Lit Beyond the big two: lesser Force traditions in the GFFA

I have to question this. While clearly evil exists in the GFFA as in our world, why is evil a cosmic force? What if evil is purely the creation of sapient minds? This is not to say that evil is an illusion that exists because we are hurt by things, because even if we differ on the finer points most human societies have come to some pretty standard conclusions about what is and is not right. No, rather I mean to say that is is possible that the universe, God, the Force, whatever, does not create evil, sapient minds do. Sapient minds crave power, control over others, and dominance because we fear, and because we deny that the other person is every bit as much a person as we ourselves are.

After all, the "Jedi...kill in service of life". By removing agents of evil will, even by removing them from life, the whole is protected. And while I can see the argument that sometimes the Force might allow the Jedi to fail when they seek to uphold a stagnant, decaying form, a la the Old Republic toward its end, I don't believe the Force has an entropic nature or function. If we take as true that the Force is inextricably bound to life, that "life creates it, makes it grow" then the natural order of the Force must be to foster and nurture life, which I have ever held as being the opposite of entropy.

 

To get very technical for a second, there's a new scientific theory saying life is the result of entropy. And in the NJO, Luke comes to the conclusion that the dark side did not exist until intelligent life learned how to defy the will of the Force.


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What? Can you explain this?

 

On my phone right now. It's a new theory, just read about it within the last month, I'm sure a quick google search will bring it up.
Actually, google search in news for: physicist proposes thermodynamic explanation for the origins of life

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That's really interesting, it kind of knocks my rather poetic notion that life is the opposite of entropy flat on its keister. I'll be curious to see if the hypothesis is later proven. And while my poetic use of the word entropy above mirrors Dawud786's, if we presume that life does increase entropy in a given system, does that mean life has an evil component, that is, a component that is eventually and irrevocably deleterious to life itself? If so, is that what we mean by "evil"?

 

I have returned from my studies of the dreaded Wookipedia (SAN lose 1T6) and have with me more knowledge of the Seyugi Dervishes (from here on mostly refereed to as the Dervishes because it is shorter to type).

The wook’’s page on the Dervishes begin with anepigraph:

"The Ailon Nova Guard, the Nikto Morgukai and the Seyugi Dervishes have all elevated combat into an art form." ​

―Darth Bane, The Rule of Two​

Now this inform us that the Dervishes have been around since before the Battle of Ruusan and that Bane have heard of them. Personally I find his comment regarding the Dervishes a bit strange (I have no knowledge of the Ailon Nova Guard or the Nikto Morgukai so I will ignore them) since how they were presented in CatCW, to me, don’t seems to have anything that a sith would find interesting. The sith should already be able to do everything the Seyugi Dervishes can do and do it better.

We are told their name comes from “[…]the few survivors of their attacks, who described their confusing, whirling movements as a "beautiful dance of death."” Which is interesting since, to my understanding, it is just one subgroup of the real world Dervishes, the Mevlevi order, who practise whirling dance as part of their faith. Maybe Dervishes in SW are different from the one here
New information about their history -

I notice that we are not told what species the seyugi belonged to.

We are also told about the way they recruited and trained new members

We get new information about their ways and some scraps of philosophy

Personally I find the fluff regarding the Seyugi Dervishes were not done justice when it come to how the Seyugi Dervishes prestige class were presented and the picture we have of one of them, Razi Khan (seen below), don't give the impression of them preferring close combat with his heavy looking slugthrower rifle; but than again Khan have painted a racor maw on his mask so maybe he is just unorthodox


About the Mallif monks we don’t get anything new about their organisation or faith but are told that “a minority knew and took care of the hibernating Dervishes and their hidden base, waiting until the opportunity was right to take their charges out of their frozen state.” which is new.



So what do people think about the new information?

 

Gamiel too

Here you guys go...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

Does entropy have to be evil, or chaos?

Isn't entropy really just the universe trying to reach a state of balance?

 

The light and dark side are both necessary.

 

Or neither are.

Rokur Gepta said:

How beautiful to contemplate an entire galaxy of worlds glowing sweetly thus, to imagine the whole universe clean and sterile, linear and predictable.​

 

Why is that? Why must the Force have a dark side, rather than the "dark side" be a reflection of sapient beings' greed, lust for power, etc.? I would hold that it doesn't, that the Force is the Force, and that what a person brings to it informs how they perceive it. And to answer Ghost, first of all thank you for linking the article, I had read it from your earlier suggestion. So is Entropy evil? I have said so because entropy is destructive to life... eventually. Eventually, the fact that the universe is coming to a balance point, purely entropic in nature, combined with the continual expansion of the universe means that at some point in the (thankfully) distant future, the universe will simply be incapable of supporting life, at least life as we currently know it. This scenario is referred to as the heat death of the universe. So from this basis, I have said entropy is evil, but we need not think so.

Entropy is natural, certainly, it is one of the laws of existence, living beings seem to accelerate the processes of entropy, but I think we are getting rather far afield. The scientific concept of Entropy is quite different from the metaphorical usage above, where "entropy" is used as a short hand for destruction of life, or creating a situation that is deleterious to life in some way. I think it's safe to say we all agree life cannot continue without destruction, on some level. Carnivores eat animals, herbivores eat plants, plants destroy rock and disturb soil to place roots, etc. etc. While these are entropic processes, in the literal scientific sense, they are all processes that allow life to continue and indeed to flourish. So while destructive, they are also good, or at least neutral. A wasp that plants its eggs in a still-living host is revolting to us, and indeed we might call such a wasp evil, but that's a fallacy. It is acting on instinct, it is no more evil than a dog marking its territory. Evil requires a decision, a choice that only a thinking, sapient mind can perform. This is the central reason why I think the Potentium is not necessarily evil or heretical, and why I think it is more interesting/compelling/philosophically valid to say that the Force is neither Light nor Dark, but instead responds to the notions and conceptions of the user.

This relies on the belief that the Force is life, is created and grows because of life, and as such should work to serve, nurture and expand life. The concept of the Dark Side, an inherently corrupting aspect to the Force that works against life, is antithetical. It is far more interesting to believe that the Sith work in opposition to the will of the Force, that, in a religious sense, they have fallen away from the True Path and work to dominate and control.

Gamiel that's interesting, this is from the new RPG yes? It seems like an updated version of the Matukai from the previous RPG system, very similar in most respects save that the Dervishes are more overtly evil.

 

The Sith work against the will of the Force because they perpetuate imbalance. But death is a natural part of life, and that is what the dark side represents.

 

That's an interesting take, but would that not make Yoda a practitioner of the Dark Side? "Death is a natural part of life", he teaches, after all.

When I refer to the dark side, I mean a corrupting, evil aspect to the Force, which guides good people to be evil, and do horrible things. It is this that I don't believe in, because why would the Force want to create people who destroy life on a large scale? Again, on a small scale, the Jedi kill lots of people, but always in service of life. This is balance. Those who follow the dark side serve only themselves, and normally slaughter anyone who gets in the way of this. This is imbalance. I don't see why the Force should seek to imbalance itself.

 

Death is a natural part of life. When the dark side is out of balance and there's excessive death, it's unnatural.

But the dark side in balance with the light side is the natural order of things, and there's life and death in balance.

 

Ok but why does that imply that the Force encourages people to be evil, rewards their evil with power?

 

I don't understand how that implies that the Force encourages people to be evil.

The Force potentially gives people power. How they choose to use it is up to them.

 

So therefore the Force is neither good nor evil in and of itself

 

No, even if you think it has a light side and a dark side, those are sides of the Force.

 

But if the purpose of life is to aid entropy and destroy, so the universe can eventually die and be at balance... what then? Then that would mean that protecting and nurturing life is to accelerate the inevitable end of all life and the universe as we know it.

And what makes conscious destruction worse than natural destruction, if the will of the Force is to achieve balance by destroying the universe?

Does that then mean it's morally good to oppose the will of the Force, and try to dominate it?

Maybe Traya was right, and the Force is evil.

Or maybe the Force is simply amoral, it just is, like the force of gravity or electromagnetism... sometimes it should be listened to, sometimes it should be subverted, like how the Je'Daii treated it.

 

Oh we already determined the Force was evil in another thread based on the fact that when Jacen and Barriss both had moments of unity with the Cosmic Force they later turned to the dark side.

 

That would be my position. I would also say that the purpose of life is not to add to entropy, if life has a purpose it is not known to us. An EFFECT of life is the creation of entropy, but for all we know the purpose of sapience is to allow a life form or a collective of life forms to circumvent the entropic death of the universe. Maybe this is the ultimate function of the Force, an emergent property of life that directs life to continue and flourish in an effort to one day find a solution to the universes' eventual death. On the other hand it could be because we are endlessly silly beings who are funny to watch. Who is to say?

 

But if the "right" position is that the Force is amoral... sometimes it should be listened to, sometime it should be subverted and dominated... that would mean the Jed are wrong.

Therefore, one of the lesser Force traditions, or the old Je'Daii way, is right.

And the Jedi might be wrong to seek the balance of the Force.

 

You're right, I agreed too quickly without really thinking. I do not mean to say that the will of the Force should be subverted....
...but to hold that belief one must hold forth that the Force is good (or at least can be)...
...man this gets complicated quickly! I really just like the notion that the Force doesn't corrupt people, rather it is their own failings that cause their evil. That's all I mean to say.

 

I don't understand what the jedi being right have to do with non-warrior based Force traditions?

 

Interesting but if I understood what England meant right so do I wonder how he explain that we don't see more life in our world

I would say that it depends on the definition of entropy. To my understanding one of the ways you can use that world is in the meaning of "The tendency of a system that is left to itself to descend into chaos" so in that interpretation it is associated with chaos.

Also: when have it been associated with evil? I know it is used as a synonym with destruction but I don't think I have seen it described as evil

Rokur Gepta: How beautiful to contemplate an entire galaxy of worlds glowing sweetly thus, to imagine the whole universe clean and sterile, linear and predictable.

The Seyugi Dervish were first mentioned in Coruscant and the Core Worldsby Wizards of the Coast and have since been mentioned in Jedi Academy Training Manual and in Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side.I have personally only CatCW, the rest of the information I have given about them are from Wookipedia

 

Let's ask Jaster Mereel about entropy!