Jedi High Council

[Ols]

"We forget we are Jedi, Grandmaster," Cade replied, "our mandate is not to risk the lives of others in our stead. In effect the fact the faithless are a problem is because of us in the first place, we should not hire mercenaries to find them for us. And I would never suggest sending a knight or master after them who was not ready, they would be specifically trained to resist tortures and temptations, they would be volunteers, they would be some of our best, and we would train them to do so. And mercenaries are hired muscle, although you may find some spies for hire by sending them after the faithless, we only commit them to torture and death, nothing more. And what of the publicity, if it ever got out that the pacifistic Jedi were hiring mercenaries to sort out their own problems after delaying to take decisive action in this war for so long?"

He paused a second to add effect to his words, before bringing out perhaps the root of the reason for his wariness, "and does this not feel like an all too familiar path? We avoid conflict to save ourselves, and when that conflict is force upon us we are not ready to meet it. We hire somebody because it is quicker. We hire somebody because it is easier. We all know where the quick and easy road can lead, even if taken in a sense of misguided faith or justice. We cannot pass our problems onto other people; if we are not ready to meet the faithless, then we must revise our training methods until we are. Especially with the risk of the dark side."

 

[Matt]

"I know as well as anyone here that sadly risking others is a necessary thing that we have to do sometimes, never the innocent but soliders, mercenaries and such but we must do it for risking jedi is far far to dangerous, no matter the amount of mental training jedi are still open to all forms of manipulation, look at our past with the ancient force wars, jedi masters left there posts on the lure of the dark side of the force. Jedi fallen to the dark side are the most dangerous beings in the galaxy."

Dewbecca paused again, the weight of his words falling on his shoulders hard.

"The options we have Cade are these, we send trained men to find the faithless jedi and report back on there locations and movements or train jedi for this to infiltrate the faithless jedi and do the same thing....We may not be at war yet but I foresee it happened, war requires tough decisions"

 

[Ols]

"War does require tough decisions, master Dewbecca, and we are not taking the tough road. If you really do fear our susceptibility to dark side, then instead of procrastinating until we are at war, cut the problem off at the source. Meditate and reach into the force, give the Jedi reason to stay, give them hope, give them training to avoid the petty manipulations of the faithless. As you say, we are not yet at war, but we soon will be, and when we are we will not be prepared. We are Jedi, we do not simply leave our problems to be solved by a mercenary. We are the Jedi Council, and we set this example to the order. It is through actions like this that our knights will feel fear, and lose their hope. You want to take the tough decision? Take the decision that's actually tough, don't try to justify the easy option."

 

[Matt]

"War does require tough decisions, master Dewbecca, and we are not taking the tough road. If you really do fear our susceptibility to dark side, then instead of procrastinating until we are at war, cut the problem off at the source. Meditate and reach into the force, give the Jedi reason to stay, give them hope, give them training to avoid the petty manipulations of the faithless. As you say, we are not yet at war, but we soon will be, and when we are we will not be prepared. We are Jedi, we do not simply leave our problems to be solved by a mercenary. We are the Jedi Council, and we set this example to the order. It is through actions like this that our knights will feel fear, and lose their hope. You want to take the tough decision? Take the decision that's actually tough, don't try to justify the easy option."

"I do not try to justify he easy option Cade, If you want a war to start maybe we should just send the entire order against the faithless considering we outnumber them. If I was choosing the easy option then we would simply ignore the faithless and wait until the problem comes to a head, I strongly disagree with sending jedi to infiltrate rather then sending mercenaries and soldiers to observe but this is not a dictatorship, Let is bring this to a vote, Cade's course of action or my own"

Cade was clearly very passionate on this course of action and there were indeed merits in his arguement but Dewbecca was not a dictator, he would never bring his voice into being the only voice of the council.

 

[Ols]

Pleased that he was at least given his say, Cade breathed out a sigh of relief before continuing, "Do not misunderstand me, Master Dewbecca, I have no hopes for a war, but we all know one will come. It is impossible for us to coexist with the Faithless, or it soon will be. I make my suggestion in order that we may be better prepared; we send trained Jedi against them or to infiltrate them, then we shall know their capabilities against Jedi, and we will glean information. Sending mercenaries against them, well we cannot even be sure that they will be accepted into a postion within the faithless, even as a guard or the like. And if they were to be accepted would they be able to report to us for long? If the faithless fought them would we know their true strength or powers? And, of course, there is the point that we risk the lives of others in our stead, and that is not the Jedi way," he paused to breathe before continuing, "that is at least the conclusion I come to now. But I have said enough, as Master Dewbecca has said, now you know the full extent of my option and that of Master Dewbecca and Kasaru's, we must vote."

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

Colm had fallen back into his seat, it turned out they were not finished. "I abstain from voting." Colm saw both sides of these arguments. Both were solid plans but the choice had to be made. But did it really have to be made? Why couldn't they just do both of these plans. Of course the others had probably considered it so he just shut up and leaned back in his chair.

Both?

 

[Matt]

Dewbecca could sense a conflict of thoughts and emotions reverberating in Colm's minds, what they were Dewbecca could not pin down, masters were trained to keep large emotions in check but Dewbecca relied on his normal wookiee senses as much as the force sometimes.

"I sense you have something on your mind though Colm, if you can't express your thoughts here then where can you"

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"Anywhere," a smile escaped the corner of his mouth. "I think we can do both, train the mercenaries and the order. We are not restricted to one course of action."

 

[Matt]

Dewbecca was the type of jedi where things where normally very good idea to him or terrible ones, there was very rarely any in the middle and Dewbecca was a wookiee after all, they were known for being stubborn but then jedi were there own species.

"You could be onto an interesting thing there Colm, intelligence is what we need, the more the better in the end, what are you thoughts on this Cade?"

 

[Ols]

"He is right," Cade replied, "we can do both, though that doesn't mean we should. But let us not forget the reason why this schism has occurred. The faithless accuse us of belaying our principles and teachings as Jedi. They accuse us of dreadful things. By hiring mercenaries we go against the very things we stand for: our feud with the faithless needs no blood spilt other than our own, although I wish no blood were to be spilt at all. I trust in the force, and in our order. And if we are this unprepared, we must learn to overcome any threat the faithless pose, rather than sending mercenaries in our stead. It's a sign of weakness, and the faithless will know it. When they are found out, more Jedi will be shaken in confidence in us, and solidified in believing the slanders of the faithless. We cannot afford to give them any fuel."

 

[Matt]

"The faithless will find fuel from anywhere they can. You think once they find out that we infiltrated there group they will react in a better way then to our other option. They will react far worse, the fact is that the faithless have chosen there path and we have chosen ours. We should not think on how our actions should be interpreted but on how they will work. We have many non jedi personal here on Ossus who work in the hangers but we would never think of getting rid of them when they prep us to fly off on missions for the order, surely under that thinking Cade we cannot let non jedi be in harms way due to our actions? Sadly the fact is people do die due to our actions, the goal of the jedi is to minimize those loses to the very least they can be, The worst case scenario of my action would be for the mercenaries to be found and killed, the worst case scenario of the other would be for the jedi to be corrupted by the faithless....Unless we can think of a third option we must decide which one is worse"

 

[Ols]

((I thought mechanics and other odd jobs around the temple were taken care of by younglings, padawans, knights and some of the younglings never taken as padawans? It seems a bit hypocritical of us to have servants when we live mainly off money donated to us...it would be a little scandalous to say the least))

"Master, with all due respect, hiring mercenaries is not the Jedi way. This is one of my main concerns, as we are undermining what we stand for by doing so. If we hire mercenaries we will lose our moral high ground, and will not be able to express the pacifistic nature we need to. Training talented knights and masters in this role of secrecy will not take long, no longer than it would to prepare mercenaries, and I would have more faith in Jedi than mercenaries. A Jedi can be turned, yes, but they can also be redeemed. A mercenary will be killed, and their blood will stain our hands. We are Jedi are we not? Can we not handle our own affairs without dragging others into it?"

 

[Matt]

Ooc: Most books I have read talk about non force using jedi support staff. Says it in shatterpoint to which is before the njo.

"But the risks of your actions may in the long run be so much more damaging Cade, I understand your lack of trust in mercenaries but turned jedi can be so dangerous, look at what the faithless have done with such small numbers and they haven't turned as far to the darkside to the ancient dark jedi who caused such terrible devastation. All we could be doing is sending more jedi to bolster there ranks.

 

[Ols]

((I suppose...but this is well before. I mean I barely see how we can afford a temple and clothes and food, as we're not funded by the Republic atm, let alone ships and servants))

"It seems you lack faith in our teachings, master," replied Cade, "we don't know our Jedi will fall, and I doubt the ones we select would. A mercenary would break easily, they could be bent to the will of the faithless more easily than a Jedi, or merely killed. And besides, the faithless would not have as much trouble finding out our plans be reading the mind of a mercenary. On top of that, a mercenary's loyalty is only as deep as your pocket," he paused once more, "I shall be frank, master, it scares me that we are even discussing the possibility of hiring mercenaries to do our jobs for us."

 

[Matt]

((I suppose...but this is well before. I mean I barely see how we can afford a temple and clothes and food, as we're not funded by the Republic atm, let alone ships and servants))

"It seems you lack faith in our teachings, master," replied Cade, "we don't know our Jedi will fall, and I doubt the ones we select would. A mercenary would break easily, they could be bent to the will of the faithless more easily than a Jedi, or merely killed. And besides, the faithless would not have as much trouble finding out our plans be reading the mind of a mercenary. On top of that, a mercenary's loyalty is only as deep as your pocket," he paused once more, "I shall be frank, master, it scares me that we are even discussing the possibility of hiring mercenaries to do our jobs for us."

Ooc: The jedi of this time period can have there own funds and money, I'm sure out of the thousands of jedi there are many wealthy ones though family or we would be a bunch of bums.

"I do not lack faith in our teachings because if I did I would not of trained the numerous padawans I have, I do not underestimate the power of the dark side of the force, it has been a weakness of jedi in the past and I do not wish to see it happen again, you wish to send jedi against the faithless to gain intelligence for us, I find that an incredibly dangerous path to take Cade but that is merely my opinion, I am entitled to it and you are entitled to yours but this chamber is not our private debate center, let's let the other council members have there say shall we?"

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"Keep going, you both make valid arguments but neither of you are budging. How about this, because Cade is so against the use of outside support we should drop the idea. We all know he's a stubborn bastard and this debate will end with both of your plans trashed. I volunteer to search for the faithless Jedi. I've found some before and I can continue to do so again. This will be my undertaking, no other lives will be put at risk." Colm had given everyone a simple solution. "In the mean time, knights and padawans should be conditioned to fight against dark side users, we all know they will need it more than ever."

 

[Will]

''I feel that if a Jedi was found out by a faithless, then, as Grandmaster Dewbacca says, the consequences would be far worse. I will be working through an agent. We will have total deniability. Also, though a Jedi may be able to hide their signature, surely you forget these were jedi too, not long ago? Men and women we interacted with daily? They would recognise our faces instantly. Nameless mercenaries are more efficient. As much as i'd like to use our own Jedi, i cannot see that option working out in the worst case scenario.'' Huang Karasu stated. ''My opinion still stands.''

 

[Ols]

"It seems I am outvoted," Cade conceded, "but I will never approve the use of mercenaries myself, especially in a matter as delicate as this. If you do continue this action, you do it without my support. Although it won't stop you, I am making my position perfectly clear."

He said no more, but a thousand half thought ideas were whirring through his mind. Perhaps he did have a plan to gather information upon the faithless. Or perhaps he had lost a little faith himself. Either way, those mercenaries would surely not be the only people to approach the faithless, he was sure. These were testing times indeed.

He swallowed and stood up, bowing before them, "Forgive me masters, I need some time to clear my head. I shall perhaps seek solitude off world awhile and attempt to find solace. I will be honest, my thoughts and faith, have been shaken. I must look inside myself to find the cause of that, before I can hope to aid yourselves in the leading of the Jedi, well," he broke off, not knowing what to say next. He wanted to say I shall return but as much as he wanted to, he did not know that he definitely would. His journey would take him down a new path, further along any path he had travelled before, and closer to the dark side than ever before. He swallowed, bowed once more and said, "Goodbye."