The High Cost of Peer Learning

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Jessica knew with almost absolute certainty what kind of Jedi she would become: one of these cerebral types, some sort of Consular or almost so. She preferred to fight at range if she *did* have to fight, even though she'd rather not fight unless forced to. That, even if Star Tours Guide to Force Specialties, which, unlike Jedi Path: A Manual for Force Students, covered all three cults rather than one, placed Jedi Technicians alongside Sentinels but they probably were closer to Consulars than they were to Guardians. And Jessica had an appointment with a certain Giana: Giana will be surprised upon seeing at her boss' office door on Geonosis - her boss was a Techno Empire Senator and was hence entitled to office space on Geonosis when on official Techno Empire business in Venturi, that city serving as capital for said Techno Empire. Knowing her boss, so long as she doesn't feth it up, she can use any corporate or official asset as she wants. Even though Ringovinda Systems is hers to run, it is still a subsidiary of Ringovinda StarYards; in that case it's its parent corporation that pays taxes to Silver Jedi Revenue so that Jedi can go around their business.

"Jessica, there is someone here for you" Charzon's protocol droid told Jessica in that office.

"There's this set of textbooks I have in my library that I've started to crack open once again. I have these clear memories of that Witch that once asked for a measure of explanation about just how these new powers come about. I'm Jessica and, while that decision of who will my master be is not made, we can still make some inroads before either of us gets one: these textbooks' contents will probably be of some help"

Hopefully Giana would end up being of that sort that actually wants to understand how a power operates: Jessica knew all too many Force-users would just use a given power without any understanding of what a given power does to its target. To her, most powers do not require a particular mindset, emotional state or alignment to work so long as you understood how that power worked. She bought as little into these mystical parts of space magic as she possibly could: not surprising for one that once told Cathul that spirit ichor came in many varieties, only some of which are perceptible; those that are, are called hermitian. And when they are observed, they only take certain values called eigenvalues.

[member="Giana Froelich"]

 

[Giana Froelich]

Today, Giana was meeting up with another force sensitive that she had made an appointment with. So here she was, on Geonosis, on her way to see [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] and was rather excited to find someone who had similar interests as herself. Giana was quite perceptive for a 19 year old and was always willing to learn new and different things than what she was used to.

When she got to the front desk in the office she was directed to come to, she told the droid she was there to see Jessica.

"That's a great idea. I'm Giana, by the way. I'm always looking for something new to start learning. Which type of powers have you started reading about? I've found holocrons on different types of magic and powers.. but they didn't seem to explain everything about the powers. I brought a few with me; I thought maybe the books would be able to help further the knowledge we are receiving from the holocrons."

​she responded. She briefly knew a young Jedi Padawan who harnessed the ability to create and control ice. The girl didn't know how to explain it when Giana asked and not too much longer, the girl ran off. So she had to admit, she was curious about what they would find in the books and holocrons she brought, put together.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Ah, Giana, well met. You have realized by now that so many among Force-using populations don't understand these mechanisms behind their powers they themselves use. I discovered that long before I actually began to use that thing called Force"

Giana mentioned something about an ability to create and control ice. What Giana did not know was: that kit of textbooks on what is officially Charzon's desk is that they are actually just plain biology, chemistry or physics textbooks. At the bottom lied Cathul's reading list so that witch could master molecular manipulation, along with a kit of other spells, spells that Jessica would learn in due course, meaning that it would be kept last. Included with it would be a condensed matter/AMO text, as well as a thermodynamics textbook. Jessica knew then in what order to explain each power, but abilities to create and manipulate ice (and likewise fire) were not that common among Jedi: most Guardians had little use for spellcasting, and would rather use lightsabers or other weapons to fight. And Jedi Guardians, along with their subclasses, were a very common Jedi variety in the galaxy (at least according to Star Tours Guide to Force Specialties). It was true that many Force-sensitives that could use pyrokinesis or cryokinesis did not have a grasp of thermodynamics or statistical mechanics to begin with, so they had to make do without understanding how the spell worked.

"You would be surprised about just how many spell mechanisms can actually be explained in terms of scientific concepts. They call Force-sensitives space wizards, and one of these reasons why we are called space wizards is that we have an ability to use Force as if magic, such as creating and controlling ice. It turns out that reversing that process of creating and controlling ice would allow to create and control fire. All it takes is a basic grasp of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and then you can understand how pyrokinesis and cryokinesis work"

Jessica hoped that Gianna had enough intellectual wherewithal to understand thermodynamics processes behind pyro/cryokinesis. Was Jessica to train Jedi at a later date, she would probably be that go-to Jedi to train Technicians, but choosing to become a Jedi Technician is an intellectually demanding path. That's why so many shy away from that specialty. Not that space magic made people smarter, but she was suspected way too many times of being too smart not to be a space witch as a pre-teen, and later, knowing too much about space magic not to be able to use it, about five years back.

[member="Giana Froelich"]

 

[Giana Froelich]

"Yes, well I have been very inquisitive about the fact of how other force sensitives are able to control these powers through the force where others cannot. It's been a question that has stuck in my mind for many years. They use the powers, but yet have no knowledge on how they receive and use them."

She responded. Giana knew that the force worked in mysterious ways, but those "mysterious ways" was what she wanted to dive further into. She had heard once that ice and fire alike, along with lightning, etc. had been apart of the force and was only force related. She wanted to find a way to prove that it for sure was not the only way to use ice, fire, etc. She had this thing for asking questions and answering them herself if she hadn't received the answer she was looking for. She just had to make sure that what she was hearing, was in fact a fact and not gibberish.

"Thing is, what about those who control ice, fire and the like without the force even being in their blood? At that point is it truly still force related or is it a totally different force at work that isn't even the force?? As you mentioned, everything is science. Life is science and math. Everything we run into has an equation. Say the force isn't included in this equation. What plus what is going to equal said powers? Would the Midichlorians even come into an account at that point, or is it a totally different chemical reaction that is forming such things inside a living being?"

She asked. Too many questions were running through her head and they all just seemed to come out at once.

"I apologize for the over dose of questions, it's just I haven't really been able to ask such things in a while without being told I'm totally crazy."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"What almost everyone fails to realize is that midichlorian counts alone do not capture everything there is about a person's ability to use space magic. Those people who can only use a restricted subset of powers without being able of using it all, as you describe. You see, midichlorians have a DNA of their own; their genetic code is, individually, made to be more attuned to a particular set of powers: that is why false-negatives could occur on a midichlorian counter"

Combine to that information, a midichlorian counter is vulnerable to false-positives if used in a Force-nexus. Force-nexuses can cause a midichlorian counter to double-count midichlorians and hence all these false-positive risks she was always talked about as a child. But that was one of those few tests of Force-sensitivity that can cause false-positives in a Force-nexus. How could that Jedi Healer claim that I need not worry about Force-nexuses when I was last tested? Did she have access to some midichlorian counter that didn't double-count midichlorians at a nexus, maybe even of her own design? she thought. Most other tests would not. Like that variant of that infamous Zener test? That very test she was exposed to on Corulag and that she could always get that one final card right no matter what, regardless of what happens before? But it turned out that her childhood test was placing her in some sort of gray area where it was more effective not to train her in space magic than to do so, hence its negative ruling.

"Given these considerations, it is safe to say that it is still Force-related or, as some would say, related to space magic. Now, you may try to use space magic so that you could pick my brain, as you would a computer, if you want more answers. I will not try to oppose you"

[member="Giana Froelich"]

 

[Giana Froelich]

"Very interesting. So basically what you're saying, is the midichlorians still come into an account here, they're just working in a different way than they usually would."

she responded. Giana was always curious about the midichlorians coming into effect when it came to magic, powers, the force, etc. Giana was always wondering multiple things, but when it came to training and Jedi stuff, the force was one of the first to come to mind. She had run into many people who had reported no force even in their family lineage, but they were able to harness magic of all kinds. But, the force was related in a way without really being involved. Basically the people she met, were witches. Hearing what Jessica said, a small frown came upon Giana's face.

"I couldn't do such a thing. After all, I do believe you and it's not an interrogation."

she responded.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"So you're saying that you would be unable to use Drain Knowledge, then - for some reason I'm a prime training target for those people wishing to learn either Force-comprehension or Drain Knowledge. Do you have the impression that you're used as a target for people to learn Drain Knowledge or Force-comprehension on? I know you're a smart cookie by now"

Jessica accepted that as the cost of her intelligence once she accepted that she was a Force-sensitive. Most people would be targeted by Drain Knowledge for specific bits; Force-comprehension could use two or three different mechanisms. Either you picked a person's brain as a computer in the Force, to compel another to do your thinking in your place, or you accelerated your own neural processes. Naturally some intellectually-challenged people chose the former, while the latter would probably be used by people closer to Giana's intellectual level. But Jessica had an impression that Giana was smart enough not to have to use Force-comprehension or Drain Knowledge regularly. She tried Force-comprehension or Memory Enhancement, but she found those to be completely ineffectual on herself. She knew her intelligence was finite, however, but she never seemed to be up against its limitations, except for a few specific instances. When she got a chance to be comfortable with a person's abilities, she has no inhibitions about digging in deep into what she knew.

"They say the Force is infinite. It is infinite in several respects: what witches call spirit ichor actually come in many, many varieties. To me, the set of all spirit ichor varieties is a Hilbert space, and, while Force-observables are said to be hermitian, that is, can only take real-valued eigenvalues, in which case what you actually observe, when an observation is made, is an eigenvalue. But not all Force-operators associated to hermitian spirit ichor can be observed, and there are those Force-operators that have complex-valued eigenvalues. Stop me here if you feel you don't understand"

So Force-operations are actually quantum operations? That is not a new notion to neither Jessica nor Cathul, but it took a fairly advanced mathematical mind with at least some grasp of linear algebra to see it the way these two ladies did. But that is the sort of stuff that caused her prospective master, the Emperor of the Techno Empire, to regard Jessica as being more computer or droid than person. Werah would probably regard Cathul that way, too - and yet both Cathul and Jessica had, to the eyes of other Force-users, oversized brains: after all, from that standpoint they were more similar to each other than different.

[member="Giana Froelich"]

 

[Giana Froelich]

"No.. no-no. I just feel that who I am speaking with should be trusted. I shouldn't have to go searching your brain if I already believe you. It's not in my nature to just go and randomly look through someone's brain. Yes, I am smart.. but I'm smart enough to have learned my boundaries as well."

she responded calmly. Giana felt it was more of a rude thing to do if she was the one invited to her place. Unless she was in dire need and had no other choice than to do so, she had her limits and wasn't going to take advantage of something that wasn't needed at that time and place. Yes, Giana wanted to enhance her knowledge of the force, but she sensed that she herself would go overboard and would end up going down a path she didn't want to and that was power. Giana had no want for extensive power. She just felt that she would get too used to something and would do it with everything.

"Hmmmm.. I believe the fact that I understand as that is quite interesting."

she responded.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The life of a Force-scholar is a good fit for you. The main drawback to approaching the Force the way we both do is that it takes really smart Force-users to actually use the Force based on it hence only a limited number of practitioners exist that actually use their knowledge of the principles governing the universe around them to use the Force"

And even Jessica feels that she has more knowledge than power to use it sometimes. She realizes that Giana had a limited desire to actually use the Force, unlike these Jedi Healers (she regarded Cathul almost as one back in the day even though Cathul is a Witch) who are all too eager to use Force-healing and, in some cases, spam it. For some reason she can't help but think of where Giana would be slotted compared to those people in the Sith Inquisitor article that talked about geniuses, probably around where Sindy would be. It turns out that they mixed up Cathul with the first admin of Force-sensitivity tests Jessica took, since the description they made of the first admin matched almost perfectly with Cathul's, except that Cathul wasn't a Jedi. And Cathul was almost the same as Jessica in many intellectual respects. However, the first two admins were almost identical intellectually and Jessica always compared people to these two ladies. They were bordering on unnaturally smart, but they were not quite smart enough to be considered "computerized" by the Force - they only needed a little extra smarts to be computerized. Those considered "computerized" usually had more than 2 standard deviations above the Force-user average's worth of intelligence, according to laymen's definitions. That is, they could be used by the Force whenever someone uses Force-comprehension or Instinctive Astrogation Control. Or be juicy targets to practice Drain Knowledge on. But even they would be considered geniuses by a lot of Force-users, let alone Giana or Jessica.

"Jedi and Sith alike both say that knowledge is power, but knowledge as power has quite a bit of limitations. Sometimes I feel that many Jedi Guardians chose to become Guardians because their intellectual firepower is a little limited, and likewise with Sith Marauders. Many Sith Lords would kill to be as smart as either of us. Do you have other questions?"

[member="Giana Froelich"]

 

[Giana Froelich]

Listening to what Jessica was saying was pretty interesting. A force scholar?? She had never really heard of it. She probably had, Giana was just probably not listening at the time it was talked about.

"What is a force scholar? I believe that's something I rarely hear about. I've probably heard about it before, but I don't believe I know the meaning of it."

she asked. Giana understood the fact that some force wielders held no boundaries, where others like herself, respected the well being of others. Was Giana a total angel? No.. Heck no! She was ruthless when it came to battle and a few other things. Though she just stood up for herself and allies, the defenseless and friends. Either way, she preferred to get a barring on the force rather than just using it against anyone's will.

Even though Giana was respecting boundaries here, when it came to enemies, she was brutal and if anyone was captured by her, she searched every little crease of their mind. It wasn't a very holy job, but if that was her orders, she did them. She listened to the rest of what Jessica had to say, before taking a second to think and then responded.

"Interesting... no.. I don't believe I have anymore questions at this moment."

she responded.

~ [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] ~​

​

((OOC: I apologize a million times over. I meant to respond and then a whole bunch of events went on here and we were in and out non stop))

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The term Force-scholar, as I usually understand it, is meant to encompass people who devote their lives to the pursuit of knowledge, history and lore of the Force, as well as understanding it, regardless of Force-denomination or Force-alignment"

Many Force-scholars were those who had a limited command of Force-usage, but whose intellectual abilities and personality made them crave such knowledge. Cathul had too good a command of the Force to be a Force-scholar; the cartoon that one sees in the Sith Inquisitor at some point depicted her as a Twi'lek with a pointy hat, a magic wand and a witch robe. I hope she understands that there is more to intelligence, on a biological basis, than simply the size of one's brain: if she understood that, then she would understand that I am more than a brain with a Force-user. Sometimes people around me think I am just a brain with a Force-user, she thought. Especially since a few among the Silver Jedi once commented about how her own intelligence was a gift, especially Dune. Several people whose midichlorian counts were a little on the low side that were tested at the same time as she was, but who were nevertheless Force-sensitives, ended up becoming Force-scholars.

"I'm happy that I was able to answer your questions then"

[member="Giana Froelich"]