Midichlorian lore

[Blacktailstalker]

I read that midichlorians are microscopic livin organisms that enables the force. Is there mention that these living organisms also alter your facial attributes when ya fall on the dark side? like red eyes , pale face etc ..

[Nissin]

I wouldn't except any in depth lore on something Lucas probably thought of while taking a crap reading the morning paper.

[PeepsMcJuggs]

I wouldn't except any in depth lore on something Lucas probably thought of while taking a crap reading the morning paper.

 

Hence the red eyes and pale face. Lucas needs some roughage.

[ErikModi]

/soapbox

 

I have a bone to pick about people who unabashedly hate midichlorians, mostly because they do so for what I perceive to be the wrong reasons. My summation, copy/pasted from elsewhere on the interwebz:

 

Midichlorians really didn't transform the Force into a biological phenomena. It's still an energy field created by all living things. All midichlorians do is allow access to that energy field. It still takes discipline and training to use properly, it's still not strictly a genetic phenomena (otherwise the Jedi prohibitions on marriage and family would result in there being no more Jedi within about a hundred years.)

 

A lot of people seem to assume the midichlorians create the Force. This is true, just as it is true that humans, Wookiees, Cereans, Togruta, and even Hutts create the Force. As Obi-Wan said, "the Force is an energy field, created by ALL LIVING THINGS" (emphasis mine.) Yoda later added "Life creates it, makes it grow." Midichlorians are alive, just as bacteria and viruses are alive, and thus they too create the mystic energy field known as the Force.

 

I think a lot of the hate toward the concept of midichlorians stems from some basic misunderstandings about what they are. People assume that they create the Force, which I as I show above is only part of the truth. Others assume they ARE the Force, which is a leap of logic that is simply not founded by any of the things said about them in TPM or RotS. All Qui-Gon ever says is that "they communicate with us, telling us the will of the Force." If anything, this deepens the mystery of the Force. . . now it has a will, communicated to living beings through the substance of their very bodies? As the astromechs of SW:TOR might say, Mind=Blown.

 

I actually had a long soapbox on this very subject over on the HERO System boards not long ago. At the risk of pontificating, repeating myself, getting preachy, and generally turning into an annoying know-it-all, I repost it here for those interested. Or, you know, really masochistic.

 

1: Midi-chlorians create the Force.

True, only so far as ALL living things create the Force. Ben Kenobi in ANH says "The Force is an energy field created by all living things." Yoda in ESB says "Life creates (the Force), makes it grow." As living things (symbiotes, like real-life mitochondria) midi-chlorians create the Force just as much as a human, Wookiee, Hutt, mynock, or space slug does.

 

2: Midi-chlorians ARE the Force.

False. The Force is still an energy field, still the mystical power of life itself. All midi-chlorians do, according to Qui-Gon's explanation, is allow a living being to tap into that energy and use it.

 

3: I can drink a midi-chlorian cocktail or get a Jedi blood transfusion and become instantly Force-Sensitive!

False. That's as reasonable as getting a blood transfusion from a person with a naturally high metabolism will cause you to lose weight, or a white person getting blood from a black person getting darker skin. It just ain't gonna happen. In real life, coming in contact with someone else's tissue isn't going to rewrite your own DNA, much less your mitochondrial DNA, so why would Star Wars' midi-chlorians have this effect? They wouldn't.

 

4: Midi-chlorians reduce the Force to mere biology, instead of it being space magic.

This is part of the larger fallacy that science and magic cannot co-exist within the same fictional framework. Many people seem unable to cope with a fictional world that has both aspects within it at the same time. A world with magic cannot have any tech more advanced than a crossbow, though it is (rarely) allowed to have magical items that mimic high technology, such as light spells bound in metal rods to make flashlights. And if your world has rayguns and spaceships, magic is non-existent at best, fakery perpetrated by those of nefarious intent at worst. Recently, this trend has been changing, but many people are still highly resistant to the idea of magic and science interacting too closely. There's a real tendency to, on the rare occasions science and magic are allowed to co-exist in the same universe, to refuse to allow magic to interact with science in any meaningful way. For instance, I'm reading a novel series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, called Shadows of the Apt. In this fantasy world, humanity is divided into several subspecies, each based on particular insects and getting special abilities called Art from each. Ant-kinden can communicate telepathically, Beetle-kinden have excptional physical toughness, Spider-kinden can cling to walls, etc. Some races are Apt, which means they can invent and use technology. Some races are Inapt, which means that even pulling the lever on a crossbow or turning a doorknob is beyond them. Inapt races can use magic, which is a concept so totally alien to the Apt that they, for the most part, deny it even exists. Science cannot explain magic, and magic cannot explain science. However, logically there must be points where the two overlap. To perform the tricks he is capable of through the Force, a Jedi must draw on some kind of energy. Testing may well reveal that this energy is translated through is body by the organelles known as midi-chlorians. Where the organelles get this energy from, or how exactly they translate it into usable form, remains mysterious, but the data supports the conclusion that midi-chlorians give Jedi "knowledge of the Force."

 

/soapbox

 

Now, as to the physiological changes of Sith Corruption, perhaps it is as simple as biology reacting to a different flow of Force energy within the body. Perhaps the midichlorians, when forced to draw Dark Side energy into their host, produce toxins that negatively affect the host's appearance. Or perhaps evil just has a price, one ever Dark Sider must pay eventually, and which the Dark Side will claim from them at a moment of its choosing.

[Wolfninjajedi]

/soapbox

 

I have a bone to pick about people who unabashedly hate midichlorians, mostly because they do so for what I perceive to be the wrong reasons. My summation, copy/pasted from elsewhere on the interwebz:

 

Midichlorians really didn't transform the Force into a biological phenomena. It's still an energy field created by all living things. All midichlorians do is allow access to that energy field. It still takes discipline and training to use properly, it's still not strictly a genetic phenomena (otherwise the Jedi prohibitions on marriage and family would result in there being no more Jedi within about a hundred years.)

 

A lot of people seem to assume the midichlorians create the Force. This is true, just as it is true that humans, Wookiees, Cereans, Togruta, and even Hutts create the Force. As Obi-Wan said, "the Force is an energy field, created by ALL LIVING THINGS" (emphasis mine.) Yoda later added "Life creates it, makes it grow." Midichlorians are alive, just as bacteria and viruses are alive, and thus they too create the mystic energy field known as the Force.

 

I think a lot of the hate toward the concept of midichlorians stems from some basic misunderstandings about what they are. People assume that they create the Force, which I as I show above is only part of the truth. Others assume they ARE the Force, which is a leap of logic that is simply not founded by any of the things said about them in TPM or RotS. All Qui-Gon ever says is that "they communicate with us, telling us the will of the Force." If anything, this deepens the mystery of the Force. . . now it has a will, communicated to living beings through the substance of their very bodies? As the astromechs of SW:TOR might say, Mind=Blown.

 

I actually had a long soapbox on this very subject over on the HERO System boards not long ago. At the risk of pontificating, repeating myself, getting preachy, and generally turning into an annoying know-it-all, I repost it here for those interested. Or, you know, really masochistic.

 

1: Midi-chlorians create the Force.

True, only so far as ALL living things create the Force. Ben Kenobi in ANH says "The Force is an energy field created by all living things." Yoda in ESB says "Life creates (the Force), makes it grow." As living things (symbiotes, like real-life mitochondria) midi-chlorians create the Force just as much as a human, Wookiee, Hutt, mynock, or space slug does.

 

2: Midi-chlorians ARE the Force.

False. The Force is still an energy field, still the mystical power of life itself. All midi-chlorians do, according to Qui-Gon's explanation, is allow a living being to tap into that energy and use it.

 

3: I can drink a midi-chlorian cocktail or get a Jedi blood transfusion and become instantly Force-Sensitive!

False. That's as reasonable as getting a blood transfusion from a person with a naturally high metabolism will cause you to lose weight, or a white person getting blood from a black person getting darker skin. It just ain't gonna happen. In real life, coming in contact with someone else's tissue isn't going to rewrite your own DNA, much less your mitochondrial DNA, so why would Star Wars' midi-chlorians have this effect? They wouldn't.

 

4: Midi-chlorians reduce the Force to mere biology, instead of it being space magic.

This is part of the larger fallacy that science and magic cannot co-exist within the same fictional framework. Many people seem unable to cope with a fictional world that has both aspects within it at the same time. A world with magic cannot have any tech more advanced than a crossbow, though it is (rarely) allowed to have magical items that mimic high technology, such as light spells bound in metal rods to make flashlights. And if your world has rayguns and spaceships, magic is non-existent at best, fakery perpetrated by those of nefarious intent at worst. Recently, this trend has been changing, but many people are still highly resistant to the idea of magic and science interacting too closely. There's a real tendency to, on the rare occasions science and magic are allowed to co-exist in the same universe, to refuse to allow magic to interact with science in any meaningful way. For instance, I'm reading a novel series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, called Shadows of the Apt. In this fantasy world, humanity is divided into several subspecies, each based on particular insects and getting special abilities called Art from each. Ant-kinden can communicate telepathically, Beetle-kinden have excptional physical toughness, Spider-kinden can cling to walls, etc. Some races are Apt, which means they can invent and use technology. Some races are Inapt, which means that even pulling the lever on a crossbow or turning a doorknob is beyond them. Inapt races can use magic, which is a concept so totally alien to the Apt that they, for the most part, deny it even exists. Science cannot explain magic, and magic cannot explain science. However, logically there must be points where the two overlap. To perform the tricks he is capable of through the Force, a Jedi must draw on some kind of energy. Testing may well reveal that this energy is translated through is body by the organelles known as midi-chlorians. Where the organelles get this energy from, or how exactly they translate it into usable form, remains mysterious, but the data supports the conclusion that midi-chlorians give Jedi "knowledge of the Force."

 

/soapbox

 

Now, as to the physiological changes of Sith Corruption, perhaps it is as simple as biology reacting to a different flow of Force energy within the body. Perhaps the midichlorians, when forced to draw Dark Side energy into their host, produce toxins that negatively affect the host's appearance. Or perhaps evil just has a price, one ever Dark Sider must pay eventually, and which the Dark Side will claim from them at a moment of its choosing.

 

At least someone views it differently, this is what I think too. So theres a scientific explanation..theres a scientific explanation about everything, but some people don't believe that...so why is this any different?

[KryloKillian]

it's still not strictly a genetic phenomena (otherwise the Jedi prohibitions on marriage and family would result in there being no more Jedi within about a hundred years.)

 

False.

 

Firstly, the sith believe and have believed that the purer their blood the more powerful their force powers. This generally plays out to be more or less true, as well. Force users beget force users, force users who are particularly powerful beget force users who are particularly powerful.

 

Bastila/Revan -> Satele (after a generation). Anakin/Padme -> Luke and Leia. Han/Leia -> The solo kids. Etc. etc. It's very rare to see a child of a jedi or sith lack force sensitivity.

 

Further, you're ignoring repressive and emergent genes, such as how a family of all black haired bown-eyed people can suddenly have a blonde or a red headed child because a great great grandfather was such. It's rather unlikely but it happens. There's also numerous heaps of evidence that there's various levels of force sensitivity, and many people have some but not enough to be trained as jedi/sith, or they're discovered too late in life to be trained. These people go on to have children who may display equal or greater levels of force sensitivity.

 

Basically, there's heaps and heaps of indirect evidence that jedi force powers are passed down the family line, and no evidence that it doesn't. And throwing in a purely biological cause for the ability to wield the force only strengthens this evidence.

 

Not that I expect anyone in Star Wars or the EU was thinking of genetics when they wrote all this stuff, so much as 'man wouldn't it be cool if Solo's kids were all jedi hurf durf' and Lucas playing with the archetype of the father brought low by the son and the mirroring of father/son that occurs in lots of classical stories and mythology which he drew on heavily for Star Wars.

 

That said: People don't like midichlorians because the difference between science and magic is what is knowable. Magic is magic because it is mystical and unexplainable/unknowable. Once you can explain the whole thing, it's not magic anymore. It's just sufficiently advanced technology.

 

Or to put it in other words, the force is like bringing a semi-automatic to the dark ages. It's totally a magic death stick! But then you explain that, like, no it's actually this powder that explodes when hit hard and the force propels a metal ball, and welp. Now it's just science again.

 

The supernatural is not longer 'super'natural once you have sussed out its workings. It's just 'natural'.

[Wolfninjajedi]

 

That said: People don't like midichlorians because the difference between science and magic is what is knowable. Magic is magic because it is mystical and unexplainable/unknowable. Once you can explain the whole thing, it's not magic anymore. It's just sufficiently advanced technology.

 

Or to put it in other words, the force is like bringing a semi-automatic to the dark ages. It's totally a magic death stick! But then you explain that, like, no it's actually this powder that explodes when hit hard and the force propels a metal ball, and welp. Now it's just science again.

 

The supernatural is not longer 'super'natural once you have sussed out its workings. It's just 'natural'.

 

Ok so...there are people who believe that some all known powerful being made the universe, yet there are scientific explanations that said that such and such made the universe. Ok...so people who believe in the former are not aloud to view it as such not because of some science explanation?

 

Believe it or not but there are some people today that still believe in magic, rather then science.

[KryloKillian]

...I'm not going to touch religious discussion on an internet forum dedicated to an MMO with a ten foot pole, man.

 

Just, not gonna happen.

[ErikModi]

Not quite. While it's true that there can be a genetic component, it is not necessarily so. There are instances in the EU. . . many, in point of fact. . . of characters with no family history of Force-Sensitivity being Force-Sensitive. Not to mention that for all the thousands of years that the Jedi forbade marrying and children, they somehow managed to keep their numbers constant with no direct means of passing on said Force-Sensitivity genetically.

 

Furthermore, what of Ki-Adi-Mundi? Because of the low birth rate of Cerean males, he was allowed to marry and have children (seven to be exact), and didn't add seven new Jedi to the ranks of the order in doing so.

 

An observed genetic link for Force-Sensitivity doesn't mean that's the ONLY way to be born Force-Sensitive.

[KryloKillian]

Not quite. While it's true that there can be a genetic component, it is not necessarily so. There are instances in the EU. . . many, in point of fact. . . of characters with no family history of Force-Sensitivity being Force-Sensitive. Not to mention that for all the thousands of years that the Jedi forbade marrying and children, they somehow managed to keep their numbers constant with no direct means of passing on said Force-Sensitivity genetically.

 

Furthermore, what of Ki-Adi-Mundi? Because of the low birth rate of Cerean males, he was allowed to marry and have children (seven to be exact), and didn't add seven new Jedi to the ranks of the order in doing so.

 

An observed genetic link for Force-Sensitivity doesn't mean that's the ONLY way to be born Force-Sensitive.

 

Honestly, I haven't read all the EU, because I think the EU is pretty terrible, if you didn't get that from my Hurf Durf Solo Kids comment.

 

But again, repressive and emergent genes easily explain all that.

 

Annnnnd, there were also long swathes of time when the jedi didn't forbid anything of the sort (see Jolee Bindo, and datapads about jedi married couple when hunting the terentaraks in KotOR1, just for two quick examples that show the order wasn't always 'no marriage or love eeeeveeeeeeer'), and there are entire near human species that are ALWAYS force sensitive to some degree, even if not to the degree necessary to be trained as jedi.

 

And no, it doesn't mean it's the only way to be force sensitive, but I should point out that I don't really even care about midichlorians. I think they were a silly/dumb addition to the mythos, but on dumb things added to the mythos they aren't even in the top ten. If I can suspend my disbelief through an entire species that consists entirely of Jabba the Hutt and people like him, I can certainly do it through midichlorians.

 

I'm just explaining that people aren't dumb for hating them. They have very good reasons from the standpoint of the narrative of the OT vs the PT and how the force was handled in each.

Edited February 3, 2012 by KryloKillian

[KennethHoover]

I wouldn't except any in depth lore on something Lucas probably thought of while taking a crap reading the morning paper.

 

^^This.

[PeepsMcJuggs]

The problem with midichloreans isn't that there's a scientific explanation for how Jedi use The Force: it's that it's an unnecessary explanation. Its the answer to a question nobody asked. People were perfectly happy accepting The Force as a mystical energy field that flowed through all living things. Giving a scientific explanation for Force ability as a measurable quantity makes it far more mundane.

[Razhah]

The problem with midichloreans isn't that there's a scientific explanation for how Jedi use The Force: it's that it's an unnecessary explanation. Its the answer to a question nobody asked. People were perfectly happy accepting The Force as a mystical energy field that flowed through all living things. Giving a scientific explanation for Force ability as a measurable quantity makes it far more mundane.

 

This is spot on. Most people who are upset about midichlorians are us who grew up with the original trilogy. Back then you felt anyone could be a Jedi if they worked hard and learned the mysteries of the force. Even a farmboy could learn it. Most people had no idea what being a Jedi entailed other than they got a cool sword and could sense things and use telekinesis. Most people were ok with that since it gave a certain mystic feeling to it all. Then "A Phantom Menace" comes along and we all learn that we need these parasites to connect to the force and how strong you are is dependent on how many of these parasites you have. That just really ruined it for us old timers. It changed the whole story of a simple farmboy who learns the force in order to save the galaxy from the mysterious emperor and the evil Darth Vader. It turns out instead that this simple farmboy has alot of these parasite things and that is why he is able to become a powerful Jedi and defeat the empire. It just loses something with the explanation. Lucas should have just left it alone.

[PeepsMcJuggs]

This is spot on. Most people who are upset about midichlorians are us who grew up with the original trilogy. Back then you felt anyone could be a Jedi if they worked hard and learned the mysteries of the force. Even a farmboy could learn it. Most people had no idea what being a Jedi entailed other than they got a cool sword and could sense things and use telekinesis. Most people were ok with that since it gave a certain mystic feeling to it all. Then "A Phantom Menace" comes along and we all learn that we need these parasites to connect to the force and how strong you are is dependent on how many of these parasites you have. That just really ruined it for us old timers. It changed the whole story of a simple farmboy who learns the force in order to save the galaxy from the mysterious emperor and the evil Darth Vader. It turns out instead that this simple farmboy has alot of these parasite things and that is why he is able to become a powerful Jedi and defeat the empire. It just loses something with the explanation. Lucas should have just left it alone.

 

Not to mention that for someone like Yoda, you assumed he was so amazingly powerful because of his age and his unwavering faith in The Force: that a Jedi's strength in the Force was only limited by his own convictions. You know, that size matters not.

 

Well, apparently size matters not, but midichlorean density does.

Edited February 3, 2012 by PeepsMcJuggs

[andyruth]

People hate on midichlorians because they weren't in the OT.

 

If Obiwan had said "The force is an energy field that surrounds us and we are connected to it by midichlorians" people wouldn't *****.

[Yfelsung]

Lucas played/read the story/watched someone play Parasite Eve, or possibly read a similar paper on the same subject that inspired Parasite Eve.

 

He took their basic premise about mitochondria (which, at one point, were organisms in their own right that became part of early cell structure, they have their own DNA that's different than our own) and changed the name and made them affect The Force.

 

Voila.

[PeepsMcJuggs]

People hate on midichlorians because they weren't in the OT.

 

If Obiwan had said "The force is an energy field that surrounds us and we are connected to it by midichlorians" people wouldn't *****.

 

People hate on Ewoks, and they're in the OT. Stupid plot elements are universal.

Edited February 3, 2012 by PeepsMcJuggs

[kraidy]

People hate on midichlorians because they weren't in the OT.

 

If Obiwan had said "The force is an energy field that surrounds us and we are connected to it by midichlorians" people wouldn't *****.

Wrong.

[Yfelsung]

People hate on Ewoks, and they're in the OT. Stupid plot elements are universal.

 

I just keep repeating "They eat people. They eat people. They eat people." and it makes me okay with the Ewoks.

 

They're like Athasian Halflings, the only Halflings in fantasy history to be cool.

[Restepor]

/soapbox

 

I have a bone to pick about people who unabashedly hate midichlorians, mostly because they do so for what I perceive to be the wrong reasons. My summation, copy/pasted from elsewhere on the interwebz:

 

Midichlorians really didn't transform the Force into a biological phenomena. It's still an energy field created by all living things. All midichlorians do is allow access to that energy field. It still takes discipline and training to use properly, it's still not strictly a genetic phenomena (otherwise the Jedi prohibitions on marriage and family would result in there being no more Jedi within about a hundred years.)

 

A lot of people seem to assume the midichlorians create the Force. This is true, just as it is true that humans, Wookiees, Cereans, Togruta, and even Hutts create the Force. As Obi-Wan said, "the Force is an energy field, created by ALL LIVING THINGS" (emphasis mine.) Yoda later added "Life creates it, makes it grow." Midichlorians are alive, just as bacteria and viruses are alive, and thus they too create the mystic energy field known as the Force.

 

I think a lot of the hate toward the concept of midichlorians stems from some basic misunderstandings about what they are. People assume that they create the Force, which I as I show above is only part of the truth. Others assume they ARE the Force, which is a leap of logic that is simply not founded by any of the things said about them in TPM or RotS. All Qui-Gon ever says is that "they communicate with us, telling us the will of the Force." If anything, this deepens the mystery of the Force. . . now it has a will, communicated to living beings through the substance of their very bodies? As the astromechs of SW:TOR might say, Mind=Blown.

 

I actually had a long soapbox on this very subject over on the HERO System boards not long ago. At the risk of pontificating, repeating myself, getting preachy, and generally turning into an annoying know-it-all, I repost it here for those interested. Or, you know, really masochistic.

 

1: Midi-chlorians create the Force.

True, only so far as ALL living things create the Force. Ben Kenobi in ANH says "The Force is an energy field created by all living things." Yoda in ESB says "Life creates (the Force), makes it grow." As living things (symbiotes, like real-life mitochondria) midi-chlorians create the Force just as much as a human, Wookiee, Hutt, mynock, or space slug does.

 

2: Midi-chlorians ARE the Force.

False. The Force is still an energy field, still the mystical power of life itself. All midi-chlorians do, according to Qui-Gon's explanation, is allow a living being to tap into that energy and use it.

 

3: I can drink a midi-chlorian cocktail or get a Jedi blood transfusion and become instantly Force-Sensitive!

False. That's as reasonable as getting a blood transfusion from a person with a naturally high metabolism will cause you to lose weight, or a white person getting blood from a black person getting darker skin. It just ain't gonna happen. In real life, coming in contact with someone else's tissue isn't going to rewrite your own DNA, much less your mitochondrial DNA, so why would Star Wars' midi-chlorians have this effect? They wouldn't.

 

4: Midi-chlorians reduce the Force to mere biology, instead of it being space magic.

This is part of the larger fallacy that science and magic cannot co-exist within the same fictional framework. Many people seem unable to cope with a fictional world that has both aspects within it at the same time. A world with magic cannot have any tech more advanced than a crossbow, though it is (rarely) allowed to have magical items that mimic high technology, such as light spells bound in metal rods to make flashlights. And if your world has rayguns and spaceships, magic is non-existent at best, fakery perpetrated by those of nefarious intent at worst. Recently, this trend has been changing, but many people are still highly resistant to the idea of magic and science interacting too closely. There's a real tendency to, on the rare occasions science and magic are allowed to co-exist in the same universe, to refuse to allow magic to interact with science in any meaningful way. For instance, I'm reading a novel series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, called Shadows of the Apt. In this fantasy world, humanity is divided into several subspecies, each based on particular insects and getting special abilities called Art from each. Ant-kinden can communicate telepathically, Beetle-kinden have excptional physical toughness, Spider-kinden can cling to walls, etc. Some races are Apt, which means they can invent and use technology. Some races are Inapt, which means that even pulling the lever on a crossbow or turning a doorknob is beyond them. Inapt races can use magic, which is a concept so totally alien to the Apt that they, for the most part, deny it even exists. Science cannot explain magic, and magic cannot explain science. However, logically there must be points where the two overlap. To perform the tricks he is capable of through the Force, a Jedi must draw on some kind of energy. Testing may well reveal that this energy is translated through is body by the organelles known as midi-chlorians. Where the organelles get this energy from, or how exactly they translate it into usable form, remains mysterious, but the data supports the conclusion that midi-chlorians give Jedi "knowledge of the Force."

 

/soapbox

 

Now, as to the physiological changes of Sith Corruption, perhaps it is as simple as biology reacting to a different flow of Force energy within the body. Perhaps the midichlorians, when forced to draw Dark Side energy into their host, produce toxins that negatively affect the host's appearance. Or perhaps evil just has a price, one ever Dark Sider must pay eventually, and which the Dark Side will claim from them at a moment of its choosing.

 

Yep, that's all that needed to be said.

[ACLucius]

...I'm not going to touch religious discussion on an internet forum dedicated to an MMO with a ten foot pole, man.

 

Just, not gonna happen.

 

So far the most intelligent response I have seen on any forum anywhere on the internet.

[BladeStrike]

I pretend they don't exist and it works out just fine! Edited February 3, 2012 by BladeStrike

[Kekkles]

I just keep repeating "They eat people. They eat people. They eat people." and it makes me okay with the Ewoks.

 

They're like Athasian Halflings, the only Halflings in fantasy history to be cool.

 

 

If an Athasian Halfling and an Athasian Thri-Kreen have a "sentient being cook off", who would win?

[Knockerz]

I'm still not very clear on the subject. I though midichlorians were in the movies, original ones, but were not explicitly mention.

[GoggleBoi]

The problem with midichloreans isn't that there's a scientific explanation for how Jedi use The Force: it's that it's an unnecessary explanation. Its the answer to a question nobody asked. People were perfectly happy accepting The Force as a mystical energy field that flowed through all living things. Giving a scientific explanation for Force ability as a measurable quantity makes it far more mundane.

 

 

Actually, my issue with midichlorians was more one of... well, put it this way; Every watch Dragonball? Dragonball Z? No one had a 'power level' in Dragonball. They did in Z. Suddenly someone's ability could be reduced to a number. 'Talent' and 'skill' became a 'stat'. MMO's have 'sats'. People have talent. Or skill. More midichlorians = more Force Power.

 

While we can measure that a pitcher can throw a ball 98mph, we can't measure his 'baseballians' as a child and know that he will some day be a 'world class pitcher.' It turns the Jedi from a quasi-religious/mystical order that would take in people who may have had an affinity for the Force, into a group of really weird hermity scientists who give you a blood test first, to see if you pass the entrance test.

 

Now I would have NO problem if these 'midichlorians' could not be quantified, but were suspected of being a conduit, of sorts, to the Force.

 

In fact, there is a fantastic series of books by Ben Weaver that has these organisms discovered/created by a long-dead, hyper-advanced alien race. These organisms, when implanted into the Human brain, allow the host to manipulate and control quantum mechanics, allowing these super-soldiers to teleport, ignore gravity, alter the trajectory of bullets, and tear through matter as though their bodies were pure destruction. Same idea as midichlorians, different application.

 

 

However, none of that explains where these midichlorians come from. How do they get into the body? Why do they take up residence in some, but not others? How is it they are able to survive in every type of organism, despite wildly different biologies? HOW IN THE HELL DID THEY GENERATE ANAKIN SKYWALKER INSIDE OF HIS MOTHER, and all without her having any force potential at all?

 

This, I believe, is the primary issue for most; midichlorians call up more questions that, while under the previous 'magic/'mystery' model could be explained with 'cause it just is,' now require an answer because of a quasi-scientific explanation.

Edited February 4, 2012 by GoggleBoi