PT Is there anyone who actually likes the concept of Midi-chlorians?

lmaaooo that would have been hilarious.

 

So would I. In fact I think I said as much above: that if there's even the slightest contradiction between the movies and the books then of course the former take precedence. But when the movies don't answer the question, or when we need to expand on the answer the movies give us, then I think it's acceptable to use the books/games/whatever to fill in the blanks, which is the role Lucasfilm says they have (I can't remember if GL has ever personally commented on the 'levels of canonicity' issue, other than to say 'the movies trump the EU').

 

Qui-Gon already knew the Force was unusually strong with Anakin, per his own words, but tested his blood anyway. I suppose he just wanted more evidence to confirm his Chosen One theory.

That statement isn't a point for or against anything.

Personally, I'm rather apathetic toward midi-chlorians.

 

Why wouldn't the babies have had midichlorian counts taken during a post-birth blood test for abnormalities? Especially since they were the two children of a Jedi, and there were two Jedi Masters present at the birth and in control of the medical facility. Besides which, having watched over Luke for 18 years he would have been able to sense his untapped Force potential, just as Qui-Gon did with Anakin (as CT says above, he only used the midichlorian test as a confirmation).

Edit: Of course the midichlorian-test-at-birth sort of plot-holes the 'last hope / there is another' conversation in ROTJ, so I guess the 'he sensed it' explanation will have to do.

 

"Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."

In other words: there's no microscopic life forms or some planet called Mortis...

 

Urgh. Just looked up Mortis on Wookieepedia and I agree. It's made my list of "EU things I pretend don't exist" along with Darth Maul coming back to life, the Emperor clones and the Yuuzhan Vong.

 

If the force is biological, you guys should love Emperor clones. That goes right to the heart of the matter

The Emperor should have made an army of them, genetically enhanced to follow his orders just like the clone army. He'd be unstoppable.

If you go for the force bacteria biology angle

 

Not necessarily. If midichlorians are a separate lifeform from the host individual then the cloning process might not be successful in cloning them.

Also, in the 'emperor clones' story the clones were basically host bodies kept in stasis, and the emperor transferred his consciousness to them when killed at Endor. So if you don't like the "midichlorians can't be cloned" explanation then be content with the fact that on no other occasion has a Forceful being been able to transfer their consciousness to another living being.

The emperor clones are also unusual in having had swipes taken at them by other EU authors. One of Zahn's books included "I don't believe it was really him".

 

Yeah, it's a biological trait right up until that becomes inconvenient. You know, when we start treating it like a biological trait. People want it both ways.

And I'm not talking about trading consciousness, I'm talking about raising an army, Why settle for Fetts when you can have Palpatine's adjusted in the same way to make them compliant?

That is the logical conclusion that treating the force as a biological trait leads

Now will come all the nonsense about how it won't work.

As I said, it's a biological trait until that becomes inconvenient, then everyone changes their tune.

 

If anyone could become a force user simply by believing in the force, weird that Ben and Yoda left everything to Luke and the other instead of finding other believers during the 20 year span they had to work with. Makes them look quite stupid for not having a backup plan of some sort, and I can't relate to stupid characters, especially in magical space adventure movies.

 

And if it was genetic family trait, and 20 years ago there were 10,000 Jedi ( that claim is from earlier in the thread) there should be countless force apt relatives of those people. Millions of aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, not to mention that the family tree of each Jedi should be able to be traced back to countless branches, all carrying this Jedi trait from ancestors deep in the past. That's genealogy after all. The Force should run strong in those family lines because it's all about biology, right?

For every one trained Jedi, there should be countless relatives out there with the proper biology.

Now you want to talk about stupid characters, these two must be complete idiots thinking the Skywalkers are their last hope.

Unless. this biological crap was never true in the first place...........................................................................................................

 

Cloning different lifeforms requires different techniques. This is even the case in real life: cloning a human being is (leaving the ethical questions aside) much more difficult than cloning a sheep, for example. So it isn't necessarily inconsistent to say that a process designed to clone one lifeform (a human, as Palpatine was) would not work on another lifeform (midichlorians).

But anyway I dislike the 'clone emperors' more from the 'conflicts with the story of the films' angle more than from the science fiction angle.

Absolute nonsense. Genes can be dormant - carried by a person, and able to be passed on to their children, but not actually 'active' in that person themselves - so for example two brown haired parents can have a ginger-haired child if one of the grandparents had ginger hair. So the 'force sensitivity' gene (or whatever the precise biological trigger for midichlorians is) could have been carried by ten generations of one family without any of them actually being Force sensitive.

 

That is a copout. A transparent attempt to deflect from what is an obvious flaw in the theory.

If it's all biology, then..............................


And let's be frank, we could clone humans today if we wanted, the only thing stopping us is the ethics. You say it's more difficult than cloning a sheep, it's not. Biologically, it's the same thing. We are mammals, not different from the others on this planet in any meaningful way other than our intelligence.

 

I didn't see 10,000 Jedi in the films, and I have this rule where I only go by the films.

 

I agree, the number is dubious. We know there were plenty though, and the point is no different.

For every one Jedi alive at the time of the purge there should be a great deal more force "carriers", you can't get around that if you want to hold onto this "the force runs in families through biology" angle.

There should be huge numbers of people out there with the proper biology

 

People are lifeforms. Midi-Chlorians are lifeforms. The Force is not a lifeform.

Bravo to whoever can clone the Force, guys!

 

Then they are unnecessary? If their presence is not the key to connection to the force, why test for them?

 

So then they look stupid either way. They had a huge biologically-produced talent pool to work with, and they only went with Luke and the other. Or they had the entire universe's population other than imperial sympathizers to recruit, and they only went with Luke and the other.

 

Nope, they are necessary. "Without the Midi-Chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force."

 

They don't look stupid if Luke is the key because Luke has a special connection to the force that transcends the physical realm which has been the entire point the whole time. Something I pointed out several times.

And it's not an accident that the story works on that level.

 

Then we are back at square one. You can clone beings with high midiclorian counts, and thus have a connection to the force

 

In that case the force is awfully elitist. Pretty stupid magical energy field if it only chooses one person. And Yoda is an elitist little punk as well, reducing all lives who haven't been chosen by a magical energy field to nothing but crude matter. Why to trivialize the rebels who risk it all without having magical energy afterlife powers to fall back on.