ST Midi-chlorians in Episode VII

And there you have it, you're just trolling.

 

Good thing genetics don't enter into it then.

 

Parasitism is, by definition as I recall, an association between two organisms where one individual benefits while injuring another individual. Confusing population dynamics with the individual level is just obfuscation, and you should know better than that.

I suspect Lucas intends "symbiosis" as inherently good just as a metaphor for society in general.

 

YODA: "Luke...the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned."
OBI-WAN: "If Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him."
LUKE: "The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it and... [looks directly at Leia] My sister has it."

 

Why would you assume that's genetics? As opposed to the will of the Force?

 

All that proofs is that the Skywalkers are chosen by the force.

@ Count Yubnub

Should I? I am not a biologist and I don't put biological terms in movies. And I thought population dynamics have everything to do with why a trait is passed down a generation or not.

 

"The Force runs strong in your family" - Why wouldn't you assume it's genetics?
It's a fair assumption based on the text in the script. As is the assumption it's the will of the force based on the context of the story.

When RotJ came out originally in 1983, I was under the direct impression that the Force was passed on through generations. The PT clouded that, but did nothing to clarify it either way. So either assumption, because that's what both points of view are, can be seen as reasonable.

Darth_Pevra - It doesn't prove anything either way

 

Well, right now we have the situation, that only Anakin is "the chosen one". The suggestion is that the rest of the Jedi are were not "chosen" in the way he was.

 

Hmm...

The second quote has actually made me re-think the debate a bit. The first and third refer to the Force running strongly in the Skywalker family (which mightn't necessarily be the case with all Force users, and IMHO, emphasises the importance of the family in the big picture), but the line "The Emperor knew that if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him" suggests that inheriting Force sensitivity was far more general and likely.

Yes, you could say that Anakin's offspring would be a threat whether or not they were Force sensitive, but I think the obvious implication is that they would be potential Jedi.

But then there's another spanner in the works - at the time of ROTJ, Owen Lars was Obi-Wan Kenobi's brother, so why hadn't he ever been a Jedi Knight if it ran in the family?


(I've posted the same reply to this over in Saga - http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-anyone-could-learn-the-force.50012489/page-7 - this particular discussion has been going on for a bit longer over there)

 

That spanner can be explained. Some genetics in our own world can be passed down to some children and not others. (I'm talking brothers and sisters in the same family of course)

 

I always wondered. If the force is genetic, why didn't the Sith clone themselves a force army or start some breeding experiments? I know that the EU answers this with "clones go insane", but that is not a fulfilling explanation imo.

 

My only concern at this point is that the entire saga be consistent, as best as it can be. By this I mean it would be preferable if the ST did not try to retcon midichlorians or contradict their existence in any way, as I am sure some people would like them to. It would be useless to do so and any filmmaker who wished too probably shouldn't be making a Star Wars film, since they still clinging to some outdated idea about what Star Wars is and should be. What is done is done, and further meddling will not solve anything. This does not necessarily mean midichlorians need be mentioned, however. As long as their existence is not contradicted, they do not need to be mentioned at all. There are perhaps ways in which the concept could be improved upon or better explained, in which case I would be happy to have midichlorians addressed. But otherwise, I think it best the issue be left to rest.

 

And 20 years prior to ANH, there were thousands of Jedi. Thousands of people who all came from families with mothers and fathers and brother and sisters. Aunts and Uncles and Cousins and Grandmothers and Grandfathers and on and on. If it's genetics that is the key, Skywalker isn't important at all. There should be countless potential Jedi running around out there coming off of branching family trees.

If that is what we are truly talking about, the Skywalkers are just one family in many. There should be an ocean of Jedi genetics out there

 

Everybody hates midichlorians. The only reason to keep them at this point is to make fun of them.
- Luke. What does the Scouter say about his midichlorian level?
- It's over ninethousaaaaaaaaaaaaand!!!

 

But that could be the case. I mean, if Luke was going to revive the Jedi order post-ROTJ and search out those force-sensitives, couldn't they be individuals with "Jedi genetics"? The Empire only cared about destroying Jedi, not those with potential to be Jedi, because those with potential are pretty useless without someone to teach them the ways of the force.

Forgetting all the midi-chlorian stuff and going off what was said in the OT, it's possible. I'm not saying its only about genetics, but it could be a factor. Maybe it increases the odds of the child being force-sensitive if the parent's are strong with the force.

 

How many of them are the child of the Chosen One, who has a midichlorian count greater than Yoda's? Also, inheritance doesn't work that way: not everyone in a family will share a trait or share that trait in the same way. That's probably part of the reason why the Jedi don't just breed more Jedi (apart from the whole non-attachment thing); or keep going to the same families like Jedi sperm-banks. Sidious knew that by wiping out a generation of Jedi, without the selection process and the training necessary, Force sensitives would be pretty much harmless to him; that's why he kidnapped infant Force sensitives who have already been selected by the Jedi and tried to instruct them himself (TCW, S02E03).

 

If GL doesn't want to focus too much on what the result would be if the force could be passed from a person to their children, then I suppose it could be considered genetic. If it was an issue that a storyteller
DID happen to focus on more thoroughly, then the results would almost certainly look nothing like the picture that was drawn of the GFFA...The end result of that would be force sensitives overrunning the galaxy,
and then everyone really would be able to learn how to use the force.

Over the span of 25,000 years of service, the jedi, who did not have a breeding program, would almost certainly have fallen to the inhabitants of some world beyond the outer rim, where they would breed and train force sensitives. Let's face it, we've never been introduced to a setting where there were millions of jedi. And yet, considering that the jedi reigned for so long, and accumulated sooo many enemies, were the force passed genetically, the way to victory over the jedi would be obvious.

I think the EU took the idea of the force being genetic, and ran with it, and even had to come up with reasons why a force sensitive population did not escape their world in order to overrun the galaxy. (the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and the Witches of Dathomir)

Anakin's family should be considered a special case, because Anakin is a special case. He was not conceived under regular circumstances. His father was a midi-chlorian, if not several. What then would that say about his children? They wouldn't necessarily be a regular case either.

 

All this conversation has emphasized for me is that I'm tired of Special Destinies regardless if they're brought about by microscopic life forms or a "Force goddess" handing out familial privilege cards. Here's to hoping Episode VII will be about a starfighter pilot who pilots starfighters or pod-racer who races pods and just happens to do a bit of warlord opposition on the weekends.

 

It really is fascinating to see how we as fans engulf ourselves in this heated debates talking about genetics, parasites, will of the force, etc.

Lucas came up with this concept only as a story element, a very unpopular one to say the least. Never in a million years did he trouble himself with a scientific background for this. And that's what makes it fascinating, even as a sociological experiment of sorts. It becomes one of those eternal discussions like it happens with religion and politics where the origins were so basic, straight forward and historical that now when people approach these subjects with much more profound ambitions towards understanding them, they get lost in the debate.

I'm not in anyway criticizing anyone for it. A few pages back I was in the thick of it myself and it's a lot of fun. I just wanted to point out how fascinating it is.

 

I still don't understand why force sensitivity isn't enhanced by breeding methods similar to those we use on dogs. It should be easy enough to identify the relevant genes and just make yourself some super force-user. Just pair the strongest with each other, dump any children that don't show the trait and pair the children with the strongest force with each other until you got a super-Sith. It's not exactly complicated. We already did it more than hundreds of years with plants and dogs.

 

It's depressing, the lack of imagination so widespread among fans of something meant to inspire the imagination. Something that is the antidote to cynicism, attracting a whole new generation of cynics. Fascinating, in a dark depressing melancholic way.

"Truly wonderful the mind of a child is" - Yoda. Lesson fail, people.

 

Or story fail, taking such a wonderful concept and butchering it into this force bacteria garbage. Maybe it's not our fail

 

It wasn't the fans who put bacteria, genetics and "over ninethousand!" into Star Wars.

 

Just depressing. I can't even laugh it off, it just makes me sad.

 

It's irreleveant to the point. If the force is genetic in nature, the Skywalker family is not unique. There should be force sensitive people everywhere. There were thousands of them that carried the trait at a minimum, and they all have family lines. People want to play that card both ways, you can't. If you want to argue the genetic side of it, you have to take the argument to it's conclusion. And that conclusion is. if the Skywalkers are that unique, it's not genetic.

People have used the genetic argument as a reason why the Skywalkers are the last hope for the galaxy, clearly that argument is completely without merit.