Posted by Lethality | 41 Comments

Important News About Ask A Jedi: The Sith Did It!

Although I knew the day to write this post would come, I didn’t expect it to sneak up on me so quickly!

Recently, my personal and professional life has gotten more demanding on several fronts, and I found that I was struggling to put the time into Ask A Jedi that it needed and deserved. Unfortunately I just could not work it out to my satisfaction, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon. So,  rather than letting Ask A Jedi wither and die on the vine, I decided to stop publishing the site all together as of today, March 19, 2012.

I understand that this might come as a shock to some fans, as we remain one of the largest and longest-running Star Wars: The Old Republic fan sites. This wasn’t an easy decision in the first place, and that’s entirely due to all of the members of the AAJ Army! We’ve grown quite a community over the 2 years we’ve been doing this, and many of the friends I made extend outside of the game.

Turn The Page

So what’s next? Glad you asked!

I’ve become really good buds with the guys over at TORWars during our incessant chase of TOR during it’s development. If for some reason you’ve never visited TORWars.com before, you should be ashamed. It is easily the highest-quality, most professionally written Star Wars: The Old Republic site out there. Thanks to Jeff and Co. over there, I’ll be a guest poster and editor on TORWars from time to time going forward, which will give me an opportunity to stay involved with the community at the same time dealing with the increased workload at work. I can’t thank Jeff enough for this opportunity, and want everyone in the AAJ Army to now consider themselves TOR Warriors and make themselves at home over there!

A Million Thanks

I’d like to thank BioWare, LucasArts and Electronic Arts on the behalf of Ask A Jedi, all of our staff, and myself for all of the support and generosity they’ve shown us over the years. The incredible accessibility to developers, gameplay at conventions and not to mention being invited to Austin on several occasions made the dream possible. The dynamic duo of David Bass and Stephen Reid are easily the best 1-2 punch in community management in the games industry. I’d call them Batman and Robin except I think Stephen’s more of a Marvel guy. I can’t call out everyone else on the community teams and the development teams by name, but suffice it to so I was blown away time and time again how nice and accommodating everyone was. And on the several occasions I got to meet and chat with BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, they inspired me to be better at what I did and to never let go of your dream! Doctors – thank you.

I’d also like to thank the AAJ staff… Momus, Zlatto, Kray, Lady Republic, Reedyn, Cormeister, Professor Walsh, Lord Paladin, Twin Hits, Sa’Chi, Cealog, ReDDoT as well as all previous staffers and contributors for helping to make Ask A Jedi what it is today, and that is nothing less than a top-quality narrative-driven fan site. I owe all of you big time.

And last but definitely not least, I want to thank you, the readers – the AAJ Army! I never in a million years that I’d be able to start some blog and have several hundred thousand visitors read it every month. Meeting many of you either virtually or physically has made this one of the more rewarding things I’ve done.

Please let me know if you have any question or concern about any of this in the comments below… and please visit TORWars.com every day for all of your TOR needs, including class guides, videos, opinons and more… and as I mentioned, I’ll even show up there from time to time so come and flame be over there instead! :)

May the Force be with you. Always.

– Bill
(Lethality)

 

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Posted by Professor Walsh | 4 Comments

Ask A Jedi: Can non-force users wield a light saber?

If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of the Jedi. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!

Dear Jedi,

Can a non-force user wield a light saber? If so, how come we don’t see more of them out there?

Dear Anonymous,

This is a complicated question, but in short, yes. Non-Force Users can indeed use a lightsaber.

Han Solo did it, but didn’t fight with it. In a non-canon story Boba Fett did however. In Episode III, the Clone Wars miniseries, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars General Grevious does too. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 2 Pre Viszla does it as well as one of the thieves who stole Ahsoka’s. In season 3 of the same show we know Cad Bane jumps on the bandwagon as well. Finally we have Anja Gallandro, who appeared in Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights in the novel Return to Ord Mantell by Kevin J Anderson and Rebecca Moestra.

So we have G, T, and C canon examples of it happening.

Now, how come we don’t see any more of them out there? Well, to be honest, they aren’t very good weapons unless you are Force Sensitive. You need to Force to block blaster bolts with them because that requires being able to predict where a shot that moves at that high of a velocity will land. You can’t really beat a Jedi with one unless you are Force Sensitive or otherwise enhanced.

• Pre Viszla got more or less humiliated by Obi-wan Kenobi when he tried it.
• General Grevious had to rely on cybernetic augmentation and we saw how that didn’t help much against Obiwan.
• Boba Fett even lost the second Darth Vader decided to use the Force against him.
• Anja Gallandro was only as effective as she was with her lightsaber because she was hopped up on drugs, even then it was shown how sloppy and unrefined she was compared to a Jedi.
• The Thief that tried it was easily beaten by an old and physically infirm Jedi Master in one motion.

So, you end up basically with what a lightsaber is: a melee weapon that has as much of a chance of damaging you as it does damaging your enemy. Yes, it is cool, yes it can cut through just about everything, but it is still bringing a knife to a blaster fight unless you have the powers needed to make up for that weakness.

Dear Jedi,

Who was your favorite Mandalore? Personally I prefer Mandalore the Preserver

Dear Anonymous,

I don’t have a favorite Mandalore, if I had to have a favorite Mandalore it would have to be good old Canderous Ordo.

Dear Jedi,

Do you know if there was ever a Mandalorian Jedi? If not, then why?

Dear Anonymous,

We know that there were some Mandalorian Force Sensitives but mostly it is their lifestyle. In order to be a Jedi a Mandalorian would have to turn their back on their culture. Since being Mandalorian is a culture and not a race if you turn your back on being it, then you aren’t one. So that is the main reason why there are no Mandalorian Jedi.

Do you have a question for our Jedi-in-residence, Professor Walsh? Submit it via the form below, and we’ll be sure to pass it along to him when he emerges from meditation.

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Posted by Professor Walsh | 2 Comments

Ask A Jedi: Are Sith or Jedi closer to the Force?

If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of the Jedi. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!

Dear Jedi,

Are the Sith closer to the Force then the Jedi? I know the Sith seem to use every aspect of the Force.

– Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

The Sith are not closer to the Force than the Jedi. The Sith do not actually use every aspect of the Force. This was explicitly pointed out in “Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire” where we learned that Darth Vader could not heal himself from his injuries specifically because he could only call on the Dark Side while angry and he could not maintain his anger long enough. This goes against the idea that the Sith use the Light Side in addition to the Dark Side.

You see, you cannot use both sides at once; they are diametrically opposed to each other. The Sith choose the side they see as stronger. The Dark Side, and because of this, and because of their unwillingness to serve the Force, they are actually much further removed from the Force than the Jedi are.

Dear Jedi,

Where do you base your pool of wisdom from, the movies, books, websites, another source of information or actually a combination of the above?  Also to help the askajedi community could you share the names of the the books and websites so we can also benefit from your pool of learning.

– Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I base my pool of wisdom from the movies, the novels, the source books, the RPG material, the comics, and the television shows. In short all of the above. I rarely use web sites unless I can confirm a source directly. I am a true Star Wars nerd. I am very proud of the fact that I have read every novel written to date with only, so far, one exception… Death Troopers… I simply can’t wrap my brain around the concept of zombies in space. So far that is the only novel I have skipped. This includes the Young Jedi Knights novels as well, as a matter of principle I have even read those.

Do you have a question for our Jedi-in-residence, Professor Walsh? Submit it via the form below, and we’ll be sure to pass it along to him when he emerges from meditation.

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Posted by Professor Walsh | 3 Comments

Ask A Jedi: Special Edition

If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of the Jedi. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!

This question came in today and since this one is going to be a nasty one to tackle I figured it deserved a special article just focusing on it. This one will be controversial, there is no way around it, but I wouldn’t be the Professor if I wasn’t willing to tackle tough topics.

Dear Jedi,

Are the Jedi Libertarian or Socialist?

– Bozzvegas

Dear Bozzvegas,

This is a question with both a simple answer and a complex answer. I am glad that you asked it, and I felt that it was worth having an article all to itself. First, the simple answer: No. As both Libertarianism and Socialism are both philosophical viewpoints that originated on Earth and since the Jedi have never had contact with Earth, they can’t really be either. For the more complex answer, I think you are actually asking “Would the Jedi’s beliefs be more in line with Libertarianism or Socialism?” and that answer is amazingly more complex.

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Posted by Professor Walsh | 2 Comments

Ask A Jedi: What Do The Jedi Serve?

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