BackJedIQ, a rant
Midi-chlorians. With one word George Lucas managed to steal the magic, myth and mysticism of the Force and turn it into pseudo-science. Suddenly, feeling a disturbance in the Force is nothing more than hearing the voices, or perhaps collective voice, of symbiotic life forms living inside oneself, telling one what’s going on. No longer is it attunement nor harmony with the universe, but the meager ability to quiet the one’s mind, impressive but orders of magnitude less so, to better understand what the voices in one’s head, the voices of these midi-chlorians, have to say.
And the Force is now quantifiable! "The Force is strong with this one." That line was spoken by Vader during the starfighter battle at the end of A New Hope in reference to Luke. Now we don’t have to settle for such vague generalities. One little blood test and we can find out just how strong he is. Is Luke stronger with the Force than Vader? It’s easy enough to check, just compare those midi-chlorian counts and we’ll know for certain. I can just picture it now, a statistic on the back of the Jedi trading cards next to the Lightsaber Duel Win/Loss Percentage and the Number of Jedi Mind Tricks Used Last Season/Career.
Why stop there? Gambling is popular in the Star Wars universe. After all, it’s big enough business that people bet entire starships on the outcome of a game of Sabaac (a card game, for those who don’t know. That’s how Han won the Falcon from Lando). Perhaps the average man-on-the-spacelanes doesn’t know about midi-chlorians, but I doubt word of something like that could be kept entirely quiet on a world like Coruscant. Surely the Republic Senators, diplomats and aides have pools going about the midi-chlorian count of a hot prospect.
Am I the only person who finds this sinister? What about the Dark Side of the Force? Think about some of the things Yoda had to say in The Empire Strike Back: "Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Further, when Luke asks if the Dark Side is more powerful, Yoda replies, "No. Quicker, easier, more seductive." It sounds to me like these midi-chlorian prefer the Dark Side of the Force. After all, not only will they offer their assistance regardless of one’s personal ethics, but they’re faster to help if one chooses the Dark Side.
Then again, maybe they don’t all support the Dark Side, as could be inferred from Yoda’s statements. Maybe there are two factions of these midi-chlorians, one pro-Light Side and one pro-Dark Side. At best this means that they are using sapient beings, such as humans, to fight their war for them. After all, only those with high midi-chlorian counts were trained as Jedi, and Vader, whose midi-chlorian count was higher "even than Master Yoda’s," hunted and killed them in service to the Sith. That’s humans, and other sapient races, dying for no other reason than a war between parasites, excuse me, symbiotic beings, who can "control your actions" as well as "obey your commands." At worst? Well, these midi-chlorians are supposedly in every living thing, for "life cannot exist without them." This means that every living thing, not just Jedi and Sith, plays a role in their little war.
Finally, I've been avoiding addressing another important point. If these midi-chlorians are large enough to be counted by a portable device, as Qui-Gon demonstrated, they can also probably be extracted and transferred. I don't even feel like thinking about the potential for abuse there. . . .
Four Winds Bar