“A few,” Gash repeated, smiling slightly to himself. “I fear that you don’t understand the dilemma of the Shadow Jedi. If a few were merely unstable, that would be one thing. But the Shadow Jedi…”
“If I don’t understand,” Hadul interjected, “then enlighten me.”
Gash fixed Tobal with an appraising look, then decided to continue. “It may not be what you want to hear, Tobal, but your order is the product of one too many arrogant, foolish Jedi. Arrogant, foolish Jedi whose powers had made them think they were gods.”
“That’s not –” Tobal began, but Gash promptly cut him off again.
“I do not reserve this judgment for your order alone. The Rogue Jedi Order stems from the very same misconception – the same conclusions drawn from a truly myopic view of the universe.”
“What do you mean? What conclusions?”
Gash smiled a little, and looked out the viewport at the stars beyond. “When I broke from the Jedi Order – only a few years after my redemption from the dark side – I did it because I did not believe that the Jedi took an active enough role in galactic affairs. At the time, I had gained quite a bit of prestige in the New Republic. I was a High Admiral; I’d go on to become the Supreme Military Chancellor.
“My head was occupied by military and political matters, Tobal, and in my minds’ eye, I saw the rising threat of darkness. The Sith, regrouping and rising again in their many factions; the slow rise of Daemon Hyfe’s military leadership to power within the Empire. The whispering evil of Grand Admiral Thrawn, just beyond my perception – the shadow of a fear.
“My masters told me that the Jedi were not soldiers, that our mission was different. I wouldn’t listen. I called a council of the Jedi, and called anyone who would come with me to Yavin IV, where I founded the Rogue Jedi Order. I fractured the Jedi Knights that day; I broke the order right in two.”
He sighed. “The Force, as you know, is not simply two polar opposites – light and dark, good and evil – but a spectrum, a series of grays connecting the two extremes. I believed that by taking an active political role in the galaxy, by breaking from the old teachings and performing military actions that some might call… darker, in their nature, we could stem the tide of the rising darkness in the galaxy. I thought that I could balance the darker elements of the Force with the light.
“And for awhile, it worked. My coalition of Republic and Rogue Order defeated Grand Admiral Thrawn. We faced the Empire and held our ground, for a time. It seemed that I was right in what I did. The gambit had paid off.”
“What happened?” Tobal asked.
“The Order was fractured, drawn between two personalities – Leia’s and mine – that could not be reconciled. The Jedi receded from public view, their numbers increasingly few, took weak to defend the Republic from obvious threats.
“The Empire struck unexpectedly, took Coruscant in a flash. The Jedi were nowhere to be seen.
“Chadd Fearsons fell from the Order once and for all, and caused the Republic untold harm when he formed a tenuous alliance with the Empire.
“And in time, the Republic receded. The Empire crushed us again and again, besting my men. I did what I could, but even that was not enough. And where were the Jedi? My Jedi? Organa’s Jedi? Fractured, still fractured. Nowhere to be found. We could not even see the threat of the Wrath Virus and Tilaric Brel’s New Empire. That war crushed the New Republic once and for all.
“I thought that I could balance the light with even bits of the darkness. I was wrong.” Gash looked away from the stars. “Arrogance. And look at how much it has cost.”
“And you're saying that the Shadow Jedi are the same, because they also seek to balance the darkness and the light?” Tobal asked.
“Yes. That is one way to put it.” He paused. “To call your master, Chadd Fearsons, impetuous, irrational, unstable, is an incredible understatement. He was perhaps the rashest student I have ever seen – more than even some Sith. That said, he was also enormously gifted – the rare student with more power than he was able to even comprehend.
“He built his ‘Rogue Empire’ on impulse and daring, relying on his tremendous abilities and raw instinct instead of sound planning or anything even remotely resembling it. People were drawn to him, to the power that seemed to circle him – and he exploited that to the fullest extent. As, I admit, I sometimes have.
“In time, he came to understand his own gifts. He left his first master, Leia, and then he left me. Another mistake on my part – I never should have trained him. As brash as he was, his talents came to make him even more arrogant. And somewhere along the line, he convinced himself that he could balance the two sides of the Force – and that he could train others to do so, forging your order of Shadow Jedi.”
Now the Jedi Master’s voice took on a severe turn. “As I said, the Force is not two polar opposites, but a spectrum. Occasionally, throughout the history of the Old Republic, there were rogue Jedi – Grey Jedi – who operated outside of the boundaries of the Jedi Order, balancing the two sides of the Force with some degree of effectiveness. Most looked on them as misguided, to say the least.
“I should be clear that the number of Grey Jedi who have effectively balanced the two sides of the Force, in ten thousand years of Jedi, I could probably count on one hand. And I couldn’t name any to you.
“The thing about the dark side is that it corrupts you. It eats you up and spits you out. Once you have a piece of its power, it draws you in, deeper and deeper, and for every bit of its power you take, it takes a part of you, until there is nothing left – only the darkness.”
“That isn’t what I was taught,” Tobal interrupted. “The sides of the Force are just tools to be used – the corruption of the dark side can be resisted.”
“On this matter, I’m afraid,” Gash replied slowly, obviously measuring his words, “my experience
greatly outweighs yours.”
The knowledge of the Jedi Master’s Sith history weighed in the air before them, and Gash let it hang there, diffusing Tobal’s other objections silently, before he continued.
“Chadd Fearsons thought that he could do – and teach others to do – what thousands of years of Jedi Masters, each more wise than he could ever have hoped to be, could not. And where is he now, I wonder? I wonder.” He let the question dangle.
“The ultimate justification for the Shadow Jedi, I suppose, is that by mastering darker techniques – by allowing yourself to be corrupted, even ever so slightly, by the dark side – will allow you to accomplish things you otherwise might not, serving, then the greater good. The evil of that corruption is negated by the good you accomplish. Whatever your definition of good may be. Suffice to say it is better for the galaxy.”
Tobal nodded.
“I would propose to you, then, a scenario.”
“Alright.”
“You are a Jedi, and the leader of the planetary government of an isolated world. A series of attacks weakens your planet greatly, and you are offered,” Gash said slowly, “by means of a premonition – like the one you just had – a simple choice.
“On the one hand, you may cling to the light side, and remain a Jedi. Your forces will be outmatched, your men killed, and your planet conquered.
“On the other, you may give in to the dark side, become a Sith. The darkness will grant you the foresight and power to lead your men to victory. Along the way you will make some questionable decisions that will lead to the death of some of your men; later on you will harm a few people in your wickedness. But two decades later you will be dead either way and, overall, the galaxy will be much better off. What would you choose?”
“I would become the Sith,” Tobal replied. “But –”
“As would I,” Gash interrupted him. “If only things were that simple, there would be no real problem. I think you were about to state the problem with that scenario, Tobal?”
“—you couldn’t possibly know all of that.”
“That’s right. Your premonition was just that – a premonition. Like I told you before, sometimes the future can be changed. Sometimes it will turn out differently. But even the most powerful Jedi Master, even the most powerful Sith Lord, could never give you a complete outlook on the future.
“Most Force sensitive individuals, I believe even you would agree, are not able to effectively balance the dark side with the light. Your friend, Mat, was not. Xireon only brought out the darkness already latent in him. In training students to do balance the two sides of the Force, you are effectively exposing them for the rest of their lives to the lure of the dark side. You are setting them up for failure.
“And not just their own failure. When they fail, many of them will fail spectacularly. What if one of those you train became the next Dark Lord of the Sith? How would you feel about your order then? How many thousands would die before you would admit your reasoning is flawed?
“And this is the failing of the Shadow Jedi. In deciding to take on the challenge of balancing darkness with light, you are presuming so much that you could never expect to know. Perhaps the hold of the dark side over you will only be slight. Perhaps the good you accomplish, hurling your lightning and choking your victims, will outweigh the toll you know it will take on your heart.
“Or perhaps you will become the next Dark Lord of the Sith, and murder billions.”
Gash shrugged and chuckled. “But how could you know? And ultimately, Tobal Hadul, we must all make our own choices, given what little information we have to go on. I believe you will realize that someday.”
The Jedi Master looked out the viewport again, and as his face was bathed in the light of the twisting stars, he showed his age for the first time since Tobal had met him. “Hopefully I will, too.” He stood, and it was gone. “But we’ve talked long enough. Good night.”