire being considered "Ronin" often called Jedi Knights to highlight their bad reputation.

Sorry tend to waffle on!