Location: Jedi Temple, Voss
Des moved to sit. Scanning the area, eyes closed, but with the Force, she found a few rocks that were the size of small river stones. Imagining them in her palm as a 'done deal' she held her hand out. They trembled slightly then zipped toward her to land in her waiting palm. By all rights what Master Sakadi explained and demonstrated broke all traditional rules of physics.
She'd been able to slow things down or stop them when thrown at her, both by pushing back or taking a hold of them in the Force. Barrier had also stopped projectiles before. But she wasn't being asked to use the Move Object power from the Alter set of abilities. This was... different. She levitated one of the stones over her hand. She felt it's weight, it's imperfections. She knew how to shatter it, how to balance it. She could feel the pull of gravity. She easily canceled that gravity out by holding it aloft. But that wasn't what she was being asked to do. That much she knew.
Letting the stone drop back into her palm she thought it over. The image of letting the object float on the surface of water came to mind. But no, that was providing a buoyancy force. Not the same thing. This was akin to suspending all acting forces on the object in question, rather than specifically countering gravity. There were a lot of implications behind that.
So she began to tally up those forces and relationships. making a list. At the same time a model of what would need to happen. The pebble would have to essentially attain a sort of geosynchronous orbit. If it were to actually "stop" it would shoot across the room at a few thousand kilometers per second. The planet was orbiting a star at thousands of kilometers per hour, rotating about a thousand kilometers an hour, and the star itself was hurling through space at incredible velocity. So it had more to do with local relationships.
Except the same stone rested within the galaxy-spanning energy field of The Force. And it was something that could act on all other things in the most remarkable of ways. It allowed someone like her to lift a speeder without ever touching it. It allowed her to manipulate heat and keep herself warm when she should freeze to death. And even generate more heat. She'd heard from a speech given by one of the old masters that it was
created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.
The relationship to consider here was The Force. Considering that it was an energy
field, it had no weight or mass, but it could impart energy to things with mass. But more than that it was an ever-present medium. Holding up one of the stones, she hefted it, then gave it a small toss, feeling it's weight again.
Balancing it on the tips of three fingers she held it up. The Force became like a cloud, a web, a grid, a matrix that flowed around and through her, the stone, around all of them in her mind. She imagined the lines between it, the rocks, the sky, the planet's core, and more, all of it within as suddenly hardening. Those relationships, she focused hard on them, doing her best to make them static in her mind and unchanging.
She began to lower her hand. The stone stayed in place for a moment before it dropped. Success!
Reaching out she tried again. It floated for a full second. Then dropped.
It was getting easier now, as she felt the difference, the changes. She felt the sensation of what it was like in the Force, and that she focused on more than the intellectual component. Five seconds. Again. Ten. But it was difficult. The Arkanian began to sweat from the effort, oblivious to the rest of the class, her focus narrowed to a single point. But she kept at it, not letting herself feel discouraged. But she wasn't satisfied, not until she'd managed to keep the stone floating in the air for a full minute.
Then it was time to do it with two stones. She managed it for maybe a second. Then again, coming in at two seconds. Then ten. But she was building the neural connections, feeling the sensation, refining her technique with every try. After several more minutes, she managed to get two to stay in the place where she directed. Then it came time to add a third, this she had to do using telekinesis for first. But now, it was more like telling the object and the Force to "stay" rather than exerting force on it directly.
And stay they did as she relaxed. That was the main thing to focus on, that she wanted it to stay in place, rather than counter-balancing everything, as though imagining the stones webbed or... velcroed into the fabric of space and the Force. Shakily she wiped her face then leaned back on her hands, still concentrating on keeping those little rocks exactly where she'd left them. "
That is so weird, and one of the tougher things I've done," she commented out loud. "
As far as techniques go."
