Midichlorians Make Sense If You (Over) Think About It

        The quick and easy explanation for how midichlorians work is: Like plants converting sunlight into energy that is usable by other forms of life, midichlorians convert the Force into something that can manipulate and be manipulated by other forms of life. However, quick and easy is not my way, and my blog is not The Over Think because my brain settles for the simple explanations. So let's go a little deeper. Over-complicate with me.

            Imagine, if you will, an energy that permeates the universe. Around and within all things. It is absolute infinite potential. The Force. The problem is, the Force is energy in it's subtlest form. So subtle nothing can act upon it, nor can it act upon anything, it is an infinite potential energy that remains forever at rest. It is also unknowable, as nothing can touch or taste or measure. To even call it energy is a misnomer, that's just a stand in word, to describe something that cannot be put into words.

          And this is where midichlorians come in. Exactly what they are and how they came to be, who can even guess? Well, me, of course. Overthinking all things is what I do. Perhaps they evolved very early on in the universe, before most of the energy had condensed, and so in their original state were not made of solid matter, and therefor could interact with the subtle Force. Or perhaps, in some corner of the universe, where there was nothing but the Force for a life form to evolve from and feed off of, a life form evolved and found sustenance in the Force. But if the Force is the infinite potential of reality, in a state of rest, it is possibly the nature of reality to find a way to turn that potential into kinetic. Perhaps midichlorians are the potential for life, and intelligence, finding a way to manifest out of the source of infinite potentiality, aka the Force. Maybe the Force is itself, at least in part, consciousness, and purposefully created midichlorians in order to have a manner in which to bring other life into being. And a way in which to be known by the universe. Or none of this and it all just comes down to the age old aphorism:

        The key thing is, however, is what midichlorians can do. And what they can do is feed of the Force and then poop it out in a form usable by other life. Though a less crude way of saying it is they convert the potential into kinetic. They make the subtle more concrete, to the point it can be felt and experienced and, very important to Jedi and Sith, manipulated. Like a plant converting sunlight into oxygen. Or like tiny single cell magnets. Normally one can't manipulate magnetic fields just by wanting to. But if their body was filled with billions of microscopic magnets that with training they could alter the types of magnetic energy they gave off...?

         This also helps make sense of how the Force, being such a powerful and all pervading thing, can be made out of balance. It cannot. Not in its natural potential state. It is the energy produced by midichlorians, which is a neutral nurturing energy, that can be manipulated from its free flowing state. A force user is a living transformer, capable of altering the force generated by midichlorians, giving it positive and negative qualities. And those positive and negative energies must run their course, light and dark force powers don't dissipate immediately after use it takes time for them to return to their neutral state. Light and dark both disrupting the natural workings of the universe, and create imbalance in the nurturing evolution driving midichlorian poop. Er, energies. 

          Though poorly explained in canon, it does actually make sense to have a bridge between a force user and the Force. Between a material being, and a Force that exists so far beyond the material. I like to imagine the midichlorians are also like a stepping stone. They make the Force knowable so that a force user can eventually go beyond midichlorians, and elevate their state of being to interact directly with the Force. But even the Jedi are so distracted by what midichlorians make known to them, they are too busy staring at the finger to see where it is pointing them.