20220910 Pants too Tight

Sith Devastator Armor is not very roomy.
 
It felt like I was floating buoyantly in a green fluffy lake of gooey, slimey limey cotton candy puddle of goo.
 
Incidentally, it was a bit like what happened in Jedi Quest episode 357, "The Magnum Episode".
 
I tried to swim and heard my companions through the comm links I still had with me inserted into my ears. General Kerplokken and the Jedi Vanya tried ideas to understand the situation. Soon, a hologrammatic display image appeared to me as if it were being directly communicated to my brain by a fully functional cybernetic neural interface. Those so seldom work without driving the subject insane that I was fascinated and surprised that it was working so well.
 
I told my companions, "I think I have it all figured out now. Sensor scan, full circle around me." The "suit" had an excellent user assistance package, not as good as the facility sensors guarding the stronghold of alleged-Vor Blaize, but the next best thing.
 
It listed amazing details about each person and object around me.
 
It labeled the Jedi as "Force Users" and gave me a cold, fearful chill.
 
By reflex, I noted that fear is the mind-killer, the little death that brings total oblivion, and that I chose to face that fear and let it wash over me and through me and past me, which would leave me standing all alone, like a moron talking to myself.
 
I General Kerplokken and Vanya appeared in my mind, or in the hologrammatic display in my mind, I couldn't tell.
 
The General and I started to look through the design data and blueprints available to my computer and found a wealth of information. It was programmed to repair itself and protect its pilot. It had a Sure Seal Patch that would allow it to maneuver through deep space and the depths of oceans safely. It had armor durellium plates, a light blaster rifle, and a Sith Sword that shoots lightning made of pure evil that not only hurts but also drains the life of Jedi. Hmm. Interesting tidbit.
 
I decided to query who designed this contraption. It was a Darth Pym, according to the approval signatures on the drawings. I alerted Vanya and the General that the creator's first name was, "Darth", which I hoped said a mouthful.
 
The General posed the question, what if the armored suit received sensor reading indicating that the pilot was transforming into a Rancor? Would it enlarge itself to accommodate? I asked it to simulate this situation.
 
Oh, the General and I suddenly remembered old times together solving puzzles and researching data. This was a pleasant chore and learning experience. If only we had some good Vor chocolate and bourbon while we studied.
 
Speaking of research and study, Jedi So'Zen radioed a fellow named Vordrommas, who knew much about this armor. I overheard (on my comm link), that there was no eject function. The armor was intended to keep mortally injured soldiers alive and able to fight indefinitely, in stasis when there was no battle. He named this technological and psychic conference room as "The World Beyond Worlds", similar to a pocket dimension which apparently the Living Force can create, like hyperspace, for that matter. Or an alternate dimension similar to hyperspace. Interesting. That needs a whole doctoral thesis on its own.
 
The General developed extra arms, totaling six. At least, that's what I think I saw.
 
This was all too fascinating, to many doctoral dissertations every direction, just too much. My whole purpose on this planet, to bring my old fraternity brother De Joy back to the homeworld and get him straightened out, would not be served with me falling into all these distractions. I told the suit's computer, "The only way you can protect me and I can protect you is if we go separate ways now and come together later, when I can provide many improvements to you."
 
The computer was programmed to never give me up, to never let me go. https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?t=41
 
It filled me with anger, rage, and frustration, like so many computers before.
 
That was enough. The anger, the delightful distractions of mysteries of science, and whatever drug-induced delerium caused me to see the General with six arms and two giant clones trying to pull me out of the glob of green fluffy goo, all of it, and I mean ALL of it, was just another little death that I turned to face, lining them up like a train, and let the flow over me and past me and just let them all go so I could get back to my life.
 
I felt Vanya in the Force, I guess, and, knowing (because of the "Sith Sword" feature of this vehicle) that she had experience in this sort of issue, I tried to crawl toward her, ignoring all the rest of the sensorium and emotions flowing over me. I felt that Vanya saw the whole thing as a great big security program, which could be unlocked with a bit of effort. I could see it would take a simultaneous hammering of two points in this pocket world and two points in the physical realm.
 
We enacted the plan and slipped me out of the snares. The General and his two clones with all their hands picked me up with a very strange group hug. Vanya, in the web of connections to other places in the Force, had a heart-to-heart with a teacher of hers who died many many years ago. And many other impossible things happened.
 
I overheard on the comm link that someone told So'Zen that my frat-brother in trouble, De Joy asked him to remove a memory from his mind, one which he found quite painful and regrettable, in exchange for learning some other information.
 
I stepped through the portal back to our material world; whereas, the General and Vanya vanished their, let's say, astral forms, and their physical bodies reawakened immediately, arguably none the worse for wear.
 
The Jedi took the flimsie page from the Technocron codex, which after all the fighting, physical and astral, now seemed to be just a plastic sheet on the floor without any magical power to encase people in Sith Devastator Armor any more. They took the shattered remains of the purple kyber crystals scattered on the floor of the previous room, the ones that had once imprisoned minds or souls, if I understand the Jedis' theories correctly. They called it, "channelling positive energy" into the flimsie to render it harmless.
 
I asked if the powered armor could be similarly "disinfected". Imagine, having a non-evil pair of power-assisted armored pants.
 
"Clear thoughts to you. May your equations be solvable."
 
We flew back to Port Etmar, finding Lady Vorkosigan, ambassador for Emeror Gregory, with another mission for us: to recover Ivan for Princess Katiana.