The Force: A Necessity in Star Wars?

(In this little essay, I look over the whole "The Force Is Evil!" idea originating from players who have played KOTOR 2. Needless to say, I have more than a few objections to the idea.)

No single factor in George Lucas’ Star Wars series holds as much weight, importance, or influence, as the so-called Force. The Force, as the original trilogy Jedi would put it, is an energy field generated by all living things. “It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds us”, the Jedi tell the OT hero Luke Skywalker when he asks what the Force is. Throughout the many years of content with Star Wars, whether it be the movies, comic books, novels, games, tv shows, and other media, the Force stands as perhaps the most influential part of Star Wars lore. Borrowing from Eastern Buddhist/Taoist philosophy of Yin and Yang and the Christian concepts of the duality of good and evil, the impact of the Force shows its weight in the plots of the many movies, games, books, and shows. Whenever something evil arises in the bigger Star Wars stories, it is inevitably linked in one way or another to evildoers wielding the Dark Side of the Force, and the inevitable resistance against them comes from a core of heroes whose most important members are Jedi who wield the Light Side of the Force. Throughout the “One Thousand Generations” that the Republic existed, and perhaps even long before, the battle between good and evil has been governed by these two sides of the Living Force, one, a side governed by calm and peace, another, by hatred and destruction. One side chooses to use their gifts to be in harmony with nature and the universe, while the other seeks to bend the Force to their will.

But is it a natural turn of events? Or is the Force a cruel and malignant deity that seeks balance through manipulating trillions of lives into waging ceaseless wars? Is the Force simply seeking balance and peace by calling on heroes to rise, or is it just as much to blame for all the evil done by those who wield its darker half? Or is the Force just another victim in the war between goodness and evil that is waged in the hearts of men? Here, I will examine the more controversial views on the Force, especially by those who hate it or see its manipulations as evil, as a lead-up to Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, where Luke Skywalker seemingly states that “the Jedi must end”.

MAIN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

First off, let’s get through the schools of thought right away. The two schools of thought in Star Wars concerning the Force are the Jedi and the Sith. The Jedi believe that the Force should be used for knowledge and defense, never for attack. They believe that the Force should be used to help bring peace and harmony to the galaxy, to defend the innocent and the weak, to uphold justice and truth, while being selfless and caring more for others than for oneself. This gets them closer to the aspect of the Force that is named the “Light Side”, a side that enhances one’s spiritual awareness and enlightenment, as well as one’s unity with nature and the cosmic forces of the galaxy.

The Sith believe that those with the power of the Force have rightful authority over those without it, and that all methods of honing the Force as a weapon of power, be it emotion, passion, or ambition, is a legitimate and desirable way of increasing one’s power. The ultimate goal of the Sith is to use the Force to impose their desires upon reality itself. Selfishness is seen as a virtue, not a flaw, since elevation of oneself with the Force is the primary goal. The aspect of the Force that the Sith are most familiar with is the “Dark Side” of the Force, a side that feeds off anger, hatred, and emotion, a side that is mostly focused on offensive powers or powers that bend nature and reality to the will of the user.

OTHER SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

Other schools of thought also exist with the Force. The Grey Jedi, for example, believe in neither the Dark nor the Light, just shades of gray, hence the title. Others, such as the Nightsisters, meld the Dark Side with their own magic twist, creating powers and spells that are different than that of the Sith, although sharing in the same dark nature. Some immensely powerful beings, such as the Ones, for example, have achieved oneness with different aspects of the Force, and as such, they maintain one member with the Dark Side, another with the Light, and the third and most powerful being in the middle.

Later schools of Jedi, such as those of Luke Skywalker’s Jedi School in the Expanded Universe believe in the Light Side although will not hesitate to use Dark Side powers if necessary, along with blasters and other weapons that the Jedi of old would have never approved of. Other races such as the Rakatans, a race that predated the Republic and were the former rulers of the galaxy before the latter’s rise, used the Dark Side in conjunction with machinery to create technical wonders that make even the Sith look like primitive apes in comparison, being able to create starships out of solar energy and thin air, or terraform planets to their whims. However, their Force-imbued machinery had their drawbacks, and when the Rakatans lost the power of the Force, they lost the power to control their own technology, the key to their Empire’s success, and it inevitably led to their fall.

KOTOR 2 AND THE KREIA QUESTION

The school of thought that posits that the Force is evil comes from the game Knights of the Old Republic 2. In it, a fallen Jedi Master named Kreia gives some very interesting views on the Force, not generous enough to be that of a Jedi, yet not ruthless enough to be a Sith. Further plodding by the player character reveals that Kreia was once both a Jedi and a Sith, and she found both schools of thought wanting. Eventually, the truth is revealed: Kreia wants to “kill” the Force, pointing to the destruction caused by Jedi and Sith waging wars against each other, killing billions in their wake. Considering that in the previous KOTOR game, the main villain, Darth Malak, killed billions in his war for conquest, many people began to agree with Kreia. Revan and Malak fell due to the failures of the Jedi and the Light Side, they say, and the Dark Side’s influence on Malak led him to kill billions.

Fans who support this thesis point to the many wars, before and after KOTOR, caused by the Jedi and the Sith, which engulfed the whole galaxy and killed billions throughout the millennia. And to a certain extent, they have a point: conflicts such as the Great Hyperspace War, the Exar Kun War, the Jedi Civil War, the Great Galactic Wars, the New Sith Wars, and the Clone Wars were all between Jedi and Sith, with them and their underlings criss-crossing the galaxy leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

These fans then conclude that Kreia was right, that without the Force, the galaxy would be a far better place, that the Force itself is to blame because in its attempts to find balance, billions get killed in wars between Force-users. Society would be better off without the Force, and had the plan to kill the Force been successful, it would have greatly improved the Star Wars galaxy with no psychic religious nutjobs causing wars that kill people by the billions.

MY RESPONSE, AND WHY I CHOSE IT:

However, as someone who has studied the Expanded Universe at a great length, I disagree with this notion. Because to me, the Force is what the users make it out to be. Someone who wishes to be one with the Light Side will use the Force in a beneficial manner towards others and use it to protect the innocent, the poor, and the weak. Someone who wishes to make themselves stronger will naturally turn to the Dark Side of the Force, to increase their power at the expense of others. Someone who wishes to remain aloof from the duality of the Force will try to avoid both extremes, perhaps using the Force on neutral things such as moving crates or helping perceive the future. And someone who would want to experience everything will study both Jedi and Sith ways fully, and take their pick of the litter from what they learned from both camps.

Now, putting that in perspective, the suffering in the Jedi Civil War isn’t caused by the Force. It isn’t caused by the Light Side. Nor is it caused by the Dark Side. Now, this is a very radical statement, especially when the two sides are dominated by schools of thought that support one side of the Force or another. Allow me to explain.

THE MANDALORIAN WARS

Prior to the Jedi Civil War, the Mandalorians during the Mandalorian Wars attacked the Republic and tried to conquer the galaxy. Egged on by some Sith fortune-teller telling them that they can have the fight of the century by attacking the Republic, they built up their strength in the Outer Rim, then assaulted the Republic proper once their armies were ready. Once the assault began, millions began dying under the Mandalorian assault, with the Mandalorians unafraid of using weapons of mass destruction on civilian targets to achieve victory, although to play Devil’s Advocate, Mandalorian commanders like Canderous Ordo claimed that cowardly Republic commanders used families as shields and placed vital military targets near civilian population centers, which forced the Mandalorians to strike at them to achieve victory.

The Jedi Council, traditionally aligned with the Republic to protect its interests, surprisingly sought not to fight. They reasoned that the last war with Exar Kun exhausted their numbers and that there was a dark presence behind the Mandalorian attacks, one that they wish to lure out before joining the fray. This is one of the causes of the Jedi Civil War, as two Jedi, Revan and Malak, rose to fight the Mandalorians, and they eventually fell to the Dark Side during the course of the war. By the war’s end, Malak and Revan were already experimenting with the Dark Side, as one of their soldiers, Atton Rand, testified that the Sith teachings began to spread across the ranks after Revan wiped out the Mandalorian forces at Malachor V. In that last battle, Revan showed how far he had fallen from the Jedi ideals by using a strike force of his own Jedi and Republic troops to lure out the Mandalorians into a trap, where a Mass Shadow Generator sent both Republic and Mandalorian fleets crashing into the planet of Malachor V, killing Jedi, Republic soldiers, and Mandalorians alike. By the time Revan and Malak returned from the Outer Rim, they were fully-fledged Sith, drunk on the Dark Side, and with their minions within the Republic military and the Jedi, they declared war on the Republic, poised to take over the galaxy.

However, none of this is the Force’s fault. The Light Side of the Force calls for compassion and defense of the innocent-when the Jedi Council failed to act in defense of the Republic against Mandalore, they violated the Jedi Code and the Light Side’s precepts. No matter how outnumbered and outgunned you are, you must leap to the defense of the innocent and the defenseless.  Self-sacrifice over all. The Jedi Council refusing to fight the Mandalorians was a betrayal of the Jedi Code-and the Light Side. It doesn’t matter that there was a darker presence behind the war-the solution would have been to investigate the presence by fighting the war, try to find out if someone or something drove the Mandalorians to attack. Then they would get their answers once the war is over by interrogating the Mandalorian leaders as to why they attacked.

Had the Jedi Council obeyed the precepts of the Light Side and joined the war, they might have stopped Revan from relying on more questionable tactics by overruling his more brutal strategies and compensating for it with more Jedi muscle. They might have even discovered from Mandalore himself that a Sith egged the Mandalorians on to attack, or that there are things like Star Maps to the Star Forge or the road to the True Sith Empire that inexperienced Jedi like Revan must not come across. They could have kept Revan and his/her Jedi from finding out about these things, and in the process, kept Revan and Malak from falling to the Dark Side. Leaping to the defense of the innocent and keeping a lookout for dark things to keep away from less experienced members of their own herd would have been the Light Side thing to do for the Jedi Council, instead of just sitting back home and “evaluating” the threat. I suppose it kind of explains why, when in KOTOR 2, one uses Force Vision while in front of the Jedi Council Members, they aren’t fully light-sided, only somewhat light-sided. A light-side player character who picks all the light-side options would be more light-sided than these jokers were.

When the Jedi in the Clone Wars leapt to fight off the Separatist threat despite there being a darker presence behind the war, THAT was the right thing to do-defend innocents from those who would harm them. Had it not been for Anakin being ostracised by the Jedi Masters, had it not been for the Chancellor being Anakin’s friend, had it not been for Padme being in future danger in Anakin’s visions, or Anakin killing Count Dooku under Palpatine’s orders, then the Jedi would have discovered Sidious’ plots from capturing Dooku, and Mace Windu would have been able to kill Sidious. They would have won, had they not treated the Chosen One like crap, which owes more to their own petty natures instead of the Light Side. The Light Side calls for forgiveness, and Anakin’s minor flaws as a Jedi hardly warrant the shit-talking he gets from the Jedi Councilors. Perhaps he would have sided with them had they not constantly put him down.

THE JEDI CIVIL WAR

As for the Dark Side, again, the fact that Malak leveled whole worlds and killed billions isn’t the Dark Side’s fault. Revan was a Dark-Sided abomination by the end of the Mandalorian Wars, killing scores of his/her own men to win the final battle and the war. During the Jedi Civil War, he/she trained many Sith assassins in Force techniques on how to drain the life force from their enemies, and he/she ran his/her own macabre prison camp where they tortured Jedi into becoming Sith to increase the number of Dark Jedi/Sith. And yet during his/her conquest of the Republic, Revan wasn’t as brutal as Malak. The Republic AI-turned crime lord G0-T0 talks about how Revan kept the industries and infrastructure of the worlds that the Sith conquered intact, and how Revan tried to take planets with as little resistance or collateral damage as possible. Whereareas Malak, once he took over after Revan was supposedly taken out by the Jedi, began bombing whole worlds into rubble on the slightest whiff of resistance. Similarly, his Dark Jedi ran around the galaxy, lynching Jedi wherever they could find them. That caused most of the carnage and chaos in the Jedi Civil War, most of the civilian and Jedi losses happened under Malak’s reign as the Sith Empire’s ruler.

Again, we have two instances of men drunk on the Dark Side. One sacrifices his/her own men for victory and tortures enemy Jedi into becoming his/her Sith pawns, the other has his goons lynching Jedi across the galaxy and has his fleet bombing civilized planets back into the stone age. And yet one tried to cause as little damage as possible, while the other caused most of the carnage in the war. So again, this has more to do with the people, not the Dark Side. Just as it isn’t the Light Side’s fault that the Jedi Council sat out the Mandalorian Wars, so is it that the Dark Side isn’t to blame for what Malak did when he killed billions of people and slaughtered countless Jedi.

Let us once again turn to the original six Star Wars movies. Out of all the villain characters, not one Dark-Side villain ever causes mass slaughter. Darth Sidious manipulates things from behind the scenes. Darth Maul is a skilled assassin who is selective about his targets, at least in Episode One. Count Dooku played the part of the politician and diplomat to rally people against the Jedi. And Darth Vader played the role of soldier, enforcing Sidious’ will by targeting Rebels and ONLY Rebels. The most he did outside of fighting Rebels is threaten Lando Calrissian with the bombing of his city if Lando didn’t help him. And he still doesn’t do a damn thing against Cloud City even though Lando betrays him.

The two villains who cause mass slaughter are General Grievous in the Prequels, and Grand Moff Tarkin in the Originals. Grievous in the Prequels is a sadist who goes out of his way to ensure maximum casualties and hunts Jedi for sport, keeping their swords as trophies. Grand Moff Tarkin from the original Star Wars movie blows up Alderaan with the Death Star as a show of force against the rest of the Rebellion, to frighten them and force others who may be contemplating of joining the Rebellion into surrendering. Again, neither of these men were influenced by the Dark Side. The most they do is hang around Dark-Side people, but none of the Sith ever exhibit the kind of murderous intentions these two show. Palpatine/Sidious and Dooku are content with good PR, while Vader and Maul are direct with their targets and do little collateral damage, unless you count outside-movie materials.

So basically, one can’t blame the Light Side or the Dark Side for anything. You can’t blame the Light Side of the Force for the Jedi Council sitting out the Mandalorian Wars while the Mandos slaughtered billions, because the Light Side technically would be on the side of defending the weak and the innocent, and would not call for standing aside as countless innocents got vaporized by Mandalorian guns. You can’t blame the Dark Side of the Force for Malak’s rampages across the galaxy that killed billions, since others drunk on the Dark Side like Revan wasn’t as destructive as Malak was-it was more down to the latter’s personality, where he sought to compensate for not being as subtle or brilliant as his master by pounding anything that resisted him into oblivion. By the way, Malak killed most of his victims via orbital bombing by space-borne warships, so it’s possible that someone else without the Force could do the same amount of damage.

So Kreia’s point of view, that the Force was to blame for the Jedi and the Sith causing billions of deaths during the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War, is wrong. The Light Side isn’t to blame for the Council’s arrogance or laziness. The Dark Side isn’t to blame for Malak’s willingness to commit genocide, as other Dark-Siders like Revan sought a more careful and subtle approach to conquest that didn’t necessitate the deaths of billions.

For my two cents, Kreia was just completely bullshitting the player when it came to the whole “I hate the Force and want to kill it” thing. She was definitely tired of both camps, though she would not have trained someone like the Jedi Exile to rebuild the Jedi Order if she wanted the Force dead. It was more like she was trying to egg the Exile on to kill her, and used the threat of the death of the Force to motivate the Exile into killing her, the last of the old breed of failed Jedi, to make room for the new. It makes sense, considering that she does nothing when the Exile trains his/her party members to become Jedi, while the Jedi Masters of Kreia’s generation were utter failures.

They failed to defend the Republic against the Mandalorian threat. Their failure extended to Revan, who was their pupil until he/she turned to evil and betrayed the Republic. Revan’s apprentice Malak caused plenty of chaos and suffering during his brief tenure as the Dark Lord of the Sith. All the suffering in these wars can be traced back to them, and by proxy, to Kreia herself, because she taught Revan, the Jedi whose actions created the Jedi Civil War which consumed many lives, Jedi and non-Jedi alike. And since hers was a generation of failure, then it only makes sense to her that her generation should be destroyed in order to make room for a new generation of Jedi to lead the Council and the Order, one without the baggage of the old. Her whole plot of “killing the Force” was just another red herring to force you to kill her, finishing the replacement of the Jedi Council after she violently killed the remaining councilors minus Atris.

OTHER SITH-VS-JEDI WARS

As for the wars between Jedi and Sith before and after the KOTOR games, again, it isn’t the fault of the Force itself. Rather, it is the fault of the individuals using the Force, or those who command them. The Sith see Force-sensitives as the highest form of life, deserving of praise and power, and so they use the Dark Side to dominate the galaxy while the Jedi fight, under the guidance and patronage of the Senate and its Supreme Chancellor, to ward off the Sith invaders. But does the Dark Side call for the destruction of the Republic? Does the Light Side call for blind defense of it? Or are these wars merely influenced by the beliefs of both sides instead of the two sides of the Force themselves?

It is the political aspirations of these Sith, their desire to be kings and emperors, that causes them to seek power and overthrow the Republic. And it is the Jedi’s willingness to be the Republic’s defenders and slaves that causes them to leap to its defense. Other Sith have ruled in obscurity, such as many of the Sith Lords of the Ancient Sith Empire, who ruled outside of Republic boundaries, without turning their aspirations towards conquering the Republic. After the fall of the New Sith Empire, many Sith Lords came and went as part of Darth Bane’s Rule of Two, ruling from behind the scenes, some even propping up the Republic to limit the Jedi. Other Dark-Siders merely wander in their own private fiefdoms or stomping grounds and leave the rest of the galaxy alone.

As for the Sith Emperor, Darth Vitiate, his desires differed from the rest of the Sith. Whether it be securing a future for Zakuul or destroying the galaxy, the Sith Emperor’s desires stemmed from his own choices, not the Dark Side. The fact that many Sith, both living and dead, plotted against him shows how others who are under the influence of the Dark Side did not agree with his whole plan of causing a massive war to distract the galaxy from his galactic destruction ritual. Many Sith Lords, even those who are spirits one with the Dark Side, tried to stop Vitiate. So again, one can’t blame the Dark Side for how screwed up Vitiate was. Vitiate did what he did out of his own free will, not because the Dark Side told him to.

Similarly, other Light-Side Force-users simply seek isolation and seek not to defend the Republic or confront the Sith. Jedi who have retired from the order, Force-users of good will without lightsabers, Force-users from neutral factions that seek not to intervene in the larger arena of politics, not all of them feel the need to be blind servants to the Republic. Some might fight Sith or other invaders against the Republic for their own reasons or for their own sense of right and wrong-not on the behest of the Senate. Others may just simply seek isolation so they can meditate and become one with the Force on their own way. Being Light-Side doesn’t automatically mean “blind servant of the Republic”. The Jedi Order serves the Republic because it is a representation of the people’s will, and the Jedi Order seeks to serve the people, who are in turn, represented by the Galactic Senate and its Supreme Chancellor. But other Light-Side Force-users, and indeed, some Jedi, do not see blind service to the people as the way of the Light. Indeed, some seek isolation and peace as their way to the Light, which would put them far away from any wars with the Sith or other factions that the Jedi and the Republic might get involved in.

In fact, the best representation of this is Master Wyellett from SWTOR. He summons a former pupil of his, the Jedi Knight Xerender, whom the Sith Warrior player character fights. The Warrior thinks that Xerender is after some secret weapon, when in reality, the secret he was seeking was his former master. When confronted by the Warrior, Xerender falls in battle to the Sith, but Wyellett asks the warrior to spare his apprentice, saying that he has no interest in the war, that he merely sought a companion to relay his insights in the Force to, and that he just wants to become one with the Light on his own way. A Light-Side Warrior can grant his request and leave the two in peace as they search for unity with the Light on their own.

WHAT A FORCE-LESS GALAXY WOULD LOOK LIKE

An assertion of these anti-Jedi and anti-Force fanatics that seem to mistake Kreia’s red herring for her real intentions is that a galaxy without the Force would be far better than one with the Force. That the Star Wars galaxy would be better off if it wasn’t for the Jedi and the Sith mucking up the system. Which of course, is wrong. The Republic would have fallen eons ago if it wasn’t for the Jedi. Outside of fighting the Sith threats, the Jedi help the Republic settle arguments between member states and stop local wars before they evolve into galactic wars. Without the Jedi, these wars would spiral out of control, and the factions fighting in the Republic senate would start relying more on firepower than diplomacy to settle their differences. The illusion of unity that the Republic provides would dissipate, and with it, any last vestige of peace between the many powerful factions in the galaxy. Which of course, would lead to feudal-style warfare between these factions as they vie for territory and resources. Instead of a Darth Malak every couple of centuries, they’ll get dozens of warlords per year.

To prove my example, I present Exhibit A: The Galactic Empire. The Galactic Empire got rid of most of the Jedi during Order 66, where the Jedi’s Clone Army turned their blasters against their Jedi Commanders and proceeded to open fire. Most of the Jedi, exhausted by fighting Separatist Droid Legions and unable/unwilling to believe that their own men would be capable of such treachery, were caught with their proverbial pants down and were massacred in large numbers. The remaining Jedi were hunted down, either by Jedi turncoats like Darth Vader, or Bounty Hunters/Imperial troops seeking a fat bounty or a promotion by killing a lightsaber-wielding foe. For the average citizen, the Jedi Order and the Force no longer mattered. Yes, there’s Darth Vader, but that’s one man, and the Force-sensitive servants of the Empire such as the Inquisitors or the Emperor’s Hands are either A) too few to have a public presence in the galaxy or B) kept as a secret by the Emperor himself. The Inquisitors are even kept weak, unlike the Jedi, so they cannot be a threat to the Emperor. To the average citizen, it is the Imperial fleet, not the Jedi or any Force-wielder, who keeps the peace.

However, without the Jedi Order’s skills in diplomacy and fighting, the Empire has had to compensate for it by relying on more brutal tactics to keep the peace. Jedi diplomats and starfighters gave way to Star Destroyers and Orbital Bombardment. The Republic managed to keep the myriad races and systems of the galaxy at bay with only local militia and Jedi, whereareas the Empire, despite maintaining a permanent standing army that by all intents and purposes should be enough to scare the enemy into submission, still has to resort to bombing planets and occupation with Stormtroopers to keep these races and planetary systems under control. The flaw of the Jedi was that they didn’t permanently disable their enemies, but they were still able to keep said enemies under control for millennia with nothing but militias backing them up. The Empire had to resort to harsh military tactics and even bombing entire races into oblivion to keep these systems in line. Even the Death Star, the mother of all Imperial super-weapons, was made as a deterrence method against would-be enemies of the Empire. The lack of the Jedi caused the new government to rely on brute force and even superweapons to keep the galaxy in line. With the Sith rulers being limited to two numbers thanks to Darth Bane’s Rule of Two, the Sith were also a virtual non-presence to most Imperial citizens and military. Vader is only one man amongst a military of trillions, and the Emperor doesn’t even bother using his power to rule, merely acting as the legally-elected top bureaucrat in the system when he’s not off on his own vacations nurturing his Sith powers in isolation. Vader keeps the Moffs and military leaders in line in case some of them go rogue, and the Emperor keeps Vader in line lest he gets ideas of power himself.

But I can already hear the detractors objecting. “The Empire was a Sith government! Palpatine and Vader were the ones who called the shots! It wasn’t truly a Force-free society!” Except, after the Emperor died on Endor along with Vader, the Empire was truly a Force-free society. No Sith holding them back. The Empire’s Force-sensitive servants were not in charge-the Moffs, Admirals, Generals, and other officials were. So in essence, this society that threw off the Jedi, after Endor, were left with no Sith supervising them. The Empire’s other Force-sensitives went into hiding or ran off to pursue private agendas not related to Imperial government. Now, the Empire truly had a Force-free society. No Jedi to hunt, and no Sith to boss them around. And then, what happened?

THEY SLAUGHTERED EACH OTHER. THEY MURDERED EACH OTHER. THEY ENGAGED IN A MASSIVE CIVIL WAR THAT CONSUMED THE LIVES OF BILLIONS. With no Emperor to order them around, and no Darth Vader to keep them in line, the various Imperial leaders engaged in a bloodbath war where each tried to carve out the largest fiefdom from the dying Empire. Each leader tried to either secure the largest territory in the Empire or even seize the crown. This proves my thesis, about how the Republic’s many races and factions would have slaughtered one another if it wasn’t for the Jedi. You can’t just pin it on different cultures or races having their own desires and points of view. Here, in the post-Endor Empire, we have a galaxy mostly under the same culture, the same military, the same way of life. And Palpatine had a legal successor-members of his court like the Grand Vizier, Sate Pestage. So if the Empire could function without the Sith, then the Empire should have rallied behind Pestage, or have the Moffs and military figures elect a proper successor. Instead, they slaughtered one another until they became so weak, the fledgeling New Republic began to equal them in strength.

Yes, there were non-Force-Sensitive Imperial leaders like Grand Admiral Thrawn. But even Thrawn rightfully sought out a Force-Sensitive to help him maintain and restore the Empire-even though the only trained Force-Sensitive for the Republic at the time was Luke, who could not be everywhere. Leia wasn’t trained yet, and she was looking over her two unborn children. And yet despite fighting non-Force-sensitive Republic forces, Thrawn still sought the rogue Jedi clone Joruus C’Baoth, to improve his chances against the Republic. Thrawn realized that without the Force, there is no unity, no sustainable strength, and so he sought out Joruus even though he knew Joruus was crazy.

The last real hurrah the Empire had was with the reborn Palpatine in Dark Empire, where the reborn Emperor used spirit transfer and clone bodies to reinvigorate the war effort. But once the Emperor himself was permanently banished at the end of that story arc, the Empire was on its way to being a has-been of a superpower, suffering defeat after defeat as the Jedi-backed New Republic swallowed more and more Imperial territories and expanded to eventually encompass most of the galaxy, to the point where the Empire had to surrender to avoid complete obliteration. A Force-free society is no match against a Force-backed society, and the late history of the Empire and New Republic showed that.

CONCLUSION:

In the end, the Force, whether used for good or ill, eventually causes more good than harm. The Jedi kept peace and order in the Old Republic. And after them, the Sith following the Rule of Two kept the Empire that succeeded the Republic in one piece, keeping the various Imperial warlords and generals that drive the Imperial military in the same side, despite their ambitions. A society without the Force causes more harm than good, with the many factions in the Republic having nobody to referee their arguments and keep them from becoming total wars. The fact that the Galactic Empire had to resort to more brutal methods to keep the races and factions in line shows how weak an order without the Jedi can be-and when the Sith who keep the Empire intact leave the room, the Empire turns into a bloodbath.

In the end, the evils caused by Force-users are caused by the people themselves, not by the Force. Blaming the Force for such evils is like blaming guns for wars, forgetting how wars still happened before guns, and how such wars could also be bloody and chaotic. Same with the Force-remove the Force from the equation, and people will just kill each other with blasters, turbolasers, and nukes. The existence of, or the lack of, things like the Force does not change the fact that sentient beings seem to have an aptitude for violence and death. It’s like how the Team Fortress 2 Sniper once said: “As long as there’s two people on the planet, someone’s gonna want someone dead.” Whether one uses telekinesis or nukes doesn’t matter.

One can entertain urges related to the Light Side or the Dark Side without being engaged in massive, galaxy-spanning wars. And if the Light and Dark Sides can’t be weaponized by the government, other options like turbolasers that turn planets into glass or nukes that turn cities into large potholes will be on the table. And compared to those methods, Sith Lords who scare leaders by threatening to snap their tracheas or Jedi who smooth-talk leaders with the appeal of the Light Side and use starfighters to win naval engagements seem downright humane in comparison. And in my point of view, the originator of this whole “the Force is evil” philosophy never meant it to be taken literally and probably used it as a means to scare the player character in KOTOR 2 to try and kill her. It was a red herring to move the player along the desired path that Kreia wanted. Just because those who profess the Light Side or the Dark Side can be jerks, doesn’t mean that everyone professing similar beliefs share the same flaws. And it certainly doesn't mean that a gift like the Force should be removed outright. Otherwise, we might as well remove anything that can be used to kill from the hands of humans, be it guns, knives, forks, or even hands and legs.

In the end, the Force is something that gives life to everything in Star Wars. All living creatures are connected to it, one way or another. And to strike at the Force can be construed as striking at life itself. If it is possible to remove the Force from Star Wars, one might even wind up killing all living beings in the Star Wars Galaxy, which would be doing more harm to everyone, moreso than any hypocritical Jedi or evil Sith ever could.