Force vision/Legends

"Premonitions&hellip; Premonitions&hellip; deep questions they are. Sense the future, once all Jedi could; now few alone have the skill. Visions&hellip; gifts from the Force, and curses."

- Yoda

Force visions were rare&mdash;but powerful&mdash;aspects of the Force, and considered the cornerstone of the Unifying Force.

Overview
"I have seen the Temple in ruins, the Senate smashed, and Coruscant itself shattered by orbital bombardment from immense ships of impossible design. I have seen Coruscant, the seat of galactic culture, become a jungle far more hostile and alien than any on Haruun Kal. I have seen the end of civilization."

- Mace Windu, foreseeing the Battle of Coruscant

Generally, when peering deep into the Force, a Force user had the potential to see events that could happen in the future. Force visions were extremely rare, and uncontrollable. Often, one would meditate to gain a vision, but only a few would actually succeed. Anakin Skywalker and his descendants, particularly his son, Luke, and his grandsons, Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker, were often prone to Force Visions. They were known to occur sometimes in a Jedi padawan's Trial of the Spirit, preparatory to Knighthood.

Master Yoda felt that visions were of great importance to the Force, and often acted on them as best he could. However, the Jedi warned that the future was always in motion, and that its events were only possible. As such, interpreting a vision by oneself was generally considered dangerous.

Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, for example, beheld in vision his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, but as "an elder man, alone, living on a desolate planet, his only companions his dark memories." Even so, Qui-Gon had to remind himself, as Yoda taught, that "the future is not fixed, but fluid ... Visions did not have to come true."

Some Jedi and Sith endowed with this Force power were capable of detecting when friends and apprentices were in danger, examining details of past events, and predicting the probable outcome of future actions or events.

Vision-prone Sith, such as Darth Traya, could peer into the future many thousands of years and predict events with great accuracy. In this way, Traya was able to foretell the death of the last of the Mandalorians at the hands of a Jedi.

But unlike the Jedi, the Sith believed&mdash;based on experience, or perhaps more often, on their own arrogant self-conception&mdash;that visions would always come to pass, that they must unfailingly endeavor to make them realities. Some Sith would even combine their own ideas of what might come to be into their visions.

Darth Sidious was perhaps the most vision-prone Dark Lord of the Sith in history, and used his visionary gifts to ensure his own election as Supreme Chancellor, and his ascension as Galactic Emperor. Concerning his visions, Emperor Palpatine also consulted with the Prophets of the Dark Side, a Sith splinter group that was dedicated to studying the future through the dark side of the Force.

Force visions were not necessarily limited to the Jedi and Sith, however. Others in the galaxy also experienced visions that might be attributed, it could be argued, to the Force, or "Ashla", or whatever a given culture might call the essential force behind all life in the universe. O-Vieve, the Benevolent Guide of Kegan, for example, saw visions (which Qui-Gon Jinn could not discount) that foretold the coming of a great darkness that surrounded and emanated from the Jedi Knights&mdash;an evil that would spread to "engulf" the Jedi Order&mdash;but also glimpses or "flashes" of an ominous, destructive future event: "an explosive device sent to destroy an entire planet without a shiver" and "masked soldiers" who would bring "fear and suffering." O-Vieve foresaw an invasion of evil that would "cloak [entire planets] like a black cloud."

The gift of Force vision had its limitations, however, due to the factor of multiple possibilities or outcomes that was constant with any forecast of the future. Palpatine, in his visions, never saw himself die. Darth Caedus also saw many possible outcomes in his future, yet none of them involved his death. Yoda ever spoke and reminded those in his stewardship of this one constant in the phenomenon of Force vision. Even so, Darth Tenebrous was able to calculate the future and foresee his own death, professing that this limitation could be overcome if one's skill in it was prodigious enough.

Precognition was a form of Force vision.

Known users
"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."

- Yoda


 * Yoda
 * Darth Caedus
 * Zayne Carrick
 * Cilghal
 * Darth Cognus
 * Jorus C'baoth
 * Joruus C'baoth
 * Deja
 * Dooku
 * Dorsk 81
 * Krynda Draay
 * Feln
 * Mara Jade Skywalker
 * Jarael
 * Qui-Gon Jinn
 * Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * Sha Koon
 * Jaden Korr
 * Rahm Kota
 * Pong Krell
 * Kreia
 * K'Kruhk
 * Galen Marek
 * Palpatine
 * Darth Plagueis
 * Duron Qel-Droma
 * Q'Anilia
 * Revan
 * Wolf Sazen
 * Scourge
 * Bastila Shan
 * Roan Shryne
 * Sifo-Dyas
 * Anakin Skywalker
 * Ben Skywalker
 * Cade Skywalker
 * Luke Skywalker
 * Allana Solo
 * Leia Organa Solo
 * Jaina Solo Fel
 * Meetra Surik
 * Osvald Teshik (though not Force-sensitive)
 * Raana Tey
 * Darth Thanaton
 * Shado Vao
 * Mace Windu
 * Xamar
 * Darth Zash
 * Darth Nox
 * Sith Emperor

Appearances
"[Darth Plagueis] stretched out with the Force and fell victim to an assault of perplexing images: ferocious battles in deep space; the clashing of lightsabers; partitions of radiant light; a black-helmeted cyborg rising from a table ... Trying desperately to make some sense of the images granted him by the Force, he stood motionless ... He fought to repress the truth. The boy [Anakin] would change the course of history... The boy's actions already echo across the stars..."

- Plagueis' Force vision of the rise of the Chosen One