Who are the NJO's "consulars" / "diplomats"?

I was just thinking about different types of missions that Jedi undertake, and how almost none of Luke's Jedi Order are people that I would want handling delicate negotiations, politically tense situations, situations where there is a treaty or truce violation....

Basically, you've got Cilghal and Leia as clear choices. But Cilghal is needed on the Council and as a healer (especially as a healer, her and Tekli being the only prominent ones). Tionne maybe, but she's more of a scholar and her and Kam are two of the core trainers of the young Jedi... I don't think they've ever shown her handling a delicate situations involving governments and billions of lives.

Who have you got? Who is qualified to help settle the big disputes without igniting a lightsaber or flying an X-Wing?

Horn would probably treat it like a criminal investigation.
Kyle would probably walk up to the table, slap down his weapon and say, "I'm just the guy with the lightsaber."
Kyp Durron... you've got to be kidding.
Streen's training Jedi on Dathomir after the YVW, or so it says on Wookieepedia. Besides, what's he going to do, soothe things over with a cool breeze?
Kenth's a military guy.
The Solo kids and their friends... that's almost as big of a joke as sending Kyp to handle negotiations.
Saba... maybe, but she is also somewhat off-putting to people who don't know her and makes people nervous.
Cheklev... maybe, but he seemed to be more of a scientist-type.

Almost everyone else is portrayed as a warrior, particularly flying or leading squadrons of Jedi starfighters and almost always having to resort to using their lightsaber (which as far as the original Jedi Order was concerned, should be considered a failure unless it's the last resort and all other options have been exhausted.)

They've got one 65-70 year-old-woman who just became a Jedi Knight when she could just as easily be a cast member on the Golden Girls and has to do so much of this stuff that she never seems to catch a break.

When all they do is train warriors, should we really be surprised that all they get is war?

 

Kenth is not just a military guy. He's a very shrewd politician, and we see this in the DNT.

All the Jedi are trained in diplomacy. Kyp's not good at it, but we see him do a bit of it in DN as well. Thing is, all the stories since the beginning of the NJO have necessitated that the Jedi be little more than warriors. In addition, there's not enough of them for any to specialize in diplomacy and negotiation at the expense of combat skills.

 

Luke was training Jedi in the only way he knew how. He was trained to battle, and while he did learn (in the Zahn trilogy, for certain) that Jedi occasionally performed other tasks, warriors are what he knew.

I think he sees the Jedi's role as "Peacekeepers" much more like UN Peace Keepers. These are armed soldiers that are keeping the peace by the deterrent method. The diplomatic peace keeping they leave to the diplomats and cosulars of the government.





As an aside, there were also only a hundred or two Jedi at this point. Sending them out to try and negotiate - even if they had been trained for it - would have strained the Jedi lines.

 

True, and this comes to the fore in the NJO. I think Luke tries to have the Jedi branch out and assume their original roles. It's funny that, people on these boards criticize the OJO at the same time Luke is consistently finding how right they were about many things.

I see it just a bit differently. I think Luke sees the Jedi as only being realistically able, at this point, to act as peacekeepers. I think eventually he hopes to have them use force of arms as little as possible.

I agree. With the ranks so thin, I think Luke's willing to let NR/GA diplomats handle diplomacy.

 

I think I'd qualify that as "All the Jedi should be trained in diplomacy."

So far, the training hasn't been shown as including a lot of this. When Luke takes the Chiss around the academy, when they show training in various places throughout the pre-YVW, obviously during the YVW, and as far as I can tell even the Junior/Young Jedi Knights stuff it's all physical / Force powers / combat / and some Jedi lore from Tionne. What canon references to the new Order's training describe or suggest diplomatic training?

The Republic Jedi didn't necessarily have to have a lot of diplomacy specialists (although a great deal of the ones that died on Geonosis used the "Diplomat's Form" of lightsaber combat and were very rusty in big combat situations), but most of them were skilled enough to do it, and generally seemed more well-rounded. We see Kenobi and Fisto researching a planet for 10+ hours before making an mission plans, and going over treaties, laws, and social situations in the Cestus Deception, for instance, and bringing along a barrister to help. And this is fairly common, with a lot of the masters having references to delicate non-combat situations they've handled. Even in the films, the "ambassadors" are Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

With Luke's Jedi, it's more like: pack up an X-Wing, put the hyperdrive "pedal" to the floor, show up and see what happens... usually see who they have to fight.

 

Kenobi is known as The Negotiator, but how often do we see him actually negotiating during the Clone Wars? Not very much. Why? Well, first negotiations seem to have failed a lot. Also, people tend to find reading about negotiations or anything political like that boring, so it will always end up resorting to action in Star Wars. And lastly, we probably are mostly seeing the times where Kenobi had to fight rather than the times that negotiations succeeded.

And yet, at the same time Obi-Wan was damn good in combat. So just because someone is a good fighter doesn't mean that they can't be a good diplomat.

 

I'd qualify it differently as, "All the Jedi seem to be at least somewhat capable of diplomacy, suggesting it's somewhere in their training."

Actually, some of the final tests - even one or two of the games - seem to point towards diplomatic mindsets and ways of thinking.

And Obi-Wan is considered exceptional as a diplomat. His nickname is "The Negotiator." Thing is, the OJO have the luxury of 1000 years, plus a couple hundred here and there before that, of relative peacetime in which to be, primarily, diplomats. The NJO is always at the forefront of the conflicts going on and, since there are only a couple of hundred, it takes all of them to be involved. If the events of the DNT had taken place with the OJO's numbers, then only a fraction would be needed to fight the Killiks and the Chiss.

Which comes down to resources and circumstance, I think.

 

Granted, but that there's even a reference to him as the Negotiator suggests a lot. And the Clone Wars were four years out of his entire "career" as a Jedi. Also, Yoda, Mace, and at least half of the other prequel Jedi have some reference to handling something other than a fight.

I'm not asking for a political thriller novel or a John Grisham legal drama in space. It's Star Wars. But a page here and a paragraph there reminding people of who the Jedi are and what they are supposed to do wouldn't hurt.

 

There's a couple of interesting passages with Luke agonizing about trying to find a direction for the Jedi. Those are at least kind of what you're talking about, I think...

 

As a corollary to all of this, how many times is the Jedi Code brought up regarding Luke's Jedi? He's got a holocron, met a few older Jedi, has a Jedi scholar in Tionne... surely he knows about it and I think I've seen maybe one or two passages, but it just doesn't seem to come up at all 99.99% of the time. You usually don't even get sweeping statements like, "A Jedi does this..." or "A Jedi never does this...." It seems like Luke could spend a lot less time agonizing over the role of the Jedi if he'd just pull up a chair and listen to the holocron, watch the Chu'unthor tapes read Tionne's notes, talk to a few people, etc.

 

^^ Disagree. Luke, initially, isn't trying to just recreate the Jedi of old, and that shows in the way things have proceeded. It's only recently - yay, prequels! - that Luke is beginning to bring in more of the OJO's philosophies.

 

Was he ever able to articulate what he was trying to create?

I really don't want to be rude... he's supposed to be the hero of the story, and the character is a lot of peoples' hero... but...

I'm a bit disappointed that he's only recently had the Dark Nest epiphany that makes him think twice about some things. I don't think it can all be blamed on not having had the prequels as a guide... there was a lot of stuff out there about the Jedi even before TPM was released. I also think that the "limited training" excuse wore itself out the first couple dozen times he acquired something or met someone that taught him about the Jedi Order.

To me, it looks like Luke only created a Force-empowered Rebel Alliance. Right down to his choice of first training center. X-Wings, commando-style training and operations, learn in the field by chosing missions, volunteer-style everything, his choice of first recruits, all the ties to the Rebellion, etc.

Actually, that's exactly what it is: Force Rebellion: the Not Jedi Order.

(Okay, that was a bit rude.)

Surely he should have realized long before Dark Nest that Force Rebels weren't going to be of much use (and might even become a problem) once things started to settle down.

 

-Tresk Im'nel was a former aide to Borsk Fey'lya. He's definitely one.
-Kenth Hamner was the liaison between the Jedi Knights and the New Republic during the NJO. He definitely can play the diplomacy game.
-Tenel Ka not only qualifies, but pretty much became the ultimate Jedi ambassador via accepting the Hapan crown.
-Markre Medjev struck me as the diplomatic type.
-Cilghal was a former diplomat and ambassador.
-Leia of course.
-Tresina Lobi is a good candidate.

There are plenty of viable consulars around.

 

Granted.

Also.

Not Jedi. Not any more, because of taking the crown. Seemed to be more of a fighter until then.

There doesn't seem to be much to support this.

And primary healer, and High Council member, and Masters Council member...

Part time Jedi at best, getting on in years, only just officially recognized as a Knight. Followed around by a Corellian smuggler and two Noghri bodyguards that once referred to her as "Lady Vader." Often compromised in terms of loyalties and other interests.

Basically what we know of her is that her apprentice was killed, she was running supplies during the war, she fought to defend Zonoma against Alpha Red, she was put on the Masters Council, she fought Killiks, and led a squadron of fighters during the Dark Nest. I don't see how that makes a "good candidate."

Kenth, Tresk, Leia (often compromised, diplomat training unrelated to being a Jedi, wasn't officially a Jedi for most of it), Cilghal (needed as the primary healer / physician of the Order and serving on two Councils).

That's two plus Leia and Cilghal. Out of 100 prior to the war, and 250 (so an additional 200 or so including YVW survivors) or so around DN/LotF. That's 96-98 Jedi as the NJO series started and possibly 246-248+ after that, that are basically using combat as something other than a last resort.

 

pre-Traitor Jacen seemed to possibly be headed along that path (certainly wanted to avoid war, and only use the Force to help everyone instead of fight)... but... um... yeah...


i agree with the claim that in such a small order (i think they're around 300 strong tops in Betryal) that diplomacy as a specialization isn't too common. as a part of an overall training i'm sure they have some abilities... but they're more useful as special forces/elite espinoge types for now since regular diplomats are pretty common and useful. once they get back into the thousands strong level i'm sure more diplomatic missions will start to happen.

 

I think that's the point, though. Luke worked with what he knew, what he believed in, and what he thought might be some good ideas. For a long time, that worked. It's only now that he has to buckle down.

 

I think the difficulty in answering this question is that 90% of the Jedi Knights are just names without must background or character development behind them. That being said, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy confirms that all the Jedi at the Yavin Praxeum are taught diplomacy among other subjects including history.

Re Tresk Im'nel, not only was he an aide, he trained in the Bothan Diplomatic Core, so is immanently qualified for diplomacy.

Two other candidates would be Tash Arranda and Zak Arranda. Both are Jedi Knigts and were trained as anthropologists?not your typical warrior profession.

Another candidate could be Corask Slen'da, a Bothan Jedi Knight who trained as an archaeologist?also not a warrior profession.