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Post by Larwi B'nu on Sept 8, 2006 11:59:47 GMT -5
I just joined the Board, and soon, once my robes are together, I'd really like to join the Assembly. I just did a mini-intro of myself @ the Southern Order Roll Call, but I'll ramble a bit more here for everyone's benefit.
My name's Larry Williams II, I'm 32 - about to turn 33 - and was born and raised in New Orleans. Before the questions start a-coming, yes, I did get stuck in the Hurricane, we were evacuated and airlifted out afterward, and now, I've settled nicely in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
If pushed, I would have to admit that my introduction to Fandom was thru Star Trek, as opposed to Star Wars, but once I was in the Cons, the Fans, the Comic Books...well, I could not help but fall in madly and deeply w/ Star Wars, the Star Wars Universe, and, to a certain extent - Timothy Zahn - the Expanded Universe. There's a lot - a LOT - to be said for groups such as the 501st and the Rebel Legion, but I was really attracted to this group when I met some of your members @ my first DragonCon ever this past weekend.
I once heard the Jedi - perhaps by the Mundane media - described as "warrior monks in space." Simplistic, yes, but I've always found the monastic life to be one to be envied to a certain extent, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Other, and if there's one thing Katrina has taught me, it's that divesting oneself of material goods is not such a bad thing. I'm a non-practicing Catholic, but one of the best books I've ever read was "Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters" by [Richard] Staub (I saw from the Southern Order Roll Call that you have a filter placed on the Board; thank you). It helped draw a parallel between the two most prominent spiritual lifestyles in modern society, and I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. Anyway, this is the first group to concentrate on the light side of the Force, and I really appreciate it, if only b/c giving in to one's anger and passion is relatively easy; suppressing and channeling those emotions in a positive way takes far more effort, and the Jedi are to be admired, in much the same way as I have mad love for the Vulcans in the Trek universe.
Currently, I'm a Team Leader for the ER Business Services office @ one of the two local hospitals here in Fort Smith, and I'm enjoying it immensely, another reason I don't want to go back to the everything-is-political climate of New Orleans. Also, I'm in the process of putting together my robes, if for no other reason than I lost my old ones in the flood and I really, really want to be a part of the Assembly.
Thank you, and may the Force be with you....
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Post by I Five on Sept 8, 2006 16:50:16 GMT -5
Welcome aboard.
I think you'll really like it here!!! I love the Zahn EU books too...Thrawn!
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Post by Ma'Kata So-gan on Sept 8, 2006 22:19:04 GMT -5
Welcome! Nice to meet you and we're looking forward to seeing your costume when done. Speaking of Timothy Zahn, I met him last November here in Michigan. He was doing a signing for Outbound Flight and I got his autograph; nice guy.
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Post by Nova Darklighter on Sept 8, 2006 23:10:57 GMT -5
Greetings and Welcome here, glad you had a great time at D Con.
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Post by Jedimom/Cor-Al Gelkar on Sept 9, 2006 8:02:59 GMT -5
Hi Larry. Glad you could join us!
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Post by Larwi B'nu on Sept 9, 2006 20:23:37 GMT -5
Thanx, everyone, for making me feel welcome. As for Timothy Zahn, his books are great; that's not to say there haven't been some other great SW authors out there, but he's one of the best, certainly. Also, the Dark Force Rising trilogy, I felt, was the only series that had any chance of being another movie, even though all of the New Hope trilogy actors and actresses were probably too old - even @ the time the books came out - to portray their characters any more. Of course, the advancements in photorealistic CGI animation means that, perhaps, if willing, they could certainly lend their voices to the characters they helped create, yes?
...okay...I'm rambling...I'll stop now....
Anyway, thanx, everyone, I mean it. By the way, there doesn't seem to be any rankings used, such as "padawan," "knight," or "master" officially. Unofficially, though, could I refer to myself as a "humble padawan," which, for me, translates into someone in the Assembly who's a Board member but, since he or she hasn't put his or her robes together yet, not a full member of the Assembly?
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JediKai
Message Board Member
TJA Savior
Posts: 5,560
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Post by JediKai on Sept 9, 2006 22:37:32 GMT -5
Welcome. I enjoyed your intro and your comments in the 4th paragraph are well said.
If you need any help remaking your Jedi garb, you have but to ask. We also have many tutorials on our main site
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Post by Leda EmBorr on Sept 10, 2006 0:43:57 GMT -5
Hi Larry.... glad you found us. We don't do the ranking thing here, other than the practical message board ranks, we're not a roleplaying group. Everyone's a jedi. Have you begun a new set of tunics/robes since the disaster? We have a couple of members here who lost stuff due to Katrina. Welcome!
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Post by Larwi B'nu on Sept 10, 2006 7:36:59 GMT -5
I'm currently looking to bid on a tunic and robes on eBay; I'm not really talented enough to make anything myself. I've already seen my future saber on UltraSabers.com, so, then all I'll need are some boots and a belt....
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JediKai
Message Board Member
TJA Savior
Posts: 5,560
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Post by JediKai on Sept 10, 2006 9:38:26 GMT -5
I liked Ultrasabers, too. Met one of the guys at Dragon*Con and got to look very closely at their amazingly bright blades. I'm thinking about it....
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Schph Gochi
Message Board Member
"traveling through hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops boy"
Posts: 9,278
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Post by Schph Gochi on Sept 11, 2006 5:29:33 GMT -5
Greetings...and welcome to the Jedi Assembly.... After surviving what you did.....putting another Jedi costume together should be easy!
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Post by Larwi B'nu on Sept 17, 2006 20:37:54 GMT -5
I wanted to ramble a bit more about myself, and, in the process, kind of explain my "quote."
"I am a Jedi, unlike my father before me...."
As anyone can tell, it's a (mild) variation of what Luke said in Return of the Jedi. By it, I'm not implying that I would label my dad as a "Sith," but he is a very morbid person. He spent many years on the NOPD, first, as an officer, then, as a detective, so, yes, he did see the dark underbelly of humanity, but in doing so, I feel that, perhaps, that darker side of humanity may have affected his outlook on life profoundly, and not for the better. He's a security consultant now and private investigator, so he still deals w/ a lot of darker stuff in life. Me, I truly appreciate the lighter side of life. Plus, aside from that, he also never was one for science fiction and/or fantasy, so he is very, VERY different from me. It's a good thing, of course, b/c he enjoys what he does, and he's very good @ what he does.
So, here I am, a humble Padawan, and then, @ the opposite pole is my dad. OK...'nuff ramblin' for today. Thanx!
May the Force be with you....
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Post by Jan-Qui Coran on Sept 19, 2006 19:07:31 GMT -5
bows Welcome to The Jedi Assembly
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Post by Larwi B'nu on Sept 24, 2006 1:54:40 GMT -5
Konichiwa.
I know we don't do the role-playing thing any more, and I'm not even remotely interested in getting involved in that, but I'm a writer by nature, so, I write...a lot.
I do a lot of writing in my free time, so when I started thinking about my name and who I was as a Jedi, lots of ideas and concepts started popping into my head, and I simply had to write them out. So...here is the - relatively? - short story of Larwi B'nu....
Haruun Kal – “above the clouds” in the language of its natives – was the homeworld of the famed Jedi Master Mace Windu. The first and only habitable world in the Al'har system, Haruun Kal appeared to be an oceanic world from space. However, this “ocean” was, in fact, a sea of toxic gases brought to the surface by volcanic activity, broken by mountains and plateaus. Only the landmasses which reached into the atmosphere could support life, and thus it was high in these mountains and plateaus where native life evolved. The native human population seems to have evolved from Jedi that were forced to land on the planet several millennia ago. Though habitable, the world is hardly welcoming. The few landmasses that jut from the low clouds are covered with hostile jungle. The dense foliage is thick with disease-carrying insects, parasites, and persistent fungi capable of crippling machinery and people alike. Nonetheless, people came to Haruun Kal. The indigents are the Korunnai; it is uncertain how these humans came to call the jungles of Haruun Kal home. The Jedi Council had studied the Korun tribes, extrapolating that the tribes were perhaps the descendents of a crashed Jedi spacecraft. This theory helped answer a peculiar mystery...all the Korun could touch the Force. They needed to, really; the jungle was so hostile, that a being not able to sense the dangers of the dark would surely perish. The Korun developed a respect for the jungle; the harsh ecology factored into their culture and definitions of justice. They developed a nomadic, tribal government, staying alive by following the traveling herds of grassers through the jungle, protected by their Force-bonded akk dogs. Offworlders came to Haruun Kal for the lucrative secrets to be hacked from the jungle. Spice and exotic woods commanded attractive prices on the galactic market, and Haruun Kal is the sole source of the galaxy's thyssel bark, portaak leaf, jinsol, tyruun, and lammas wood. The outlanders came to the jungles seeking fortune; what they found, quite often, was death. The jungle prospectors – “jups,” as they were called – encroached into the Korun grounds, and hostilities followed. The Korun grew to hate the offworlders, or “Balawai,” and grew to be hated in turn. Pelek Baw, the only Balawai settlement of real permanence, became the sole government on Haruun Kal. At the start of the Clone Wars, the Balawai government sided with the Confederacy of Independent Systems as a means of dodging a Republic investigation into the treatment of the Korunnai natives. The Confederacy would arm the Balawai militia in exchange for use of their spaceport at Pelek Baw. The jups became an extension of that militia, serving as irregulars, carrying bloodshed deeper into the jungles. The Republic wanted to hold onto Haruun Kal. The planet's strategic placement on the Gervarno Loop made it too valuable to lose. But troops were scarce in the growing war, so the Jedi Council dispatched a single Jedi to train the Korun natives as anti-government partisans. Jedi Master and former padawan to Mace Windu, Depa Billaba came to lead the Upland Liberation Front in the war against the Balawai. She was forever scarred by the experience. The war on Haruun Kal was messy and personal. Years of bloodshed and hostility between the Korunnai and the Balawai led to gruesome massacres of civilians and non-combatants on both sides. The Force-strong Korun fought without restraint, lashing out with vengeance and bloodlust forbidden by the Jedi Code. Depa learned that the strict rules of Coruscant collapsed when faced with the chaos of a jungle war. She too turned her back on the Code, and fell to the darkness of the battlefield. Disturbing accounts that Billaba was behind the slaughter of civilians brought Mace Windu back to Haruun Kal, his homeworld. In his trek to find Billaba and bring her back to Coruscant, Mace received an unsettlingly close look at the grim realities of war. He tried to stay true to the Jedi Code, though he felt the temptation of abandon, of letting go, and slipping into the rage and insanity of warfare. Testament to his resolve as a Jedi Master, Mace emerged from Haruun Kal true to the Code, though he would be troubled by the questions raised by that jungle war for the remainder of his days.... It was on this world, scarred by violence and marked by bloodshed, that Larwi B’nu grew up. It is thought that Larwi’s calm demeanor and emotional detachment are a direct result of his having grown up surrounded by violence, rage, and bloodshed. He made his way offworld as quickly as possible at the ripe age of 11. While some saw him as being too old to learn the ways of the Jedi, it was none other than the venerable Kit Fisto who suggested his training to commence. While the famed, smiling Nautolan was not, in fact, the one to train Larwi, B’nu, nonetheless always held Fisto in high regard.
“A smiling Jedi; how can you not like him?” - Larwi B’nu
Some misinterpret Larwi’s emotional detachment as thinly-veiled contempt or cold heartedness. This is not the case. In fact, B’nu is one of the happiest Jedi to ever attain the rank of “Knight.” In fact, he was the most emotionally stable member of Ghôsh B’nu, his “family,” as it were. The rest of his tribe fell victim to Kar Vastor and his infamous akk dogs and vibroshields. While his tribe professed to be loyal members of the Upland Liberation Front on Haruun Kal, during a “test” of said loyalty wherein Vastor asked Lon B’nu, elder patriarch of the ghôsh to shoot him; Lon refused, and his ghôsh then became the target of Vastor’s anger. Larwi escaped on an offworlder ship, and lived among the Balawai for a year before being brought to Coruscant, where his natural attunement with pelekotan – the Force in the Korun native tongue – attracted the attention of the Council. Larwi has learned to push away into the oblivion of his subconscious mind everything about his homeworld, which he has learned to despise. Only two things remain to serve as reminders of his violent upbringing. First, his name, and, second, his ear jewelry, which he has refused to take off. While he hated everything about his childhood and homeworld, he does not wish to be completely detached from it or anything else. Otherwise, if his heart truly is that cold, there’s no point in saying that he’s “alive,” now is there? Larwi soon was given a Delta-7 Aethersprite-class Jedi starfighter and R3-series astromech droid; both were lost during the Jedi Purge.
“I survived Order 66.” - Cor-Al Gelkar
Fleeing Coruscant during the Jedi Purge once Order 66 was given, Larwi managed to survive by skipping from system to system, never abandoning his Jedi garb – even if it was rolled up in a rucksack he carried across his shoulders – his lightsaber, or the Code. He did, however, show an unusual amount of brutality when dealing with those who would corner him or back him into a corner. Once, on Corellia, he was surrounded by six stormtroopers in a hangar bay. From various reports of the incidents, it has been confirmed that he was able to manifest Force Lightning in a horrific display and utilize his Force Push and telekinetic powers in a manner that left four dead and two in critical care.
“The smell of ozone filled the hangar for hours afterwards….” - Unknown
On Corellia, Larwi managed to procure an Eta-2 Actis-class Jedi starfighter and hyperspace docking collar. Upon further investigation, B’nu realized that the R3 unit that came hardwired into the Actis featured a wonderful new tracking device, allowing the Twi’lek who sold it to him to – hopefully – collect the bounty by turning him over to Darth Vader’s 501st, who now bore a personal grudge against the Jedi Knight for killing four of their own and wounding two. Larwi eventually made it to Mon Gazza, a dusty, red, poverty-stricken planet where the only amusement to be found was podracing. Although eventually outlawed by the Galactic Empire, podracing was still very popular at the time of the Jedi Purge. Larwi used this – and his ability to gently manipulate weak minds – to his advantage, and set himself up as a junk dealer on Mon Gazza, going so far as to throw a tarp over his thinly-disguised Jedi starfighter and keep his R3 unit – “Kit,” whom he modified to include a pair of short-range cannons that fired superheated, corrosive fumes – in the back of the shop, trained to “play dead” and blend in with the rest of the shop’s wares as a wrecked and battered but totally non-functional droid. Kit was also a marvel of haphazard engineering and blended components. Named in honor of his fallen comrade, the one being on the Jedi Council who stood up for him, Kit featured the angular dome of an R5 astromech droid, and was painted in various shades of earth tones. Larwi said the little droid was a faithful and subconscious reminder of his light-side of the Force, Jedi training. With an overall crème-colored body and brown trim – with khaki and brass highlights – Kit featured an impressive array of upgrades, including a vocoder translation unit worn on Larwi’s wrist, an impressive sensor suite that could track at a range of 500 miles, and the aforementioned cannons which fired superheated, corrosive fumes.
“Sure, the Sith, with their black leather and wicked face painting, get invited to all the cool parties, but we Jedi tend to live longer.” - Larwi B’nu
Being in the Outer Rim, news of the fall of the Empire took a long time to reach the ears of Mon Gazza’s resident Jedi in hiding. However, once it did, Larwi gave up his podracing ways, and traded his junk shop in for a much-needed hyperspace docking collar. Using the hyperspace collar, Larwi and Kit returned to Coruscant. The Jedi Academy had not yet been established by famed Rebellion hero Luke Skywalker, but Larwi knew he could at least reside once more in the Core System without having to fear for his life. He took up a job at a hospital facility on the sprawling, hyper-urban planet, still wanting to do nothing more than help people, even if its merely in the capacity of data entry and insurance verification....
...may the Force be with you.
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Post by Larwi B'nu on Oct 7, 2006 20:04:48 GMT -5
OK, so after that extensive post w/ my fictional history, some of you may not want to hear from me again, but here I am ;D
Anyway, so I recently found the Simplicity 4450 pattern, and my seamstress - a friend of mine @ work who is like a second mother, truly - is ready to start working, all I have to do now is buy the material. We were hoping to have it in time for Halloween, to impress our co-workers w/ my Jedi Knight costume, but I won't be able to buy the material until I'm paid again, which is next week...I can only hope that will be enough time. I finally received my Qui-Gon boots and Luke ANH belt from smokesthingy 72 - CostumeBay - and they are incredibly awesome! Absolutely perfect! Armed w/ boots, belt, and, soon, material enough for the tunic and undertunic, I'm on my way to becoming a Jedi! Now if I could just figure out which vacuum bag I sealed my robe up in last winter....
May the Schwartz be with you!
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