#i have like six different story docs where the plotline is basically “Plo discovers a Child: Dad Mode Activate” lmao

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

i just wanna highlight this bit bc YEAH OMFG:

I get the Order being such a big deal, but I'm genuinely hurt/offended by the fact that they come off as this big bad guy who just steps on planet, harness force-sensitive babies, and just completely gaslight the centuries old of existing everything. It's horrendous!

I am a massive Jedi Fan, I love them a whole lot and I Vibe with a whole bunch of their philosophy - so it's soooooooo annoying to see stuff that just portrays them as a thoughtless imperialistic force, completely in opposition to some of their, y'know, basic tenets. They're shown in a bunch of extended-universe material having reasonably good relationships with a whole bunch of other Force traditions, so I'm like, I want to see more of that XDD

[deep breath] ok moving on lmao

Regarding the Baran Do structure - my headcanon is that the 'Baran Do' are actually a whole bunch of closely-related but often quite different 'schools' (schools of thought and also literal schools), that have thousands of subtly discrete teachings, such that you could get a Sage from each of the major schools and sit them to discuss it all, and the Sages would immediately find something to argue about and waste the next week doing exactly that lmfao. They don't necessarily believe there's one 'right' ideal way of doing things, in fact most schools explicitly say that multiple viewpoints is a good thing for society -- but everyone has an opinion, y'know? XD

So schools that are located in a particular clan's catchment (or multiple clans) tend to be populated from that clan. With that said, there are Koons and Bragas and Tojaans etc. in every school, bc those clans have like 100 million members each so there's no escaping them lol. Communities keep track of genetics through motherlineage names, but beyond that there isn't really a distinction between 'family' and 'community' - they're the same thing. (There might be 'household', but those are multi-generational and often have non-blood-related ppl living there as well.)

Given the close internal community relationship, the Baran Do schools are also very closely entwined within their communities. There is a monastic, mystic tradition within most schools, but the schools as a whole don't consider themselves separate from the communities they serve at all; sages live as normal people, and the school's child acolytes are raised communally, in a way that's pretty much identical to kids being raised by their birth families. (Adult acolytes have a dorm situation going on, and there's no party like a Sage house party lmfao)

I also believe that this hand-off to the Jedi goes through a rigorous discussion with Dorin's elders on whether it is ideal to send a force-sensitive child to the temple than hone it at home. Ultimately, it would be the parent's decision (maybe), but it goes without saying that they play a huge role in influence and decision-making.

Yeah, for sure. The way I like to imagine it, the Baran Do are perfectly capable of raising even very powerfully Force-sensitive kids themselves; it's just that sometimes the Force itself seems to indicate for whatever reason that a child ought to go to the Jedi. By the time the Sages pick up the phone and call the Jedi in, they've had those extensive discussions and gone like "ok, Force, we'll believe you on this one" lol. Once that's been discussed and the kid's household are on board, then the Jedi get called in, and from there it's mostly smooth sailing. (Apparently Dorin joined the Republic not quite 6000 years before the Prequel era, so it seems likely the Baran Do-Jedi relationship isn't much younger. They both know how it works now XD)

Yessssss for the Koon fam! :DDDD I'm like. limiting myself to only naming the main characters bc i headcanon the whole fam as filling up a decent-sized village by themselves lmao -- but there's Plo's mom Kssaana, who's like the village Sage, her four husbands plus a handful of babydaddies over the last few centuries lmfao, and then the majority of the rest are like. relatives of unspecified degree who all get called 'Uncle' or 'Cousin' regardless of whether that's accurate or not bc who has the time to figure it out?? We'd be here all day lol. Sha's mother (her name is Ksia) is Plo's half-sister, technically, but culturally they don't really draw a distinction. Grandma and the grandfathers are all off in the big city Dorshan lol, but they came back to join in on the festivities! (It's actually double festivities, bc Plo brought his second padawan on the trip and she spends the whole time getting adopted by like a thousand honorary family members lmaoooo)

every time i check wookieepedia for more kel dor lore I get annoyed at the bit that says the Baran Do became irrelevant after the Jedi started coming around bc like.

a) there is no way the Jedi wouldn't want to like. team up with them instead lmfao

b) the numbers also don't add up. The Jedi have like ten thousand members in Prequel times, from species across the whole galaxy. Even if you scour the wiki, there's only like three, possibly four kel dor Jedi active at that time. Even if we accept the idea that these few are the absolute most powerful force-sensitive kel dor out there, there's no fuckin way a planet/species that can support its own extensive indigenous Force tradition just abandons that tradition, just bc a literal handful of kids in every generation goes offworld to learn from a different Force tradition.

c) the Baran Do also do a slightly different thing than the Jedi - it's basically Force-aided disaster risk/resilience/management shit. The Jedi can't make them obsolete just by existing; they're filling a different need with diplomacy and averting wars and shit. Sometimes their work crosses over, but that's not enough to put them in competition.

So, my headcanon—

The Baran Do don't have the same restriction on 'must be a child to join' as the Jedi do, so they're happy to allow children who get scouted to go off and join the Jedi, on the condition that that child gets the opportunity to come back and train with the Baran Do later on if they so wish. The Jedi are perfectly happy to allow this, both in a spirit of Interfaith Cooperation and also making sure their kids get the chance to connect with their ancestral cultures. So the relationship between Baran Do and Jedi is pretty relaxed and friendly overall.

...At this point, most of the kel dor children who are given to the Jedi were actually brought to the Jedi's attention by the Baran Do, because the Force metaphorically tapped on some Sage's shoulder and went like "hey. This one would do well with the Jedi." And that Sage phoned up the Jedi Temple like "hey could u guys send someone out, there might be a baby Jedi here for u." It's treated like a celebration for both parties, there's a festival and everything. XD

Plo happened to be the Jedi sent out to collect Sha; he didn't know the kid was his niece at that point, but then the moment he stepped off the ship he was Engulfed in a surprise family reunion. His mother, Sha's grandma, is a Baran Do Sage, and she'd requested Plo directly but then kept it to herself, so the rest of the family was equally surprised and delighted lmao.