About Midi-Chlorians..
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Introduction
The boy nodded his understanding. "Can I ask you something?" The Jedi Master nodded. "What are midi-chlorians?"
Wind whipped at Qui-Gon's long hair, blowing strands of it across his strong face. "Midi-chlorians are microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things and communicate with the Force."
"They live inside of me?" the boy asked.
"In your cells." Qui-Gon paused. "We are symbionts with the midi-chlorians."
"Symbi-what?"
"Symbionts. Life-forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. Our midi-chlorians continually speak to us, Annie, telling us the will of the Force."
"They do?"
Qui-Gon cocked one eyebrow. "When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear them speaking to you."
Anakin thought about it for a moment, then frowned. "I don't understand."
Qui-Gon smiled, and his eyes were warm and secretive. "With time and training, Annie, you will."
--from "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" novelization by Terry Brooks
When George Lucas released The Phantom Menace in the spring of 1999, he took the Star Wars saga to its beginning: to a time when Obi-Wan Kenobi was a brash young Jedi about to encounter a little boy, strong in the Force. His name was Anakin Skywalker, and his life would change the Force forever. And then, in TPM Lucas introduced midi-chlorians into the fray. Qui-Gon Jinn told Anakin that they were microbes, inhabiting all living cells, that acted as the "receptors" to the Force. It was further alluded that Anakin's mysterious conception was caused by the midi-chlorians, hence his having the highest amount of the microbes known to the Jedi.
What was a new aspect of the Force instantly became, perhaps, the most hotly-debated issue among Star Wars fans since the question of Luke's father all the way back in 1980. "The Force should be all-mystical," some argued. Introducing a physical component "cheapened" the mystique, they said. Others countered that having a physical connection to the spiritual hearkened back to real religions throughout our own history, that the Force had not been robbed of its mythic power at all but instead had been enhanced. Similar arguments broke out over Anakin's parentage.
That is not the subject of this inquiry. Nor is this meant to nail-down the Force in anything remotely like scientific terminology. Star Wars is, after all, a fantasy/fairy tale, not science-fiction. It borrows from all the great traditions of mythology and classical storytelling, with many elements of our real-life faiths and philosophies that add to the rich tapestry. To seek out the Force in order to define it would cheapen its meaning, and far more than anything the midi-chlorians might have done.
However, we will examine some characteristics of the Force, because without that we could not consider and conjecture about our primary focus: the midi-chlorians. What are they? Why are they part of all living cells? Would life really be nonexistant without them? What is their connection with the Force? Why does having them in abundance allow for greater ability with the Force? Can you get more of them?
Read on, we will examine these questions, and many more... -
What Are Midi-Chlorians?
Midi-chlorians, as explained by the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas:
"Midi-chlorians are a loose depiction of mitochondria, which are necessary components for cells to divide. They probably had something--which will come out someday--to do with the beginnings of life and how one cell decided to become two cells with a little help from this other little creature who came in, without whom life couldn't exist. And it's really a way of saying we have hundreds of little creatures who live on us, and without them, we all would die. There wouldn't be any life. They are necessary for us; we are necessary for them. Using them in the metaphor, saying society is the same way, says we all must get along with each other."
If Lucas wanted to further the theme of symbiosis between life and the Force, he could not have found a more apt illustration than with mitochondria. Not only are mitochondria required for cell division, they're required for EVERYTHING in a cell! An analogous structure was needed between cells and the Force, and midi-chlorians fill that need. So perhaps we should look at the fact behind the fiction...
Here is an image from an electron microscope of a mitochondrion:
Mitochondria are an essential part of all living cells. They convert the nutrients (primarily carbohydrates and fatty acids) into adenosine triphosphate or ATP, the "energy currency" that your cells - and your entire body - operate on. In animals and humans, food consumed is broken down by the digestive system into its component substances, which are dispersed throughout the body by circulation. These substances osmose through cellular membranes and are converted as needed by the mitochondria into ATP. When energy is required by the cell, it's the ATP molecule's breakdown into adenosine diphosphate (ADP) that provides that energy, much like the internal combustion engine in your car. It also produces waste product... namely, the carbon dioxide that you exhale with each breath. With plants, the nutrients are taken from the soil by the root system and transported to the leaves, where chloroplasts in leaf cells take the sun's light energy and convert that into stored chemical energy, which is then used by the mitochondria. With plants, the production of energy is reversed from animals, with a benevolent "waste product": breathable oxygen. Animals (and humans) produce carbon dioxide for the plants, and plants produce oxygen for us... symbiosis on a global scale.
Mitochondria rank as the most unusual of the cell's organelles: the elements of the cell that are to it what your organs are to your body. They are the smallest, only being studied by higher-powered microscopes. They are among the most numerous: thousands may be crammed into the cell of heart tissue. Other organelles include ribosomes (used in protein production), endoplasmic reticulum (the cellular transport system), centrioles (utilized in cell division) and others, especially the nucleus. The nucleus is the "brain" of the cell. And within it, usually bundled in pairs of chromosomes, is the molecule DNA: the master code of an organism's being. It is the DNA that encodes protein composition in a complex process that ultimately decides the form and function of an organism entire.
But the nucleus isn't the only place in a cell that DNA is found... mitochondria have it too! And mitochondrial DNA has become a useful tool in fields ranging from cellular biology to some branches of archaeology. When a child is conceived, he or she receives mitochondria primarily from the mother, and this matrilineal passing of mitochondrial DNA, which generally stays the same from one generation to the next, has been used to trace migration and inter-marriage patterns. Recently the "Kennewick Man" skeleton found in Washington state was to be subjected to mitochondrial DNA analysis to determine his origin: speculation on this 9,000 year-old gentleman has him as everything from Ainu, the original inhabitants of the islands of Japan, to Caucasian. Because of the age and location of the skeleton, local Native Americans believe that Kennewick Man must be American Indian and are against testing his mitochondrial DNA. As of this writing the issue is still unresolved.
Mitochondrial Mayhem: Kennewick Man -
Most organelles are formed during mitosis or by "budding off" from the nucleus. Not so mitochondria: with their own DNA, they replicate on their own... another hallmark of independent life. But a mitochondrion is far from being a "cell within the cell". It has been theorized that mitochondria began as simple bacteria which, engulfed by more complex cells, began producing energy for the cell in symbiosis. But some scientists point out problems with this classification: mitochondria have too specialized an internal structure when compared with true bacteria. And if the cell is so dependent upon mitochondria for metabolism, how did cells survive before the introduction of mitochondria?
Like so much else of science currently, the question is in a state of flux, brought on by new theories and particularly new mathematics. Scientists know these things happen, just now how exactly... yet. There are some gray areas that might not even be resolved in the lifetime of our grandchildren. Scientific philosophy is now closely following scientific fact in terms of importance.
All of which begs the question: mitochondria are part of microscopic life, but are they true microscopic life-forms? And in our study, should the midi-chlorians of Star Wars be considered true life-forms separate from their cells?
Science has never fully defined the microscopic limit of life. A cell is considered the basic unit of carbon-based life (the only kind we know of so far), but what about a virus? Viruses have no cells, only a protein sheathe protecting a core of DNA or RNA. They have nothing of metabolism, but they do reproduce by "invading" real cells and converting them into "virus factories", churning out more viruses and killing the cell. They can be "killed", by high temperature or chemicals, but usually by an organism's immune system (such as the lymphocytes and other white corpuscles that circulate in the blood stream). But are our cells defeating a real living enemy, or merely engulfing protein structures? To add to the confusion, in the last several years we have learned of prions: bits of protein often smaller than a virus. Smaller, but no less dangerous, prions are responsible for the "mad cow disease" that has plagued Europe recently, as well as other illnesses. Prion-caused disease is proving to be remarkably tough to fight, even moreso than those caused by viruses. Because of their makeup and effect on larger organisms, should prions then be considered alive?
Mid-way between cells and viruses, there are cell organelles. Curiously, organelles have never been considered to be autonomous living entities, because on their own they cannot survive. Take endoplasmic reticulum - the cell's "transport system" - out of the cell membrane, and all you have is a miniscule mess. Pluck out the nucleus and the cell dies. What about mitochondria? Our cells couldn't survive without them, and they're worthless without our cells. The same can be said for the nucleus... is that a "symbiont lifeform" now, or do we give mitochondria more legitimacy because of its DNA?
Qui-Gon Jinn spoke of midi-chlorians residing in all living cells: the classic definition of an organelle. Do we classify it as a separate life-form just because it's connected to the Force... and why would such a tiny thing be needed for the Force, anyway?!
Here's the paradox: if midi-chlorians are a microscopic life-form, and if life couldn't exist without them, then where did midi-chlorians come from? How did they become part of "all" cells? How did life exist before their coming into being? Qui-Gon tells Anakin that without midi-chlorians, life could not exist. The problem with that statement is that life flourishes across the galaxy on millions of worlds in the Star Wars saga, all of which possess midi-chlorians. Did midi-chlorians arise spontaneously on ALL worlds then, "infecting" every lifeform? That would be a statistical improbability that most science-fiction would avoid. How did one lifeform come about in precisely the same way on planets so wildly different? And even given the miracle of hyperspace, it would have taken thousands of years for midi-chlorians to have spread from one point of origin to all known life... a period of time that all life would have been dead long before because they lacked midi-chlorians. How would life arise without them?
Then again, we might be headed entirely in the "wrong" direction if we're looking to mitochondria to answer our questions about midi-chlorians. Despite all the knowledge we've gained on cells, there are some things about them that we still do not understand. There is some evidence to support the existence of "micro-bacteria" on a scale with the mitochondria. And some kinds of microscopy used in studying living tissue have examined particles in human blood, the function of which are still unknown! Might these be our "midi-chlorians"?
Whatever they might be, Qui-Gon's statement to Anakin implies that midi-chlorians are ubiquitous to life. Obi-Wan explained to Luke that the Force was created by all living things. Between these two facts, a theory lends itself. What if, instead of midi-chlorians create sensitivity to the Force, the Force creates midi-chlorians? -
Midi-Chlorians and The Force
"I need a midi-chlorian count."
-- Qui-Gon Jinn, "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace"
It would be easily within the realm of symbiosis if life created the Force and in return, the Force created midi-chlorians. Think about it: a living mass generates a living energy, which generates living mass to bridge the gap between the two. It would also solve all our problems about midi-chlorians in one fell swoop.
When Qui-Gon tells Anakin that life couldn't exist without the midi-chlorians, he could have more accurately said that life doesn't exist without midi-chlorians present... or that wherever the Force is made to grow by life, there are midi-chlorians also. Again, midi-chlorians do not create the Force, and just having more mid-chlorians would not make someone more attuned to the Force (discussed further in the next section).
What if midi-chlorians were necessary for all life? Then, there would be no real symbiosis between life and the Force, because the Force would simply be another "waste product", albeit an energy one, from life. Midi-chlorians would be some sort of residue-dispersal structure of cells. But we know that the Force, although a kind of energy field, has as much "life" as the life it springs from.
Here is the process as it might happen (in the Star Wars saga, anyway). A cell begins to generate its presence in the Force. It has its own special "signature" that it adds to the Force as a collective. The greater Force symbiotically adds a bit of itself to the cell by organizing organic matter at its most basic level into structures that are "in sync" with the Force. This manipulation of matter is the smallest manifestation of the Force possible, and also its most natural. Just as cells are the basic unit of life, so too is this interaction between life and the Force the base for all other interactions between an organism and the Force. And the amount of midi-chlorians generated would be proportional to the Force being created: the more Force a cell makes, the more midi-chlorians the Force produces in kind. Why it would do that... who knows? Maybe midi-chlorians are a kind of adaptation to the energies of the Force... it would fit within modern thought about species adaptation to changing environments (often just to stay in "one place" as a species: the "Red Queen" model)
Believe it or not, there is actually some real-life evidence for this relationship. Cosmologists have theorized about a mysterious "quintessance" behind the order of the universe that is causing galaxies to rush away from each other at greater speeds than should be expected. In theoretical physics too mind-boggling to even approach in space devoted to fantasy biology, it is now thought that the universe as we have come to understand it, with three dimensions of space and one of time, might have ten dimensions. And at the heart of the relationship between traditional space and this "extra" space are "strings": bits of matter, and no one knows for sure how big they are, but they are believed to defy normal limits of space-time. These "strings", wherever or whatever they are, could be the source of the forces that are speeding up universal expansion past traditional calculations.
If the Force could be said to be beyond the limits of space and time, might midi-chlorians be a way for it to "reach out" into the physical realm that it originates from? Might midi-chlorians be both a way for a living cell to be accommodated to the Force and also to encourage its continued growth so that the Force will thrive more? Maybe that's what midi-chlorians are: organic "strings" connecting every individual to the living Force, connecting them to the galaxy entire.
And if midi-chlorians are products of the Force, then we might wonder if just as our cells produce the Force, if the Force produces midi-chlorians as its cells, its organic representation. Every individual's presence in the Force comes across as being unique (after all, Leia picked out Luke easily on Bespin, and Darth Vader knew that Obi-Wan specifically was nearby on the Death Star), just as every individual's identity in the Force remains unique after death. If the Force is generating midi-chlorians within the cell, the midi-chlorians might be unique to that cell and that person. But all midi-chlorians would have to share a kind of "sync" with the Force, because they all spring from the Force. Although it would be a stretch to say such, midi-chlorians might be the closest thing that the living Force has to DNA, for the life-Force relationship seems to be keyed to this microscopic interaction just as our cells are dependent on DNA to encode their essence.
Having a physical basis for the Force-life relationship would explain much. It would be the reason why a Jedi requires calmness of mind to feel the Force's flow through him or her. Midi-chlorians would be the receptors to the Force but they are also a physical limitation of a sort: if they weren't there, the Force would flow unhindered, perhaps undisciplined through a person. Midi-chlorians might be a "gateway" measure to keep things in balance. It's when a person needs the Force that a disciplined mind would allow for the Force to come as needed. When Luke tries to lift the X-wing out of the swamp in The Empire Strikes Back, he was allowing doubt to cloud his ability to let the Force stream out of him great enough to lift it out of the water. Yoda, because he has studied the Force and has faith in its abilities, has no such doubt: his midi-chlorians pour it on, allowing him to do the deed. It's not that Luke can't do it, but he won't allow himself to let the Force do it for him... a strong parallel to some real belief systems.
So, if midi-chlorians are created by the Force within the cell, what do they look like? George Lucas implied that they were much like mitochondria. It would make sense if they were... they might even have been mitochondria originally before the Force "modified" them. Remember how fast Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon escaped the droidekas in The Phantom Menace? A normal human would be deliriously out of breath because of the demand his body would put on the mitochondria. Our two Jedi heroes put Carl Lewis to shame with their spring and are none the worse for wear, and Krebs cycle be darned! Perhaps that's where the Jedi extension of physical limits derives from: mitochondria-turned midi-chlorians letting the Force use the body's energy more efficiently than usual. Or perhaps midi-chlorians are something else, and are letting the Force's flow augment all tissues in a body uniformly. Again, it's left as an exercise for the viewer.
One thing though: how did the Jedi originally come to associate midi-chlorians with the Force? A scene in The Phantom Menace might hold a clue. When Qui-Gon transmits Anakin's blood sample to Obi-Wan for a midi-chlorian count, the young Padawan is looking at a screen that's loaded with tiny dots. Obi-Wan is either looking at a lot of midi-chlorians, or he's entranced by some guy's homepage devoted to glow-in-the-dark fruit flies on whatever the Republic has for the Galaxy-Wide-Web.
There is an interesting branch of imaging called Kirlian photography: objects are exposed to an electrical field, which then is transposed to film. When developed, the object has an "aura" around it. Living tissues seem to have an especially strong aura... might this be the Force being generated?
Kirlian photos of a woman's hand (left) and seeds (right)
If the Jedi have determined that this aura is physical proof of the Force, then something like "Kirlian microscopy" could be used to detect the midi-chlorian affinity for the Force. It would also provide a means of rapidly counting midi-chlorians in a cell. Admittedly, as "hokey" as some fans thought it sounded for the Jedi to be hunched over microscopes and examining each others' blood, it begins to make sense (early detection of an individual's natural strength in the Force would be necessary, given the length of training required to become disciplined in its use... hence the testing of infants for Force-ability in the Republic. Though presumably the parents would have a say-so in the matter as well :-)
What about "keeping it in the family"? -
Force In The Family
"The Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned."
-- Yoda to Luke, "Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi"
Although it was said at the outset that this discussion wouldn't touch on Anakin's parentage because of its mythic quality, one thing can be deduced: Anakin's overwhelming strength in the Force could not have come from the midi-chlorians. The proof is in his offspring.
Luke Skywalker, if not Anakin's equal in the Force, is pretty darn close. After all, Luke didn't have the luxury of years of training, but a few weeks' crash-course on Dagobah at the most (definitely a far cry from the facilities of the Jedi Temple). His introduction to the Force lasted perhaps two days from Tatooine to the first Death Star. And he still bested Vader in their final duel! If the mitochondria/midi-chlorian parallel meant that one's prowess with the Force was decided by midi-chlorian levels alone, then Luke couldn't have won. He would have been either sliced to ribbons or carbon-frozen on Bespin instead, because his Force-ability would have been half or less than his father's!
Two things indicate that strength in the Force is passed down genetically. First, mitochondria are bestowed from mother to child. Because of the sperm cell's structure and need for speed, transmitting of mitochondrial DNA is more nuisance than need. Unless Luke and Leia were conceived in some artificial way that allowed for Anakin to pass along his midi-chlorians, the twins' strength in the Force came from Anakin's chromosomes. Even if midi-chlorians are NOT like mitochondria in structure but are instead a smaller "organelle", that doesn't mean that Luke or Leia would have an abundance of them, either. Second, the Force ability seems to follow the rules of Mendelian genetics in that it appears to be a dominant trait. Anakin has a sense of the Force, as do Luke and Leia. Shmi Skywalker, being Anakin's mother, perhaps has it also (she had a "sense" for when Anakin was near). Apparently Amidala does not, but dominant trait that it is, it goes along to her offspring via Anakin. If the Skywalker clan is unlike anything else in real life, it at least follows the rules of sophomore-year biology.
As we discussed earlier, midi-chlorians are perhaps an organelle created within the cell by the Force, as a reaction to the cell's generation of the Force. If Anakin's cells are making more Force, the Force in turn is creating more midi-chlorians. -
More Midis = More Force?
It's more accurate to say that Anakin has the greatest potential in the Force of any person, instead of being strongest by a cosmic twist of fate, unless we want to believe that someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger was born built like Conan the Barbarian. Of course not, but Arnold does have a predisposition towards increased musculature that he took advantage of, but it didn't come without his effort to get to that point and then to maintain it. If he had never been introduced to weight-training, he would still have that potential but it would never have been harnessed. Likewise, if Anakin had not been found by Qui-Gon Jinn, there would have been no nurturing of his potential in the Jedi discipline. Anakin would have spent the rest of his life as a slave, whistfully looking at the twin suns and wondering what might have been.
Of course, we know better...
The Skywalker lineage is strong in the Force, adding weight to the argument that there's a genetic tendency to be a Force-user. The strength of the Force would allow for the presence of more midi-chlorians. But what if someone doesn't have naturally high numbers of midi-chlorians? Would that person still be able to grow strong in the Force?
Ever notice how, during the college basketball season, your favorite team might arrive at their tournament destination several days early if the place is at a higher altitude than average? Or it might be a football team not used to playing in Denver, or any sport requiring increased metabolic rate. At higher elevations there is less oxygen in the surrounding air to draw upon, so the body compensates by generating more red blood cells to deliver more oxygen to muscle and other tissues. This extra time before the big game acclimates the players so they'll be playing at their peak: more red corpuscles means more energy.
There hasn't been a reason given why this wouldn't work with the Force as well. Let's say that Anakin has a friend named, oh, Milhouse. And Milhouse is jealous of all the stuff that Anakin can do with the Force. Milhouse can either sit in his room and pout because Anakin is stronger and gets all the girls (like Amidala) or he can go out and hone his own strength in the Force. He dedicates himself to growing stronger and stronger in the Force, working to get it flowing through him that much more. If Milhouse is exposing himself to the Force in greater quantities, the Force, in symbiosis with his body, would probably generate more midi-chlorians to accommodate for the increased flow. He would never be as strong as Anakin if Anakin were to ever reach his upper limit, but Milhouse can certainly work towards his own limit and be stronger than he was before (who knows, maybe Milhouse will be Darth Sidious' new apprentice in Episode 2).
These are the natural routes to strength: either by genetic heritage or self-effort at reaching a goal. But what about a quick way to that strength? Would that be as effective? In the Star Wars saga, would simply adding more midi-chlorians to your body give you more strength in the Force?
With the red corpuscle analogy, there is a dangerous trick that some young athletes, too obsessed with winning, have done with this. They have removed their own blood and stored for a few days. The body replaces the lost red cells. Just before they compete in their event, the stored blood is injected back into the body, adding more capacity for oxygen. During the Eighties there were cases of athletes injuring themselves, sometimes fatally, from complications following this procedure. (WARNING: TheForce.net does not recommend trying this and in fact warns against it! This has been mentioned for illustration purposes only!)
Would adding midi-chlorian rich blood make you more Force-powerful? Let's suppose that Palpatine decides he wants to get STRONGER with the Force. You know how these egomaniacal dictators get: there's just never enough to satisfy these guys. He calls in Darth Vader and, ahem, "suggests" that Vader make a donation to the Imperial bloodbank. We already know from Obi-Wan's analysis in TPM that Anakin's blood has more midi-chlorians than has been ever recorded, "over twenty thousand". If the mitochondria angle holds, then that means that there are over 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell! Which might be possible, as mitochondria are among the smallest of the organelles: several thousands of mitochondria are packed into most heart and muscle cells. It follows, Palpy thinks, that adding more midi-chlorian rich blood to his own will "pump him up", so he takes Vader's donation, runs an IV into his scrawny little wrist and lets the juices flow.
But if midi-chlorians are an adaptation to a person's cellular generation of the Force, then those midi-chlorians are unique to that person, and ONLY that person! Palpatine might be getting a transfer of Anakin's midi-chlorians, but without Anakin's natural strength in the Force flowing through his midi-chlorians, there is no added power at all: it would be like harnessing the strength of a babbling brook with Hoover Dam. Palpatine gets Vader's blood, but not much else (apart from nausea, we would hope).
If Palpatine wouldn't get stronger with more midi-chlorians, would Anakin become weaker with fewer? At age nine, he's in robust health for a little boy. In about twelve years or so, we know that Anakin suffers trauma at the hands of his former mentor, Obi-Wan. Stuff like the mother of all lightsaber battles and molten pits tend to cause one to lose a limb or two, massive thoraic injury requiring a walking iron-lung for life, and if Return of the Jedi is any indication, incredible injury to the skull and spine. Since Anakin has lost so much of his original body, does it follow that he's lost some of his talent with the Force? By every indication, not at all! The cells that Anakin retains still have their abundance of midi-chlorians, giving him as much contact with the Force as ever. Again, the Force becomes a study of inter-relationships at the smallest level. If Anakin did not maintain his strength, he would not have fulfilled the prophecy of "bringing balance to the Force," since he is said by Lucas to have been the only one who could have destroyed the Emperor.
If transfusion of midi-chlorians wouldn't work, then how about replication? If a Jedi or a Sith were to be cloned, would the clone have the original's strength in the Force? Absolutely, because the precise Force-generating tissue would be re-created and with it would come the midi-chlorians. As we discussed earlier, it isn't Anakin's over-abundance of midi-chlorians that make him so strong, because they are only the conduits through which his strength flows. It has to be his own unique attunement to the Force, how closely his cells are "in sync" with the energy field, that make him so powerful. The midi-chlorians are an after-effect of his strength, the cellular adaptation to accommodate the Force being generated. If Anakin were to be cloned for some reason, the clone would have the same potential for the Force as Anakin himself. However, the clone would still have to be trained in the Jedi (or Sith) customs, just as Anakin would be, if it were to use that potential to its fullest. And even if there were some way of "fast-teaching" a clone (as Timothy Zahn introduced in his SW novels) about the Force, that might not be a guarantee of rapidly-developed strength. If the symbiosis/balance metaphor holds, the Force requires self-discipline no matter how its used, for Light or Dark. A person can be shown a drivers-ed manual, but would that person be able to drive a car for the first time just from reading it? The Force, like any skill, needs time to be studied and practiced: only then can a mastery be achieved, even enough mastery to make a three-point turn or to use the Jedi mind trick. A clone, without that time, could have more midi-chlorians and all the knowledge about the Jedi but without understanding the nuances of the Force it would probably be a pretty useless Force-wielder.
So how does a good Force-wielder use it then? -
Time, Space, And The Force
"It's energy surrounds us, and binds us."
-- Yoda, "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back"
Toss a pebble into a still pool. When it hits the water's surface, tiny waves ripple outward from the point of contact. Now close your eyes and toss another pebble. Open them after you hear the "plunk": you did not see exactly where the pebble hit, but from where the waves are now radiating outward, you can get a very good idea where it did.
One of the consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity is spacial curvature, which depending on who you listen to and what "unifying theory" is in vogue, is either the cause of or caused by gravity. However it is, it's easy to model in two dimensions if not impossible to visualize in three. Imagine a thin sheet of rubber stretched out: this represents empty space. Now take a tennis ball and place it on the sheet. The rubber will bend inwards, giving in to the mass of the tennis ball. What was once a straight line across the sheet is now curved as it approaches the location of the ball. Put a bowling ball on the sheet and there will be more curvature: more mass is causing space to "cave in" that much more. Plunk a convenient black hole onto the sheet and the line curves inward, never to come out again!
We won't need to go into the crazy physics of collapsed stars here. But the "rubber sheet" model of space is a good analogy to the Force in many ways. Remember on Dagobah when Yoda was teaching Luke to totally feel objects, like that rock, through the Force? Because the Force surrounds and binds everything, Luke was picking up on the rock's presence in the Force, feeling the Force's contours and embrace around the rock. When the Millennium Falcon was pulled into the Death Star, Darth Vader sensed Obi-Wan Kenobi's presence in the Force as something of a "tremor". Obi-Wan's close vicinity, and Vader's longtime familiarity with his presence, made his impression in the Force perhaps as distinguishable as a fingerprint. Obi-Wan was more likely than not using the Force in some way too (he certainly did with the stormtroopers at the power relay), and that would be even more obvious to Vader. In The Empire Strikes Back, it was Leia's untrained ability with the Force that picked up on Luke's distress, leading to his rescue. The ability to sense through the Force doesn't seem restricted to "real space" either: witness Obi-Wan's feeling the destruction of Alderaan in A New Hope, despite being in hyperspace at the time.
Every thing in existence in the Star Wars galaxy seems to have a relationship with the Force, and perhaps even moreso than with physical space. We can't understand the physics behind it, but the Force allows for manipulation of the physical environment in violation of known physical laws. Maybe that's part of the metaphor of the Force: the spiritual being stronger than the material, the life being more powerful than the unliving. But again, that's left as an exercise for the viewer.
But if everything has that presence in the Force, and if drawing from the Force increases the presence, then why didn't Yoda and Mace Windu realize that Palpatine was Darth Sidious? As of this writing, we aren't 100% sure that Palpatine and Sidious are one and the same, but the evidence is overwhelmingly leaning towards it (and producer Rick McCallum has stated so... but let's keep some mystery alive for awhile :-) There are two possibilities. The first is that Palpatine simply chooses not to exert any use of the Force near the Jedi, which may be easier said than done. For a long-time Force user, anything might draw more from the Force than a normal being. The other possibility, far more intriguing, is that Palpatine is using the Force actively to "shield" himself from detection. He might be able to manipulate the Force's swirls around himself so that to the passive viewer, there is nothing extraordinary about him at all. If he is doing that, and tricking all twelve Jedi Council members, plus Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan learner Anakin -- no slouch in detecting the Force either -- then Palpatine's strength is even more terrible. He's casting a "phantom menace" around him: looking ever benign, until it is too late...
Why is Anakin so good at podracing? Because, untrained though he is in the Force, his extra midi-chlorians put him much closer to the flow of the Force than most other people. When Qui-Gon tells him to "feel, don't think," he's not telling Anakin to guide the pod without conscious thought but instead to let the living Force provide senses that eyes cannot. If the Force is created by all living things and is alive after a fashion, then the Force will seek to protect that life which strengthens it... if Anakin lets it flow, the Force won't allow for Anakin to be hurt. And his increased reception to the Force will give him the ability to pick out things at high speeds that his physical body, on its own, would not. -
Anakin's ability at podracing seems to derive from his anticipation of future events. But is Anakin really seeing things before they happen? Although the Force is flowing in one direction towards the future, apparently not even it is omniscient enough to know precisely what that future will hold. Yoda said that "difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."
Let's go back to our pebble model: you can predict the future of the waves with great accuracy at the point of impact with the water, but the further out you look on the surface, the less you can predict where the wave will go. It might hit another wave and the two will cancel each other out. It might hit a wall and reverberate back. The longer you look towards the future, the less clear it becomes... even in a pool of water.
The real world is even worse. Instead of a still pool, it's more like the Mississippi River. And it's not just one pebble but whole rocks and the occassional boulder being thrown into the water. One wave, unhindered, would be easy to predict, but in our daily lives there are millions of "waves" affecting everything we do: which shirt to wear, what route to take on the way to the store, what to make for dinner. And anything we do might set off more waves which will affect someone we don't even know. It's the "butterfly effect" of complexity theory: a butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, and the weather changes in New York.
But somehow, all the little nuances click together and lead to great things happening, despite the odds. Star Wars has a lot of that theme: that things work out for the best in the end. What if the hyperdrive on Amidala's ship had not given out? There would have been no reason to land on Tatooine. Qui-Gon would have never met Anakin. Anakin would never have been trained as a Jedi or turned to the Dark Side. Without him getting so close to the Emperor, there would be nothing strong enough to defeat Palpatine. If Lando had not lost the Millennium Falcon to Han in that BIG game of Sabaac, Han and Chewie might never have met Luke and Obi-Wan. There would probably be no rescuing of Princess Leia. Without Han's last-second intervention, Luke might have been shot out of the sky... by his own father. In all of these instances and more, the Force was providing for and guiding those who were working towards it, whether they realized it or not. It also makes for the case that there really is no "Light and Dark" sides of the Force: there is evil use of the Force, but the Force also makes sure that it is defeated in the end.
Whatever the Force encounters along the way to its goal, the "wave in a stream" model might be a good one to keep in mind. Why is Anakin so good at podracing? He's "feeling" the current of that stream more than anyone else because of his midi-chlorians. Why could Luke hit the seeker with his eyes covered? Because he learned to stretch out and touch the same stream, and to let it carry his actions through. Why can Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon deflect all the droidekas' blasts? Because the Force allows them to sense incoming energy the same as they would detect matter... through the Force, they can perceive the "ripples" better than their own eyes could, and allow the Force to defend them accordingly. Why can Luke and Yoda perceive the future, however dimly? Because through their sensitivity to the Force, they are "seeing" all the ripples throughout the galaxy as a whole and gauging the future of those waves, just as we can gauge the future of a wave in the pool.
Well, we've looked at how the midi-chlorians and the Force affect the world of the living... now maybe it's time to look at how they affect the world of the DEAD! -
A Final, Force-Ful Exit
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
-- Obi-Wan Kenobi, just before being struck down, "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope"
This part isn't so much about midi-chlorians, but it does go back to the relationship that the Force has with physical life. Why do some of the Jedi (maybe all even) live on as spirits after death? Why did Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda vanish when they died? Could Palpatine or Darth Maul ever return as spirits?
At the end of Return Of The Jedi, Luke sees the "ghosts" of Obi-Wan and Yoda. They are joined by the spirit of Anakin Skywalker, finally redeemed to the Light Side. We can at least hope that someday, when Luke is "old and gray" according to "Yoda" by Weird Al Yankovic, that he'll be playing Scrabble in the Jedi Retirement Castle when suddenly something gives. He'll keel over and vanish, leaving behind his bathrobe, his wheelchair and his Depends. Obi-Wan and the gang will now have a "foursome" for what they're driving at being the longest stretch of Bridge in history.
The good finding everlasting rest after death might be the most recurring theme in religion and mythology. In Star Wars, it is no different: those who strived for purity of heart and harmony with the Force are rewarded by the Force with neverending life. The wicked in the Dark Side, if the mythic elements are consistent, will be consigned to eternal contempt and damnation. These two exclusive destinies are part of another theme of many belief systems: that evil will one day be defeated for all time. That death and suffering and Hell, and all such change, will be brought to an end. There comes a hope, a promise even, for not change but everlasting renewing of all things. In the meantime, good fights evil because evil has staked a claim on the souls of men, and evil must be given time to makes its case, to justify its existence. This proceeds because good, to be known as good with justice, must be fair also. It must prove why evil is wrong, even though sometimes this isn't so much a problem for good as it is for us poor mortals in the way of this fairness being met out. But if good is right, and we know that it is, then even this suffering will end eventually.
In the Star Wars mythology, that's what it means to yield to the will of the Force, even though sometimes our heroes are wondering "why?" Qui-Gon Jinn is seeking out that will, wherever the Force might lead him, though it clearly irks young Obi-Wan. Being a Jedi, as Jinn tells Anakin, "is a very hard life," no doubt because of the tremendous requirement to seek out and surrender to the Force. A Jedi's life is not comfortable, nor is it meant to be. Jedi aren't seeking power or privilege: theirs are lives dedicated to service in humility. The Sith, on the other hand, move in secrecy but are no less proud and arrogant in their designs for power. They crave obeisance through the Force, and not to obey the Force themselves.
So, with these two philosophies of the Force in mind, and knowing the roots that Star Wars has in mythology, let's take a look at life, death, and the Force...
Obi-Wan Kenobi is something of a "galactic Polycarp". For one thing, Kenobi bears a striking resemblance to the classic image of Polycarp. For another, they both die as martyrs while spiting their oppressors. Polycarp was burned alive at Smyrna in 155 A.D./C.E. for not recognizing the divinity of the Roman emperor. Tied to the stake and booed by the crowds, he shouted back "away with the atheists, away!" before being consumed by flames. Kenobi calmly says his now-famous words to his former pupil. With both men, the end result is the same: the cause each believed in was strengthened by self-sacrifice. Polycarp's dying in faith bolstered the early church. Kenobi's dying in the Force strengthened the Force. In return, the Force sustained his identity after the passing of his body.
Watching Obi-Wan's passing, it could be wondered if there is a physical trick to the vanishing as much as an energy/spiritual one. And maybe the midi-chlorians do play a role. If they are the connectors of all life to the Force, maybe a physical effort is needed to call them to task. Obi-Wan seems to need a moment's preparation for the change-over. That could be his time to calm mind and body so that the Force can proceed unhindered. However it happens, Obi-Wan's appearances afterward (and Yoda's and Anakin's) means that midi-chlorians are not the "source of the Force", because a spirit doesn't possess midi-chlorians... or possess cells for that matter. And if midi-chlorians are produced by a person's "Force-potential", being able to pass one's physical body into the Force would be the symbiotic flip-side of that: the Force leads to the building up of midi-chlorians in a cell, and now a person's self-sacrifice of body builds up the Force. Perfect symmetry. -
Is there something more going on here? When Kenobi and Yoda died, their bodies vanished, leaving only their robes behind. Qui-Gon Jinn did not vanish. Anakin Skywalker, after shedding his identity as Darth Vader, likewise did not vanish. Anakin later appeared in spirit form: presumably, Qui-Gon might do the same. The other two Force-wielders we have seen perish are Darth Maul and Emperor Palpatine. They have not returned in spirit and given their philosophy of the Force, they aren't likely to, either...
When the Light Side is taken, a person uses the Force for benefit of others and for personal growth. To be in harmony with the Force means pursuing a symbiotic relationship with it: a Jedi uses it, and the Force works through the Jedi in accordance to its "flow" or "will". In return, the Force allows for the Jedi to grow tremendously as a person.
There is no symbiosis with the Dark Side. The Sith are drawing from the same Force that the Jedi call upon, but they believe in taking, not giving. They accumulate the Force's power without returning to the Force in kind, by denying the Force the growth that it needs from life.
Have you ever wondered why Palpatine's body explodes violently with malevolent energy after Vader throws him down the shaft? Maybe all bodies do that on the Death Star... this is Star Wars physics and there's no telling what kind of pressure change exists with a drop like that. But did you ever notice how fully counter Palpatine's death is to those of Kenobi and Yoda? The Jedi passed away peacefully, even yieldingly to the inevitable: one moment they are there, the next they disappear. The Force embraced them, while it ruptured in screams from Palpatine's body.
Because the Jedi had abided in the Force according to its "will", and because they had given just as they had taken, their strength in the Force retained their identities after death. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda understood what it means to grow more than Palpatine did, because growth does not come with mere flesh, but in what your identity really is behind the flesh. They believed in nurturing that, not the trappings of power . Anakin, when he became redeemed to the Force, was also allowed peace following his death because in his final moments, he yielded to the Force. But for Palpatine and almost certainly Maul, there will be no final rest. They took from the Force for their own evil, selfish interests. And they never gave back in return. They grew in power of the flesh but not strength of the spirit. When Palpatine died, the Force finally "balanced the books" with him, taking back everything from him that he had taken from it for untold decades. Not even the flesh was left, so thorough was the Force's accounting. And even if it were not obliterated, if Palpatine's spirit still existed after his death, the Force would have shut him "outside" of itself... forever. It couldn't allow for so iredeemable a spirit as Palpatine's to tap into its vast energies. The only thing left for Palpatine is eternal banishment from all existence. Such is the price for passing glory, it seems...
Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, however, will forever after know satisfaction in their beloved pupil, friend and son, Luke Skywalker.
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Concluding Remarks
"FREEDOM!!!!"
-- screamed by an unseen celebrant on Bespin, "Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi" (Special Edition)
Here, in a nutshell, is a possible theory about life, the Force, and the midi-chlorians:
Life creates the Force and makes it grow, beginning at the cellular level. The Force, in return, lends its power to either the generation of bodies or the modifying of organelles within the cell that will channel its energies and adapt the cell to the Force it is creating. These bodies are the midi-chlorians. Midi-chlorians are a living, vital part of the cell and also a living part of the Force... they do not create the Force, but they do connect all life to the Force. Wherever life is, Force is created. Where the Force is created, it uses midi-chlorians to establish itself within the cell as the most basic manifestation of the Force on the physical plane. Where the Force is within a cell (meaning all cells), there will be midi-chlorians. They are "cells" of the Force within life, just as all life resides within the Force in a symbiont circle.
The greater the amount of Force is being generated by an organism, the higher the amount of midi-chlorians per cell within that organism. Strength in the Force is a dominant trait that is passed on from parent to offspring. It is NOT passed down by inheriting the midi-chlorians! Instead, as strength is inherited, so too will go the production of midi-chlorians in proportion to strength in the Force.
The greater the amount of midi-chlorians, the more potential exists within a person to use the Force. A greater amount of midi-chlorians allows for a greater "sense" of the Force, whether the person is intimately aware of the Force or not. This greater exposure puts the person more "in tune" with the flow of the Force, its guidance and its delivering a person to destinations and situations according to its "will" (whether the Force is actually a sentient being as much as anyone else is not discussed in this theory).
A person can gain strength in the Force by training and dedication to the Force. As strength increases, midi-chlorian levels would logically increase. A person can NOT become stronger in the Force by transferring midi-chlorian rich blood or other tissue from another person. However, a clone of a person with the genetic tendency towards Force-ability would have the same midi-chlorian levels. They would still require learning the disciplines of the Force to make effective use of it, however.
In seeking the Force, a person can choose to abide by its flow or to work against it. Working with the Force means using it to help others grow, leading for growth in the Force as well. To work against the Force means to take from it without recompense, for selfish and evil gain.
Upon death, a person who has allied himself or herself with the Force can choose to give back to the Force by yielding their bodies: the ultimate act of strengthening the Force. Their identities live on after death, forever at peace in the Force. However, a person who has chosen to exploit the Force while denying it growth must be denied by the Force in kind. Or simply put: Light-Siders go to "Heaven", while Dark-Siders are either totally destroyed or go to Sith Hell (hey, Hell must be in Star Wars somewhere: Han Solo said there was! Does Han look like the kind of guy who would lie?!? :-)
Source:theforce.net