Truly, sir, your insights are so profound, your opinions so deep, and your phrasing so eloquent, that I can certainly see why you feel that you must deliver them to the world. Trust me, the supply far exceeds the demand.

Because canonically, you cannot use both at the same time. The mindset needed for the two sides conflicts too much, and the intent behind the powers is a key factor to using them. I immediately declare that Game Mechanics do not count. They are solely there for the game. That said, the Light Side is about helping, healing. Even Yoda says that you know you're using The Light Side when you are calm and at peace. Its powers focus on protection and healing, on beneficial interactions between land, person, and spirit. Conversely, The Dark Side is aggressive and about exhibiting dominance through pain. Force Lightning, Force Fear, these powers are malicious in their application and intent. I know that there are many ways to use Light Side powers maliciously or selfishly, and ways to use Dark Side powers beneficially, but the mindset conflicts. Horribly. You cannot heal someone you see as a tool, like The Dark Side view demands, because you don't care for their life enough to be able to summon that power to do so. You cannot use The Force to murder if you don't truly have the intent to harm and kill, which The Light Side is vehemently opposed to. Even if we are to draw on game mechanics, Dark powers are almost always weapons meant to cause harm. Light powers are those of protection or enhancing the body to exceed its limits by shielding yourself in the Force. The Potentium Theory thought they could blend Dark and Light. They were wrong. The Dark Side is, again, addictive and corruptive by nature. The more you use it, the more your "choice" of morals becomes less and less of a thing. Eventually the morals are gone. Look at Yuthura Ban in KotOR: The Sith Academy instructor who turned to the Dark Side to save her people who had been taken as slaves. But in using The Dark Side, following the path of The Sith, she felt her compassion for the slaves was all that was holding her back from grabbing a saber and going to murder the slavers. But if she gave up her compassion, you as Revan can clearly (and correctly) point out that if she gives up her compassion, she won't care about the slaves anyway, and they will never be freed by her hand. You get one side or the other, because you cannot have the mindset for both. You cannot at once be filled with serene calm and blinding rage, unconditional love and unabashed hatred. If you try both, you will eventually slide deeper and deeper to The Dark Side. Or go the Potentium route and create a Force Vampire that eats you.

Perhaps I should have excluded the reference to a drug, as I had meant to focus more on The Dark Side as an addiction. It has been stated many times over that using The Dark Side Of The Force makes it harder over time to break away from its influence. The negative emotions that fuel The Dark Side are, in their own ways, addictive by themselves. Abusing The Power of The Force, fueling anger and hatred, it can come in many different flavors. There is insane, unstoppable, unmitigated rage, just as there is quiet, subtle, seething hatred. You're right in that The Dark Side affects everyone differently. What I was trying go highlight was the idea that no matter how it affects you, how you use it, it is by its very nature corruptive, a toxin you need to take in more of because your body has become so accustomed to its presence that it starts to feel natural, normal.

Right? I guess the only world something like that could happen on is Nar Shaddaa? Regardless, that being the case, I shall see if I can drop by. Should be interesting.

This event is open to anyone who wants to come, I take it? It is not Guild Exclusive?

I Would not believe The Force is naturally corrupting. That seems to rail against the canonical idea that The Light Side is the "natural" state of The Force; it is intrinsically a peaceful and nurturing energy. After all, all living beings are touched by it; if it was, by its nature, corruptive and sinister, the SW Universe would probably be even more dystopian than some settings paint it in. I feel more along the lines that the corruptive nature of The Dark Side is more like an addiction. I bring up before how Palpatine seemed manic in combat, and that's a good point: he was not just happy, he had ascended into mania, a dangerous mental state. It is the excess of emotion that feeds The Dark Side, and in return it feels good. Like a drug, it feels almost euphoric to be in the throes of utter anger or maniacal bliss. It's what makes it so hard to give up or walk away from. The Light Side in return moderates those emotions, it does not give in to the addictive quality of The Dark Side because it never strays into the extremes of emotional energy. Jedi can be sad, but they do not fall into melancholia or severe depression. They get frustrated and angry, but don't boil over into murderous rage and unstoppable fury. They can be happy, but don't take it towards ecstasy-levels of bliss and mania that make them unawares of their current situation and status. Positive Emotions fuel the Light Side immensely, but they must be tempered. They are used to keep calm and poised, to exhale fears and angers and breathing in serenity through compassion, understanding, and acceptance. Most sentient beings want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery, hence why I feel very strongly that The Light Side IS The Force, and The Dark Side is a twisted perversion of its ideals.

Belhawk said it before, all pillars must have their symbols look like the double-roof with a line through the center. When that happens, you should get a visual effect in the game showing you the container being surged by power, at which point in time it will open. Once you put in the correct pattern for The Imperial Crest, it should only take a few seconds.

Stun is a nerf compared to knockdown. A major one. A stun you can break out of, you can mitigate it. A knockdown leaves you screwed and open to assault. The same thing happened to Scrapper Scoundrels/Concealment Operatives, in which they lost a Knockdown and replaced it with a stun, and every single one considers that a major nerf because it leaves a squishy class without their Alpha Strike. Whoever they attack will just either eat or break the Stun and then murder their attacker. A Sentinel is actually one of the best equipped to do this. A Sentinel does not need CC. This game does not need more CC. The Sentinel does not rely on things like that: your defenses are designed to prolong your offense. Pacify, Saber Ward, Guarded By The Force (at least if you're Focus Spec), Rebuke, these are your tools for staying alive, and the longer you stay alive, the more damage you should be doing. That's your job, not to CC. We are, essentially, the biggest, baddest damage dealer on the block, so much so that people who main anything other than Sentinels/Marauders cheer when we get nerfed because we are considered that OP. Respect your class and its role, and before you ask for something, consider how much that something will change the Class overall. It may seem minor to you, something to "put us on even field", but adding a strong CC option to the Sentinel would be very impactful to the class overall.

If The Republic fell, a LOT would be different in the events after this time period. Canon already has it that I believe 100 or so years after The Second Great War, The Galaxy was basically in utter peace. The Republic was happy and perfect and all was well. If The Empire won, truly won ... well ...

Beating The Emperor requires two simple tricks. 1.) You will die the first time. Most likely. This is inevitable, but also to your benefit, for when you die, you will go back and you will hit the TAB key and select The Big Bad. You will then never switch targets again. Doing this keeps you locked onto the Real Emperor, the one you actually have to kill to win. You will soon realize that he's kind of a chump. Put T7 into his stance that will draw aggro, send him in first, and then go be your awesome Jedi Self. Un-Kriffing-Load: your best rotations with your best priorities. I did it as a Focus Sentinel which meant getting that Sweep to hit as hard as possible every time. 2.) The other trick is interrupts. You MUST use your defensive cooldowns (such as Rebuke and Saber Ward) and you MUST interrupt his channeled attacks (using Force Kick, Force Stasis, etc.). If you do not interrupt, you will be eating all of the damage forever right to the face, and you will never win. You will NEVER win unless you get those interrupts down. Bind them to hotkeys, get used to them, and get ready to interrupt when you see the Emperor chargin' his lazar. Those 2 things will save your life and help you defeat the evilest Evil in The Galaxy. Good luck, young Jedi.

See, it's the "conduit" part that is so key as to how a Jedi uses The Force. Unlike a Sith, who believes she dominates The Force and makes it do her bidding, the Jedi sees The Force as a companion, a close friend: it is her ally, and a powerful ally it is. A Jedi allows The Force to flow through her, unsullied by her own emotions, so it resonates as a more "pure" energy, without the taint of The Dark Side, the taint of selfishness, strong emotion, and hunger. The Jedi themselves actually, individually, seem to encourage emotion. Kenobi had loves, as did many other Jedi Knights and Masters during the time when many of us believe that the restrictions imposed on Jedi were near-tyrannical. In fact, one of the best examples comes from Kenobi watching one of his loves die, and then catching the murderer. His Padawan was under the impression that if he truly loved her, he would kill her murderer and take vengeance on her behalf to prove his emotions. Instead, Kenobi does not give in to the desire of revenge, noting that he loved powerfully enough to be able to let her go with her passing. Death, Yet The Force. In that small story, we see the two approaches. The Sith ideal of letting your emotions dictate your actions, and the Jedi ideal of accepting your emotions for what they are, but putting the greater good before them. Kenobi used Love to calm himself, to find that inner peace. That is how a Jedi uses Positive Emotions, like was said before.

They do not abandon "good" emotions, though. Even Kenobi and Yoda said things along the lines of how compassion, a desire to protect, and the ability to love all living things selflessly and unconditionally are essential to being a Jedi: you cannot, after all, protect a Galaxy you care nothing about because you have no vested interest in it. It is not that Jedi feel nothing: that would make them automatons we cannot relate to as people. Jedi Feel, and Express, but they do so in ways that are to keep them calm and centered. Jedi get upset and angry, they laugh and joke, they fall in love and cry, they ran the gamut of emotional energy. They merely take the extra step to ensure that those emotions do not dictate their actions; they make sure that the deeds they do are selfless and without personal desire. Conversely, the Sith are all about letting their emotions dictate their actions. Their deeds are selfish and filled with their own personal desires. It's where the two philosophies split entirely: Sith are all about personal power and gain, about being selfish. Jedi are philanthropists and altruistic, shunning personal reward and satisfaction for the benefit of the Galaxy as a whole.

That's what it is, I could not remember the proper term. Thanks mate.

I believe the current canon is

This is all very easily understood when one looks at the FIRST Jedi Code, before this whole "No Emotion" nonsense. Emotion, Yet Peace Ignorance, Yet Knowledge Passion, Yet Serenity Chaos, Yet Harmony Death, Yet The Force Much more in line with Jedi Philosophy, if you ask me. Jedi are emotional creatures (they're alive, after all), but they need to be at peace with them. Not ignore or suppress them entirely, but understanding of and in balance with them. They must admit when they don't know things, but be open to learning. Passionate about what they do, but serene in the application. Recognizing of the chaos and entropy in life, and be able to flow and adapt with it. Understanding that all life ends, but aware that no one truly Dies. That, to me, is the true "spirit" of The Jedi Code. And slight Addendum: The Sith do not believe in all passions: Love is a poison to them, not matter how passionate, and is to be avoided or swiftly disposed of since love leads to compassion, and compassion tempers anger and hate. In that regards, love would very much be a Jedi Emotion ... if it is, again, a peaceful emotion, where one accepts that love and loss go hand in hand.

Not to mention the Senate (and Republic by virtue) catches a lot of flak. A lot of it. Which is only natural when you're dealing with a government that has, realistically, thousands of member states and their representatives. It's hard to keep track of it all. A war gets forgotten or brushed away here, some social injustice gets a slap on the wrist there, the Republic continues to think it does such an awesome job but meanwhile you get planets or even entire systems and sectors who first-hand witness Republic Corruption. And they don't like it. Then this Empire comes along saying that they have strong leadership (ha) and no corruption (haha), and where The Republic failed, The Empire would succeed. Hell, that idea alone is how I play my Imperial Agent; The Empire is a force for change against the stagnant, bureaucratic Republic that forgets the little guy under the weight of the entire Galaxy. So yes, the people aren't really all that different at all. You see a lot of extremists in TOR, but that's a natural part of societies too. In the end, the civilians on all sides just want peace and a return to trade and prosperity, rather than living in fear under the threat of war. So most likely, The Empire was defeated, or at least absorbed, by The Republic, and the focus went back towards rebuilding after the war.

Personally, the most ridiculous, minor limitation in the game to me comes down to weapons. My Jedi Sentinel NEEDS 2 lightsabers, otherwise he somehow forgets how to do the things he does? Why can he not use just 1 saber, or even a saberstaff? My Bounty Hunter can't use a blaster rifle? Fett used one. Dengar used one. IG-88 used one. Hell, the Trooper gets blaster rifles built for the Aim stat, so where is mine? Conversely, look at my awesome Shield Specialist Trooper, designed to get in close and smack things around! ... but he cannot use a melee weapon. There are NPC enemies in the game who function as Troopers with vibroswords; why can't I? My Imperial Agent is -restricted- to using just a blaster rifle? Even though I get a blaster -pistol- in the CUTSCENES? Why can I not use this? The Smuggler has Cunning-stat Pistols, but I am stuck with a rifle because ....? Being able to switch up weapons alone could lead to, at the very least, a little flavor. It could even open up the doors for Spec Trees being suited towards one type of weapon (A Sent/Mara has one tree for Single Hilt, one tree for Dual-Wielding, and one tree for the Saberstaff, or something like that). ... regardless, my Bounty Hunter is stuck with a pistol, and that's just wrong.

I had also assumed (or maybe I am remembering it wrong, thought it was mentioned in the Knight Storyline on Tython) that for the purposes of the Cold War, The Order relaxed on Age Restrictions for new trainees. Sort of a "either we teach them and do the best we can or the Sith will get them" philosophy. Buuuuut I could be wrong.

Would be nice to know the name of said Guild, to know who to look for?

Well, for starters my Jedi Sentinel is definitely more of a Grey Jedi; belief in the idea that the Light Side of The Force, and acts that benefit it and the Galaxy at large, shouldn't be tied down by Council restrictions. Jedi Knights, after all, are keepers of the Peace, and how can they protect a Universe if they alienate and segregate themselves from it by denying things like attachments, strong emotions, and the idea to do what is right over what is within the bounds of the law? Conversely, my Agent is incredibly Pro-Imperial, seeing them as a force for change against the stagnant and corrupt Senate of The Republic. However, he also does not kowtow to Sith, and believes them to be equally at fault for the current state of affairs. He despises their power plays, their abuse of body and mind through The Force, and wants the Empire to separate itself from The Sith so that it could propser without the infighting of The Dark Council. So, very much into character-driven stories, I wouldn't be opposed to Master/Apprentice as far as my Jedi goes. My Agent I feel would be the hardest to place, honestly.

Finding out that Jung Ma's RP seems to be hidden in the shadows if you don't frequent the boards (Which up until today, I did not). So, with that said, I've read and seen so far that Most of Jung Ma's RP rests in guilds. I come asking for the advice of what guilds would be best in mind to join. I play a Sentinel on The Republic side and a Sniper for The Empire, and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction towards a guild for both for RP purposes. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Alas, this is not that game, this is TOR. I feel that a Hybrid would be the only way to truly represent the Sentinel as it is in canon, because as it stands now we are -incredibly- Guardian, especially considering we do nothing BUT DPS. Never played WoW, so unfortunately I cannot draw comparisons from it. As for making the Sentinel more "interesting", I think I may have been onto something about letting us use more than just 2 blades. I've seen it be asked several times to tweak it so we can use just one, and it would be cool to see each Tree correspond to a certain saber: Juyo is the Saberstaff, meant to be in-your-face aggressive, Ataru would be Jar'kai meant to show acrobatics, skill, and a flurry of rapid attacks, and Shii-Cho would be the single blade, blending Force moves (Sweep, Exhaustion, Stasis) with the saber into a seemless assault.

Having never played a Consular before, I thank you for pointing me right towards where my AC is going to go, because that sounds wickedly cool. In regards to what I meant, I meant the Former. Not as in a "One Spec Fits All", but as in you have three different trees in your AC that all fulfill very different roles, but are meant to be blended in some way. If done properly? I don't think it would immediately make all other styles and ways to play the class obsolete. Starting simple, we take what you described: You can off-tank, and you can DPS at least enough to be viable. In those regards, though, you are a crummy tank because you aren't full specced as one, and the guys and gals who went for the full DPS Spec are going to wreck face far more than you because damage is their package and they are the delivery service. However, the Hybrid has a greater chance of surviving incoming damage over the DPSer, as he's part Tank. He also will do, on average, more damage than the Tank since he's got some nice sustained and burst damage options. I don't think that would cause a major outcry? Then again, First MMO as I've said before. But if they wanted to keep the "Sentinel" Name for a class, in my opinion it would be pretty cool if they had, so say, a Heal Tree, a Tank Tree, and a DPS Tree. Make them shorter trees so eventually you will fill up a tree by around 30-35 and have those 15-20 extra points that are going to go into another tree, leading to the chance to be a Tank who can also heal herself or her party if the going gets really rough. Granted, if they are healing, they are not tanking, and if they are tanking and healing themself, they are not doing damage, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention, shorter trees also equate to them not having some of the higher tier abilities that are, usually, necessary for the class to shine in its chosen field (picture playing a Focus Sentinel without Force Exhaustion and no way to build Singularity and you'll see what I'm getting at), which means that they will never be top-of-the-line at anything. However, they can adapt to become whatever the party needs of them in that moment, switching between roles on the fly. Maybe I just don't know enough about MMOs and balance issues, but I feel it would be the best way to truly represent what the Sentinel is: the Jack Of All Trades, but Master at none. I also feel that I am probably horribly off-topic.

Which is a shame, to me, honestly; how awesome would it be to have a tree (or an AC in general) that was DESIGNED to be a Hybrid by nature? A really cool idea that I think BioWare really missed out on.