The Blind leading the Blind:
The first month he’d been on Lothal, he hadn’t even known where the hell he was. Qui-Gon had once sat him down and explained to Obi-Wan what it had felt like, to unexpectedly lose two lifelong pairbonds when Tahl and Micah had been killed in his other-when, his original when. Obi-Wan had seen the evidence of that anguish, that mental damage, with his own eyes, and had to go for a swim in a fucking river (and almost drown) to keep Qui-Gon from utterly self-destructing from the damage.
The Daughter, Emmaltine, in her complete idiocy, had not given any thought to what would happen to the bonds of someone thrown about through fucking time. It had not just been one bond lost, not two, but five: three training bonds with Anakin, Rillian, and Jeila; one old training bond with Master Yoda; and one strong pairbond with Garen Muln.
He hadn’t known where he was that first month because he’d been busy being out of his mind. The Lifebond hadn’t snapped, but even it was damaged, showing glowing spots where it looked as if the threads that wove it had started to fray.
The citizens of Lothal had taken his sudden appearance in stride, especially considering that he was a Jedi who had fallen out of the fucking sky. They’d kept him safe from Imperial patrols until he’d regained enough of his senses to realize that there were, indeed, Imperial patrols.
That was his first clue as to what Emmaltine had done to them, confirmed when he could actually sit down and focus on the newsfeeds for more than two seconds at a time. He was on Lothal (gathered that) in the middle of the sector-wide blockade that Grand Moff Tarkin had erected during the infamous Lothal Rebellion. Luke and Leia had been fifteen at the time. Leia’s first foray into Coruscant politics during her bid to be elected Alderaan’s Senator had been to criticize Tarkin’s handling of the Lothal crisis. It had been a good speech--Obi-Wan had heard it via the backchatter a few days afterwards--but it hadn’t convinced the military to remove the blockade.
Lothal had been effectively cut off from the galaxy since, and it showed. The farms did all right, but there was no one to trade with but each other. Money was scarce, all other jobs were pretty much nonexistent, everyone was poor, and disease was prevalent because the damned Imperials, the only ones who were allowed to pass the blockade, refused to provide relevant medical assistance, vaccinations, and supplies. Not even smugglers dared the blockade, not when there weren’t any paying customers on the other side.
Anger at the plight of the Lothal had stirred his blood, and possibly his reactions to the Empire’s presence had been a bit more…violent…than it might otherwise have been. He didn’t handle the idiots like a Sith, at least, but he hadn’t quite acted as a Jedi, either.
Balance again. Obi-Wan didn’t think that was the sort of balance anyone had in mind—least of all the Empire, who hadn’t appreciated the sudden, Lothal-based decimation of their ranks.