Work Text:
Every generation, there are children who are just that side of odd. The word describing them in the native language is officially translated to Basic as blessed-by-the-spirits, but in usage tends to translate as spirits-cursed as a general expletive as well as a descriptor.
Historians and cultural experts would document the elaborate rites such a child undergoes when discovered. Their talents manifest differently from child to child; seeing glimpses of the future, reading the history of objects, sensing danger before it comes. There is even talk of a previous ruler who could read a person's mind when making eye contact. Each child grows out of their abilities, only a slightly improved reflexes or a talent for people a leftover of their spirits' blessing. But meanwhile, they are treated as manifestations of a higher presence, isolated from the general public expect when their talents speak. For their own protection, of course.
This was not untrue.
Such children often were uncomfortable around crowds, or strange people, or even just people in general. After joining the Republic, knowledge of such local practices became known, and the children and families they belonged to became targets of bounty hunters, for the lucrative market of Force Sensitives slaves.
Historians and cultural professors of the planet would talk about how, pre-Republic of course, such children would be shunned by their communities. That the current rites and rituals were a mere extension of the practice no matter how dressed up, and that there were perfectly scientific reasons why such abilities manifested and the reasons why such cultural practices were abhorrent to the development and socialisation of the affected child and their families. Singling them out, it was argued, put them at risk of being kidnapped by outside forces.
This was not untrue.
They gloss over the unsaid, the other reason why this practice was started; one that no one wants to admit to, where there is no evidence but hearsay. Everyone knows someone who knew someone else who heard it from another. If your child starts exhibiting such signs, it is kinder for the child to quietly pass from the myriad of childhood illnesses and inexplicable issues before they grow. The raising of such a child is a pressure on the entire family and community; some of them cry incessantly, from things they cannot explain in ways other people can understand. They always know what mood people are in and when people are coming, unmoored by societal conventions of distance and time, unnerving to those who approach them. They can speak to things that are not there, answer your thoughts before they are formed, read you in a single touch.
These abilities are no blessings; they are a curse upon the family and the child alike.
And the greatest thing they gloss over, something that cannot be proven unless someone confesses - that these long held prejudices persist.
Despite a long history of government intervention and changes to the culture, the practicalities are the same: having a child with abilities you couldn't even begin to understand, feeling things you have no context of; it takes a toll on even the best intentioned parents. And when the planet joined the Republic, and the Jedi representative explained…
The leaders of the planet watch as their child-spirits cling to the Jedi, communicating in a way only they can to other child-spirits. The Jedi returns their enthusiasm with gentleness and understanding, going about their duties with patience and experience even as the children hang off their every move. The calmness the Jedi project, the practiced explanations of phenomena no one else perceives. The devastation in their child-spirits when the Jedi have to leave, the kindness as the Jedi explain that they both have their own duties to tend to.
Prejudices run deep, but the yearning for problems solved by other people runs deeper. Informative holos and pamphlets of the Jedi Order are distributed as part of the acclimatisation process to the Republic. It is not often touched on; Jedi are so few most of the Galaxy live and die without ever meeting one. But it exists as an alternative. A sweeter alternative, some say, than the isolation that awaits them locally with the threat of slavery hovering over the entire family. Certainly, an easier alternative, one in that the local government no longer has a problem to deal with.
Some feel strongly about the preservation of the heritage, the mistrust of giving strangers in the wider galaxy their children, who may never be seen of or heard of again. Others are glad, with the introduction of scientific tests that can inform parents when their child would be spirits-touched, and even gladder that giving up their problematic children, divorcing them from the family that birthed them, is encouraged by the wider galaxy. The Jedi offer these spirit-touched children the opportunity to be more, to be amongst their own people who can understand the spirits' gift, the public consensus says. It is better for their spirit-touched children to be amongst people who can actually handle their gifts, who actually maintain it into adulthood, turning it into something useful.
None talk about the local spirit-touched children, how they grow up a shadow of their peers, always reaching for something they can't articulate. Some are brilliant, no doubt, but it comes from always searching for something no one else can help them find. Others fade away into obscurity, isolating themselves further into hermitage in their adulthood.
When the Jedi Searchers come, the families are often ready and willing. For those who are identified, but whom their parents seek to keep, the Jedi ensure that they have the ability and knowledge to contact the local office, which can inform the nearest Jedi representative of any issues. They are offered pamphlets, information packets for the child to understand their own power as they grow older. If they have a specific ability, the Jedi often has information on how the family can make handling it easier on the child. And there is always that offer, as the Jedi comes every few standard years to check on the child and their family. The offer of a family that understands, even if it is not voiced.
It is a tough few years, the families say, but when the child grows up and becomes normal, they are glad to have kept them close.
No-one asks what these children think, the wistfulness that sometimes lingers at the mention of Jedi. They know their place; it is with their family and planet after all.
It is centuries later, when the war starts and the push back against the Jedi begin as well. Why should they take our children, the critics cry out, when they are just raising them to fight. The Jedi Searchers are chased away, and although they still answer when they are called, the regular Jedi check-ups on families fall to the wayside.
They watch in horror as the Temple burns, the Jedi children with it. They were all traitors, the new Emperor declares, his black shadow of terror hovering behind his new throne.
They were our children too, the galaxy whispers, quietly. How quickly people forget; the Jedi were born of them too. How sometimes, the Jedi Searchers were accompanied by other figures, searching for relations. Coming back to say, however awkwardly, "I'm here, I'm happy where I am. Thank you". How there were open invitations to the Jedi Temple, to academics, researchers, local leaders and anyone who was interested; the open hand of knowledge about their culture and people straight from the source.
And how none but the academics were interested; why go to the source when everyone knew the Jedi. Why look at the ground that supported you, as long as it continued to do so? Did it really matter the specifics of people you would probably never meet? You glimpsed them on the holonet, stern figures from a distance, always perfectly composed in their duties and thought that that was all to it.
Jedi information packets became closely guarded secrets in the Empire, passed from guilty hand to guilty hand. They would replicate the information, but to be caught with such treasonous material was a death sentence in the new Empire. Their cultural icons, their child-spirits, were no longer protected under the law; torn away not by slavers but by the very people meant to protect them against slavers.
The Empire says that it will remove the taint of the Jedi on the Galaxy, allowing galactic civilisation to move forward, away from the trapping of invisible inexplicable powers wielded by warmongers.
Any Force Sensitive child was requisitioned directly from hospitals, from the time the test results were entered. Faking tests was a skill never so often utilised before, a skill that took great courage - any deception was grounds for the new Empire to send a message, executing all who were involved; from the doctor to every member of the family but the Force Sensitive child.
There would be no grown children returning from the Empire's grasp. None who would say that they were happy, none who would know where they come from.
The Galaxy cursed the Jedi's name, once. They dared not to even speak of what replaced them.