#til: they changed the url of 'wookieepedia' to a generic star wars wiki and i'm sad

[deprofundisclamoadte]

[text: @deprofundisclamoadte Wouldn't Jedi need those kinds of documents for census purposes? Like, to know how many of them they actually had in the Order and to have a database will all their names and stuff attached? I can imagine that they sent Obi-Wan to make make Anakin's birth certificate to whoever does that stuff on Coruscant.]

(from the notes of this post)

@i-dont-know-how-this-site-works For me at least it depends on how the governmental systems work for Jedi, and we just don't ever get a clear picture of that

in AotC I got the impression that Jedi are at least a little above the law: the way that Anakin saying, "Jedi business, go back to your drinks" is enough to get an entire bar full of people to ignore them dragging an injured person out of it; the fact that their high-speed car speeder chase definitely breaks multiple traffic laws, yet Obi-Wan doesn't include this in his reprimands and complaints about Anakin's flying, and they don't seem to get in any trouble for it. if this hypothesis is true, they probably only get indemnity for minor infractions, not major things like murder (as Ahsoka found out the hard way). but this still would mean that if Anakin got pulled over and couldn't produce a license, he might be able to get away with it by playing the "I'm a Jedi" card--or, alternatively, the "I'm BFFs with the Chancellor because he's grooming me" card

re: censuses, I've taken the U.S. census and it doesn't ask for any kind of official documentation like a social security number or birth certificate, so while it's possible that a Star Wars version of the census would require that, I think it's also possible that the census taker might just ask the Council for the names of everyone in the Temple and leave it at that

now, it's very possible that Obi-Wan had to go down to the Official Government Building and submit a request for a birth certificate and/or citizenship, but!!! what planet would they put down as Anakin's birth place? the Star Wars wiki has this to say on the subject:

"Although Skywalker was listed as born on the desert planet of Tatooine, a holographic log stated that Shmi and he moved to the planet when Skywalker was at a very young age. Regardless, Tatooine was Skywalker's homeworld." source

which is both helpful and not. I'm broke and can't go buy the actual books that this page linked to, nor could I find any downloads of them online. but I also couldn't find anything that officially gave the name of any planet, Tatooine or otherwise, as his birth planet. so again: if you're Obi-Wan and you're sitting in an uncomfortable lobby chair filling out these forms for this child you've know for a few months, what do you put down as the place he was born? well, if you're Obi-Wan, and you're tired and you don't know how to take care of this former slave child who misses his mom and you want to skip the headache, you might just put down 'Tatooine' as Anakin's birth planet and leave it at that. which is very understandable, and Obi-Wan probably deserves a drink at this point

but this brings us back to: how do governmental systems work wrt Jedi? Does the droid at the information desk accept this and say yes sir, you're a Jedi so you must be telling the truth, we'll get these processed right away? maybe. I suppose I did kind of propose that in the second paragraph of this nonsensical essay. but then again, the Old Republic is very old, and very large, and very slow. so maybe they need actual proof of the birth from the planet's records. which are on Tatooine. which is run by Hutts. who hate Jedi. and these records don't exist because Anakin wasn't actually born there. and you could ask his mom to sign an affidavit, but she probably doesn't have a comlink, and if you comm the shop, Watto's not going to let you talk to her, so you'd have to fly all the way out there, and you'd just be asking her to lie anyway so what's the point. and maybe you could just ask her to tell you the name of Anakin's actual birth planet--if she even knows it since she was a slave at the time and might've just been stuck in transit during her third trimester since heavily pregnant slaves can't do much work and probably don't fetch a huge price at the market--if you're Obi-Wan, you could ask her that, but then you'd have to start this whole process all over again with the planet name she gives, since planets probably don't record the births of slaves. why would they, slaves aren't people, and who would want anything officially linking them to slavery if someone from the Republic (like, say, a Jedi) comes sniffing around. so there probably isn't any official record of Anakin's birth.

so if you're Obi-Wan, it's suddenly becoming very tempting to just throw your hands up in the air and declare that well, Anakin isn't going to be opening any bank accounts or buying any property since Jedi don't have possessions, so he doesn't really need this anyway, and if he gets pulled over, he can just mind trick his way out of it. which, again, valid, and Obi-Wan has earned his drink.

for the Jedi's own records, I'm slightly convinced it's just one giant excel sheet that they make Mace update once every few months or so. I fully admit this is just my own bias, since i've worked for a giant corporation before and you'd be surprised just how much information is stored in one single excel sheet that one rando temp can access and accidentally delete if they're not careful. but even if I accept that I'm wrong, which I probably am, that's still just the Jedi's own personal records that aren't necessarily beholden to any other agency or group. like, what's stopping Mace from just putting "unknown" in the Birth Place or Social Security Number section of Anakin's file? do the Jedi have to annually submit their records to the Republic for auditing? maybe they do, but given that they also apparently have a secret off-planet prison, maybe the Jedi just have their own stuff going on and the Republic is like, "all right guys, you do you".

in conclusion: at least 90% of this is speculation, but we honestly just don't know enough about governmental processes and how being a Jedi works within those processes for me to give a definitive answer here. and until Disney decides to hire someone to write that book, we may never know.