Brockyman said:
geizr said:
I don't like the midichlorians either, and my opinion usually runs along the lines of once you try to create a prosaic explanation to a mystical phenomenon, that phenomenon loses all its mysticism and becomes just another thing. However, a couple of the comments in this thread do bring up an important point. Whether one chooses midichlorians or just ordinary genetics, the manifestation of the Force is still not explained, only the mechanism for its passage from one generation to another. The midichlorians, hate them or....hate them, provide a mechanism for quantification of Force affinity; the implication being that every midichlorian has the same quantity of Force affinity. One can probably get the same variations of affinity through genetics, but it would probably pose greater restrictions on individual family lines in terms of the level of affinity within any given individual than may occur with midichlorians.
Personally, I would prefer it to be a kind of spiritual resonance that is usually strongest between parent and child, which admittedly sounds like genetics. The difference would be that the mechanism of passage remains purely in the mystic realm (the spiritual bond between parent and child) and never enters or is subject to the material realm. The resonance would be allowed to skip generations or even shift blood-lines entirely on the basis of narrative necessity.
I think that the phrase "spiritual resonance...between parent and child" is the dumbest one uttered on the net this week, and that's saying something.
Most force affinity isn't across family lines as JEDI WEREN'T ALLOWED TO MARRY AND HAVE CHILDREN. We focus so much on Anakin and Padme's offspring (since the EU isn't canon we don't know if Leia/Han or Luke's offspring exist or are force sensitive) we forget that most of the Jedi Order and Sith were built on children that were discovered that have force affinity. In fact the passage of force abilities is shown in the narrative as an anomaly, outside the norm.
Since the Clone Wars cartoon is canon, let's talk about Ahsoka. Ahsoka was FOUND BY MASTER PLO KOON AT THE AGE OF THREE in a marketplace. It's never stated, but if her parents were also force sensitive, but my clue is, if they were, they would have taken here to the Jedi for testing at birth.
So, it isn't about family... It's about these microscopic organisms that live in peace and harmony with the force and the person they are end to use force powers, for good, evil, or a shade of gray. It really isn't much different than people born with special skills or powers from other works of fictio and It does required training to use the powers instead of coming naturally.
But it isn't family based in general.
I think you're being a bit harsh with that first sentence, but whatever. All I was proposing was an alternate mechanism for the passage of the Force. I'm fine with you disagreeing with it, but please do contain your rage.
ADDENDUM: I was so off-put by your nerd-rage in the first sentence that I didn't even bother to think about the rest of your post, at least not in conscious foreground. However, it still rattled around in the background, and some issues became flagged.
First, while the Jedi themselves were forbidden to marry and have children, that doesn't mean that they didn't do so in secret. Further, the whole point of Luke and Leia being offspring of Anakin and Padme was that they, Luke and Leia, had inherent their Force affinity from their parents. Further, the Jedi built their numbers by locating children with Force affinity, but how was it that these children would develop the population of midichlorians to have significant Force affinity in the first place? Do the midichlorians just randomly decide to have a population explosion in some child and start reproducing like mad in the child's body until they which some determined limit? Why only in a child? Why not an adult, if the midichlorians can just suddenly change their population on a whim?
If the inheritance factor is removed, be it midichlorians, genes, or even my silly spiritual resonance, then Force affinity becomes a purely random event, and there's nothing significant about Luke and Leia. The fact they were offspring from Anakin and Padme is pure coincidental.
Oh, also, as it was explained to me once, the REASON the Jedi was prohibited from marrying and having children was precisely to avoid concentration of Force affinity, precisely BECAUSE it is passed from parent to child. It was to maintain balance; otherwise, the Jedi could easily just take over the galaxy within a couple generations, and that would be the end of it all. In fact, it is mentioned that this rule existed to avoid Force-strong family dynasties.
Wookieepedia has this to say on the subject of how one becomes Force-sensitive:
People could have been Force-sensitive by three known means. Either they inherited it by a Force-sensitive family member (which was often the case), acquired the sensitivity through random mutation or evolution, or, in rare cases, one could have been artificially imbued with sensitivity with the Force, such was the case of the Reborn and Sith Cultists.
It explicitly mentions inheritance from a Force-sensitive parent as being a mechanism. The thing is, Force-sensitivity is dispersed amongst many different races and individuals. However, due to events, it can be concentrated within particular individuals. It is even mentioned in Wookieepedia that it is not necessary for one to even be sentient to have significant Force-sensitivity, but this sensitivity is still passed through an inheritance mechanism. Hence, there IS a passage from parent to child.
The bottom line here is, in my opinion, your calling my statement the dumbest thing on the net this week is very much unwarranted, over-reactionary, and just plain wrong in light that the logic of the remainder of your post is in apparent contradiction to observation.
