The objects' history books (Psychometry, open to all)

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Once the Assembly meeting ended, Jessica wasted no time getting comfortable again in the temple's premises on Voss. Already her vast knowledge of the Force was making her one of the favorites in the temple for more reasons than one. On Caluula she knew that some people around these parts knew her by name and readily associated her with one attribute: intellect. Said intellect allowed her to pick up on new Force-powers much faster, while knowing that sometimes knowing too many powers can be a liability. Yet [member="Jairdain"] was among the first to arrive for this new lesson on psychometry, as she requested it; she was waiting on others to arrive. Oh, from what she knew of Jairdain's assignments as part of the Silver Jedi, she may not have had the time to go through the whole kit of items in the reading list Jessica gave Jera back on Trian. I would expect other would-be Sentinels to come here: psychometry is very useful for policing, she thought.

"I'm Jessica Med-Beq, and welcome to today's training session on psychometry"

 

[Jairdain]

Jairdain was ever patient, but had arrived early to the class session for psychometry. This was one lesson she wasn't going to miss. Even as a Knight there was still so much to be learned about the Force.

She felt Jessica approaching and turned to her with a large smile when she arrived. When Jairdain was just a Padawan with the Jedi, she had taken a lesson with Jessica and knew there wasn't going to be much returned emotion from the woman, but that wouldn't stop her from expressing her own.

At their last lesson, Jessica had given Jairdain a bunch of research to do, but that was more about maths and sciences and not the Force. Her education had capped at the end of primary school and after that she had gone to a school for children gifted in using the Force. From that point on, her education consisted of Force and combat training only. She had excelled in the used of the Force, but was not a good fighter.

"Good morning, Master Jessica."

The warmth was in her voice as the last time they had met, Jessica was a Knight and had been granted the rank of Master.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Kaden]

Knowledge is power and Kaden wished to know it all. He was Sith, after all, and the culture thrived on power. Something the pureblood couldn't let go, despite his new Jedi ways.

So, in the classroom he strode, right on time. His amber gaze flicked over the students first, assessing the mix-mash of species and ages, before settling finally on Jessica. The pureblood bowed his head respectfully and then made his way into the classroom proper.

Having found an empty seat, he sat down and pulled a datapad from the folds of his robes, placing it on the table in front of him. Psychometry would be a valuable asset in his travels and Kaden would not miss one piece of information.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"]​

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Jessica began to distribute the items that were collected onboard, including the lightsabers of two fallen Sith Acolytes onboard the Tenchu back on Dromund Kaas, placed in front of [member="Jairdain"] and [member="Kaden"] respectively as well as other items used by marines that fought onboard. Even though she would ordinarily use computer equipment to teach psychometry, she had to make do with what's available. She realizes that There is no emotion, there is serenity may have made her come across as cold to Jera's eyes,but Kaden was, comparatively, an unknown to her, to whom she is willing to give a chance. Yes, she heard that several Sith purebloods were more vulnerable to the dark side, but that would not deter her in any shape or form: perhaps she could make it work. That is, provided that the gruesome details of the acolytes' deaths would not prove too disturbing to either person.

"Psychometry is useful in order to trace back when an item broke down, or for investigating crime scenes, because it allows you to read an item's history like a book. Now, hold the items in front of you and use the Force to read through its Force-history, and remember that important events in an item's life, that is, what it was used for, as well as by whom, what or when will be more easily recorded into the item's Force-history, even though the more recent items will come out first"

 

[WelshGuy]

Yuroic was racing through the Temple, barging past the other Jedi who were wandering around the Temple, minding their own business. No no no no no no no no... He was late, very late for the teachings on psychometry. It was a Force skill that he was told could be useful, he wasn't hundred percent clear on what it did but all that matter was it was something to learn. He wanted to learn as much as he could about being able to use the Force.

Therefore, running through the Temple. He had taken one of his morning walks through the woods and enjoyed the peacefulness of nature, so much so that he lost track of time. He was not pleased with himself on that one. He knew whoever was teaching the class would not be happy with his tartness. Yuroic weaved through the crowd best he could before a crowd of slow moving Jedi blocked his path.

No! No, no no no! Move! Moooooooooooooove! Yuroic screamed internally as he attempted to move around them to little avail. Finally they noticed his impatience and move aside, where he once again raced forward to the classroom.

He almost rushed past the room before he slammed the door open wide and rushed in. He was very much out of breath at this point, bent over with his hands holding his knees. Panting hard he could barely speak, gulping as much air as he possibly could.

Sorry... late... want... learn... walk... time... oh... never run... need drink... ahhhh... Was all he could say before he grabbed a bottle of his water he kept on his belt and drained it empty. He licked his lips, satisfying his thirst before he noticed Kaden and Jairdain were the only others and sat down next to them. Giving each a smile before looking at Jessica ready to learn.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"] | [member="Kaden"]

 

[Kaden]

A crimson hand reached out to grab the lightsaber, but was halted by the interruption of Yuroic stumbling into the classroom. A snort flew out of Kaden's nose at the sight of the young man gasping for air, followed by, "Glad you found the time to join us, Yuroic."

Humoured, Kaden shook his head and picked up the lightsaber.

"Use the force... To read its force history... Right."

He channeled his focus, and his connection to the force, through his arms and into the lightsaber. It was akin to prying open a mind with the force, something Kaden had been on the receiving end of not too long ago.

He began to unravel the first layer of history surrounding the weapon and discovered it possessed a dark signature.

"This lightsaber belonged to a Sith," he announced, aloud.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"] | [member="Yuroic Xeraic"]​

 

[Jairdain]

Jairdain was about to reach out to take the offered saber when Yuroic came rushing into the room all out of the breath and breathing hard. He apologized to Jessica and took a seat next to her and Kaden. She couldn't help but smile at his entrance to the class.

"Calm down."

She would reach a hand out to give emphases to her words and turned her attention back to the saber in front of her. Being an empathic person already, she assumed this class would be easier to learn than the other knowledge Jessica had already given her. Though she remembered everything the woman had taught her, Jairdain was still reading the large list of books she had suggested all those months ago.

Though she did not need to close her eyes to use the Force like many others did, Jairdain did it out of habit. Picking up the saber, she looked at it and felt darkness, emotions around it and death. Whoever had owned this saber had been a darkside user and had died while holding it.

"Same with this one, Master Jessica. It was a darkside user, I could assume a young sith as the power the person had wasn't fully dark. An initiate, not a knight or whatever the equivalent with the sith are called. The person that used this blade died while holding it. The connection to its owner just stops and is then picked up by another person."

@Kaden [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The reason why one needs to touch an object when using psychometry is that the Force-histories are written by the Force by way of leaving subtle tactile imprints. Also, be careful: if the item has been heavily involved in the use of the dark side, was loaded with heavily negative emotions or saw heavy usage by powerful dark-siders, you may temporarily be tainted by the dark side. For this reason it is a good idea to wash one's hands prior to using psychometry whenever possible"

[member="Jairdain"] might have wanted to become a diplomat, but [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] or [member="Kaden"] may be more wide open. Also, she knew certain Sentinels and Guardians wanted to become Force-using bounty hunters for whom psychometry was an important part of what their duties as Jedi will entail once on the field. Clearly Jairdain seemed to be more naturally predisposed towards psychometrical use: she was able to pick up more details beyond simply "the last user was a dark-sider". But this is only a foundation: they are still beginners.

"If any of you wish to use psychometry for policing, sometimes more detail about the involvement of an item with a suspect or event may be sought after, but be mindful of using psychometry on dead people: intense emotions may be experienced that way, and sometimes they can get out of control, leaving someone with the taint of the dark side"

 

[WelshGuy]

He gave a big smile to Jairdain before watching her and Kaden state the previous masters of the lightsabers they were holding. He took one in his hand and looked it over, there was nothing obvious on the design of it and he couldn't tell if the weapon had been a Sith's or a Jedi's so he was lost on how they did it so quickly. He knew that the Force was involved but he couldn't understand how one could just see what happened to something they had never seen before.

However, Yuroic called upon the Force and focused on the object. He implored it to show him the past but at first nothing happened then it all happened at once. A ship. Sense of death. Darkness all around. He dropped the lightsaber and moved back, stunned by what happened.

Woah. Woah woah woah woah. Wow... Urm... What was that? Yuroic had never had anything like that happen before, to see, experience something completely unrelated to him felt alien, impossible. I saw a ship, there was a sense of death and yeah they were dark side inclined...

He felt freaked out, this was the first time he had done something beyond telekinesis with the Force. To see something like that, he felt strange, also alien.

[member="Kaden"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"]

 

[Kaden]

Feelings of inadequacy seeped into Kaden's mind as the others discussed their findings. Even Yuroic, a bud yet to blossom into the force proper, had sussed out more about these lightsabers than he. The arrogance coursing through his pure blood dictated he had to be better than them, and so the Sith closed his mind once more and delved into the durasteel chassis of the weapon.

Glimpses and flashes filled his mind; drawn out by Kaden's command of the force. It wasn't enough, though, with the only discernible thing coming to light was the weapon's inherent darkness.

It clicked with the darkness inside the pureblood, causing his inner harmony to favor the sinister emotions swirling within his being. He felt this shift, and, instead of resisting, used it to his advantage.

As his signature gradually grew darker, more discernible details became strong enough to witness. Finally, the pureblood set the lightsaber down; it almost bounced off the table with the force at which it had been dropped.

"This belonged to an acolyte," he began, expanding upon his earlier statement. There was a sharpness to his voice that cut through the air. "A mockery of the ancient Sith customs. My customs." His pure blood ran hot with contempt.

"A weak individual. A Zabrak. She lost her life because she wasn't strong enough to survive. Her name was Reetah, and she died the horrible death she deserved."

[member="Yuroic Xeraic"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"]​

 

[Jairdain]

The reaction of Kaden while slightly surprising, didn't bother Jairdain in the slightest. It brought some amusement to her face as she felt his emotions flickering through the Force. Lastly it settled on that of unease.

However, when Kaden looked again to his test item, she felt him grow darker in aspect, touching upon the darkness within him and she raised one of her eyebrows. This was Jessica's class, but she so much wanted to step in and calm the sith pureblood down. However, that would be something for the Jedi Master to deal with and not her.

Reaching for one of the other items brought, it ended up being a blaster from one of the enemy troopers that was collected in this same battle. Probing it with the Force to get a read on it, it had belonged to a female, only a little older than Jairdain herself. She didn't die holding the blaster though.

"What happened to this trooper, Master Jessica?"

[member="Kaden"] [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"With Kaden, you have now seen how the Force-history of an object can lead to the embrace of the dark side. I understand that sometimes it can be difficult to keep one's emotions in check, but this is what alchaka is for: that is how I can seemingly appear to be devoid of any emotion. You may wish to learn alchaka, too, since it allows one to clear one's mind from emotions"

To the best of her recollections, the two acolytes that boarded the Tenchu were also overloaded with radioactive stims. Reetah and someone else. [member="Kaden"] might have been a Sith pureblood, but Jessica still believed in him; he might have known about something called the Sith Code but that was not the place for her to discuss the Sith Code. Meanwhile, [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] might have been implicitly talking about the Tenchu; however, the blaster [member="Jairdain"] was holding was involved in the action within Kaas City, around the Citadel. From what she knew about the groundside action, the city's airspace was under near-complete SJ lockdown, but, if some of the items of the lot were killed without actually holding the blasters, as she herself touched another of those blasters collected from the wreckage of Dromund Kaas' battlefields around the Citadel. She turned to Jera:

"That trooper was another one of those conscripts that died before the craft could make landfall: that blaster in my hand also belonged to someone in the same landing craft as the blaster you are examining"

 

[WelshGuy]

Yuroic reached out cautiously and touched the lightsaber once more, he could feel the Force bubbling away within it. Now that he had seen the past life it seemed as if it wanted to share all its experiences. Yuroic took a deep breath and looked within, he found it difficult to get more than fleeting feelings, pride, sorrow, hatred, anger. It was so much and so raw, he couldn't grasp at anything. Then he heard a word, single word and he could feel the anger brew within himself. All the images slowed down.

Look who I found! Dirty little slave girl. Yuroic watched as the Sith Acolyte taunted the slave girl no older than seven or eight. Master was not happy with you little girl... I was sent to correct that. His horror intensified as the Acolyte stabbed their saber into the slave girl. Killing her instantly.

He snapped back to the present and threw the lightsaber down, moving away and not wanting to touch it. They killed her. She was no older than eight. They stabbed her, she was a little girl and they murdered her. He could feel his emotions building up as the scene was burnt into his mind. They were Acolytes, there was mention of a Master... Yuroic said, his voice hollow.

I hope they died painfully. He uttered to himself.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"] | [member="Kaden"]

 

[Kaden]

As calmness returned to Kaden and he found harmony once more, his eyes looked to Jessica. An inquisitive gaze met her own, and jerked his chin before asking, "Alchaka?"

Ridged eyebrows frowned slightly.

"What is that? Perhaps you could teach us that before we taint ourselves even more with these recovered weapons."

In response to Yuroic's own emotional findings, Kaden placed a red hand on his fellow padawan's back. "If they were on Kaas," he began - a heaviness in his voice.

"They did."

A small reassurance, one that would hopefully calm the man down.

[member="Yuroic Xeraic"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"]​

 

[Jairdain]

Hearing the voices of her fellow students that were garnering way more information from their items, Jairdain moved onto another blaster.

When she picked it up, it bore details showing it had been in battle, not just once but many times over the course of years and several fights. Unlike the first one, this blaster almost warm to the touch.

"Whoever owned this...this was his life. He had been in countless battles and took care of this blaster almost more than he cared for himself. He even named his gun. Suzannah and his name was Justin."

She set the blaster down and looked in the direction of Jessica with a smile on her face.

"I think I figured this out."

[member="Kaden"] [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Yuroic, I even fought the two acolytes' master in the reactor room: one Whiphid called Velok the Younger. Painful deaths? Reetah and the other acolyte were first targeted by glop, and then fired at by particle beam emplacements... and I think they were given radioactive stims after the slave girl was killed" she added to what [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] said about the acolytes' actions prior to even taking the radioactive stims.

And the medbay where they were herded to after the paralysis beams were fire was, well, condemned. Yes, the Resurgent Empire did win on Dromund Kaas, but they paid a heavy price: over 200,000 dead and, while they collect the spoils, Dromund Kaas has actually pretty little in terms of spoils. And a high cost of reconstruction relative to said spoils. As [member="Jairdain"] would say, one Justin was part of the Resurgent Legions, which was, at the time of his death, part of one of those elite units; in the RE's conventional forces, what few volunteers they do get are usually placed as elites. Almost everyone else could credibly claim that morale among the RE's population is pretty low due to the meat grinder. Yet, she was more than puzzled. How? How could we lose Dromund Kaas despite having the planet's airspace under lockddown? How could we lose Dromund Kaas even though their casualty count far outweighed ours, and they were ineffectual against our own heavy equipment? Did I make a mistake by not committing the ground forces I had at my disposal down to the Citadel, or in the jungle? she thought, while so many reasons for such a defeat, however Pyrrhic it is, could come up.

"Alchaka is about using the Force to clear one's mind of conscious thought, and also to inhibit emotions. At the beginning it requires a significant amount of energy to flush emotions out of one's mind - to a Force-user near you, it will look as if you were blowing off steam as the emotions are being flushed" she told [member="Kaden"].

 

[WelshGuy]

Yuroic watched as Jairdain gained information from the blaster. His anger at the acolytes grew in the pit of his stomach as he thought over the information that Jessica was giving them. However, the scenes of the murdered slave girl still haunted his mind. He couldn't move the past the images, they caused something deep in him to well up.

How do we move past the horrors that we might see? Yuroic swallowed hard as he felt the well in his stomach building quickly as he lowered his head and rubbed his temples slowly. Hoping he can withdraw from deep-seated fear that is building within him.

[member="Kaden"] | [member="Jairdain"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Kaden]

The pureblood's ears twitched as he listed to Jessica. It seemed that Alchaka would be a superb way to manage his own emotions in daily life, not just in regards to psychometry. He nodded at her words and leaned forward in his seat to inquire further.

"But how does one use Alchaka? What must I do?"

Out of the corner of his eye, the Sith witnessed Yuroic struggling. He patted the man again on the back once more and offered a snippet of friendly advice.

"Don't move past them. View them; conquer them."

[member="Yuroic Xeraic"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Jairdain"]​

 

[Jairdain]

Listening to the answer Jessica provided to Yuroic and Kaden, she wondered if she already knew this technique called Alchaka. Waiting until the others were done speaking and asking their own questions before speaking her own.

"Master Jessica, is there a way I may already know about this skill but not by that name? It would be similar to the electric one. I had already known that when you told me about."

She never denied the fact she had emotions, but didn't allow them to control her. When the need arose and a potential emotion becoming strong, she would lock it away in a box in her mind until such a time she could examine what caused it and why.

Explaining the to them, Jairdain hoped she said it clearly enough they would understand what she meant.

[member="Kaden"] [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Now, visualize your emotions as the contents of your mental cache and purge your mental cache. Here the mental cache is different from one's working memory: if you're familiar with the cache and RAM in computing equipment, the mental cache would be just like a cache memory in a computer, and a person's RAM is its working memory"

What [member="Jairdain"] referred to as "locking away emotions in a mental box" might be more accurately referred to subconscious storage. But here a mental cache is not the same as working memory, and to Jessica's eyes, the working memory is closer to RAM, and seems to be less involved with emotions. Then again, such verbiage would betray her own background in mechu-deru, which was a regularly requested item for her to train other people in since it became known that she even was a Force-user in the first place, even as a padawan. No use hiding it: while, of course, mechu-deru is often associated with the dark, I'm one of the big-ticket light-sided users, she thought, while also being reminded that psychology is not quite her cup of tea, and that Cathul, however lacking in competence as a therapist as she was (and was even described in First Order propaganda as such, even though, or perhaps because, she was the most medvac-oriented among the Alliancist admiralty), definitely knew more about neuropsychology than she did. Maybe [member="Kaden"] or [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] may not have gotten it...

"You realize, perhaps, that one's mental cache is a major component in the mechanism of emotional expression. I apologize if that analogy drawn with computing equipment may be inappropriate, it's just my mechu-deru background playing tricks with me sometimes"