A Hero's Death

By Morrie Mullins

<<posttime 11:00:38>>
<<postdate [yesterday]>>
<<userid Baylan>>
<<postloc Central holonet node 1.1>>

Whenever I do a node search, wherever I am, to see where people are talking about me -- there's Cularin. It's like, people here talk about everything, got all kinds of problems, but then there's this need to talk about me. Baylan.

A lot of you are gonna look at this and say, "It's not him." Well, it is, but there's nothing I can do to convince anyone who doesn't already believe. So I'm not gonna try. The ones of you who'll listen will listen anyway. The ones who won't, wouldn't listen if I was the Supreme Chancellor his own self. So my name's not for credentialing, it's just because it's who I am. And maybe it'll make a difference, because I guess some of you think I'm something special. I'm just another slicer. I figured out a couple things nobody else figured out, and I worked hard to get where I am. Which is pretty much nowhere that anybody knows about, but whatever -- it's not about me.

I was looking around, reading up on what's been going on in Cularin, and I gotta say:

Get out. Just leave. It can't possibly be worth all the pain you people are going through. I mean you got what, invading systems, Sith-worshipping freaks, evil crimelords, and those snouty little bleeders from Caarimon? You gotta think that there's a better place to live. I never had to fight anybody in my life. You people have to fight every day. Is that right? Life should be easy. You do what you do to get by. You don't put your neck on the line. You've got a militia, right? A pile of Jedi? Let them fight the wars. Let them put down the little Sithlings. Let them do the protecting. There's no call to be all "heroic." Being heroic only gets you one thing: An early funeral with a closed casket. What a load of rot.

I know I may be saying some things many of you don't want to hear, but you've got to be real with yourselves. I read what the Jedi say -- "There is no death, there is the Force."

Again: Rot. If there is no death, how come when a Jedi gets shot enough times, he stops breathing? I don't need some sort of metaphysical explanation for what comes after, how we become one with the Force. What we got is what we got, and we got our time, and if we use it well, if we waste it, that's our call. But you can't go through life thinking you're invincible, thinking that if you turn the wrong corner and some bloke blasts a hole in your head the size of a small moon, everything'll be all right. It won't. You'll be dead.

Sorry if it seems like I'm not sympathetic to people who got it rough, but the fact is, if you don't have to be off fighting evil this week, and you go off fighting evil, you're not a hero. You're a loon. Being a hero is so overrated -- look what it's getting all those heroic Jedi. It's getting them killed. Not that it matters too much to them, they had their lives taken away by their Order. No families, no attachments, nothing to hold them to the galaxy. You tell someone who’s got no family that there's no such thing as death, of course they're gonna run right out and put themselves in harm's way! Because it's what they been trained to do.

Look, I'm not saying the Jedi are brainwashed. And not just because there's still enough of them that if they decided to hunt me down and slice me up with their lightsabers, they probably could. It's just their ideas. They conveniently coincide with a kind of behavior that makes no rational sense. They're the ultimate soldiers. There's no reason for them to fear dying, if they believe the Jedi Code, and if they don't believe the Jedi Code, they got no identity, see? It's like, you believe, and that's part of what makes a Jedi. That belief. That faith. So they can go into whatever battle they want and not care so much about dying.

But what if they're wrong? Hmm? What if there is death? What if the Force doesn't stop that, and when you're gone, you're just gone?

That's the problem all the heroes that aren't dead yet have. They just don't get it. You put yourself out there, let people shoot at you, and if they get lucky, maybe you're just gone. Just like that. Everything you worked for, everything you trained for -- gone. You ever stop to think about that? Everything you ever did, all your hard work, all those hours you spent fiddling with your blaster or building your lightsaber -- gone. Blink and it's over. Life's funny like that.

You gotta play it smart. Pick your battles, don't let your battles pick you. There's no reason to go and act the hero, when it's just going to get you killed.

And it will. That's what happens to folks who fancy themselves heroes. You rush into that burning warehouse, there's no guarantee you're coming out again. You wander out and try to hunt down something what was sent to kill you, you know what's more than likely to happen? It's gonna kill you! That's its PURPOSE TO EXIST!

S'not astrophysics, people. There's a reason you hear so many stories about heroes and their grand sacrifices -- it's because they're dead! They went out and tried something stupid one too many times, and got themselves dead from it.

When it comes right down to it, if you ask me, there's no such thing as a live hero. There's ones who think they're heroes, but aren't dead yet, and history'll judge them. Then there's the ones who're already dead, and people decided, yeah, he was a hero, look at all the little kids he saved. Or yeah, she was a hero, she didn't quite defuse the thermal detonator, but she got it away from the crowd of people in time. And Cularin's got a lot of people who get called "heroes," which makes me think that unless you smarten up, there's gonna be a lot of you getting dead before too much longer.

It's a classic thing I'm doing right now, that I blast people for. Coming in and giving opinions that nobody asked for? Not the way to make yourself popular. Of course, life's not about being popular. I get what respect I need, and the rest -- well, to hell with the rest. I got as much responsibility to speak what I see as true as anybody else, and if maybe I shoot my fool mouth off and it keeps someone from getting dead, well, then so be it. I guess I done my good deed for the day, then.

Angry yet? Ready to go out and fight some evil just to prove me wrong?

Right. Here's the thing. Cularin's full of fools and dreamers who think they can be heroes, but are only going to end up dead. Because that's how things go. You dare the rancor to bite, the rancor's gonna bite. Fools and dreamers headed for an early grave.

But you know what the galaxy lacks?

Fools and dreamers. Look at what we've got fighting our wars. Clones and droids. Not even real people, just armies led by Jedi or commanded from orbiting ships. A bunch of things that never been fooled, never dreamed a dream of their own. If you're still reading by now, I'm thinking you're probably right fired up, ready to go out and prove me wrong.

Good. S'what I wanted. Because you know what people say about Cularin, all over the galaxy?

Nothing. You fight the good fight, you put your lives on the line, and what gets play on the holonet? A bunch of lab-bred womprats that never knew what it meant to fight for themselves or for anything they loved. A senate so dead-set on continuing to muck up the galaxy that they can't recognize that everything they're doing is a bad idea, that too much order creates division, that continuing to put the fate of the galaxy in the hands of beings with no fate at all does nothing but disenfranchise the fools and dreamers, when it's the bloody fools and dreamers who built the galaxy!

Nobody asked me my opinion. But I figure, you been fighting all this time for something nobody believes can happen. You want peace, you want the bad guys out, you want to be able to control your destiny. That's not how the galaxy's set up, but it's what every one of you who goes out and gets all foolishly heroic is going after. That dream.

This mess we're in? I don't know what to do about it. It's not like we need more heroes. Like I said, they're dead. What we need is simpler.

Fools and dreamers. Keep strong, Cularin, you foolish, dreaming lot. Keep fighting. Maybe you all die. But if you don't, you know what?

You win.

Try to stay alive. A dead hero's not worth nothing. A live fool can be pretty blasted inspiring, though.