In the days before the Clone Wars kicked off and the the galaxy was divided into separatists
and loyalists, things were much different, but there were still conflicts that required
a Jedi to keep the peace.
One of these situations arose when Master Yoda was drawn to a mysterious disturbance
in the force out on a remote, distant world.
Once he arrived he found two warring tribes of children who were fighting over a mysterious,
force imbued stone which covered their mountaintops.
Yoda quickly realized that the Force drew him here to teach him a lesson.
One that would change him forever.
So, lets break down how Yoda’s view on the force was changed forever, by a single blue
stone.
In the dark bowels of a remote city a young boy is being held inside of a cage, because
everyone in the city has head about his mystical force powers.
He has called out in the force for a Jedi to help him, but is unsure if anyone heard
him.
The pirates who are holding him here are disgusted and won’t let the boy be taken by the Jedi
unless a hefty fee is paid.
Moments later the doors creak open and light shines into the lair, with a mysterious Jedi
Master Arriving to respond to the boy’s calls for help...
Despite the lair being filled with horrid raiders and pirates, the Jedi showed no fear.
And when the door revealed the Jedi’s stature, the pirates burst into laughter at his tiny
size.
It was none other than Grand Master Yoda himself.
Although these pirates had no idea who they were really dealing with.
As Yoda walks in, he tells the pirates that he has come for the boy, that he is ready
to collect him for his training.
The pirates refuse to send him though unless they are paid handsomely, in cold hard credits.
Yoda of course refuses though and tells them that he has brought something far more precious.
Immediately, Yoda uses the force take control of the pirates’ limbs and slam them into
each other, absolutely infuriating them.
The small green master has absolutely no issue dispatching the ENTIRE HORDE of pirates, leaving
every single one of them knocked out in a sheer display of force power.
Master Yoda then takes the Young Boy’s hand and tells him “Begun your training has”.
After the successful rescue, Yoda then leaves the Young boy named Lo with Qui-Gon Jinn and
his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi to escort him back to Coruscant.
The curious Young Obi-Wan walks over to the pirate’s den and peeks inside, being absolutely
amazed and wondering how Master Yoda took out of a whole room full of pirates.
Qui-Gon then pulls Master Yoda aside, asking him if everything is alright.
The wise master responds by saying that on the way to save the young Pirate boy he felt
a strange disturbance in the force.
It is a calling he must follow.
Qui-Gon can’t feel it himself, but the Grand master is determined to follow it, wherever
it may lead him.
After this Yoda hops into his ship and zooms off across the Galaxy, following the mysterious
call in the force, which is like nothing he has ever felt before.
The call leads him to a planet that doesn’t appear on any star maps or charts, a planet
shielded by an asteroid belt so dense and dangerous that only an amazingly skilled pilot
or a fool would dare enter.
Yoda soon lands his starship on the dark and dreary world, which is seemingly lifeless.
but as he emerges, this thought is quickly corrected.
He sees that the world is inhabited by a group of tribal children.
As he walks forward and greets them, he in return is greeted by a barrage of blue tipped
spears at his head...
Yoda offers to help the young children but they forcefully tell him that they don’t
need any help, especially from a weird little frog like him.
Yoda then uses his infamous line, warning them to not judge him by his size, because
he does not judge them by theirs.
Yoda sees them as warriors, no matter their age...
Warriors with eyes that have witnessed much death and many terrible battles.
He then asks where their parents are, which mysteriously sends a jolt of paint through
the children.
One of the kids starts shouting that they’ve all been taken to a nearby mountain, but the
others try to quiet him.
They believe this whole thing is some kind of mind trick, possibly conjured by by the
Rockhawkers, which is a rival tribe on the planet.
In a bout of anger and even fear, the tribe soon lashes out at Yoda, hurling their blue
tipped spears at the Grand Master, but something very strange happens.
Yoda is unable to catch the spears using the Force and starts to feel that they might actually
be alive in the force...
The tribal kids continue hurling spears and call out that Yoda’s “stonepower” is
weak.
This is the name that the tribe has given to the force, without realizing it is actually
the force.
Similar to how the Nightsisters of Dathomir use Magicks, which is just their interpretation
of the force in their environment.
Yoda then manages to lift up some huge boulders surrounding him, using them to block the spears,
since he can’t manage to connect with them directly.
Having survived the attack, Yoda apologies and begins to explain why he is here.
He tells the kids that he is not as much a warrior as them, but is instead a teacher
who is also eager to learn.
He calms the tribal kids by telling them that he does not know of the mountain they speak
of, or of the other clan on their world, but was instead called here from very far away.
The tribe kids are then sent into a flurry of amazement and mystery as they realize Yoda
has heard the Skyscream . The Skyscream is a type of prayer these children use which
is augmented by the force and can call out across the galaxy to anyone sensitive to the
force.
Realizing that Yoda arrived because of this Skyscream, they now believe he is the god-like
figure called “The Deliverer”, who is prophesized to bring peace to their world.
Following this, the Kids take Yoda deep into the Jungle and show him their home, called
Mucktown.
They welcome him into the dense jungles and parade him through town, telling the townspeople
that he is the deliverer.
The people are pretty skeptical that such a small being could be the prophesized figure
to bring peace to their tribe...
But hey they shouldn’t judge by his size.
They then take Yoda to the spiritual centre of their village, showing him how the Skyscreamers
called out to him.
They swallow pieces of the sacred rock, which seems to strengthen their Stonepower, or as
we know it, their connection to the force.
They then scream out for help through the force, hoping that one day the Deliverer would
arrive.
The kids inform Yoda that this is the last piece of the Great Mountain that they have
left, because the rival Tribe called the Rockhawkers keep chipping away at it, using it to wage
war.
They predict that once this Stone is chipped away to nothing but dust, their existence
will come to an end.
Yoda is confused as he has never seen a stone like this, saying “strong in the force it
is”.
The children ask “what is the force?
We do not understand”.
Yoda wisely replies that there is much he doesn’t understand either.
The children then told their story to the Jedi master.
The story of how all the people on this distant world once lived together in the shadow of
an entire range of beautiful blue mountains.
From the stone of those arcane peaks, the people drew the energy of life and great power.
Unfortunately though, some of those people became greedy and wanted the power of the
stones for themselves.
A split formed and rival factions were born.
This then sparked a horrid war which destroyed the beautiful blue mountain ranges and drained
their power.
The greedy, power hungry faction won the conflict eventually and the other was exiled to the
mud fields of the planet.
The exiled tribe began to lose their powers and so much more...
When the mothers and fathers of these children lost that ancient war, they carried as much
of the blue stone as they could to their place of exile, breathing life into their tribe,
but now only pebbles remain.
These stones are the only thing they have left... and eachother.
The tribe then take Yoda to their prison setup where they have captured a scout from the
Rockhawkers.
The man inside pretends to be confident and sure of himself, but Yoda can feel that he
is lying.
He has great fear within him.
Not of Yoda or the Mud tribe, but of the mystical mountain itself.
Yoda wonders why anyone would be afraid of a mountain, but the deranged prisoner breaks
out into a fit and warns Yoda that he will eventually go.
Everyone does.
And then Yoda will realize how stupid he was not to be afraid.
At this point the tribe is sick of the prisoner’s ramblings and want to have have him executed,
but is quicky stopped by one of the others.
She tells him “We’re not like them.
We don’t steal or hate. and we definitely don’t murder”.
The boy responds “then maybe that’s why we’re losing this war”...
The green haired boy invoked the brutal murder of his brother as a reason why they should
execute this prisoner, but the girl stops him again and begs him to put down the spear.
Two separate ideologies clash, and Master Yoda realizes something stunning.
This is exactly how the Jedi Order split from the Sith and the Dark side all those years
ago.
The Mud clan is just like the Jedi followers of Ashla and the Rockhawkers are just like
the Sith followers of the Bogan.
The parallels are exact and the force is simply repeating itself.
As the two kids clash their spears, Master Yoda feels a horrific disturbance in the force,
almost as if the planet wants to tear itself apart.
Knowing that this tribe is good at heart, he warns them to be true to themselves and
let go of their anger and fear.
Trust in the Stonepower they must, because it surrounds and binds everything.
And then they must do one more thing for Master Yoda.
The tribe then frees that terrified prisoner from earlier and let him be the guide to this
mysterious mountain.
The prisoner begins calling Yoda mad, which he finds amusing consider he just helped to
free him from a barbaric prison.
As the two walked, Yoda had many questions about this mysterious planet and its force
imbued mountain.
Yet he felt like he had a deep understand of the war that was being fought here.
The battle between the dark and the light was a universal one.
An ancient and primal struggle.
Even though these primitive tribes had never heard of the force or the Jedi, the battle
was the same.
Light versus Dark.
Eventually Yoda arrives at what’s left of the blue mountain.
The guardians of the mountain question Yoda, and he tells them that he has brought back
a prisoner of theirs as an act of good will.
The guardians are suspicious, but Yoda says he comes in peace.
As reaches the shadow of the Mountain Yoda is shocked to realize they are all children.
Children wielding the same force imbued weapons made from blue stone.
The shadow of the mountain acts in the same way the Shadow of the Dark side can engulf
any force user.
The prisoner is nervous at this point and tells Yoda that he tried to warn him.
Only the Young and wild survive on this planet.
The wild tribe begins hurling a barrage of force imbued stones at Yoda, with one even
striking him in the centre of the head.
As he gets up they warn him that in the Shadow of the Mountain, nothing is stronger than
them...
They then surround him and knock the Wise old Master Unconcious.
Some time later the Old Master wakes up and finds himself bound with shackled carved from
the force stone.
They now task him with the most difficult challenge possible on this planet.
He must seek the heart of the mountain by travelling inside and retrieving it.
Yoda realizes this is yet another parallel to how he understands the force.
As Yoda is led in cuffs up the mountain he is left deep in thought.
He was the most powerful Jedi Master known to the Order but on that day he was being
taught a lesson by the force.
The only lesson.
The true nature of the universe and how the cycle of the force flows.
Yoda would never be the same after making these realizations and how they applied to
his own leadership of the Jedi Order into the Clone Wars.
This day eventually culminated in his dark and clouded feelings about the Jedi Order
in the Clone Wars Season 6, foreseeing their fall.
So that is how a single blue rock changed Yoda and his perspective on the Force Forever.
If you want to see part two of this beautiful story, tell me in the comments below and ill
be sure to cover it.
Make sure you subscribe to join the starforce and I’ll see you in the next one!