Ascribe Midi-chlorian Counts

Star Wars Insider #130: The Tenebrous Way wrote:The key, he'd discovered, lay in an obscure legend obliquely referenced in the Journal of the Whills, about a hero fairly typical in most cultures - the sort of promised future savior who appears in the foundational myths of nearly every developed society. What distinguished this particular savior from his run-of-the-mill equivalents was that he, according to four of eleven possible translations, was to be "born of pure Force." After three standard years devoted specifically to exploring all possible permutations of the interpretation, Tenebrous determined that such a birth was indeed possible, at least metaphorically - "born of pure Force" could be read as indicating the creation of a living being through direct manipulation of midi-chlorian processes in an already living being.

And further, as Tenebrous discovered with rising excitement, such a being's Force potential might be limited not by its creator's own midi-chlorian count, but instead only by its creator's level of discipline and attention to detail. Indeed, his calculations indicated a range potentially far beyond his own. With proper execution, the "savior" might have a midi-chlorian count as high as fifteen thousand!

Perhaps even more.

It might be possible to create a being with the greatest Force potential ever recorded!

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:Emmert nodded. "The Murakami orchid is renowned for its Force abilities. It possesses power, but it requires a keeper, someone with an equally high midi-chlorian count, to keep it fully alive."

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:In the dining hall, Lussk was watching the dead awaken.

He saw it with two sets of eyes: the ones he'd had when he'd been alive, and the strange new vision that the Sickness had given him. On some intuitive level he understood that the first set was fading, going blind, and that was fine with him, absolutely fine. The Sickness had given him everything he'd hoped for, everything he wanted, power and strength beyond all imagining. It had altered the midi-chlorians in his bloodstream, telescoping his natural abilities, enhancing them exponentially.

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:Scabrous's grin seemed to dangle from the sides of his face, a prehensile thing all its own. "Before he died, Darth Drear wrote of the final stage of the process-the step that he himself was never able to achieve. He dispatched his sentries to a nearby planet to abduct a Jedi and bring him to the secret temple underneath the library. After ingesting the elixir, in the final hours before his body gave in completely, under exactly the right circumstances and conditions, Drear planned to use a ceremonial Sith sword to cut open the Jedi's chest while he was still alive, and cat his heart. Only then, with that final infusion of midi-chlorians still warm from the Jedi's blood, would the decay process be held back-granting the Sith Lord his ultimate immortality."

Master Azronger wrote:The only canonical reference points that I know of are that the average non-Force-sensitive possesses a midi-chlorian count of 2,500 per cell according to Darth Plagueis, and that Darth Tenebrous mused a midi-chlorian count of 15,000 is significantly higher than his own, and that a number in excess of that would be highest count ever recorded.

Star Wars Insider #130: The Tenebrous Way wrote:The key, he'd discovered, lay in an obscure legend obliquely referenced in the Journal of the Whills, about a hero fairly typical in most cultures - the sort of promised future savior who appears in the foundational myths of nearly every developed society. What distinguished this particular savior from his run-of-the-mill equivalents was that he, according to four of eleven possible translations, was to be "born of pure Force." After three standard years devoted specifically to exploring all possible permutations of the interpretation, Tenebrous determined that such a birth was indeed possible, at least metaphorically - "born of pure Force" could be read as indicating the creation of a living being through direct manipulation of midi-chlorian processes in an already living being.

And further, as Tenebrous discovered with rising excitement, such a being's Force potential might be limited not by its creator's own midi-chlorian count, but instead only by its creator's level of discipline and attention to detail. Indeed, his calculations indicated a range potentially far beyond his own. With proper execution, the "savior" might have a midi-chlorian count as high as fifteen thousand!

Perhaps even more.

It might be possible to create a being with the greatest Force potential ever recorded!

Force-users of the Old Republic were also aware of midi-chlorians. During the Cold War, lowly Sith apprentices knew of the midi-chlorians' functions in a Force-sensitive, and at least three Dark Lords - Darths Drear and Scabrous, and Valkorion - experimented with manipulating them. A member of the Jedi Agricultural Core - Jedi who've failed to be selected as Padawans - likewise knew of the symbiosis between certain species with high midi-chlorian counts, so it is likely that the Jedi of that time also used midi-chlorians for measuring an individual's Force potential. The likes of the Outlander and Revan likely didn't have a midi-chlorian count higher than 15,000 given their Jedi origins, although Valkorion and Vaylin might potentially exceed this number as their counts weren't necessarily on public record.

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:Emmert nodded. "The Murakami orchid is renowned for its Force abilities. It possesses power, but it requires a keeper, someone with an equally high midi-chlorian count, to keep it fully alive."

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:In the dining hall, Lussk was watching the dead awaken.

He saw it with two sets of eyes: the ones he'd had when he'd been alive, and the strange new vision that the Sickness had given him. On some intuitive level he understood that the first set was fading, going blind, and that was fine with him, absolutely fine. The Sickness had given him everything he'd hoped for, everything he wanted, power and strength beyond all imagining. It had altered the midi-chlorians in his bloodstream, telescoping his natural abilities, enhancing them exponentially.

Star Wars: Red Harvest wrote:Scabrous's grin seemed to dangle from the sides of his face, a prehensile thing all its own. "Before he died, Darth Drear wrote of the final stage of the process-the step that he himself was never able to achieve. He dispatched his sentries to a nearby planet to abduct a Jedi and bring him to the secret temple underneath the library. After ingesting the elixir, in the final hours before his body gave in completely, under exactly the right circumstances and conditions, Drear planned to use a ceremonial Sith sword to cut open the Jedi's chest while he was still alive, and cat his heart. Only then, with that final infusion of midi-chlorians still warm from the Jedi's blood, would the decay process be held back-granting the Sith Lord his ultimate immortality."

As for more modern Force-users, it's unknown whether Tenebrous's assessment would at least include his apprentice, Plagueis, although it doesn't account for Plagueis artificially increasing his midi-chlorian count after Tenebrous's passing. It is unknown whether the Banite Sith had access to Jedi records, although Sidious and Plagueis have been in close proximity to the Jedi Temple, and Darth Zannah and Xanatos have outright infiltrated it while successfully masking their dark side signatures, with Zannah also successfully accessing the Jedi archives and obtaining knowledge from there, so it is very possible Tenebrous had access to classified information as well - why else would he, a scientist, confidently declare 15,000 to be the highest count on record if he did not have a sufficient data pool to draw such a conclusion from? As such, it's likely that Yoda, Mace, Dooku and Krayt all have a midi-chlorian count below 15,000. The only modern individuals who might possess a count in excess of that are Vol, Caedus, Sidious, Plagueis and Nyax.