Bankor

"The design is actually quite simple. Elegant," Tethys says with a touch of enthusiasm. "Hundreds of years of refinement, yet a youngling can assemble one herself from simple parts. If she has a crystal and the training to manipulate it, that is."

Lyseil perked up with obvious curiosity.

"The training to manipulate it? Oh, so one must be able to har the Force to be able to construct a lightsaber?"

"It helps a great deal, at least." Tethys temporizes. "Kyber crystal--the material that focuses the beam--is strongly attuned to the Force and living things. Judging how a particular crystal will respond once it is fitted to an energy emitter would be much harder without perceiving it through the Force. That is also why most of us build our own weapons, tradition aside. The connection between the Jedi and the crystal becomes quite personal."

She gave a small pout at that. "Ah, sugar. And here I was hoping I could make my own lightsaber some day..." Lyseil added a chuckle soon after. "Just kidding, just kidding. I think I'm much better with a blaster than a weapon that's just as likely to give me a hard time as my opponent. Even if my own lightsaber would be fun to have."

"Just listening to a jedi speak of the Force... it's just so... otherworldly? There's this big thing that affects the entire universe, but most of us aren't even able to percieve it, let alone use it like you do!"

"Well..." Tethys opens a hand palm-up, her expression growing more thoughtful. "You've never been on a boat at sea, or in the middle of the woods--or some other place that's open and quiet--and felt that you could sense it all moving around you? If only a little?"

"Well, sure! To some extent, I mean..." her brow furrowed in thought as she seemed to consider it very seriously. "But I was trained to heightened my senses when I was in the military. Be more perceptive and notice the little details around me."

"It's not like being able to lift things with telekinetic force."

"That is the greater part of it, most of the time--just hearing the movements, the connections, but with a different sense not everyone is aware of. A sixth sense, for humans at least." After all, some sentients had fewer ways of perceiving their environments--or more.

Tethys shakes her head. "It's not really about lifting things. Many of us don't even do that so often. It's about... feeling the energy that binds the galaxy together. Knowing how you're a part of it."

She laughs softly, low in her throat. "Lifting things is just a side effect."

She joined in the laugh, her smile bright and innocent. "Ah, well, if my keen sense of sight or hearing ever manifest side effects of lifting things, I'll let you know, master jedi."

"Just... describing it as a sixth sense of sorts, it makes me wonder if we could somehow all learn to be more aware of it, or learn to utilize that sense. Otherwise, we're looking at a sense that is locked off completely to the majority of sentients in the galaxy."

"That is an interesting question," Tethys says in a musing tone, her gaze becoming a little distant. "There are degrees of sensitivity, though like a lot of things, it can improve with practice." She shrugs one shoulder. "But my nose will never be as acute as a Shistavanen's or a Wookie's, and I'll never be able to see into the infrared as the Rodians and other species like them do. I don't spend much time worrying about my lack of those senses."

"Hm," she tilted her head a little to the side. Must be easy to say that when you do have those powers, though.

"I suppose so... it can't really be helped, after all." Lyseil shrugged. "Still... I appriciate your views on the matter, and sharing them with me. I've done a lot of reading on the subject - mostly historical, but some jedis of old did like to record their opinions too. But listening to you feels much more enlightening than the thoughts of someone who lives hundreds of years ago. Gives a different perspective, so to speak."

"If you believe the Order's historians, even the Jedi aren't immune to the winds of time," Tethys says, lips quirking slightly. "The accounts you read could have a different perspective because views have changed over the centuries. Or it could be because Jedi are idiosyncratic sorts and no two of us agree about absolutely everything." She chuckles softly. "That, at least, is constant over time, as far as I can tell."

"Mm, even those written in the same time period can have wildly different opinions! Most of the reading I've done on specific jedi have been Ulic Qel-Droma, since he was a native of Alderaan. And goodness, if half the stuff about him is true...!" Records about jedi seemed often more like myth than reality to most people, even more so when it came to such legends.

"There was this compendium, huge thing, which mentioned quite a lot about him. That's kind of how I started reading more about Ulic."

"Hm. Ulic is an especially... complicated figure." Tethys's expression becomes a bit wry. "Though not the only one. At least the Order is not shy about the skeletons in its closets." She raises an eyebrow. "A compendium of Alderaanian history? Or was this an outgrowth of your scholarly interests?"

((Heh, I was just thinking I remembered a Tionne from the New Republic era of the old EU and getting confused about whether there might have been more than one, but now I see you've edited her out. ))

"No no, it was written by some Jedi Master - the name escapes me now - but it was a big compendium on the Force and the history of the Order. You could say it's an outgrowth of my scholarly interests though, but history has always been a big passion of mine. Much of my work is dependant on knowing about history, after all."

Lyseil didn't seem too bothered with the complexity of Ulic's past, or the skeletons of the Jedi Order. "I'm an archaelogist, when I'm not sergeant pencil-pusher here," she admitted with a grin, "or rather, I will be an archaeologist once I get back into the field after this, and get my degree."



((Wookiepedia was giving me conflicting dates, damnit. xD And here I thought my ninja-edit was unnoticed))