User:Lord Hydronium/Workbench

"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you."

- Qui-Gon Jinn to Anakin Skywalker

Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life forms that lived symbiotically inside the cells of all living things. When present in sufficient numbers, they could allow their symbiont to detect the pervasive energy field known as the Force. Midi-chlorian counts were linked to potential in the Force, ranging from normal Human levels of 2,500 to the much higher levels of Jedi. The highest known midi-chlorian count belonged to the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, who was believed to have been conceived by the midi-chlorians.

Midi-chlorian counts were measured through a blood test; the Jedi used this method to locate Force-sensitive children before their Order was purged by the Empire. With the rise of the Empire, research into Jedi and the Force was banned, and though midi-chlorians continued to be tested for, sometimes by the Empire itself to root out hidden Jedi and other Force-sensitives, knowledge of them was diminished and inquiries into them were branded as illegal medical research. Midi-chlorians were only rediscovered after a New Jedi Order was founded.

When not forbidden, studies of midi-chlorians occurred among those who could master the Force and those who could not. While medical teams worked to understand the relationship between midi-chlorians and the Force, Jedi healers performed their own studies of the organisms. Even more esoteric studies were conducted by the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Plagueis, who discovered a way to manipulate the midi-chlorians to create new life.

Biology
"They live inside of me?"

- Anakin Skywalker

Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life-forms that served as organelles within all living cells, existing in a symbiotic relationship with the beings they inhabited. Present in all life, midi-chlorians were isomorphic on every world that supported life. In sufficient numbers, midi-chlorians could allow their symbiont organism to detect the Force, and this connection could be strengthened by quieting one's mind, allowing one to perceive the will of the Force. An average Human had less than 2,500 midi-chlorians per cell, while a mildly Force-sensitive being such as Nova Stihl had a count in excess of five thousand. Jedi had especially high midi-chlorian counts, and of them Anakin Skywalker was said to have the highest ever recorded at over twenty thousand, even higher than the powerful Jedi Master Yoda.

The magnitude of the midi-chlorian count served as a measure of one's potential in the Force, though there were other inheritable characteristics that could influence Force ability as well. While some medical theories postulated that the midi-chlorians created the connection between more macroscopic organisms and the Force, some Jedi believed that, contrarily, the midi-chlorians were created by the Force to serve as the link between it and other life.

Midi-chlorians could possibly even induce conception in a Human; Anakin Skywalker was believed to have been conceived by the midi-chlorians, with no biological father.

Though tested for, midi-chlorians did not usually figure into the medical treatment of most beings, and they were linked to no known pathology.

Blood rich in midi-chlorians could be transfused into an injured organism to keep it alive, but this would not transfer any of the blood donor's Force-sensitivity.

Study and analysis
Midi-chlorians could be detected through a blood test, though such tests were not perfect and were prone to fault. Midi-chlorian tests were part of a standard medical check-up, recorded in a blood analysis. From at least 1,000 BBY to 19 BBY, blood tests for midi-chlorians were the primary way by which the Jedi Order found Force-sensitive children.

While most research on midi-chlorians was conducted by Jedi healers, the connection between midi-chlorians and the Force was studied in non-Jedi medical circles as well, with theories advanced as to the relation between them.

The Force Detector was one of the tools developed to measure midi-chlorian counts. Based on plans of the scientist Jenna Zan Arbor, the Force Detector consisted of a pair of paddles connected to a control pack; the paddles were placed around the subject, at which point the control pack would read out a list of statistics, including midi-chlorian count. It also generated a blue nimbus around a wireframe hologram of the subject; though this correlated to Force-sensitivity, it was not a direct measurement of the subject's midi-chlorian concentration.

History
In the time surrounding the creation of the Jedi Order, around 25,000 BBY, the Force sect known as the Followers of Palawa studied the Force scientifically, including the science of midi-chlorians. How the Jedi detected Force-sensitives in their early millennia was lost to time, but shortly after the Battle of Ruusan in 1,000 BBY, midi-chlorians were either discovered by them for the first time, or rediscovered after having lost knowledge of them in an earlier era. Blood tests for midi-chlorians were instituted to find recruits with a connection to the Force, a method used by the Jedi for almost a thousand years until the purge of the Jedi in 19 BBY. In the latter days of the Galactic Republic, studies of midi-chlorians were conducted by Jedi healers and medical personnel alike. During the Clone Wars, Republic defector Ko Sai was one of those scientists who sought to explore the midi-chlorians and the Jedi genome.

In 22 ABY, Count Dooku, leader of the Separatist movement, revealed to the Jedi that a Sith named Darth Sidious secretly controlled the Galactic Senate. Seventeen months later, the Jedi Ronhar Kim conceived of the idea to test the midi-chlorian counts of the senators, believing that the Force-sensitive Sith would be revealed in this way. Kim approached Senator Palpatine with his plan, but Palpatine, who secretly was Sidious, discouraged him, advising him that it would be politically impossible. Upon learning that Kim had not spoken of his idea to the Jedi Council, Palpatine arranged for the Jedi to be killed in a trap, and Kim's plan was never implemented.

The Jedi Order in its later years established a taboo over empirical studies into the Force and its tangible aspects, believing it could not be scientifically studied. When the Order was disbanded and Galactic Empire declared, though, the taboo was broken. The scientists of Emperor Palpatine treated the Force as a purely physical phenomenon, breaking it apart into the tangible components of midi-chlorians and energy. The Force Detector was one of the results of these studies, and it was used by the Inquisitorius in the Great Jedi Purge. During the reign of the Empire, midi-chlorian tests were performed routinely on Inner and Mid Rim worlds to root out Force-sensitives and Jedi in hiding. Such individuals were rarely heard from again. In response, an underground trade of drugs and blood treatments sprang up that could supposedly fool a test or lower one's count; however, they were largely ineffective.

After the rise of the Empire, Palpatine ordered a complete ban on all information related to Jedi or the Force and had such data purged from data banks galaxy-wide. Statute OB-CPO-1198, covering illegal medical research that included studies of midi-chlorians, was also enacted. With the Jedi's records on midi-chlorians no longer available for study and any information on their relation to the Force kept out of medical libraries, medical professionals knew little of the nature of midi-chlorians, even as they continued to test for them. When Kornell Divini, a doctor on the Death Star, measured an abnormally high midi-chlorian count from one of his patients, he put out a request on the MedNet for any further information on midi-chlorians. Divini's search triggered warning flags put in place by the Empire, attracting the attention of the Emperor's servant Darth Vader, and Divini was arrested under the provisions of OP-CPO-1198.

When Luke Skywalker established his New Jedi Order in 11 ABY, he had no knowledge of midi-chlorian tests and as a result was forced to devise his own tests for finding Force-sensitives. The method was rediscovered by the Order at some time before 40 ABY.

Origins
The concept of midi-chlorians was first mentioned by George Lucas as early as 1977, when he included them in his first guidelines for Expanded Universe authors. However, the idea was introduced to the general public some twenty-two years later in 1999's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in which the organisms were revealed to be an indicator of an individual's sensitivity to the Force.

Pre-Phantom Menace Expanded Universe materials hinted at an individual's biological connection to the Force. In Jedi Search, Lando Calrissian carries out a search for potential Jedi for Luke's new academy by using a device that can supposedly detect affinity to the Force. In The Thrawn Trilogy, two organisms are mentioned, the ysalimiri and the vornskrs, that have "evolved" the ability to use or block the Force in a predator-prey relationship. While the vornskrs have evolved the ability in order to hunt, the ysalimiri have responded with the ability to generate "Force bubbles" in which the Force cannot be used. Novels following release of the sequels in The New Jedi Order series would reinforce this basis in biology by describing beings whose makeup made them inherently resistant to the Force: the Yuuzhan Vong and the voxyn.

In real science, midi-chlorians appear to be based on mitochondria, which were once separate organisms that inhabited living cells and have since become part of them. Mitochondria are the power plants of cells, suggesting that perhaps midi-chlorians create the energy of life and thus the Force. Unlike midi-chlorians, which in the Skywalker family are passed on by both father and mother, mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted on the maternal side. In 2006&mdash;perhaps as a tribute to this similarity&mdash;a newly discovered species of bacteria was named Midichloria mitochondrii after the midi-chlorians.

On April 1, 2006, several entries relating to George Lucas' Willow universe were added to the StarWars.com Databank as an April Fools' Day joke. The update page states that midi-chlorians may have originated on the planet Andowyne.

Controversy
Some see midi-chlorians as adding hard science to the alleged "mysteriousness" of the Force and dislike what they see as a new concept. However, while it appears that the idea had never been published, the concept of a biological basis for the Force was hardly a fresh idea. Luke and Leia's inheritance of Force powers as children of Darth Vader already suggested such a power was hereditary and thus based in one's genes. Additionally, several novels printed before the prequels were released had similarly carried the suggestion that sensitivity to the Force was a biological phenomenon.

Steve Perry, who dealt with them in his Death Star novel, called them "less than inspired."

Appearances

 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival
 * Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace / novel / comic
 * Episode I: Qui-Gon Jinn
 * Star Wars Republic: Darkness
 * Rogue Planet
 * Rather Darkness Visible
 * The Cestus Deception
 * Star Wars Republic 64: Bloodlines
 * Republic Commando: True Colors
 * MedStar II: Jedi Healer
 * Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith / novel / comic
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * The Last of the Jedi: A Tangled Web
 * Death Star
 * The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader
 * Revelation
 * Revelation

Non-canon appearances and sources

 * Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace
 * The Return of Tag & Bink: Special Edition
 * Star Wars Tales 10 intro
 * The Shadow War Chronicles in the Databank