#Tarsus Valorum

[sw5w]

I Will Be Chancellor

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:32:10

[stellanslashgeode]

Also you ever heard of the New Sith Wars period of Star Wars? It's a super underrated and underutilized period of Star Wars. The New Sith Wars was a long but diverse series of conflicts opposing the Jedi and the Republic to the Sith, that had been ressurected by Darth Ruin, an Umbaran who had been a Jedi Master before leaving the order to recreating the Sith with many former Jedi that followed him in his departure and dark side cults and distant remnants of the previous Sith Empires.

The New Sith Wars lasted for a millenia, between 2000 BBY and 1000 BBY, with the Sith taking many incarnations, being often divided and fighting against each other as much as they did against the Republic and the Jedi due to infighting, clashing ambitions and conflicting ideologies. Darth Ruin, the Dark Underlord, Darth Rivan, Belia Darzu and Skere Kaan were the most notable Sith Lords and leaders of the Sith during these conflicts.

In the last century of the wars, the Republic had lost so much territory with two thirds of the known galaxy being conquered by the Sith, and the economic, political, technological regression in many parts of the galaxy (with the Outer Rim being cut of the Holonet, and many fighters using medieval weapons to fight) being caused by it that it was called the Republic Dark Age. The Republic was saved by the Jedi who took drastic and desperate measures such as taking control of the Republic with the Supreme Chancellor position being held by a Jedi master for several centuries, and the creation of the Jedi Lords, Jedi leaders and warlords who ruled over entire planets, systems or sectors and had direct control of the Republic armies; as well as the conscription of Force-sensitive children; and by the Sith divisions and infighting which prevented them from delivering the Coup de grace to the Republic and the Jedi.

The end of the war saw the Sith finally being unified by a charismatic former Jedi named Skere Kaan, who was a master of battle meditation and created the Brotherhood of Darkness, claiming that all Sith Lords were equals while in truth being their supreme leader, and abolishing the Darth title. Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness were locked into a mortal feud with the Jedi Lord Hoth, also a master of battle meditation and tactical genius, and his Army of Light. However one of the Sith called Bane become disillusioned with the Brotherhood of Darkness and reclaimed the title of Darth to call himself Darth Bane, and imagining the Rule of Two.

At the Seventh Battle of Ruusan Darth Bane manipulated Skere Kaan and the rest of the Sith into backing themselves into a corner, and into detonating an ancient Sith superweapon called the Thought Bomb, causing them to destroy themselves and Lord Hoth and most of his army in one of the most terrible battles in Star Wars history. With the Sith seemingly gone for good, the war ended and the Republic reclaimed most of the galaxy, with the new Supreme Chancellor Tarsus Valorum instauring the Ruusan Reformations that demilitarized the Republic and officially instated the Jedi as part of the Republic's judiciary system. Unknown to them, one Sith, Darth Bane of course had surived and he took a young Jedi named Rain as his apprentice Darth Zannah, starting the Rule of Two and the Sith Grand Plan to would triumph over the Jedi a millenia later.

It's a super interesting section of Star Wars lore. Basically the Star Wars equivalent of the thirty years war or Sengoku Jidai or Crisis of the Third Century. Ten centuries of endless war and hopelessness with trillions dying on the battlefield.

I am familiar with it! But mostly though sifting Wookiepedia articles than reading the old Dark Horse comics and novels. I should read the Darth Bane books, eventually.

I think after The High Republic is done the publishing initiative should revisit this era. It's existence in canon is murky at the moment, but Darth Bane is definitely canon having appeared in TCW and Malachor taking the place of the Thought Bomb. The ancient war with the Sith is canon and I've made references to the Ruusan Accords in my fanfiction. It is a great space to explore right now. It is a very Star Warsy time period. I think the best improvement to be made if expanded upon in new canon would be to make the conflict less like The Clone Wars and the Imperial Era. It should have that medieval siege feeling. Dark Age indeed.

[dapurinthos]

really tempted to make serenno's holiday calendar based off of québec & other french canadien holidays because of recently re-reading the second darth bane book, where zannah's on serenno helping a proto-separatist group that doesn't want to rejoin the republic and they're plotting to assassinate tarsus valorum, ex-chancellor, and all i can think about is the front de libération de québec which i know is not the intention that george lucas was going for with the confederacy of independent systems because separatism is very different in the u.s. vs. canada (well, the québec part. the alberta part are just. whiners.).

& the book has:

Yet despite the dangerous revolutionary undercurrents of its culture, or perhaps because of them, the great outdoor market of the planetary capital of Carannia had become renowned as a hub of interstellar mercantilism. Shoppers of two dozen different species mingled freely beneath the tents and awnings of a thousand vendor stalls. From dawn to dusk the cries of merchants hawking goods imported from every corner of the galaxy mingled with the shouted bids of haggling customers. Even the affluent and privileged braved the masses of the crowded plaza, willingly reducing themselves to part of the unruly mob pushing and shoving its way through the stalls in search of rare or valuable treasures that could be found nowhere else.

which makes me go. yeah. that's montréal in the summer with the five billion festivals it has. & how st-jean-baptiste day became more of a celebration of the ideals of québec separatism than the religious holiday it originally was & victoria day is journée national patriotes.

(come on, serenno, you want a goose break, don't you? put down the italy comparisons for a moment and come over here.)

[thedailytrashblog]

As someone who, unfortunately, knows why this started in current canon, *hits Tarsus Valorum with a stick* *hits Tarsus Valorum with a stick* *hits Tarsus Valorum with a stick* *hits Tarsus Valorum with a stick* *hits Tarsus Valorum with a sti-

[oh-no-eu-didnt]

Tarsus Valorum was Supreme Chancellor of the Republic during the conclusion of the New Sith Wars. As the first non-Jedi Supreme Chancellor in four hundred years, Valorum was instrumental in disbanding the Republic and the Jedi’s armies. He decentralized his own power back to the Senate in what became known as the Ruusan Reformation, named after the concluding battle on the Sith planet. 

Source: The Essential Atlas (2009)

First Appearance: The New Essential Guide to Characters (2002)

[padawanlost]

sorry, this has probably come up on here already but how come the republic didn't already have an army? or u know, sth like NATO? i'm sure most of the individual planets/systems that were part of the republic had to have some sort of military..

Because 1000 years before the prequels started the Republic had went through a severe demilitarization e political restructuring process, consequence of the last Sith war that almost destroyed the Jedi Order and the Republic.

In 1000 BBY, following the defeat of the Sith at Ruusan, Tarsus Valorum set out to heal a shattered galaxy and rebuild its institutions by making them more democratic and mutually supporting. The Ruusan Reformations were an unprecedented experiment: a voluntary dismantling of central authority over economic, political, and military power. To make the Senate more governable, Valorum consolidated its millions of sectors into 1,024 regional sectors, each with its own Senator, though political necessity forced him to carve out exemptions for powerful worlds in the Core and Colonies, and to extend the right of representation to the galaxy’s functional constituencies—ancient institutions with considerable economic power. [Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare]

Though not formally bound by the Ruusan Reformations, the Jedi Order made fundamental changes as well. The Jedi gave up the bulk of their forces, from ground vehicles to warships and starfighters, and became part of the Judicial Department, reinforcing the fact that they answered to the Senate and were ideally counselors and advisers, not warriors. To decrease the chance that far-flung academies might stumble into dangerous explorations of the Force, Jedi training was consolidated in the Temple on Coruscant. [The new essential guide to warfare by jason fry]

To (over)simply it: if no one has an army ready at their disposal, no one starts wars all the time

[sw5w]

Qui-Gon Motions Anakin Ahead

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:22:07

[otnesse]

Even worse, those Jedi you mentioned most likely never even FOUGHT in the wars (and thus had zero reason to GET PTSD unless they were caught in the crossfire), especially considering the same Jedi if anything outright SHUNNED the Army of Light members and even told them to their face that they were a complete and total embarrassment to the Jedi Order as soon as Ruusan Reformation was fully legalized due to Tarsus Valorum pretty much bulling it through the Senate. Put another way, they treated the ACTUAL veterans of that war as people to SPIT on and denounced as baby killers despite saving their hides, much like how the stereotypical Vietnam Veteran returning to his home was treated by the anti-war crowd. Is it any wonder why Ruusan was ultimately the WORST retcon of the Lucas-era of Star Wars?

The thing is, though, Yoda’s words made sense. But, realistically, more so for Yoda than for anyone else, and that’s the problem.

We know Yoda’s species is rare, and long-lived. Yoda himself trained eight hundred years’ worth of Jedi, was nine hundred when he died. That’s thirty-two human generations, and he’d have lived through thirty-six. We don’t know how long most of the other species are supposed to live, but likely not to the same length.

Attachments are a weakness? Trust only in the Force? Let your loved ones go? The Force has outlasted almost everyone that Yoda ever knew, and will outlast him as well. If there were none of his species there, or had they lived shorter lives, perhaps they might have been better about attachments. Allowing themselves to form them, learning to let them go, but living among them and breathing the vital energy of the Living Force, instead of being holed up in a tower of stone and durasteel. But Yoda is there, and Yoda guides them all.

How many teachers–how many friends–how many students–how many of his family did Yoda have to lose before he closed himself off from all attachments?

And will Grogu come to think the same way?

[dapurinthos]

been turning the ruusan reformations around in my head with how things have shifted, with the whole last battle of ruusan now being 32 years before the reformation of the republic (though the propaganda book has the invitations for the republic's millennial birthday being worked on when finis valorum was still in office, which would put that date at 32bby). the construction of the temple on coruscant is also dated to 1032. what i think the order should be:

1032BBY:

seventh battle of ruusan. sith believed defeated.

last jedi chancellor steps down. at this point, there is no term limit for the office of supreme chancellor.

tarsus valorum elected as supreme chancellor.

reformation of the galactic republic begins.

the army of light is disbanded. many of its former members are shifted to a new arm of the order: the newly developed corps, to use the force to assist on planets devastated by the war.

1000BBY:

ruusan reformations officially enacted. tarsus valorum steps down as supreme chancellor. terms are now limited to 2 four-year terms.

as a knock-on effect of the ruusan reformations, the structure of the jedi order drastically changes. they are now firmly on coruscant while all other temples are seen as subservient to this central power, where the newly formed high council governs. the corps splits into the agricorps and medcorps.

the order's hierarchy is restructured from initiate > padawan > journeyman (person) > master to: youngling (to take into account the order's mandate under the republic to take custody of all children with a m-count of 4000 and above) > initiate > padawan > knight > master with other alternate routes to the corps. all jedi healers are members of the medcorps.

JEDI CONCLAVE results in restructuring of the religion (similar to inoue enryō's restructuring of buddhism as a 'western-definition religion'). a lot of the more esoteric force traditions are not so much banned as quietly put in the back room. records force possessions, ghosts, spirits, etc. are deemed to be the result of hallucinations, metaphors, psychic interference from the sith, or tricks. willful precognition is discouraged. what is seen as the 'dark side' of the force is codified.

post-1000BBY:

the corps splits further, forming the educorps. the explorcorps does not form until sometime in the late 600s, as a result of the initial post-ruusan hyperspace explorations.

the order's alignment leans more toward the living force than the cosmic force as a result of focusing on the here and now.

but what about rain/zannah?

rain/zannah is still recruited for the army of light along with her cousins at age ten. she is separated from the group when their ship is shot down, gets taken in by the bouncers, as previous. this is shortly before the thought bomb goes off. it does, killing all sentient life within a specific range of the cave where the sith (except bane) are. most of the surviving life of the planet is driven insane and starts attacking everything within sight. vegetation dies. rain, with the bouncers, is not on the ground, when this happens, so she lives.

some of the bouncers do not. the landing is. not fun. full of corpses of her friends. she feels the effects of the thought bomb through them. babygirl is not ready and especially not ready to have to put down her new friends using only the force because they're now attacking her.

she is the last person to see bane on ruusan.

the remainder of the army is picked up off of ruusan and those capable enough are shunted to the newly created corps in the way that those who fought in previous wars are seen as an embarrassment by new establishments. rain/zannah ends up on one of the devastated planets, while some other children are taken to be jedi padawans, because she's deemed as too angry and afraid (let's mirror anakin's initial meeting with the high council, with her lying about it, as well).

i'm picking dwartii because of the connection they have to the sith. yes, those four statues that palpatine has in his office. currently, they're said to have influenced the constitution of the modern galactic republic, which means this one. the tarsus valorum one. remember those invitations that finis valorum was working on? sistros, one of the sages of dwartii, was recommended as a representative image by palpatine.

there's an incident on dwartii where an increasingly angry fourteen-year-old rain/zannah kills at least one person as a rage-response. bane, who has been on the planet for at least a year, who has some connection to at least sistros and braata, sees her and remembers her from ruusan. she becomes his apprentice and they leave the planet together.

why that m-count number?

currently, force-sensitivity is said to kick in at the 4 - 5000 range. this is probably the work of some scientists who went around poking a bunch of people with needles and started doing some maths. the number they came up (4000) is probably where sabine's m-count is at. she can use the force but it's very hard. these people aren't going to be ~strong enough in the force~ to live easily in the jedi order (scout i love you baby).

5000 is the internal jedi cutoff point, where people start demonstrating the ability to direct the force. this is where you get the kids who pull the rattle toward them with the force, who 'talk to plants', etc.

during the first decades after the enactment of the ruusan reformations, a whole bunch of these people ended up in the order and, given the devastation of generations of masters, there aren't enough to teach them. so they were moved to the corps, which is the origin of initiates seeing the corps as a sort of bogeyman, the 'if i'm not good enough they'll send me to the corps!' which is ridiculous because:

all the jedi healers and doctors are part of the medcorps. they never were knights. if they built lightsabers at all it was as a meditation exercise instead of one to use.

the whole archaeology department of the temple is run out of the explorcorps

the explorcorps is also in charge of the wayseekers and the pathfinding teams from the great hyperspace rush

everyone who becomes a master and takes a padawan has to go through a course with the educorps.

(qui-gon originally wanted to go to the agricorps and spend his whole life around plants but yoda talked him out of it when he was seven and tried to live in greenhouse four)

[sw5w]

May I Present Supreme Chancellor Valorum

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:21:28

[sw5w]

I Will Not Let This Republic That Has Stood for a Thousand Years Be Split in Two

STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:04:37

[sanerontheinside]

😏

But also

the name of the Chancellor who signed the Ruusan Reformation into law, stripped the Jedi Order of its autonomy and began the process that eventually tied them to the Senate was Tarsus Valorum

so

I’m not saying Chancellor Finis Valorum’s nth-great-granddad was a Sith

but I’m not not saying it either

speaking of latin + star wars, chancellor valorum’s first name is finis. finis valorum means “the end of values.” the republic’s values (of democracy, liberty, etc) came to an end when palpatine took over from valorum as chancellor

[padawanlost]

Why did the Republic not already have some sort of army in the prequel era before Attack of the Clones? I remember in the Knights of the Old Republic games, which are set a long while before the prequels, that the republic had soldiers. So at what point did the Republic dissolve their army and why?

Because of the Ruusan Reformation that marked the end of the ‘Old Republic’ and works as the starting point of the ‘modern republic’ introduced in the Prequels.

As you said, during the Old Republic it was like everybody had an army (including the Jedi) but after the last Sith War, when it was believed the Sith had been extinct once and for all, there was a major restructuring of the Republic and the Jedi Order.

In 1000 BBY, following the defeat of the Sith at Ruusan, Tarsus Valorum set out to heal a shattered galaxy and rebuild its institutions by making them more democratic and mutually supporting. The Ruusan Reformations were an unprecedented experiment: a voluntary dismantling of central authority over economic, political, and military power.

To make the Senate more governable, Valorum con-solidated its millions of sectors into 1,024 regional sectors, each with its own Senator, though political necessity forced him to carve out exemptions for powerful worlds in the Core and Colonies, and to extend the right of representation to the galaxy’s functional constituencies—ancient institutions with considerable economic power.

Though not formally bound by the Ruusan Reformations, the Jedi Order made fundamental changes as well. The Jedi gave up the bulk of their forces, from ground vehicles to warships and starfighters, and became part of the Judicial Department, reinforcing the fact that they answered to the Senate and were ideally counselors and advisers, not warriors. To decrease the chance that far-flung academies might stumble into dangerous explorations of the Force, Jedi training was consolidated in the Temple on Coruscant. And Jedi trainees would now be taken into the Order as infants, before they could be exposed to the temptations of the material world.

But for a war-weary galaxy, the most extraordinary measures of the Ruusan Reformations were the ones that abolished the Republic’s armed forces.

The standing military was reorganized as the Judicial Forces, a relatively small assemblage of task forces and rapid-response fleets, intended to patrol the frontier and respond to crises. The Senate could authorize the Judicial Forces to requisition military units from systems and sectors, and the Supreme Chancellor could appoint Governor-Generals to coordinate military action with the Senator of a troubled sector. In the absence of a major crisis, the Planetary Security Forces—for fourteen millennia little more than an auxiliary of the Republic Navy—would be expected to keep the peace.

Determined to curb the Republic’s regional rivalries and restrict sector fleets to defensive operations, Valorum ordered limits on fleet sizes and armament. Cruisers more than six hundred meters long were limited to Class Five hyperdrives by modern standards, and their navicomputers were restricted to local charts. Judicial Inspectors were given wide-ranging powers to enforce these regulations, and ���bluecoats” with datapads became common sights aboard military vessels and in depots. Cruisers below the six-hundred-meter limit emerged as the workhorses of the sector fleets and the Judicial Forces alike, and remained the backbone of many military organizations long after the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. [The Essential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry]

[padawanlost]

I've always wondered if the Republic in Star Wars would function better if it had a two chamber system like some real world countries as the UK, Germany or India have. A second chamber to curtail the excessive corruption in the Senate and providing more checks and balances. I'd even go so far and say the Jedi should be present in that 2nd chamber via an ambassador or delegate of some sort to have them participate instead of being in their ivory tower completely disconnected from everyday stuff.

I don’tthink there’s a quick fix for the Republic. Its main problem wasn’t itsinternal organizations, it was the sheer size of it, which means they had aserious problem with representation. The Republic was designed to allow only asmall percentage of planets to have a voice, and that’s where all the otherproblem came from. It’s doesn’t matter how you organize it until you giveeveryone an opportunity to be a part of it. And because the GFFA was somassive, that was almost impossible to achieve. We also need to consider thatthe people with the power to reorganize the Republic were not interested ingiving up power. But, for argument’s sake, let’s say people are interested increating a new Republic. Where do we start?

The firstproblem to solve is representation. How do we give everyone a voice.

In 1000BBY, following the defeat of the Sith at Ruusan, Tarsus Valorum set out to heala shattered galaxy and rebuild its institutions by making them more democraticand mutually supporting. The Ruusan Reformations were an unprecedentedexperiment: a voluntary dismantling of central authority over economic,political, and military power. To makethe Senate more governable, Valorum consolidated its millions of sectors into1,024 regional sectors, each with its own Senator, though political necessityforced him to carve out exemptions for powerful worlds in the Core and Colonies,and to extend the right of representation to the galaxy’s functionalconstituencies—ancient institutions with considerable economic power. [TheEssential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry]

Consideringthe GFFA used to have millions of sectors, it’s not hard to figure out exactlywho was truly represented by the Galactic Senate. so we have the most wealthyplanets and corporations legislated on behalf of trillions of beings, many whohad no voice at all. Every issue that plagued the Republic – corruption,stagnation, bureaucracy, etc – was a direct result of that.

So, whatthey needed was an inclusive system that left no room the issues mentionedabove. But, again, considering the size of the GFFA that’s hard. our RL systemswouldn’t work on such a massive scale. Let’s be real, Earth is on planet, andthere’s no system in place that doesn’t have its issues. And that’s withoutadding human nature into the mix.

[padawanlost]

Tbh I never understood why the Republic disbanded their central military in the first place. Not only allowed that slimy corporations to run wild with their private armies in the Outer sectors, the Republic also forewent the promise of mutual protection for all their member worlds. Even worse, if another resurgent Sith Empire would have popped up or an invasion from a great power outside of the Galaxy the Republic would have been caught with their pants down.

That’s notwhat happened. The Republic had a standing army (Republic Army) until theRuusan Reformation (1000 BBY). The Reformation was a completely restructurationof the Republic and all it’s branch. It was the result of the end of the lastSith Wars when everyone believed the sith had been eradicated once and all (notjust defeated but truly gone without changes of return). With the Sith gone forgood, the Reformation tried to decentralize power, fight rampant corruption anddemilitarized the galaxy.

It’simportant to notice that Republic Army was not like the GrandArmy of the Republic. In its 25000 years of existence, it suffered from disorganization,decentralization, poor infrastructure, cultural clashes, treason, corruption, etc.Once the all the threats to the Republic were gone there was no point to keep astanding military force. Again, the Republic did not work as a country. Everyplanet was allowed to keep their own military but the Republic Army would be anamalgamation of these armies. Keeping such army was unnecessary, it would endup a terrible drain in already war-torn economy and it could be potentiallydangerous. At that point the core worlds controlled the Senate (most of theOuter/Mid rim were not properly represented in the Senate) and these planetshad the credits and the power to act. It would be too easy for them to use theRepublic Army for their own gain. The Reformation tried to stop further wars bydemilitarizing the Republic, creating the Judicial branch and attaching theJedi Order to it. So instead of using an army to solve diplomatic disputes,they used actual diplomats and peacekeepers. A much smarter approach.

In 1000BBY, following the defeat of the Sith at Ruusan, Tarsus Valorum set out to heal a shattered galaxy andrebuild its institutions by making them more democratic and mutuallysupporting. The Ruusan Reformations were an unprecedented experiment: a voluntary dismantling of centralauthority over economic, political, and military power. To make the Senatemore governable, Valorum consolidated its millions of sectors into 1,024regional sectors, each with its own Senator, though political necessity forcedhim to carve out exemptions for powerful worlds in the Core and Colonies, and toextend the right of representation to the galaxy’s functionalconstituencies—ancient institutions with considerable economic power. [Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare]

Btw,corporations didn’t have armies. It wasn’t allowed. During the prequels era,with the rise fo the Separatist movement some corporations did invest in privatesecurity but the demilitarization of the Republic didn’t mean they had nomilitary force in case of conflict.

Thestanding military was reorganized as the Judicial Forces, a relatively smallassemblage of task forces and rapid-response fleets, intended to patrol thefrontier and respond to crises. The Senate could authorize the Judicial Forcesto requisition military units from systems and sectors, and the SupremeChancellor could appoint Governor-Generals to coordinate military action withthe Senator of a troubled sector. In the absence of a major crisis, thePlanetary Security Forces—for fourteen millennia little more than an auxiliaryof the Republic Navy—would be expected to keep the peace. [Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare]

Theycreated something much more like our world. Instead of keeping one Earth’smilitary waiting for a space invasion, each state was allowed to main their ownforces and in case of need the central govern would call for help and each statewould help with what they could. Also, the organizations had a seat in theSenate so if the Republic Army had never been disbanded they would have accessto it too. If they could explored the Rim planets without consequences withoutan army, just imagine what they could do with the Republic Army at their disposal.It’s a scary thought.

Another problemwith keeping such massive standing army is that creates fear. If the Sith weregone, to keep the army would mean they would have to keep pushing for the ideathat a threat was coming to get them all. The galaxy would never be able tostabilize and rebuild itself with an army looming over their heads waiting tosave them from a mysterious (and improbable) force that might kill them all.

[sanerontheinside]

*cracks knuckles* *grins* Questions: 8, 10, 13, 19. *cackles*

oooooh you lil shitLong Post, hit J to skipsorry mobile userswait neverfuckingmind I put it under a cut anyway wt f   k  e    n o  p  e 

8. What is one thing you would change about any movie, show, book, etc?

JA needs to burn, PT must be rewritten to fix various plot hiccups, the clones deserved so much better, Obi-Wan doesn’t deserve such massive levels of grief, and seriously some shit just don’t make sense. 

But at this point it’s also difficult for me to distinguish between what is actually canon and what is fanon, or a popular fandom interpretation of canon. 

Besides, there’s ReEntry. ReEntry makes sense. 

Canon, you’re drunk. Go home. 

13. If you could resurrect one dead character, or prevent them from dying, who would it be?

Qui-Gon Jinn. Finis Valorum. Asajj Ventress. Jango Fett. Tahl, Micah. Mace did not die. Padmé did not die, fuck that noise. … Shit. Xanatos. 

Long answers under cut: 

10. Do you think the Jedi were right or wrong?

Which time? 

Ignoring the Sith? Sending Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan alone to Naboo after a suspected Darksider if not Sith? Insisting that they would not train Anakin without offering a single alternative (what in the actual fuck)? Focusing too much on Anakin’s massive potential and Dark possibilities in his future rather than on the nine-year-old boy in front of them? 

Making Obi-Wan a War Councilor and spreading him thin as paste across most of Republic Space? Bending and bending and bending before the Senate until they couldn’t even fight back charges against Ahsoka? 

Allowing themselves to be run for hundreds of years by an old troll who is the last of his species, with only one other like him, who’s lost generations of friends and children by then, whose only way to cope with that kind of loss is probably repression, and leads to a shift of Jedi philosophy in that general direction? 

In some ways, an institution as old as the Republic was doomed to fail eventually. 

But, see, the Ruusan Reformation was built to prevent another war with the Sith, to safeguard the Republic against it. Sith were impossible because the Order of that time had taken great pains to wipe out every last vestige of Sith texts and artefacts, save what they kept to learn from themselves. 

Isn’t that funny? That’s when they decided to bring younglings to the Temple, to train them early so they would never get out of control and Fall. They destroyed the ancient texts, yet left the door open for the formation of a new and far more dangerous line of Sith. 

Yet the Ruussan Reformation wasn’t exactly something they’d readily agreed to. Back in the days before the Reformation, the Jedi had been a truly independent Order. They won the war against the Sith, and protected the Republic worlds with their own army and navy. But when the dust settled, the Chancellor of the Republic told them, well, the Republic will not trust you unless you give up your army and your navy, because they see you as a threat. The Reformation doesn’t say, not in so many words, that the Jedi will come to rely only on the Senate for funds and mission assignments. 

You know… the Chancellor at the time was named Tarsus Valorum. He was the first of his family, a line of noted Force Sensitives, not to go to the Jedi, but pursue a career in politics instead. And the Valorum we know of is a direct descendent. Finis, end of the line. Finis, end of the Republic, the Republic falls with him. Yes I am sort of hinting that Tarsus Valorum might’ve been a Sith. 

Anyway, clever headcanons aside, it’s so easy to point out where the Order was wrong, but by the time we see them? There’s hardly any ‘right’ to choose. Remember that Valorum had to go behind the Senate’s back to send Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to Naboo—the Sith certainly didn’t anticipate Jedi involvement. 

Still, you ask if the Jedi were ever right. When given the option, multiple times over the course of apprenticeship and Knighthood, to leave the Order, what did Obi-Wan choose? Anakin? They chose to stay. So, in the end, there must have been something right about that, don’t you think? 

19. What’s your opinion on legends/expanded universe?

Um. 

Well it’s… interesting. I periodically go diving into Wookiepedia, which is like broken telephone research in a lot of cases—there isn’t even a guarantee that the person who wrote the page got the point of the original source, or that a minor detail I would find immensely useful ever made it to the page. Some things are outright crazy. Some things are spectacular. Some things are outright spectacularly contradictory. 

Legends saw great potential, took it, ran with it, sometimes to Olympus and sometimes off a bloody cliff. JA can burn, but at the same time, while most of JA feels like a poorly-drawn caricature, characters like Zan Arbor are unforgettable. Were I to, idk, in some fever dream, decide write Sidious as a woman, Zan Arbor would be the place I’d start, I think. Certain JA events seem to me important enough to keep. 

On the one hand, it was nice to get hard details on the shape of economic warfare the Sith waged on the Republic. On the other hand, Sidious’s origin is the most bizarre bit of horseshit I’ve ever seen summarised on a Wookie-page and the very idea that Plageuis was still alive near the time of Naboo makes me shake with rage because it (high on the list of shit I thought I never would say) robs Palpatine of something vital to his character. 

In much the same way, I can’t stand that TCW overwrote the comics’ ending for Valorum, even showed him active in politics again like his career hadn’t ended with the Vote of No Confidence. That was a death sentence in itself. And, since TCW can technically be considered Legends material, parts of it I simply cannot accept. It filled an important blank, when it came to the ROTS portrayal of Order 66. In ROTS, it looked like some grand conspiracy, but the introduction of the chips was wrenching and necessary. TCW did a lot for clone feels, and for our feels for secondary characters in the movies—like Plo Koon, yes, hello, you can pry my favourite Jedi dad from my cold dead fingers. On the other hand, Maul, suddenly returned to life? There are ways that can be done, and done well. This, in my view, was not one of them. 

Rebels… I haven’t seen Rebels, so this part should be taken with a grain of salt, but little individual plot points I’ve seen fill me with no great confidence. I’m seriously spoiled by @deadcatwithaflamethrower RE:JotW Echo timeline. Actually overall I’m spoiled by ReEntry. 

Yet, it’s the Legends tab of Wookiepedia that gives you a much richer understanding of Twi'lek and Ryl culture. Say what you will about fetishising and misogyny—and fandom is certainly prone to that when given Twi'lek slave culture as a vehicle for it—it’s incredibly interesting to see how Twi'lek culture changed, adapted, took advantage of others’ perception to hide something far more deadly, their very own Resistance movement. Whoever went so far in depth with Ryl and Twi'lek culture knew a thing or two about what they were doing. 

Similarly, the Legends expansion of Mandalorian culture is spectacular, and sheds an uncomfortable light on the TCW Mandalore. At times, certainly at times like these, conflict between different Legends sources is incredible. (Though, give me a reason to take Satine down a peg and I’ll take it, and I’m still not sure that isn’t ingrained misogyny on my part.) 

I can’t speak to Legends’ treatment of female characters, either. The characters I am familiar with? Ventress, Komari Vosa? Those stories don’t end well. Unfortunately I don’t have much time or, truthfully, inclination, to research every single character who exists only in the comics and books, particularly if I don’t often work with that part of the timeline. 

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