★ Top Fifteen Tournament #4 - Irek Ismaren

Irek Ismaren has been voted in as the #4 most powerful Star Wars character.

1. Luke Skywalker
2. Palpatine
3. Valkorion
4. Irek Ismaren
5/6. Anakin Skywalker
5/6. Darth Krayt
7. Yoda
8. Darth Plagueis
9. Mace Windu
10. Revan
11. Darish Vol
12. Alliance Commander
13. Vaylin
14. Darth Caedus
15. Kueller

RULES - UPDATE!

The new metric to rank characters will be the extent that Darth Malgus would need an amp to defeat them.

For example, would Darth Malgus need a greater boost in raw Force potency—which, for both the purposes of this tournament and within the lore, simply amplifies all abilities proportionate to their former levels—to defeat Yoda or UnuThul? Remember that this tournament aims to rank characters based on their overall combative threat level, NOT their raw Force potency. All characters will be operating at their peak actualized iterations barring circumstantial or momentary amps. While everyone will fight in-character—meaning Yoda will not be bloodlusted—they will be aiming to kill Malgus as quickly and efficiently as possible with nothing held back.

If you have not already, please open the spoiler boxes to read the guidelines and banned characters for the tournament.

GUIDELINES

Spoiler:

BANNED CHARACTERS

Spoiler:

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KF Vader will crush all opposition

NYAX

Nyax was debunked. Join the Anakin Brigade

While Azronger made a strong case why Nyax shouldn't be put above prime Luke or Palpatine, I think #4 is a good spot for him -- especially considering the revised rules. The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia states above that Luke and friends were "unable to battle him with lightsabers," obviously due to his Grievous++ cybernetics and eight lightsabers. Unless Luke was unfathomably weakened (very unlikely), it's hard to see why Malgus would need a bigger amp to conventionally defeat Yoda or KFV in a lightsaber duel than to somehow find a way to put Nyax down. Lightsabers are explicitly worthless, and it's going to be nigh-impossible to down him with the Force. 

My vote goes to NYAX.
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Haven't read Az's "debunk" on Nyax, but my vote is still gonna go to him. Voting Nyax.

I'm gonna be controversial and vote Kyp Durron.

I had assumed we were going on a "Good faith" tier system here, hence why I didn't care to reply until I saw you contested any vote of Nyax because he was "lower than Malgus." I assumed it was a joke, but let's nip that in the bud here. I won't be arguing the Sheev part because he's already been placed and it's largely just going in circles with interpretations.

That being said, I stated I probably had enough energy for one more post, so here's my last post on the subject regardless of what you do. After that, I will just spam Nyax until he gets placed. I'd say I'm sorry for being late, but you didn't care, so I didn't care either. This allowed me to work on this very lazily and how I imagine both Twinz work on their posts.

So, let's begin.

Azronger wrote:Sure, but I never argued Luke was definitively jobbing. I merely contested the default assumption being that he is going all-out, precisely because of his extensive jobbing. So personally, I’m not going to immediately buy into the idea Nyax is more powerful than Luke because he seemingly demonstrated superiority in a fight. I’m going to need a bit more convincing. I see you’ve attempted to do that here, so we’ll see how that holds up.

To preface, though, I’ve not read nearly every book in the New Republic era and I’ve never read The New Jedi Order in its entirety. If there’s context I’ve left out, please be aware that it is because I wasn’t aware it existed. I’m merely collating what I feel are the most pertinent snippets about his jobbing as it is explained in-universe that I’ve seen in the past and forming my own conclusion based on them. If it becomes apparent I’ve cherry-picked information, it was not my intention.

You never argued that Luke was jobbing, but the very next post you have Luke operating far below Malgus' power via a completely arbitrary placement. In fact, per your rankings, you seem to scale NJO Luke seemingly far below his ESB incarnation as well. Which would mean you seem to be under the impression that for whatever reason he was operating below the level he was before he even received Jedi training. The only basis of this is predicated on the idea that he holds back - not how weak he was either. So yes, you might not have been arguing that he was jobbing (even though, come on...) but you have now gone overboard into absurdity. Which I will get to later.

Yes, all good intentions as we can tell.






Krayt felt that his own power grew enough under those two decades of Dark Side training that he could take on Vader/The Emperor. Not to say he could, but it's notable that he felt his power grew that much.





Now, what does this mean exactly? Well, I'll let this anonymous poster explain the growth here:

Anonymous wrote:

1. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Count Dooku: this argument proposes Kenobi wasn't ragdoll fodder to Dooku and was legitimately able to compete with him in their duel onboard the Invisible Hand at the start of Revenge of the Sith. With it intact, Kenobi scales to all of the Count’s feats, accolades, and scaling.
   
2. Count Dooku vs. Darth Vader: this argument proposes Anakin Skywalker was able to obliterate Dooku once he drew on his anger; that his calm, Jedi self surpassed his Dooku-stomping self; and that his power was even greater on Mustafar in his duel against Obi-Wan Kenobi. With it intact, Mustafar Vader scales far beyond Darth Tyranus.
   
3. Darth Vader vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi: this argument proposes that while Kenobi was initially outmatched against Vader, his spiritual detachment during the fight elevated him to a level on par his former pupil, both martially and in the Force. With it intact, Kenobi scales to all of Skywalker’s feats, accolades, and scaling.
   
4. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. A’Sharad Hett: this argument proposes that Kenobi had not declined at all during the two years between his fights against Vader and Hett, that his motivation to protect Luke boosted his power above what it had been against Vader, and that Hett legitimately held his own against and managed to pressure this amplified Kenobi. With it intact, Hett scales to all of Kenobi’s feats, accolades, and scaling.
   
5. A’Sharad Hett vs. Darth Krayt: this argument proposes that Hett grew massively after his duel with Kenobi from studying the dark side for several decades under XoXaan, then got another monumental increment from his experiences at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong, and continued to study the Force for over 110 years leading up to Legacy # 1. With it intact, Krayt scales far beyond Hett.
   

If the entire chain goes unrefuted, Vong Krayt sits on top of a pile of rather impressive individuals, namely Yoda and Darth Sidious, who are only marginally superior to Mustafar Vader, as all of them are on tier 9 of George Lucas’ ranking system. Starwars.com states that “At so high a ranking, it comes down to individual fighting styles as well as the circumstances of the surroundings that make the difference.” I’m not going to pretend there aren’t minute discrepancies with regards to who exactly is superior to who within the PT top tiers, but the general theme is that Sidious, Yoda, and Anakin are close, and that Kenobi was equalling Anakin on Mustafar; ergo, Kenobi should be the highest possible 8, and his familiarity with Anakin bridged the small gap between them. Him being motivated by Luke's survival boosts his ability further, and Hett can compete with that before growing exorbitantly in power up to Legacy # 1. If the Count Dooku vs. Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader arguments are refuted, Krayt will still scale vastly above Darth Tyranus since Kenobi can't be stomped by and can greatly pressure him per the Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Count Dooku argument, and Krayt as of Legacy # 1 is massively Obi-Wan's superior. Only if the Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Count Dooku, Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. A'Sharad Hett, or A'Sharad Hett vs. Darth Krayt arguments are refuted, will I have to make new arguments in Krayt's favor.

With this mind, the figures relevant to Revan here are Yoda, Sidious, and Dooku. Yoda and Sidious are the most powerful Jedi and Sith ever, respectively, and equals/near-equals, as articulated in my debate with ArkhamAsylum3, placing them beyond Revan as of Knights of the Old Republic and the Sith Emperor - another superior of Revan - as of both the novel and the video game. Yoda also scales above Revan even as of The Phantom Menace per The Official Star Wars Fact File: "Alongside Mace Windu, with whom he served on the Jedi Council, Yoda was the most respected and most powerful Master ever to walk the corridors of the Jedi Temple." This ties into Tyranus in that he is close to Yoda in Attack of the Clones as articulated in ArkhamAsylum3's first post, making him, at the very least, an extremely good fight for KotOR Revan. More likely, however, is that Dooku is in fact Revan's superior, considering only a Jedi Master as strong as Yoda - hint: not Revan - could survive being bombarded with Dooku's Force powers per The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection # 3: "Dark side powers enabled Sith Lord Darth Tyranus (Count Dooku) to manipulate the Force at will, hurling objects or casting devastating energy bolts. Only a Jedi Master as powerful as Yoda could survive such an attack.". As should be obvious by now, Darth Krayt's scaling from all these individuals puts him immensely above Revan.

In other words, these 5-6 Vong took down a Yoda level being per your someone else's words. This scales him far above Malgus of which you specifically make note of to scale him below Barsen'Thor and HoT in this same argument. Yoda/Windu/Dooku > any other Jedi in history. Shouldn't the Vong also scrape Malgus off the sidewalk as opposed to vice versa?

So you can see my confusion here I hope. Nevertheless, I will be calling back to this, and if I don't, just assume the big looming shadow of Hett losing hangs over every point I make.

Both Vong and Hett meet the opposite for the first time. One side wins. The Vong adapted to a new enemy. Hett didn't.

Azronger wrote:It’s not that Luke somehow didn’t grow; it’s his fear of using that power due to his even more deeply-rooted dread of falling to the dark side. The excerpt you cited of Luke gaining ”a greater understanding of the Force” from his discussion with Mara references the novel Vision of the Future in which Mara helps Luke understand his past mistakes and flaws. As a consequence, Luke experiences an epiphany about the nature of the Force and how he had been using it. Here is the full passage, after which I’ll offer my analysis.

Mara explains to Luke that while he has indeed been ”gaining tremendous power in the Force,” his traumatic experiences in Dark Empire caused him to be ”paralyzed with fear” over the possibility of misusing that power. As a result, Luke began to overcompensate, ”using the Force like a heavy club” as described in your quote, arrogantly ”trying to save everyone and do everything.” This led to myriad rash and foolish decisions over the course of his career. Mara then elucidates that ”The Force isn’t just about power,” “the more you tap into it for raw power, the less you’re able to hear its guidance over the noise of your own activity.” In his own fear and arrogance, Luke had failed to truly listen to the Force, instead calling on it for power to, bluntly speaking, impose his own will on the world. The way he blames himself for Builder With Vines’ death reflects that perfectly: he’s overcome with guilt and anger, thinking it was his responsibility and obligation to save him, even if it meant stripping him of his autonomy as a living being by pinning him to the ceiling with the Force. This echoes Luke’s father, Anakin, who likewise used the Force as a tool in trying to save Padme, believing he was doing the right thing when in reality he was only acting out his own selfish desires. Unlike Anakin, however, Luke did not follow the same path to ruin. He made a conscious decision not to use the Force as much as he had previously, and gradually his mind, his future, and the road he was meant to walk upon, became more clear. Rather than directing the Force for his own ends, he now let the Force advise and guide him on the right path instead.

That wasn’t the end of Luke’s psychological issues, though. The conversation between him and Jacen in The Unifying Force sheds more light on his mindset following his talk with Mara. As before, I’ll post the full passage and then proffer my analysis.

After his dialogue with Mara, Luke starts to use the Force more subtly, like ”a light tap,” as opposed to his earlier rash use of it like a hammer. However, while this resulted in heightened awareness of the eddies and currents of the Force’s flow, it diminished his ability to effectively tap into ”the raw, unrestrained Force itself,” because he came to equate it with the dark side. Upon realizing that following his experiences as the Reborn Emperor’s apprentice, the dark side had colored his every action, he becomes so fearful of ”abusing the raw power” of the Force in combat that he began to hold himself back ”by not wanting to incorporate this raw power into [his] awareness of the Force.” No, Luke’s power did not go away - he didn’t become weaker in the Force - as he muses that ”The power’s obviously there, available for a Jedi to use,” and that ”his connection with the Force had never faltered,” but his ability to draw on that power became crippled by his fear. Far from solving his problems, the conversation with Mara merely added another layer of dread on top of his already existing fear of misusing his power: the fear of power itself.

So in summation, you're arguing that his power was always there, but he simply chose not to use it? Uh... yes...? And no, his ability to draw on that power wasn't crippled by his fear; he could still draw on the power freely and knew how much power he had - he simply got fatigued afterward. As a wise man once said, and I'm paraphrasing here "Krayt stomped the Knights. His poor stamina doesn’t mean he was having difficulty with them, at all. And he only got burned out after he stopped exerting himself; he can keep up a fight for far longer than a few seconds even seven years later when his condition is much worse against Cade Skywalker. The fatigue only catches up to him after the fight is over, which is completely normal if you’ve ever heard of adrenaline. This doesn’t cap Krayt in the slightest." Luke didn't get fatigued when he was drawing on the power, in fact, it would replenish his stamina. As long as he was drawing on the power, he was fine, and even Jaina could use the Force to fuel her stamina:

Dark Tide Onslaught wrote:He opened himself to the Force more fully than he had in years. He sought more power than he had when freeing his nephew. The Force flooded into him, at once molten-metal hot, yet as soothing as a cool rain. It swirled through him, filling every cell of his body, freeing him from fatigue, sharpening his mind.

Dark Tide Ruin wrote:Luke Skywalker reached out and tapped the Force to refresh himself. Energy pulsed into him, sending a tingle over his flesh. He smiled, luxuriating in the warmth flooding him. He did not often use the Force in this manner these days, preferring passive acceptance of its gifts, but exhaustion had seized him. With no time to sleep, he needed the boost.

Force Heretic 2 wrote:Even she was beginning to tire, despite having the Force to augment her stamina.

Destiny's Way wrote:Jaina watched for a moment as her weary pilots limped away, then dragged herself down the tunnel she'd chosen. Her mind swam with weariness.

"Gather strength from the Force," Tesar said. It was more an order than a suggestion.

Jaina was too tired to agree verbally; she just expanded her Force awareness and let its power drain into her. There was a limit as to how long she could keep this up-ultimately there was no substitute for nutrition and bedrest-but as the Force swam through her body, flushing every cell with energy, she found herself standing straighter. Her step was more firm, her breathing less labored. She consulted the map in her datapad and made a decision.

The problem is, is that he didn't understand the Vong during the two times he got fatigued afterward. A major issue with the war is that they were outside the Force and Luke simply didn't know how to understand how this impacted the dark or light sides. In The Unifying Force his concern was with how the Republic would act after they won the war. His reservations during the Vong War were purely relevant to the Vong and only the Vong.

Destiny's Way wrote:"At the beginning of the war I didn't have the same information that I have now," Luke said. "Perhaps you did, however."

"What information?" Kyp crossed his arms and glared at Luke with grudging patience.

"At the beginning I was deeply disturbed by the fact the Yuuzhan Vong couldn't be found in the Force. It seemed to me that they might be a mockery of the Force, a deliberate profanation of life, and that I would be destined to lead a dark crusade against them." He looked along the table, meeting every pair of eyes. "It would have been a dreadful thing," he said. "So many Jedi would have turned against the light in a war like that. I might not have been able to resist the darkness myself."

"What changed your mind?" Kyp's gaze was wary.

"New information." Luke looked up. "From Jacen Solo, and from Vergere. It's now possible to understand that the Yuuzhan Vong aren't some exception to the rules of creation. If we can't see them in the Force, it's our fault, not theirs. We can fight them without wanting to wipe them from existence. We can fight them without hate, and without darkness."

Luke looked across the table at Kyp. "If you knew this two years ago, I apologize for doubting you. But in the meantime I'm not sorry that I was cautious."

"I couldn't have known any of that," Kyp said. "You know I couldn't have known it."

"There was so much at stake. I didn't want anyone to turn to the dark side because I misread the situation."

"You . . ." Kyp accused, pointing. "You . . ." He banged his hand on the table in frustration and looked at the others. "Am I the only one here who simply wants to punch Master Skywalker in the nose?"

The Unifying Force wrote:Luke feared that the extermination of the Yuuzhan Vong would deal a death blow to the newly hatched Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. With a single step toward the dark side, the fate of future generations would be sealed. As was true with the Yuuzhan Vong, the Jedi were prepared to martyr themselves to an ideal. Both were fighting to sustain a worldview. At the center of one stood the gods; at the center of the other, the Force.

Wedge wondered what might become of those Yuuzhan Vong who weren't burned or beaten to death in the streets of Curamelle or some other once-occupied capital city. What was the next step after disarmament? Imprisonment? Exile? Could an entire species be put on trial for its beliefs? And even if found guilty of war crimes, would the Yuuzhan Vong permit themselves to be isolated under guard in some remote star system, or would their defeat-the fact that they had failed their gods-drive them to self-destruction?

Dark Tide Ruin wrote:"You may be right, Daeshara'cor. I hope you are not." Luke's expression hardened. "But if we follow your course, if we become warriors and go totally on the offensive, the Yuuzhan Vong being here would be the least of our worries."

Her eyes narrowed. "They would never make it."

"No, but in their place would be something worse." Luke's voice sank into a harsh whisper. "In their place we would have a hundred Darth Vaders, and that should fill all of you with more fear than anything we face now."

Jedi Eclipse wrote:Somewhere in the ghostly, virid surroundings a belly-bird cooed. But Luke knew that what struck his ear as melodic was only the bird proclaiming its territory, warning others away. He listened more intently, catching the sounds of creatures foraging or on the hunt for food. It was the way of the Force that some should survive and others perish. Death without malicious intent, for nature didn't have a dark side. One couldn't compare the crystal snake's search for prey with what the Emperor had done during his cruel reign and what the Yuuzhan Vong were doing now. But Luke had been asking himself, almost since the start of the invasion, how did life reveal itself to Yuuzhan Vong eyes and ears?

He stared into the mist. It was as if someone had thrown a gauzy veil over his eyes. Images came to him of insects disguising themselves as leaves, twigs, and flower blossoms, and of small animals mimicking the variegated litter of the forest floor. Camouflage, Luke thought. Deception, stealth, misdirection...

The Yuuzhan Vong had swept into the galaxy like one of the unpredictable storms that blew across Yavin 4. Their faith in their gods was like Palpatine's faith in the dark side of the Force. And yet, for all the evil they em bodied, they were not Sith; they were not emissaries of the dark side. Blind obedience provided justification for even their most hideous actions. What made them servants of evil was not their faith but their need to force that faith on others and to destroy wantonly any who stood in their path. They failed to recognize light or dark because in some sense they saw existence as an illusion. Lacking any intrinsic value, life was to be lived in service to the gods, and the reward for that service waited in a life beyond.

When Luke or other Jedi had tried to peer into them, the Yuuzhan Vong had been found to be voids in the Force, absent the animated luminosity that embraced all living things. But if the Force did not flow through them, was it possible that the Force was likewise nonexistent in the galaxy in which they had evolved? Could the Force be specific to one place and not another, as if the result of an evolutionary occurrence unique in the universe? Or was it rather that the Force was lacking only in the Yu uzhan Vong-and in their living weapons, of course, which were little more than extensions of themselves?

Hence why Luke makes a disclaimer that explains "sometimes" when drawing on the force, indicating it isn't an absolute. As we've seen, and even you admitted, Luke can effectively tap into his power:

Hand of Thrawn wrote:Luke shook his head. "But why?" he demanded. "The power's obviously there, available for a Jedi to use. Is it just because I touched the dark side that using it is so bad for me?"

It was about abusing his power for every little action as you stated. That doesn't mean that he can't harness his powers for non-selfish reasons from time to time. Hell, it doesn't even mean he can't use his powers all the time. He merely chose not to in order to prevent his fall. Luke was trying to govern every aspect of everyone he came across. This is how he feared he was going to fall. Ultimately, he would try to dominate every action of every person and every time he couldn't save someone he would take it hard on himself; or think he was so correct that no one else could be right in opposition to him. The idea is that eventually he would be seen as a messiah and it would go straight to his head. It wasn't due to him wielding his powers once or twice in a battle; it was about him leading down a path of no return. That his ego would become so enormous that he was always correct. This leaves room for him to utilize his powers while still avoiding fate, he just may punish himself for it... as he did in the Vong's case. He knew or subconsciously knew it was wrong to do this and, as I showed above it was entirely because he didn't understand the Vong.

He realized in the exact same book you draw from a way to actually utilize his power:

Hand of Thrawn:

A capability he could easily achieve against Nyax. As I will go over below, he was acting entirely within the Jedi Way against Nyax. More importantly, he was acting within the parameters of his understanding of how Mara didn't fall to the Dark Side. He knew Nyax had to be stopped. He could sense his evil. He could understand his plans. He knew he was akin to a wild animal. He wasn't acting selfish or abusing his power; he was ready to sacrifice himself to stand in the way of a Tyrant he understood.

We'll circle back to what you're misinterpreting under the Jacen conversation. You keep interchanging "raw unrestrained power" as simple power, but Jacen is using that term to describe the actual dark side itself.

The Unifying Force wrote:What we’ve chosen to call the dark side is simply the raw, unrestrained Force itself, which gives rise to life as easily as it brings death and destruction.”

[...]

“You’re suggesting that I’ve held myself back by not wanting to incorporate this raw power into my awareness of the Force,” Luke said.

[...]

I’ve suspected for a long time that the fatigue I’ve sometimes experienced when drawing on the Force during combat owes to my fear of abusing the raw power you describe.

He's not talking about sheer power that Luke can utilize under the full Jedi way. He was purely talking about the fear of the Darkside, not power itself. It's a very subtle and clever distinction that you tried to slip in there to try and further your point. I applaud you for the audacity required to try and twist this.

This conversation again has the undertones of Luke fearing for the full Republic if they win the war; it's the entire reason for the conversation. Luke wasn't fearing for himself in that instance, just explaining his past problems. I've already posted the quote in this section, but this also comes off the trails of an earlier issue Jacen had with Luke. An issue where Jacen thought Luke was only focusing on his power as opposed to understanding the full force.

Jedi Trail wrote:"Would she? Obi-Wan and Yoda never talked about what the distant future held for me. Maybe if I hadn't spent the past few years trying to learn how to overcome ysalamiri and tune my lightsaber to cleave cortosis ore, I'd know what course the Jedi should take now. It's the dark side that calls constantly for aggression and revenge - even against the Yuuzhan Vong. The stronger you become, the more you're tempted." Luke gazed at his wife. "Maybe Jacen's right about there being alternatives to fighting."

"He certainly didn't get that from his father."

"His coming to it on his own makes it all the more significant. He thinks I've paid too much attention to the Force as power, at the expense of understanding a more unifying Force."

So yes, Jacen and Luke understood that power wasn't exclusive to the Darkside; Jacen just now wanted Luke to incorporate the Darkside into his ideals and usage. This conversation [TUF] happened to close that chapter on their issues to show where they currently stood.


In summation, Luke didn't understand how to win against the Vong for most of the war. A mindset that would only highlight any reservations he had of the Darkside. This is also aided by the Vong being heavily resistant to the Force as well, which means Luke didn't have to try and abuse the force to oppose them, and sometimes when he did, he felt it. So with the admittance that Luke can tap into his power whenever he feels like, that Nyax isn't outside the Force like the Vong were, and that Luke's understanding of the force was growing all the time, almost none of this applies to his fight against Nyax.

The Unifying Force wrote:"I happen to agree. But you are starting to sound a little like Vergere and Jacen."

"Guilty as charged. But is that wrong?"

"Not in principle. Except that you're probably more attuned to the Force than either of them." Luke made his lips a thin line. "I feel like I'm still in training for the trials. Every second of every day. It never ends, and I wouldn't have it otherwise. My understanding of the Force continues to grow. I know I'm a Jedi Master, but I may not feel like a true Master until my dying breath. Besides, Jacen, Jaina, Tahiri, Ben... They're the future of the Jedi. Everything we do now must be for them-to ensure that they carry on what began a thousand generations ago."

Azronger wrote:Yoda had embraced a similar worldview following his defeat at the hands of Darth Sidious, realizing he had been arrogant, myopic, and dogmatic. Like Luke, Yoda’s pride made him unable to sense the right path that might have allowed him to prevent the rise of the Sith, and led him to make decisions that proved catastrophic for himself and that which he cherished the most. Also like Luke, Yoda was scarred by his failure, and vowed to never use the Force offensively again so he might hear its will better, in contrast to how prior he had made liberal use of it in combat.

No longer believing in redemption like he had attempted with Count Dooku, Yoda now became adamant in believing that ”Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will!” No longer able to move around giant CIS droid carriers, he now became ”winded doing something as relatively simple as lifting an X-wing from the Dagobah swamp.” Based on Yoda’s case, it appears the hit Luke took to combative prowess was permanent. His fear of abusing his power in combat situations fatigues him, which would evidently put a cap on how much power he can muster, much like Yoda’s exhaustion capped him at moving an X-wing around. Now, Luke doesn’t necessarily always have to be as limited in combat as Yoda was in the Original Trilogy, but this does pretty much mean it is impossible to quantify how much of his full potency he is using in combat unless there is some way to infer it.

Yoda didn't vow to never use his force offensively again; he vowed not to attack. There's a nice a semantics difference for him, but it works. Whereas in the Clone Wars they rushed into battle willy nilly and made increasingly bad decisions throughout, Yoda still believed in the ideals of standing in the way of opposition. Which is why he was training Luke to defeat Darth Vader and the Emperor. Which is why after you believe he made the conscious decision never to use the force offensively again, he burned a Dark Jedi to death in a Force battle that lasted a day and a half:






"Permanent"
Yes, based on the case of Yoda who hasn't exercised the force in two decades who was a couple of months from dying of old age, Luke's hit was permanent... and based on nothing else but Yoda's case. Mind you; Yoda wasn't capped at X-Wing level either. He didn't struggle to move the X-Wing at all. Yoda got winded afterward... kind of(?), but that could just as easily be from utilizing the power itself, as opposed to the action. Yoda stressed that "size matters not" in that exact scene anyway. Once more, we'll refer back to that one guy who defended Darth Krayt's exhaustion here, but we'll include the caveat that Jedi out of their prime do face exhaustion more easily than they did prior. Even the Great Qui-Gon Jinn experienced a slowdown and fatigue only a couple of years outside his prime. Yoda was 2 decades out of practice and pretty much on his deathbed. Luke trying to liken his case to Yoda's does not mean that's the issue that was going on with Yoda.

Azronger wrote:As to your point with regards to Luke acknowledging his loved ones may die, it hardly removes his fear. Consider Luke’s father, Anakin, again: Anakin is haunted by the fear of loss, the nihilistic dread of everything and everyone one day dying, and the fear he will not be good enough to save those he loves. This fear is embodied in his memories of a dead star and his mother’s death. When he is occupied, either by an assignment or by battle, he can push these memories and the fear out of his consciousness to focus on the mission at hand, but during the Battle of Coruscant, his fear for Palpatine’s safety overtakes his mind, clouds it. He is unable to focus on the fight itself and instead the bulk of his attention is devoted to the fear,


Another component of Anakin’s fear is the same one Luke shares: the fear of his own power. They both hold themselves back in combat because of their fear, but for different reasons: for Luke, it is simply the fear of falling to the dark side. For Anakin, however, it is what the dictums of the Jedi Order have inculcated into him: that anger is bad and if you feel it, you are a bad person. For a child deprived of his mother at the age of nine, the only source of acceptance Anakin had were his new parents, the Jedi, and so it is inevitable he would grow servile and try to live up to their standards: from one form of slavery to another.


Well, that’s not exactly true; Anakin did have Palpatine, whom he considered ”a closer friend than he’d ever hoped to have”; from whom he received “loving, unconditional acceptance of Anakin exactly as he is—the sort of acceptance Anakin could never get from another Jedi.” And so once Palpatine gives him permission to unseal his firewalls, to accept all the anger and fear into himself instead of being told to repress his emotions like the Jedi have always lectured him to do, that he discovers a way to harness those emotions into power, to let them feed his command of the Force instead of choking it down, to let them become part of the fight instead of festering in his head. He lowers the firewalls around his furnace heart, and for the first time in his life, stops holding back; for the first time in his life, unleashes his full, unmitigated potency on an enemy; and Dooku is annihilated.

And you expect Luke to not be able to put it aside when he's had 16 years pushing aside dark thoughts? That Luke thinking about the possibility of him losing is the same as Anakin literally stewing on "his dad" being captured while it eats him up inside? You admitted it affected Anakin. That doesn't mean different circumstances affect Luke to any degree.

Well, as you acknowledge down below, Luke isn't Anakin. Anakin was one of the most emotional characters in Star Wars history and had a long and repeated use and abuse of the Darkside before his inevitable fall. Luke got furious once and beat up his dad. Anakin got angry multiple times spread out among decades a little more than a decade lol and beat up Padawans, murdered villages, choked friends, choked enemies, fought CLOVIS, called on the same anger he used against Sand People to fight Dooku in the same movie, etc. It doesn't help that two factors were trying to indoctrinate him and, he had been told he was the greatest Jedi ever by everyone including literal Gods while maintaining a secret marriage. Hell, Anakin somehow became evil using Oneness one time until The Great Qui-Gon Jinn's Ghost told him to stop. So while you liken Luke to Anakin, it's worlds apart. Anakin couldn't handle power at all while Luke could. Everything in Anakin's life was set up for him to fall. Luke was on the precipice once and came back to the light. While that may have haunted him, he did what Anakin couldn't do. They aren't the same characters with identical experiences. Anakin was essentially a child actor who couldn't handle the fame and went on a downward spiral for the rest of his life. Luke was looking to not repeat the same mistakes of his deadbeat Dad and donated to charities. That is the difference in character.

Anakin and Luke were both scared of the Darkside, but Anakin could still operate under his "current" full max power while still a Jedi so I'm not quite certain I follow the comparison? Anakin was only holding back because he was holding back embracing his Darkside, but his actual power as a pure Jedi wasn't limited until you account for him being willing to accept that turn. Luke - as you admit down below - wouldn't accept this turn, which means this entire section is irrelevant to him. This would be like bringing up Yoda from Dark Rendevouz and state Yoda was holding back because he wouldn't embrace the Darkside. Both possibilities are fun to think about sure - Invisible Hand/Knightfall Luke, Knightfall Yoda - but it's not their power; just potential if they went down a divergent path. Would this be worthier than Luke's utmost power under his Jedi ways? I'm not sure as we have no way to compare it, but it's not him actually holding back power when that's not how Luke becomes full power.

Now, while Luke may have his ups and downs, that's not akin to the author having to create a metaphorical dragon to describe how his fear eats away at him. That same dragon can appear to make Anakin unable to walk mid-battle. Postulating that Luke's mental state is the same as his psycho dad who slew his wife because Anakin also has feelings is like saying that you and HP Legend are the same because you're both Vader fans. There's little if any correlation between them and their states. Even DarthCaedusFan77's favorite character Darth Caedus sensed Knightfall Vader's thoughts and thanked Yun-Yuuzhan that he wasn't that fucked up. Even the reasons - make sense as they may - why Anakin got that messed up are unique to him as well. Luke and Anakin led different lives with different experiences.

Not only this, but Luke has had four profound personal experiences and various anecdotes as to why the Lightside > Darkside before Nyax. Anakin's entire life was him secretly wanting to use the Darkside but the sole reason he knew not to because the Jedi forewarned him not to. Luke learned on his own through personal experiences and cautionary tales to avoid the Darkside.

The first one is when Anakin surrendered to the light and "killed" Palpatine.
The second one is when Luke surrendered to the Darkside and then came back to the light to watch the Lightside overcome Palpatine.
The third is when his order overcame SPIRIT!KUN.

And the fourth? Well, we'll get into that now as I feel that somehow mimics Anakin's tale to a degree, and it's also a cloud that was hanging over Luke for the first 10 novels in New Jedi Order which culminated in this event and Luke's resolve.

Mara Jade was diseased from the very first novel in a way that was shutting her down and weakening her. Ultimately, she finds out she's pregnant. Vergere's tears with Art of the Small, and Cilghal could not cure her; only temporarily stave off the disease and give her some resolve. Luke witnessed her worsening condition and she finally relented to allowing him to look at her; on her deathbed while pregnant. This was not a premonition, but a reality that stared him in the face for half the war. Luke did not relentlessly seek a cure regardless of her thoughts. Luke did not murder a bunch of kids and strangle his pregnant wife that caused her death directly. Luke merely stood idly by and waited for his wife to finally relent to his help.

The first thing Luke attempted was transmitting her power. He still tried this even with the realization that there was nothing he could do to help. His mindstate was in absolute shambles after witnessing the depth of her disease. A little while later he threw himself at the disease like he threw himself at Vader, which did nothing and ALSO didn't tire him out. Immediately afterward he reached deep inside and filled his kid with power that sort of merged all three together which completely healed Mara, and allowed the birth of his son.

Edge of Victory Rebirth:

"Haha Luke has emotions, he cares about his dying wife lmao!!!"
Yes, he does, but he overcame that, overcame the Darkside, and experienced firsthand the Lightside prevailing where the Darkside failed. It was a last resort that failed utterly whereas his own trust in the Force did everything he hoped to accomplish. He battled back from giving up, and he sloughed off the Darkside to no ill-effect. Such an event would only justify his trust in his Jedi ways whereas Anakin's wife wasn't even ailing and he went ballistic. Anakin never got to personal trial and error with the Darkside because it constantly seemed to work for him. Anakin wasn't mentally fit to overcome such an obstacle because as shown - he will take the easy way out even if it is completely wrong.

This also shows that even with observing his wife die, Luke can still call forth a myriad of power in alternative ways. I'm not quite sure if you've ever had a sick grandparent that you watched suffer for a long time... also, that you loved dearly, let's point that out... but that is what Luke was undergoing the entire war. Even on her last day of life, Luke didn't give up even though he wanted to. And Luke came out of this funk and saved his wife's life. That sort of pit is a lot deeper than any possible fear you'd ever experience with the possibility that someone dies in a fight without a lead-up to it. Yes, it would be tragic if it happened, but it didn't, and Luke didn't have to witness her being impaled by Nyax. Neither did Luke have to have Mara's disease in the back of his mind for the Nyax encounter like it was for Dark Tide Onslaught.

I don't think Anakin would do well at all watching his wife slowly wither away and die, or go into a fight with him vs Count Dooku. Anakin is not comparable to Luke in any way in the mental game. Luke might have some slips along the way, but he always bounces back. And surely watching the Force from his command save his point-of-no-return wife/son from certain death immensely strengthens that he's made the ideal choices with his power.

His slips, for example, don't exist in the Nyax novel to a degree where we have to apply Anakin's mindset to try and explain Luke.

"Well, Anakin can embrace the Darkside so well that it makes him more powerful than if he didn't."

I am aware.

Azronger wrote:The difference between Anakin and Luke being, of course, that Luke would never draw on the dark side like that. While Anakin’s true fear ”is that being the best will never be quite good enough,” Luke’s is simply ”falling to the dark side.” Sure, you can say he knows his wife is in mortal danger when facing Nyax, but that doesn’t eliminate his restraint; it only reinforces it. He’s not going to go ham on Nyax like he did when Darth Vader threatened his sister in Return of the Jedi; that brush with darkness ”continued to haunt him for years afterwards,” and ever since his experiences in Dark Empire, “he had come to equate anger with darkness itself.” And after Vision of the Future, Luke doesn’t know how to draw on the Force fully without thinking he’s going to fall to the dark side. On top of all that, even decades after his talk with Jacen, when he is much more experienced and wise, Luke’s fear for the safety of his loved ones still clouds his judgement and fills him with doubt about himself. HK-47 explained that ” When a Jedi, or a soldier, suffers doubt, it weakens them. With the Jedi, however, it is more pronounced, since they are extreme examples,” and added that making a Force user ”doubt himself, his beliefs, or his intentions,” “disrupt connections to the Force, and death soon follows.”






All this is at play in his fight with Nyax: his fear of losing Mara weakens him in itself, and he can’t turn that fear into anger because he is afraid that will lead to the dark side, which weakens him further. And in general he’s unable to draw fully on the Force for combat even if it’s not done in anger because he’s frightened of misusing his power. That’s three compounding sources of dread that would be encumbering Luke when fighting Nyax.

So, that was my dissertation on why I believe Luke was holding back against Nyax. I may have gotten sidetracked with Anakin a bit, but I hope this was adequate nonetheless.

All of this is covered in Power Of The Jedi:




Luke even makes note of just defending and not attacking as well:

Rebel Stand wrote:He turned back toward Lord Nyax and struggled to find the words to express his thought. "I... stand... in... your... way."

It was the Jedi way. Jedi did not attack. But to position oneself in the path of a violent aggressor who would not yield achieved the same result.

All he could ever do as leader of the wartime Jedi was lead them into the path of the enemy. That was, Luke realized, perhaps his greatest limitation, and in struggling against it without understanding it, he may have hampered the Jedi effectiveness against the enemy.

But once recognized and accepted, it was also perhaps his greatest strength. Whether by accident or design, by his own will or by the permutations of the Force, he had always found his way into the path of the great enemies of all things living.

And here he was again. "I stand in your way," Luke repeated, and was pleased that he had regained control over his voice. "What you see, you will not achieve."

The expression on Lord Nyax's face turned from mocking amusement to seriousness... even sadness, for a brief moment, as though the thing had at last recognized some kinship and discovered that it did not bridge the gulf between the two of them.

Then it charged.

Luke also understood there was no hope for Nyax and he had to be put down. He wasn't doing evil, he was doing what was right for the galaxy.

Rebel Stand wrote:"So we can't even talk to him." Tahiri looked down-cast. "Maybe that's a weakness, but it doesn't make things easier on us. He can't be reasoned with."

"I guess that leaves me with only one more question." Luke returned the datapad to his belt pouch and prepared himself for what he expected to be more bad news. "Is there any way to save him? To befriend him, teach him about the light side?"

Baljos finally became serious. "I don't think so. He's had almost all humanity burned out of his brain. He's just a predator whose only goal is to dominate."

"Great," Luke said.

Pretty much all the bases are covered here with it being acceptable to use his power under the Jedi doctrine. It doesn't hurt if you refer back to Luke realizing that you can do what you want as long as it's not for selfish means as he realized with Mara. He accepted that they were presumably going to lose, but that doesn't mean he was actively fearful of the prospect. He was fighting for the entire Jedi Order and was ready to sacrifice people to put down this necessary evil.

The idea that he wasn't actively fighting harder to save her is utterly ludicrous. He was more powerful than Luke because Luke wasn't really trying because his wife would die? That's quite the paradox. He was so powerful that Luke was operating far under Malgus level around him so it doesn't count.
All the boxes are checked to allow Luke to fight Nyax and still state he might lose. It doesn't mean he is just willing to roll over and die. He might not have wanted to sacrifice everyone, but he knew Nyax had to be stopped.

When it came to Mara, Luke would do anything to save her. It's funny you mention Luke's rage from ROTJ because that's exactly what he did when Mara was dying in case you need refreshing.

Edge of Victory II Rebirth wrote:When Darth Vader had suddenly realized that he had a daughter as well as a son, Luke had felt a desperation that was the palest reflection of this. He'd hurled himself at the black-armored figure that was his father, battering him with his lightsaber until he cut Vader's arm off. In doing so Luke had taken a decisive step toward the dark side.

Now, though his body did not move, he hurled himself at Mara's disease with the same blind, desperate fury, battering against it with the Force, trying to shatter the slippery, mutable compounds of which it was made. The electrifying strength of anguish drove him on, and the fact that he was trying to do the impossible meant nothing. He clenched his fists until the veins stood out on his arms, attacking something he couldn't see.

That wasn't there to see. No. Luke, no. Not this way.

Luke fell away, trembling. "How then?" he shouted, maybe at Mara, maybe at the universe itself.

"Luke!" Cilghal was standing in the doorway. "I felt-"

"She wants me to do something, Cilghal," Luke snarled. "She diverted some of her energy to wake me, and a little more to stop me from. . . What does she know, Cilghal?"

"I don't know, Luke," Cilghal said. "But you've been telling your students attack is not the answer. Trust yourself-you're right. You need to calm yourself."

When it comes to Luke's love for Mara, he isn't going to just let her go without a fight. He can tap into dark emotions without hindering himself for her. He has realized that love/Lightside > Darkside also when it comes to her. Luke is much more seasoned with power and in charge of emotions at this time in the war. He came close to losing her once - he isn't going to let her go just because he also hates the Darkside. You're not even talking about the pure Darkside here either. You're just saying it makes logical sense that he was withholding Jedi power even though he could use large amounts of it to fight something that deeply disturbed him in the Vong. Essentially, Luke loves Mara, but when he's acting under the full Jedi-Way, he will also withhold large amounts of power for some reason and he is fully OK with allowing his wife to die if it means he doesn't take another step towards the Darkside. As we found out in LOTF, he handles Mara's death really well; with much less Darkside involved than simply "abusing his power."


But anyway... Luke can actively use their thoughts to strengthen his resolve. He is not going to just let Mara die without trying.

Force Heretic II wrote:He swung his lightsaber again, this time with more force-using the thought of Mara and Ben to strengthen his resolve to stay alive.

Not only this, but Luke and Mara had a force-bond to a point where they could easily feel each other's thoughts. They could effortlessly send power over distances and strengthen each other. Mara could actually feel Luke doing little countdowns in his head to calm himself down. The idea that Mara felt Luke distraught with fear but didn't do anything to strengthen his resolve doesn't make sense. She's allowing her husband in a weakened state to lead her to their death and leave Ben an orphan? How does this make sense?

Force-Bond:

Hell, they could even feel Nyax's feelings:

Rebel Stand wrote:Lord Nyax led the three Jedi on a high-speed run through the ruins of Coruscant. He could travel faster than they could, because from time to time he'd simply leap from one building to the next one over, usually a leap too great for them to match. Yet they could always feel him in the distance, sense his movements, sense a feeling of expectation and even anxiety from him.

So again, there are multiple issues there with your reasoning. There's no proof he was weakened or holding back. There is actually direct evidence to say he shouldn't be... at all. As well as Mara's force-bond being able to sense anything that may otherwise weaken him.


In reference to the highly touted HK-47 videos though. Here are the differences:

• Luke was not actively faced with his teammates dying after a bout of overconfidence
  
• Luke was not captured and pushed to the Darkside in order to become a thrall to Revan's order
  
• Luke was not an immortal being held on only by hate that the only way to kill him was for him to literally give up
  

No one died. Luke was not captured and forced to see how cool the Darkside was. Luke didn't just give up and doubt everything he ever did, as evidenced by him admitting Nyax needed to die even at the cost of his own life. You may have a point if Mara was actively getting tortured, and Luke was crying in the corner or something, but he wasn't.


You keep speaking of rage like if Luke doesn't tap into it, he's less powerful. He isn't, and he never has been. Luke's full power only comes out when he's fully embracing the Lightside.  Maybe you can make a complete theoretical that this hinders Luke's potential, but based on what we know of Luke, he has only operated at his most powerful while fully Lightside. Which, speaking of using FOTJ stuff to try and lower Luke is weird if you've actually read it fully.

In the passage you present, Luke's son - the only thing he had left - was kidnapped and he was betrayed by Vestara. Abeloth was looking to turn his son into a monstrous deity that mimics Post-Pool Taalon/Abeloth, and Luke was worried about rushing in without a plan into possibly a trap. Luke was worried about that, and about facing off against a being who eclipsed him. So there are a few compounding factors that are a little more complicated than "Look he has emotions so, therefore, he does against Nyax too!" Luke only had to face Nyax. Luke had to worry about a bunch of different factors outside just pure power against Abeloth. Imagine someone kidnapped your entire Star Wars collection where you have no idea what they're doing with it, but you have to get it back. Compare that to you having to fistfight HP Legend. It's a different level of emotions entirely.

Do you know what Luke did? Instantly after that conversation, he went into Beyond Shadows to fight Abeloth BY HIMSELF, which shows a lack of good decision making and still ended up accomplishing some of his most extraordinary levels ever. In Beyond Shadows he had to talk to his dead wife who he missed dearly and his smug nephew who killed his wife and then immediately teamed up with a random Sith to fight Abeloth who kidnapped his son somewhere else. And while Abeloth was killing off the Jedi Order. So I'm not sure why Luke having emotions is held against him when he completely overcame them?

Also in Fate of The Jedi, Luke was able to go into his Full Power state while his son was being beaten up and he was fighting Abeloth. Luke's emotions in that series are completely irrelevant and only seek to completely disregard everything you're saying. Considering how fragile you think Luke is, he was either really weakened or effortlessly casting aside huge amounts of detrimental emotions mid-battle in FOTJ.

Vortex:

Bringing this back to New Jedi Order, Luke in his first fight after having Anakin die/his son kidnapped - though he was eventually returned and Luke knew this - Luke had one of his best showings against the Vong. Mara also had a cast on at the time and both of them were killing dozens of Vong - Prior to Nyax of course. Luke's power seemingly grew through the war. Luke was more in charge of his emotions, and lastly, his wife wasn't actually dying for seemingly no reason.

Luke should have been heavily hindered here considering you think Luke feeling the slightest tinge of emotion drastically lowers his power, but it certainly didn't show.

Star by Star wrote:Luke knew better than to offer hollow reassurance. The fear they had been sensing in Ben all morning had become a strange disconnectedness, and Mara - always more of a realist than an optimist - assumed the worst. Never one who liked counting on others, she blamed herself for leaving the baby with Han and Leia after Anakin's death - which only made her all the more determined not to count on anyone else for his rescue. Luke chose to place his trust in the Force, though he knew that an unhappy outcome would certainly lead to a profound crisis of belief.

[...]


"You mean right over there?" Han asked. "Where that drop ship is coming down?"

Leia opened her eyes and saw the small mountain of a Yuuzhan Vong drop ship descending toward the towertop she was pointing at. "Yes," she said. "That would be about right."

Pirouetting on her good foot, Mara raised her bacta cast and hook-kicked a Yuuzhan Vong in the temple. He dropped, and she continued her spin and slashed her lightsaber across the one behind him, then ducked an amphistaff striking from the right and saw Luke leave himself open to run her attacker through. She brought her blaster under her arm and fired twice, once to either side of Luke's head, and burned holes between the eyes of two Yuuzhan Vong rushing to attack him.

Luke smiled and swept the feet from beneath a fresh warrior as he skipped in to attack. For each warrior they killed, a dozen more rushed forward to die. They launched themselves into side-by-side backflips and came down in the middle of the turbolaser crew's firing line and began to bat swarm and lay bolt. The Yuuzhan Vong charge faltered, then dribbled to an end as the crew members opened up with their blaster rifles.

Rebel Dream wrote:Luke understood how they felt. The Vong, aided by their human agent Viqi Shesh, had almost managed to kidnap his and Mara's infant son, Ben, just days ago. They had killed his nephew Anakin, and his nephew Jacen was missing. The losses, especially that of his apprentice Anakin, created an ache within him that he could not soothe.

In his youth, Luke would have been anxious for payback, but today he set that portion of himself aside. That was dark side thinking, immature thinking. It had been a long time since he had been a smooth-faced innocent; the scars of combat and lines of age had accumulated on his face, matching the weight of experience and calm that had accumulated on his spirit.

Azronger wrote:And no, I don’t think the dovin basal feat changes any of this, since we can’t quantify its mass and therefore don’t know how much power Luke was exerting. Yes, ”He opened himself to the Force more fully than he had in years” there, but that doesn’t mean he was drawing on his absolute full potency. Not to mention him using the Force to this extent here doesn’t mean he would - or could - do the same against Nyax due to his fears.

So what you're saying is that Luke being able to tap into a large amount of his power doesn't count because he may have still been withholding power? The idea is that he can easily tap into this level of power to accomplish a feat that has divided the entire debating world. Luke knows he can tap into this power, and considering he's not cut-off to his full power as you assert; he knows what power is available to him. He still admits he likely can't beat Nyax, not because of 100 excuses, but because of Nyax's power; but we'll get to that later on. POWER btw

As you alluded to it isn't merely about the feat itself; it's what Luke can draw on. Luke comprehends what he's done over the course of the war, and when faced with something that isn't cut off from the force; he doesn't think it's enough. He doesn't believe his own power coursing through him - that is obviously there for him to use - is enough. Luke accomplished this feat when he might have actually been mentally compromised, not when he thought he left the oven on so now he's weakened. Opening yourself to the force so you can tk wrestle with a black hole is a little more taxing than internalizing that power and engaging in a normal fight as well.

But yes, we don't have an exact mass, so therefore it might as well not even exist. I can, however, give you an idea of a baseline here. For example, Coralskipper black holes are seen as bigger and have vastly more pull than a real-world black hole would with the mass of a moon - which certainly wouldn't absorb most of the energy from a proton torpedo from 100 meters away. A moon-mass black hole would be incredibly hard to spot, and the point-of-no-return event horizon and the distortion field surrounding it would barely be what? A single millimeter at most? That is effectively multiplying the black hole's size by 5 times which isn't true in the real world, but Coralskippers can pull from much greater range than that. Considering the Dovin Basals were pure gravity manipulators and the "black holes" were likened to literal black "gravity-intensive" holes every time they were mentioned, you really wouldn't like the connotations involved with actually quantifying this feat.

Rebel Dream wrote:No, it was eight streams. Luke's burst, aimed at the starboard side of the skip, never reached its target; a blackness appeared before it, distorting space around it like a gigantic magnifying lens, drawing the laserfire into it. Those four red lances of energy simply bent and disappeared. But Mara's burst, aimed at the port side, hit the coralskipper an instant after Luke's vanished. He grinned; she must have been using her own Force abilities to monitor him, as well. She couldn't have timed it so expertly otherwise. Her lasers raked across the enemy starfighter's hull until the distortion flicked over to interpose itself, then Luke fired again, chipping away at the coralskipper's stern. His blasts were joined by Corran's. The coral-like material of the skip's hull superheated and the lasers tore red-hot gouges along the surface.

Onto the actual feat and feats themselves. Luke did this incredibly fast - faster than a proton torpedo traveled. Who can doubt the man who can operate in nanoseconds after all? Next, he felt that the power was far beneath his own - so this is also a minimum of the power at his disposal. This was multiple Dovin Basals as opposed to the one that usually resides in a coralskipper. Luke overpowers the Dovin Basals and then helps throw it [black hole] at them. And lastly, it swallowed the entire 22m being in an eyeblink.

*In the 4th Limited Collector's Campaign Guide edition of this feat - which was only released in Canada and in UK - it states that "Luke may be able to operate in nanoseconds, but in the future that won't help any against a Jedi who darkly proclaims he has 8 sabers"*

Dark Tide Onslaught wrote:He dropped the aiming reticle over the slow-moving vehicle, then flipped a switch that turned control of the torpedoes' flight data to the Impervious. He kept his fighter pointed on target, then hit the trigger. Two proton torpedoes jetted away on azure fire, and another two came from his port. All four headed in on target.

Catch reported a gravitic anomaly, somewhat larger than most, had positioned itself to intercept the missiles. Gavin narrowed his eyes, waiting for the blast.I hope you know what you're doing, Luke.

[...]

"How's the missile telemetry coming through, Artoo?"

The little droid tootled confidently, spinning his head around to look at Luke.

A beep sounded from the droid, and Elegos glanced at a secondary monitor. "I have four torpedo launches. All are hot."

"Good."

Luke sank back into the chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and reached out through the Force. He let his sense of things ride above the frayed ones' jagged profile and vectored in toward the vehicle. He got no solid sense of it directly, though a few frayed ones did appear to be housed inside. Instead he used that emptiness as a way point to search out a void, and as it formed, the black hole blossomed fully in the Force.

The void that the vehicle's dovin basals created to intercept the missiles was a gravitic anomaly that had substance in the real world. Tiny threads of the Force leaked into it as insects and birds, bats and bugs were pulled into it. Luke used their vanishing life traces and the very currents in the air that the void created to define the void. He traced its edges, knew exactly where it was, and knew how powerful it was.

He opened himself to the Force more fully than he had in years. He sought more power than he had when freeing his nephew. The Force flooded into him, at once molten-metal hot, yet as soothing as a cool rain. It swirled through him, filling every cell of his body, freeing him from fatigue, sharpening his mind.

Luke reached out with that power and latched onto the void that the Yuuzhan Vong vehicle had created. He pushed a bit, then tugged, in nanoseconds getting a feel for the power the dovin basals were able to exert to control the void. He almost smiled, since that amount of power was nothing compared to the Force, but he stopped himself short of pride in that fact.

"Artoo, juke the missiles."

R2-D2 keened sharply and fed the proton torpedoes a new set of data. The torpedoes twisted in flight and arced toward the sky, flying up and over the void. Then they turned again and fell toward the ground, aimed at the vehicle's spine.

Immediately the dovin basals started to shift the void to cover this new attack vector. Luke fed the Force into his hold on the void, thwarting them. Their pressure increased, and still Luke held it unmoving. The torpedoes got closer and closer. The dovin basals pulled harder, and when their effort reached a new peak, Luke let the void slip over toward intercepting the proton torpedoes.

The dovin basals devoted their efforts to sliding the void into place, which required both some lateral movement and shortening the arc over which the void would travel. As they brought it close to the vehicle, Luke pushed with the Force. Since the dovin basals were already tugging the void back toward the vehicle, they were not prepared to have the travel accelerated.

The void crashed into the vehicle, striking it in midspine. The long vehicle bent backward as both ends became sucked into the black hole. It flowed like thick liquid, all the sharp horns and bony plates becoming fluid as they curved up over the void's event horizon. In less than an eye blink the vehicle had been consumed by the void, leaving a huge gap in the Yuuzhan Vong formation.

Then the proton torpedoes detonated. One after another the four missiles slammed into the ground and exploded. Their blasts scattered Yuuzhan Vong warriors and lit the night. They gouged a huge canyon across the Yuuzhan Vong line of advance, and the shock waves were such that the ground rippled even into the refugee compound. Soldiers fell on both sides of the battlefield, and ramparts collapsed.

A Coralskipper hole has some interesting feats as well. A proton torpedo gets most of its energy drained from 100 meters away and still carves out massive amounts of damage. A slightly larger one can ragdoll 3 X-Wings while they try to fight its pull. Can eat a Corellian freighter that Kyp force throws at it. And can eat 6 proton torpedos while dragging an X-Wings into it - though it taxes the creature [Dovin Basal] a bit that generates the black hole - and Gavin uses the black hole acceleration to spring around as they would around a sun or moon. Not the greatest feats I admit, but then again, smaller black holes in real life wouldn't be that impressive anyway. To have enough gravity to overpower X-Wings would have a tremendous amount of mass in the black hole logically speaking, but I digress.

Coralskipper Black Holes:

*Larger Dovin Basals were able to rip down moons, move planets, bend turbolasers, and rip ships out of hyperspace*


We'll look at Kyp's feat here too. While Kyp brags about being more powerful, nothing in the text separates the size from the one Luke did. Kyp would have been familiar with Rakamats and coralskippers at this stage as well, so that's further validation that they're similar in power. Kyp does say he's more powerful than Luke here, but he still gets very tired from the feat, and unlike Luke, he didn't just fight a big battle, nor was he "deeply disturbed" by the lack of feeling the force by the Vong. Kyp also had to use all his power to do this, while you argue Luke didn't. But if you want to take Kyp's word seriously here, then Kid Kyp > DE Luke it seems.

Anyway, Kyp's void instantly swallowed a 900-meter ship, indicating that the mass of the black hole far exceeded the ship. Before it gets said, the Jedi can't sense/use the force on the Vong or their tech until they get Vong Sense, hence why they have to attack the black holes as opposed to the ships themselves.

Rebel Dream wrote:Kyp handing the task of flying evasively over to his reflexes while his mind went elsewhere.

Luke Skywalker had done this once, a couple of years ago. He'd mentioned it to the other Jedi. No one else had tried it because it had exhausted Luke to the point of collapse, and Jedi were seldom in a position to survive a technique that tired them so completely.

They were past the second wave of coralskippers now and heading toward the cloud surrounding Jag. Beyond it, not far now, was the second interdictor. Kyp knew that other skips had to be converging on him and Jaina. He didn't bother to look at his sensor board. They weren't relevant now.

And he didn't think he'd be as terribly drained as Luke by the technique. He was stronger in the Force than Luke Skywalker.

He'd known that almost since they'd met - that he had more pure power than the legendary Jedi Master. But this was, perhaps, the first time he'd been able to say it to himself without a little thrill of pride. He was just stronger, and that was all. It usually didn't matter. Now it did.

[...]

He armed a proton torpedo and fired it. He felt its physical presence as, in a matter of seconds, it closed the distance between him and the interdictor... and was swallowed by another void.

He felt it enter the void, felt which of the many singularities it was.

And he seized upon that void, directing all his Force abilities and discipline against it.

It was like using a thin metal rod to push a grounded landspeeder. Too much pressure and it would bend, becoming useless. Too little and nothing would happen. He had to find the right pressure to budge it, to set it into motion and keep it going that way...

For a moment, the only things in the universe were him, Jaina, and the void. He moved the void, turned it around, moved it back the other direction.

Then he was himself again, in the cockpit, watching the flank of the interdictor distort. The void had moved back and touched the interdictor, and now the interdictor elongated into it, extending what looked like a pliant extrusion of what he knew to be hardened yorik coral into the singularity.

The portions of the interdictor in closest proximity to the void accelerated faster into its maw so that portions farther back tore, venting gases into space. But the incredible gravity of the singularity didn't allow the remainder of the ship to tear away and be free. It dragged greater and greater portions of the interdictor into it, compressing them, rending them, and in a moment the interdictor was gone.

Kyp felt obliterated, bone-tired, as though he'd run for days, drawing on the Force to sustain him, and had finally settled down for rest. His diagnostics board was beeping at him and he spared it a glance. "I've taken damage," he said. "A grutchin, I think."

And Luke was stated to be stronger than Kyp both in-universe and out.

Dark Tide Ruin wrote:"Moreover, the Yuuzhan Vong have slain Jedi. The most powerful of the Jedi - your brother - was induced to leave Belkadan, abandoning an unknown number of slaves.

Not only was this black hole never stated to differentiate in size/power than what Luke did, but Luke was more powerful than Kyp anyway. Per the rules decreed in the 5th draft of Banite Scaling, it stands.

Azronger wrote:Not really relevant. Since this is while amped by a Force nexus, Nyax’s accolade is worthless. Similarly, Luke being elevated to a higher level than normal because of external Force energies surging through him doesn’t eliminate his restraint. He even notes in the books he is tired even after having drawn on the nexus, and such fatigue is brought about by his fear of drawing too much on his power. Plus, his fear for Mara and Tahiri is still present.

There was something in Tahiri’s eyes that sent a chill down Luke’s spine. “He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force,” she said. “He couldn’t feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I’m both.” She rose and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third boulder down.

“What do you say we take her at her word?” Mara said.

“I’m too tired to argue.”

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order - Enemy Lines II - Rebel Stand

I created this power chart to illustrate my point:

Greysentinel365 wrote:"SK is even more exhausted than when he couldn't even think!"

"BTW let me post this entire internal monologue he's thinking"

It's a figure of speech. It's like when HP LeGenD states that he's too tired to argue and then he argues that Starkiller > Vader for 4 hours on Amino instead of going to bed. It's not literal. Luke wasn't literally too tired to argue. This is proven by him immediately having a flying boulder fight after stating that. He wasn't on the peak of diluted juice exhaustion and only the thrill of manipulating tons and tons of rock could break him out of that funk. I'm too exhausted to say some sentences, but I could probably fly this giant boulder around, interrupt giant streams of debris, and throw some force blasts. Right?

As for a "chill down his spine," that's all it was, and it was caused by Tahiri, not for her safety. He was taken off guard because she was the weakest among them, but she was supremely confident she could beat Nyax and it caught him off guard with how she said: "I'll finish it." He wasn't literally quaking in his boots from Tahiri, and she immediately told them her plan to put his mind at ease anyway. He trusted her enough to go through with it.

Here's the full text:

Rebel Stand wrote:Luke could feel it as Nyax detected them. The pale giant rotated in the air to face them, his smile changing from one of simple pleasure to one of malice. "This is going to be bad," Luke said.

Mara nodded. The wind at this altitude whipped her hair into a life of its own, making it look like a candle flame in a strong breeze. "Any ideas?"

"I have one." Tahiti knelt to improve her balance while she stared ahead. In the distance, this stream of boulders took a sharp turn, then moved to within a few meters of Nyax's position and beyond. "Just past that point. Distract him. I'll finish him."

Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. "You'll finish him. How?"

There was something in Tahiri's eyes that sent a chill down Luke's spine. "He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force," she said. "He couldn't feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I'm both." She rose and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third boulder down.

"What do you say we take her at her word?" Mara said.

"I'm too tired to argue."

Good chart though. Was really needed to understand things. Anyway, Luke was capable of drawing on all the personal strength he could:

Rebel Stand wrote:He projected that image with all the strength he could muster, bolstered by the Force wellspring.

But none of this addresses the actual issue at hand here. Why is Luke not okay with using all his own power due to abuse, but he's ok with himself and 2 others abusing a massive power source? You kind of just handwaved the issue away without delving into it at all. The idea behind your chart is that Luke is thinking that he shouldn't use all his own power because it's dangerous, but he's more than ok with using a random nexus' power because using enough power that causes massive collateral damage with basic attacks is not that dangerous? In fact, he even tells the others to use it too because he wasn't afraid of the power:

Rebel Stand wrote:"That fountain of Force energy is what made Nyax stronger," Luke said. "It's pure power... and we can use it, too." To demonstrate, he raised a hand like an orchestra conductor... and a mound of rubble against a building a hundred meters ahead rose into the air. Luke clenched his fist and drew it toward him, and the rubble swept toward the construction droid.

You're contradicting your entire argument here. He was terrified of pure power according to you, but in the face of pure power personified, he freely uses and abuses it and tells the others to as well. Because maybe... he doesn't see an issue, and thus it eliminates any mental restraints you claim exist?

Luke powered up immensely just to withhold power I suppose? Luke wanted to beat Nyax really badly, but not to the extent of using too much power? He took a look at his own personal power and said "Not today friend. I will draw on this immense power while keeping my own in storage because Nyax is weaker than me... hope you kill my wife and everyone on this planet."
I'm not even sure nexuses work like that anyway. Not to a point where you can heavily draw on it but still be considered to not be using your full power? I can see accidentally drawing on it doing this... but certainly not directly like they did.

This is a bit like using steroids just to do 3 sets of five reps at 70 percent of your max weight 3 times a week. What's the fucking point?

Luke wasn't afraid to heavily draw on the force. Luke did draw heavily on the force. Luke felt everyone else should heavily draw on the force. Luke was still lower than Nyax. At no point in time was Luke ever depicted above Nyax in this book, nor was it implied... ever. There is zero contradicting to Nyax being above Luke, and it's backed up by both of them calling on the Force Nexus and Luke still being weaker; when Luke was doing the exact same thing you claim he was terrified of this entire post.

Azronger wrote:Unless Vong are preternaturally fast, killing three of them per second is by no means beyond human perception.


Non-Force-users have tagged and gone toe-to-toe with Jedi. What does Swilja Fenn have to make tagging her a feat worth caring about?


What does Anakin Solo have to make this a feat worth caring about? Darth Malgus’ movements were almost beyond a human’s perception, and I don’t see evidence of Anakin's - despite being a Jedi - being that much keener than a non-Force-user. Trainee Bane outright moved faster than prospective Sith Masters could perceive.


Same question: what does Anakin have?


How much speed was Anakin using here? Was his performance rate note to be any higher than usual? Either these were some ultra Vong, or Anakin couldn’t properly control his power and channel it into speed, because I find it very suspect a full potential Skywalker would get tagged by “fodder” if he were in control of his power.

Why does the opposition suddenly need feats when you're championing Bane and Malgus moving fast in front of Fodder and non-force sensitives? You've created the entire basis of Malgus beating Nyax based on a non-force sensitive man barely - but still able - to follow his movements, yet you seek to cry foul when the Vong do the same? Very hypocritical of you. In fact, you even posted a Vong moving faster than Maul can follow, yet still, question their speed. And speaking about Non-force sensitives going toe-to-toe with Jedi - which was a mainstay in the PT Era - likewise doesn't erase the fact that they were stated to be faster than eyes, blurs, etc. They were intended to be fast; a red herring doesn't change that. This argument also wasn't brought about to be Malgus vs the Vong, although I'm sure a case could be made by someone else... it was about if the Vong had some sort of sped up perceptions that would allow them to follow movements or move fast themselves. Trying to dismiss a couple of random speed feats based on irrelevant factors isn't congruent with your prior points. They aren't fast because they moved fast to people who might not be able to move fast is the argument we're going with?

In a lot of those the beings are still able to react to them, or in Fenn's case, to be likened to lightning. Taken literal or not, this shows he's intended to be fast and it isn't about Fenn as you stated, it's about it telling the readers he's fast. The rest are very self-sufficient feats. Because I apparently have to explain this, the Amphistaff moves so fast Jaina can barely see it, but still has time to bat it away with her hand while speaking of the options. What this means is the Vong's attacks are beyond the range of human perception, but the Jedi are still quick enough to casually react... when they get trained enough.

Star by Star wrote:Rage boiling inside her like magma, Jaina reached out with the Force and shoved Anakin's body hard. The Yuuzhan Vong yelled in surprise and stumbled back into the collapsing arch, his coufee sliding away from the eye. Jaina jerked her brother free of the warrior's grasp and sent him floating in Alema's direction.

"Take Anakin," she said.

As Jaina spoke, she was opening herself to her anger, using the power of its emotion to draw the Force into her as the Dark Masters Brakiss and Tamith Kai had tried to force her to do so long ago, when she and Jacen had been imprisoned at the Shadow Academy with Lowbacca. The power came surging into her in cold waves, feeding on her hatred of the Yuuzhan Vong and pouring it back to her twofold.

In a motion so fast Jaina barely saw it, the warrior sat up and flicked his coufee at her throat. She could have dodged or blocked with her lightsaber, but she did not. Instead, with the fierce energy crackling inside her, she used her free hand to bat the weapon aside, then raised her hand toward her attacker and released the dark power inside. A fork of lightning crackled into existence a few centimeters beyond her glove tips, then blasted a hole through the Yuuzhan Vong's chest and hurled him onto the rubble pile smoking and motionless.

Confirmation that an amphistaff strike is faster than a normal human can follow. Also feel free to think back to the quote you posted about Darth Maul being unable to follow or react every time you see an amphistaff strike in this post:

Rebel Dream wrote:Lando's bodyguard droid landed between Lando and the warrior. It kicked out against the amphistaff. Its blow hurled the weapon away, though the amphistaff, pliant again, bit the droid; the attack, faster than Lando's eye could follow, did not penetrate the droid's armor and would not have damaged the droid if it had. The amphistaff flew meters away.

About Anakin, he was specifically training against the Vong with machines he built that was straining his eyes. Indicating that he's not only training at high speeds, but that he needs to train at those speeds because of how quick the Vong are.

Edge Of Victory: Rebirth wrote:"Begin sequence one," he said.

The droids flashed into motion, their spindly frames moving with eye-daunting speed, two flanking him on either side, one driving straight toward him. Anakin back-pedaled and parried, dropped, and swept the legs out from under the droid on his right. The other two were attacking, one staff spearing at his neck, the other gone suddenly flexible, flicking around his rising parry toward his back. Anakin stepped forward a centimeter and felt the wind from the vicious whip-over as it came up short of his spine.

That's it, he thought. I'm learning the range. The smallest movement possible to prevent the attack from landing is the best.

Not only this, but he would duel evenly with Jacen who could react in microseconds, as well as catch amphistaff strikes before they land while heavily distracted, catch them while injured, and Jaina can weave a web of strikes against them. A Vong also tags Anakin in mid flip here with a throw. Anakin, of course, was mentally compromised - which you put huge emphasis on - but still a decent feat. Shok Choka's speed happens after his training, and Anakin losing to a Vong happens after his Jacen fight, but before his training, if you're curious.

Anakin's speed:

Might as well slip in that Jacen's first encounter with the Vong went better than A'Sharad Hett's did while we're at it. He somehow managed to kill 3 when he also had zero information on the species. It's also decent random Vong wank.

Vector Prime wrote:Jacen almost got a second Yuuzhan Vong right through the chest with his lightsaber, but the warrior was faster than he had anticipated and arched back enough so that the weapon barely nicked. And then the others circled the young Jedi, two producing thud bugs, the others pulling clublike melee weapons from their bandoliers.

Jacen sent out his blade in a wide-sweeping arc, forcing those closest back; seeing the opening, he leapt across the hole in the floor, forcing the Yuuzhan Vong to follow. Two loosed their thud bugs, the little, living missiles whipping out for Jacen.

His lightsaber flashed right, then down and left, picking them both off.

[...]

Jacen blocked the swing of a club, spun about to bring his lightsaber in line to block a strike from the other side, and in the middle of the turn, snapped the lightsaber back, quickly and briefly, to intercept yet another thud bug.

Then he did make the block, and countered with a roll-and-thrust maneuver that sent the alien attacker leaping backward.

But another moved in to block, and Jacen couldn't finish the move. And he had to turn back anyway, spinning fast to pick off two attacks, one up high, one down low, coming at him in superb coordination. He ducked, purely on instinct, and the next thud bug shot over his head - or almost over, for Jacen's weapon tip shot up, skewering the thing even as it passed.

A series of several sharp twists and cuts picked off three more attacks from three different opponents.

A brilliant defense, but Jacen was working wildly and was making little ground against his enemies. These warriors were skilled; Jacen might be able to beat any of them one against one. Maybe, and maybe, with luck, he could defeat two.

But not four. No way.

He continued to spin and to slice, to fight completely defensively because to do otherwise, even within the grasp of the Force, would be to die. He chopped one club aside hard, then spun, expecting an attack from the other side.

And indeed, he did see the two aliens over there coming at him, and hard, and it took him a moment to register the truth of the attack, to see the human hand covering each face, tearing at the mask.

Miko Reglia drove on, accepting the punishment in exchange for getting his ringers into that all-important ooglith cloaker release point. And as he had the living suits beginning their retraction, the battered young Jedi dug in his heels and pushed on even more powerfully, bearing his surprised enemies into the hole and going in right behind them.

He felt the freezing water drawing out his life force, felt the thrashing, the punches, the kicks, but Miko Reglia, in this final act of defiance against the Yuuzhan Vong breaking, held on stubbornly, preventing the two warriors from scrambling back out of the hole, determined that he would not die before them.

Back in the chamber, one of the remaining Yuuzhan Vong made the mistake of lurching toward the hole in an attempt to catch his falling kin.

Jacen wasted no time, leaping ahead, lightsaber flashing, going for the off-balance alien and then, when that warrior's companion came in to defend, turning the attack fast upon him, scoring a quick kill with a thrust to the chest.

His lightsaber cut through easily, coming out swift and sure, then swept behind the staff of the remaining warrior as he tried to get back to defensive posture and took the alien's hand off at the wrist. A halt of momentum, a turn of the wrist, and Jacen poked his energy blade deep into that warrior's chest, as well.

"Miko!" he only then heard Danni cry, and he turned to see her crawling for the hole. "Miko!"

Jacen glanced around, looking for solutions. "They brought an extra suit and mask for him," he said to Danni. "Get into them!" And then he dived into the hole.

And about Oneness; while there are some things I could detail - like picking off Vong as soon as they appear - I don't think I need to do that. The key point in almost everything you speak about is power. You speak of Malgus before his prime, Bane before his prime, Luke not being at full power, etc. Yet when shown that someone in actual Oneness can still get hit, you ask for speed feats - like I'm supposed to assume Prime Malgus gains crazy speed because of ambiguity while you can just handwave away a giant power amp that is pretty much the force working through its users? Hmm

While you may not feel numbers add up because you're used to Dragon Ball or something; they do. While he may be too fast for a couple of them, they can still keep track enough of him that they can land. They can still perceive him, and you throw enough Vong at him and they'll land. That's it. Even 20 saber Luke which you're highlighting as the Full Power of Luke from TUF had to dodge them and perform tons of actions in a narrow hallway.

The takeaway here is that they're quick, and they can see stuff. They aren't a random Smuggler with zero feats watching a fight from hundreds of meters away on a full-throttle speeder bike...



I feel like this is a good section to highlight another relevant character as well. Here one Vong beats Cade Skywalker and the other holds off Shado Vao. This is after Cade got the advantage over Darth Nihl and threw a "giant spaceship" at Talon. As well as Shado stalemating Talon.

Legacy:

I'll let this fella explain the feat:

Anonymous wrote:

Revan scales far above the likes of Exar Kun and Thon. This is a level of power that Krayt has simply never demonstrated being capable of using.

Cade Skywalker casually throws a rather big ship a great distance (Legacy # 5). He did this while high on death sticks, which dampened his connection to the Force (Legacy # 3). The Jedi then remove the death sticks out of his system and re-train him in the ways of the Force (Legacy # 11).

Good feat? I'm not even sure anymore, but I do know it definitely happened.

Azronger wrote:Jobbing Luke. Irrelevant.

While it might not be full power Luke, he still killed 3 Vong fairly easily while only getting tagged once in his first-ever fight against the Vong. Something that as we see at the top... kind of a neat feat. Luke was also operating at a level high enough to one-shot kill a Vong with a pommel strike.

Dark Tide Onslaught wrote:Instead he pivoted on his left foot, scything his right leg through the Yuuzhan Vong's legs, dumping the alien hard to the rock-strewn ground. Luke then brought his right hand down and smashed the pommel of his lightsaber into the Yuuzhan Vong's face, leaving the warrior limp in the dust.

For comparison, it took 5 Mandalorians with a Crushgaunt to kill 1 Vong who managed to kill 1 of them in the scuffle. They also started the fight off with pretty much a cheapshot that would have killed a lesser race. While you might not find that impressive, I'm sure the rest of the readers can understand just how ridiculous Mandos are in Star Wars.

Boba Fett: A Practical Man wrote:It was the last word the warrior said. The living armor shifted before their eyes to protect his neck and head, but Beviin managed to hit him in the jaw with his return swing, and a beskad was a heavy weapon. The blade embedded itself in the warrior's jaw, leaving him gurgling and thrashing as his amphistaff changed briefly from snake to iron bar. As the warrior dropped to his knees, the amphistaff slipped free and Fett threw himself on it instinctively, punching his glove-mounted vibroblade through it and pinning it to the ground. Its tail thrashed. Suvar rushed over to decapitate it with his own blade.

[...]

Crushgaunts had been illegal for centuries. The micronized beskar in them meant they could exert enough pressure to shatter thick bone and maybe more. The shell armor seemed to be putting up a fight, but Beviin-a mild man most of the time, in Fett's experience-hung on, cursing in completely incomprehensible Mando'a, until there was a sound like cracking ice and the warrior let out a long gurgle. The armor twitched, its claws snapping impotently a couple of times before stopping.

[...]

It took five Mandos to tackle one Yuuzhan Vong this time. But they'd learned a lot about how to kill them in just that one brief tussle. They'd learn plenty more.

The Vong are extremely strong as well, so anytime someone matches/overpowers them, or one-shots them to death, they are operating a large degree above normal human levels in terms of amps. Something which is also prevalent in almost every Jedi vs Vong fight - for example, when Anakin matches the largest Vong he's ever seen in Shok Choka. Here's some random Vong shit.

Vong Strength:

Azronger wrote:After all, an unarmed Darth Maul, without drawing on the Force, was able to kick a Vong warrior’s ass:

All at once, with blinding speed, the creature yanked loose and burst upright, reaching behind its back to produce what appeared to be a long bow staff. As the staff blurred toward him, Maul realized that the weapon, which he'd first taken to be a piece of wood or some kind of biomechanical hybrid, was actually a living organism - a serpent whose head lashed out at lightning velocity, latching onto his face, slashing at his eyes.

Maul recoiled, but it was too late. With a jolt, his vision was gone, burying him in instant darkness. This was the second time in as many seconds that the thing had caught him off guard, and now he knew why: the creature was somehow cut off from the Force, utterly detached from the deep field of heightened sensitivity from which he was constantly drawing information about his surroundings. The intuitive sensory abilities that he took for granted in any normal battle were simply not there.

Star Wars: Maul - Lockdown

Yes, the Vong aren't invincible. They have low feats as well as anyone. Maul killing a seemingly shamed-one without Crab Armor is still a good feat for him. First off, you're using Maul tearing apart a lightsaber resistant staff in an effort to try and lower the Vong, and also if you look above you can see how strong they are.

Dark Tide Onslaught wrote:Then Luke slashed both lightsabers outward, drawing their glowing lengths over the amphistaff's throat. While its flesh might have been dense enough to prevent a lightsaber from immediately shearing through it, the double assault snipped the first twenty-five centimeters from the amphistaff with no problem. The rest of the amphistaff recoiled in pain, and the Yuuzhan Vong warrior, who had been leaning heavily on the amphistaff to keep Luke down, stumbled forward. Without rising, Luke brought his right lightsaber up to stroke the Yuuzhan Vong's belly, then spun and slashed the other against the back of the warrior's thighs.

Second off, for whatever reason, the Vong just left the Staff latched on when it could have simply turned it hard and sliced Maul in half. Then it just stood there screaming at Maul mouth wide open. So a little bit questionable there. Might just be an honor thing however seeing as Maul was unarmed.

Third, in a conversation about speed, you just posted the Vong moving faster than Maul could follow. He jumped up at blinding speed, swung the staff faster than Maul could follow, and the staff latched out faster than he could react. So I'm not entirely sure how you can question their speed being "preternaturally fast" and still post this. Yes, it lost, but it was still portrayed as faster than Maul.

Forth, and combining all those things in effect; can Maul - that can behead Varactyls, can literally tear a Wampa apart and rip its heart out/crush its skull, and tear apart a lightsaber resistant staff in the same book - brute force kill an overconfident Vong? Yes, absolutely. He turned it into a brawl and fought wreckless which is what he needed to do. Force or not, that book contains some of the best strength feats in Star Wars, and it's no shame to lose to something simply that strong. I realize you'll want to apply this to anyone who fought Maul, but it's not my concern.

Bringing this back to Nyax; Nyax was capable of one-shotting armored Vong with physical attacks and one-shotted a Voxyn with medium-sized debris - things that are basically 4 meters of muscle and incredibly hard to kill. His physicality and quick force power attacks were portrayed far above anyone else who fought them.

Rebel Stand wrote:It was not a Jedi, not a lightsaber blade. A block of machinery two meters on a side flew up from below and crashed into the leaping voxyn, striking with such force that Viqi heard the creature's bones shatter. The impact smashed the voxyn back through the air, a wobbly caricature of a once-living beast. The voxyn's body crashed onto the factory's duracrete floor and the block of machinery landed upon it, breaking more bones, and stuck there, not bouncing or rolling forward as it should have. "Forward," Denua Ku said. He whipped his amphi-staff free from his waist and charged after the other Yuuzhan Vong warriors, who now howled in rage and anticipation.

Star By Star/Voxyn Damage Soak:

Azronger wrote:I presented this in my previous post, but just as a reminder, Sidious moved faster than a more powerful Maul who was fully tapping into the Force could track, tracing the outline of his body with such swiftness and precision that had Maul made even the slightest twitch of a muscle, he would have lost his life. Juxtapose this with how Maul handled that Vong without even tapping into the Force, and you’ll see why I’m not sold on Nyax’s hype.

The lightsaber whirls in the air, twirling, held in my Master's hand. I can't track it, it moves so fast. But I know it's heading for me. Lord Sidious moves faster than my eye can follow. I smell heat and smoke. The laser traces the outline of my body, my face, my hands. The buzz is loud in my ear. One flinch, one involuntary twitch of a muscle, and I am dead.

Star Wars: Episode I Journal - Darth Maul

He wasn't portrayed as fully tapping into the force though. Maul was portrayed as surprised, off-guard, and terrified. Yes, it was a feat, but there's nothing in there that portrays him fully tapping into the force... let alone in a way that would increase his perceptions or whatever you're arguing? You just spent most of your entire post saying that Luke doubts himself in other novels, therefore Nyax sucks; yet somehow this doesn't apply to Maul utterly shitting his pants?

To put yourself in this same situation, imagine that HP Legend just completely debunked Sheev and definitively showed that Valkorion Arcann was above Sheev. That is the level that Maul's heart sunk once Sheev entered the room.

I personally don't care what level he was at - a feat is a feat and speed is inconsistent imo - but you clearly do, so I find it funny you tried to hide the context there.

Episode 1 Journal wrote:The blaster fire is close, closer than I like. I can feel the heat on the sleeve of my tunic. I smell singed material. The assassin droid has suddenly flipped sideways and aimed from the chest. I've been distracted.

Anger rises in me, which is good. The darkness crests and roars. I twist in the air, my lightsaber twirling, revolving. Its balance is perfect in my hand. I strike one hard blow to the left flank of the droid. I feel the power of the move reverberate all the way to my shoulder. It gratifies me. The other blow to the right follows a fraction of an instant later, so close that an observer would not be able to tell which blow came first. They would only see the armless droid wobble, its internal balance mechanism destroyed.

It is an easy job to slice off its head. The droid crashes to the floor, now a useless heap of smoking metal. I kick it out of my way with a smile, my lightsaber held loosely in my fingers. One day I will see a Jedi at my feet just like that.

Suddenly, my lightsaber is gone. It flies from my hand across the room. It lands in the hand of my Master.

I never see him enter. Not if he doesn't want me to.

The smile of triumph fades from my face.

"Do you think, " Lord Sidious says, walking toward me, "you can ever relax your guard?"

"No, Master. " What a clumsy, weak mistake. I should be prepared for him to enter at all times. How could I have forgotten that, even for a moment?

The lightsaber whirls in the air, twirling, held in my Master's hand. I can't track it, it moves so fast. But I know it's heading for me.

[...]

At last, Lord Sidious deactivates my weapon. He tosses it toward me. The sweat on my palm almost causes me to drop it.

"Do not let me see you relax your guard again, " my Master says. His eyes burn. "You are valuable, yes. But you are not indispensable, Lord Maul. I can do without you."

A flick of his robe, and he is gone.

I feel my leg muscles shudder as I lower myself to my haunches. I breathe slowly, in and out, until I am calm again. He is right. I will not let it happen again.

It is the Jedi's fault that I failed my Master. I pictured a Jedi at my feet, and I allowed myself to be distracted. Now I focus my mind on the Jedi, funneling my hatred and anger into a blade directed at them. The hatred is a hard, cold place, yet it burns. They are my enemy, and I will beat them because I am better, stronger, and smarter. I have weapons they don't have. I have my anger. And my most important weapon: I have no mercy.

Azronger wrote:But of course, I hardly need to prove the Yuuzhan Vong’s limitations when we have Viqi Shesh, Kell Tainer, and Garik Loran - all entirely ordinary non-Force users - being capable of observing Nyax’s movements in combat in detail.

Viqi Shesh went toe-to-toe with a Noghri and even managed to kill one after he hit her in the mask/face.

Star by Star wrote:Someone booted it back at the original kicker, and the droid skidded over a family of Aqualish trying to change direction. Incredibly, the crowd continued to shove forward, between the Solos and to both sides of them. Determined to avoid becoming separated from Han, Leia snapped her lightsaber from beneath her jacket and turned back toward the berth. She found Welda blocking the way, raising a small hold-out blaster and pointing it at Leia's chest.

The weapon remained there for about half a second before Adarakh, still holding the luggage he had been carrying, sank his teeth into the woman's arm. There was a sickening crunch, and Welda's hand fell open and let the blaster fall. The Noghri used a bag to knock her feet out from beneath her, and then he was on her, tearing at her head with both hands. Even this did not stop the desperate mob from pressing forward around the fight.

Far too accustomed to assassins and kidnappers to waste time wondering who had sent them or why, Leia positioned her body between Ben and Welda and started to push her way around the fight. Han was two steps away from her, holding his blaster in one hand and using the other to punch the admittance code into the security panel.

"See-Threepio, where's Meewalh?" Leia asked.

"She went after Tare, mistress." Still holding her blast-scorched ladalum, the droid was following Leia around the fight. "I do hope the boy set a long fuse on that thermal detonator! One-dash-Five-Oh-Seven is so terribly clumsy."


The soft drone of a vibroblade sounded behind Leia. Surprised that Adarakh had not finished the fight already, she turned to find a powershiv rising in Welda's good hand. The Noghri blocked easily, then countered with a slash that caught the woman beside the ear and lifted her entire face off. The woman's scream was nowhere near as ghastly as it should have been. Her face squirmed in Adarakh's hand like a thing alive, and neither Leia nor the Noghri understood for an instant what they were looking at.

That was all the time Welda needed to drive the powershiv into Adarakh's ribs. The Noghri's eyes grew wide with shock and his mouth fell open, then Leia felt the life leave his body. All of the disappointment and sadness she had been feeling since Anakin's death turned instantly to anger. She thumbed her lightsaber active and, still holding Ben, stepped forward to attack.

Welda hurled Adarakh's body into Leia's knees, knocking her legs from beneath her and rolling away. Leia was barely quick enough to catch herself with the Force and avoid landing on Ben. A pair of blaster bolts zinged overhead from Han's direction, forcing her attacker back and eliciting an even louder uproar from the panicked crowd. Leia gathered her feet beneath her in a fighting crouch and found the assassin mirroring her position from two meters away, a wide-eyed

Noghri:

Might as well throw in this Vong outspeeding a Noghri too:

Dark Tide Ruin wrote:Mushkil did reach Krag Val before either Ganner or Corran could. The Noghri hurled a knife as he closed, but the warrior's spinning amphistaff flicked the blade up high and away. Then, even before the knife had time to fall to the ground, the Yuuzhan Vong had closed, swept the Noghri's legs from beneath him, and stabbed down. He impaled the Noghri on his amphistaff's tail. Blood spurted straight up as Krag Val pulled his weapon free and engaged Ganner.

The other 3 are all pilots used to watching things at high speed. There are a few feats from them, but I really don't want to go through the X-Books as well.

But, let's examine the text here. In Viqi's case, all that we know of what she saw was that Nyax killed the Vong. The actual detailed text wasn't hers; Overcorrected, calculate strategy, incandescence, etc that was the narrator describing the scene. Of course, she saw them die; they fell down after multiple stops and starts. She was however attributed to watching him swinging a big piece of ceiling metal at 6 Vong. Her perceptions were that she thought the 3 meters being swinging a giant piece of metal at six 2-3 meter beings had actually missed. Which again, brings into doubt how much she actually perceived. She was not watching a small scale fight to say the least. Everything was big and bolded for her and she wasn't that far away. For example, go watch a featherweight MMA match and then watch a heavyweight match. The perceptions are that the smaller fighters are literally twice as fast, however the punches are traveling at similar speeds. The smaller guys just have less distance to travel and the objects are smaller. Scale this up to a 10 foot guy attacking a bunch of 6.5-10 foot tall guys and it's a little easier to track. Now assume this same scale but that you actually think an attack misses in a huge arc, and it's doubtful you're keeping track of it.

In the pilots' case, all they saw was Nyax lunge at Luke, Tahiri enters the fight, and the Vong stand back and launch attacks. Then they just conceded they can't do anything and walked away. If you can understand why I don't want to go look through the books for their speed feats, then I hope you understand now. They didn't see anything important happen, nor were they noted to.

Most importantly, Nyax wasn't actually hit once until Luke stomped on his head. He started a fight with 25 Vong, a Voxyn, and then it turned into 17 Vong and 3 Jedi and no one actually hit him besides Luke... once. Call me crazy, but I really doubt Malgus could replicate that to any degree. And this is ignoring that Nyax was just blindly lashing out at the Vong because he couldn't feel them in the force. Also, the Jedi were able to swat random thudbugs out of the air while engaging Nyax as well which shows their growth. Again, a feat I doubt Malgus can replicate.

So even if you want to argue that Malgus moved faster/is more skilled; 8 Vong couldn't tag him. 17 Vong and Luke, Tahiri, and Mara could only do it once. Malgus is not that skilled. Malgus is not that fast. Even if you argue Luke was weakened based on headcanon, Luke is still like 3 tiers above Malgus in lightsaber skills.

If you're really that bent out of shape about the speed implications, then think about it like the Manga's Ultra Instinct. Where it isn't supposed to be a big speed increase but it can mimic speed with the right movements. Nyax was moving his body to a degree that the sheer RAW speed of MALGUS can't replicate.



But even if you were correct, this is unique to your opinion. We're talking about a fiction that has too many cooks in it with varying outlooks on things like speed. While you may nitpick all the minutiae speed feats in an effort to pass a lower being off as comparable, I really don't care. You can't slam this in my face and tell me I'm wrong when I don't follow the same viewpoints. The only time speed is ever really a factor is when one contestant is vastly more powerful than the other, or when one contestant is varying their speed to throw the opposition off. If you need proof of speed being largely irrelevant, look to any thread where a person scales to someone else's speed on the virtue of raw power alone. Look at how BANE'S name entered the fray here when he's never fought anyone mentioned in this thread. I'm also not sure how you can consider anything from a subdued media as proof like the movies or TCW. Are they just perpetually holding back or something? I don't get how you can be a DarthVaderfan77 while drawing a line in the sand with speed considering Darth Vader has a considerable amount of fights with nobodies and non-force sensitive. It's fairly perplexing actually to me, but not one to shy away from playing in the sand with you, I'll oblige.

Here is Jacen moving 100 meters in an Eyeblink:

Traitor wrote:"Count on it." Jacen burst into a sprint; the Force lent wings to his heels, driving him inhumanly fast, and faster, and faster still. He covered the hundred meters in an eyeblink, and found Anakin still well ahead, still looking back, beckoning, urging him onward.

The Lone Wolf wrote:And on a sand-lacerated mesa, a podracer utterly butchers distances at six hundred kilometers per hour.

Obi-Wan-

Ran-

Faster.

The Jedi Master ran over one hundred and sixty-five meters per second.

More than six hundred kilometers per hour.

No one, not Jedi, not Sith, had ever duplicated such superhuman locomotion.

Was Obi-Wan flying? He didn't know.

But he knew that, this time, he was not running from the blaster fire of destroyer droids. He was not running to save his own life.

He was not even running to save Qui-Gon from the slaying fire of Darth Maul's singing blade.

He was running... to save the child he loved.

To call him a blur, a smear of speed, was to substitute poor poetry in favor of truth.

Space contracted-time distended.

Obi-Wan was a fulmination on reality.

Obi-Wan was Truth.

Obi-Wan literally blazed with kinetic light_as he blistered through the Nar Shaddaan streets. And with every impossible angle he cornered, every slow-moving raindrop he dodged, every being he spared spontaneous combustion from contact with his supernatural momentum, the Jedi Master felt his muscles, his atoms, his very essence, rebelling into pandemonium.

[...]

Luke, for his part, seemed to be enjoying the ride.

Let's be very conservative and say an eyeblink takes a third of a second (you can conceivably make it a tenth of a second too). That would be 300m/s, or 1080 km/h. For contrast, moving 165 m/s or 600 km/h was specifically noted as being faster than any other being has ever moved. Obi-Wan was noted to be faster to an unspecified degree, but his cap was limited to those being impressive numbers, so it makes no sense for him to be traveling 2/3rds faster than those numbers. Call it incredulous if you like but that's just a copout answer. The numbers were used for a reason. Not sure why I added this disclaimer since you already agree with trying to insert Obi-Wan's speed into a discussion about a less powerful version of Krayt that fought Vong; and lost. As we've already seen, Jacen has outdone Hett. Refer to the top.

Essentially, Jacen > Obi-Wan >>> every other force user in history including Malgus in speed.

The funniest part of this is that Jacen didn't reflect back and talk about how fast he moved. Moving fast wasn't some supernatural occurrence to him.

Per purely your logic, however, Jacen >>>> Malgus > Nyax > 25 Vong/Luke/Mara/Tahiri, and I don't think that was ever expressed at any time during NJO, Dark Nest, or LoTF. In fact, an even stronger Jacen calling on the Darkside more had a little bit of a tricky fight with Mara Jade. A wee bit. We'll get to Mara later on as well.

This same Jacen a little earlier in the book felt that no being alive could ever dodge 3 amphistaffs as well. There's no indication Jacen's speed went up 10 times or however slow we pretend to think he was 2 chapters earlier.

Traitor wrote:Jacen felt that, too: an eyeflash of blackout that staggered him. When his eyes cleared, three warriors had him boxed. Knowing how they would attack wouldn't help; no one alive could move fast enough to dodge.

The warriors slashed at him, amphistaffs lengthening with whipcrack speed. None of the blades even grazed him.

Here's Jedi Knight Sothais Saar moving faster than Malgus as well. This same Jedi was beaten and outsped by Master Cilghal. Cilghal is noted specifically as being "not very strong in the force," so I think it would be difficult to scale both these characters above the entirety of NJO, outside TUF Luke and Jacen. Luke can't beat Nyax with help but Sothais Saar can? They realized after NJO that had they only used Force Speed - that almost everyone knew how to use - that even extremely low-level users can scale vastly above Luke level. Not to mention Hett, never forget Hett. Remember when Cilghal called Luke up to put her against Nyax because she was going to beat him with Saar stifling speeds?

Again, call me incredulous if you want but this logic makes no sense at all. EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

Backlash wrote:Saar seemed to disappear. Dorvan blinked and realized that Saar was still before him, now a dozen meters away and running at such speed that he appeared to blur as he headed for the exit. There was a shriek as the Jedi brushed past an aide carrying a precariously balanced stack of datacards; the cards went flying in an arc, clattering to the stone floor of the hallway.

Dorvan grabbed his comlink. "Lockdown, lockdown!"

Those words, broadcast by his comlink, triggered an instant and automated response in the building's security system. The sunlight ahead suddenly narrowed as blast doors began a rapid close-and-seal. A low, bone-rattling alarm tone began cycling.

The blur that was Jedi Saar suddenly became even harder to focus on as he raced to the exit, diving through the closing doors when there was less than a meter's gap between them.

Azronger wrote:Now I’m not sure whether Nyax can even beat Malgus. You may not like his speed wank that I brought up, but he’s probably faster than Nyax while pre-prime, and vastly more skilled as well. I don’t think Nyax has any business being on a top 15 Force-users list, and possibly not even in a top 150 list.

Look above.

And I was just joking about Malgus' speed because I thought we were all having a laugh. Sad to see it became a serious argument.


Since you're intent on sticking to this, let's actually examine the speed feat then:

Deceived wrote:Zeerid flew the speeder full-throttle at over a hundred meters in altitude. He watched an Imperial shuttle accelerate into the sky from the vicinity of the Jedi Temple. Thinking of Aryn, he felt his stomach flutter. He flew still higher, hoping to catch a glimpse of her near the Temple.

And he did.

She and Darth Malgus bounded across the ruins of the Temple, their blades flashing, locking, the speed of their duel so fast Zeerid could barely follow their movement. Despite himself, he found the combat beautiful.

He slowed the speeder and T7 beeped a question.

So Zeerid flying at full speed on a speeder could barely follow their fight, but actually could and found the combat beautiful. Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it? He is traveling many times faster than a car can and still able to follow their fight. However, they were fighting near the entrance/where her master died. The distance of this looks like this:





They look like Darthants from a distance that is like 1/3 of the closest possible place to see them an approach. The entire walkway seems hundreds of meters longs. Normally I would calculate this, but I'm lazy right now and really tired. Got an essay due on shingles next week and need to procrastinate for 6 days.

Here is what an MMA event looks like from a closer vantage point without people flipping around and jumping. Click randomly throughout to see how hard it is to follow.




So compound him traveling really fast with being really far away and it's really not that great of a feat. We can actually get an idea of his speed though considering an earlier duel was recorded in its entirety and everyone could follow.

Deceived wrote:She rose from her chair as the duel began to unfold, stepping closer to the monitor. She watched them trade flurries, each test the other’s skill. She watched Malgus throw his lightsaber, saw Master Zallow leap over it, saw Malgus knock him from the air in the midst of his leap and follow up with a leaping charge that Master Zallow avoided at the last minute.

Her heart was pounding. She kept hoping for something to intervene, to change the outcome she knew could not be changed. Barring that, she hoped to see a mistake from Master Zallow, or some treachery by Malgus, that would explain what she expected in moments—Master Zallow’s fall to Malgus.

They engaged on the far side of the hall, Master Zallow loosing a torrent of blows. Malgus fell back under the onslaught, but Aryn saw that he was drawing Master Zallow in.

And then it happened.

Master Zallow slammed the hilt of his lightsaber into the side of Malgus’s face, driving him back a step. He moved to follow up but Malgus anticipated it, spun, and drove his lightsaber through Master Zallow’s abdomen.

“That’s enough, Tee-seven,” Zeerid said. “We’ve seen enough.”

“We haven’t,” Aryn said. “Play it again, Tee-seven.”

We have Tahiri Veila - Who was in the fight against Nyax - drawing her saber too fast for a cam to record:

Force Heretic 2 wrote:Jaina watched as Tahiri looked down at something she had clutched in her hand. The cam angle didn't allow a good shot of what the object was, exactly, but Tahiri's reaction upon seeing it was both startling and disturbing. The girl recoiled as though struck by a blaster bolt to the forehead, her expression one of absolute horror. In an instant, too fast for the cam to follow, her ice-blue lightsaber was out and at the ready, sweeping to cover her from any attack.

So I guess if you want to make one open comparison like that to decide Malgus takes a guy heavily out of his weightclass, then Tahiri can move faster than Malgus, and by proxy anyone who's ever been recorded *KFV vs Cin Drallig*

Couldn't tag Nyax with pure Jedi powers.

But let's hearken back to the top with some select quotes here:

Azronger wrote:

ILS wrote:Vader > Bane > Malak > Malgus

Azronger wrote:After studying all Malgus-related material, I can confidently say he stands no chance here.

[on Vader]

Azronger wrote:Kenobi. Arcann isn't doing shit to him if the tier 9 Vader isn't either.

Azronger wrote:If the tier 9 Mustafar Vader isn't ragdolling Kenobi, the sub-PT Sidious Vitiate sure as hell isn't either. This fight probably goes along the same lines as the battle in the Revan novel: Kenobi proves a grueling challenge on his own as Vitiate desperately tries to prevent him from getting within striking distance, and the B-team, much like Scourge and the Exile, provide good distractions for Vitiate. Only this time Vitiate's facing more opponents and there aren't any Imperial Guardsmen to delay the B-team.

Azronger wrote:Vader

[On Mustafar Vader vs Unchained Vaylin]

I'm going with the Jedi.

Azronger wrote:My arguments for suit Darth Vader > pre-suit Vader/Anakin Skywalker still stand too. In addition to the six quotes I already had, I’ve uncovered two more. The former states Vader exhibits “more deadly invincibility than ever” in the context of strength and skill in combat. And with the latter source, we again have seven statements saying Vader is more powerful than Anakin. Just think of that number: how many sources have so consistently and so often all repeated the exact same thing about two characters’ power level in relation to one another? RotJ Vader >> ANH Vader > Anakin Skywalker (> RotS Sidious >>>...>>> The Shit Emperor >>> SoR Revan) is inarguably one of the most ratified stances in the mythos.

Couple this with Hett and you leave me confused as to where I'm actually supposed to place Luke here. Surely you don't think ESB Luke - who managed to give a more powerful version of Vader a decent fight before Luke ever knew how to increase his speed - would be lower than Malgus... especially following that last quote?

Shadows Of The Empire wrote:Yes, the Force was strong in Luke, perhaps even stronger than it had been in Anakin. But the boy needed to embrace the dark side, to learn where the real power was, to achieve his true promise. If he did not, the Emperor would destroy Luke.

Vader did not want that.

When they fought, he had also tried to strike the boy down, but that had been merely a test. Had he been able to kill Luke easily, Luke would not have been worth the effort to recruit. But although he had certainly attempted to defeat Luke, the boy had held his own. Despite Vader's superior skill, despite his experience, Luke had survived with no more damage than an easily repaired amputated hand.

The meeting had made Vader feel, not a normal occurrence lately. There had been the thrill at meeting a worthy opponent and pride that the one so strongly opposing him was his own son.

Vader smiled into the darkness surrounding him. Obi-Wan had not told Luke that Anakin Sky walker had become Darth Vader. Luke's anger at the man who had slain his teacher had been potent, had allowed the dark side to claim him. If Vader hadn't broken that anger with fear and confusion by telling the boy that he was his father, Luke could have defeated him. A Jedi does not fight in anger; he holds his emotions in check and allows the Force to move through him. But the dark side needed to be fed with strong emotion, and when it was, it repaid that sustenance tenfold.

So I'm wondering how this all makes sense to you? Do you put a Luke who knows how to use all his powers - even if you may agree with the limits - as lower than Pre-Dagobah Luke? So with absolutely no proof, Luke is actually weaker than he was before he even utilized the force, per your logic? Unless of course you simply changed your mind that severely with no prompting...

But this, is assuming you didn't blatantly ignore statements putting him above his ROTJ and earlier incarnations. I'll add another one here too.

Luke's Power:

Going back to ESB, and considering you yourself brought up the X-Wing and Yoda's power. Here's 25ABY!Luke casually lifting up an X-Wing sized rock and telling a padawan to lift it so he can participate in the war - which he does. No exhaustion, no struggle, and he even uprooted it from the ground. Uprooting a settled rock is immensely more difficult than simply lifting one. If you need proof, go in your backyard and start trying to rip out half-buried rocks by hand. What this also means is that the padawan directly showed more raw power than ESB Luke as well, and this is also a minimum of power required to fight the Vong. Surely we aren't disingenuous enough to claim that Luke is somehow on the level of Finn as well?




Next, post 19ABY!Luke is also stated to be above IKRIT who can casually ragdoll Corvettes and Freighters.

Edge of Victory 1 wrote:"He's pushing it up," Tahiri said in awe. "Master Ikrit is pushing the freighter up."

And indeed, when they emerged, rather than sitting right over the hole, the freighter was some eighty meters off the ground. Its thrusters were burning, pushing it down, but it wasn't budging. Anakin darted his gaze about. The other ships and people on foot had sidled in on all sides but one, so he cut toward the hole as a brutal barrage struck them.

"My ship!" Vehn howled, as the deck pitched wildly. Not blinking, Anakin took them through the storm, just as two more ships closed in, completing the trap.

"Help Master Ikrit," Anakin told the Jedi candidates. "Push the freighter up farther."

"Master Ikrit is gone, Anakin," Valin said. "He jumped out of the hatch."

"He what?"

"There he is!" Tahiri shrieked, pointing ahead of them.

There Ikrit was indeed, walking toward the blocking ships, a corvette and a light freighter. As he approached them, they were parted as if by two gigantic hands. "I don't believe it," Anakin said. But he gunned for - ward, nevertheless, aimed at the gap the Jedi Master had created for them. Blaster bolts and laser beams sizzled and hissed in the air, but every shot that might have hit either Ikrit or the ship bent away, missing by centimeters, and still the small Jedi strolled sedately along.

Edge of Victory 1 wrote:In the Force he could feel the Jedi candidates, for they were all strong with it. He could feel Kam Solusar and his wife Tionne, and the ancient Ikrit, not students but full-fledged Jedi. These were seen as through a cloud, suggesting they were at least trying to maintain the illuísion that hid Yavin 4 from the casual eye.

Anakin's Quest wrote:Anakin could sense that Ikrit wasn't making a joke. It was an honest question. Anakin searched in his mind for an honest answer. He sighed.

"That's just it: I don't know. I always thought I did. I mean, I'm a kid whose father just happens to be one of the hottest pilots in the galaxy, whose mother is the leader of the New Republic, whose twin brother and sister just happen to have more Jedi potential than anyone else at the academy under the age of sixteen, and whose uncle also happens to be the most powerful Jedi Master alive." Anakin grinned at his own words. "You know-I'm just an average kid."

Below, lightsabers continued to hum and buzz, drawing bright arcs in the air.

"And now?" the furry Jedi Master prompted.

Kenobi's Blade wrote:Did he truly dare to break in and steal from the greatest Jedi Master in the galaxy? Uldir took a deep breath to steady himself.

Here is 22ABY!Luke directly outdoing his 17ABY!Luke self. As you note, this was the stage when Luke was overcompensating with pure raw power, and after "he rebuilt Vader's Retreat easily while Yoda got winded lifting an X-Wing." Yes, he was described as far more powerful than Brakiss, but it also stated they'd both be exhausted by the end.

New Rebellion wrote:With a snarl, Brakiss pulled his lightsaber from his waist. A bright red flame soared from it. Brakiss ran toward Luke and slashed as he moved.

Luke's lightsaber was in his hand instantly. He parried Brakiss's thrust, smashing Brakiss's lightblade against a nearby conveyor belt. Sparks flew. Brakiss recovered, slashed again, and Luke blocked the hit.

The lightsabers hummed, and clanged as they clashed. Thrust, parry, thrust, parry. Luke matched Brakiss movement for movement. Somewhere in the last few years, Brakiss had gained strength.

Brakiss tried a series of small thrusts, little movements designed to be parried, and then he arched the lightsaber in one great circular movement. Luke didn't move quickly enough. Brakiss's light-saber seared Luke's shirt, narrowly missing his skin. Luke then matched each movement of Brakiss's.

The assembly room was hot with the sparks from the light-saber blades. The edges of the conveyor belts glowed with the heat. Luke concentrated on each of Brakiss's movements, deciding to defend, never to attack.

Brakiss swung his lightsaber from left to right, going for Luke's unprotected sides. Luke blocked each attack. The swings got fiercer, the movements sloppier. Brakiss was no match for Luke, but he was a good, strong fighter, and they would both be exhausted before this match ended.

Brakiss feels his power grew to a point where he could beat Luke now 5 years later:

Jedi Under Seige wrote:A man stepped out, moving as if he were made of flowing quicksilver,a confident liquid shadow. His perfectly formed, sculpture-handsome face smiled. "So, Luke Skywalker, once my Jedi Master-you have come to surrender to me, I hope? To bow to my superior abilities?"

[...]

"There is no brightness in my heart," Brakiss said. "I did not come here to banter with you. If you won't be sensible and surrender, then I must defeat you and take the rest of your Jedi academy by force." He withdrew a lightsaber from the silvery sleeve of his robe. Long spikes like claws surrounded the energy blade that extended as he pushed the power button. Brakiss heaved a quick sigh. "It seems like such a waste of effort."

Once 22ABY!Luke decides to stop playing with him, he two shots Brakiss.

Jedi Under Seige wrote:He heard the battle continuing in the jungles and longed to get back to his trainees. The meeting with his former student had been no more than a distraction; it was leading nowhere. "This has gone on long enough, Brakiss. You may either surrender or I'll defeat you directly, because I have work to do. I need to get back to defending my Jedi academy."

Brakiss showed the faintest glimmer of uncertainty in his normally calm and peaceful eyes when Luke drove in, this time intending to win. Luke struck again with the lightsaber, always maintaining his focus and drive, not letting anger take control, doing only what he wished to do.

The Master of the Shadow Academy defended himself, and Luke saw his chance to strike. He altered his aim just slightly, not striking the energy blade itself. He could have swung lower to take off the hand of his former student, much as Darth Vader had cut off Luke's own hand-but Luke didn't want to maim Brakiss in such a way. He needed only to ruin his weapon.

His lightsaber struck across the top of Brakiss's handle, just below the terminus of the energy beam and above the knuckles of the grip. The top two centimeters of the spiked-claw end of Brakiss's lightsaber sprayed off, sheared away in a smoking, molten mass.

Brakiss shrieked and dropped his sparkling lightsaber to the ground, where it lay useless, smoldering, no longer a weapon, simply a hunk of components... none of which worked.

*Brakiss of course famously manipulated starfire as well a year prior to this*




So, from this argument alone, we have Vong War Luke > IKRIT, Kyp, 17ABY!Luke, ESB Luke, A'Sharad Hett, being stated he was in his Prime, that his understanding was greater than ever, that his understanding was always growing, that he was Beyond Powerful from ROTJ Luke, etc. Per your viewpoint of Malgus, this type of power can't be below Malgus. It's utterly incompatible actually.

And just an interesting little tidbit, but 25ABY!Luke was able to fly and react faster than R2-D2 could keep up:

Vector Prime wrote:Luke flew purely on instinct, on anticipation and reaction combined, a dazzling, dipping, dodging display that had the horde of enemy fighters wildly trying to keep up - and even brought a pair of them crashing together at one point - and had R2-D2 howling the whole time. For Luke was too fast for the astromech, his course changes too abrupt for the navigation instrumentation to calculate and correct.

Luke came out of one sweeping arc with a pair of enemies on his tail. He gently twisted and turned, and avoided the firing projectiles - just barely, with one grazing the underside of his upped right wing. "Please give me this," he asked his ship, and he throttled up as fast as she would go.

The enemy fighters paced him, closing.

Luke reversed the throttle, the wounded ion drive roaring in protest. He sensed a collision and dived down to the side at the last possible second, and both enemy fighters flashed past.

The X-wing's four laser cannons let loose, scattering the two rocklike fighters all across the sector.

But there was no time to stop and cheer, for more were on him fast, from every conceivable angle. Luke growled and went through every twist and turn, cannons blasting away, reacting with lightning precision.

R2-D2 can categorize new species in under a second and can sift through and check entire sections of his library in a millisecond. He also gets compared to Anakin as a pilot and is compared to Magnaguards.

Shadows of Mindor wrote:These shapes were only nominally humanoid, in the sense of being generally upright and having a vaguely head-shaped knob on top, as well as a pair-several had more-of arms; these shapes grew upward from the very stone of the cavern itself, more like animated stalagmites than actual living things, but they moved as though directed by some type of conciousness, and they clearly exhibited that peculiar electromagnetic field signature R2 had noted during his precipitous descent

[...]

R2 found this to be a satisfactory correlation and he consequently created a new file tagged with the key words MINDOR, MINERAL LIFE-FORM(MOTILE), and MELTERS. The entire process, from Han Solo's shout to R2's filing decision, took only .674 of a standard second.

---

He spent a millisecond or two accessing a few directories in his very, very extensive library of recordings of his adventures.

Which means Luke is able to fly by on pure instinct faster than a being who could process very detailed information in milliseconds to sub-second, and who was a very capable pilot himself. Luke still wasn't able to find an opening on Lord Nyax even with these reactions. It might not be the most one-to-one comparison, but his reflexes don't merely go away and Luke is well-known for all aspects of his powers.





But this isn't just about Luke either. This is about the Vong - which I feel I covered - but also about Mara Jade.

First off to directly contrast her to A'Sharad Hett, here she is deflecting an onslaught of Thudbugs while she is weakened and ill.

Vector Prime wrote:The two stood and stared for a long while, neither blinking, the test of wills before the inevitable battle. Off to the side, R2-D2 managed to manipulate his torso, pushing against the console while extending his arm, to upright himself. He skittered right off, but the noise alerted the caped warrior, and he launched another missile - was it some kind of bug? - the droid's way, this one clipping the console right behind the fleeing R2-D2, showering him with sparks and bringing forth another frantic "Eeeooowww!"

Mara reached for her lightsaber but, recalling her weakened state, drew her blaster instead and had it leveled the warrior's way before he turned back to face her.

"It is an abomination," he growled.

"It's a droid," she corrected.

"Exactly my point," the warrior replied with a wicked grin. "An abomination. A sign of the weakness that pervades your people."

"My people?" Mara asked. "Who are you?"

"I am Yomin Carr, the harbinger of doom," he said with a sinister laugh. "I am the beginning of the end for your people!"

Mara's face screwed up with incredulity.

"Do not mock me!" Yomin Carr roared, and he pulled another thud bug from his bandolier and let it fly at Mara.

She took a shot at it, but it dodged, and then she had to dive aside, once and then again as it swooped around. It started to loop for a third pass, but this time, she got her aim and blew it out of the air.

Yomin Carr continued to laugh.

Mara turned her blaster on him. "I think you'll be coming with me," she said.

He laughed louder and started to reach for his bandolier.

"Don't make me," she warned raising the blaster threateningly.

He just laughed and continued, and she shot him. But the magnificent, plated armor turned the blast aside.

Eyes wide with disbelief, Mara had to move again, and quickly, as Yomin Carr tossed out another thud bug, and another, and another. She wisely abandoned her blaster, tossing it aside and drawing out her lightsaber. Then she went into a frantic dance, twisting and parrying, lightsaber intercepting the darting thud bugs as they came at her in rapid succession.

Yomin Carr's laugh turned into a growl as he nearly emptied his bandolier, a dozen thud bugs darting and spinning at Mara.

Her glowing blade worked in a furious, humming blur, whipping up high and to the side, down low - and when she couldn't catch up to that low-flying missile, she deftly hopped it - and then back up, connecting with one zooming creature barely a centimeter from her face. She turned about and sliced across, picking two out of the air, then dropped into a squat, the lightsaber flashing up above her head to take out a diving bug, then swishing down to the side, forcing another to alter its course. It tried to turn about, but had too much momentum and smashed into the back wall, crashing in deep.

Mara spun about to face Yomin Carr, dived into a forward roll to regain her balance and to avoid any forthcoming attacks. Her lightsaber was at the ready as she came up, but the next missile plopped down - harmlessly, Mara believed - a couple of meters in front of her.

As you've seen sprinkled throughout these small little posts, she has some neat feats against the Vong, including beating dozens of them with Luke. So we'll move onto her and Luke's reactions almost two decades prior to NYAX. Joruus is a pretty quick guy, and I see you wanked lightning in your previous posts, so...

The Last Command wrote:Solo had a different sort of lesson in mind. He reached the end of the walkway, sighted along the barrel of his blaster, and fired.

But even wallowing in self-delusion, a Jedi of C'baoth's power couldn't be taken out that easily. In a blur of motion, Mara's blaster leaped upward from the floor into the path of the shot, its grip shattering into a shower of sparks as Solo's shot expended its energy there. The second shot was likewise blocked; the third caught the blaster's power pack, turning the weapon into a spectacular fireball. The blaster was torn from Solo's grip before he could fire a fourth.

Heir of The Empire wrote:Thrawn let him stand there another second like that, then gestured to Rukh. The Noghri raised his blaster and fired-

And in a blur of motion almost too fast to see, a flat stone detached itself from the ground and hurled itself directly into the path of the shot, shattering spectacularly as the blast hit it.

---

The old man smiled faintly. “I killed them, of course. Just as I killed the Guardian.” He raised his empty hands in front of him, palms upward. “Just as I now kill you.”

Without warning, blue lightning bolts flashed from his fingertips-

And vanished without a trace a meter away from each of them.

It all happened so fast that Pellaeon had no chance to even flinch, let alone fire. Now, belatedly, he raised his blaster, the scalding hot air from the bolts washing over his hand-

Joruus was also more powerful than 8ABY!Luke:

The Last Command wrote:Skywalker was good, all right. With the strange buzzing pressure in his mind he must have known he couldn’t match C’baoth strength for strength. Mara felt the subtle change in his concentration; and suddenly he swung his own lightsaber over his shoulder, the green-white blade scything toward a point midway along the other lightsaber handle.

Dark Force Rising wrote:Artoo whistled thoughtfully. “Right,” Luke agreed ruefully. “It didn’t bother me any to have Ben around—in fact, I wish he had talked to me more often. But Master C’baoth was a lot more powerful than I was. Maybe it was different with him.”

So with that out of the way, we'll see how well they react and fare against a being who by all logic should be ranked fairly high per your rankings. Sheev, Plagueis, Joruus... possibly? I mean, this was Luke just a year away from DE after all. Keep in mind this is far from prime Mara, and Luke who has zero reasons to be more powerful than NJO Luke.

Joruus:

Essentially, both were quick/strong enough to react to his very potent lightning, and vastly pre-prime Mara was able to duck under his attack, get in front of him, and kill him before he can lock back onto her. A severely weakened Luke was quick enough to force pull her away from the explosion. We'll keep in mind Joruus was fast enough to TK rocks in front of blast bolts after they were fired. This was almost 2 decades before Rebel Stand.

Mara could not land a hit on Nyax.



Anyway, you ignored Cilghal showing you they were on a high-speed run throughout the city. I mean, you addressed it, but then promptly dropped it when you realized you should try and lowball him to say he's super slow.

Rebel Stand wrote:Lord Nyax led the three Jedi on a high-speed run through the ruins of Coruscant. He could travel faster than they could, because from time to time he'd simply leap from one building to the next one over, usually a leap too great for them to match. Yet they could always feel him in the distance, sense his movements, sense a feeling of expectation and even anxiety from him.

And the threat level of Nyax was screamed in the readers face:

Rebel Stand wrote:"We have to help," Luke said.

Mara turned. Luke was wrapping the cord of his beltgrapnel, long abandoned but definitely a useful tool for the exploration of Coruscant's lower reaches, around the metal beam.

"Help who?"

"Help the Vong. Yeah, I know, I know, it's something you've never heard anyone say before." Luke rolled off the beam and fell, his descent arrested by his hand on the cord; more cord deployed from his belt as he descended. "I'm not worried about the fate of the Yuuzhan Vong," he told her. "But we desperately need any resources we can use against Lord Nyax."

Think about that. Luke was willing to help 25 Vong and a Voxyn even after they killed Anakin, Chewie, and a ton of Jedi and civilians. Simply because he knew how powerful Nyax was. The Vong even kind of put aside their differences and kind of focused on Nyax.

But it's not just about the battle between the two. As a "scale guy" yourself, you should understand the weight "power" quotes carry. After all, how many people scale above Valkorion who can cause planetary upheaval? Darth Vader?

Luke has understood the threat of Nyax, and doesn't think his own power is enough. Nyax's power was wanked all throughout the novels.

Nyax Threat:

Moreover, think about who Mara and Luke have witnessed and see how much they're wanking Nyax's power. You may believe Luke's power is hindered but, he still knows what power feels like - he still knows how powerful things are. Are we of the impression that if ROTJ Luke walked through the door that Luke would go bananas over his power? Same with Malgus. The idea that Luke and Mara would wank the hell out of Malgus, and then have to team up with 25 Vong to take him down is ridiculous. The idea that Malgus would function better than Hett against 5-6 Vong is absurd, let alone 5 times that amount and Luke and Mara.

If you're going to argue that Luke's wank carried over to fear in the battle, then Luke was scared BECAUSE of Nyax's power. I don't see how this avails you if that's the route you choose to take? Nyax was so powerful that Luke was frightened of him and couldn't utilize his full strength? Naturally, we can assume Luke is more powerful than this?

"He's more powerful than me but only because I'm holding back. I plan to die here today without using my power."

Yes, his second encounter weighed down on him when he was about to face him, but not in a way that hindered his powers. He wasn't terrified or hindered in a way that wasn't already covered and, it would merely provide him a reason to fight harder if anything. This was also precisely because of his initial battle against Nyax. Luke experienced his power first hand with a ton of backup and still thought he would lose a rematch. This is a very incongruous thought process if Luke, in fact, possessed the power to defeat Nyax on his own.

Why would Luke even fear for Mara's life and thus weaken himself if he was strong enough to beat Nyax on his own?

I don't perceive how you think this is a fair point. If Luke was that powerful that he could defeat Nyax singlehandedly to a point where Luke merely has to access a Malgus-level fraction of his power; then he can bypass the fear for Mara entirely. Even if we accept your logic - that Luke was hindering himself for fear of Mara - it collapses in on itself due to severe redundancy. Why is it acceptable to think he's fearful of an apparently severely weaker being? You've posted the quote of him knowing his own power is there. You know this doesn't fly. This isn't a psychologic problem much like Darkside. Nyax was a tangible being that goes away if he stops being fearful; there is no reason Luke would be wallowing in fear over him if he were that much weaker.

Luke isn't exactly keencraft to call singular beings more powerful than him as well without merit. It was firmly established that Nyax was powerful separate from Luke's own power. It's not a stretch to imagine he's also more powerful than Luke when we accept the quotes. If we bring this back to your "jobbing" conundrums, then Nyax was established as an extremely potent force on his own. Nyax was shown to be above Luke multiple times. Luke wasn't noted as being weaker in the novel. Luke didn't make excuses for being weaker. And Nyax didn't produce an established history of losing to things lesser Jedi can beat decisively. There is no reason why we shouldn't accept he was more powerful. None of the context involved with Luke's other botchfests was present, mind you this seems like a theme with your entire argument - just add your own context and assume it sticks.





To reiterate why Nyax is pretty cool:

• Luke wasn't actually weakened during the war. Luke not wanting to draw on his power is not synonymous with weakened. He could still feel his own power within his body, and he could still draw on it; it would just exhaust him after he was done... in ONE NOVEL early on in the war. While you try to insert "diminished" into the quotes, it doesn't actually say that and actually says the exact opposite.
  
• Neither Anakin nor Yoda is Luke. Their issues with their own Force usage is their own, and neither was explicitly stated or shown to be limited except when Anakin tries to stop himself from drawing on the Darkside so much Mid-battle. Even then "Barely walk" Anakin was still able to hold off against Count Dooku.
  
• Neither random Jedi or Darth Sion is Luke. Luke, when faced with adversity, has overcome it. HK converted Jedi by killing allies, and Darth Sion killed himself because he saw another way. Luke healed his wife and experienced another time when the Lightside prevailed over the Darkside.
  
• Luke has overcome way worse mental issues than the made-up reasons you provided in Rebel Stand.
  
• Any sort of made-up reasons you provided for Rebel Stand still allow a Jedi to operate in full capacity, contrary to KOTOR 2/HK videos.
  
• Luke's wife wasn't dying, nor was he dealing with Vong he didn't understand and therefore wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing
  
• Luke and Mara have done better than A'Sharad Hett against the Vong; who in your opinion scales wildly above Darth Malgus.
  
• 25ABY!Luke was stated to be more powerful than ROTJ!Luke, who should be wildly above Malgus per your opinion.
  
• The Vong have very capable speed feats that make failing to get hit by over a dozen of them a very good feat.
  
• The humans weren't shown to perceive anything important.
  
• Malgus' one-speed feat isn't very impressive.
  
• Nyax was stated to be more powerful than Luke with no excuses. Nyax was more powerful than Luke while both were drawing off of pure power - something you argue Luke feared.
  
• Everyone was intended to be fast, and you have to make severe logic leaps to argue Malgus could blitz Nyax. 17 Vong, Luke, Mara, and Tahiri could only land one hit on Nyax - by Luke.
  
• You have shot yourself in the foot with numerous quotes you thought would seal the deal - Maul not being able to see Vong, Luke's power still being there - or have provided arguments that are basically described in sources as ways for a Jedi to not be hindered. Or just argued about power increases and therefore speed increases, even though you write off actual super powerups, etc
  
• There isn't even a scaling chain or quote that would put Luke above Nyax for that matter in any era to my recollection. I'm not saying Nyax was perpetually above any version of Luke, but you're calling him weak with a severe lack of evidence. Later Lukes are only above Nyax based on feelings, so I don't understand how we can say Luke was definitively jobbing? But to make it easy, Nyax was more powerful than 27ABY!Luke could possibly beat, and that is enough to rank high here.
  
• Etc again.
  
• NYAX
  

Basically there are no extenuating circumstances why Nyax was shown as this huge power level besides Nyax's own power. Nyax was powerful because he was powerful, not because Luke was weak. Luke's "mental issues" were not at play against Nyax, and there are reasons from sources you pulled from and sourcebooks to allow Luke to access his power even if you were correct. Nyax has outdone many people against Vong, and has outdone Luke as well. There are no limitations that make sense to be in place that allow you to go "jobbing" just so you handwave the entire character away.

And this level of power would absolutely shred Malgus, just as I said earlier.



So with all this being said, I vote for Brakiss Nyax. NYAX!



It just makes sense to me.

Deronn_Solo wrote:I'm gonna be controversial and vote Kyp Durron.

Stratch that -- Ant changed the metric, lmao.


Gonna drop my Kyp thesis in a blog or something.

Yoda.

Obi Wan's speed in that instance is stated to be "supersonic" pretty explicitly

That puts it at above 350 m/s or much quicker than traitor Jacen so that point doesn't stand

As much as I find Nyax as good candidate, my vote goes to Vol.

I'm gonna read Bran's post when I get home from school. Holy shit that's long lmao.

Voting Jaina Solo

Anyway, I'll vote for KF Vader for now, but could be swayed to join #TeamNyax if Bran's post is good.

On most days, that would have been an easy job for two Jedi Masters and Jaina Solo, who, as Sword of the Jedi, had proven time and again that she was the combat equal of anyone in the Order.

Source: Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse

StrangerThingsFan77 wrote:Anyway, I'll vote for KF Vader for now, but could be swayed to join #TeamNyax if Bran's post is good.

Cilghal>Malgus was the best part of the post.

Need some time to read both arguments for Krayt and Nyax. But for now my vote goes for Darish Vol. (also waiting to see a case for Unu from @The Ellimist)

I’m currently somewhere in the middle of Yoda, KFV, Revan, Unu and Vol.

We’ve never seen vol actually fight, so I’m gonna toss him out a window.

Malgus’d Likely need the greatest amp to kill KFV, Yoda or Revan, so that narrows it. I’d like to see a case for any of the three before voting.

Since noone is making a case for Yoda (not that it's necessary), I will do one if I have free time.

NYAX

Uncle Nyakuni for me