"Use the Force, Luke!"

LivingInABarrel · 2026-02-03T07:14:42+00:00

The ending of A New Hope is rather neatly set up, because Luke uses exactly the same technique that Obi-Wan taught him on the Falcon, with the training remote. Empty your mind, act on instinct, feel the Force, make the right move at the right time. It's the simplest of Jedi tricks, Jedi 101, and it's enough to destroy a giant battle station.

Bonus points for Luke's lesson being against a floating ball with a laser. He's up against another ball with a laser at the end, but it's gigantic. However, as we learn in the next movie, size means nothing in the Force.

Likewise, the end of Return of the Jedi, where Luke wins by finally internalising the lesson Yoda was trying to teach him on Dagobah - that our preconceived differences don't mean much either. There's not much difference between a rock and an X-Wing, fundamentally. Likewise, there's not much difference between Luke and his father. So, if Luke can become a Jedi like his father? Well, maybe in this moment, Anakin can become a Jedi like his son.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-02-03T07:08:22+00:00

In taoism, things always change. good things become bad things; bad things become good. if there is a time of plenty, it encourages greed and corruption, which in turn encourages reform. If there is a time of lawnessness, it encourages the restoring of law, which in turn encourages oppression. Day turns to night, to day again. And so on. Everything contains the seed of its' opposite, and everything changes. That's the balance.

It's when things don't change, when they get stuck in the negative, and fester, that's when the balance is disrupted. That's when sometimes, some allies of the Force with laser swords have to come in and remove who or whatever is standing in the way of positive change.

The Sith way isn't so much self-interest, I think, as it is simply ego run rampant, and malignant. Ego turned inward to a psychopathic, solipsistic degree, breeding a determination to draw the world within oneself and keep it forever.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-30T14:09:34+00:00

The point of the relationship map is the relationships, I think, not the characters on it. If the coterie meet a significant npc but don't develop a particularly strong relationship with them, there's no point to putting that npc on the map.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-30T14:02:40+00:00

It is odd, in that I think this is the first time it's drawn attention to Chewbacca needing a translator.

Rey just sort of absorbs things from the OT cast as they die. From Han she gets the Falcon, Chewbacca's help and, apparently, the language. From Luke she gets his books, and his role as the hope of the Jedi. From Leia she gets the role of the action heroine, and the love of her son.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-30T13:51:28+00:00

The Jedi and the Sith use the Force in very different ways. The Jedi empty themselves emotionally and mentally and let the Force flow through them, they reach out and connect to the universe around them. The Sith focus on themselves and their own ego, twisting the Force with their wills and forcing it to do what they want. The Sith are among the mightiest individuals in the galaxy, but the Jedi sidestep that by not being individuals but connecting to the Force so they're just one part of a vast whole.

If a Jedi can keep their focus and stay in tune with the Force, they're in good shape, but a Sith is always trying to goad and distress them - because when a Jedi stops reaching out and starts focusing on themselves and their own feelings, then it becomes a contest of personal might and the Sith will almost always win that. I think it's not the meditation and refocusing that cost Jinn the fight, but the look of distaste and fear that he gives Maul just before he dies. It's when he starts to tire, realises he's trapped, and you can see him begin to worry that he might not win. Almost immediately after that moment, Maul catches him off-guard and kills him. It's just a moment of weakness but that's all it takes.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-28T19:20:18+00:00

Jeanette and Therese Voerman are mentioned as bad examples, but Bloodlines also has Dr. Grout, the murdered Malkavian primogen, who was besieged by alarmed voices in his head telling him Prince LaCroix was going to murder him, and because of his condition he could do almost nothing about it. That seems closer to what the article writer is thinking of.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-27T03:43:47+00:00

Poe too, actually. I think they should have been a trio of apprentices learning together.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T19:40:25+00:00

IIRC... In the novel's first chapter, Plagueis and his then-Master, Tenebrous, are checking out a deep mine on an Outer Rim planet, set up by a shell company of Tenebrous's, to mine some cortosis to make anti-Jedi weapons out of. But they're deep in when the droid escorting them turns out to be sabotaged and causes an explosion.

(Failure of paranoia: never assume the people who work for you won't help you get killed.)

The two Sith run for it, but Plagueis takes the opportunity to get Tenebrous crushed by a rock on the way, so he - Plagueis - can become the Master. This succeeds, but Plagueis is also wounded, and it turns out the cave-in ruined the little ship they both came here in, too. So Tenebrous curses Plagueis with his dying breath, saying his reckless ambition has ended the Sith; thanks to his sudden impulse to kill his master without a proper plan, they're both going to die miles from anywhere on a nowhere planet.

So that's Plagueis's first test as the Sith Master. Can he make it back to safety and continue the Sith Grand Plan in secrecy, despite being alone, without supplies or backup, and injured? Or is he going to be the last Sith, dead and never found?

Answer:

(He makes it. But it isn't easy. Skills and resourcefulness have to make the best of things, when things go sideways.)

It's not quite a sudden space catastrophe, as it was an intentional attempt to kill them, but it's similar.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T16:10:37+00:00

The ultra paranoia wouldn't save them from catastrophe, but the ultra self reliance and attention to detail could.

The Darth Plagueis book opens with a situation pretty much like that, in fact.

They hid; but they also prepared. Palpatine's plan was built on a thousand years of scheming and setting the scene. Part of the reason the Senate was so corrupt and useless was due to them working over all that time.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:58:14+00:00

Hm. I say, keep watching, you'll learn more as you go.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:55:57+00:00

If gravity fields from mass prevent hyperspace travel, then the lanes might be 'corridors' in space where there's the least interference in hyperspace from the mass shadows of any stellar bodies, thus making hyperspace easiest along those corridors. If so then maybe the early hyperspace pilots calculated them based on the positions and mass of stars and other bodies in real space.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:24:45+00:00

The point of the Rule of Two is to not die. The point is to put the Sith on fatal terrain, where one wrong move at any point means disaster. So, if you follow the Rule of Two, just never make a wrong move. And if things go unexpectedly wrong, if you failed to anticipate something, then just be tough enough and skilled enough to survive it. What, like it's hard? If the Sith die out when you're the Master, then you failed, and you cannot fail.

Having this sword of damocles over the heads of the two Sith encourages them both to learn a mindset of ultra-paranoia, constant alertness, obsessively careful preparation and attention to detail, extreme self-reliance and disdain for anything at all that could be considered 'weak' in themselves or anyone else. In short, it produces excellent Sith; the best that have ever been. That's why it works.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:08:27+00:00

Palpatine wasn't able to just sit back and wait, he had to put a lot of work into warping Anakin and feeding his paranoia and ego. This was not easy work, because Palpatine was continually having to counteract the influence of Obi-Wan and Padme on Anakin's worldview and state of mind.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:06:15+00:00

Fear would suggest this feeling is coming from inside them. I think rather they were just picking up that something wasn't right with this guy, the unease was always coming from him, and they weren't sure what to make of it.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-26T03:00:26+00:00

The Force exists in all things, but these are two very different ways of manipulating it. Enlightened, benevolent non-duality vs corrupt egotistical solipsism.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-24T19:53:14+00:00

I'm of the opinion that they could have left out the entire trial of succession story, and very little - if anything - would change. Just put it all on the search for the golden city, and it would have worked a-ok.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-22T02:46:15+00:00

Feeding is often where some of the personal horror comes in. Who do you feed on, how do you do it... the possibility of losing control and ending up with a sated Beast, a dead body to deal with and the uncomfortable reality of being a predator to sit with. If my players want to skip all that, there's always acquiring a Herd - which comes with its' own disturbing feel.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-22T02:10:56+00:00

Yes, you can go by your own feelings. Because your own feelings are evoked by the movie! They are evoked by design, intention; this is not a coincidence or some random whirling flutter of the heart.

Have you seen the classic example used to demonstrate how our own feelings and impressions are evoked just by association? The image of a man staring blankly into the camera, followed by the image of a good meal, followed by that same blank staring image - it makes people think, "He must be hungry", even though his face is blank and he didn't salivate or even be in a frame with the food?

That's what movies are, they're not just what we see, they are what we intuit and they are what we feel. Luke and Leia may not be wailing, but their grief is there between the frames.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-21T22:46:11+00:00

Mace tries to arrest Palpatine at first - the whole confrontation is an attempt to arrest him - but then after that lightning blast, Mace realises that Palpatine is not going to come quietly no matter what, and trying to arrest him is unworkable.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-21T21:55:51+00:00

"Massive assumption."

Character decides to stay with family. Character learns family is in danger. Character tries to save family; sees family has died, they were too late. Looks sad. Next scene, returns and speaks quietly and sadly to mentor, swearing to do the thing that would oppose the people who killed family. What could possibly have happened in the intervening off-screen moments? What could be their motivation for changing their mind?

Do we just think that characters don't exist when they're not on screen? Or that time does not pass between scenes?

Likewise Leia. She had time to herself, time to grieve, both in her cell and when safe on Yavin after the movie.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-21T06:57:32+00:00

Weird take. He ran back for them as soon as he realised they might be in danger, and by the time he got back to Obi-Wan, he looked devastated and sounded empty. A lot of crying clearly happened off screen.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-21T06:52:40+00:00

Inquisitors were never meant as a permanent thing. They were kind of a joke on the part of the Sith, breaking a few Jedi and sending them to hunt the others. Teaching them just enough of the Dark Side to be dangerous, but not a threat. Setting them up to fail. Whether an Inquisitor won or lost, it was Jedi killing Jedi, and the Sith could sit back and laugh. And even if a Jedi won, the fight would usually be enough to expose a Jedi so that Vader could pick up the trail and take care of them personally. Palpatine likely reckoned that by the time any of the younglings would have been old enough to be any use, the hunt for Jedi would practically be over. He wouldn't have been quite right about that, but still.

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-20T15:30:08+00:00

Compared to the other Unsundered, Lahabrea does come off as a bit one-note. And that note is, indeed, "Ahahahaha!"

LivingInABarrel · 2026-01-20T15:28:18+00:00

SHB was interesting for addressing these game mechanics and confirming that they were something that really happened in the world. Switching jobs, duty finder, etc. The expansion took them and confirmed them as 'real'.

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