#(its also wild to use when barely conscious and on a bigger screen)

[godzexperiment]

oh its specialty dash i havent experienced it in a hot moment

[rachetmath]

JRY vs Ace-ops

Warning: Long read. This is theory on who would survive a fight. A analyses. In my opinion. So with clear, if you agree, then like or comment. Disagree, fine, go wild.  

Hello, so you must have read the title. Okay you might be thinking, "Ratchetmath, bro, you can't be serious. There is no way Jaune and Ren can ever defeat the Ace-ops. Only Yang, considering her and her teammates did in volume 7." Which I would completely side with you on. However, I've come to realize that the Hound was never a threat, and more importantly the boys could've done more if the Worf effect wasn't in place. So, let's give these guys a fighting chance and see what they along with Yang, could've done if they had to fight Winter and Ace-ops.

First, let's discuss the Hound and why the Worf effect failed. For those of you who don't know what the Worf effect is, it is when a new character is placed in the story and to prove their strength: you make them fight already deemed strong characters and let them win or stand a chance of winning the fight. The reason the Worf effect failed for the Hound is because Oscar is not a very strong character. Oscar skill level as the show presents is random at best. The Hound should have aimed for Jaune. Jaune as the show and writers made clear, has an incredible amount of aura. Seeing the Hound break his aura completely without even trying would've been more terrifying and makes sense. Or Yang, showing that it could fight.

But why? Why the Hound taking Jaune or Yang down first makes sense? Yeah, Yang is fine but Jaune is not strong or a capable fighter. Maybe not much of a fighter, but he is strong. In fact, he holds back grimm twice his size on a regular basis like an Urosa and Nuckelavee. Even Yang and the other characters, well except Elm because of her physical appearance, are guilty of this. The Hound is no different, it's basically a harder version of the Beowulf. Let's face it, Jaune couldn't do anything because the show must go as planned. Jaune could've save Oscar by getting close and blowing it away with his gravity dusted shield. The hound attacking Jaune first would prove it was watching them carefully, seeing their weapons and abilities to find who could be a threat to its mission. Proving its power and intelligence.

Now, the main event, team JRY versus The Ace-ops. The fight starts when the Ace-ops arrive after Jaune told them about the grimm river. Sadly, when they arrive, things were not so good. The Ace-Ops were more focused on finding Penny instead of the river. Now the grimm river destroyed the Atlas barrier and Atlas was under attack. However, the Ace-ops still want to arrest the group. Instead of going down peacefully, Jaune, Yang and Ren won't go down without a fight. Can they win?

Now, let's scan the environment. They were in an open plain field full of snow. There is nowhere to hide and almost no way to escape for team JRY. The motorcycle is not fast enough to outrun Harriet or a plane. But more importantly there was a crater beside them where the grimm river used to be. Now there are two ways this can go down, but I'll explain later. Let’s focus on the characters.

Let’s talk about the Ace-ops. They are elite hunters in Atlas. And from what we got from volume 8, Harriet told us that Marrow and Winter are replacements for their fallen comrades. Meaning Vine, Elm and Harriet herself are the remaining, long term members of the Ace-ops. So, they work very well together unlike with Marrow and Winter. That could give team JRY an advantage, but not much. Do to the fact that it's five against three and with only one of them being the strongest fighter, they need a plan to set the odds to their favor.

Now for team JRY. Beacon students turned hunters thanks to James. Now they’re with adults. However, there are a few problems with this team. There are three people in the team and two of them, barely fight or have barely won a fight at all. Jaune is more on the defensive while Ren... well, he spams his attacks, and relies heavily on long range. Sadly, the Ace-ops over power them with combative semblances and fire power. Their best shot would be to run. However, there still a way to win. This is a fight or flight situation, so what would happen if team JRY choose either option?

For flight, the reason being because they're not capable, it's a waste time and more importantly lives are in danger. First, remember they were on a field of snow. What does Jaune have? A shield that shoots gravity waves on contact weather it's from enemies or to the ground. Jaune was already in front of the bike and with good timing, he could activate and slam his shield to ground, sending snow flying, causing a smoke screen. Giving them little but plenty of time to hop on the one motorcycle and ride, while making sure Winter or Marrow have no time to stop them with either of their semblances. The crater also plays a key role for their escape. They can ride in it, but Harriet, due to her semblance granting her speed, will be on their tail. However, if orderly seated, Jaune can stop Harriet from getting too close. But what about the other members? Well, they'll be back on the ship, but they can't do anything. If they fire missiles, they'll get in Harriet's way and more importantly hurt her in the process. Jaune could also block her path himself with shield bomb.  

Now, for fight. Reason being is Oscar is in danger and needs saving. More importantly the plane is better for traveling around Mantle and saving people than a motorcycle. This will be a difficult battle but not one sided. This is going to involve the team trusting each other. And putting their skills to the test.

First off, they would need to get rid of Marrow. Marrow may be the rookie of the Ace-ops, but he is the most powerful. His semblance can stop time just by looking at his opponent or pointing at them, commanding them to "Stay" in place.

To take out Marrow, they need to knock him out before he uses his semblance. So, before the fight truly starts, Yang should be close to Jaune, grabbing his clothes and amplifying her aura. When she has enough, Jaune, since team JRY will get a plane, launches the bike and Ren shoots the gas tank. The explosion should cause a temporary smoke screen. Yang should immediately get on Jaune shield for him to launch her towards the Ace-ops and activate her semblance to knock Marrow out. Wait a minute, but Yang's semblance doesn't work like that, she needs to take damage to even use it. However though, Blake revealed that Yang and Adam's semblances are one of the same. Meaning, both can activate their semblances any time without the need to be attacked. Yang has done this once back at Beacon and in Atlas considering Elm couldn't even touch her. But this would wear her out. Too bad she was amplified by Jaune, so she may not experience the same negative draw backs when using her semblance recklessly before.

Wait, but what about Aura? Can't aura protect Marrow from harm? Well, sadly no. Aura, as the show so far made clear, is limited to what it could do for its users. If you have a broken arm, get poisoned and/or critically wounded, your aura my not save you. So, a heavy blow to the head is something your aura is useless in healing, especially when you need to be conscious.  

Now, it's four against three. So, what should happen next? Jaune pushes Harriet into the crater, allowing Ren to fight her. Harriet may be fast but with the crater being narrow and deep she'll have a hard time moving around and probably climbing out. This will allow Ren to adapt to her movements and fight in her in hand-to-hand combat. Hopefully, he's still good at that and not relying on his upgrade.

Jaune may have to take on two opponents. They are being Vine and Elm. Don't get me wrong, it took Blake and Yang to beat them, but Vine and Elm aren't really that good. In fact, they are just stronger versions of Ren and Nora, except Vine's semblance is better suited for combat. But let’s be clear, Jaune survived a journey of pain without his aura being broken but a few times. Never mind, only once, do to being tired after fighting a giant mech.

Now, hear me out. Elm is strong, and her weapon is an RPG. But her semblance is useless if the ground is cracked, which Jaune can do without wasting aura, or entering a burst mode. Elm also has not demonstrated any hand-to-hand combat skills. Even if she was willing to still use her weapon without her semblance, it only further proves she will suffer from the recoil from her weapon once fired. Plus, Jaune can block or deflect the missiles back at her using the gravity waves from his shield. Also, though Elm is stronger than Jaune, he's faster, has more movability and a sword. So as the saying goes, "Bigger doesn't always mean better."  

But hey, what about Vine? He beat Jaune before. But who can't beat Jaune? More importantly, didn't Vine need the high ground to fight anyone. In the snow plain field, Vine has no high ground but the ship, Jaune already fought him once so he might know how far his arms can stretch, and more importantly, Jaune is physically stronger than Vine. He might use his weapon but again, the shield can deflect it. And if Jaune grabs his stretchable arm, he basically can throw Vine around.

I will make this quick for Yang. Yang will take on Winter. She would be able to reason with her considering she's friends with her sister. But Yang might have some ways to fight Winter considering she should knows how Weiss fights and been working with Weiss for a while. However, we still must consider that Winter can make an army of grimm, but she has not used any other tactics.

But these are still highly trained hunters. They aren't so easily to be defeated especially against Jaune and Ren. Well, Jaune can assist Ren by knocking out Harriet. How? Ren could use his grappling gun to capture and slow down Harriet. Ren gives Jaune a signal, Jaune goes to him, Ren releases Harriet who was running too fast for her own good with no time to react. Finally, Jaune use his shield to knock her out. They climb out and both can fight Vine and Elm. Same for Ren if to assist Jaune first. Harriet may be fast but won't be able to climb out the crater. Once all four members are down Winter would be the only one left. And sadly, the Schnees despite their abilities, still manage to lose battles.

Well, that’s all folks. Remember this is in my opinion. If there are ways for team JRY to win or if there are flaws to my plan, then please leave a comment. However, despite what I said, team JRY would still lose. Mostly due to what I said about the Worf effect not being used properly. And the villains have way more plot armor then the heroes.

[sweetsameli]

Chapter three: It Is Not My Place to Judge

After getting dressed, I slowly head to the galley; hoping to find it empty. Luckily, it was. I start searching for something to eat, finding the cabinets filled with a variety of food. I’m unsure of what I can take so I just grab a ration bar and sit down at the table, starting to eat it. I feel... unsettled. I’ve never had a vision turn into a dream, or make me fall asleep during meditation for that matter. I let my head hang, a little in embarrassed. Darryl must have come to see if I was alright and found me asleep on the ground, unless I slept walk to the bed. I bring my head up and rest it against my hand, staring at the ration bar. Which, I kind of doubt since I was in the middle of a vision/dream thing. A smile comes to my lips. How thoughtful of him.

“Whatchya smiling for?” I hear Darryl’s voice come through my train of thought. I turn my head to see him walking in. His face is covered in grease, kind of defining his very sharp, square jawline and I also notice his chin has a small dimple in it. He isn’t wearing his jacket so his tunic is also covered in grease, and revealing some of his bare chest. He wipes his hands with a rag.  

“Oh, um nothing. Just thinking of some good memories from my time at the temple.” I hastily lie. Ugh. He gives me a disbelieving look but doesn’t pursue to question it.  

“Hmm. Alright. Well, I’m working on your ship to pass the time till we get to Lothal. I could use a pair of hands?” He goes to the big chill box and pulls out some sort of drink, coming back over to the table to sit down. I watch him as he does that and contemplate whether I should ask him if he did in fact put me in my bed or should just leave it alone.  

“Um... So... Uh did you put me to bed last night?” the words slip out before I even finished contemplating. Well, dammit. “I uh only ask because I woke up in the bed instead of being on the floor where I was meditating.” He looks at me and takes a sip of his drink.  

“Yeah, I did. I heard some noise from your room. I forgot to have you lock it so it opened up for me when I got to it and there you were, collapsed on the ground. I tried to wake you but you were dead asleep so I thought it would be best if I just put you in the bed.” He says nonchalantly. I nod.

“Ah. Okay, well thank you. That was... very kind of you.” I smile. “What else needs to be fixed on my ship anyways?” He scoffs.  

“Plenty. The nebula really did live up to its name. I don’t even have life support back up yet because the engine keeps breaking somewhere else.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Do you know how to fix ships?”  

“Kind of? I know enough to get systems up and running, but repairing engines and such... not so much.” He nods, taking another sip from the drink.  

“Good. You can start on the systems for your ship then. I’ll keep working on the engines and hyperdrive.” He finishes his drink quickly and gets up. “And then maybe after this, we can start working on my ship.” He teases at me, smiling. He starts walking towards where my ship is and I get up to follow. We pass by a locker and he stops at, opening it up and pulling out some rebreather masks. He hands me one and I take it, putting it on. He puts on one himself and opens the hatch to where my ship is at, stepping inside. I follow after him, it’s a tight fit. I take a look around and the lights seem to be on but it feels...hollow in here.  

“At least the lights work?” I say jokingly, the mask muffling my voice and Darryl doesn’t respond. He is ducking under a bulkhead and going to the back of the ship. I follow him, not really having to duck as much as him. The lights seem to get darker and go to a red color and we finally get to the engine pod area. The engines look like they took a lot more damage than the outer hull took.  

“I can’t actually fit through the duct that leads to the cockpit because the other way is blocked.” He then turns around and looks at me sheepishly.  

“Why do I get the feeling that I was gonna help no matter if I knew how to fix ships or not?” I fold my arms across my chest and lean to the side a little.  

“Ha, you got me.” He rubs the back of his head. “What can I say? Can’t really change my height now.” I only give a grunt in response and crawl up towards the duct. I cast out my sight to see what duct I need to get too. I feel like a kowakian monkey-lizard swinging around to get to the correct duct. I pull myself up into the duct and crawl through it. He’s lucky that he is charming. I hate crawling through tight spaces. I let out an annoyed huff and continue to crawl till I finally reach the cockpit and slide out of the duct, landing on the ground behind the chair. I get up, dusting myself off and turn around to face the panels. They blink at random intervals and I go to the computer near the pilot chair, pulling up a systems report.  

It reads ‘Engine pod 1 and 2 offline. Navicomputer offline. Life-support and environmental controls offline. Shields offline. Comm system offline’ The list continues on and I groan.  

“Why don’t I just sell you then? Be someone else’s problem.” I ridicule the ship. Then sigh and start pulling up the systems I can fix.  

After working for a while, my back starts to ache and I stretch, hearing my spine make some very satisfying pops. I shake my hands to regain some feeling in them and stand up from the kneeling position I got myself into. Tapping on the screen and pulling up the systems report, I read over what is still offline.  

‘Engine pod 2 offline. Navicomputer offline. Shields offline.’ The list goes on for a bit. Ugh, I have only managed to fix life-support, environmental and maybe a few other things but there still a lot more to do. It does look like Darryl was able to get at least one engine pod fixed and I think maybe the hyperdrive. I should go take a break. I pull myself up into the duct and start to crawl back towards the engine pods. Popping my head through I only see Darryl’s legs poking from underneath one of the engine pods, bent at an awkward angle. I smile mischievously. I should scare him. I grab the bar ahead of me and pull out of the duct slowly, landing silently on the ground. Prowling towards him, I lean close to the opening where he is poking from.

“Hey whatchya doin!?” I hear him thwack his head against the engine, swearing something in Huttese and I hold back a chuckle. I move aside as he starts to move out from underneath the engine and he is glaring at me with strong intensity. His face is covered in grease, so I can’t tell if he injured but I can tell he wasn’t too pleased with being startled. I give him a flat smile. He shakes his head and stands up.  

“What was that for?” Darryl rubs his face, making the grease smudge around. I snort a little and then clear my throat. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. You just got a little something,” I point to a part of my face to indicate where a smudge mark is at and he tries to wipe at the spot but it just makes a bigger mess. I smile again. “Yeah, okay. You got it.” He gives me a dubious look. “Sorry, I got a little bored. I wanted to see if I could sneak up on you,”

“Hmm. Well, that won’t happen again.” He gives me a studied look. “Oh, and you’ve got something here.” He points to my face, near my cheek and I touch there, trying to rub at it then looking at my hand. Nothing has rubbed off onto my hand and he just smiles. “Here, let me get it for you.” He tries to rub my face with his hand and I just jump back, yelping a little. He laughs at me and I sigh annoyed. Damn, he almost got me. How dare he try to turn around use my trick on me. I look away and feel something fall off my head. His laughter stops and there is just silence between us. “Whoa.” He finally speaks up.

“What?” I say, slightly startled by the break in silence.  

“Your hair...” I blush now, realizing that my cloth hood fell off. I reach up to touch my hair, making sure it wasn’t wild or something but it only felt coarse and slightly greasy. I cringe. Ugh, I need to use the refresher.  

“I’m sorry, I probably smell huh?” I kneel down, grabbing my hood and standing back up.  

“No, it’s just that... It’s nice.” He smiles softly. “Is that natural or dyed orange? And is the violet also dyed?” I feel a bit self-conscious.

“Oh, uh no. All of it is natural. It’s a rare trait among my people.... My parents told me I got it from my great-great grandpa. He, too, was a... Strong force user. It’s why I was sent to the Jedi temple actually.” He nods and reaches over hesitantly, undoing the tie that holds my hair back into a braid and my hair slowly twirls’ out and he tilts his head to the side. I try to read his emotions but they feel blocked or maybe I’m too nervous to sense them.

“You should keep it down. It really compliments your face.” he says in a low, alluring voice. I feel heat rising up to my cheeks and a ping go through my heart. I am at a loss for words when normally in this situation I am the one who acts like this. Well, maybe not so... direct. I smile finally and put the hood back on. My nervousness still there in my stomach.

“Maybe I will keep it down. I’ll... think about it.” I hold out my hand, waiting for the hair tie. Darryl hands it back and looks away, his cheeks look a deeper color.  

“Let’s go take a break.” He starts to head out back towards where my ship is attached to his and I follow behind.  

That’s when I get struck with a feeling of wholeness. An odd feeling, one that I haven’t felt since I left to become a Jedi. It felt... strange but nice. That’s when I realize, the heat in my cheeks hasn’t faded and I shake my head. No passion, no attachments. Remember? I sigh, tilting my head down. Plus, I just met him. Darryl probably doesn’t even think of me like that. I’m a Jedi and he is womanizing, lying, laser brain scoundrel. I grit my teeth together and trudge to my quarters. Before I reach my door though, Darryl grabs my shoulder gently and I look at him; he then lets’ go and smiles at me.

“Just so you know, the refresher is just down there.” He points to a door that is a few feet from the galley and I nod my head.

“Thanks...” He starts to walk towards there. “Wait.” He stops and turns around. “Do you have... an area where I can... possibly train?” He raises an eye brow.  

“Why, planning on staying for a while?”

“Yeah, probably. I mean, it’s going to take a while for us to finish my ship, right?” He nods. “Okay well, I haven’t trained for some time and I could really use the practice.” He smirks, and tilts his head to the side.  

“Well I do have an area where I like to exercise. It should be big enough for you to practice in.” He starts walking towards the cockpit and I follow behind him. He takes a sharp turn before going into the cockpit and walks towards what looks like it was previously a storage room. It is filled with shut down practice drones, different weights scattered on the ground, a mirror covering one side of the room and some practice swords. The room even has a large mat in the middle to practice on. I nod my head slowly.  

“This should do. May I use it?”

“Sure. Go ahead.” He smiles and heads back to where the refresher is at.  

I walk into the room more and take off my hood, placing it near the rack of practice swords. I look at the mirror and stand up straight, looking myself over. My normal blue Jedi robes are charred mostly on the left side, the sleeve almost gone. I frown. I didn’t realize they were this bad. Good thing Darryl gave me that poncho before I went out looking like this... I look at my reflected face and see part of my cloth visor is burnt and pain aches through my chest.  

A memory flashes by, Ly’lis coming up to me after we just finished our Jedi Knight trials and she seems excited. She hugs me and after pulling back from the hug, is holding out a box. I take the box and open it, revealing a red cloth with intricate gold patterns. I smile big at her and hug her again.  

I touch where the cloth is brunt and a sad smile comes to my lips. I’m sorry Ly’lis. I bet if you saw this, you would just get me another... but I would just feel so awful if you had to go and spend more credits on me. I take in a breath and let it out slowly, grabbing a practice sword. I turn around and start to practice my forms.  

About an hour later, I'm in the middle of practicing my second form when I sense Darryl coming to the doorway. I continue and he leans against the frame, watching me. I sense from him a feeling of wonderment. I finish the form and he comes over to me, clapping softly.  

“Very nice. Do you wanna spar with me?” He smirks, smugness overcoming his wonderment from earlier. I look at him and notice he is in different clothes. The clothes seem to be a snug fit on him, the tunic being mid-sleeve and the pants coming up to about mid-calf. The outfit is all black.  

“Can I change first?” I put the practice sword down.

“Oh, I only let that happen on the second date.” He waggles his eyebrows. I get a feeling of lust now and I seductively smile at him.

“You wish this was a date.” Slight shock comes from him but his face doesn’t show. I don’t blame him; shock is an understatement to how I feel. Whelp, that was kind of stupid but it looks like he didn’t mind too much. I start to take off my outfit, wearing similar clothing to Darryl, only the tunic is sleeveless and my pants come up to mid-thigh.  

“Do you always come prepared to train if your clothes are too much?” He asks, tilting his head to the side.

“All Jedi do. ‘Be prepared for anything.’ First rule that was taught to me by my master.” I put the clothes next to my hood and come back to the mat, getting into a fighting stance. “Ready?” He gets into a fighting stance as well; one I slightly recognize. Huh, Reneji use to fight like that... “Do all Chiss use that fighting stance?”

“No. Only special Chiss use this stance.” He says, starting to circle me. I circle with him.  

“What does that mean? ‘Special’ Chiss? Were you part of a cult or something?” He chuckles at my question.

“No.” He throws a punch at me and I dodge, countering with a leg sweep but he jumps over it, bringing his foot down to my head. I roll backwards and jump up. He looks back at me, smirking. “Hmm, very nice counter and dodge.” I smirk.  

“Thanks. Now, what does it mean?” He comes at me, throwing punches again and I block them.  

“If I tell you, will you judge me?” He hastily says. I block the last of his flurry of punches and round house kick toward him. He blocks, grabbing my leg, staring at me intensely.  

“No. It is not my place to judge, especially since it seems like you haven’t judged me yet.” He twitches his lips to almost form a smile and flips me. I land on my butt, he’s about to get on top of me but I roll away just in time. Standing back up, I get into a fighting stance, he follows suit.  

“I use to be a royal guardsman for the Queen of Csilla.” I look at him dumbfounded and he uses that moment to kick me in the stomach. I cover the area, letting out a cough and land on my butt again. “Don’t lose focus,” He holds out a hand to me, “Or your opponent will over-take you.” His smugness is washing over me like a tropical storm. I take his hand and pull him down using the momentum to pull me up. While still holding his hand, I put a foot on his chest to show defeat. I look down at him, smirking.  

“I know.” He then smirks at me. I take my foot off him and back up a little.

“Huh, was not expecting that. I’ll remember that for next time. That is, if there is one.” He bows slightly. “Thanks for the sparring match. It’s nice to fight with an equal opponent.” I bow back to him.

“You’re welcome.” I straighten and look at him. “Is there any reason why you left? Isn’t being the Queens guardsman the best career you can get as a Chiss?” I walk over to my clothes and pick them up. He hasn’t really moved, just staring at the ground. He lets out a steady breath and straightens up.  

“There is but I don’t really want to talk about it at the moment.” He looks at me, and I see something haunting flash across his eyes and I just nod. “Thanks. I’m going to the galley to make some food; would you like me to prepare you anything?” He heads for the door, stopping at the doorway.

“Oh, sure. Just whatever it is you are having.” I say, walking towards him. We walk together into the galley and I break off, heading towards the refresher.  

“Have a good shower.” He winks at me. I purse my lips together and head inside. I can’t tell if he likes me or is just giving me a false sense in order to get into bed with me. I shake my head at that thought and start taking my shower. I let the water just wash over me, I tilt my head down and look at my hands. My left hands looks’ scarred and slightly red. I close it into a fist and a dull pain comes through but I don’t feel anything else. That’s when it hits me. I haven’t had a headache today... I turn my head up and look around. I put my hand out, feeling the flow of the force go through my body and the water starts to slow down. I pull my hand back and smile, the water returning to normal. It felt nice to have the force flow through me again.  

I hadn’t felt it this strong since I first landed on the moon of Yavin 4. It was where I had that dark vision for the first time and I pulled away from it. That gets me thinking... I hadn’t really had a full vision since then either. It was only that one I was having, and I kept running away from it. I bite my lip and realize that... I was rejecting the vision, rejecting the force. No wonder I couldn’t deflect that blaster bolt... I inadvertently cut myself from the force. I shake my head and smack my forehead. Idiot. I grit my teeth, and finish up with my shower.  

I step out and realize I have to put back on my dirty clothes and I cringe. I grab a towel, wrapping myself up and then cast my sight to see outside of the door. I see Darryl still working on the food, seeming focused. I chew on my lips. My bag is in my ship... what is wrong with me? Why didn’t I grab the stupid thing while I was on there? I huff and open the door, quickly walking to the hatch that leads to my ship.  

“Oh good, you’re done. I’m almost done with the food.” Darryl says, I turn around to see if he is facing me but he hasn’t turn around yet.  

“Okay, good. I’ll be right back. I just gotta get something from my ship.” I say quickly.

“To get some clothes, I’m assuming?” heat raises to my cheeks again. Kriff, did he see me? I turn around but he hasn’t moved. “I’m just guessing since your other clothes are, you know, ruined?” I can sense sarcasm implicated in his tone and I let out a sigh.  

“Uh, yeah. I’ll be quick.” I turn around and continue to the ship. Holding the towel close to me, I walk back towards the small cabin near the engines and look inside. My bag sits on the bed where I last left it. I open it up and pull out some clothes; a tunic that is teal, a grey vest to cover, a long black jacket, and a pair of pants that are a stiff light fabric beige colored, that are long. I pull out the boots that are black and very long and groan a little. That little womp rat. Ly’lis... She must’ve switched out my shoes when she was saying goodbye to me. I huff and start to dig through my bag, not finding any other shoes. I let my head drop, accepting defeat and starting to put my clothes on, leaving the hood down from the jacket. It all fits snuggly and I stare at the boots for a bit. I could just go bare foot... Why does she do this to me? Maybe next time I should just double check my bag. I’ve kept my clothes so well clean but no I had to get them all messed up and everything. Wait... there isn’t going to be a next time... It’s fine... Just clothing I'm not use to... I remember when she used to go off planet, she would dress up in fancy or suggestive clothing. Ly’lis never actually did anything with other beings, that was just what she was used to, how she grew up. I smile sadly to myself a little and finally just put the boots on. Then I remember that I never packed an extra pair of cloth visors. I’ll have to see if a shop on Lothal has any.  

I walk back to the galley and see Darryl already eating at the table, the food looking like some master chef made it. I reach the table and sit where a plate is already made up for me.  

“Did you really make this?” I ask, picking up the three-pronged fork and poking at the food. Darryl looks at me, raising an eye brow.  

“I’m not that posh. I know how to cook, and very well thank you.” He says miffed. I turn my head to face him.  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant... well, you just seem so well off, why make the food when you can just have it already made and just have it rehydrated?” I say. He nods his head.  

“Ah, well I hate that stuff. It tastes... bland. So, I try to keep more... fresher items on board.” He goes back to eating his food. I look back at the food and start to eat it. It tastes... rather good.

“Wow, this is... good.” I smile, taking another bite.  

“Eh, you’ve been eating ration bars. I’m sure anything would taste good to you.” he flatly says.  

“I’m offended that you would think I wouldn’t land on a planet to eat actual food every once in a while.” I teasingly say. He finishes his food and folds his hands underneath his chin.  

“Oh really? Huh, thought you would’ve stayed away from market places and vendor shops in order to ‘stay on your path’?” He smiles teasingly at me. I purse my lips together.  

“Well, maybe sometimes...” He chuckles at me.  

“I’m going to ask you something, and please tell me if I am being too personal.” He looks at me with a gentle look. “How long have you been on this... quest?” I look at him, and then down at my food.  

“You said when you found me it had been about two weeks, right? Well, before that I had been out for about... two months I believe.” I poke at my food now.

“All alone?”

“Yeah...” I rub my forehead a little. “When I left the temple... Not everyone agreed with how I treated the situation. They all thought of me as a...” I bite my lip, remembering the feelings I felt before I left the temple. Thoughts of being a traitor, and a coward came rampaging to me when the others found out that I was leaving the temple instead of choosing a side. I sigh shakily, running my hand through my slightly wet hair. Darryl touches my arm gently and I turn to look at his hand then at him.  

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me all of it.” I smile a little and then look past him, the memory of seeing Ly’lis, Reneji and Aydgage coming to see me off plays in my mind again. The look that Aydgage gives me at the hanger bay just before I leave also plays in my mind, sensing his longing. My stomach twists in knots and I suddenly don’t feel good anymore. I pull my arm away from Darryl's hand and I put both of my hands into my lap. This is ridiculous. Why am I feeling like this? This isn’t like me... “Hey, are you okay?” Darryl asks, breaking my spiraling pit of darkening thoughts. I shake my head.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry.” I start to get up, grabbing the plate. “Just not feeling good. Thanks for the food.” I go over to the cleaner and put my dish inside.  

“Well I mean that is one way to put that you don’t like the food.” Darryl teases, but I sense he is kind of hurt by it.  

“No, no. I loved the food but... just remembering what happened at the temple before I left...” I look over at him. “Brought up... unsettling feelings.” I take a shaky breath in. “I’m gonna go... meditate for a bit.” I walk to my quarters and this time, lock the door.  

I kneel down and sit on my legs and bow head down. My feelings are in a state of chaotic disaster and I am trying to calm them down. Maybe if I had followed Revan, my feelings would be less out of control. I’d be able to let them be free and express them without feeling like I am not at peace with myself. That I am burdening others and making them feel concern about how I feel. But... at the same time... letting my feelings just go rampant and unchecked could lead to bad decision-making and burden others with a mistake I have made. I rub temples, my hair falling forward. I rub hands down my cheeks, keeping the finger tips on my jaw and tilt my head up to look at the ceiling. I can’t even focus now without thinking that leaving was a bad idea. I let my hands fall all the way to my lap and then I remember Darryl touching my arm. I look back down at the arm he touched and I smile. I remember how I felt earlier and my smile fades away. I put my hands in my lap and try to focus on meditating now.  

I listen to thrum of the engine and hyperdrive, trying to focus again. There is no emotion, there is peace. My emotions start to calm down but I still feel a knot in my stomach. I let out a steady breath. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. I’m trying to clear my mind but Aydgage’s voice echo’s through my head, ‘...and may you come back to me, safely.’ The memory of him about to kiss me but instead kissing my forehead plays through mind over and over again. There is no passion, there is serenity. The fresher memory of Darryl pulling my hair tie out and touching my hair plays in my head, heat coming to my cheeks again. I clear my throat, shaking my head to get rid of the memory. There is no chaos, there is harmony. The message that Master Dauula gave me plays through my head, ‘Master Reneji has fallen... He has fallen at the hands... Aydgage...’ I bite my lip then let go, taking a shaky breath. There is no death, there is the force.  

I feel a little less overwhelmed but I still have the knot in stomach. I concentrate on my feelings I felt when Revan and a lot of the Jedi Masters’ and Knights’ came back from the Mandalorian war. I was only a pawadan at the start of the Mandalorian war and wasn’t allowed to follow. I think about it more and a lot of the younger Jedi Knights are the ones who are wanting to follow Revan. What exactly did they see that makes them want to follow Revan? Was it the power he showed the rest of us when he got back? His new lightsaber which was dark red? The fact that he was able to control his anger while fighting? I keep thinking of more and more possibilities, my mind racing down each path but finding no end. I hear the door chime. I look over at the chronometer and notice that a full night has passed by. I stand up quickly and go over to the door, tapping the button to open it. Darryl is standing there, using one arm to prop himself up against the door, dressed in a different outfit then when I last some him; wearing similar clothing when I first met him but his tunic is black now and he is not wearing his jacket still.  

“Hey...” He softly says, standing straight now. I can hear him think he wants to ask how I am doing, if I am alright but he pushes those thoughts away. “I made some breakfast, would you like some?” I smile slightly.  

“Sure.” He moves out of the way, gesturing his hands to let me go ahead of him and I go to the galley, Darryl following behind. I see that there is some fruit and gridle cakes on the table and I go to sit down. “Wow, shuura and muja fruit... I haven’t had these in years.” I start putting food onto my plate.  

“Years?” Darryl asks as he sits down, perturbed. “I thought that the temple would have stock full of fruits and vegetables?” He starts piling his plate full of food as well.  

“Ehhh... not really. At first, we did, yes.” I start cutting into my food. “As the Mandalorian war went on though, we had to start rationing food at the temple and sending out packages of food to the other Jedi who were fighting in it.” I chuckle to myself a little. “I remember making a package with one of the other pawadan’s, Ly’lis.” I giggle to myself a little. “We had finished packing it but forgot to put the label that it was food and not data pads!” I laugh a little harder. I feel Darryls happiness radiate off of him.

“Did you guys get to it in time?” I look at him, he is smiling, enjoying the story I am telling. I chuckle again.

“No!” I laugh, holding my belly. “Master Dauula came to us later on that week and told us what happened. We got in trouble!” I keep laughing and laughs along.  

“Were you a pawadan as well at the time?” He asks after the laughter dies down. I nod my head.

“Yes, I was.” I start eating my food again.  

“I’m assuming that Master Dauula is the same one from that message that you first watched?” I nod slowly, remembering I have one message left to listen to.  

“Yes. That was him.”

“What was he like?” I purse my lips together and tilt my head to look at him. Wait a minute. Why are we talking about me? I want to know more about him. That’s not fair.

“How about you tell me why you wanted to become a smuggler and I will tell you about Master Dauula?” I challenge him. He stares at me long and hard and sighs.  

“It’s hard to have a staring contest with a Miraluka.” he smiles a little and eats more of his food. I hold back a chuckle, trying to stay my ground.  

“Well, I mean yeah. We don’t exactly have eyes to stare at or with.” I hear him laugh in his throat but he clears it to cover his laughter. “Don’t choke on your food there.” I smile finally, going back to my food.  

“Ask me another time, and maybe I will tell you.” He finishes his food. “Besides, I want to know more about you. It’s not every day I get to talk to a Jedi, a Miraluka Jedi at that.” I turn my head to look at him again.  

“And it’s not every day I get to meet a Chiss smuggler, who was the Queens guardsman.” I take a sharp bite out of the gridle cake, but keeping my face turned towards him. He raises an eye brow.  

“Alright. Fair enough.” He stands up, stretching a little. “But first, we work on your ship. I might tell you something after that. If,” he points to me, “We can get it up and running today.” He winks at me and grabs his plate, taking it to the cleaner. I sigh, slightly annoyed and finish eating.  

“Fine.” I get up as well, grabbing my plate and going over to the cleaner as well.

“And no surprise scares. I managed to get rid of the bruise before it even formed.” He points to his forehead and I visibly bite my lip, smiling at the same time.  

“Damn, okay. I’ll try not to.” I reluctantly say, pouting a little. He pushes my shoulder a little and walks to my ship. I follow behind him. I hear him think of a plan to get me back but then he remembers I can hear his thoughts and he no longer thinks of the plan. We walk up to the hatch and go inside.  

“I’ll finish up the second engine pod and then see if I can bypass the door that is cutting us off from getting into the cockpit easier.” I nod my head and then stop, groaning. And I have to crawl back through those stupid ducts.  

“You get the easy job.” I mumble under my breath and head over to the duct I crawled through last time. I hear Darryl say something but I choose to ignore him and head to the cockpit. I land in the cockpit again and start working on bypassing the systems.  

*                                  *                                     *

I look over at the chronometer and do a double take as I noticed hours have passed by. I rub the back of my neck and look back at the system I was working on. I’m almost finished. I pull up the systems report again and it reports that shields I am working on are still offline. I breath in through my nose and breath out loudly through it. I don’t think I can fix while we are in hyperspace. I’m pretty sure it’s a part that needs be fixed and it can only be accessed through the outside of the ship. I run my hand through my hair. It feels a bit... odd. I’m not use to yet. I put my wrist in front of me and take the tie off, about to put my hair back into a braid. ‘You should keep it down. It really compliments your face...’ I hear Darryl’s voice echo in my head. I swallow a little and I pull my hair back into a ponytail instead. I start to pull myself up into the duct when I see the door open, Darryl standing there with a smug smirk on his face. I let go of the pole I was using to pull myself up and put my hands on my hips.  

“About time you opened the door.” his mouth parts in disbelief and I walk past him, smiling as well. I hear him walk behind me.

“Well, next time you want to fly into nebula, I’ll just leave your ship alone then.” He teases at me, but I continue to smile.

[newstfionline]

How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All

By Jerry Useem, The Atlantic, April 18, 2017

As Christmas approached in 2015, the price of pumpkin-pie spice went wild.

It didn’t soar, as an economics textbook might suggest. Nor did it crash. It just started vibrating between two quantum states. Amazon’s price for a one-ounce jar was either $4.49 or $8.99, depending on when you looked. Nearly a year later, as Thanksgiving 2016 approached, the price again began whipsawing between two different points, this time $3.36 and $4.69.

We live in the age of the variable airfare, the surge-priced ride, the pay-what-you-want Radiohead album, and other novel price developments. But what was this? Some weird computer glitch? More like a deliberate glitch, it seems. “It’s most likely a strategy to get more data and test the right price,” Guru Hariharan explained, after I had sketched the pattern on a whiteboard.

The right price--the one that will extract the most profit from consumers’ wallets--has become the fixation of a large and growing number of quantitative types, many of them economists who have left academia for Silicon Valley. It’s also the preoccupation of Boomerang Commerce, a five-year-old start-up founded by Hariharan, an Amazon alum. He says these sorts of price experiments have become a routine part of finding that right price--and refinding it, because the right price can change by the day or even by the hour. (Amazon says its price changes are not attempts to gather data on customers’ spending habits, but rather to give shoppers the lowest price out there.)

It may come as a surprise that, in buying a seasonal pie ingredient, you might be participating in a carefully designed social-science experiment. But this is what online comparison shopping hath wrought. Simply put: Our ability to know the price of anything, anytime, anywhere, has given us, the consumers, so much power that retailers--in a desperate effort to regain the upper hand, or at least avoid extinction--are now staring back through the screen. They are comparison shopping us.

They have ample means to do so: the immense data trail you leave behind whenever you place something in your online shopping cart or swipe your rewards card at a store register, top economists and data scientists capable of turning this information into useful price strategies, and what one tech economist calls “the ability to experiment on a scale that’s unparalleled in the history of economics.” In mid-March, Amazon alone had 59 listings for economists on its job site, and a website dedicated to recruiting them.

Not coincidentally, quaint pricing practices--an advertised discount off the “list price,” two for the price of one, or simply “everyday low prices”--are yielding to far more exotic strategies.

“I don’t think anyone could have predicted how sophisticated these algorithms have become,” says Robert Dolan, a marketing professor at Harvard. “I certainly didn’t.” The price of a can of soda in a vending machine can now vary with the temperature outside. The price of the headphones Google recommends may depend on how budget-conscious your web history shows you to be, one study found. For shoppers, that means price--not the one offered to you right now, but the one offered to you 20 minutes from now, or the one offered to me, or to your neighbor--may become an increasingly unknowable thing. “Many moons ago, there used to be one price for something,” Dolan notes. Now the simplest of questions--what’s the true price of pumpkin-pie spice?--is subject to a Heisenberg level of uncertainty.

Which raises a bigger question: Could the internet, whose transparency was supposed to empower consumers, be doing the opposite?

If the marketplace was a war between buyers and sellers, the 19th-century French sociologist Gabriel Tarde wrote, then price was a truce. And the practice of setting a fixed price for a good or a service--which took hold in the 1860s--meant, in effect, a cessation of the perpetual state of hostility known as haggling.

As in any truce, each party surrendered something in this bargain. Buyers were forced to accept, or not accept, the one price imposed by the price tag (an invention credited to the retail pioneer John Wanamaker). What retailers ceded--the ability to exploit customers’ varying willingness to pay--was arguably greater, as the extra money some people would have paid could no longer be captured as profit. But they made the bargain anyway, for a combination of moral and practical reasons.

The Quakers--including a New York merchant named Rowland H. Macy--had never believed in setting different prices for different people. Wanamaker, a Presbyterian operating in Quaker Philadelphia, opened his Grand Depot under the principle of “One price to all; no favoritism.” Other merchants saw the practical benefits of Macy’s and Wanamaker’s prix fixe policies. As they staffed up their new department stores, it was expensive to train hundreds of clerks in the art of haggling. Fixed prices offered a measure of predictability to bookkeeping, sped up the sales process, and made possible the proliferation of printed retail ads highlighting a given price for a given good.

Companies like General Motors found an up-front way of recovering some of the lost profit. In the 1920s, GM aligned its various car brands into a finely graduated price hierarchy: “Chevrolet for the hoi polloi,” Fortune magazine put it, “Pontiac … for the poor but proud, Oldsmobile for the comfortable but discreet, Buick for the striving, Cadillac for the rich.” The policy--”a car for every purse and purpose,” GM called it--was a means of customer sorting, but the customers did the sorting themselves. It kept the truce.

Customers, meanwhile, could recover some of their lost agency by clipping coupons--their chance to get a deal denied to casual shoppers. The new supermarket chains of the 1940s made coupons a staple of American life. What the big grocers knew--and what behavioral economists would later prove in detail--is that while consumers liked the assurance the truce afforded (that they would not be fleeced), they also retained the instinct to best their neighbors. They loved deals so much that, to make sense of their behavior, economists were forced to distinguish between two types of value: acquisition value (the perceived worth of a new car to the buyer) and transaction value (the feeling that one lost or won the negotiation at the dealership).

The idea that there was a legitimate “list price,” and that consumers would occasionally be offered a discount on this price--these were the terms of the truce. And the truce remained largely intact up to the turn of the present century. The reigning retail superpower, Walmart, enforced “everyday low prices” that did not shift around.

But in the 1990s, the internet began to erode the terms of the long peace. Savvy consumers could visit a Best Buy to eyeball merchandise they intended to buy elsewhere for a cheaper price, an exercise that became known as “showrooming.” In 1999, a Seattle-based digital bookseller called Amazon.com started expanding into a Grand Depot of its own.

The era of internet retailing had arrived, and with it, the resumption of hostilities.

In retrospect, retailers were slow to mobilize. Even as other corporate functions--logistics, sales-force management--were being given the “moneyball” treatment in the early 2000s with powerful predictive software (and even as airlines had fully weaponized airfares), retail pricing remained more art than science. In part, this was a function of internal company hierarchy. Prices were traditionally the purview of the second-most-powerful figure in a retail organization: the head merchant, whose intuitive knack for knowing what to sell, and for how much, was the source of a deep-seated mythos that she was not keen to dispel.

Two developments, though, loosened the head merchant’s hold.

The first was the arrival of data. Thomas Nagle was teaching economics at the University of Chicago in the early 1980s when, he recalls, the university acquired the data from the grocery chain Jewel’s newly installed checkout scanners. “Everyone was thrilled,” says Nagle, now a senior adviser specializing in pricing at Deloitte. “We’d been relying on all these contrived surveys: ‘Given these options at these prices, what would you do?’ But the real world is not a controlled experiment.”

The Jewel data overturned a lot of what he’d been teaching. For instance, he’d professed that ending prices with .99 or .98, instead of just rounding up to the next dollar, did not boost sales. The practice was merely an artifact, the existing literature said, of an age when owners wanted to force cashiers to open the register to make change, in order to prevent them from pocketing the money from a sale. “It turned out,” Nagle recollects, “that ending prices in .99 wasn’t big for cars and other big-ticket items where you pay a lot of attention. But in the grocery store, the effect was huge!”

The effect, now known as “left-digit bias,” had not shown up in lab experiments, because participants, presented with a limited number of decisions, were able to approach every hypothetical purchase like a math problem. But of course in real life, Nagle admits, “if you did that, it would take you all day to go to the grocery store.” Disregarding the digits to the right side of the decimal point lets you get home and make dinner.

By the early 2000s, the amount of data collected on retailers’ internet servers had become so massive that it started exerting a gravitational pull. That’s what triggered the second development: the arrival, en masse, of the practitioners of the dismal science.

This was, in some ways, a curious stampede. For decades, academic economists had generally been as indifferent to corporations as corporations were to them. (Indeed, most of their models barely acknowledged the existence of corporations at all.)

But that began to change in 2001, when the Berkeley economist Hal Varian--highly regarded for the 1999 book Information Rules--ran into Eric Schmidt. Varian knew him but, he says, was unaware that Schmidt had become the CEO of a little company called Google. Varian agreed to spend a sabbatical year at Google, figuring he’d write a book about the start-up experience.

At the time, the few serious economists who worked in industry focused on macroeconomic issues like, say, how demand for consumer durables might change in the next year. Varian, however, was immediately invited to look at a Google project that (he recalls Schmidt telling him) “might make us a little money”: the auction system that became Google AdWords. Varian never left.

Others followed. “eBay was Disneyland,” says Steve Tadelis, a Berkeley economist who went to work there for a time in 2011 and is currently on leave at Amazon. “You know, pricing, people, behavior, reputation”--the things that have always set economists aglow--plus the chance “to experiment at a scale that’s unparalleled.”

At first, the newcomers were mostly mining existing data for insights. At eBay, for instance, Tadelis used a log of buyer clicks to estimate how much money one hour of bargain-hunting saved shoppers. (Roughly $15 was the answer.)

Then economists realized that they could go a step further and design experiments that produced data. Carefully controlled experiments not only attempted to divine the shape of a demand curve--which shows just how much of a product people will buy as you keep raising the price, allowing retailers to find the optimal, profit-maximizing figure. They tried to map how the curve changed hour to hour. (Online purchases peak during weekday office hours, so retailers are commonly advised to raise prices in the morning and lower them in the early evening.)

By the mid-2000s, some economists began wondering whether Big Data could discern every individual’s own personal demand curve--thereby turning the classroom hypothetical of “perfect price discrimination” (a price that’s calibrated precisely to the maximum that you will pay) into an actual possibility.

As this new world began to take shape, the initial consumer experience of online shopping--so simple! and such deals!--was losing some of its sheen.

It’s not that consumers hadn’t benefited from the lower prices available online. They had. But some of the deals weren’t nearly as good as they seemed to be. And for some people, glee began to give way to a vague suspicion that maybe they were getting ripped off. In 2007, a California man named Marc Ecenbarger thought he had scored when he found a patio set--list price $999--selling on Overstock.com for $449.99. He bought two, unpacked them, then discovered--courtesy of a price tag left on the packaging--that Walmart’s normal price for the set was $247. His fury was profound. He complained to Overstock, which offered to refund him the cost of the furniture.

But his experience was later used as evidence in a case brought by consumer-protection attorneys against Overstock for false advertising, along with internal emails in which an Overstock employee claimed it was commonly known that list prices were “egregiously overstated.”

In 2014, a California judge ordered Overstock to pay $6.8 million in civil penalties. (Overstock has appealed the decision.) The past year has seen a wave of similar lawsuits over phony list prices, reports Bonnie Patten, the executive director of TruthinAdvertising.org. In 2016, Amazon began to drop most mentions of “list price,” and in some cases added a new reference point: its own past price.

This could be seen as the final stage of decay of the old one-price system. What’s replacing it is something that most closely resembles high-frequency trading on Wall Street. Prices are never “set” to begin with in this new world. They can fluctuate hour to hour and even minute to minute--a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has put something in his Amazon cart and been alerted to price changes while it sat there. A website called camelcamelcamel.com even tracks Amazon prices for specific products and alerts consumers when a price drops below a preset threshold. The price history for any given item--Classic Twister, for example--looks almost exactly like a stock chart. And as with financial markets, flash glitches happen. In 2011, Peter A. Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly (paperback edition) was briefly available on Amazon for $23,698,655.93, thanks to an algorithmic price war between two third-party sellers that had run amok.