A Voice in the Wilderness

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

♫​

A H C H - T O
The First Temple of the Jedi

It was incredible, to have arrived in a time that that centuries past his own.

Yet, the more things changed, the more they tended to stay the same. So much of the galactic map, the Anzat could look at and understand. The Galactic Republic. The Techno Union. The Hutts. These things existed now as they had nine hundred years ago. Or even before then.

And the Jedi? The Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice. But, not only to the Galactic Republic. Or, in some cases, not even for the Galactic Republic. The universe had divided itself along political lines and events that the boy was still trying to grasp at or understand. And yet so much of the history he didn't know was lost. A plague that had shrouded the galaxy behind borders, creating four hundred years of darkness in which many of the knowledge that had once been shared had become lost.

Some, well before the Plague.

This was one such history. An early temple of the Jedi, or perhaps Je'dai, on a world that no longer appeared on any maps of the galaxy. That the boy knew of it at all was largely the product of happenstance or luck. He'd stumbled across a pilgrim named [member="Jorus Merrill"], who'd shown him this world and brought him here when he'd needed to meditate and reflect on the Force, or his place in it.

Now, he felt the need to come back. Only this time, he knew he'd need to share what he'd found with another.

She was like him. A Jedi of a different time. Different place. A Kaminoan. A healer. Stoic and introspective, he had come to value the wisdom of her words during their shared trip to Ilum. A voyage undertaken for the Republic, or for the Jedi of the Republic, to train and mentor the next generation of Jedi Knights who would serve as its protectors.

In the time since, the boy had grown estranged from the Republic. The raising of a clone army. The attack on civilians at Tatooine. The firing on protesters outside of the Senate. Or the 'Prime Ministers' usurping of power, made possible by that clone army. Too many events were reminiscent of the precursors that had led to the formation of the Galactic Empire.

Now, the Jedi had severed ties with the Republic.

That ought to have been good, and yet at the same time they had called for the arrest of a Jedi that the Anzat knew to be a great teacher. A wise scholar. And a good friend. Perhaps this was yet another example of the idea that the boy didn't know what he didn't know of the past. He only knew what he had seen and experienced for himself, and that was that [member="Matsu Ike"] was one of the best Jedi he'd ever encountered. Certainly a better Jedi than he.

So where did that leave things? Would Jedi take up lightsaber against Jedi?

That, too, was not entirely new. So it remained, the more things changed, the more they tended to stay the same. Regretfully so. Which brought him back to one of the places in the galaxy where it might have all begun, to seek wisdom from the Force. They were Jedi. They were one. The Holy Order of Jedi Knights. Not 'Silver Jedi' or 'New Jedi.' They were Jedi.

And still somehow, it was as though they were but a pale imitation of that ideal.

If Master Tyvokka were with them, the Wookiee would doubtless have known what to do. Or, perhaps not. This galaxy was so different, so fractured, so much more political than anything Sor-Jan had experienced in any other time in his life... it must be now as it had been before the Republic of old had come into being and spread across the stars.

But, enough of his brooding. The boy turned away from the coast he'd been looking out over. The green cloak billowed in the wind as the youth went to check on his Kaminoan friend.

[member="Tyl Ro"]​

 

[Tyl Ro]

The time had come.

Tyl had bundled herself away from the galaxy, from the politics, from the quagmire of emotion and entanglements that continued to arise at every turn of the seemingly endless galactic conflict. She had needed to make her retreat from all of that discord. Her retreat was not one of cowardice, but as a need to discover the answers to the questions she had been seeking for what felt like decades.

She had fought in war before, had seen friends die, had served for one failing government to the next. That turmoil had ended when the Jedi Order with whom she grew up had withdrawn from the galactic conflict in favor of self-preservation and patience, rather than war and a most certain annihilation. How could the Jedi protect the galaxy if there were no Jedi left? The Order had been purged too many times throughout history for the Jedi not have learned from that mistake.

But the act of withdrawal ultimately stagnated. The Order itself began to lose touch with what it meant to be Jedi, and soon their own connection to the Force began to dwindle. Tyl had never been clear on the cause of that diminishing. Truly, she and the others had selflessly continued to offer their support to those who could not support themselves while the Jedi quietly sailed the stars. But their progress as a community, even as a culture, had ground to a halt. Why?

The Knight never had the chance to find the answer to that question before a hyperspace incident brought her to a galaxy that was entirely foreign. Stoically, she had made her way to the Jedi Order of the Galactic Republic, but a part of her rejoiced. Finally there was an Order she could help support and people they were sworn to protect. Despite that hope, Tyl only found more war. The Healer was reminded of the previous war which had embroiled she and countless other Jedi. But this new Order was a militant one. One that spent more time fighting than it did protecting.

Many Jedi with whom she interacted justified their fight. Their enemy was the Sith, the immortal foil to the Jedi way of life. When the Sith wrought so much havoc and chaos against them, how could they not fight back? Even if that meant attacking instead of defending. They did not have the luxury to follow their most sacred of beliefs. The fires of war could only be put out with blood. Can I call myself a Jedi if I cannot reconcile whether the foe is the Sith, or if the foe is our own misplaced belief?

The Jedi Healer had done her duty for a time: missions to far flung fields of battle where she would cure the sick and wounded, some soldiers only following orders, other civilians caught in the crossfire. Other times she acted as a political envoy in the hopes that bloodshed could be averted.

In the end, Tyl couldn't reconcile her beliefs. That made her philosophies fallible. And that necessitated a more serious meditation, even if that meant the war effort had one less Healer, or Medic, or Doctor, or Jedi.

But the time had come. Tyl had found no definitive answer. She had many thoughts, but none that led to a clear path. And though her work on Cadomai had been illuminating in its own way, that work had done nothing to solve her own philosophical conundrum. Eventually she had been sought out. A fellow Jedi and friend had asked for her companionship on a voyage. A voyage that had potential for those answers that held Tyl on the precipice.

The Kaminoan stood on a crag looking out over the dark, blue ocean that spread out in every direction all the way to the horizon. A few other rocky, short-grass covered islands dotted the body of water here and there. The skirt tied to the tall woman's hips fluttered in the strong wind. Even with all the tumult, all the questions, there on Ahch-To she felt peace.

The approaching familiar presence of her friend released Tyl from her thoughts and she turned to meet her child-like elder.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knfrxj0T5NY​

The more things change, the more they tended to stay the same.

As an Anzat, the young Jedi had a unique perspective that his many decades offered him. Sixty years spent in the service of the Jedi and he was still a child by the standards of his own people. He would not be an adult, or at least not yet physically mature, even when he was a hundred years old. Nor two hundred. All things in time. And time was an Anzat's constant companion. He was now much the same as he had been fifty or more years ago. Only experience made the difference. Experience that had taught him not to speak like a child, tempered his behavior so that he seemed more like a miniature adult than he did a growing boy.

That didn't make the fact that he was still a growing boy any less important.

But, looking back on sixty years spent in quests across the galaxy, the boy had seen changes like he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams. And, yet, so much that was unfolding now felt like it had all happened before. Patterns of behavior that were repeated. Ideas that were recycled. Many forgotten, and so people attempted that which had been done before with no idea whether it had succeeded or failed in the past.

Because so much of the past had become lost to them.

He hoped now that he could begin to change that. Bowing deeply to the Kaminoan woman, the boy held out a datapad. "I've been combing through the records of Republic data from an old Clone Wars server," the boy prefaced, as he waited for the woman to take the pad and look over the contents for herself. "I'm hoping to better illustrate the time period I come from. Pierce the veil of the Four Hundred Years darkness."

It was an ambitious undertaking, but the boy was an archaeologist. In that career field, one had to be self motivating. "I was hoping you could help look through some of my notes. Make certain I didn't miss anything."

[member="Tyl Ro"]​

 

[Tyl Ro]

Tyl's bow was deep in response to [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]. Her eyes closed as she performed the gesture of greeting common to the Jedi. They opened once again as she rose and kept herself slightly stooped to better converse with her compatriot. The Jedi Knight's well-trained mind quieted her thoughts. Clearing her mind was not difficult, she found the act almost too easy. There's something about this place...

The woman let that thought fade too, focusing instead on Jedi Xantha. She accepted the offered datapad. "Of course. Whatever help I can provide, I am at your service." Her gaze drifted to the pad's screen and the words scrolling across the device's surface. "Though coming from the era yourself, you must be far more familiar with that time than I. Even the time from when I originated was far removed from the infamous end to the Republic. I know stories, tales, legends. But these people weren't legends for you. They were contemporaries, colleagues. Some must have been friends."

Tyl recalled the first time she had accessed the HoloNet after her spontaneous hyperspace accident. She was on Ossus, and she had hoped to find some answers. Where or when was she? What happened to her contemporaries, colleagues, friends? She had searched through the hall of records on Ossus for the names of anyone she had known in her time. Even major events that had taken place. A few corollaries existed, but nothing concrete. No mention of Haven. No mention of any name that she knew. The Four Hundred Year darkness could have swallowed that period whole, forgotten to the progress of time.

Or it might never have existed. The Kaminoan could be in a new timeline altogether. Scientists have long theorized such possibilities, though practical data on the matter was often regarded as nothing more than fantasy, better left explored by the tabloids and holovids.

But the Clone Wars? They were real. Holocrons had survived. Worlds still bore the history of that conflict, even after all the chaos over eight and a quarter centuries later. Why has so much of that one period of history survived, while so much of the last four hundred years has remained a mystery?

"What do you hope to find?" Tyl said, after having paused to mull over her thoughts. She glanced up from the datapad in her hand and gestured gracefully around herself. "Does it have anything to do with this place?"

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Did it have anything to do with this place?

Turning his head, the young Anzat considered the landscape around him. Ahch-To was beautiful, but hauntingly so. It lingered with the memories of yesterday and the hopes of a tomorrow that had never come. It told the sad story of a Jedi Order torn apart, rebuilt, torn apart, rebuilt...

An unending cycle of death and rebirth, as though they were -- each of them -- in some sort of celestial tidal lock with their Sith counterparts. "Not directly, no," the small boy answered finally. "This place merely serves as a reminder of where we've come from, how much we've lost, and how much more we might hope to become."

Plus, it was largely unknown, out of the way, and not even on the map. So, no chance of being interrupted by work, or the Council, or anything else. Just a place to meditate, reflect, and work on this project. "I'm hoping to develop a new history book that will inform the populace about events lost during the Four Hundred Years darkness. At the very least, up to the Imperial Era."

That kind of academic work could be developed and refined into a number of articles, extracts, and even possibly a holocron that would supply knowledge that was lost to the greater universe. And there was no crime more heinous than the loss of memory. For every archaeologist knew that the past forgotten would only lead to a future that learned nothing, and was doomed to repeat mistakes they knew not of.

[member="Tyl Ro"]​