Set in Stone

[Ted C]

It would appear to me that whenever Jedi foresee an event with the Force, that event will. Examples include Anakin dreaming about Padme's death in childbirth, Luke foreseeing the torture of Han and Leia, and the Emperor foreseeing that Luke would turn himself in to Vader.

Anakin sought to change Padme's future, but it would appear that his effort was futile; he even helped cause her death. Luke saw Han and Leia being tortured, but that took place long before he got to Cloud City. He was able to prevent their deaths, but he never saw their deaths, nor did Yoda.

So, it would seem that if a Jedi can see a future event, it's too late to try to prevent that event.

This may change the way we think about Jedi lightsabre combat skills. Their ability may involve less prediction of the future than heightened situational awareness. It may not be so much that they know exactly when and where a shot will come a fraction of a second before it happens, but a real-time awareness of what's happening around them. They know exactly where a weapon is pointing and which way it's turning, so they're able to position themselves to avoid the attack.

[PainRack]

Why would it change Jedi combat skills? Although the highly aware SA is obviously part of the Force enhancement skills, the nature of pre-cog means that the Jedi may require pre-cog to realise that there is a threat and evade it. Which leads us to the question, do prec-cog predict the future, or do they make it?

[NecronLord]

Palpatine saw his crushing victory over the Rebellion at Endor. That one didn't materialise, now did it?

[Isolder74]

As Yoda says..l..Always in motion is the future.


Beyond a certain point, a Jedi can not foresee event beyond a certain point and his vision being set in stone.

The Emperor saw his victory he put all his pieces into place and still when Luke refused to turn the whole tide of the battle seemed to turn at that point. perhaps if Anikin had not dwelt on the dreams of Padme's death its likely she wouldn't have died.

[Elfdart]

Anakin's dreams and visions occur when he thought or did something he wasn't supposed to. He wasn't supposed to be obsessing over Padme, but when he did, he started getting visions of his mother. When he started courting her, they grew worse.

When he returned to Coruscant and decided to continue living a lie with Padme (with a hefty dose of Greek hero hubris thrown in for good measure), the nightmares started up again. When he agreed to Palpatine's idea of appointing him to the Jedi Council, he had visions of Padme with Obi-Wan.

Like Oedipus in Greek myth or Frigg in Norse myth, the very actions Anakin takes to save his wife in fact put her in greater danger. It's not that these dreams are inevitable, it's that Anakin is helping them come true whether he realizes it or not.

Anakin's dreams are like the visions shown to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. The ghosts show Scrooge what's in store if he doesn't change his ways. Scrooge shaped up and the story had a happy ending. What Anakin did was the equivalent of Scrooge chopping off Tiny Tim's head.

[Drooling Iguana]

Palpatine saw his crushing victory over the Rebellion at Endor. That one didn't materialise, now did it?

I don't think that those were "real" visions. After all, by that point there were two Jedi, both very powerful to begin with and both quite interested in seeing Palpatine deposed, who had become "more powerful than you can possibly imagine". I think that we can attribute a lot of the Emporer's failure at Endor to their interferance, feeding him false visions and the like.

[Civil War Man]

So, it would seem that if a Jedi can see a future event, it's too late to try to prevent that event.

In some cases, like the thing with Anakin's mother, probably.

In the instance of Anakin's vision regarding Padme, I think that more qualifies as one of the weird Twilight Zone kind of visions that only happens if the seer actively tries to prevent it.

[Ender]

Palpatine saw his crushing victory over the Rebellion at Endor. That one didn't materialise, now did it?

the Prophets of the Darkside saw his defeat. So did Palpatine actually, he just dismissed it as remote and focused ont he visions of victory.

[Solauren]

Anakin's problem is he saw a difficult child birth and ASSUMED Padme was going to dye. We never see her dying in childbirth in the visions.

Had he had an ounce of salt, he could have gone to the Jedi and said 'hey, I had a vision that Senator Amidaala is going to have a difficult child birth. I don't know why the Force is feeding me this vision, but wouldn't it be a good idea to keep an eye on her?'

[PainRack]

Palpatine saw his crushing victory over the Rebellion at Endor. That one didn't materialise, now did it?

Not really. He saw Luke coming to him, the Deathstar firing and the like and assumed it to be victory. Its possible that the Emperor never saw a "true" vision of victory, but instead, interpretated events to mean that he won. This even though there were details that didn't jive with the bigger picture.

[General Brock]

I think the only time a Jedi changed a forseen future was at Bespin; Luke thought he forsaw his friends' deaths, but they escaped without his help and rescued him instead. Of course, Vader probably would have tortured them to death had Luke not arrived, and their escape might not have been possible had Vader's attention still been on them, not Luke. The novelization seemed to indicate it was a deliberate ploy on Vaders part to lure Luke to him.

In a weapons duel, mundane combatants match move for move in real-time, with limited ability to anticipate a move. Jedi probably duel a few moves ahead with certainty, which is why their moves seem so... choreographed, until someone makes the mistake of seeing what they want to see instead of forseeing what will be, or one is sufficiently outmatched so as to be boxed in. Staying alive longer leaves opportunities; Maul probably lost because he was doing so well he slipped into anticipating, rather than forseeing, his own victory, reducing himself to a skilled mundane duellist.

I think Musashi, the Japanese swordmaster, said something about the skill of the duel involving bringing the future into the present mind, in the Book of Five Rings.

In the case of deciding where or what to do on a quest, the vision sets Jedi knights on self-fulfilling courses, whether the vision is followed to fullfill it or deny it. Complete detatchment, which is an important Jedi skill in ruling their own destinies, can probably short circuit specific undesireable future events, but if too many paths lead to an undesirable outcome, their ability to forsee anything at all becomes clouded as they detach from those paths.

[Zwinmar]

Most prophicies are self fulling. For example, if a doctor were to tell a resonably healthy person that they would die within a year. Odds are, they will, not from an disease persay, but because they would go out and take risks they normally would not.