Episode 6.598 - in which Ben Learns About the Force and Decides the Dark Side is Cool because Plot Reasons

Han and Leia agree to send Ben to Luke's Awesome Academy for People Who Want to Be Force-y.

Luke, whose Jedi training consisted of ten minutes of drone practice in the Falcon with Obi Wan on the way to Alderaan and several weeks of jungle gym adventures with Yoda, is the world's worst teacher.

Luke's Awesome Academy for People Who Want to Be Force-y is located on Dagobah.(Because, that's where Luke figures that Jedi go to train)

His padawans are trained to run through the jungle with Master Skywalker on their backs. He's a lot heavier than Master Yoda.

They learn to levitate rocks. They use the Force to throw the rocks at Master Skywalker. Master Skywalker sends them to their huts without dinner. They don't care, because the cafeteria menu consists of stew with weird things floating in it.

Master Skywalker throws things at them while they are wearing giant helmets so they can't see. They fail to hit anything.

They practice yoga, Yoda style, standing on their heads while Luke stands on their feet. They accidentally-on-purpose lose their balance and Luke falls into the swamp. The giant slug chases him. The students cheer.

Luke levitates out of the swamp and stalks off to Yoda's old hut. In the morning the students discover that all of their desks have been thrown in the swamp and they must lift them with the Force. They ignore this assignment and play hide and seek with the giant slugs instead.

Luke whacks them with Yoda's old stick.

Ben calls up Han and Leia and says "Mooooooooooooooooom! Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad! I wanna come home!"

Han says "Be a man, son, not a whiner."

Ben whines anyway. "But you guys don't understaaaaaaaand! This place suuuuuuuuuucks!"

Leia tries to pry some details out of him. "Can you tell us just what's so bad about it, honey?"

Ben continues to complain. "He makes us wear big itchy robes all the time! And there's giant slugs in the swamp! And he's always smacking us with a stick!"

Han snorts. "At least he's doing something right." Leia smacks him with the phone.

Ben's really rolling now. "And there's no wifi so we can't get holonet! And it's all hot and humid and I smell like swamp and my hair is a disaster!"

Leia sympathizes with her son, "That sounds terrible, sweetie."

Ben thinks he's almost home free, he's got Mom on his side. "It is terrible! You have to come get me!"

"Han, maybe he should come home," Leia suggests.

"Totally!" Ben chimes in.

But Dad's not on board yet. "Nope, " Han says "Give it some more time. Don't be a quitter, kid."

Ben returns to whining, since that seemed to be working. "But Dad, me and my friends were gonna 'borrow' Uncle Luke's X-Wing yesterday and go for a ride, and he sank it in the swamp on purpose and made us try to lift it! Now it's all muddy and the engine's clogged!" Han is appalled at this and is about ready to fly over to Dagobah himself to slap Luke upside the head for his abuse of a perfectly good spaceship, but then Ben keeps talking. "And the swamp creature ate one of the turbolasers, and it's all Uncle Luke's fault, he ruined it, and it's NOT FAIR!"

This statement sends Han immediately into Dad-mode. "Who said life's fair, kid? Suck it up."

Ben breaks the phone in half, flings it into the swamp, and stomps off into the jungle, where he takes his lightsaber to the muddy x-wing, reducing it to a pile of muddy scrap metal. Luke punishes him by making him put it back together again using the Force.

Supreme Leader Smeagol (who calls himself Snoke now but we see through his holographic disguise) senses Ben's frustration through the Force and contacts him. "Come to the Dark Side," he says. "We have wifi. And hair gel."

Ben is sold.

The Dark Leader sends Ben a surprise gift package disguised as a box of rocks. Luke approves of rocks, so the package is delivered to Ben. Hidden inside the rocks, Ben finds a datapad containing the secret wifi password to the Dagobah network, NotTheWifiYRLooking4 (the password is "forciness"). He also finds a jar of hair gel and a can of Axe. Ben is thrilled.

He immediately shares the wifi password with his best friend Rudolph. They ditch Luke's mud hut in the swamp and hang out at Ben's new emo-man-cave to watch Netflix and work on their hair while they complain about Luke's training methods.

The cave Ben has chosen for his hideout is, of course, the Cave of Darkness where Luke once encountered a vision of Darth Vader. The vision of Vader created long ago by Yoda still remains in the cave and is reactivated by the students' presence. Unfortunately since Luke is always talking about how his father had some good in him even though he went to the dark side, how he killed the emperor, saved Luke's life, and redeemed himself at the end, yada yada yada, the students think Vader is a tall sharp dressed dude in a helmet with an awesome voice, who maybe made some mistakes but and is really much a cooler Jedi role model than boring old Luke. The cave produces a vision of Darth Vader that is exactly as the Emo-boys imagine him, because that's the way Yoda programmed it. Emo Vader hangs out with the students and since, according to Luke, Anakin was an awesome Jedi before he went dark, they expect him to teach them awesome stuff. So he does.

Before long, they decide to start their own Dark Order.

Ben thinks they should wear black armor like Vader and should be called the Knights of Ben because Knights wear armor and not dumb robes and Ben because he thought of it.

Rudolph likes this plan but thinks they should be the Knights of Rudolph because he thought of it first.

Darth Vader suggests they compromise and merge their names.

Rudolph says, "yeah, we could be the Knights of Budolph!" Ben says, "That 's lame. Let's be the Knights of Ren" Rudolph admits this sounds cooler.

Vader approves and the Knights of Ren are born.

They recruit some of the other students with the lure of wifi. Together they manage to Force-lift enough working parts from the swamp to build an actual ship, which they use to take off from Dagobah, planning to travel to Smeagol's secret lair. Unfortunately they forget to ask Smeagol his opinion on this part of the plan, which, as they will soon learn, they totally should have done.

A/N - thanks go to Blue Milk Special for the word "forciness" which we use at our house at every opportunity