Escalation of Commitment

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"My guess is that it's an experimental alien energy drink that was intended for sale to a species with a different biochemistry from typical human/Near-Human biochemistries"

As much as [member="Ultimatum"] knew that food engineering was tightly controlled, the main thing to account for is the intended consumer's biochemistry. Plus he knew how to cure hypothermia and fever on top of the cleansing of toxins, but that's not even scratching the surface of the full extent of Force-healing. Now, surely her former padawan, Taygeta, would be able to get into more detail about how species' biochemistries affected a race's dietary requirements, plus she trusted her to be able to handle Detoxify Poison and other chemistry-based Force-powers. Last she heard about Taygeta, she essentially took on virtually all the more advanced chemistry lessons Jessica used to teach, plus biochemistry ones. Once she was finished eating, she realized that many of the exhibits of the Valley pertained to the New Sith Wars, the Ruusan Campaign, the Rule of Two and the Ruusan Reformations, and, unlike the Galactic Cemetery on Jiroch-Reslia, which was a horror-themed amusement park, the Valley of the Jedi was essentially an open-air museum. As she closed in on the crystal, she had to answer Upari's question about the crowdedness of the caves.

"The crystals are near the exhibits pertaining to the thought bomb, so it will be probably be pretty crowded but with only a handful looking for lightsaber crystals. Most people will be there to learn more about the thought bomb"

 

[Ultimatum]

Of course, the missing link to it all. Different biochemistries largely impacted the components required for life. It was logical and necessary. One could not feed a human the same as a Gand.

"They allow people to just take crystals? The Thought Bomb, is that a Force ability?" Ultimatum's knowledge of the Valley was limited to the name and a basic understanding of it being a Nexus in the Force. The knowledge of how it came to be, the importance it had played in key historical events, and similar information was too buried for him to find.

If the droid could have had a choice between a museum and a theme park, he would have unquesitoninly chosen the museum. There was no thrill for a robot, none that adreline could give anyways. He understood the atraction, but had none himself. Knowledge was far more important anyways than the short lived excitement of an amusement park. Only through learning could one avoid making mistakes already committed. Amusement parks were fairly similar anyways to the droid, whose analytical mind could calculate the number of g's exerted on his frame in a tight turn of a roller coaster, and then estimate the closest space manuever that could accomplish the same result, faster than the human mind could comprehend.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"I believe there is a limit on the number of crystals a patron may take without having to pay extra at the exit gate, one per person per visit"

As she approached the cave with [member="Ultimatum"], she could psychometrically feel that, in that era, the close guards of the Jedi and Sith were, in fact, fighting at point-blank range in the center, using melee weapons, and with ranged units in the periphery. But there were very few vehicles, and no airpower whatsoever in use on the surface. Yet, it was still a rather typical battleplan for the era, where both sides tended to simply just throw good men after bad, with a good plurality, or perhaps even a short majority, among the commanders of that era that made tactical decisions and also procurement decisions based at least partially on the aesthetics of its use. Completely unlike her approach to grounding. And then... the detonation of the thought bomb. With the BoD's conventional forces defeated, the remaining Lords retreated into the cave, with 100 Jedi following them to engage those Sith in question, and the remaining units of the Army of Light also making a strategic retreat. Just that historians tended to be focused more about the aftermath of the battle, or the significant figures associated with them, believing that the hardware conditions in place then were of no interest, nor were the contributions of conventional forces.

"Let's see: the factions involved in the first seven Battles of Ruusan, the Army of Light and the Brotherhood of Darkness, were so depleted by that point that they had to strictly ration the use of suppressive and indirect fire, vehicles, and to a lesser extent even blasters or slugthrowers. Both sides kept their ranged units in the periphery during the Seventh Battle, but ultimately the Brotherhood of Darkness lost, and was nearly completely wiped out, because of hubris. The Rule of Two Sith originated in its aftermath, as were the Ruusan Reformations, which left the then-Republic without a centralized military until the Clone Wars. As for the thought bomb, it is, in fact, a Force-power, killing Force-users in its blast radius while leaving NFUs alive, but perhaps mentally scarred, but for it to cause a Force-nexus, it has to kill a large number of Force-users, and is legally classified as a superweapon, so it is, in fact, banned. Plus detonating it requires the concentrated energies of a large number of Sith lords, and today's Sith lords tend to be more individualistic on the field"

 

[Ultimatum]

Interesting. The last part, in particular, caught Ultimatum's attention. There was an assumption that just because a weapon was banned, that it would never be used. It was a belief in absolute safety because laws ensured it. The difficulty was in providing that the law was followed. There was no guarantee that some rogue Sith Lords or even a fraction of grey Jedi wouldn't attempt such a weapon against some foe. Her suggestion that Sith Lords were more self-focused however was a better argument. Perhaps if there were a serious enough threat to the ways of the Sith they would band together, but otherwise there was little incentive to do so and thus they probably would remain unable to coordinate to such a degree.

"I would guess then that it has rarely been used." Ultimatum knew of only a few times where Sith had coordinated well enough to accomplish the creation of a functioning society, much less pool their power.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Now, to the extent Sith factions are the result of them forming functioning societies, albeit with highly variable lifespans as societies, I don't feel today's Sith are coordinated enough to go beyond a functioning society"

I wouldn't have a platoon of regulars take on a Sith Lord head-on, even an unsupported one. Now, I get that not every Sith Lord is a lightsaber jockey, and all the more dangerous is a Sith Lord that can use Force-powers effectively at ranges longer than point-blank, otherwise you can kite one from different directions, and hope one of them actually hits: standoff weapons are a thing, she thought, while realizing that, maybe even more so than today, Sith in the Brotherhood of Darkness were fighting at point-blank. They were closing in on the crystal, and [member="Ultimatum"] would probably have a clue now as to what indications there were of Sith hubris. Yes, the Ruusan campaign was a cautionary tale for those Jedi who wanted to engage in grounding, and it seems that many of the big, historical battles are known for the losing side's incompetence, if the outcome wasn't Pyrrhic, rather than anything extraordinary on the winning side, and even the Rift was made possible because of one fatal mistake on the Primeval's part: packing artillery in a dense, four abreast formation.

"As for the Sith's hubris in the Ruusan campaign, they overestimated how depleted the Army of Light's arsenal was and also overestimated the tactical value of Force-users. Only the most delusional of Force-users would claim that one master-level Force-user would be able to single-handedly take on an infantry division, or even an elite infantry regiment, in a large-scale battlefield"

 

[Ultimatum]

The droid felt the crystals and could feel a bit of that excitement which he had experienced earlier, building in him. "Will these crystals be like the ones on Ilum, where there is one that fits Upari? Or will any do?"

Ultimatum would not have suggested putting a single Force user alone into a combat situation against a platoon, much less a division. The Force was impressive, but it was sentient ingenuity that made Jedi strong and the soldiers would probably have that as well. It only required one good, or lucky, shot to disable a Jedi and it mattered not what strength they were. Further, Ultimatum knew from historical data that there had been many times in the past where regular infantry had been trained in anti-force user tactics, which were surprisingly effective and easy to accomplish.

"Why would one wish to send one man against such a large force? That seems to stretch the realm of credulity. Surely they would have realized how illogical such an idea would be."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"There will be one that fits Upari, and same goes with me, too. Ruusan crystals are different from the Ilum crystals in that they help Force-users in focusing the Force. Once Upari finds a crystal that fits him, then we can start assembling our respective lightsabers"

So she found a crystal that called out to her: a green crystal, very similar in color to the old, cracked one. She thus used the Force to delicately take it out of the cave's wall, hoping that a nearby crystal will likely call out to Upari. With that said, and the crystal now in hand, even the Eighth Battle, while fought 1,800-some years later with infantry fully outfitted with ranged weapons, was still fought around Olmondo with scarce airpower, but with a much larger supply of vehicles on either side than was available in the first seven battles. But she knew the SSC's generals of that era were nothing like her, nor were the Triumvirate's. The Triumvirate may have won that battle, but they paid dearly for it; they only won that battle because they had to empty all the remaining garrisons in Triumvirate-land. In that it was only marginally better than the Primeval in the Rift. True, [member="Ultimatum"] was correct in that the BoD's commanders (Kopecz, the BoD's supreme starfighter commander, only had a handful of squadrons under his command, and all of it were tied up in orbit) were acting irrationally at the time, even with arsenal depletion.

"Now you understand what hubris means in that context. Also, such foolishness was, in part, what drove Darth Bane to institute the Rule of Two"

 

[Ultimatum]

It was similar enough in that important area, each was unique. Ultimatum wondered if that factor would truly change for different people. What if, like so many other Force users, the lightsaber he and Upari created would end up in the hands of some Sith or Jedi in the future. Would they be able to harness it as Upari would? How was it truly unique to the person? He had not been able to ask the other padawans whom he had journeyed with at the time.

Upari sensed with the Force and could feel the calling of a small crystal. In the place filled with the Force, a simple, quiet voice spoke out to the Shard. Slowly, Ultimatum moved to follow Upari's guidance. A small grey crystal was found, buried almost entirely into the wall, yet the earth and stone crumbled as the droid gently pried the priceless gem from its resting place. In the large hand of the Vizier suit, the crystal glowed faintly and Upari could feel it resonating with him in the Force. They were one, this little stone and the, probably, younger Shard. It was as if they had been meant for one another. Upari pondered if there were many crystals for one person, or only one or two. He had heard, from Ultimatum, that some Jedi had many lightsabers, and just as many crystals.

"The Rule of Two? That is not something I have heard of before. I would assume that it is related to the Force-sensitives of the time."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The Rule of Two covered Sith-hood until the Battle of Endor, where there could only be two Sith at any given time, one master, one acolyte, and the acolyte became the master when the previous master died, instituted because Bane viewed greed, infighting and hubris as the main three causes of Sith defeat at the time. One last thing before we start assembling our respective lightsabers, typically when a lightsaber crystal changes owners, the new owner has to meditate over it at the time of ownership change if crystals had any ability to enhance one's connection to the Force"

Now that Upari had found a crystal, Jessica and [member="Ultimatum"] both pulled out their lightsaber components; it was a very delicate process where fine tolerances were key. She got the process started with the diatium battery, and the primary crystal mount; and then the power field conductor, the power vortex ring, and inert power insulator. And then and only then she could even think of fitting the primary, lasing crystal, while realizing that her lightsaber only had one crystal. The hard part was making sure the Ruusan crystal fitted properly, thanks to the geometry of that crystal being a little different from the one that cracked. But once that was done, she could then fit the energy gate and the bifurcating cyclical ignition pulse, the latter just being a cycling field energizer that was adapted for underwater usage of a lightsaber. The hard part of assembling a lightsaber was, of course, crystal-related, and she realized as much. Everything else should, in fact, be much easier to assemble than the crystal mounts have been: most Jedi didn't know nearly as much about electromechanics as she did and certainly Trebor, and their lightsabers worked just fine.

 

[Ultimatum]

That was an interesting development, that a person would intentionally limit the number of people they had. Conceptually it would have weakened their ability extraordinarily. However, when the droid contemplated it more, the idea fir into standard Sith psychology, in particular, it pandered to the Sith's desire for power. If there were only two Sith at any one time, then the master would have consolidated much of Sith knowledge within his person and had, hopefully, no rival to take from him that power. While claiming to be looking after the Sith, it was, in fact, a covert method of attempting to ensure his own survival and maintaining his position of power.

As Ultimatum followed [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] in making the lightsaber. He found this part to be fairly easy; mechanics was an area of expertise and Ultimatum had much experience with machines in general. The pieces of the lightsaber were like a puzzle to the droid, and while Upari guided the construction with the Force, Ultimatum did the work of discerning parts as Jessica pointed them out. "Why do Jedi use lightsabers as much as they do? It seems to me, that this piece of equipment, as impressive as it is, is severely limited in these modern times with blasters and long-range weapons."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

And then the blade controls: power, length (since it was a dual-phase lightsaber, length can, in fact, be adjusted) and, of course, the electromagnets used for containment. Where the dimetris circuit allowing for a battery lifespan extending well into decades was to be found. [member="Ultimatum"] wouldn't find assembling the lightsaber that hard either... but Jessica had a poodoo-load to say about why FUs tended to stick with close-quarters methods, to the lightsaber, to the point they would force close-quarters even if it was otherwise better to fire a ranged weapon at an enemy before closing in. If there was one thing that actually did change from the Ruusan era vs. today, it is the armor in use by FUs: back in the Ruusan day, supplies of any kind of either faction were so limited that ranged units on the flanks often did not even wear any kind of armor, with their uniforms providing no protection whatsoever. And those that did wear armor back then, were typically melee combatants and wore durasteel armor. Today it is not uncommon to see songsteel, phrik or beskar among FUs; Jessica feels to be the odd person out because she is using laminanium for her suit of armor which, while regenerative and not having weaknesses at the joints, didn't afford as much protection.

"I know today's Sith's source of dark side energy in battle is the fear their enemies are made to feel. However, that mechanism is effective only at a blaster's point-blank range most of the time. For this reason, even if they did carry a ranged sidearm that can effectively be used at longer than point-blank, many dark-siders wish to close in. Many among Jedi, and Sith, too, feel that the blasters' low muzzle velocities makes them easy to dodge provided they are reasonably well-trained in Art of Movement, and that the accuracy of Force-powers decrease at least as fast as a blaster's the further away they are used at. From that standpoint, slugs are harder to dodge, but the armor many of them wear could shrug off slugs and/or blasters, with lightsabers being more capable of exploiting joints and other chinks in an armor. Due to the high equipment allowance factions typically give Jedi or Sith, there seems to be a lot of pressure on today's FUs to get the best armor they can afford and those that wear even generic heavy suits are at a disadvantage, even more so those that stick to robes. However, I would typically carry one of those electromagnetic plasma weapons with the ability to cause magnetic recombination in a lightsaber if I knew I had to fight personally. Depending on the range the terrain affords me, provided terrain information is available at the stage where I select my loadout for a mission, I could go for either a repeater if I don't expect to fight at ranges longer than 500m, or a sniper rifle if I did expect to fight enemies further away than 500m since the repeater is much less accurate past 500m"

 

[Ultimatum]

That seemed to make logical sense. It was merely unfortunate that the Jedi, and most Force-sensitives, had fallen prey to such a simple tactical error. In a galaxy of relative peace it would have been an obvious failure, however, in the chaos and war-ridden state, it was an unacceptable oversight of the underlying physics of war. It was an unaffordable mistake. The necessity found by those who lived and worked in the battlefield should have forced an evolution in weaponry or styles of fighting. In galactic battles it could not be expected that every fight would remain to close quarters, yet Jedi were insistant on retaining that method.

"Why has this not become apparent to Jedi, or Force-sensitives? Do you think that if the Jedi were forced to maintain distance that the Force would adapt itself to such a broad field?"

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"To be sure, one would use the Force differently when forced to maintain distance. Well I know I would, and then it would be more of a defensive use of the Force. Just one question for you: which ranged weapons do you have?"

I hope he actually has his bases covered at range, or else I would have to enter a discussion about what he wanted out of a ranged weapon, and then train him in it, she thought, realizing that she doesn't take kindly to hypocrisy. Plus that's what caused her to have bad memories of the healer that first discovered she was, in fact, a Force-sensitive: hypocrisy and arrogance. Jedi could be effective at range, he would acknowledge as much. Just that they began using lightsabers more when they began to use cover more. But what ranged weapons can [member="Ultimatum"] actually use? Yes, she used to have a bowcaster as a padawan, but she decided that the weapon's ability to induce magnetic recombination in a lightsaber blade was enough for her to switch to electromagnetic plasma weapons for fighting at range. And yet she could feel that someone got hurt near the exit of the cave, probably because of a stalactite falling on somebody. Hopefully it wouldn't be too bad, and something Upari could heal using Force-healing; healing fever, hypothermia, cauterizing, or other medical uses of pyro/cryo were not the end of the story, no more than breaking down toxins were.

"I feel someone got hurt near the cave exit"

 

[Ultimatum]

"I have not used a weapon in recent times, having thus far avoided most fighting. I used to have a marksman rifle and pistol, both of LOOM make. However, I do not know where they have been placed and therefore currently have no weapons other than Upari and what allies I have." Ultimatum could recall, from broken memories, his use of ranged weapons, with very few exceptions.

Ultimatum listened and waited for [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] to continue, then when it seemed apparent she had completed her short statement, the droid asked, "Can you feel the type of injury a person sustains? Or only that they are injured?"

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Typically you can feel that an injury was sustained before you can feel the type of injury sustained, because the resolution of Force-sense is still constrained by the Force-equivalent of diffraction"

As [member="Ultimatum"] asked a question about detecting the sort of injury systained at range, she could feel Upari was on to something. He understood that diagnosis was a key component, and the stream of bad memories of that arrogant, hypocritical, stuck-up Jedi healer began to surface in her mind. That very healer that wanted to administer her a cup of caf before a neuropsychological evaluation that took place prior to her Force-training actually starting. That Force-healer was so bad not even the Geonosians trusted her, and I know from experience they would otherwise trust just about anyone else for Force-healing. Plus there were tons of complaints about her teaching Force-healing: it amounted to just "put the Force in the patient's bodies", and I'm pretty sure one of those Jedi that caused cancers by using Force-healing learned Force-healing from her, although I'm not 100% certain. I just wish her to remain a recluse, a hermit on some lawless planet whose medical infrastructure is next to non-existent. Now, even though the CO of Therapy Command is hardly a good therapist, she was the one that cured the terminal-phase cancer that took seven hours, she thought, while seeing the cut on the patient's right arm as the patient laid down on the cavern's floor.

"Even though you can break down and move toxins out of a patient's body, even when you can manipulate heat and cold to cure patients, there are a few things I should caution just about everybody I teach Force-healing to. First, don't expect near-instant healing every single time. I know a patient that was used Force-healing on to cure a terminal-stage cancer, and it took the Force-healer seven hours to heal it. Also, there is a reason why I want to teach it early in a Jedi's training: I know a few horror stories about people who waited too long to learn Force-healing and how their patients got cancers from them. Finally, I know you hinted at it, but diagnosis is a crucial step prior to any attempt at stimulating the healing: it's very condition-dependent"

 

[Ultimatum]

With care and curiosity, Ultimatum held the lightsaber in his hand. There was a moment of wonder at the weapon, there was a history to the construction of lightsabers, stretching millennia back through the history of the Force users. It had once been a ritual, at least among the Jedi, who had taught that a lightsaber was incredibly important to their being a Jedi. It was an interesting time for the Force-sensitives now; Ultimatum wondered if the newer Jedi followed those old traditions.

As he followed [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] towards the injured person, the droid asked, "Is the lightsaber functional now? Can it be used?"

The droid was concerned that there were Force users who tried to heal others without a proper understanding of the powers they were using.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Might be best to test the thing after the patient is cured. Just that Force-healing does not excuse you from having to take precautions, in the diagnosis or in using the Force as a medication"

My guess is that the cancer-inducing case would be about curing a laceration, a hemorrage or a broken bone, or another condition whose healing process involves growing back something, she thought, while examining the patient. It was precisely that sort of thing the patient endured here: a stalactite-induced laceration. Surely [member="Ultimatum"] would have realized as much. Then it became clear to her just how could someone that waited too long to learn Force-healing induce a cancer in the patient: using too much Force-energy at once, and Force-healing is a game of patience, especially in the heavier cases.

"Force-healing is about using the Force as a substitute for a medication: so you would be using the Force as a dressing to cure a burn, an angioplasty in a heart attack, and so on, so forth, and since it's a laceration here, the key is to first immobilize the patient's body and then attempt to stimulate tissue growth around the laceration site"

 

[Ultimatum]

Of course, one could not assume or avoid taking those necessary extra steps to understand the wounds and what method should be used to heal them. If a Jedi, or any Force user for that matter, did not follow the procedures to ensure that they were prepared to handle the Force in such a manner, then they were being irresponsible with their gift. Ultimatum had no intention of taking shortcuts, not with another life in his grip.

The droid, upon focusing on the injured person, was able to quickly identify the type of injury and could also have given the appropriate conventional medical attention it would have required. However, today the 'patient' would receive less standard care and hopefully would not come out negatively afflicted for it. Ultimatum made mental measurements and calculations while Upari guided the Force into the area of the wound. The Shard, with access to Ultimatum's compendium knowledge of organic biological process involving injury, began by pushing the blood away from the wounded area, before trying to energize the cells around the injury to heal and split to cover the wound.

As this was being accomplished, Ultimatum asked, "You will be ready to step in should a mistake occur?" Ultimatum did not want any long term issues to arise due to his negligence.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Yes, I'm ready to step in should a complication occur"

After all the energy [member="Ultimatum"] spent earlier in the day, between, psychometry, Detoxify Poison, Convection and assembling his lightsaber, Jessica was made to feel that the only real complication would arise from a lack of Force-energy. So there was no real risk of causing cancers here, because there simply wasn't enough Force-energy left to reach that point. She could also feel that Upari made every scrap of Force-energy he had left count towards healing back the laceration the patient endured and, as the mitosis occurring within the laceration site was being stimulated by Force-energy inputs, she began putting rubbing alcohol over the laceration from the park's first aid kit as it began to get closed, so as to ensure the laceration won't contaminate. And also the Force-batteries began to get drained. So she had to be really cautious with just how much Force-energy she would need to put around the edges of the laceration: she let Upari go dry before stepping in, with the band-aid put over what's left of the laceration before she stepped in to get the work done.

"You're out of Force-energy: I put a band-aid over the laceration before I stepped in to finish the work"

 

[Ultimatum]

Upari could feel himself wearying, the Force was infinite, but the Shard was finite in his stamina. As he felt the last Force energy leave him, the Shard silently pulled back into himself. He drew from the upari crystals in the suit and the Valley to try to recover his strength. Ultimatum sent what visual information he could to the Shard. It was obviously not fully healed, but there was a definite different. The skin was still pink from the rapid regrowth, and the blood flow appeared to have been staunched, at least for now.

The droid pulled away so as to give [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] room to finish what had been begun. Ultimatum watched as she put a bandage over the wound, "Why put a bandage over it, instead of continuing the healing process and then dealing with any bacteria that may have entered the wound? It would need to be done anyways for the bandage would carry its own plethora of alien bacteria that would need to be removed."