"Leader… what exactly is the Force?"
(The Force? The Force is really damn good.)
Inside the passenger bay of a Kom'rk-class fighter/transport, Max sat cross-legged. Head level, spine straight, lips gently closed, tongue resting against the palate, eyes lowered to a half-close, body relaxed. His hands formed a quiet meditation mudra, and in his mind he silently recited the creed of the balanced Force tradition known as the Jedi'i:
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no fear; there is power.
I am the heart of the Force.
I am the revealing fire of light.
I am the mystery of darkness.
In balance with chaos and harmony,
Immortal in the Force.
From Bespin in the Outer Rim to Corellia in the Core Worlds was a long journey. Even with a Class 1 hyperdrive, a Kom'rk still needed ten days one way—assuming it stayed on the Corellian Trade Spine hyperlane the entire time.
For Max, those ten quiet days in hyperspace were perfect for training in the Force. For someone who used to be either fighting or on the way to a fight, he'd never had a better opportunity.
Back before all this, Max remembered a coach from his old life hammering one principle into the team: training is training, competition is competition. Fundamentals only improve through deliberate practice; experience only accumulates through real games. Using games as practice, or practice as games—both are the wrong approach.
After arriving here, Max quickly realized the Force worked the same way. The difference was that if you didn't master basketball fundamentals, you lost points and embarrassed yourself. If you didn't master Force fundamentals, you might lose your life.
"The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together." Max chose to answer using Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi's explanation.
"Ah— I think I can feel it moving. My legs are all tingly and numb." Christopher Ryen couldn't help opening his eyes, shouting with excitement.
"You've been sitting too long and your circulation's cut off. That's why your legs are numb. Get up and move around."
When it came to understanding the Force, Max believed few people in this galaxy could match him—because he came here already knowing the Force as a concept. On the simple point that light and dark were two sides of one reality, interdependent and mutually constraining, Max considered himself far beyond the extremists who ran the Jedi Order and the Sith.
But so what?
At this stage, whether it was Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul, either of them could crush Max Vizsla with a single finger.
Right now, Max was like a kid in some martial-arts saga—he understood the grand outline of the highest techniques, but he didn't have the internal method (a proper meditation discipline), and he didn't have the actual techniques (mind tricks, Force lightning, and so on). His combat power was painfully lacking.
Balance between light and dark… in Max's mind, it was simply the balance of opposing forces. One day, he started using an old-world seated meditation posture to practice, and surprisingly, it actually helped a little. After that, whenever he had a spare moment, he'd pull whichever Mandalorians were free to sit down and meditate with him.
Mandalorians hated Jedi, but they didn't hate the Force itself. To them, the Force was a powerful combat tool. If you could learn it, all the better.
The problem was that Force-sensitive Mandalorians were extremely rare. In the thousand years since Tarre Vizsla—the first Mandalorian Jedi, the creator of the Darksaber—Mandalore had never produced a second Jedi Knight. And since Max arrived in this body, he still hadn't found a second Force-sensitive in his faction.
Of course, with only a few thousand people, having no second Force-sensitive wasn't strange. But the Mandalore sector had nearly a thousand worlds, with the population base to match. How could it produce none?
The real reason was likely political. Mandalore had been at odds with the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order for a long time, refusing to cooperate with newborn blood screening for midichlorian levels. That was probably the main reason Mandalore hadn't produced another publicly known Jedi for a thousand years.
One of Max's goals in going to Corellia was to obtain a midichlorian blood-test scanner. The Republic and the Jedi Temple tightly controlled such devices—you couldn't buy one on the open market. But Corellia's black market was infamous. Maybe there would be a surprise.
If he could test everyone in Cloud City… maybe he'd sift out a few Force-sensitives.
Fleet-building had to move forward. Building a Force-warrior corps also had to move forward. Develop both in parallel, and the future opened up. Max's vision was bright.
An Executor-class Star Destroyer blotted out the sky as it swept overhead. After it came wedge formations of Fang starfighters, T-85 X-wings, and TIE Advanced x1s, flying low in sequence with colored contrails. Below the grandstand marched a Mandalorian formation in full beskar armor, Darksabers on their hips, Amban phase-pulse blasters in their hands; behind them came marching blocks of Jedi and Sith.
On the grandstand, Max Vizsla waved and smiled, accepting applause and cheers from across the galaxy. Beside him, Queen Padmé and Princess Leia smiled brightly, eyes full of charm.
"Do you crave power?" A whisper rippled directly through the depths of his mind.
"No. I crave boobs."
The crude joke from his other world did its job. Before the ripple could become a wave, reflex snapped Max awake. He thrust both palms outward—
Two Mandalorians went flying, slammed into the passenger-bay bulkhead, and struggled to get back up.
"Leader!" Christopher Ryen's startled shout hit Max's ears.
Max opened his eyes fully and saw what he'd done.
"Sorry, Earl. Baz. Are you two okay?"
"I'm fine, leader."
"Leader, my head's spinning, but it's nothing serious."
"Probably a concussion from the impact. Chris, help Baz to the med bay and get him checked."
"Yes, leader. But… what just happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. The dark side tried to tempt me. I didn't budge." Max smiled. "Next time you meditate with me, keep your helmets on."
"This is the right path!"
"This is the right path!"
"This is the right path!"
"This is the right path!"
He'd learned Force Push. This trip was already worth it, Max thought.
"Leader, there's an incoming hypercomm request from Cloud City."
"Got it. Put it through."
.............................
PS: The lower a ship's hyperdrive class number, the faster its hyperspace speed. Han Solo's Millennium Falcon has a Class 0.5 hyperdrive, Rebel X-wings are commonly listed at Class 1, and Imperial-class Star Destroyers at Class 2.
PPS: Jedi'i is a Legends concept and is not currently part of Disney canon. In canon, there is a large Force-using entity called the Bendu (species unknown) that follows a philosophy of balance between light and dark.