Saga EU Changes that Contradict the Movies

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ysalamir

 

I'm just learning about this new EU story line from wookieepedia. It sounds like something that should be non-canon, like Tag and Bink were for Legends. Seriously are "Born in the Storm" and "Bump" meant to be canon???

 

It's not really something that needed to be explained. It's just a joke.

 

Even that still doesn't make any sense, so they somehow neturalize midis which again would prevent life from existing.

 

It deadens the connection. Like Anakin couldn't hear the Midis in TPM but could do so later. Just in reverse.

 

Yeah, I have to admit it's not that nonsensical. They somehow just muffle the communication pathway between midi-chlorians and the individual. Given that this is obviously something which can be accomplished through severe physical injury (as in the case of Darth Vader), I can buy that the phenomenon can possibly be simulated by some exotic creature. It's kind of like the original concept of the kyber crystal, only reversed. It's a little bit "gobbledygook" (as George would say), but it's reasonable enough as a little wrinkle added to the lore. It only becomes a problem if abused as a plot device.

 

It’s like natural selection. Industrial Revolution, smog covered a forest full of white and black moths. The black moths survived and the white moths didn’t. The Vronskrs hunted the Ysalmiri and they adapted.

 

Anakin could always hear them, he just didn't understand what it was until Qui-Gon and later Obi instructed him how to use his connection.

TPC, Vader lost limbs which reduced his midi count and weakened his connection with the force. Thus, the only way to interfere with a force user's ability is to reduce their midi count as their connection can't be interfered with like with jamming a signal, you can only reduce the size of the antenna.

 

It didn't reduce his midi count because it's based on how many you have per cell, not total amount. It's a holistic thing. Vader's connection to the Force was weakened because his body connections were disrupted with burn injuries and non-organic elements.

 

But the total number of his cells were reduced, therefore the number of midis he had was also reduced. Lucas himself said Vader's total midi count was reduced to below Palp's.

 

That works. In Legends at least, a point is made of how midi-chlorians can be made to leave cells, reducing the number in a cell. The book The Rise & Fall of Darth Vader makes a point of saying that Vader's surgery was without anaesthetic in order to minimise count reduction.

However, reduction may still have occurred, even if it would have been worse with anaesthetic.

 

But the total number of midis isn't what is important. They don't measure potential by total midi count, they measure it by cell concentration. And Lucas never said that. He said Vader's potential was reduced to below Palpatine's. He didn't say anything about midi-chlorian count.

 

Yup:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/star-wars-george-lucas-story

“Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful,” he says. “But he ended up losing his legs and an arm and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he’s maybe 20 percent less than him. So that isn’t what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side."

 

I still find it a concept at odds with what the films present. If the midis can be jammed by nature, than they can also probably means it can be reproduced artificially, which means why didn't the CIS or Empire develop midi jamming weapons to blind Jedi from the force? There is just a lot of story problems with this concept which is a very fan fiction god machine plot device IMO.

"Yup:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/star-wars-george-lucas-story

“Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful,” he says. “But he ended up losing his legs and an arm and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he’s maybe 20 percent less than him. So that isn’t what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side."

So he lost limbs, which reduced the number of his body cells, which reduced his total number of midis, but not the consternation in his remaining cells. Therefore, reduced midi count rendered him weaker in the force despite no change in consternation. Again, its cutting down parts of the antenna, not jamming the signal itself because the force or midis can't be jammed. Trying to make those creatures work is an exercise in doublethink.

 

The force can be used to sense things - like Vader sensing Luke - but it can also be used to shield a being from another being's senses. Yoda and Ben being able to hide themselves from the Emperor and not be sensed.

"Disrupting another being's ability to use the Force" is in line with that.

 

The force (or at least one's connection to it) is rooted in the physical body. That's the point of the midichlorians. But yeah as @The_Phantom_Calamari said, the total number of cells (and therefore total number of midis) has nothing to do with strength in the Force: it's all about the concentration. Otherwise, Yoda wouldn't have the most midichlorians of the Jedi since being so small he has only a fraction the total number of cells that a full-sized human does (cells of multicellular organisms are all basically the same size, with larger organisms just having more of them).

I could buy the idea of a Force-impeding creature. Their existence doesn't necessarily mean there would be technology in the universe that does the same thing for the same reason that the existence of midis doesn't mean they can just create super-jedi in a lab: some things are simply beyond technology. That said, I do think that such a creature should be very limited in its anti-force capabilities - too effective and it becomes implausible and too much of a comic-book-like weakness like Superman and kryptonite.