#fridge horror if they both live to old age she will outlive him by 80 years
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djinmer4 · 7 years ago
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The Force
“When you first got here, I thought the Force you were so obsessed with was some sort of religion or superstition.  I know it’s more than that now, but I’m still confused.”  There was downtime between missions again, so Mitth’kurt’darcolm was catching up on office work and other administrative tasks.  Kitty, now the official representative between the Chiss Ascendancy and the refugees who were allowed to reside in their territory, had brought lunch over.  She had her own office, but it wasn’t like there were that many refugees and she did split her duties with Scott, so she usually had a lot more free time than Kurt did.  “What exactly is the Force?”
“The Force is exactly what it says it is.”  The Chiss glared at her.  Hardened officers wilted under that glare, but too much familiarity (and too many stupid near-death experiences on missions) rendered the human immune.  “Okay, you know what the four fundamental forces of physics are, right?”
“Strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetism and gravity.”
“The Force is similar to that.  It’s a field produced by all living things that exists on the quantum level.”
“So a person or a bacterium would create a force, but something like a rock or a droid would not.”
“Correct.”  She finished filling a bowl with some noodle dish and passed it to him, along with a bottle of water.  “But if everyone exists in the Force, why aren’t we all telekinetic or throwing out bolts of energy?”
“Just because people are 99.99% identical genetically, doesn’t mean that we’re all alike.  Being Force-sensitive is a talent just like everything else.  Do you have the same talents as your twin?”  Kitty had met Mitth’wagner’safis on a recent inspection tour.  They’d hit it off and kept in touch, but if Kurt had his way, they wouldn’t meet in person again.  He was rarely jealous of his Syndic twin, but he hadn’t liked how Kitty had mistaken Wagner for himself on arrival.  Wagner had managed the impromptu hug better than Kurt would have if the mistake had been the other way, but it still gave him a tight feeling in his chest that was . . . unpleasant.
“I understand that.  What I mean is what the difference is?  Why can one human or Chiss or Shistavanen can use the Force while another cannot?”
“Are there any Chiss Force users?  The X-Men haven’t seen any in the time we’ve been here.”
“There are suggestions in the records that some Chiss were taken as apprentices of the Sith, but those are ancient and unreliable.  Also, may not have had anything to do with the Force.”  He took a bite of the food she had brought.  Good, something nutty and spicy in the sauce.  “Did you make this?”
“Nope, can’t cook at all.  I think Remy made this, he’s on canteen duty today.”  She finished serving her own portion, and a few minutes passed while before she took up the conversation again.  “The Force is in every living thing, but the ability to tangibly effect the Force is not.  It varies from species to species.  Humans and Larfrarians have cells in their blood stream that grant the ability, the Shistavenen and Devaronians have a certain organ in their body.  Some species, like Grand Master Yoda have organelles that are in every cell.  All these things are rolled up under the name midi-chlorians.  If you are born with midi-chlorians you can manipulate the Force.  If you aren’t, then you can’t.”
“So some sapients have these midichlorians and some don’t.  I take it that some species have this occur more often than others?”  She nodded while she chewed.  “Are there any species that don’t have midichlorians at all?”
Kitty laughed, nearly snorting her own water up her nose, then spent a few minutes coughing it out again.  “Ugh, that’s awful.  And Kurt, you can’t prove a negative hypothesis like that.”
“You and Hank say that all the time but never say why.”
“Because there’s always the possibility for the hypothesis to be proven wrong.  Sure, there don’t appear to be any Chiss Force-sensitives around now.  But there could have been in the past that we just don’t have records of, or there may be people now who have midichlorians and just don’t know it because they’ve never been tested, or even if there have never been any, it doesn’t mean that a Chiss with Force-sensitivity couldn’t be born in the future.  Mutations do exist after all.”
He had never really thought about it that way before.  Perhaps he should cut Hank some slack.  Then he remembered that Hank could have explained it that way any time before this and resolved to put the Commander in the worst mission he could think of.  Or maybe steal and keep the next bit of weird technology that they found.
“Wait, you said people could be Force-sensitive without realizing it.  How would you tell?”
“Some spontaneously develop some abilities, but generally you need to be trained.  So if someone starts randomly shooting lasers out of their eyes one day, that’s a pretty good indicator that they’ve got midichlorians.”  He reminded himself to ask Scott how he had found out about his ability one day.  It sounded like the type of thing that would annoy the leader of the X-Men.  “In the Core Worlds, a midichlorian test is generally part of the natal check-up procedure.  So an alert would be sent to the Jedi if any new borns with a high enough midichlorian levels were born.  Then they’d come and pick up the acquire the baby.”
“So all Force sensitives were inducted in the Jedi order?”
“Nnnooo . . . I think they had to get the parents’ permission first.  The Jedi cut themselves off from their families, so a lot of people didn’t necessarily let their kids join.  And there was some sort of age limit.”  She finished her noodles, then reached into the bag to pull out some sort of fried dumplings.  Half went into her empty bowl, the other half she passed to him.  “Now that I think about, I think the Jedi Order might have been dying even without the Purge.”
“They don’t have kinder, they have high requirements to join, many people who meet the requirements don’t join because of the restrictions, and finally many of those who do join wash out.  Are midichlorian levels hereditary?”  Another nod.  “Your Jedi Order sounds impractical.  If they wanted more Force Users they should have required them to have kinder, not taken those genes out of circulation.”
“That’s where organizations like the X-Men, the Hellfire Club and Genosha get our recruits.  People like Jean who were too old to be inducted, or like Jubilee who didn’t have a high enough level to be worth the time to train.  We’ve met a lot of people bitter about the Jedi.”  He wrapped his tail around her wrist, wondering if she was one of those bitter people.  An apprentice to a Dark Side User who’d had no voice in her own fate, set aside like permanently tarnished goods.
“What abilities does the Force grant?”
“That also varies by individual.  People who are strong in the Force tend to have multiple abilites, like the way Jean is both a telekinetic and a telepath.  On the other hand, weaker Users tend to have singular, quirky abilities.  Scott’s only power is energy projection.  They’re are a lot of people like that, but he’s the only one who does it from his eyes.  Or my phasing ability; I’ve never met anyone else like that.”
“Is there anything in common that the Force always grants?  Healing, perhaps?”  She took another drink and thought about it.  “Force users do seem to heal better than normal people.  Not necessarily faster, but things like your scar,” she leaned forward and traced the red lightning bolt on the left side of his face. “As long as the parts remain, we do heal perfectly.  And longer life, yes.  Most Force Users have a maximum life span of at least twice their species average.”  She pulled away again with a frown.  “Of course, dying of a blaster bolt in the back could be considered dying of natural causes now, so take that with a grain of salt.”
Now that was interesting.  “Twice the average?  Does that mean you’re older than you look?”
“I guess that would depend on how old you think I am.”
“Sixteen?  No, you’ve were already in charge of the X-Men when you arrived.  Eighteen?”
She gaped at him.  “Why would you think I was sixteen?  Who puts a sixteen year old in charge of an entire ship of refugees?”
He flushed, but was glad that she wouldn’t be able to see it.  “Fourteen is certainly old enough to take adult responsibilities.  And you X-Men did seem rather desperate when you first arrived.”
“Chiss are considered adult at fourteen?”
“We’re considered adult at twelve.”  It was her turn to look at him suspiciously.
“How old do Chiss get any way?  And how old are you?”
“Chiss have a maximum lifespan of 80 of your Standard Years.”
“That’s not so bad.” she muttered under her breath.
“I’m 24.”
“I would never have guessed that.”
“Well, how old did you think I was?”
She bit her lips, clearly reluctant to say.  But he kept his eyes on her, and moved his tail from around her wrist to her waist.  “F-forty.”
“Do I really look that old!”
“Forty’s not that old for humans.  I’m only 36.”  They paused for a moment.  “I kinda feel like I’m robbing the cradle here.”
“Really?  I feel the same way.”
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