Sith Dark Templar

[Green Ranger]

When I say core, I just mean one that we push stronger than other philosophies. The thing with the Eightfold Path is that just because we say it’s important and something people should consider following doesn’t mean that they then have to follow it. It’s not a requirement. It’s all still a choice what philosophical outlook your character has. The benefit of the Eightfold Path, though, is that wiggle room that Adena talked about. You can really be whatever Jedi you want to be while following the Eightfold Path, which is why it can work as a key faction philosophy.

I'll be working with Adena to put together a proper thread for it, since she's the Sage Master.

Well, that's a discussion for another time I think, but before we think about it, it's gotta be easily accessible and in the Jedi boards. Just focus on that for now and we'll deal with the issue of how highly we regard the philosophy when it's done.

 

[Brand]

Heh, I had hoped you would realize that I only referred to the Eightfold path for the sake of being concise. I didn't want to elaborate further, having assumed that you would understand that I was using that as a blanket term for the rest of what has been forced upon the Jedi. Now, to move on to the rest of your response.

I'd like to address your point as being a leader. The Faction Leader alone is not the leadership. The leadership is comprised of the Faction Leader, his second and third in commands, and the rest of the Council. That is the faction's leadership, not a single person. You understand this, and clearly understood what I meant. Getting defensive about specifically being the Faction Leader reeks of insecurity.

Sage =/= pacifist, but why don't you explain that to your prospective students? Warrior =/= unwise or unsagely? Well, no duh. No one equivocated the two. I was referring to Sreeya's Jedi. They put philosophy second to combat. Why? Simple; they had a war to win. We have a war to win as well. As far as our characters are concerned, winning is indeed all that matters. We might as well let them reflect that mentality. Talking about ends and means would be a nice analogy for the moment, but words are just that.

Words are just words; they can accomplish little on their own. I recognize that, and I'm sure you do as well. However, I can't do this alone. If I act on my own, without the rest of the Council's support, I am merely contributing to the entropy.

 

[Empress]

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Bac and I only started to talk on a few of them, but the whole thing has never been put up, never really been talked about and debated...

actually I need to revive that jedi thread in the OOC because I challenged people to take the precepts and rip them up and debate and argue about them.....because thats what they are intended to do,

" Avoid taking life"
there are a billion loopholes or different thoughts to it, jedi never ENJOY killing, and yeah they wont if they dont have to.....what dictates that line that determines what warrants lethal force or not?
these are the sort of things to debate and mull over and discuss and live by as it is seen , and a major point on the path, it's acts more like a mental and emotional checklist if one is ready or able, it re-enforces that " if your going to take this step- you better really understand and be able to accept what you will have triggered cascading upon the universe from now on, and be able to set it to the side while being mindful of it



but Im also going to make it easy and fun and shed some light ON being a jedi....but thats the RP vet in me more to help create a ... I want to say an atmosphere, a vibe a feeling that when a person slips into their jedi character, they are jedi, they can better think, act, react as one- and in turn usually the RP benefits from it with not only a more natural development, but it also goes to unify a group more as well and give them more of a shared goal that goes far far beyond " winning a timeline" or what not.

 

[Green Ranger]

Trell, Bac, I strongly suggest you simply drop this argument completely.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Heh, I had hoped you would realize that I only referred to the Eightfold path for the sake of being concise. I didn't want to elaborate further, having assumed that you would understand that I was using that as a blanket term for the rest of what has been forced upon the Jedi. Now, to move on to the rest of your response.

That wasn't made clear. It does put a different perspective on it now that it's made clear.

I'd like to address your point as being a leader. The Faction Leader alone is not the leadership. The leadership is comprised of the Faction Leader, his second and third in commands, and the rest of the Council. That is the faction's leadership, not a single person. You understand this, and clearly understood what I meant. Getting defensive about specifically being the Faction Leader reeks of insecurity.

I also mentioned the time before I was faction leader. The time after I was faction leader doesn't really count as me being in the leadership, so far as I'm concerned. Notice that I'm not a Council member. Notice that you don't see my names next to any of the positions in the Council roster. I have 1 character, Jhon. The Jedi think he's dead. I'm here in an advisory capacity. I also post in the Sith board, the Chiss board, and (though not lately) the Mando board. I just post in the Jedi board more regularly because I'm interested in the Jedi more than the others.

That's not me being insecure. That's just me clarifying my position in this faction.

Sage =/= pacifist, but why don't you explain that to your prospective students?

What prospective students? I haven't trained anyone since like October. Again, my only character is Jhon. He isn't in this faction anymore.

I was referring to Sreeya's Jedi. They put philosophy second to combat. Why? Simple; they had a war to win. We have a war to win as well. As far as our characters are concerned, winning is indeed all that matters. We might as well let them reflect that mentality. Talking about ends and means would be a nice analogy for the moment, but words are just that.

Putting philosophy second to combat isn't the right terminology. Philosophical musings and sagely activities being second to combat is what I think you were probably trying to say. The point I make in clarifying that is "combat first" is a philosophy, and one that works in the Eightfold Path. I highly suggest you read the Eightfold Path in my profile (again, if you already have), because I REALLY don't think you understand it. To boil the Eightfold Path down into a sentence, I would say "Be mindful of your actions and take actions that you believe are right and that you can justify, and don't hurt innocent people." That's not exactly contrary to "go fight a war." That's a governing principle in going to war. It also lets you be whatever kind of Jedi you want too, because "don't be a douche" is pretty universal.

One thing I want to clarify too, since there may be a misconception that’s coloring your view of my opinion, is that I didn’t create the Eightfold Path. It’s 100% completely unoriginal to me. The Noble Eightfold Path is a Buddhist teaching. It’s eastern religious philosophy that so perfectly encompassed how Jedi could act and live in this era that I chose to make that the guiding philosophy of my character. So my defense of this isn’t a defense of my hard work. It’s a defense of a philosophy that I think works.

 

[GABA]

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The Eightfold path I believe still needs to be posted in the Jedi boards, even if it cannot be fully enforced. It will give a good foothold onto a path were we want to take the Jedi philosophy.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

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The Eightfold path I believe still needs to be posted in the Jedi boards, even if it cannot be fully enforced. It will give a good foothold onto a path were we want to take the Jedi philosophy.

I agree. That's why a better, more "user friendly" (so to speak) version will go in there.

 

[Matty]

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I trust you guys implicitly to find a solution to this "problem". If you think we need more Masters, pick out the people and promote them. As far as the training goes, I'm churning out missions as fast as I can with Tyrrek. I'll do more

(I only read the first page of this btw, i'll read the rest tomorrow)

 

[Brandon Rhea]

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I trust you guys implicitly to find a solution to this "problem". If you think we need more Masters, pick out the people and promote them. As far as the training goes, I'm churning out missions as fast as I can with Tyrrek. I'll do more

(I only read the first page of this btw, i'll read the rest tomorrow)

Well one of the key issues is that there aren’t really people who can be easily promoted because that pool of skilled and highly trained and competent people isn’t there. We need to fix the underlying issues, which is providing people opportunities that allow them to be engaged in the RP as Jedi in exciting ways and also in being proactive in the war. Churning out missions is a good thing for that.

I’d also make the suggestion that each Councilor come up with 3-5 missions related to their field. Boli can have lore-based missions, Adena can have sage-based missions, GABA can have diplomatic and politically-based missions, and Trell can have explicitly-combat based missions. You then, Apollo, are free to focus on any kind of mission you want. If all of these missions are somehow connected to the war, or at least involve an enemy faction, then that’s even better.

Having the other Councilors do missions reduces your workload too.

 

[Matty]

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What Bac said. I like that! Do that! :CSly

 

[GABA]

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Got it boss.

Speaking of missions too Apollo, I had some people ask about GA missions, whatever happen to those ones I PMed to you?

 

[Brand]

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I understand that the Eightfold path is derived from Buddhism. The beliefs coincide nicely, to an extent, and it does go to length explaining not only how the Force connects everything, but why as well. The previous sentence referred to Buddhism on a whole, not the Eightfold path. However, the problem is in the flexibility it offers, not the philosophy itself. This applies to the way the Jedi have been acting thus far, not singling out any philosophy in particular.

Personally, I think the problem comes from the flightiness of the leadership. The Jedi's leaders have rotated (to my knowledge) more than any other faction's. Each regime comes in with fresh ideas, but does little to actively involve the members with the process, excepting Prospero. He had a good head on his shoulders and had begun to make real progress before absolving himself of the position. I witnessed the faltering step this faction had at the start of the timeline, and some would say I contributed to the problem by leaving Will out of frustration.

The flexibility currently offered makes the Jedi feel disorganized. The training system is not regimented, and as an extension, each Jedi is governed by a different interpretation of the Order. This would be fine, had we the time to explore these stories and get people to tie them together into an awesome plot that could slowly change the shape of the Jedi. We just don't have the time. In character and out of character. There's not enough time to let things run their course.

That's where rigidity comes into play. If we offer something a little more militaristic, especially in our training, and show discipline throughout our ranks, people will want to join. They'll know where we're going and how we plan on getting there. This is the core of my argument. Winning is a means to an end, but cannot be achieved merely by deciding to win.

 

[Empress]

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bigger disconnections and disorganization have been fixed before, it can be done again- the jedi as they are now are in a thousand times better position than the sith in the first timeline were and that got completely turned around within a month

the difference there was as Bac and even Boli mentioned is that the successful aspects of the Jedi were in not just the leadership, but a highly skilled framework of good players with a good understanding of the class, and more over were able to slip into that mentality in and out of character to a level we have not seen in a good long while. That actually then bred a growth and inspired other players to adapt and adopt and grow- so even when that core Jedi leadership shifted to the Sith one by one and rebuilt that powerbase, the jedi were not entirely left with their asses exposed- sure they had a few work in that were not really on par that caused small problems that the Sith capitalized on, but as a whole they had that identity and drive still to carry on.

things got bad when people began treating things as dogma and falling into this single minded extreme, " all pacifist, or all over the top warrior" both situations had very poor outcomes and even with small gains here or there always led to a Jedi faction that was less than stable, detached from itself, and stunted

there are steps currently being looked into to address all the concerns mentioned specifically, and the wiggle room, I should point out that though allows jedi to be more the jedi of this era as they are... it's still not enough wiggle room to ....detract from what a Jedi is, and should go a long way to re-establishing what was lacking, it's just going to require everyone from the top down to be on the same page from the top top teir to the down, starting with the council and master and onward.

it can be done, it's not really as bad as it could be. just takes effort

 

[Brandon Rhea]

OK, I think you’ve now stumbled, for the most part, onto the issue. There’s a key point I’ll say in disagreement first, which is that it has nothing to do with the Eightfold Path. That’s not been a guiding principle of the faction at all, so its flexibility is not the issue. With that established, I think we can move off of the Eightfold Path area of disagreement.

While that philosophy’s flexibility is not the issue, flexibility still has been an issue—just not in terms of philosophy.

The flexibility currently offered makes the Jedi feel disorganized. The training system is not regimented, and as an extension, each Jedi is governed by a different interpretation of the Order. This would be fine, had we the time to explore these stories and get people to tie them together into an awesome plot that could slowly change the shape of the Jedi. We just don't have the time. In character and out of character. There's not enough time to let things run their course.

This is all correct. That’s not about a philosophical outlook, though, but in terms of how we standardize what actually needs to be trained. There’s a difference between characters having different views under the umbrella of an underlying philosophy and players not being given standardized training.

With the issue being established here as a lack of standardization, there are steps we can take to remedy that. At the beginning of the timeline, we said we wanted to have more lax training requirements in order to make training less of a chore, but that ended up becoming something where training is more or less a free for all in terms of what’s being taught. We can easily come up with a more structured training system where we say “here are the things you must train your students,” and that can be in a training thread, in RPs, or missions, etc. There’s still lots of room in there in terms of making it interesting and adding in individual philosophical outlooks, but the fact would remain: people are learning what they need to learn.

I think, too, we should go back to the structure we had at the beginning of the timeline, which you'll recall, as we were more focused on that at the time. Specifically, the Council members with an area of focus oversee all training in that area of focus. Adena can standardize all sage-based training, and it can be done in a way that helps the war (i.e., emersion in Force training, knowing the Sith philosophies and how to combat them and Sith powers, etc). You, Trell, can standardize all combat training, especially how to defend against the Sith. Boli can standardize lore in ways that help the war. GABA can standardize diplomatic training for reaching out to other factions to help with the war.

Having real oversight like we used to and intended to would help.

That's where rigidity comes into play. If we offer something a little more militaristic, especially in our training, and show discipline throughout our ranks, people will want to join. They'll know where we're going and how we plan on getting there. This is the core of my argument. Winning is a means to an end, but cannot be achieved merely by deciding to win.

Also agreed. We can make things standardized more like that, as I said above. Flexible philosophical outlooks do not preclude structured requirements for training.

It took us awhile to get here, but I think we’re both finally in the same place on this one. Whether we like or dislike the ideas of the Eightfold Path, I think we’re at a point where we can agree, based on what I just said, that having individual philosophies for individual characters doesn’t preclude the Council, as a leadership body, setting rules about what people need to be trained in.

 

[Empress]

having individual philosophies for individual characters doesn’t preclude the Council, as a leadership body, setting rules about what people need to be trained in.

and need to be stuck to and allowed to actually solidify and take root- and more inter-involvement with anyone in any form of leader or mentoring role is important. Establish a parameter, establish or build the framework....