All Natural, Baby (Star Wars)

Appreciating Bugs and Doing a Seance

I wasn't worried when traversing that long, dark hallway. It wasn't dark to me, as my helmet has night vision, so I could see any creepy crawlies making those weird slithery-stuttery sounds as they went to and fro. Korriban, despite being a desert planet, still hosted some life-forms. Notably: species of cacti, birds of prey, and, of course, bugs. Every living things needs to have even a bit of sunshine, so the bugs here had adapted to expose themselves to maximum sunlight and minimal risk of attack. Of course, the birds would starve or have to pry off a cactus arm, and either option was never appealing. Some critters never needed to run, walk, sleep, or eat. 

Some survived purely off of the Dark Side of the Force.

How that's achieved, I didn't know, but if the most heinously ugly centipede could use the Dark Side to its advantage, then so could I. Maybe. I think. I hope. Now that I think about it, bugs never needed to evolve more appealing features. Most insects aren't kept as pets, and the ones that are usually have become accustomed to domestication over countless generations. They never needed to. A species, if left untouched by a society, only needs to appeal to itself and its needs. Whether that be to survive as long as possible, to reproduce as much as possible, or to find some meaning in its mortal life, it could do practically whatever it needed to.

When the needs of a bug are met, it will start to seek more personal things. It will find a mate, a social group, a hobby, a job. Society is like a colony of ants, in a way. We all go to and fro, grueling over daily life under a fascist patriarchy. Although, ant kingdoms are a matriarchy, which isn't much better.

But what does a sole bug, a scavenger, a low-life pest have? It fulfills its own needs, it may only exist to reproduce and die. But a scavenger is more than that. It harvests rotten corpses for scraps of food, over indulging in maggot-filled gluttonous dead flesh. But despite its grossness, it cleans the scene. Bones would not become so bare so quickly without an ugly little stinkbug or a swarm of flies.

Scavengers are the cleaners of the Galaxy, so who are we to criticize our bulgy, many-eyed janitors when we ourselves do no good other than conforming to a set of rules? 

Those bugs, in a way, are the backbone of any thriving ecosystem. An ecosystem without bugs means a slowly rotting, decomposing, dying ecosystem.

... What was that rampage and a half? It felt awesome. I should make internal monologues about random species more often.

Focusing my attention back on the present and not on bugs, I turned a weathered corner to more of the same maximalist engravings. The Sith were artists, even I, with my decade of doodling under my belt, could never hope to achieve such a liberated sense of line weight. The artists didn't even care how they were drawing hands. Bold, yet precise, yet experimental. They didn't care if the engravings looked like bantha fodder, they were enjoying themselves. I could help but contrast it to the paintings the Jedi made. Still, mundane portraits or vast, plain landscapes. Though professional, those paintings were extremely boring. It looked more like a chore to paint as a Jedi than to go apeshit on a wall as a Sith.

I felt a presence that somehow told me it wanted me to shut up. Ah, yes, there it is. The thing I'd been waiting for. The sealed spirit of a Sith Lord from long ago, suffering at the wave of peculiar thoughts and analyses. Not mind-reading, necessarily, more like mind-feeling. Like a sense of empathy on steroids and you hated everything that the empathee was feeling. Who would it be? Bane, the founder of the Rule of Two? I'd like to debate on his ideals. Darth Nihilus, the planet eater? I could work with a guy like that. Revan? Well, he wasn't a Sith anymore, he went through a complete 360 character arc. Jedi? Time for Sith. Sith? No, redemption arc. Redemption arc? Re-corruption arc is what you get. Re-corruption arc? Time for a little self-reflection. And then he became one with the force, finally.

To my knowledge, Darth Sidious (aka Sheev Palpatine aka Shit Palpatine aka Darth Shitious aka Darth Hideous (I have given him many nicknames)) never actually made a holocron. You would think with building two Death Stars, flipping off the Space Geneva Convention multiple times, playing a game of war against himself, and corrupting a powerful Jedi would encourage Darth Hideous to maybe document his work.

The omnipotent reminder to shut the kriff up manifested as a mild headache. I can't help that I think a mile a minute. This Sith has gotta have some Jedi upbringing.

I turned another wall that opened up into a cramped but somehow expansive cave. A stalagmite made its way down from the ceiling in a lightning bolt's motion (ironic considering stalagmites form painfully slowly) and on to some obelisk.

There it was. A holocron. A Sith holocron. Maybe the Sith holocron if I got lucky. Its structure vaguely reminded me of a triangle-shaped rubix cube, except more edgy and badass. Like a cooler version. Not literally cooler, because the thing looked like it had molten lava in it from the cracks in the plating. And lava, to my knowledge, is not cool. Not cool cool, because the geological forces are always a sight to behold. Reminded me of the metamorphic rock I saw before I entered this crypt. That got me thinking: was the Sith Academy on Korriban built under an extinct volcano? If it was, that was very, very cool. This time in a more literal, temperature-wise sense, as shadowy areas (especially caves) in deserts usually harbored less harsh temperatures than those under the sun.

Again, that presence told me to shut the kriff up with a more moderate headache. I think it just wanted me to activate it already. I understood that, I have a lot of trouble being patient when the opportunity was right there. I didn't want to waste time thinking and end up with a migraine, so I walked carefully towards the holocron. It was then that I wished my boots didn't have steel at the tips, as the click, clank noises really threw off my whole stealthy vibe.

I actually had no idea if I was Force-sensitive or not, so activating the angsty triangle was a bit of a difficult task. I reached out my hand, fully stretched out, and it hovered above the holocron. I focused on the air around it- the tiny elements of the particles one could only see under a microscope- and tried to imagine it opening up in some bright flash of red light and

oh my Force that was actually happening.

I watched in dead, stunned silence as the dust splattered everywhere. So much for not wanting sand to get on me. The light moved around like anti-gravity water and formed into a slightly humanoid shape, but its entire body was covered in a void-black robe. It levitated above the ground by about two centimeters, still presenting its omnipotent facade.

Then, it turned around. I recognized that mask immediately.

Darth Nihilus, the planet eater.