The Worst Kind of Surprise Party

[all_too_familiar]

There is a man. He's meditating, and floating several inches off of the ground. This is fairly normal for him - at least he's not floating various furniture this time. Just himself. He doesn't feel like exerting himself any further. It's been a long day.

He realizes it's going to be a lot longer when he's no longer in his room.

"I hate surprises," he sighs, and he opens his eyes to look at his new surroundings. He's still floating, and surprisingly calm.

Comments

[unmarred]

"Shot him," Mark says succinctly.

[all_too_familiar]

"That was very brave," observes Revan.

[unmarred]

"Eh, I guess."

[all_too_familiar]

Nod. "And then you were summoned by the murder cult?"

[unmarred]

"Spent a while roaming the galaxy playing surreal pranks on the Barrayaran intelligence agents who were following me, first."

[all_too_familiar]

... Revan cracks up. "Surreal pranks? Such as?"

[unmarred]

"Break into hotel room, completely cover bed in neat rows of dried beans, leave without a trace."

[all_too_familiar]

Yep. The proper response to this is cracking up.

"That," he snorts, "is hilarious."

[unmarred]

"Thank you. I try."

[all_too_familiar]

Revan smiles.

"So. Do you want to hear my history before the murder cult?"

[unmarred]

"Go for it."

[all_too_familiar]

"Well," he says, floating to sit on the ground because obviously meditation is just not happening, "there's a bit of galactic history before we can get into mine, as well. I'm sure you've heard me mention something called the Force and likely pinned it down as some strange psuedo-religion magic thing?"

[unmarred]

"Something like."

[all_too_familiar]

He nods. "Before I can explain the history I need to explain that. The Force is - something that connects everyone, and everything. It's always difficult to describe it, especially to people that aren't Force sensitive. Being Force sensitive is like you always have a - sense of the world around you. Always have a feel for the big picture and the people in it, like - I wouldn't say 'like you are never alone,' that's not quite accurate, like you are never cut off. Like even when you are alone you're not blind and deaf and defenseless." Pause. "For the two seconds of sensory deprivation, I felt like I was cut off from the Force, and I sincerely think that if there is a hell, that's it."

[unmarred]

"Mm."

[all_too_familiar]

"Anyway," he says. "If you are Force sensitive, and you get the proper training, you can do what basically amounts to magic with it." Revan demonstrates by levitating a book, and then putting it back down. "Among other things. My teachers would probably scream at me for describing the force as 'something you can do magic with,' but I'm trying to avoid the philosophy religious side of it with you, so; magic.

"Now, being able to do anything with the Force requires a lot of self discipline and training. The typical source for this is the jedi order. The purpose of this order is to - help people. Save people, defeat evildoers, protect the galaxy, rescue small animals from trees. That sort of thing."

[unmarred]

"How noble."

[all_too_familiar]

"In a perfect world, yeah. But there's also - mm. They get a lot wrong. And being a jedi demands a certain - jedi aren't supposed to fall in love. Or feel strong emotions; anger especially. Because if you do, and you're a jedi, there's - a dark side to the Force. You can decide to stop using it for good. And it's easy and destructive and tempting." He shrugs. "There's an entire culture to Force users who follow the dark side. I'll likely explain that later in my story, but that's enough history for explaining my past.

"So, uh. I was a jedi. Raised to be one since before I can remember, thrilled about it every second, talented and powerful and dashingly handsome." He smirks. "All set up to go save people for the rest of my life with fancy swords and magic powers. Fits me, right?"

(He is maybe joking, a little, there.)

[unmarred]

"Oh, perfectly," Mark assures him.

[all_too_familiar]

Revan barks a laugh. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Anyway, as you can likely tell, things, ah, went wrong. The Republic was attacked by - well, they're called Mandalorians. Clan-based people whose culture revolves around battle. They enjoy picking fights with the biggest, strongest enemy around, and then winning. So they decided to pick a fight with the biggest, largest government. And then they started winning. Ordinary Republic troops were being crushed.

"Jedi aren't soldiers. We're - they're protectors, small in number and scattered all over everywhere. But the Republic wanted jedi to help, anyway. Because people with fancy swords and magic powers. The jedi council... refused." He frowns, looking annoyed. "They wanted to... wait. Leave the Republic to handle it. Stand on the sidelines and do nothing, even with all of the power they held."

He shakes his head. "This next part of the story is a little hazy, because of my unique memory issues, but I have the facts. I disagreed with this ruling. I decided I wasn't going to stand around and let people die just because they were far away and the jedi council said so. So I didn't." He smirks. "Other jedi turned out to agree with me. So we went to war. It - I've come to understand that it turned the tide. And the Republic started winning."

[unmarred]

"Well done."

[all_too_familiar]

"Heh. Don't congratulate me yet, you haven't seen what I did next. So, we won. It wasn't as easy as that description makes it sound, but ultimately, we won. This is the part that gets really fuzzy." He props his head onto his hand and looks thoughtful.

"Several things happened here. I - sort of recall that I learned something that made me feel sick with terror. Some kind of enemy that was from the unknown regions of space, I - think. I don't recall the specifics. I do recall that I thought the Republic couldn't handle the, the whatever it was as it was then. That the thing I was terrified of would win and... Something bad would happen. I don't think I knew what, even then. Either way, I was not going to stand by and let my Republic get conquered. But I didn't believe it would be able to prepare in time - the Republic can be so slow with changing things. And with no war to fight, they'd likely think military funding was pointless.

"So that was when I decided I was going to conquer the galaxy."

[unmarred]

"...And this was meant to help?"

[all_too_familiar]

"If I left the majority of the infrastructure intact, converted as many jedi as I could to my cause, picked my battles carefully... Yes. With the help of an ancient factory called the Star Forge that could churn out droids and ships. Which I went and found, for the express purpose of conquering the galaxy. I had time before the - whatever it was - showed up, just not enough to reform the Republic by any means that wasn't conquering it and running it all myself. I uh. Only sort of understand my own logic at the time. I was sort of - falling to the dark side around then."

[unmarred]

"I see. Well. Did it help?"