The vibe I get is the same as Qui-Gon in Mortis. "I am here because you are here."
Spoilers AHSOKA series [Spoiler Discussion]
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Pretty sure it was a Force Ghost Anakin. There are a few clues.
1. He references his last duel with Luke ("I've hear that before" to Ahsoka's "I will not fight you".)
2. He did not recognize the Siege of Mandalore because he was not there.
3. He actually appears as he did on Mustafar, before losing the High Ground. Ahsoka never saw him like that.
4. Commenting on Ahsoka's age. Last time he saw her, even as Darth Vader, was over ten years ago (getting closer to fifteen years ago).
1. He references his last duel with Luke ("I've hear that before" to Ahsoka's "I will not fight you".)
2. He did not recognize the Siege of Mandalore because he was not there.
3. He actually appears as he did on Mustafar, before losing the High Ground. Ahsoka never saw him like that.
4. Commenting on Ahsoka's age. Last time he saw her, even as Darth Vader, was over ten years ago (getting closer to fifteen years ago).
The WBW kinda reminds me of the Nexus in Star Trek, a place where time and space collide and what's left behind of people who go there is an echo of the person.
So far as how Hera could sense it too; she couldn't at first. It took Jacen to even tell her it was there, and a clearly conscious effort to quiet her mind and open herself up to it.
I think people forget that Hera is every bit the Jedi philosophy convert that Sabine is. She lived with Jedi for years, saw what they could do, even had a child by one. Indeed it was her idea for Kanan to take on Ezra as an apprentice, and it seems for Ahsoka to take on Sabine . . . twice! She doesn't need to unlearn what is possible, because she already has, many times over.
Couple that with her very strong connection with her naturally force sensitive son, and the fact that her innate piloting abilities may be part of a latent sensitivity in and of itself. Then I could see her sensing what Jacen feels through that connection; though it takes a conscious effort, and focus.
Of course the whole thing is deliberately ambiguous, so we might never know 100% . . . but it's still clearly leaning pretty heavily in the "yes of course it's Anakin" direction.
I think people forget that Hera is every bit the Jedi philosophy convert that Sabine is. She lived with Jedi for years, saw what they could do, even had a child by one. Indeed it was her idea for Kanan to take on Ezra as an apprentice, and it seems for Ahsoka to take on Sabine . . . twice! She doesn't need to unlearn what is possible, because she already has, many times over.
Couple that with her very strong connection with her naturally force sensitive son, and the fact that her innate piloting abilities may be part of a latent sensitivity in and of itself. Then I could see her sensing what Jacen feels through that connection; though it takes a conscious effort, and focus.
Yup, the balance of evidence is in favour of that really being Anakin's presence. Of course the distinction between this and "force dream" is rather meaningless considering that Anakin is a part of the force now. If it's the will of the force that it manifest a vision of Anakin Skywalker, why bother with a mere illusion when the real thing is right there?
Of course the whole thing is deliberately ambiguous, so we might never know 100% . . . but it's still clearly leaning pretty heavily in the "yes of course it's Anakin" direction.
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I agree with you totally about Hera. If she doesn't have latent Force abilities she's spent enough time around Jedi to understand that even without the abilities one could still tap into Force sensitivities. Rogue One has already canonized that anyone who can open their mind to listen enough can use the Force, although there is a huge difference between Chirrut and Luke, for example.
While I think your explanation of WBW is absolutely spot on, for me it feels different. I'm sure DF explanation comes closer to your theory.
For me, Ahsoka didn't leave the planet. Instead of drowning though, she had a vision. This vision, dream, whatever manifested itself as Anakin as he was before Mustafar, when he and Ahsoka were master and apprentice.
But who says that being a dream doesn't make something not real?
First time it was made more explicit within a narrative perhaps. As I illustrated a few pages back, this idea has been around since the very beginning, right alongside the idea that some people just have a natural aptitude. It was largely the fans and the EU authors that confused matters for themselves.
Even so we already had other edge cases in canon such as Talzin admitting that unlike Ventress and Maul; she was not a "natural force user". Presumably shortcutting to it through Nightsister magiks, just as they imbued Savage Opress with a heightened force sensitivity.
My personal suspicion is that it was a Schrodinger's Cat type situation. Had Ahsoka not chosen to live and to stop fighting, then I think what Hera would have found would have been a body that had been dead since the fall the previous night. By choosing life Ahsoka essentially collapsed the wave function and thus was alive the whole time.
Whether she was ever actually clinically dead or not remains an open question.
But yes, when it comes to this kind of thing "dream" and "real" are not mutually exclusive concepts.
It's virtually a given that that all the top pilots have low level force abilities, but only end up refined in the ways that affect flying. Not enough to be recruited by Jedi, but solidly present nonetheless.
By his appearance he doesn't seem to be all that much. I'm not familiar with Knights of Ren
In Ep4 Obi Wan says that the Force is in all living beings. Doesn't go outright and say that technically, anyone could be sensitive but there does seem to be a natural divide between those who can - with the right training and discipline - sense or even touch the Force, and those who have a natural ability to really use the Force; what in the EU would be referred to as Force Sensitive.
TPM tried to fix this ambiguity with midichlorians but I prefer to headcannon that out
Being Force sensitive should not automatically be looking for "Jedi/Sith" levels. By their nature, they are trained to be more adept. Looking for all Force sensitives to be at that level is like looking at all basketball players and looking for Lebron James.
You're going to be disappointed.
They are more intense than the Knights of Stimpy.
Not in material released to the public. There are in effect two stories here.
One story was told in a series of films released between 1977 and 1983.
Another was told in a series of books released between 2007 and 2013.
Thirty years after the fact.
So it's all well and good to say that Lucas always had these ideas, but he didn't exactly do a great job of getting the message out in a timely fashion.
Which doesn't make it contradictory to past stories.
Only contradictory to fan assumptions or novel assumptions.
Only contradictory to fan assumptions or novel assumptions.
One of the old EU novels had Luke find some kind of old Force Sensitivity scanner in the ruining of one of Palpatine's building. Tested Wedge and found nothing. Started testing others and found variations. People with high sensitivity could be found. That was around the time he started his Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. But taken into account of later things, that was a midichlorian detector.
In The Clone Wars, Palpatine stated that he envisioned a group of Force Sensitive spies he would have all over the galaxy. He'd have his Inquisitors kidnap babies and children that were relatively strong in the Force. The question is what happened to them. As far as we can tell, they didn't become inquisitors. They weren't the Knights of Ren. They might have been used in Palpatine's cloning experiments. Or many he shipped them off to the Unknown Regions to become his Sith Eternal cultists? But then, nothing came of his plan for spies. Or at least nothing that is obvious. The ISB certainly wasn't stocked with Force users. Unless the Inquisitors were collecting kids to later train, I'm unsure that they did with these kids aside from just murder them to prevent a potential threat to the Emperor.
I'd be hesitant to attribute that quite so broadly. There's always bound to be a significant portion for whom it's just hard trained skill. Like Tech for example; his piloting abilities are not from going with his feelings like it is for Hera, Han, and I suspect; Poe. Tech just does the math. But yes, for the true prodigies that is likely going to be the case more often than not.
This isn't just a piloting thing either as the same could be true of any number of skills. Like for example the nerherder who somehow always just knows when one of their flock has gone astray, or the musician that can sway a whole audience with their music, or the healer with an uncanny ability to diagnose even the most vexing ailment. Or you know, that one stable boy who doesn't notice the broom coming into his hand whenever he reaches for it . . .
The force is in everything, and it's not just about making things float and other cool Jedi combat skills. That's just what the Jedi chose to focus on as being of greater service. It's all on a spectrum of awareness, modulated by natural ability and learned skill, whether people are conscious of it or not.
It would be more accurate to say that nothing was said in the OT that categorically defined it one way or the other. The closest we ever got was the repeated statement of the force being strong in the Skywalker line. Regardless Lucas is on record several times over th decades about how this all works. That fundamental idea has never changed.In Ep4 Obi Wan says that the Force is in all living beings. Doesn't go outright and say that technically, anyone could be sensitive but there does seem to be a natural divide between those who can - with the right training and discipline - sense or even touch the Force, and those who have a natural ability to really use the Force; what in the EU would be referred to as Force Sensitive.
TPM tried to fix this ambiguity with midichlorians but I prefer to headcannon that out
The most obvious parallel here is the Emperor's Hands from Legends. I can see this being something Palpatine would want to run by himself; no intermediaries, They'd also be his means of keeping an eye out for a potential replacement for Vader. I tend to see the Inquisitorious as the reject pile. I mean it's not like he'd risk giving Vader command of a bunch of trained force sensitives if they actually had some Sith potential.
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One wonders if we will ever get an Emperor's Hand type character. Pretty much as soon as Rebels announced Thrawn the audience asked about Mara Jade.
On the other hand, we have Baylan and Shin who are somehow active as mercenaries. Shin isn't old enough to be an Order 66 survivor. If we go by the actress's age, she's not even old enough to have been a born before Order 66. If Baylan started training her as a Padawan at roughly the age Ahsoka was in the Clone Wars, then Shin's been active since about the Battle of Yavin. Her braid is about as long as Obi-wan's was in The Phantom Menace, so she could have been an active Padawan for the last ten or twelve years under Baylan.
On the other hand, we have Baylan and Shin who are somehow active as mercenaries. Shin isn't old enough to be an Order 66 survivor. If we go by the actress's age, she's not even old enough to have been a born before Order 66. If Baylan started training her as a Padawan at roughly the age Ahsoka was in the Clone Wars, then Shin's been active since about the Battle of Yavin. Her braid is about as long as Obi-wan's was in The Phantom Menace, so she could have been an active Padawan for the last ten or twelve years under Baylan.
There's currently way too many unknowns regarding them both to make any real deductions, only some inferences here and there. Personally I doubt Baylan had anything to do with the Inquisitorious, or even the Empire. That means he was likely keeping a very low profile, possibly all while training Shin.
One possibility is that he had the patronage of someone very powerful in the underworld who was able to protect him from unwanted Imperial interest. Probably not the likes of Jabba or Black Sun, but Crimson Dawn seems at least feasible for a number of obvious reasons.
As for Shin herself; my assumption at this point is that she's like Ezra. A force sensitive kid born after the purge that the Empire missed and that Baylan took on as his apprentice under doubtlessly tragic circumstances.
As for Mara Jade; as I've often stated, the problem with Mara Jade is that there's a fundamental difficulty in adapting her character for canon. She cannot be Luke's love interest, because that's not Luke's path. You can have a character called Mara Jade who was one of Palpatine's personal agents/assassins, somewhat trained in the Jedi/Sith arts but not the deeper secrets. You can even have her cut loose with nobody to turn to after Endor, and have her fall in with a smug--ah, "legitimate trader" in the aftermath. So for so good right? Except that's not Mara Jade, because what defines her character is what happens when she meets Luke Skywalker.
One solution that I've posited before which might work is to combine Mara with Juno Eclipse, thereby substituting Galen Marek in Luke's place in Mara's story . . . but that would entail a much larger project of adapting Galen Marek's character and story too, which I just can't see happening anytime soon. Indeed therein lies the rub; these aren't the kinds of character you can just drop into someone else's story. They need their own stories, and at this point that seems to be well trodden ground.
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