★ Top Fifteen Tournament #5 - Anakin Skywalker / Darth Krayt

Belkadan scaling

Jacen recalled watching his uncle on Belkadan, where the war had begun, wielding two lightsabers when he had come to Jacen's rescue.

The Unifying Force wrote:But the rescue on Belkadan paled in comparison to the control Luke demonstrated now. His single blade might as well have been ten, or twenty. He took the steps at a lightning pace, burning his way through dilating membranes but in complete control of his momentum. Seen through the Force he was a maelstrom of luminous energy, a Force storm against which there was no shelter. And yet all his energy poured from a calm center; an eye.

He made no missteps. None of his actions were interrupted by thought. In fact, Luke didn't seem to be there at all-physically or as an individual personality. Jacen and Jaina were astounded-but they had little time to reflect.

This feat pales in comparison to the above, per Jacen’s testimony. It shows an absolutely insane difference between Luke at the start of the Vong war, getting tired from killing three Vong, to him storming Shimmra’s citadel, bearing the brunt of most of her armies for several floors, appearing like maelstrom of luminous Force energy, and then “not even breathing hard” by the end of it.

Dark Tide: Onslaught wrote:
Then, distantly, he heard the snap-hiss of a lightsaber being ignited. Almost as if an echo, the sound repeated itself. The youth raised his head and looked out the doorway, past the creeper. Half the rising sun burned in the east, pouring molten gold light out over the horizon, and in the center of it came a dark form. It broadened slightly as it approached, and two green blades flanked it. Closer it came and closer, resolving itself into a Jedi Master, dark cloak flowing behind him, twin blades held more like warning torches than weapons.

While his uncle was distant enough to seem no taller than a toy figure, a Yuuzhan Vong warrior darted at him from the left. The Yuuzhan Vong smashed his amphistaff down at Luke's head. The Jedi Master raised his right lightsaber to block the blow and could have easily stroked the other blade across the Yuuzhan Vong's unprotected stomach. 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.

Another Yuuzhan Vong came in from the right and slashed his amphistaff at Luke's middle. Luke leapt back from the tip, then caught the return cut on both lightsaber blades. He raised the amphistaff high in a parry, then spun beneath it. As the Yuuzhan Vong warrior whirled to face the Jedi Master again, a fist-size stone shot from the ground and clipped the warrior in the side of the head. It shattered his helmet, spraying pieces of it into the air, then another slammed into his shoulder. More stones stormed through the air as if trapped in a cyclone, battering the alien warrior relentlessly. Finally one arced in at his forehead, skipped off the shallow dome of his head, and dropped him cleanly to the dirt.

A third warrior came at Luke, but he displayed more caution than his enthusiastic companions had. He twirled his amphistaff around like a propeller, arcing cuts in at Luke's feet or head. The Jedi Master dodged back, then leapt above a slash. He used the Force to push himself high in the air, then he twisted through a somersault and landed behind his foe.

The Yuuzhan Vong whipped around and snapped a kick through Luke's legs. The blow caught Luke in the ankles, dumping him on his back. The Yuuzhan Vong continued his spin, then came up and brought his amphistaff around in an overhand blow at Luke's head.

In the time it took for his foe to complete a revolution, the Jedi Master rolled through a backward somersault and came up on one knee. He raised the lightsabers and crossed them, catching the amphistaff above his head at the green blades' nexus. Furious at being caught, the Yuuzhan Vong flexed his amphistaff, which opened a fang-filled mouth. It reared back, ready to strike at Luke's face. The amphistaff's hiss and the Yuuzhan Vong's triumphant snarl filled the air.

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.

The warrior collapsed to the ground. The remains of its amphistaff writhed in the dust beside him, gradually subsiding.

Luke rose to his feet and stalked forward. Several stones, as if little rodents fleeing from his advance, rolled on ahead of him. They bowled over the creeper and crushed it. The Jedi Master stepped over the oozing mess the stones left in the doorway, then strode past Jacen without a word. Lightsabers hissed and popped, then went silent. Jacen slowly floated to the ground.
[...]
"They don't exist anymore. They are dead, or, I don't know, somehow they have gone completely over to the Yuuzhan Vong camp. Perhaps they accepted what they are becoming." Luke leaned heavily on his nephew. "We have to get to the ship."

Jacen hugged his right arm around Luke's waist. "What's wrong? Did they hurt you?"

"No, Jacen, it's just that..." Luke's chest heaved with exertion. "It's just that using that much of the Force, using it that directly, is exhausting. A Jedi may be able to control and use a great deal of the Force, but there is a price, a fearful price. Hurry, we have to go, quickly."

Jacen hustled his uncle along. "Where are we going?"

Dark Nest Luke

Luke has to draw deeply on the Force to bolster his strength against Raynar’s mind probe, and he even receives assistance from Mara, Saba and Leia pouring their strength into him. He thought the probe was like “it were being driven by a thousand Raynars.”

”Dark Nest: The Joiner King” wrote:
Raynar's eyes grew very dark around the edges, and suddenly Luke could see nothing else. The murky presence began to reach into his mind, trying to push its way inside his thoughts to read his intentions. Luke was astonished by its power and had to reach deeply into the Force to bolster his own strength. Though the probe was hardly subtle or refined, it felt as though it were being driven by a thousand Raynars, and he feared for a moment that in his surprise he would be overwhelmed by its sheer might.

Then he felt Mara pouring her own strength into him, and Saba and even Leia. Together they pushed the dusky hand back. Luke found himself looking once again into the blue, lidless eyes of their host, and he finally began to comprehend just how difficult it was going to be to reach Raynar Thul.

Luke is more resolute than ever about how his actions align with the Will of the Force, and he claims to see the dark side more clearly than ever. I believe he is referring to the Unifying Force here.

”Dark Nest: The Joiner King” wrote:
Raynar stepped toward Luke, and suddenly the dark presence returned, pressing against him, trying to push him toward the edge of the dais. Luke opened himself to the Force and pushed back, standing firm until Raynar came toe-to-toe with him, and they stood glaring into each other's eyes, two strangers who had been, in another life, Master and pupil.

"We have heard about this new Force of yours," Raynar said. "And we despair. The Jedi have grown blind to the dark side itself."

"Not at all," Luke said. "We have learned to see it more clearly than ever, to recognize that the dark side and the light side spring from the same well-inside us."

"And which side is it that wishes to find Jaina and the other Jedi Knights?" Raynar asked. "The side that knows what is right? Or the side that serves the Galactic Alliance?"

"The side that the serves the will of the Force," Luke answered. "Everywhere."

Another reference to TUF.

”Dark Nest: The Joiner King” wrote:
Luke's confusion filled the Force behind her. "Does it matter? A Jedi serves the Force, and if his actions interfere with the balance of the Force-"

"I know," Leia said wearily. "I just miss the days when all this was simple."

Sometimes, she wondered whether the tenets of this new Jedi order were an improvement or a convenience. She worried about what had been sacrificed to this new god Efficiency-about what had been lost when the Jedi abandoned their simple code and embraced moral relativism.

Luke creates a double-layered illusion of the Jade Shadow, which requires him to draw on perhaps more Force power than we’ve ever seen of him up to this point. Luke “opened himself wide to the Force, and it was pouring in from all sides, filling him with a maelstrom of power, imbuing his whole body with its energy.” He “ignored his fatigue”, however, “The effort of maintaining both illusions began to deplete the energy running through him, so Luke opened himself up completely, using his fear for Ben's life, his anger at the insects that were threatening it, to draw more Force into himself. Every centimeter of his body began to nettle with its sting, and a faint aura arose from his skin.” Then “Luke continued to maintain both illusions, the Force pouring through him like fire, burning more fiercely every moment. He was drawing more energy than his body was conditioned to endure, literally burning himself up from the inside.” He believed that what he was experiencing was what happened to Darth Sidious, “He could feel himself aging-his cells weakening, the membranes growing thin and the cytoplasm simmering, the nuclei coming apart.” Artoo even motioned to put him out with a fire extinguisher…

”Dark Nest: The Joiner King” wrote:
Closing his mind to external distractions, Luke began a focusing exercise, breathing in through his nose, filling his belly diaphragm with air, then exhaling slowly out his mouth. He barely felt the Shadow shudder as the first dartships began to pelt her shields with balls of primitive chemical explosives, and when Han's voice came over the comm, he heard the words only with his ears.

"Uh, why aren't you on an escape vector? Is Artoo on the blink again?"

"Negative that," Mara answered. She lowered the Shadow's blaster cannon and began to fire indiscriminately into the cloud of swirling dartships. "We're okay."

"You don't look okay," Han said. "We'll cut the Exxer loose and circle back to-"

"Negative!" Mara snapped. "You do that, we'll never get free of these pests. Keep going-and don't look back. Luke has a trick up his sleeve."

"Copy." It was Leia this time. "If you're sure."

"We're sure." Mara closed the channel, then-as the Shadow's shuddering worsened-added, "I think."

Luke was sure. By then, he had opened himself wide to the Force, and it was pouring in from all sides, filling him with a maelstrom of power, imbuing his whole body with its energy.

A bang sounded back in the engineering bay as a power circuit overloaded, then the lights dimmed as R2-D2 redistributed shield power. Luke felt a surge of anxiety from Mara, but pushed it to one side so he could concentrate on the task at hand. He formed an imaginary picture of the Shadow's exterior, then expanded it into the Force, moving it from his mind out into the cockpit.
Mara turned around and inspected the image carefully, then said, "Looks good."

Luke continued to enlarge the image, extending it into every corner of the vessel, taking his time to absorb the attributes that made up the Shadow's sensor signature. He began to grow tired, but ignored his fatigue and expanded the illusion until it covered the entire ship like an imaginary skin.

Another bang sounded in the engineering bay. This time, before R2-D2 could redistribute power, the sound was followed by the muffled thuds of several hull hits. Mara hit the crash alert, closing all airtight doors and activating the pressure stop-loss systems, then spoke over the intercom.

"Nanna, get Ben into his vac suit."

"I've already done that," the droid responded. "We're waiting at our evacuation station now. Perhaps you should come-"

"Nanna, you short-circuit!" Ben's voice said. "We're fine. Dad said so!"

Trying not to be distracted by his son-or by the steadily growing shudder of the barrage of dartship attacks-Luke brought to mind another image of the Shadow, this time with a black, star-speckled veneer that resembled the emptiness of deep space. Instead of absorbing the ship's sensor signature, however, he blanketed it with a layer of cold emptiness.

Once the illusory skins were in place, he carefully adjusted them, drawing the masking image tight against the hull here, pushing the counterfeit out a little there. The effort of maintaining both illusions began to deplete the energy running through him, so Luke opened himself up completely, using his fear for Ben's life, his anger at the insects that were threatening it, to draw more Force into himself. Every centimeter of his body began to nettle with its sting, and a faint aura arose from his skin.

A third bang sounded from the engineering bay.

"How about that decoy, Skywalker?" Mara asked. "Our shields can't take-"

Luke released the outer skin. "Go!"

Mara shoved the throttles to overload, then, half a second later, shut down the drives. The Shadow slid out of her double and-still masked by the dark veneer Luke had constructed - glided quietly away from the Force illusion.

The shuddering stopped. Luke continued to maintain both illusions, the Force pouring through him like fire, burning more fiercely every moment. He was drawing more energy than his body was conditioned to endure, literally burning himself up from the inside. It was not really a dark side act-to a modern Jedi, the dark side was more a matter of intent than deed-but it felt that way to him. According to Mara, this was what happened to Palpatine, and Luke believed her. He could feel himself aging-his cells weakening, the membranes growing thin and the cytoplasm simmering, the nuclei coming apart.

The air around him began to crackle with static.

R2-D2 extended a fire extinguisher and started toward Luke, squealing in alarm.

"It's okay, Artoo!" Mara said. "He knows how far to push it. He's not going to ignite."

I hope, she added silently.

On Luke's tactical display, the illusionary Shadow-the real one was not visible even to her own sensors-was slowly drifting toward the bottom of the screen, still surrounded by a cloud of attacking dartships. A small inset was counting down the seconds remaining until the Force-cloaked Shadow would be far enough from the dartships to restart the drives and flee. The way Luke was hurting, thirty seconds seemed like an eternity.

"We're bringing Juun and Saba aboard now," Leia commed. Her voice was filled with the concern that Luke felt in the Force. "Do you need help?"

They could not answer for fear that the dartships would notice the comm waves and discover the Shadow's true position. Instead, Mara reached out to Leia through the Force, trying to assure her that everything was fine. Though the message would have been clearer coming from Luke, his body was starting to tremble and spark, and he needed all his concentration just to fight his exhaustion.

The XR808g began to drift away from the Falcon on the tactical display, and the Solos started a sweeping turn back toward the "battle." Luke felt Mara protesting through the Force, but the Falcon only began to pick up speed. Leia was angry with them for trying to be heroes; the situation wasn't that bad.

[...]

Luke's skin felt as dry as a Tatooine lake, and tiny haloes of golden light were starting to appear around his fingertips. The Falcon was on a straight heading and accelerating toward the dartships. The inset on the tactical display showed three seconds, two...

Mara brought the sublight drives back online. Luke let the illusions drop and slumped into his chair, his skin prickling and his hair standing on end as the last of the Force energy left his body.

Post-Vong Luke

Grandmaster Luke Skywalker reaches a new height of power following the conclusion of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

Legacy of the Force Luke

Jaina thought she had a fair understanding of Luke’s abilities, but as it turns out, he hadn’t revealed half, maybe not even a quarter, of his Force abilities to her, and she has either seen or knows of most of Luke’s prior exploits including those listed earlier.

”Legacy of the Force: Inferno” wrote:
She had thought she had a fair understanding of his Force abilities, but if his flying was any example, he hadn't revealed half of what he could do. Maybe not even a quarter.

Caedus “Suddenly got an idea of just how much power Luke could muster” - Jacen was either present for or aware of the NJO feats mentioned prior, so even after embracing the Unifying Force philosophy and aligning his actions with the Will of the Force, on several occasions drawing on so much power his cells were glowing and burning his body from the inside out… Luke still had more power tucked away

”Legacy of the Force: Revelation” wrote:
Luke's StealthX nudged him again from behind-how? Caedus couldn't see. Force push? Something metallic inside the fuselage shrieked. He had a sense of someone rummaging furiously in the drives as if looking for a dropped hydrospanner, throwing fragments into the coils. He's ripping the thing apart...

Caedus tried to block Luke in the Force and suddenly got an idea of just how much power Luke could muster. His seat shot forward, sheared off the runners, tipped to one side, and he hit the console at an angle before he could buffer the collision with the Force. Something cracked in his chest.

Caedus Relativity to Legacy of the Force Luke

So, we all know about the first fight between Luke and Caedus in Inferno. The prior context being that Luke was dealing with the immense grief of Mara dying, and then the emotional reaction to seeing Ben, his son, being tortured by Jacen, his nephew. Luke also says, and has said many times, that falling prey to the dark side makes you weak. All of that is granted, however, there are some other details which need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, according to Caedus, in that fight Luke had entered a battle-rage that nothing could have shocked Luke out of, save for Ben himself slipping to the dark side.

”Legacy of the Force: Inferno” wrote:
Luke had beaten him. Luke had just kept coming despite his injuries. He had inflicted more damage on Caedus than he had suffered himself, and he had even escaped the garrote before Ben struck. In fact, it was probably that attack that had saved Caedus's life. Nothing else could have shocked Luke out of his battle rage-only the sight of Ben slipping so far to the dark side.

While it’s granted that Luke had emotional issues surrounding Mara, he wasn’t thinking of them at the time of this fight - all of his thought, focus, attention and emotion was on kiling Caedus. Now, there are two important reasons why if Luke is drawing on this level of focused rage, that he is still fighting way above the level of someone like RotS Sidious.

His knowledge of how to use the dark side, just as of Dark Empire alone, is up there with the late Banite Sith - he learned all of Sidious’ darkest secrets and Sidious even went as far as to call his power immense. He was convinced Luke using the dark side would conquer himself, and Reborn Sidious is 3 solid power increments (at least) above RotJ Sidious, but he is also in a clone body which is “younger and more powerful” than ever. There’s another quote from BFC stating if Luke had chosen the dark side the history of the galaxy would have been written with the pen of a tyrant (all of this is in the Mid-End Dark Empire Luke sections).

Even more important than the above, after The Unifying Force, Luke is no longer afraid of summoning his raw power, and no longer afraid of the Dark Side. He has stated on repeated occasions that he understands the dark side better than ever, and after adopting the TUF Force Philosophy, he does not even view drawing on power so extreme that he set his cells on fire and aged his body similar to Sidious’ own dark side corruption To quote: “We have learned to see [the dark side] more clearly than ever to recognize that the dark side and the light side spring from the same well-inside us” and “It was not really a dark side act-to a modern Jedi, the dark side was more a matter of intent than deed”

”The Unifying Force” wrote:
His single blade might as well have been ten, or twenty. He took the steps at a lightning pace, burning his way through dilating membranes but in complete control of his momentum. Seen through the Force he was a maelstrom of luminous energy, a Force storm against which there was no shelter. And yet all his energy poured from a calm center; an eye.

”The Unifying Force” wrote:
Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force. Shimrra's warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear-only the full measure of their intent to protect their god-king at all costs

”The Unifying Force” wrote:
It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in.

”“Dark Nest: Joiner King” wrote:
"We have heard about this new Force of yours," Raynar said. "And we despair. The Jedi have grown blind to the dark side itself."

"Not at all," Luke said. "We have learned to see it more clearly than ever, to recognize that the dark side and the light side spring from the same well-inside us."

"And which side is it that wishes to find Jaina and the other Jedi Knights?" Raynar asked. "The side that knows what is right? Or the side that serves the Galactic Alliance?"

"The side that the serves the will of the Force," Luke answered. "Everywhere."

”Dark Nest: Joiner King” wrote:
Luke continued to maintain both illusions, the Force pouring through him like fire, burning more fiercely every moment. He was drawing more energy than his body was conditioned to endure, literally burning himself up from the inside. It was not really a dark side act-to a modern Jedi, the dark side was more a matter of intent than deed-but it felt that way to him. According to Mara, this was what happened to Palpatine, and Luke believed her. He could feel himself aging-his cells weakening, the membranes growing thin and the cytoplasm simmering, the nuclei coming apart.

Again, remember, we are talking about a guy who in 10ABY, defeated Reborn Palpatine in a saber duel because he was “too strong”, before having a Force Epiphany and then constant documented Force power growth for decades after, including several spikes from notable challenges he has overcome, and then to top it off Luke gets rid of all fear of using his raw power and falling to the dark side by adopting a morally relatavistic Force philosophy, that lets him “fight in harmony with the Will of the Force” as surely as Shimmra believes in fighting for the Vong gods. Luke isn’t even afraid of using traditionally dark side powers like Force lightning anymore. And hell, Luke has the “greatest adversary” quote only halfway through Dark Empire, so at that meagre stage alone he’s above Yoda.

There is no way you can possibly rationalise the idea that Inferno!Luke is not still far more powerful than the likes of RotS Sidious and Yoda. Inferno is in 40ABY: that’s 30 years of documented power growth after Dark Empire, combined with everything above? Not a chance.

Fighting Luke was a memory Caedus would have to “contemplate at length”. “Now he knew what to expect when Luke discovered who really killed Mara-and when Luke came after him next time, Caedus would be ready.”

”Legacy of the Force: Inferno” wrote:
It was a memory that both frightened Caedus and burned his pride, but it was one that he would have to contemplate at length. Now he knew what to expect when Luke discovered who really killed Mara-and when Luke came after him next time, Caedus would be ready.

Caedus not only has a measure of rage!Luke’s power, but he is preparing for round 2. It’s also widely agreed upon that only Luke can take Caedus down in a fair fight, so literally the only person Caedus knows who can fight at such a level is Luke.

Jaina tried to assassinate Caedus while Luke was lending her an immense amount of Force power. To quote:

“Jaina had never been so filled with the Force. She could feel it in every cell of her body, swirling through her like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. She had never felt so strong or so quick or so alert. She could drive her fist through a durasteel wall, or catch a blaster bolt between her fingers. Despite the red curtain of blood cascading from the gash where Vatok's helmet had split her forehead, she was aware of everything.”

This would include the time in TUF where she battle melded with Luke:
The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.

Look at how Jacen described the feeling of power at that time:

The Unifying Force wrote:What he found instead was formless, supple, and fathomless-an infinite emptiness, but as serene as a wind toppling trees to encourage new growth. A being of light, Jacen was drawing into himself all of Onimi's lethal compounds, neutralizing them and casting them out as sweat, tears, and exhalations. He understood at last why he had failed to catch Anakin's lightsaber when Luke had tossed it to him: he was never meant to catch it, because he had become the lightsaber. He had attained the ability to cut through any resistance in himself; to sever the bonds of preconception; to open a gaping hole into a reality more expansive than any he had ever dared imagine; to heal.

As his grandfather had done, he had broken through the apparent opposites that concealed the absolute nature of the Force, and found his way into an unseen unity that existed beyond the seeming separateness of the world. For a moment all the cosmic tumblers had clicked into place, and light and dark sides became something he could balance within himself, without having to remain on one side or the other.

The consciousness that was Jacen Solo was strewn across the vast spectrum of life energy. He had passed beyond choice and consequence, good and evil, light and dark, life and death. All that had been required of Jacen was complete surrender-a technique once mastered by the Jedi Order but at some point misplaced; transposed to an emphasis on individual achievement, which had opened a way to arrogance. In that the path was available to any who chose to seek and follow it, Jacen understood that the discovery was really a rediscovery.

[...]

He had passed beyond the tradition of the Jedi Order into a more embracing reality. But instead of attempting to steal the authority of the gods, or to become a god, he had finally allowed himself to merge with the Force in its entirety and become a conduit for its raw power, which flowed through him like the thundering headwaters of a great river. The conjoining of the Force and his Vongsense enabled him to render himself small enough to follow Onimi wherever he went or attempted to hide; to counter Onimi's every action, and merge with his living vessel on a molecular level.

Jacen ended their spinning, bringing them to a halt in the center of the bridge, where he continued to parry Onimi's strikes. The Supreme Overlord's lolling eye fixed him with a gimlet stare. Gradually Onimi began to understand, as well. He grasped that Jacen wasn't defending himself so much as using Onimi's own strengths against him.

Jacen was fighting without fighting; drawing Onimi deeper into the struggle by demanding more of Onimi's indigenous toxins, to the point that he couldn't keep up. Jacen was the vacuum, the dovin basal singularity into which Onimi was being sucked. Jacen had become the dismantling void that was drawing Onimi into a slender thread, attenuating him to the point of infinite smallness. Onimi's self-deformed face began to change. His arteries pulsed and his veins bulged from beneath his pale skin.

Onimi fought with everything that remained in him, but Jacen could not be overwhelmed. As a pure conduit of the Force, he was incapable of taking missteps or making wrong moves. He stood not at the edge of the tilting ecliptic of his vision, but at the center, as a fulcrum. The weight that would disturb the balance was Onimi, but to Jacen, that weight was no longer of sufficient mass to make a difference. The Force encased Jacen like a whirlwind, moving deep into the darkness the Yuuzhan Vong had brought to the galaxy, and gathering it and sending it up the spout into the funnel cloud, where it was transformed and dispersed. Onimi was becoming more insubstantial by the moment.

Jacen continued to stand firm, righting the world. He had become so powerful as to be dangerous to his own galaxy, for he could see clearly the temptations of the dark side and the desire to force one's will on others-to so completely dominate that all life would kowtow to him. He purged his mind of all pride and evil intent and entered a moment of unadulterated bliss, where he seemed to have unlocked the very secrets of existence. He knew that he would never again be able to reach this exalted state, and at once that he would spend the rest of his life trying.

Now granted, I don’t think Jaina quite reached the same peak, but what Jacen is referring to is the Unifying Force Philosophy which, at that point in time, Luke, Jacen and by proxy Jaina were all embracing fully - they were sharing one mind, and that mind was The Force, in harmony with its will.

So Jaina’s amplification from Luke was even more drastic, seemingly by a hell of a lot, than the Unifying Force Meld. Now if you read the fight below, Caedus is completely convinced that he is fighting Luke Skywalker, he doesn’t once question whether it’s an illusion - even though Luke shouldn’t have been able to be in two places at once. Luke is the “one swordsman in the galaxy” he doesn’t dare fight with a busted shoulder. He later states he will use the pain to fuel him, but his shoulder is still busted in the fight.

The other major factor here is that Jaina knows Jacen’s fighting style intimately (twins who have Force melded before) but she has spent the last months training specifically to assassinate Jacen with a brutal, unpredictable fighting style - this was a major advantage when Venamis tried to kill Plagueis. After a lengthy duel where blows are blocked, dodged and traded, Jaina eventually cuts off Jacen’s arm, but he straight up ignores the pain, his eyes glow with anger, and he slams Jaina in the gut, blasting her with lightning and throwing her across the room. At this point she was still being amped by Luke, because it is minutes after this that she sees “an abrupt draining as her Force energies returned to their normal level.”

”Legacy of the Force: Invincible” wrote:
But the second pellet, the one that didn't miss, caught Caedus in the shoulder and sent him spinning. With Roegr's sword arm still trapped in an elbow lock, he pulled the Mandalorian around with him, and Jaina's next burst of mag-pellets slammed into the blue plate still affixed to the dead man's back. The impact tipped the balance, driving Caedus over a row of seats and out of sight down on the floor.
[...]
Caedus was on his feet again, dancing back and forth, his wounded arm hanging limp at his side, wielding his lightsaber one-handed and still deflecting everything that Vatok and the other Mandalorian were pouring down toward the Moffs.
[...]
She pushed the barrel of her QuietSnipe through the hole she had made and pulled the trigger. But this time, Caedus was not surprised. He spun away even as she opened fire, leaping in close to engage Vatok hand-to-hand, deftly placing the big Mandalorian between Jaina and himself.

Jaina did what Fett would have done-what Vatok himself would have done-and continued to fire, doing her best to direct her pellets past his shoulders into Caedus:and failing. Even without the bodyguards' blaster bolts streaming up to blind her as they ricocheted off the exterior of her viewing panel, half her pellets were driving dents into Vatok's back plate, and the rest were sailing harmlessly past to destroy seats.

Though Vatok still had two good arms and Caedus had only one, it was all he could do to defend himself-and Jaina suspected that was only because her brother needed to keep using Vatok as a shield.
[...]
Before she had even pulled the barrel out of her makeshift firing port, Caedus had Force-hurled Vatok down between the seats and was driving his lightsaber down toward the Mandalorian's head. Even without the scream, Jaina would have known her friend was dead.
[...]
The sniper was not surprised. The weapon simply spun free as it was abruptly released, and the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber sounded from inside the projection booth. Despite the pellet wound his shoulder had suffered earlier, Caedus did not hesitate to activate his own blade. His pain would only fuel his power, and if he did not attack the sniper, he knew the sniper would attack him. He Force-leapt up through the hole into the smoky, flashing interior of the booth and pivoted around to block the fan of blue light that came slicing toward his neck even before he could sense who he was fighting.

Whoever it was, the enemy was good.

Caedus felt a boot slam into his ribs-an instant before he saw it coming with his Aing-Tii fighting-sight-and the breath left his lungs. He countered with a head-high backslash and brought his own foot up, landing a Force-enhanced snap-kick between the legs of the brown-robed blur attacking him. The blow drew a pained grunt but failed to even stagger his foe.

A bony elbow slammed up under his chin, rocking him onto his heels. Then, finally, Caedus felt a familiar tingle in the back of his mind, and he saw the image of a violet blade slashing at his vulnerable side. He swept his own lightsaber down across the front of his body in a desperate reverse block that barely caught the attack in time to prevent it from slicing him in two, then whirled into a spinning back kick that landed squarely in his foe's stomach and drove him back:a mere two steps.

It was enough.

Now Caedus could see who he was fighting, and he could not believe it. A gaunt-faced man with eyes as blue and cold as vardium steel, nostrils flaring red with anger and exertion, a thin-lipped snarl filled with confidence and disdain.

Luke Skywalker.

Just a few minutes earlier, Caedus had sensed his uncle's presence far above Nickel One, in the same blastboat as his mother, father, and Saba Sebatyne. And now here Luke was, inside the asteroid. Even Jedi Grand Masters could not be in two places at once-Caedus knew that-but he did not waste time being confused.

All that mattered was that Luke was here, somehow, and that he was the one swordsman in the galaxy whom Caedus did not dare fight one-armed. Even as Luke leapt forward weaving a basket of lightsaber slashes, Caedus sprang back out of the projection booth, launching himself into a high Force flip designed to put as much distance between himself and his attacker as possible.

Luke flew after him, not even bothering to try for the high position, simply coming up under him with a wild slash combination that was anything but subtle or deft or even tricky; just pure relentless ferocity. Caedus had to stretch himself out belly-down in midair to meet the attack, and even calling on the Force to bolster the strength in his good arm, it was all he could do to keep the powerful strikes from knocking his guard aside and leaving him wide open.

They started to drop, trading a trio of lightning-fast blows that left Caedus's hands stinging and his heart racing. The last time he had fought Luke, he had started with a painful kidney wound but two good arms-and barely managed to survive. Now, with a relatively bearable shoulder wound and a single good arm, he had to do more than survive, he had to prevail-because now there would be no mercy at the last minute. This time, his uncle would not care whether he survived as long as Caedus died, because now Luke knew the truth about who had killed his wife.

After the third exchange, Caedus and Luke came down in the seating area, two rows apart. Both landed on their feet, Luke more lightly than Caedus.

Caedus deactivated his lightsaber and flicked his hand downward, arming the dart thrower he had begun wearing beneath his sleeve after their last fight.

But Luke did something even more unexpected, removing one hand from his lightsaber and pushing the palm forward. An instant later, the unseen hammer of a Force blast caught Caedus in the sternum and drove him not over, but through the seats behind him.

He slammed into the next row and dropped to the floor foot-to-foot with the big Mandalorian he had killed earlier-the one in the black armor and red helmet. Caedus's head was spinning and his chest was more than aching-it was throbbing, burning, clenching so tightly he could hardly breathe.

But he still had his lightsaber-and he needed it. He thumbed the activation switch and brought the weapon up just as Luke's blue blade came slicing down toward him. Caedus caught it on his own crimson blade, then straightened his arm, simultaneously parrying and pointing the dart thrower on his wrist into his attacker's face.

"Release!" he commanded.

A faint puff of air tickled Caedus's forearm as the thrower launched its darts, but Luke was already whirling out of the way. The slivers streaked past in a harmless black flash and vanished; then Luke was spinning into the row where Caedus lay, positioning himself above Caedus's head for the coup de grace.

There was no time to leap up or loose a bolt of Force lightning, and the angle was particularly poor for blocking and parrying. Caedus's only hope lay at his feet, and he seized that hope with the Force, using it to pull the dead Mandalorian up over him, then hurling the corpse headlong into Luke.

Two bodies collided with the sharp crack of metal impacting bone. When Caedus did not die in the next instant, he realized he had finally driven his uncle onto the defensive. He rolled to a knee, his lightsaber ignited and raised between them.

Luke lay buried beneath the huge Mandalorian, blood pooling around his head and one motionless arm protruding beneath the fellow's side. By all appearances, Luke Skywalker was dead-or at least unconscious.

Caedus's heart began to pound not with fear, but with excitement. His visions of late had been filled with his uncle's face-Luke Skywalker attacking him here on Nickel One, Luke firing on him from one of Fett's Bes'uliike, Luke sitting on Caedus's throne, claiming the New Empire as his own. Had he-Lord Caedus-finally put an end to those visions-finally ruled out the possibility of those futures becoming the future?

Eager as he was to be rid of Luke, Caedus was also suspicious. His uncle had been using a new fighting style, one that he had never taught his students at the Jedi academy-one that he had never, as far as Caedus knew, used on anyone who had survived to describe it. The style was essentially conservative, brutal, and ruthless, designed to deal damage without suffering it-and not all that tricky.

Which meant now would be the perfect time to switch styles and trap an unwary opponent by playing dead. Using the Force to keep the Mandalorian pressed firmly down on Luke, Caedus retreated twenty paces to the body of a fallen stormtrooper, then deactivated his lightsaber and tucked it under his wounded arm. When Luke still did not move, he pulled a fragmentation grenade off the trooper's equipment belt. He thumbed the arming slide, then sent the grenade sailing toward his uncle and the dead Mandalorian.
[...]
Despite the ringing in her ears and the gauze in her head-despite her hugely aching skull and the big knot of hurt swelling on her brow-Jaina had never been so filled with the Force. She could feel it in every cell of her body, swirling through her like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. She had never felt so strong or so quick or so alert. She could drive her fist through a durasteel wall, or catch a blaster bolt between her fingers. Despite the red curtain of blood cascading from the gash where Vatok's helmet had split her forehead, she was aware of everything.

Including that grenade sailing toward her.

So Jaina reached out with the Force and sent it flying back toward her brother. An instant later, the weight pressing down on her grew lighter as Caedus's attention shifted to the grenade. She started to Force-hurl her friend's body off-then recalled how her brother had been anticipating her attacks. She grabbed the beskad hanging from Vatok's waist, then sent his body flying after the grenade.

The iron saber had barely cleared its scabbard before the hammerfist of a grenade detonation jolted the forum. Vatok's body was silhouetted against the orange flash of the explosion. Jaina held him there, shielding herself from the fiery heat of the blast, and felt the searing bite of shrapnel only in her legs.

The detonation swept the last wisps of gauze from Jaina's mind. Not waiting to see if she had been seriously injured, she let her friend's body drop to the floor and leapt after her brother, lightsaber in one hand and Vatok's beskad in the other.

Caedus turned to meet her with his good arm forward and his wounded shoulder behind. Jaina struck high with the lightsaber and low with the beskad. Caedus slipped back, allowing both blades to pass, then sprang forward and counterthrust, trying to impale her with her own momentum.

Jaina was already spinning past his crimson blade, pivoting on a dead stormtrooper's chest plate as she brought Vatok's beskad around at neck height. But Caedus had anticipated her once again, leaning away to take the blow on his wounded shoulder rather than across his throat.

Jaina did not even feel the beskad cleaving bone. She simply heard a voice-Jacen's voice-cry out in shock and pain; then an arm landed on her boots. In the next instant Caedus was whirling away, screaming and flapping a red stump, and something hot and wet splashed across Jaina's face and throat and began to burn like acid.

A part of her-the part that had grown up with Jacen and trained with him on Yavin 4 and traded snowballs at Coruscant's polar playgrounds-was too horrified to act. That part wanted to stand paralyzed in shock, to pretend this was just some terrible nightmare from which she would shortly awaken. The other part-the part that had actually asked for this mission-knew what would happen if she let herself freeze.

Jaina launched herself after Caedus. The loss of an arm did not seem to faze him. He simply turned to meet her attack, his yellow eyes blazing with pain and fury, and their lightsabers met in a brilliant explosion of color. Jaina brought the beskad around again, striking low for his thigh:and knew she was in trouble when Caedus did not even try to block.

Caedus deactivated his lightsaber and let it drop between them. Jaina felt the beskad begin to bite, then her brother's palm sank deep into the pit of her stomach. In the next instant she was riding a bolt of Force lightning across the chamber, her muscles cramping, her teeth grinding, her ears roaring with the fiery sizzle of burning synapses.

A full second later, she slammed into a durasteel wall and felt a terrible popping in her ribs, then dropped to the floor, still holding her lightsaber and the beskad. The Force lightning had died away, but her muscles remained useless aching knots, and the stench of scorched flesh was so powerful she wanted to retch. Instead, she tried to rise-and succeeded only in sparking a dozen different kinds of pain.

Across the chamber, her brother was in little better shape. He sat slumped in a half-collapsed chair, his remaining hand clamped over the stump of his missing arm, his thigh wound dripping blood onto the floor. His yellow eyes were staring at Jaina more in confusion than rage, and his head was cocked as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

"You?" he gasped. "Jaina?"

Jaina managed to raise her throbbing head. It hurt-a lot-and her vision was starting to blur.

"I haven't changed that much, Jacen," she said. With her muscle control beginning to return, she pushed herself into a kneeling position. "And I hope you know how much this Sith nonsense is steaming Mom and Dad."

If Caedus heard her wisecrack, he did not show it. His yellow eyes began to dart around the chamber, searching for something Jaina did not understand-but maybe that was just because her head was throbbing so bad. The pain was beginning to muddle her thoughts.

Somehow, Caedus forced himself back to his feet. That would have been impressive-if it weren't so kriffing scary.

"Where's Luke?" he demanded.

"Right behind me," Jaina said, also standing. The effort sent pangs of anguish shooting through her lungs, and she realized she had a few broken ribs to go with the lightning scorch on her chest. She squinted in his direction, trying to keep him in focus so she could kill him. "Come over here, and I'll show you."

That brought Caedus's gaze snapping back toward her, and Jaina realized she might have overplayed her hand. She still had both arms, but the fact that her brother remained standing at all proved how much greater his Force powers were than her own. She tossed the beskad aside and summoned a fallen stormtrooper's power blaster to hand.
[...]
Then Jaina experienced an abrupt draining as her Force energies returned to their normal level. Suddenly she felt cold, tired, and in pain, and she barely had the strength to hold her lightsaber as it flicked back and forth, batting away blaster bolts. She retreated deeper into the projection booth, stumbling over combat debris that she normally would have sensed without any conscious thought. When she reached the wrecked control panel, she could finally drop behind cover.

Caedus's voice sounded out in the forum, still deep and booming and strong. "Not her! Skywalker is the dangerous one."

Skywalker?

Was Jaina beginning to hear things now, too? Or was Caedus beginning to imagine them?

I would argue that given all the circumstances, the amped!Jaina who feels more connected to the Force than the TUF Meld, thinks she can punch through durasteel and catch blaster bolts, along with her pre-prepped fighting style, is actually more formidable than rage!Luke. The fact is they are comparable. Caedus was in a worse position in the second fight but did much better, and we can explain this by Caedus’ power growing and also just the random nature of fights - no two fights even between the same people will always go the same way.

In summary, Caedus performed very admirably against an iteration of Luke and amped Jaina whom are, at minimum, significantly above Yoda as duelists.

Fate of the Jedi Luke

Finally we come to Fate of the Jedi, where on two occasions, Luke opens himself to the Force fully, at will, without any special circumstances - Luke is now at the height of his power and experience, and has no fear or qualms about using his full raw power in a calm, controlled manner. He no longer fears the pull of the dark side.

”Fate of the Jedi: Vortex” wrote:
Luke opened himself more fully to the Force, using his love for Ben and his lost wife and the entire Jedi Order to draw it into him. The foul miasma of dark side energy, still swirling into Abeloth, seeped into him, filling him with greasy nausea. But the light side rushed in, flowing in from all sides, pouring through him like fire. A golden glow began to rise from his skin- cells literally bursting with the power of the Force-and Luke felt them both start upward again. Abeloth countered, hissing in anger, and they hovered a hand span above the floor.

”Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse” wrote:
Luke had to stop the Korelei-thing-he could not bring himself to even think her true name-or the Jedi's last hope of breaching the Temple would be lost. He opened himself to the Force completely, and the energy came flooding in so fast it seemed to lift him, to carry him down the duct on a raging river of power. When he began to gain on his quarry, he fired again, this time pouring so many bolts into her legs that one actually erupted in flame.

Even in situations where Luke does not use the level of power displayed above, the fact he can call on this power speaks volumes of how much he has grown and overcome from previous decades - he is on a whole other level here even compared to his former selves.

Krayt Is More Powerful Than Caedus

This is supported by:

• Krayt’s cosmic significance is per a myriad of sources greater than Caedus’, and every other Dark Sider apart from Darth Sidious, per numerous sources. And cosmic significance is a direct reflection of the Sith’s personal power, per numerous sources.

• Krayt is clearly closer to Luke in Apocalypse than Caedus was to Luke in Inferno

• Krayt only became more powerful after this when Reborn

For the first bulletpoint, all of that has already been sourced here: https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t1532-the-state-of-krayt-2019#29117

For Apocalypse, it is an undeniable fact that Luke and Krayt mutually needed each other to defeat Abeloth, and it is also undeniable that Krayt did the bulk of the damage to her Force Essence, and while of course Luke landed a larger quantity of weaker strikes and held her in place, that changes nothing about the fact that we can observe Abeloth’s power plummetting directly after Krayt Drains her and then rips his arm out of her chest. I have seen numerous people try to write this off by saying Krayt “cheapshotted” Abeloth or that it was because he had punched into her chest directly that he caused this damage, rather than because of his own Force power - these counter arguments do not in any way address the substance of my own arguments and explanations of how Beyond Shadows Force mechanics play out in a fight, which I have supported by going through the fight line-by-line and citing evidence for each claim I make.

It is also undeniable that Krayt and Luke sustained similarly potent attacks and dropped down from exhaustion at the same time, and the amount of essence energy one can leak out before dropping is directly tied to their Force power, which is why Abeloth takes much longer to kill than Krayt or Luke.

This is sufficient evidence, in terms of raw feats as well as very obvious narrative implication from a variety of collaborating authors, to put Apoc, and surely Reborn, Krayt above Caedus.

Apocalype Krayt Is Closer To Fate of the Jedi Luke Than RotS Sidious

Now, let’s remember something very important: I am not arguing that Krayt is an equal to Luke, or that he can match Luke’s most powerful Force expressions. The ultimate strawman of this entire discussion is people attacking that premise, a premise I have stated I do not agree with countless times now. My premise is this:

Krayt’s performance Beyond Shadows, both the damage he inflicts on Abeloth and the similar display of Force Reserves to Luke, simply proves that he is closer to FotJ Luke than he is someone like RotS Sidious.

Even if like Ellimist you go to painstaking lengths to nitpick the Apocalypse fight (even though I have ran through it line-by-line several times now and explained it to death), invent unsupported arguments about Force nexi, and try to present the fight as one-sided for Luke as possible, the fact is, anyone reading the fight, and who understands what the text tells us about Essence-fighting, cannot possibly justify the idea that the gap between Krayt and Luke there was so big that it is larger than the gap between FotJ Luke and RotS Sidious - you have Dark Empire scaling alone putting Luke above Yoda and Sidious 10 years after RotJ, then, Jedi Academy, Black Fleet Crisis, the entire NJO series, the massive shift in Force philosophy Luke had in TUF which lets him wield his full, raw power without fear on a consistent basis, and then further growth leading up to FotJ where he can glow out of every cell in his body at will in a fight.

Oh, and if you try to mitigate the Apocalypse fight so much that you somehow get through all of that, you also have to deal with the extreme, multi-faceted power increase Krayt had in Legacy: War, which has been documented to death already.

All of the above has been explained, line-by-line, with the source material attached, at least once, if not twice or more. The burden of proof no longer lies at my feet. If there are users who choose not to read my posts, ask questions if they are unsure, or are intent on strawmanning positions I don’t hold and repeating the same debunked arguments against them, by all means, that’s your prerogative. The way debating works is when evidence is presented, the burden then falls on the opposition to accept, reconcile or counter that evidence with some of their own - I have done my part.

Let’s cap this off with some new content.

Reborn Krayt Is Better In Every Way Than Apocalypse Krayt

To quickly summarise the reasons why:

• Undergoing the “pain of death and rapture of rebirth” (rapture: “a feeling of intense pleasure or joy”) served as a “passageway to something greater” which let Krayt “see the galaxy in a new way”. According to Krayt he has “returned with my power multiplied”

• His “understanding of his power” increased

• He is “more evil” and “more determined”

• He has numerous quotes stating he is flat out stronger than ever before

• He is now, for the first time in about a century, back in full control of his body: the vong coral seeds inside of him were “ravaging” his body, eating his flesh, muscle and bone from the inside, and also constantly sapping his willpower as they tried to “consume” his mind, to turn him into a “mindless” Vong mutant - when a normal person is infected with a coral seed, they are turned into a mindless vong mutant in seconds, so surviving with them for a century speaks volumes

Metaphysical Reborn Krayt

I am now going to make the case that Krayt actually healed, and grew, on a metaphysical, spiritual, essence level, based on a wealth of evidence.

There Are Such Things As Spiritual Wounds, and They Heal

We are given an example of this with Cade Skywalker:

“Your scars go deep and are more than physical. They go into the core of your being.”
--Anakin Skywalker

“There is no physical wound. I’m focusing on healing your whole being.”
--K’Kruhk

”The anger in you is like a dagger in the Force, young Skywalker. My true talent is as a healer and I can sense something… broken in you. You are trying to escape something…
--Hosk Treylis

https://imgur.com/a/qQW1PzS

Not to mention the spiritual wound Abeloth left Luke with, which was said to be slowly healing in Crucible.

”Crucible” wrote:Her gaze dropped to Luke’s chest, where his robe covered a mysterious, slow-to-heal wound. He had received it the year before from an ancient being named Abeloth, who seemed to be a chaos-bringing agent of the Force itself. Luke had ultimately triumphed, but the fight had cost him a rib and part of a lung.

“I’m fine. You know the wound only bothers me when I have a Force vision.”
[...]
After a few dozen steps, a golden radiance began to light the surrounding area. He looked down and discovered that his entire body had begun to glow—except where Abeloth had reached into his chest. There, Luke had a dark hole the size of his fist.

Shatterpoint Can See Metaphysical Flaws & Vulnerabilities

Self-Explanatory.

And while Palpatine answered, Mace Windu reached into the Force.

To Mace's Force perception, the world crystallized around them, becoming a gem of reality shot through with flaws and fault lines of possibility. This was Mace's particular gift: to see how people and situations fit together in the Force, to find the shear planes that can cause them to break in useful ways, and to intuit what sort of strike would best make the cut. Though he could not consistently determine the significance of the structures he perceived - the darkening cloud upon the Force that had risen with the rebirth of the Sith made that harder and harder with each passing day - the presence of shatterpoints was always clear.

Mace had supported the training of Anakin Skywalker, though it ran counter to millennia of Jedi tradition, because from the structure of fault lines in the Force around him, he had been able to intuit the truth of Qui-Gon Jinn's guess: that the young slave boy from Tatooine was in fact the prophesied chosen one, born to bring balance to the Force. He had argued for the elevation of Obi-Wan Kenobi to Mastership, and to give the training of the chosen one into the hands of this new, untested Master, because his unique perception had shown him powerful lines of destiny that bound their lives together, for good or ill. On the day of Palpatine's election to the Chancellorship, he had seen that Palpatine was himself a shatterpoint of unimaginable significance: a man upon whom might depend the fate of the Republic itself.

Now he saw the three men together, and the intricate lattice of fault lines and stress fractures that bound them each to the other was so staggeringly powerful that its structure was beyond calculation.

Anakin was somehow a pivot point, the fulcrum of a lever with Obi-Wan on one side, Palpatine on the other, and the galaxy in the balance, but the dark cloud on the Force prevented his perception from reaching into the future for so much as a hint of where this might lead. The balance was already so delicate that he could not guess the outcome of any given shift: the slightest tip in any direction would generate chaotic oscillation. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

And the lattice of fault lines that bound all three of them to each other stank of the dark side.
--Revenge of the Sith

The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun and crackled, while his feet slid and his weight shifted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source.

Feeling for its shatterpoint.

He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now... And it led him, astonishingly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. Mace had no need to look; the presence in the Force was familiar, and was as uplifting as sunlight breaking through a thunderhead.

The chosen one was here.

--Revenge of the Sith

In my dreams, I always do it right.

In my dreams, I'm on the arena balcony. Geonosis. Orange glare slices shadow from my eyes. Below on the sand: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Senator Padme Amidala. On the rough-shaped stone within reach of my arm: Nute Gunray. Within reach of my blade: Jango Fett.

And Master Dooku.

No. Master no more. Count Dooku.

I may never get used to calling him that. Even in dreams.

Jango Fett bristles with weapons. An instinctive killer: the deadliest man in the galaxy. Jango can kill me in less than a second. I know it. Even if I had never seen Kenobi's report from Kamino, I can feel the violence Jango radiates: in the Force, a pulsar of death.

But I do it right.

My blade doesn't light the underside of Fett's square jaw. I don't waste time with words. I don't hesitate.

I believe.

In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade sizzles the gray hairs of Dooku's beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to aim and fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death.

And save the galaxy from civil war.

I could have done it.

I could have done it.

Because I knew. I could feel it.

In the swirl of the Force around me, I could feel the connections Dooku had forged among Jango and the Trade Federation, the Geonosians, the whole Separatist movement: connections of greed and fear, of deception and bald intimidation. I did not know what they were - I did not know how Dooku had forged them, or why - but I felt their power: the power of what I now know is a web of treason he had woven to catch the galaxy.

I could feel that without him to maintain its weave, to repair its flaws and double its thinning strands, the web would rot, would shrivel and decay until a mere breath would shred it and scatter its strings into the infinite stellar winds.

Dooku was the shatterpoint.

I knew it.

That is my gift.

Imagine a Corusca gem: a mineral whose interlocking crystalline structure makes it harder than durasteel. You can strike one with a five-kilo hammer and do no more than dent the hammer's face. Yet the same cystalline structure that gives the Corusca strength also gives it shatterpoints: spots where a precise application of carefully measured force - no more than a gentle tap - will break it into pieces. But to find these shatterpoints, to use them to shape the Corusca gem into beauty and utility, requires years of study, an intimate understanding of crystal structure, and rigorous practice to train the hand in the perfect combination of strength and precision to produce the desired cut.

Unless you have a talent like mine.

I can see shatterpoints.

The sense is not sight, but see is the closest word Basic has for it: it is a perception, a feel of how what I look upon fits into the Force, and how the Force binds it to itself and to everything else. I was six or seven standard years old - well into my training in the Jedi Temple - before I realized that other students, full-grown Jedi Knights, even wise Masters, could sense such connections only with difficulty, and only with concentration and practice. The Force shows me strengths and weaknesses, hidden flaws and unexpected uses. It shows me vectors of stress that squeeze or stretch, torque or shear; it shows me how patterns of these vectors intersect to form the matrix of reality.

Put simply: when I look at you through the Force, I can see where you break.

I looked at Jango Fett on the sand in the Geonosian arena. A perfect combination of weapons, skills, and the will to use them: an interlocking crystal of killer. The Force hinted a shatterpoint, and I left a headless corpse on the sand. The deadliest man in the galaxy.

Now: just dead.

Situations have shatterpoints, like gems. But those of situations are fluid, ephemeral, appearing for a bare instant, vanishing again to leave no trace of their existence. They are always a function of timing.

There is no such thing as a second chance.

If - when - I next encounter Dooku, he will be the war's shatterpoint no longer. I can't stop this war with a single death.
--Shatterpoint

Overcoming Death Is A Catalyst For Spiritual Growth

Maul

Let’s start with Maul. He had a near-death experience, and a prolonged experience of nothing but hatred and suffering. What allowed him to not only survive, but come back stronger? The strength of his spirit.

“My hatred kept my spirit intact even though my body was not.
―Darth Maul (The Clone Wars Season 4 Episode 22: Revenge)

"Hatred is a hard thing to kill. Darth Maul is a being consumed by hatred. I imagine this hatred -- this rage -- fueled him and kept him alive... and somewhere, somehow, that rage grew. As hard as it is to comprehend, padawan, coming back from near death may have made the Sith Lord stronger... and even more dangerous.”
―Jedi Master Salmara (Darth Maul: Death Sentence)

It was also the healing of his mind and body by Mother Talzin which restored him to his former power - however, given that the mind (consciousness) and spirit are one in the same in Star Wars, you can say that this is a form of spiritual healing.

Savage took his wounded brother to their homeworld of Dathomir, where Mother Talzin used her strange powers to heal his ravaged mind… and make his ruined body whole. Restored to his former power, the Sith Lord had only one desire… Revenge!
―The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters
Maul had grown more powerful since the last time he'd been in Sidious's presence, before the Neimoidian invasion of Naboo had turned disastrous and Obi-Wan had bested him inside the Theed power core. His hermitage on Lotho Minor, his lessons on Umbara, his restoration by Mother Talzin, and his training of Savage had all strengthened him, made him a more worthy vessel for the dark side to fill with its power.
―Darth Maul Shadow Conspiracy[/b]

When Krayt died, he referred to his spirit as his “consciousness”, and also, when Luke is healing someone with Mnemotherapy - literally memory therapy translated - they are able to pluck the memories out as a form of Force energy, and even absorb those memories into their own being.

I dimly remember driving my consciousness, my life force, deep within myself, seeking safe haven, while my body served as a prop to another’s ambition.
--Darth Krayt, Legacy: War #1

”Fate of the Jedi: Conviction” wrote:
Luke tried. It was diabolically complicated. He could see Taru's energy, see its parameters, but not the memories themselves-as if, told to look at a river, he could only estimate its course by looking at dry riverbanks. Working with memories was not like working with Force energy...

Wait, it was. For all these memories had a distinctive characteristic, the primal terror experienced by a little girl. Emotion could flavor the Force, and he sought out that emotion, tasting its flavors, sensing where it turned more benign at the boundary of other experiences.
[...]
Within minutes, though he could not see them as images, Luke could sense the presence of the extracted memories as a hovering matrix of thoughts, bound to the Force but not to a body, floating before him and Taru, each of them touching it.

Taru turned to him. "Do you want them?"

Appalled, Luke stared at him. "What?"

"Thei loses them. She does not want them. But they are important, human experiences. We cannot dishonor memory by letting it fade to nothingness. Masters of this technique take those memories into themselves so that they will not evaporate."

Luke seldom found himself shocked, but the notion of internalizing the horror of a five-year-old girl watching her mother die floored him. At the same time, he understood what Taru was saying. "How many-how much of other people's grief do you carry in you, Taru?"

Taru gave him a bitter little smile. "How much do you carry, Master Skywalker?"

"No, I don't... I don't want these memories."

"Then you must release them."

Luke did, and felt a sudden easing of tension he hadn't realized he was experiencing.

Taru raised his hands. His eyes closed.

There was no visible change, but Luke could feel the alien Force element flow into Taru, become part of him. Taru shuddered once. Then his eyes opened. He looked tired. "Done."

"That was..." Something occurred to Luke. "I've done that before."

"I thought perhaps you had. You took to it very quickly."

"Not memories, not as such. But I've rooted out Force energies that didn't belong..." Luke felt tired himself.

Now, that’s just Maul, someone who cannot see past his corporeal existence - who has not experienced true death and returned.

"That’s the nature of the Sith, they don’t see anything beyond their corporeal existence.
―Sam Witwer"

“Yes, Tatsu. Only one consumed by the Dark Side of the Force would cling to life so tenaciously. The Sith crave life above all else"
"I believe Maul’s rage was so powerful, and his knowledge of the Dark Side so great, he simply refused to die…”
―Tatsu & Obi-Wan Kenobi (The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters)

"Hatred is a hard thing to kill. Darth Maul is a being consumed by hatred. I imagine this hatred -- this rage -- fueled him and kept him alive... "
―Jedi Master Salmara (Darth Maul: Death Sentence)

"Maul should have died that day, but his rage and hatred had allowed him to fight back against fate, to summon the Force and survive."
―Darth Maul Shadow Conspiracy

There are a select few beings who have died and come back stronger, and with a new perspective on the Force.

Valkorion

Over the millennia, Valkorion wore many faces and names: Lord Vitiate; Emperor of the Sith; Eternal Emperor of Zakuul. For centuries upon centuries, he shaped and manipulated galactic events, bending the arc of history to his will during his obsessive quest for immortality. A being of unfathomable power and insatiable appetite, he transcended death multiple times, shedding his physical shells as they were discovered, defeated, and destroyed... only to return in another form.

With each rebirth, he grew stronger.
--Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire: Codex Entry: The Fall of Valkorion.

Revan

Revan’s power intensified and his mind grew clearer after being reborn.

"You hid behind Jedi platitudes! You weren't strong enough to survive the torture, or the battle in the Foundry. I faced them! I survived them!"
"You've carried on, dragging the remains of a body that should have long since faded to dust . . . When I died, I had come to terms. I was ready to become one with the Force. But I soon realized that was only what part of me wanted."
"I cast you out! It was the only way to go on - to remain and finish what we started! You were holding me back!"
--Revan and Spirit, Star Wars The Old Republic - Shadow of Revan
"I saw you die. I watched you take your last breath and say your last words." / "You seem rather alive for someone who is supposed to be a corpse."
"Oh, I was dead - for all but a blink . . . Goading me into battle might have worked before I died, but not anymore . . . I've been reborn. My mind is clearer, my power intensified. And now, with the order under my command, I'm unstoppable."
The Outlander and Revan, Star Wars The Old Republic

Cade Skywalker

Cade Skywalker was a changed man immediately following his own rebirth, and he attributes this to a heightened awareness of the underlying connection the Force has to all life.
https://imgur.com/a/hQx3wSO

Darth Krayt’s Rebirth

So with all of that noted, here are the relevant quotes pertaining to Krayt’s death and rebirth.

“Lord Krayt! You live?!”

“Used Force… to break fall. Get me… to bacta tank…! Made Muur… begin healing… in the Force… saw how to heal myself… I can survive! My vision… my dream… for One Sith… will live…!”

“It is a magnificent vision, my Lord. Sometimes for the dream to live… the dreamer must die.”
―Darth Wyyrlok and Darth Krayt

“I remember searing pain, every nerve fiber ablaze… then darkness and cold. I remember the yawning abyss of the grave waiting to suck me all the way in. I remember a secret I learned that opened the galaxy to me anew, and made me see it differently. Astride the grave, I saw the truth of things and fought my way back. I remember betrayal by one who should have been loyal above reproach. I dimly remember driving my consciousness, my life force, deep within myself, seeking safe haven, while my body served as a prop to another’s ambition. I remember healing myself with the Force, gradually becoming stronger, my body protected and trapped by the stasis field. I remember the faithful one, Talon, near enough to hear the thoughts I projected into her mind… to sense my life force and release me. Now I am back. My betrayer will know my revenge. Then I will bend the galaxy to my will.”
―Darth Krayt

“The galaxy must experience the pain of death and the rapture of rebirth as I have.”
―Darth Krayt

“Death is not an ending, boy--but it is a passageway to something greater. It is something you, too, must experience, Cade Skywalker. For I have a vision. You will bend, you will, break, and you will serve at my side. But first--you must die.”
―Darth Krayt

“I am going to kill you, monster!”

“I doubt that. You are the reason that I live.”

“No!”

“Oh yes. You see them, don’t you, Skywalker--red lines of fire--the shatterpoints of your own tenuous existence. I needed to experience death to understand how you did it, but you showed me how to use this dark transfer of energy--how to heal… and how to kill.”
―Cade Skywalker and Darth Krayt

“You are dying, boy, but that is good. Death is the only way you can understand my vision. You see it now, don’t you? It is out of this forge of fire and death-- of chaos and anger-- that you will be reborn. No longer on the edge of light and dark, but a creature of dark energy, wrapped in the shadows of the dark side. Only then will you understand your place in the galaxy.”
―Darth Krayt

“Tell me, my apprentice. Can you defeat death as I did? Can you heal yourself?”
―Darth Krayt

“Krayt’s dead?”

“Stone cold… but… I can still hear his voice--telling me that death can’t stop him… that his body will heal and life will return. He’s infecting me. He’s eating my mind. Only one way to be sure Krayt can’t come back--plunge his body into a sun. Mine too.”
―Morrigan Corde and Cade Skywalker

“You won’t do this, apprentice. If you had truly wanted me dead, you would have cut off my head.”

“Yeah? Not sure even that would work, sleemo. Vaporizing your body in the sun--that ought to do it, don’t you think?”
―Darth Krayt and Cade Skywalker

https://imgur.com/a/eZg9K

Also, just to make it clear there is a Shatterpoint component to this ability:

“Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. You and my Dad opened my eyes to my abilities. I see real clear now. I can see how sick and twisted up your insides are. I can see what fighting me is costing you. Those Vong… things in your innards. Nasty little critters want to take you over real bad. What do they feel like, huh? Something gnawing your guts? Clawing at you? Tell me - do the other Sith know how sick you really are? How weak? What would they do if they knew?”
—Cade Skywalker
“Second-- my father… yeah, you heard me right--showed me how to use my healing gift another way. I can see where a being is weak or broken. I can pour the Force into those “breaks” just enough to heal. Or… I can use it to tear you apart.”
―Cade Skywalker
“You think your stinkin’ Talisman’s so karking perfect, Muur? Well, it ain’t. I can see every flaw. All I have to do is pour the Force into the cracks…”
―Cade Skywalker

Krayt healed himself in every facet - mind, body and spirit - peak condition using a combination of Dark Transfer (a healing ability “unlike” anything Luke Skywalker has ever seen) and Shatterpoint (which allows one to see the most tiny flaws in virtually everything from objects to fights to wars to metaphysical Force phenomena including the future). He also regrew his human arm.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:I don't want this to come across as a mean-spirited targeted attack though. Props to both for putting out good arguments. I just... totally disagree.

May the best sword win.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:- If this were ROTS Palpatine vs Cade, we would expect a very one-sided fight, perhaps analogous to to S5's portrayal of Palpatine vs Maul.

On that note:

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:Maul stared at his Master’s face. He saw the strain as Sidious called upon the Force to keep the brothers at bay. But there was something else there, too—a terrible pleasure. Sidious began to grin.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:The three-pronged duel between Sidious, and Maul and Savage had moved, like some deadly ballet, from the throne room to the steps of the palace. Sidious’s lightsabers twirled swiftly and elegantly, turning aside the furious blows Maul and Savage rained down upon him as the three Sith leapt and spun.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:Maul had fought his Master many times, starting when he was little more than a child and continuing through his apprenticeship. His body bore innumerable scars from those duels—lessons in the peril of being too slow or two quick, too weak or too distracted. During Maul’s apprenticeship he had always known that Sidious had been willing to kill him. The Sith had not survived their centuries of exile by being sentimental, and a student who couldn’t stand against his Master in a mere training exercise was worse than useless—he was a waste of valuable resources better used elsewhere. But Maul had never faced his Master when he was actually trying to kill him.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:But strong as he had become, Maul found himself in awe of Sidious. The Sith Lord was astonishingly fast and efficient, and the Force flowed through him effortlessly. His sabers stabbed and slashed through the smallest hole in an opponent’s guard, his movements never carried him a millimeter out of position, and he could sense every attack Maul and Savage made before it developed.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:Maul tried to slash past Sidious’s guard, only to find his Master had given ground, causing Maul to extend his arms too far and leave himself slightly unbalanced. It was the smallest stumble, easily corrected, but Sidious saw it—and pounced before Maul could draw himself back. Snarling, he reached out with the Force and slammed Maul against the wall, leaving him lying stunned in a heap.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:Sidious neatly side-stepped Savage’s assault, drawing back as the massive Zabrak raised his double-bladed saber high to try to pummel him with it. Savage didn’t think Sidious was fast enough to take advantage of the brief opening in his defenses, but he was wrong.

”Shadow Conspiracy” wrote:Sidious raised his saber and flew at Maul, who parried desperately, his mechanical legs whirring as he sought to counter his former Master’s blows. Sidious’s sabers were a blur, a whirling cage of deadly plasma. Maul danced away from one blow, then reversed his movement to avoid another, and then there were too many to count, and then there were even more than that.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:(a) Krayt's telekinetic attacks are negated by Cade's abilities, which Cade attributes to his Sith training. Krayt then switches to Force lightning.*

Suspect Insight detected. The thing or two Cade learned was a reference to him using a much more powerful light-sided dark transfer, and his “new mastery of the Force” [War #6]

To be fair, considering Krayt hadn’t seen Cade in 30+ comic issues, he wouldn’t really know what to expect - his lightning could have had Legacy #18 Cade in mind.

Oh, and I just thought of this, but Krayt never wanted to kill Cade, in either of their fights. He needed him for healing in the first one, and he wanted to corrupt him to the dark side in the second. Him toying around with Cade using half hearted lightning makes sense.

For another example of this, in Vector, Krayt and Maladi were going to burn down Celeste Morne with Lightning, which Muur agrees was going to overwhelm her. After a dynamic and exciting off-panel tussle, Krayt has dropped his lightning and is Dun Mocking Celeste in a saber lock, asking her to become his acolyte:



This fight was even higher stakes than the second Cade one, since Krayt had just been ambushed from all angles and was due to die pretty soon because of all the Darth Ants eating his insides.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:Krayt's Force lightning is, apparently, unable to subdue Cade. Krayt then switches to lightsaber combat.*

*Note that we've seen ROTS Palpatine's Force lightning blow nearly blow through Mace's lightsaber defense and overtly blow through Yoda's. Krayt's Force lightning doesn't appear to have that affect to Cade, who's still able to force Krayt into a lightsaber duel thereafter.

Here, I have something for you to look at:

”Revenge of the Silly Swords” wrote:
Palpatine lifted his head. His eyes smoked with hate. "Fool," he said. He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons.

"Fool!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "Do you think the fear you feel is mine?"

Lightning blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source. Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified. He fed the power with his pain.

"Anakin!" Mace called. His voice sounded distant, blurred, as if it came from the bottom of a well. "Anakin, help me! This is your chance!"

He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind—

And Palpatine was not afraid. Mace could feel it: he wasn't worried at all.

"Destroy this traitor," the Chancellor said, his voice raised over the howl of writhing energy that joined his hands to Mace's blade. "This was never an arrest. It's an assassination!"

That was when Mace finally understood. He had it. The key to final victory. Palpatine's shatterpoint. The absolute shatterpoint of the Sith. The shatterpoint of the dark side itself. Mace thought, blankly astonished, Palpatine trusts Anakin Skywalker...

Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.

Palpatine's eyes glowed with power, casting a yellow glare that burned back the rain from around them. "He is a traitor, Anakin. Destroy him."

"You're the chosen one, Anakin," Mace said, his voice going thin with strain. This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade. "Take him. It's your destiny."

Skywalker echoed him faintly. "Destiny..."

"Help me! I can't hold on any longer!" The yellow glare from Palpatine's eyes spread outward through his flesh. His skin flowed like oil, as though the muscle beneath was burning away, as though even the bones of his skull were softening, were bending and bulging, deforming from the heat and pressure of his electric hatred. "He is killing me, Anakin—! Please, Anaaahhh—"

Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—"

"Ahhh—" Palpatine's roar above the endless blast of lightning became a fading moan of despair. The lightning swallowed itself, leaving only the night and the rain, and an old man crumpled to his knees on a slippery ledge. "I... can't. I give up. I... I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender."
[...]
Mace thought blankly, Why? And moved his lightsaber toward the fallen Chancellor. Before he could follow through on his stroke, a sudden arc of blue plasma sheared through his wrist and his hand tumbled away with his lightsaber still in it and Palpatine roared back to his feet and lightning speared from the Sith Lord's hands and without his blade to catch it, the power of Palpatine's hate struck him full-on.

”Revenge of the Silly Swords” wrote:
The end came with astonishing suddenness.

The shadow could feel how much it cost the little green freak to bend back his lightnings into the cage of energy that enclosed them both; the creature had reached the limits of his strength. The shadow released its power for an instant, long enough only to whirl away through the air and alight upon one of the delegation pods as it flew past, and the creature leapt to follow-

Half a second too slow.

The shadow unleashed its lightning while the creature was still in the air, and the little green freak took its full power. The shock blasted him backward to crash against the podium, and he fell.

He fell a long way.

It seems like Sidious was trying really really hard to kill Mace and Yoda. Krayt is having a kind-spirited discussion (much like ours here) with Cade. In fiction, exclamation points ! usually tell us if a Sith is trying to Greydoll his opponent, but Krayt isn’t using any Greydoll symbols here.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:A significant amount of lightsaber fighting takes place off-panel. Cade and Krayt move from within the Sith Temple to outdoors.

Silly Sith temples have a confusing aura about them, but I think I can explain. Basically, after careful, undiluted analysis, I agree with your viewpoint: they were inside, and then before we knew it, they were outside.

Here it is shown that Cade used the same silly secret tunnel he used the first time he broke into the silly Sith temple. When looking at it head-on, we see a bridge and some stairs leading up to an entrance, surrounded by lots of flat ground where a silly ship might be able to land.



And if we look at an aerial view of the temple, we see the same steps leading down from the entrance. The same steps that Cade’s mom parks next to when she comes to take his cellphone and ground him.



See below: Krayt is standing right next to the entrance so it makes sense that the fight would spill down the steps.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:Just because much of the fight isn't shown for story reasons -- it's not necessary to show Cade and Krayt extensively fighting back and forth -- doesn't mean it's not important for our versus analyses. Comics have to condense and streamline events. Here's Yoda vs Palpatine, for example

An extremely well thought out point I had never considered. If you don’t mind I have something to add to your observation here.

Look at the comic page number for Legacy: War #6:


Revenge of the Sith #4, which covers the final 50 minutes of the movie, has 8 less pages to work with:


Every Legacy duel I can think of has more pages and a lot more happening than the 6 panels which comprises Krayt and Cade’s duel, so I guess all of these guys “extensively fighting back and forth” was important to show for story reasons. I wonder why in the climatic duel between the main protagonist and antagonist of the series, their “extensive fighting back and forth” down some steps wasn’t important for story reasons? I have a theory: it might be because nothing important to the story happened.

A more perfect comparison is hard to think of than the Revenge of the Sith #4 comic, which attempts to cram 50 minutes worth of a movie into 32 comic pages, but maybe if we compare the duel in Legacy War #6 to the duels in Legacy #1 - Legacy #50 and Legacy War #1 - Legacy War #5 we might get an even more informative comparison of when a fight is important to the story and when it isn’t.
https://imgur.com/a/ExvIN
https://imgur.com/a/LzTwm
https://imgur.com/a/VpZi7
https://imgur.com/a/ccJ97
https://imgur.com/a/2IW3H
https://imgur.com/a/RvNom
https://imgur.com/a/ZbfGu
https://imgur.com/a/paKz1
https://imgur.com/a/VpZi7
https://imgur.com/a/AP04o
https://imgur.com/a/l6HHX

Doing the mathematics on this one, we have:

• 4 pages for Obi-Wan Kenobi vs A’Sharad Hett
  1 page for Krayt vs Four Imperial Knights
  3 pages for Wolf Sazen and Shado Vao vs Sith Assassins
  6 pages for Roan Fel vs Darth Kruhl
  3 pages for Darth Talon vs Shado Vao and Wolf Sazen
  5 pages for Cade vs Darth Nihl, which is taking place at the same time as the one below
  3 pages for Darth Talon vs Shado Vao and later Antares Draco
  4 pages for Krayt vs Cade round 1
  3 page for Antares Draco vs some Sith and Darth Havok
  5 pages for Darth Krayt vs Darth Wyyrlok
  1.4 pages for Krayt vs Cade
  

You know, it seems like all of the duels which are one-sided have less pages than the duels which are close.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:(b) "Krayt showed vast Force superiority over Cade."

False. Krayt blasts Cade with telekinesis at the start of the fight, but when he tries it again Cade mocks its futility and Krayt grows angry and tries Force lightning instead. That apparently fails too. Cade also sees through Krayt's end-all, be-all telepathic attack that Krayt's seemingly been hyping up this entire mini-series.

Blasting a combat-ready Cade who had just TK-deposited Talon at Krayt’s feet into a pillar and then swooshing him in mid-air, while speaking to him calmly, seems like he might have a Force advantage. But you must know more than me.



Extra points: Krayt held Cade in the air while the below dialogue was exchanged means that lots of on-panel story-driven time passed while Cade floated in the air against his will.

”Legacy: War #6” wrote:Cade: “You and Darth Schutta taught me a couple of tricks while I was here. I’m a fast learner.”
And I make things up as I go.

Krayt: “It’s doesn’t matter.
As with your allies, your battle here was lost before you arrived. Surrender.”

Cade: “Not gonna happen!”

Ever tried reading comic dialogue out loud - dramatic pauses and all - to see how much time must have passed as they were speaking? I have. This one took me 15 seconds, but I bet if you really put your back into it like DMB your version could go upwards of 20 seconds.

Not bad, huh? Holding someone in the air with telekinesis for 15 seconds while having a conversation with them? Krayt must be a pretty nice guy considering Cade was there to kill him. If someone was trying to kill me, I might press the issue more… maybe a few Greydollian angry ! symbols would find their way into my dialogue. Of course, as we know from reading the comic with our eyeballs, Krayt asked Cade nicely to surrender, so it doesn’t seem like he is going into an ILS (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ILS) rage mode.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:(c) "Krayt never showed any concern in the fight and only uses one lightsaber."

Misleading. We only see Krayt's face in a few panels

Don’t you think it would be a marvelous idea if we had a look at Krayt’s face in those few panel? I do, so let’s do that.

Even taking into consideration the nice pearly whites Krayt showed us, his face in every other panel is quite neutral. Combined with his cool Ant collected dialogue, it seems like he could be much angrier.






Being the stickler for details that I am, why don’t we look at some other faces Krayt has pulled while fighting. Wowza, three for the price of one!




Understandably though, even if they wanted to show how angry Krayt was in the final 40 page comic of the series, they probably ran out of budget and wouldn’t be able to pay Jan enough to depict that - as a wise ant once said, “Comics have to condense and streamline events.” That’s probably why Krayt internally screamed instead of talking shit to Wyyrlok - not because he was extremely pissed off and intent on killing him, but because the dialogue cost too many cartel coins to add in.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:Also, Krayt's mastered "how to channel his aggression in a Force-based martial art called Teras Kasi," so choosing to keep one hand open as a Dark Transfer hammer doesn't put him at any disadvantage. In the past, we've even sen him manage to deliver two physical blows against Obi-Wan without landing any lightsaber hits.

Now that is an interesting idea. I wonder what Teras Kasi technique Krayt is using when he awkwardly reaches across the distance between them, in the path of Cade’s lightsaber, and places a palm on Cade’s chest. It’s obviously not the same technique he used on Obi-Wan where just as he recalls his saber to his right hand, Kenobi swings at him, which he blocks awkwardly with his left blade before conveniently not swinging his right blade in the same direction - into the path of Kenobi’s blade - but rather comes over Kenobi’s blade and hits him in the jaw.

”The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi” wrote:As Hett caught the lightsaber, Ben rolled up from the ground and swung out again. Hett blocked the strike with his right lightsaber, then threw his left arm forward to smash his other lightsaber's handle into Ben's jaw.

”DarthAmicable66” wrote:Darth Talon is Krayt's most loyal servant, nurtured him back from death, and watched him dominate Darth Nihl and kill Darth Wyyrlok. If anyone has a good gauge of Krayt's powers, it's her. After fighting Cade, Talon judged him to be a legitimate threat to Krayt and crawled to warn him about his "new mastery of the Force."

Is Talon just... underestimating Krayt? Shamelessly paranoid? Maybe, but her concern is totally unwarranted for anyone that's capable of effortlessly or near-effortlessly dominating Cade like some argue Krayt can. And it's especially not something you'd expect to be emphasized in both the comic's crawl and opening lines of the final Legacy comic.

Krayt had servants even more loyal to him than Darth Talon: they’re these people called the Wyyrlok family. Funny thing about the Wyyrlok family is that despite being Krayt’s “chief lieutenants”, “second-in-command”, “confidant” and “advisor”, they are still so ignorant of Krayt’s power that they are unsure if Krayt is reading their mind (he is), and believe he understands elements of the Force they cannot comprehend.

“Darth Wyyrlok. The third of that name to serve the Lord of the One Sith -- Darth Krayt. Confidant, advisor, seer, Master of Sith lore.”
—Star Wars: Legacy #27
"After establishing his new Sith Order, Darth Krayt and his chief lieutenant, Darth Wyyrlok, continued to delve into XoXaan’s teachings in an unsuccessful attempt to heal the slow deterioration of Darth Krayt’s body.”
—The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
“The effort to bring down Fel’s Empire, however, left him badly fatigued, and he was forced to reveal to his second-in-command, Darth Wyyrlok, that his Yuuzhan-Vong enhanced body was failing."
—The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
“There was another roll of thunder. Wyyrlok ran a hand over his head, his fingers lingering on his damaged left horn. He wondered if the Master had placed a similar device in his eye and brain. But then, perhaps the Master did not need such a device for him. He often felt that the Master could read his mind directly.”
―Riptide
“Perhaps the Master knew the nature of Nyss's relationship to the Force, but Wyyrlok did not; it was beyond his comprehension.”
—Riptide

Even though Darth Maul had formed an “almost filial bond" with Sidious, was raised, tutored and trained by him since he was 2, has “innumerable scars” from their sparring sessions which began before his balls dropped, and even had the pleasure of “nearly besting” him in a fight where he “barely deflected” Maul’s attacks, when he was asked about the one who trained him, he replied: “There is little to tell. He was a shadow, cloaked in the dark side so thicky he was unknowable. He was the most powerful being I have ever encountered…”

Sidious had formed an almost filial bond with Maul. Attached to the present, he failed to grasp the truth: that this was the last time he and his apprentice might see each other in the flesh.
―Darth Plagueis
Maul had fought his Master many times, starting when he was little more than a child and continuing through his apprenticeship. His body bore innumerable scars from those duels—lessons in the peril of being too slow or two quick, too weak or too distracted.
―Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy
Anger and hatred welled up in Maul, and he drew renewed strength from the dark side. Hurling himself at Darth Sidious, he nearly bested his master with a flurry of deadly lightsaber blows. Sidious barely deflected them all. Eventually Maul spent his fury, and Darth Sidious still stood. Maul prepared himself for death-but Sidious only laughed. By giving in to his rage and hatred to kill his own master-by wanting to kill his own master-Maul had in fact passed the final test. Now he was a Sith Lord-Darth Maul, Dark Lord of the Sith.
―Dark Side Sourcebook

Do me a favour: read the first letter of each paragraph.

Helpful Post To Smellymits

”Smellymits” wrote:The question: is there anything Krayt does here that you couldn't imagine Yoda doing? The answer can only be "yes" if you think Yoda is literal fodder to someone on Luke's level, which is likely not your position.

My position is that Luke surpassed Yoda at the end of Dark Empire #6 at the very latest, and by FotJ he is in a whole other world from Yoda.

Considering most of this has already been debunked, I’ll just be educating from here on out.

”Smellymits” wrote:Abeloth's planet, where the battle takes place, is an extremely powerful dark side nexus. (And the dark side energies of the Font and Pool can be felt Beyond Shadows, so there's no reason to assume that Abeloth's Planet can't be)

A simple copy-paste from my post to Cilghal will suffice here. I’m surprised you’re still parroting this.

The way a Force nexus works in the physical universe is that there is an abundance of Living Force energy, which means there is more available energy in the environment for the Force user to draw upon - they are limited by either their own midichlorian count, or the available energy in the environment.

Beyond Shadows is a non-physical realm where only the "essence" or "spirit" of a Force user is present. There are no midichlorians acting as a go-between for the spirit and body. Ergo, it is not at all clear or proven that a nexus Beyond Shadows works the same way, and just because Luke can sense that the dark side imbues the Font, it does not mean that one can draw on that power without drinking from the Font itself.

Furthermore, this is how Luke experiences the Force when Beyond Shadows:

Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse wrote:

Luke rose out of his body with a jolt, then hung floating above it, staring at the underside of the bunk above. A week passed, or maybe it was a second-he had no idea. Time had no existence outside the body. A heartbeat lasted a week, a lifetime flashed by in an instant. But Luke Skywalker remained, a manifestation of Force essence that embodied mind and form, more real than the material husk he had left strapped in the bunk below.

He exhaled, or imagined himself exhaling, and his connection to his body grew more tenuous. There is no life, there is only the Force. It was the code of the Mind Walkers, an assertion that the corporeal was illusion, that a living being was nothing but a luminous swirl in the Force. And perhaps they were right.

Luke exhaled again, and a purple radiance appeared above, shining down through the crude matter of the upper bunk as though it were a hologram. He reached, and the light came flooding in, filling him with a calm as deep as space. He became the Force, and the Force became him, and he knew only the pure, eternal joy of existence.

Luke experiences a full and undiminished connection to the Force, so the burden of proof is on you to prove that one could be amped by a nexus in the traditional physical manner in a non-physical realm of pure Force energy.

”Smellymits wrote:Luke had just fought through literal armies of Sith and then Abeloth herself earlier in the book before going to fight Abeloth Beyond Shadows with no apparent medical treatment. This is after a multi-book run of constantly fighting Abeloth and Sith squads, many times at near-death states.

Luke as of TUF, who isn’t on the same level as FotJ, stormed through Shimmra’s citadel without even breathing heavily. It required a lopsided battle with 15 slayers where Luke had to protect his niece and nephew to actually cause him to exert himself.

”The Unifying Force” wrote:"Which way?" He wasn't even breathing heavily.

Jacen extended his Vongsense.

"The left passage leads to living quarters on the next level. The other, to some sort of dovin basal lift that accesses the summit." He screwed his eyes shut. "Shimrra is there. He has guards with him-"

"Not enough."

Is there any evidence Luke was tired, or are you just saying words?

”Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse wrote:
Luke rose out of his body with a jolt, then hung floating above it, staring at the underside of the bunk above. A week passed, or maybe it was a second - he had no idea. Time had no existence outside the body. A heartbeat lasted a week, a lifetime flashed by in an instant. But Luke Skywalker remained, a manifestation of Force essence that embodied mind and form, more real than the material husk he had left strapped in the bunk below.

He exhaled, or imagined himself exhaling, and his connection to his body grew more tenuous. There is no life, there is only the Force. It was the code of the Mind Walkers, an assertion that the corporeal was illusion, that a living being was nothing but a luminous swirl in the Force. And perhaps they were right.

Luke exhaled again, and a purple radiance appeared above, shining down through the crude matter of the upper bunk as though it were a hologram. He reached, and the light came flooding in, filling him with a calm as deep as space. He became the Force, and the Force became him, and he knew only the pure, eternal joy of existence.

”Smellymits” wrote:Penetrates Abeloth's flesh (while Abeloth is preoccupied wrestling Luke - a common theme). Star Wars isn't DBZ where this would be really impressive

I said the opposite of this in my post. You are agreeing with me.

”ILS wrote:Secondly. I always assumed that when Krayt pulled his arm out of Abeloth, it was simply the open wound causing her essence to spill everywhere that was important... but Krayt being able to drive his arm so deeply into Abeloth "grabbing for anything he could find" (to paraphrase), cause huge internal trauma, and then TK rip his arm out to make the wound mortal is... staggering.

Consider this: Krayt and Luke both pummelled Abeloth with TK blasts. Luke hit her with about a dozen or so punches and kicks. Abeloth blasted a hole through both their chests with lightning. None of those wounds caused enough damage to inflict mortal injury even though some of them penetrated her spirit body fully.

Luke merged his essence with Abeloth in an "energy knot" to keep her still, which is full penetration, but that didn't mortally wound either of them. So we know that unlike the physical world, telefragging your enemy does not mutilate them.

I was making the point that just because an attack opens a hole in the energetic form, it does not cause the damage needed for essence to pour out of it. Penetration is part of it but the damage caused internally is the other part (not to mention the victim resisting, but I come onto that below).

One might reply with the argument with Beyond Shadows spirits being different, but the onus would then be on them to establish the difference if they're making the active argument for Krayt having relativity; if anything, Luke does more physical penetration to Abeloth Beyond Shadows than he typically did in person.

I did explain the difference, with reference to the source material. Lets post it again:

”ILS” wrote:

Apocalypse wrote:Luke's hand dropped to his hip, automatically reaching for a lightsaber that did not exist beyond shadows. He tried to continue the motion and bring it up to deliver a blast of Force energy, but Abeloth had already launched her own attack by then, delivering a bolt of Force lightning that blasted straight through the stranger into Luke.He felt himself fly backward, consumed by pain, his entire being a column of blue, crackling Force flame.

As seen above, Abeloth's lightning goes straight through Krayt, but obviously this alone doesn't cause a "geyser" of essence energy to pour out of him - he's not mortally wounded by an attack that goes right through him.

Apocalypse wrote:Instead, the Force blast rocked Abeloth up on one leg, where she hung teetering over the Lake of Apparitions for a thousand heartbeats. Luke's chest was a searing ache around a fist-sized scorch hole, and his Force essence was bleeding out from a dozen smaller wounds, leaving a crescent of twinkling light spread across the dark water.

As seen above, once a wound is inflicted, essence will pour out of the wound over time. However, the wounds vary in size - even though Luke had a hole blasted through his chest with lightning, he only had a fist-sized hole and some smaller wounds rather than a massive, gushing wound pouring his essence out killing him in seconds. So again, I hope that clears up the respective roles penetration + damage play. Also, I’ve never seen a sentence that needs context more than that one.

Apocalypse wrote:Then Luke was there at Abeloth's side, stomp-kicking her legs, knife-handing her throat, grabbing for her head. It was like cotton striking gauze-no popping ligaments or crunching cartilage, just Force essence pushing into Force essence. But the damage was done. Luke's foot went through Abeloth's knee; her leg buckled. His hand sank into her larynx, and she drew back wheezing.

So, even though Luke is kicking out a knee and Abeloth's knee is buckling... there are no physical knees buckling. It's just energy, just essence pushing into essence. Energy destroying and diminishing other energy. It's just a representation of an energetic clash "But the damage was done". So don't take it as Abeloth's knee literally buckling, take it as a sign she has suffered damage and her energy has been diminished.

”Smellymits” wrote:Doing lots of damage once his hand is inside Abeloth. Um, if your hand is literally in someone's guts, it's not that hard to do lots of damage even if you're far weaker than them. You might say that Beyond Shadows is different, but again, that would require elaboration - what's so difficult about grabbing that essence stuff once your hand is inside? Is the essence being glued together with some sort of Force barrier proportional to their power? Based on what?

Krayt’s hand is not “literally in someone’s guts”.

Apocalypse wrote:Then Luke was there at Abeloth's side, stomp-kicking her legs, knife-handing her throat, grabbing for her head. It was like cotton striking gauze-no popping ligaments or crunching cartilage, just Force essence pushing into Force essence. But the damage was done. Luke's foot went through Abeloth's knee; her leg buckled. His hand sank into her larynx, and she drew back wheezing.

Apocalypse wrote:He pivoted around behind her, swinging one arm around her shoulder and grabbing for her chin, slipping the other arm up under hers and pressing his wrist into her neck. But grappling was different beyond shadows. There were no pressure points or joint locks or choke holds, only his presence merging with hers, binding him to her in a writhing knot of energy.

”Smellymits” wrote:Here's what Luke has that Krayt doesn't in their encounters with FotJ Abeloth: Luke is actually able to engage with Abeloth head-on, 1 v 1, and put up a protracted fight while doing significant damage to her. At no point does Krayt fight Abeloth 1 v 1. He is always either coming in "from the left", or tagging along behind Luke, or using Force drain on her while she's busy with Luke, or getting restrained and dropped to his knees by Abeloth while Luke gets through and finishes her. He is a useful asset in the fight, yes - but does anyone here seriously think that Yoda wouldn't be?

Hence why Luke is the no.1 character in this tournament: he is able to outright resist the Force manipulations of Abeloth. I at no point stated that Krayt can last against Abeloth 1v1, I think at best Luke can for a brief time before being overwhelmed but that’s about it. So this is a strawman.

Luke cannot actually keep Abeloth constrained unless Krayt drains her, hard. She nearly slips out, so Luke goes even harder at holding her in place and implores Krayt to pull harder with his drain.

Apocalypse wrote:Abeloth whipped her chin free of Luke's hand, ripping the energy knot where they had joined and sending a sparkling line of both of their Force essences splattering across the surface of the lake. She began to roll her head around, gnashing and spitting, trying to sink her fangs into Luke's arm or the stranger's-anything she could reach.

Luke slipped his arm down around her throat and pulled hard, merging his form into hers, doing his best to keep her under control.

"Keep going," Luke urged the stranger. "Pull harder!"

You keep mentioning Yoda. Yoda as far as I know doesn’t automatically inherit the feats of other characters. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that Luke left Yoda in the dust 40 years ago, that was kind of the point of Dark Empire. Can you explain to me why you think Yoda is close to FotJ Luke at all?

”Smellymits” wrote:
There's no comparison between punches and kicks on a resisting foe, and stepping in from the side of a preoccupied combatant and jamming your hand deep into them.

There is plenty of precedence for TK blasts to not do as much to a comparable (in this case, superior) foe compared to landing physical hits on them, due to the greater disparity needed to hurt a prepared combatant with TK. Savage knocked Sidious back with a headbutt - could he have done the same with TK?

The point of that section of my post was to establish that just penetrating someone’s essence isn’t all there is to causing damage to them - so I compared examples where an essence had been completely penetrated and yet the wounds were not mortal. Ergo, when Abeloth is brought to the brink of death, something else must have happened to cause that other than her simply having a hole in her.

The answer is related to the energy knots, which we’ll address now.

We have no idea what an "energy knot" entails or whether it requires "full penetration". Even if it did, here's an easy explanation: Krayt penetrates Abeloth and then physically grabs her essence out. That would explain the greater damage, but doesn't require any sort of exceptional power on Krayt's part; Sirak with his hands inside Sidious's guts could probably do a lot of damage too.

The text is clear about what an energy knot is and how they work - it’s when two energetic beings become entangled with one another, and the violent sundering of that knot causes their essence - life force - to spill. The closest comparison I would hazard giving is blood, but that is far too literal when we are talking about spiritual beings.

Of course it requires exceptional power on Krayt’s part to cause Abeloth that much damage - he needs the opening, sure, but no more than Luke needs Krayt draining Abeloth to stop her from turning around tentacle-molesting him. It’s fallacious to say that just anyone who has an opening on Abeloth can cause massive damage to her - I have proof of what Krayt can do, if you want to say someone else can replicate his feat, the burden of proof transfer to you, the person making the claim.

Onto energy knots then. Firstly, Abeloth straight up Force blasts Krayt but he maintains the knot/meld he has created between them without being pushed away.

Apocalypse wrote:The tattooed stranger stepped in from the left, then slid to the front and drove his stiffened fingers deep into the pit of Abeloth's stomach. A black spray erupted from the wound, and she writhed in pain as the stranger probed for something to grab.

Abeloth loosed a Force blast, trying to drive the stranger off. He held tight. So did Luke, and all three went tumbling across the lake in a snarled mass of limbs and tentacles.

Next, there are two major, charted power decreases for Abeloth across all her avatars.

The first is after Krayt drains her, which is shown with Saba. This is how the ghouls she’s fighting start:

Apocalypse wrote:Saba sissed at the joke and ignited her own blade, then charged around the corner...into a corridor filled with the red eyes of Sith shadow-ghouls.

Then the fight starts, lightning and TK blasts are exchanged, they go into melee, etc. Krayt begins draining her.

Apocalypse wrote:Then Luke felt an icy twinge between his shoulder blades. The twinge became a sting, and he began to feel something cold flowing down the center of his back. His first thought was Abeloth, that she had sunk a tentacle into his spine-until the lashing of her tentacles slowed and she began to shudder.

Luke did not understand until an eternity later, when the stranger rolled up on his feet and jerked them all to a halt. The Sith seemed to be growing stronger as Abeloth grew weaker, and there were wisps of dark fume swirling off his shoulders and head. It did not take a Jedi Grand Master to understand that Luke was being betrayed by a Force-draining technique.

Still holding Abeloth tight, Luke shifted his hips, rolling them both onto their sides, and kicked a foot through the stranger's knee. The joint buckled, and the Sith dropped onto the surface of the dark water, still on the opposite side of Abeloth from Luke.

"I'll release her!" Luke warned.

"Abeloth?" The stranger shook his head. "Never."

Despite the Sith's words, the cold stinging inside began to subside, and Luke realized the stranger was not pulling as hard. Abeloth continued to struggle, slipping a pair of tentacles around Luke's throat and trying to tear herself free. But she was growing weak faster than Luke.

The draining seemed to continue for days; then the stranger threw back his head and screamed in anguish, and it suddenly seemed that only a breath had passed. Shiny black Force energy began to pour from the Sith's wounds into the lake, spreading outward around them in an oily slick so hot the water began to steam and hiss. Still, the stranger continued to drain Abeloth, and Luke realized that he was not being betrayed-the Sith was suffering as much damage from the attack as was Luke.

Abeloth whipped her chin free of Luke's hand, ripping the energy knot where they had joined and sending a sparkling line of both of their Force essences splattering across the surface of the lake. She began to roll her head around, gnashing and spitting, trying to sink her fangs into Luke's arm or the stranger's-anything she could reach.

Luke slipped his arm down around her throat and pulled hard, merging his form into hers, doing his best to keep her under control.

"Keep going," Luke urged the stranger. "Pull harder!"

This is what happens to the ghouls:

Apocalypse wrote:[...]The red glow in the eyes of the shadow-ghouls faded suddenly to pink, and openings began to appear in their staggered-gauntlet formation. Saba sprang into the first gap, holding her ignited lightsaber between her and the nearest ghoul, trying to reach the body to which it was attached by a long writhing tail. The thing kept trying to slip around the blade's purple-white glow to slash at a head or shoulder or hip.

Saba advanced behind a whirling shield of blocks and slashes, cutting through a shadowy arm here, a leg there, even a neck or body. The pieces dropped away, withering into nothingness before they hit the floor, and the ghoul instantly grew a replacement. Still, the constant hacking was enough to keep the thing from touching Saba, and at last she reached the body itself. She cut the tail free of the corpse's chest, at the same time kneeling down and reaching for its face.

As quick as she was, the ghoul had already reemerged from the corpse. It came diving in at her, sinking two shadowy hands into her thigh. Saba's entire leg went numb, then erupted in icy anguish as the thing's shadowy claws began to slide through her muscle.

Saba used two fingers to close the corpse's eyes, then rose hissing and cursing and limped away. Olazon was at her side instantly, hitting the corpse with a blast from his flamegun and incinerating it. As he worked, Tahiri was already leaping past them to wave back the next shadow-ghoul. They had tried incinerating the bodies from a distance-before closing the eyes-but that had only complicated matters. The shadow-ghouls had stayed attached to the scorched remains, and it was impossible to make them go away as long as the eye sockets were uncovered.

Once Olazon had finished, his voice came over the reception bud in Saba's ear. "You're getting quicker," he said. "And only one hit that time. You okay?"

Saba put her weight on her aching leg and, when the muscle merely clinched with cold agony and did not collapse, nodded.

"Yesss, but this one is not growing quicker," she said. "They are growing slower. Keep going."

"You sure, Master Sebatyne?" This from Stomper Two, also speaking over the comm net. "I don't like the changes in their eyes-or how their formation has opened up. This feels like a trap."

The Void Jumper's caution was understandable. The pack had advanced only fifteen meters, and already they were down to four hunters. A shadow-ghoul had gotten inside Stomper One's power armor and caused it to self-destruct, which was why Stomper Two was now at the rear of the pack, carrying a badly dented EMP bomb. And no one was quite certain what had become of Braan, the wounded demolition man. A wave of terror had simply rolled through the Force from his direction, and then a thermal detonator had gone off.

But Saba suspected the change was a good sign. During their strategy meeting on Coruscant, the Jedi had realized it was possible to temporarily weaken at least one of Abeloth's avatars by killing another. Kill one, weaken the others. The theory was that Abeloth had only a single Force presence, shared by her avatars, so harming any of her avatars would make it easier to defeat all of them. Assuming that the shadow-ghouls were being animated by Abeloth-and Saba saw no other possibility-then they were growing weaker because Luke was succeeding in the Maw.

1. Quite self-explanatory... the ghouls "suddenly" go from red eyed to pink eyed, and also sudden openings appear in their formation. Saba starts cutting the ghouls apart, but much like a hydra, they instantly reform every time.
2. Saba is only able to keep one ghoul away by constantly hacking at it, and it even manages to slash her, causing an icy pain to go through her whole body.
3. They have to go through the arduous process of hacking up and then incinerating the host bodies the shadow ghouls spawn from... and even then they cling to and emerge from the scorched remains.
4. As the battle goes on, a soldier notes that Saba must be getting faster because of how well she is doing against the ghouls - but Saba corrects him that the ghouls are actually getting slower
5. The ghouls were growing so weak that a non-Force sensitive soldier thought it must have been a trap - so the difference must have been very pronounced indeed
6. The carnage the ghouls caused to Saba's squad is described at some length...
7. Saba notes that the ghouls getting slower and their eyes becoming less saturated with colour is a sign that Abeloth must be growing weaker elsewhere, specifically, the damage Krayt is causing to her (which she associates with Luke) is what has caused the sudden and pronounced difference in the shadow ghouls speed and prowess.

So, that pronounced difference happened purely because of Krayt's drain - he hadn't yet ripped his arm out of her.

The second increment of Abeloth taking damage is after Krayt rips the energy knot that he created with his arm. This mortally wounds Abeloth and robs her of much of her strength across all avatars, to the point a shadow ghoul which could land damaging hits on Saba before was now so slow and weak that it could be danced around, oneshotted and couldn’t even hurt Saba if it did touch her.

Apocalypse wrote:Abeloth lay tangled in Luke's arms, a writhing mass of Force energy that had suddenly gone limp a second or a day ago, only to explode an hour or a nanosecond later into a flailing tempest that had sent them all rolling and bouncing across the Lake of Apparition's dark waters. The stranger was tumbling with them, his hand still buried in Abeloth's chest, now wailing in agony as gleaming black Force energy steamed from his wounds.

Apocalypse wrote:They bounced so close to the shore, Luke grew worried that Abeloth was trying to carry them away from the lake into some new place beyond shadows. And then what? His back hit the water again, and he spun them all around so that his feet were toward the shore. He planted his feet against a moss hummock and kicked off-and sent them all somersaulting back toward the center of the lake. Abeloth stopped struggling and seemed to shrink in his arms, and Luke dared to think that maybe, just maybe she had finally lost hope, that they had exhausted her to the point that she was no longer capable of fighting.

Then she was gone, leaving the stranger and Luke with nothing between them but twenty centimeters of space and the stump of the Sith's hand, now pointed at Luke's chest and still drawing Force energy, draining it not from Abeloth now, but directly from Luke.

Apocalypse wrote:
Luke started to bring his hand up, intending to hit the stranger with a Force blast. But before he could loose it, the Sith's feet dropped to the water's surface, and he raised his stump and pointed toward the far end of the lake.

"There!"

Luke craned his neck and saw Abeloth's silhouette backing into the Mists of Forgetfulness-with the stranger's wrist still protruding from her chest.

"Stop her!" Luke yelled. "If she disappears into that fogя..."

Luke left the sentence unfinished as a fountain of oily black Force energy erupted from the protruding wrist. Abeloth's mouth gaped open, and her piercing shriek broke over the lake, reverberating across the water like a clap of thunder. Luke glanced over and saw the stranger standing beside him, pointing in her direction, using the Force to draw his missing hand back toward its stump.

Abeloth did not come dancing in to counterattack, did not even try to stand off defensively and weaken them with a blast of Force lightning. She did not have time for such tactics. Luke doubted she would have fled the battle in the first place if she were not already dying, and with her Force essence gushing out of her like a geyser, she had to attack now.

And she did.

In the next thought Abeloth was simply there in front of the stranger, driving a ball of tentacles deep into him. Luke sprang forward to help-and felt a blistering iciness slide deep into his own chest. His entire right side flared into cold anguish, and the tentacles began to dig and grab, tearing him apart inside in a way no lightsaber or blaster ever could.

Luke attacked anyway, driving an elbow strike into the side of her head. As before, there was no crunching, no physical sense of impact, only Force energy plowing through Force energy, sending waves of pain and damage rolling through them both. Luke sensed his elbow come free as it pushed out the other side of Abeloth's head. Then she simply fell away, her still-balled tentacles tearing free of both Luke and the strangerя...яeach clutching a handful of dripping, pulsing Force essence.

The stranger collapsed with a gaping hole in his chest. Luke felt his own form grow limp and weak, and he sensed his mouth falling open to scream, then his whole body was falling, weak and aching for breath.

Apocalypse wrote:
By the time Saba reached the air lock at the entrance to the computer core, the shadow-ghouls were barely shadows anymore. Their eyes had paled to white, and they moved so slowly that it was easy to dance past and close the eyes of their corpses. And even when one of them did make contact, there was no life draining or pain, just a sudden cold ache that passed as quickly as the ghoul was destroyed.

Clearly, Master Skywalker had robbed Abeloth of much of her strength.

It’s established by numerous quotes that an energy knot forms when one essence merges with the other by force - Abeloth displays various ways one can try to break out of these, such as by trying to Force blast her opponent off of her, tearing the knot apart or by teleporting/slipping away.

Apocalypse wrote:He pivoted around behind her, swinging one arm around her shoulder and grabbing for her chin, slipping the other arm up under hers and pressing his wrist into her neck. But grappling was different beyond shadows. There were no pressure points or joint locks or choke holds, only his presence merging with hers, binding him to her in a writhing knot of energy.

Apocalypse wrote:Abeloth whipped her chin free of Luke's hand, ripping the energy knot where they had joined and sending a sparkling line of both of their Force essences splattering across the surface of the lake. She began to roll her head around, gnashing and spitting, trying to sink her fangs into Luke's arm or the stranger's-anything she could reach.

Luke slipped his arm down around her throat and pulled hard, merging his form into hers, doing his best to keep her under control.[/b]
Abeloth stopped struggling and seemed to shrink in his arms, and Luke dared to think that maybe, just maybe she had finally lost hope, that they had exhausted her to the point that she was no longer capable of fighting.

Then she was gone, leaving the stranger and Luke with nothing between them but twenty centimeters of space and the stump of the Sith's hand, now pointed at Luke's chest and still drawing Force energy, draining it not from Abeloth now, but directly from Luke.

Apocalypse wrote:The tattooed stranger stepped in from the left, then slid to the front and drove his stiffened fingers deep into the pit of Abeloth's stomach. A black spray erupted from the wound, and she writhed in pain as the stranger probed for something to grab.

Abeloth loosed a Force blast, trying to drive the stranger off. He held tight. So did Luke, and all three went tumbling across the lake in a snarled mass of limbs and tentacles.

So now that we know what an energy knot is:

Through the combined efforts of Luke and Krayt, they hold Abeloth in an energy knot - which is a direct reflection of their combined power acting on her - long enough for Krayt to mortally wound her. After that, she kamikaze attacks them in a last ditch attempt to kill them - she was going to die either way from the damage inflicted. Luke hastens that death by giving her a finishing elbow.

Apocalypse wrote:Luke craned his neck and saw Abeloth's silhouette backing into the Mists of Forgetfulness-with the stranger's wrist still protruding from her chest.

"Stop her!" Luke yelled. "If she disappears into that fog..."

Luke left the sentence unfinished as a fountain of oily black Force energy erupted from the protruding wrist. Abeloth's mouth gaped open, and her piercing shriek broke over the lake, reverberating across the water like a clap of thunder. Luke glanced over and saw the stranger standing beside him, pointing in her direction, using the Force to draw his missing hand back toward its stump.

Apocalypse wrote:Abeloth did not come dancing in to counterattack, did not even try to stand off defensively and weaken them with a blast of Force lightning. She did not have time for such tactics. Luke doubted she would have fled the battle in the first place if she were not already dying, and with her Force essence gushing out of her like a geyser, she had to attack now.

Apocalypse wrote:In the next thought Abeloth was simply there in front of the stranger, driving a ball of tentacles deep into him. Luke sprang forward to help-and felt a blistering iciness slide deep into his own chest. His entire right side flared into cold anguish, and the tentacles began to dig and grab, tearing him apart inside in a way no lightsaber or blaster ever could.

Luke attacked anyway, driving an elbow strike into the side of her head. As before, there was no crunching, no physical sense of impact, only Force energy plowing through Force energy, sending waves of pain and damage rolling through them both. Luke sensed his elbow come free as it pushed out the other side of Abeloth's head. Then she simply fell away, her still-balled tentacles tearing free of both Luke and the stranger...[b]each clutching a handful of dripping, pulsing Force essence.[/b]

The stranger collapsed with a gaping hole in his chest. Luke felt his own form grow limp and weak, and he sensed his mouth falling open to scream, then his whole body was falling, weak and aching for breath.

Apocalypse wrote:So when Troy says "when we're dealing with two highly skilled, powerful adversaries", we should take it that he wouldn't apply that to **Yoda**, or someone like Dooku? On a follow-up question about Yoda, he would say "oh nah, Luke would totes ragdoll him"?

And when he clearly indicates to ILS that he's trying to "dodge a question", one still takes the previous post to be some specific commentary on Krayt's powerscaling and not a general statement about how fights between opponents in Star Wars work in his eyes?

If you asked him whether Krayt could beat Obi Wan, he'd likely give a similar response, thus destroying his chances here.

It’s all relative. You can make “highly skilled, highly powerful” sound relevant to Darth Bane out of context, but the context of the question is: what happens when Krayt and Luke, not anyone else, Krayt and Luke, fight each other. He does not say “anyone who is highly skilled and highly powerful can contend with Luke”, he is saying that in those respect Luke and Krayt are so close that “such comparisons are practically meaningless. What matters is who strikes first, because that will result in an advantage that offsets any minor differences in their abilities, and who has the more appropriate strategy for the fight.”



If you want to play mindreader and tell me that Troy Denning thinks everyone from Bane to Kenobi to Maul to Dooku to Yoda to Malgus and so on can be described as only having a “minor difference in ability” from Luke, be my guest, but the burden of evidence would be on you. But it doesn’t hurt that Denning likes the idea of writing a duel between Krayt and Luke. The idea that Krayt is as far away from Luke as you claim, and indeed, as far away from him as Yoda (who Luke is in another galaxy from power-wise) seems silly on its face.


Also, just to clear up another misconception while we are here. Luke initially assumes that Krayt is betraying him by draining them both, and he bases this on Abeloth growing weaker and the wisps of dark fume coming off Krayt. However it says Krayt “seemed” to be growing stronger, not that he “was”.

Apocalypse wrote:Luke did not understand until an eternity later, when the stranger rolled up on his feet and jerked them all to a halt. The Sith seemed to be growing stronger as Abeloth grew weaker, and there were wisps of dark fume swirling off his shoulders and head. It did not take a Jedi Grand Master to understand that Luke was being betrayed by a Force-draining technique.

As we see, “Luke realised that he was not being betrayed-the Sith was suffering as much damage from the attack as was Luke.” - So Luke is being damaged by the drain, and he says Krayt is being damaged by performing the drain as much as Luke. That is mutually exclusive from Krayt growing stronger from the drain, hence “Luke realised he was not being betrayed.”

Apocalypse wrote:The draining seemed to continue for days; then the stranger threw back his head and screamed in anguish, and it suddenly seemed that only a breath had passed. Shiny black Force energy began to pour from the Sith's wounds into the lake, spreading outward around them in an oily slick so hot the water began to steam and hiss. Still, the stranger continued to drain Abeloth, and Luke realized that he was not being betrayed-the Sith was suffering as much damage from the attack as was Luke.

Abeloth’s Essence is incompatible with, and corrosive to, Krayt’s Essence - he gets zero benefit out of taking Abeloth into his being, which is why her essence pours out of his wounds, producing steam, and causing him to scream in agony. Krayt is a Sith who can handle pain just fine, so the argument that he was screaming in agonizing pain from an attack that was providing him a net positive amount of Force energy, is absolutely ridiculous. He is actually being damaged as much, if not more, than Luke by the effects of the drain.

@DarthAnt66

General consensus seems to pin Cade around a mid tier 8 combatant. Perhaps that's undercutting Cade -- perhaps he's this tier 9 powerhouse -- but not even the most ardent Legacy supporters put him much higher than Maul, and his feats certainly aren't anywhere near Dooku's (I'll gladly do a feat/hype cross-comparison if needed). So, before we even dive into this fight, let's consider how we'd expect a mid tier 8 combatant to fare against some high-profile opponents.

- If this were ROTJ Palpatine vs Cade, we would expect a total comedy -- a brief spat where Palpatine shows no strain and absolute superiority.

- If this were ROTS Palpatine vs Cade, we would expect a very one-sided fight, perhaps analogous to to S5's portrayal of Palpatine vs Maul.

- If this were Dooku vs Cade, we would expect a relatively more contestable fight, perhaps analogous to S4's portrayal of Dooku vs TCW Anakin.

Adjust this for your take on Cade. Maybe put Cade low tier 8, maybe a high tier 8, but the conclusions should hold regardless and for almost everyone. There's definitely legitimate criticism to be made toward using Cade as a heavy anchor to assess Krayt, but we don't have many alternatives. This and the Wyyrlok fight are our only possible "proofs of concept" for ILS' well-thought-out creative theories on the previous pages. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of gobbledygook.

Not that I have a fixed position on Cade, but if he’s Maul-level, for example, then the RotJ Sheev vs. Cade hypothetical is a pretty good gauge for Krayt’s standing seeing as what Krayt did pretty accurately reflects what you describe. Just a pointer to those who adhere to the apparent community consensus on Cade.

Below is a direct comic-to-script account of the fight. I recommend reading my script alongside the actual comic for reference, which can be found HERE                        .

CADE SKYWALKER stares down DARTH KRAYT.

CADE: Krayt.

KRAYT smiles back.

KRAYT: Skywalker.

CADE lunges toward KRAYT. KRAYT releases a Force blast that throws CADE backward.

KRAYT: Surrender. You fled our last fight -- and I am so much more now than I was then.

KRAYT uses the Force to shatter rocks that Cade is standing against. Cade jumps across the wreckage.

CADE: You and Darth Schutta taught me a couple tricks while I was here. I'm a fast learner. And I make up things as I go.

KRAYT: It doesn't matter.

KRAYT grimaces and summons Force lightning.

KRAYT: As with your allies, your battle here was lost before you arrived. Surrender.

CADE ignites his lightsaber and leaps toward KRAYT as KRAYT fires Force lightning.

CADE: Not gonna happen!

CADE and KRAYT fight! Their battle moves from within the Sith Temple to outdoors.

CADE: I am going to kill you, monster!

KRAYT's right hand shimmers with energy.

KRAYT: I doubt that. You are the reason that I live.

KRAYT's right hand strikes CADE in the chest, pouring forth dark side energy. CADE collapses.

CADE: No!

---

I didn’t know it was acceptable to use literal fanfiction in versus debates. If that’s the case, here’s an excerpt from Star Wars: Legacy - The Annotated Screenplay, Limited Gloss Print Collector’s Edition:

CADE SKYWALKER stares down DARTH KRAYT.

CADE: Krayt.

KRAYT smiles back.

KRAYT: Skywalker.

CADE lunges toward KRAYT. KRAYT releases a Force blast that throws CADE backward.

KRAYT: Surrender. You fled our last fight -- and I am so much more now than I was then.

CADE tries his best to get near KRAYT, but the Dark Lord effortlessly keeps him at a distance with telekinesis as he walks toward the Sith Temple’s exit. He throws CADE around the room in a Force grip. But CADE doesn’t lose his cool and responds to KRAYT’S comments with equal confidence.

CADE: You and Darth Schutta taught me a couple tricks while I was here. I'm a fast learner. And I make up things as I go.

Parts of the room tremble and shatter as a result of KRAYT’S vastly greater powers. The Dark Lord continues his walk toward the exit, indifferent to CADE’S boasts and feeble attempts to attack him.

KRAYT: It doesn’t matter. As with your allies, your battle here was lost before you arrived. Surrender.

KRAYT fires a burst of Force lightning at CADE as he jumps toward him once more.

CADE: Not gonna happen!

CADE is batted aside numerous times by KRAYT’S awesome command of the Force. Telekinesis and lightning ripple and sizzle through the air. As the battle transitions to the exterior of the Sith Temple, KRAYT finally decides to humor CADE and draws one of his lightsabers.

CADE: I am going to kill you, monster!

KRAYT: I doubt that. You are the reason I live.

KRAYT’S free hand begins to glow. Despite CADE seeing the attack coming several meters away, he is unable to react to KRAYT rushing him. KRAYT is unbelievably swift and dominant. He pins CADE to the floor, disarming him and channelling dark side energy through him.

CADE: No!

According to my sources, the Limited Gloss Print Collector’s Edition of the script was published shortly after the standard edition with a foreword from John Ostrander, stating that the original contained an inaccurate depiction of the fight, and that fans should adhere only to the updated version of the screenplay.

---

Key takeaways:

(a) Krayt's telekinetic attacks are negated by Cade's abilities, which Cade attributes to his Sith training. Krayt then switches to Force lightning.*

(a) Krayt is able to manhandle Cade with impunity.*



*If you look at the background of each panel, it changes. In the first one, Krayt is on a narrow ledge when he blasts Cade away. In the second one, he is on a floor that stretches off-panel, and one that has a different pattern to the one in the first panel. In the third one, the floor is once again different and Krayt is standing in front of an intact pillar, which isn’t present in any of the other panels.

We know that Krayt hadn’t drawn a lightsaber as of this point. He was exclusively using Force attacks, and successfully batting Cade aside with them - over and over and over - as he’s walking toward the exit. The closest analogue to this I can find is Revan vs. Vitiate, but even that’s not the same: Vitiate fires a charged blast of telekinesis at the last instant before Revan’s blade found its mark, after which Revan is flung back and Vitiate attempts to telepathically dominate him, but Revan resists and sends Vitiate in turn flying back; Vitiate sends three bursts of lightning at Revan, none of which are successful at taking him down, and he even sends one of them back at Vitiate, knocking the Emperor back further; Vitiate then downs Revan in a charged collision of their Force energies. That’s the closest thing to a pure wizarding duel in the lore I can think of, and there both contestants land an equal amount of attacks at one another. All other instances of exclusive Force use in fights have been absolute stomps e.g. Yoda vs. Asajj Ventress, or Palpatine vs. RotJ Luke Skywalker

Krayt’s showings against Cade fall closer to the latter two examples. At no point does Cade land any Force-based hits on Krayt, and he fails to get within striking distance of him despite Krayt having walked through three different areas over the course of the duel. If they were relative equals, Krayt would not be able to thrash Cade around repeatedly without Cade being able to retaliate at all; if Cade had “negated” Krayt’s telekinesis, he would have been able to get closer to Krayt much sooner; and even if the power gap was quite wide, Krayt would not have been able to do what he did - the disproportionate strength of Force barriers makes it impossible even Darth Sidious to just ragdoll someone on a firmly lower tier like Darth Maul without finding or engineering gaps in his defense.



But strong as he had become, Maul found himself in awe of Sidious. The Sith Lord was astonishingly fast and efficient, and the Force flowed through him effortlessly. His sabers stabbed and slashed through the smallest hole in an opponent’s guard, his movements never carried him a millimeter out of position, and he could sense every attack Maul and Savage made before it developed.

Maul tried to slash past Sidious’s guard, only to find his Master had given ground, causing Maul to extend his arms too far and leave himself slightly unbalanced. It was the smallest stumble, easily corrected, but Sidious saw it—and pounced before Maul could draw himself back. Snarling, he reached out with the Force and slammed Maul against the wall, leaving him lying stunned in a heap.


And even if Cade did somehow manage to negate Krayt’s telekinesis (he didn’t), it wouldn’t be an indication of relativity whatsoever; refer to the above evidence.

*Some argue this scan shows Krayt ragdolling Cade. He's not. He's crushing the rocks Cade's standing on as Cade jumps on them. Notice that Krayt's active hand is applying the Force in front of Cade's position (because he's crushing the rocks), that Krayt's sweeping hand motion mirrors the path of crushed rocks, and that Cade wouldn't gloat over his newfound abilities simultaneous with being thrashed around. That's just common sense. Force users actually can't even talk while being gripped with the Force -- there's countless examples of their speech being stopped mid-syllable -- so Cade's indisputably not being gripped here.

There’s a blue trail coming out of Krayt’s hand, which indicates movement. It tells us Krayt has been exerting telekinesis for a sweeping arc that even goes off-panel. We also see that he is looking upward, and that his feet are glued in place - it tells us he is standing on the floor (the tile pattern), and that Cade is in fact high up in the air, close to a wall. Your interpretation that Cade is “standing” on the rocks and “jumping” on them is evidently false, as one cannot stand on a wall, and there is no realistic position on the floor from where he could or would have jumped on the wall - his feet and legs are angled so that the only direction he could have gotten momentum from is right where Krayt is standing or at the very least well within striking distance of him, and logically he would have attempted to strike an unarmed Krayt if he were that close to him instead of jumping sideways to a wall like a retard.

If we’re being (very) generous to your interpretation, we could say that Cade was running along the wall and Krayt was leaving a trail of crushed rocks behind him as he ran… but Krayt is easily capable of destroying the entire wall at once if need be, and running across a goddamn wall is immensely impractical in such a situation to begin with:



The path Cade could have taken vs. the path Cade did take - instead of rushing straight at an unarmed opponent like he does in every other panel of the fight, or even instead of trying to outmaneuver the opponent by flanking, he decides to run along a wall well before he even gets near Krayt…? I mean, I guess it’s possible... the same way it’s possible that Cade is this tier 9 powerhouse, in which case him seemingly contending with Krayt and losing isn’t an issue at all.

Or maybe - just maybe - Cade isn’t running along a wall, but that Krayt is simply dragging him through the air in a telekinetic grip and causes some collateral damage as he liberally spams his potent powers. That wouldn’t make both characters look down-syndromed like your interpretation would have it, and it fits right with the facts of the fight: Krayt being able to keep Cade at bay with just his Force abilities and Cade being unable to retaliate long enough for Krayt to have moved across three different areas. Your argument that Force-users are unable to talk while being telekinetically influenced is only true in the case of Force-choking, and, from what we see, Krayt isn’t squeezing his windpipe. Cade talking while being dragged across the air also isn’t uncharacteristic of him as he has maintained a jokey and/or confident attitude even while being subjected to far, far more serious pain and trauma, and here is actually has the opportunity to speak, unlike in most other cases of telekinetic attacks where the victim is getting either choked or pushed back very quickly, and Krayt is doing neither of those things.

(b) Krayt's Force lightning is, apparently, unable to subdue Cade. Krayt then switches to lightsaber combat.*

*Note that we've seen ROTS Palpatine's Force lightning blow nearly blow through Mace's lightsaber defense and overtly blow through Yoda's. Krayt's Force lightning doesn't appear to have that affect to Cade, who's still able to force Krayt into a lightsaber duel thereafter.

(c) A significant amount of lightsaber fighting takes place off-panel. Cade and Krayt move from within the Sith Temple to outdoors.

Again, as per the foreword of John Ostrander, the Limited Gloss Print Collector’s Edition of the script retcons any fanfiction that doesn’t align with the accurate depiction of the fight, like your idea that a protracted lightsaber duel took place off-page. And per the Limited Gloss Print Collector’s Edition of the script, Krayt’s burst of lightning was successful and he continued to swat Cade aside like a gnat as he maintained walking towards the Sith Temple’s exit. However, if we’re not going off of fanfiction, and adhere strictly to the source material i.e. the comic, then there is nothing depicting Cade powering through Krayt’s lightning and forcing him into a lightsaber duel. So either we don’t assume anything baselessly, and only focus on the parts of the fight that we actually see, or we go with the Limited Gloss Print Collector’s Edition of the script, in which case Krayt’s lightning overpowered Cade and sent him hurtling back, and the same kept happening multiple times still as it had repeatedly happened over the course of the whole fight, and Krayt drawing his lightsaber was merely a decision to play with his food. Your choice.

(b) "Krayt showed vast Force superiority over Cade."

False. Krayt blasts Cade with telekinesis at the start of the fight, but when he tries it again Cade mocks its futility and Krayt grows angry and tries Force lightning instead. That apparently fails too. Cade also sees through Krayt's end-all, be-all telepathic attack that Krayt's seemingly been hyping up this entire mini-series.

Most of this has been addressed, except for the telepathy part, and I have even less of a clue where you got that from than any of your other baseless points. All Krayt does is show Cade some visions while maintaining a dialogue with him. I don’t get what Cade supposedly saw through - he clearly can’t dispel the illusion since he asks Krayt what has happened to Coruscant, and Krayt voluntarily ends the illusion as opposed to Cade overcoming it, as indicated by Krayt’s dialogue following it: ”Apprentice, did you see? Do you understand what you are meant to be?”

(c) "Krayt never showed any concern in the fight and only uses one lightsaber."

Misleading. We only see Krayt's face in a few panels and most of the fight happens off-screen. Still, we see him visibly enraged after his telekinesis fails. Also, Krayt's mastered "how to channel his aggression in a Force-based martial art called Teras Kasi," so choosing to keep one hand open as a Dark Transfer hammer doesn't put him at any disadvantage. In the past, we've even sen him manage to deliver two physical blows against Obi-Wan without landing any lightsaber hits.

(b) Krayt never shows any concern in the fight and only uses one lightsaber.*

*Dual-wielding is Krayt’s primary fighting style, one which he has employed in every single fight we have seen him in for the past 170 years of his life. Against Wyyrlok, he is visibly angry, and clearly fighting seriously, fixated on the engagement and not saying a word, yet he doesn’t free up one hand for a “dark transfer hammer” but opts to wield dual blades like he always has. Against Cade, his demeanor is completely different: he is at no point angry (his grimace when summoning lightning doesn’t show him enraged or that his telekinesis failed lol), and maintains a casual, conversational tone when he speaks. Therefore, him neglecting to employ his primary fighting form in favor of just a single blade is clear evidence he’s not going all-out on Cade, and that he is enjoying an advantage over his opponent the likes of which he never has before in his whole life; the gap is so colossal he can afford to dick around, whereas usually the randomness of fights makes them deadly even for fighters who are facing a decidedly inferior opponents. Your contention that Krayt isn’t at a disadvantage because he is a master of Teräs Käsi, and that swapping his second blade for dark transfer is simply another legitimate strategy makes no sense because dark transfer can be used with just a few fingers - you don’t need your whole hand - and shatterpoint, an ability exceedingly similar to dark transfer, can be used with just the pommel of a lightsaber, so Krayt can wield two blades and still feasibly use dark transfer. There’s no real reason for him to not use both lightsabers unless he is just playing around.



Caedus brought the pommel of his lightsaber down, striking the breastplate not all that hard, not quite in the center: and shattering it. The beskar didn't burst apart or send shards flying, or do anything remotely explosive. It just crumbled away from the vacproof under-liner, leaving Roegr faceplate-to-chin with his soon-to-be killer. Jaina was too disciplined to let her shock distract her, but she was shocked. Beskar'gam was some of the toughest armor in the galaxy, able to deflect blaster bolts and lightsaber strikes with little more than a scorch mark, and her brother had just destroyed a piece with a tap. Had he mastered the shatterpoint? The academy Archives claimed that it was a lost and rare art, the ability to perceive points of weakness where a small amount of precisely applied force would unlock the unseen structures that bound together even the most indestructible materials and situations. The great Jedi Master Mace Windu, who had died in the Clone Wars, had been known to possess the gift. He had been the last. Until Caedus. Growing more frightened than ever by the magnitude of her brother's powers - and therefore even more resolved to stop him - Jaina set her front sight on Caedus's ear and fired a burst of three pellets: just as Caedus flipped his lightsaber around and thumbed the activation switch.


But if you really wish to maintain Krayt is no less effective with a single blade and simply chose to free up his second hand for dark transfer, then that’s great news for him since he managed to delivered two physical strikes against the god of Soresu with his mastery of Teräs Käsi as you graciously note, and Knightfall Vader is no more proficient with his defense than Obi-Wan, so Krayt has a very high chance of getting shots in with dark transfer when’s he’s very much in Vader’s league as a duelist and possibly even better. Even were Vader superior, it wouldn’t diminish Krayt’s chances as he was outclassed martially by Obi-Wan as well, yet still landed hits.

(a) "Krayt defeated Cade in a very short fight."

Emphatically false. As noted, they fight outside. Cade and Krayt's positioning after the cut-away, in which Krayt is shown to be further away from the Sith Temple than Cade, even suggests Cade was pushing Krayt back! This doesn't preclude ILS' argument that Krayt is on the offensive in panel itself. Krayt is finally pushing Cade back towards the now-far-away Sith Temple they started at. Just because much of the fight isn't shown for story reasons -- it's not necessary to show Cade and Krayt extensively fighting back and forth -- doesn't mean it's not important for our versus analyses. Comics have to condense and streamline events. Here's Yoda vs Palpatine, for example: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/ab-DFLm03bq46FMsbeSUlSnHbk9hSt_AKEseGeuCn5ABdJpTE38zZkMeMtZL4DEyQ1TLoMf9NYsj=s1600.

(c) Krayt is able to speedblitz Cade.*

*All we see of the lightsaber duel are two panels, between which we know nothing happened, because in the first one Krayt’s hand is glowing, telegraphing the dark transfer attack that we see in the second panel. Ergo, practically no time passed between the panels, yet Krayt managed to close the wide distance between him and Cade and not only touch him, but slam and pin him to the ground. Just imagine a scenario where you are a skilled swordmaster and your opponent is signalling to you he’s about to attack with his right hand from several meters away, and you’re holding a weapon that can disintegrate his hand upon contact. The logical decision there would be to intercept his hand with the weapon before it touches your chest like any trained swordsman would do - unless of course the attack comes so fast that despite being so far away and seeing it coming, you are utterly unable to react and before you know it, you are pinned to the floor, lightsaber still in hand. That is what Krayt did to Cade, and that is wholly unprecedented in Star Wars lore. Not even Darth Sidious’s famed speedblitzes were of the same caliber: versus the B-team he had to use a ”concentrated dark side confusion haze,” and distract them with trickery and by feigning weakness in the novel, and Kit Fisto still managed to block several strikes before going down; and versus Darth Maul, Maul ”parried desperately” “as he sought to counter his former Master’s blows” and ”danced away from one blow, then reversed his movement to avoid another” before being overwhelmed.



Vs.

https://streamable.com/026ww



When Mace Windu led a team of Jedi Masters to apprehend Darth Sidious, none of them expected to face the power of the Sith Lord. His innocent appearance as Chancellor Palpatine, along with an application of a concentrated dark side confusion haze, enabled Darth Sidious to take down Agen Kolar, Kit Fisto, and Saesee Tiin.


“Resist? How could I possibly resist?” Still seated at the desk, Palpatine shook an empty fist helplessly, the perfect image of a tired, frightened old man. “This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you?”

He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. “Master Tiin—you’re the telepath. What am I thinking right now?”

Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk.

Saesee Tiin’s head bounced when it hit the floor.

Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin.

Kit Fisto gasped, “Saesee!”

The headless corpse, still standing, twisted as its knees buckled, and a thin sigh escaped from its trachea as it folded to the floor.

“It doesn’t …” Agen Kolar swayed.

His emerald blade shrank away, and the handgrip tumbled from his opening fingers. A small, neat hole in the middle of his forehead leaked smoke, showing light from the back of his head.

“… hurt …”

[...]

Their blind lives meant nothing now. None of them. Because ahead, on the vast cliff face of the Senate Office Building, one window spat lightning into the rain to echo the lightning of the storm outside—but this lightning was the color of clashing lightsabers.

Green fans, sheets of purple—

And crimson flame.

He was too late.

The green fire faded and winked out; now the lightning was only purple and red.


Sidious raised his saber and flew at Maul, who parried desperately, his mechanical legs whirring as he sought to counter his former Master’s blows. Sidious’s sabers were a blur, a whirling cage of deadly plasma. Maul danced away from one blow, then reversed his movement to avoid another, and then there were too many to count, and then there were even more than that.

Maul’s saber spun out of his hand, bouncing away across the floor. Then Sidious seized his former apprentice with the Force, hurling him against the wall. Maul’s vision swam. He tried to get up, but realized he was already in the air, held aloft by the Force. Sidious slammed him into the floor. Then Maul was off the ground again, legs kicking for purchase in empty air. He could taste blood in his mouth. His head hit the wall with a sickening crunch.


If the community consensus on Cade is as you describe - Maul-level, above the B-team - then this feat directly elevates Krayt above Revenge of the Sith Sidious in lightsaber dueling. And even if one doesn’t follow the community consensus on Cade and has him beneath all the PT big names, Krayt’s arrant stompage of him still means he is in no way tied to Cade and therefore not prohibited from being above the RotS titans. Regardless, it’s also further evidence for Krayt not taking the fight seriously at all (if him tossing Cade around over and over with his Force abilities wasn’t convincing by itself), toying with Cade the whole time, since it’s clear he could have instantly ended it any moment he chose. Therefore, any possibility of an extended off-page duel is irrelevant.

Darth Talon is Krayt's most loyal servant, nurtured him back from death, and watched him dominate Darth Nihl and kill Darth Wyyrlok. If anyone has a good gauge of Krayt's powers, it's her. After fighting Cade, Talon judged him to be a legitimate threat to Krayt and crawled to warn him about his "new mastery of the Force."

Is Talon just... underestimating Krayt? Shamelessly paranoid? Maybe, but her concern is totally unwarranted for anyone that's capable of effortlessly or near-effortlessly dominating Cade like some argue Krayt can. And it's especially not something you'd expect to be emphasized in both the comic's crawl and opening lines of the final Legacy comic. Try to even imagine this scenario if Cade were Maul and Krayt were ROTS Palpatine.

"Master, Maul! [I have to warn you about his new mastery of the Force!]"

"Uh, OK?"

It’s not like Cade used all his potency on Talon - his Force pushes aren’t even instantly disabling her like they have in all their other skirmishes where he has used the Force, when his mastery of the Force was significantly lesser. Did you consider that the point of Talon’s warning may not have been to tell Krayt that this guy can definitively rival him now, but perhaps rather to warn him that this guy’s way more powerful than earlier, and that Krayt should be on his guard because there’s no telling what to expect from him? That makes much more sense, because Cade clearly didn’t turn out to be any sort of threat to Krayt as the fight itself tells us.

So, where would we peg a combatant who...

- Is warned ahead of the fight a mid tier 8 might challenge him.
- Throws back the mid tier 8 at the start of the fight.
- Fails to subdue the mid tier 8 with telekinesis or Force lightning.
- Engages in a prolonged lightsaber duel with the mid tier 8.
- Forces the mid tier 8 into a vulnerable position and wins.
- Tries to telepathically dominate the mid tier 8 and fails.

That puts Krayt... maybe a high tier 8? Low tier 9? Even if you think Cade himself is a high tier 8 with Dooku, Anakin slammed Dooku into the dirt before growing significantly in mastery and power, so you're still not at KFV's level, let alone above. Krayt's positioning also isn't comparable with our projected performances for ROTJ or ROTS Palpatine either. So, at least via this approach, the ROTS titans definitely come out looking better when push comes to shove.

Assuming you're done --

How do you want to treat the tournament deadline? Push it back? Keep it open for a week or so? Close it for new votes but let undecided voters still change around?

man... i agree with some of those posts so bad, that is hurts lol i do have my own imo's here and there, but damn lol 

ILS, what do u think of the DE luke/ vader comparisons?

Per George Lucas, Anakin could’ve only beaten Sheev after Mustafar, and the only people listed as being capable of contending are Mace and Yoda.

If Anakin is below a darkie like Mace Dindu Nuffin, he ain’t above Krayt.

Was told Yoda is out of the running now, iving my vote to KFV.

DarthAnt66 wrote:

WalkingInCircles wrote:@DarthAnt66 Do you have the source for this?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080103011725/http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/janduursema/?frames=n;read=9380&expand=1

I meant Sheev destroying Luke, my bad.

I change Vote to Saesee Tiin

I could understand if Krayt’s opponent was Vol or UnuThul, but the position “KFV > Reborn Krayt” really doesn’t seem viable to me. ILS & Az ragdolls here.

Reynard (Ethanion) wrote:I change Vote to Saesee Tiin

Only Anakin and Krayt are in the running

I change my vote to Krayt #TeamKrayt

(@EmperorCaedus: Your vote was always Team Krayt ).

Re: Caedus’s “relativity” to Luke

Legacy of the Force Luke

Jaina thought she had a fair understanding of Luke’s abilities, but as it turns out, he hadn’t revealed half, maybe not even a quarter, of his Force abilities to her, and she has either seen or knows of most of Luke’s prior exploits including those listed earlier.

”Legacy of the Force: Inferno” wrote:
She had thought she had a fair understanding of his Force abilities, but if his flying was any example, he hadn't revealed half of what he could do. Maybe not even a quarter.

Caedus “Suddenly got an idea of just how much power Luke could muster” - Jacen was either present for or aware of the NJO feats mentioned prior, so even after embracing the Unifying Force philosophy and aligning his actions with the Will of the Force, on several occasions drawing on so much power his cells were glowing and burning his body from the inside out… Luke still had more power tucked away

”Legacy of the Force: Revelation” wrote:
Luke's StealthX nudged him again from behind-how? Caedus couldn't see. Force push? Something metallic inside the fuselage shrieked. He had a sense of someone rummaging furiously in the drives as if looking for a dropped hydrospanner, throwing fragments into the coils. He's ripping the thing apart...

Caedus tried to block Luke in the Force and suddenly got an idea of just how much power Luke could muster. His seat shot forward, sheared off the runners, tipped to one side, and he hit the console at an angle before he could buffer the collision with the Force. Something cracked in his chest.

?????

You used a quote from after Caedus’s Inferno fight with Luke which clearly shows that Caedus still did not know Luke’s full power, which means that Luke was not full power in the Inferno fight. You then provide a quote that showed Caedus had reflected on said fight and still didn’t know his full power.

You might argue “well, even if it’s not Luke’s full power, he’s so far beyond Yoda at this point that it’s still probably beyond Yoda”. No, this doesn’t work. Luke’s emotional state and level of effort can make him operate at levels far below EoRotS Yoda. He certainly isn’t operating above Yoda when he’s fighting Gantoris or Desean, nearly dying to a droideka or getting pushed back by 4 YVH droids. You can’t just assume that Luke is “probably” operating above Yoda unless if it’s a very specific case where he’s definitely using all his power - that’s really only EoDE, TUF and parts of FotJ. Otherwise, you would need more evidence.

That ends your entire case, but let’s continue:

Even more important than the above, after The Unifying Force, Luke is no longer afraid of summoning his raw power, and no longer afraid of the Dark Side.

??? Luke and the NJO no longer subscribed to Vergere’s philosophy by LotF.

Also, Luke was literally lecturing Ben about not falling to the dark side in the exact same fight, and later refuses to go after Caedus out of fear of falling to the dark side, so I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.

Caedus not only has a measure of rage!Luke’s power, but he is preparing for round 2. It’s also widely agreed upon that only Luke can take Caedus down in a fair fight, so literally the only person Caedus knows who can fight at such a level is Luke.

??????? But he clearly doesn’t know Luke’s true power from the Revelations quote you provided yourself? So you have not established any quantifying of rage!Luke’s power; it clearly isn’t his full power or even what he can muster in the middle of a dogfight, and there’s no indication that the rage was amping him; it’s far more likely that it was hindering him given the emotional turmoil, Caedus’s continued lack of understanding of his power, Luke’s various tactical blunders and uncharacteristic behavior in the fight, etc. Oh, and Luke had an injured knee.

Look at how Jacen described the feeling of power at that time:

Now granted, I don’t think Jaina quite reached the same peak, but what Jacen is referring to is the Unifying Force Philosophy which, at that point in time, Luke, Jacen and by proxy Jaina were all embracing fully - they were sharing one mind, and that mind was The Force, in harmony with its will.

??? Jacen underwent a special state of Oneness against Onimi after they had been in the battle meld for some time - there is no direct relationship between the two. Even pre-Oneness, the Slayers identified Jaina as the weakest of the three and went after her. There is literally no way to compare Jacen’s Oneness, which was a special moment in Star Wars, to Jaina’s participation in the separate battle meld.

Did you read TUF? None of these analyses so far even remotely line up with the actual novel.

The other major factor here is that Jaina knows Jacen’s fighting style intimately

And Luke doesn’t? Does Jaina’s potentially superior knowledge of Jacen over Luke (whose own knowledge is very high) overcome the obvious difference in skill and mastery between the two? (No, it does not.)

After a lengthy duel where blows are blocked, dodged and traded, Jaina eventually cuts off Jacen’s arm, but he straight up ignores the pain,

A specific pain-tolerance aptitude, sure. Without it, he’d have been done in both fights within seconds. That pain tolerance isn’t exactly scalable.

There was no time to leap up or loose a bolt of Force lightning, and the angle was particularly poor for blocking and parrying. Caedus's only hope lay at his feet, and he seized that hope with the Force, using it to pull the dead Mandalorian up over him, then hurling the corpse headlong into Luke.

^ Here, in what may be about 10-15 seconds from the narration, Caedus would’ve died if it weren’t for a conveniently placed corpse that happened to be one of Jaina’s comrades (wonder if that played a role in her poor response?). His tactical acumen (and sheer luck) over Jaina hardly applies to some scaling off of Luke.

Luke lay buried beneath the huge Mandalorian, blood pooling around his head and one motionless arm protruding beneath the fellow's side. By all appearances, Luke Skywalker was dead-or at least unconscious.

This could plausibly mean that Caedus doesn’t know even amped Jaina’s power because he thinks that made him “at least unconscious” when Jaina wasn’t even close to being unconscious or even out of it.

Furthermore, Jacen refused to even consider the possibility that Luke could pull off the illusion feat that he did, which suggests that he still didn’t know Luke’s full power.

In both fights, Jacen would’ve likely died within seconds anyway were it not for environmental factors like Vong traps / Ben’s interference / a corpse that happened to be Jaina’s friend being right next to Caedus at the opportune moment.

This is supported by:

Krayt’s cosmic significance is per a myriad of sources greater than Caedus’, and every other Dark Sider apart from Darth Sidious, per numerous sources. And cosmic significance is a direct reflection of the Sith’s personal power, per numerous sources.

??? But then PT SIdious > Krayt? So Yoda > Krayt?

What sources state that Krayt is more cosmically significant than Caedus? Yes, his empire had unbalanced the Force to a larger degree, but he had also conquered the galaxy and had millions of Sith and an entire empire behind him. It’s not like he was unbalancing the Force just by existing, ala Sidious.

Indeed, Caedus is the only figure to have successfully changed the current of the Force, thus unleashing Abeloth - by that metric, he is more cosmically important than Krayt.

What sources state that cosmic significance is a “direct reflection” of a Sith’s personal power? A Sith’s personal power may play a role, and it may play a bigger role in cases like Sidious where his own power is directly causing the imbalance, but something like political dominance can also matter.

If only raw power matters, and not Krayt having an entire Empire with millions of Sith, what's even the point of doing anything but sitting there and emanating raw power?

Krayt is clearly closer to Luke in Apocalypse than Caedus was to Luke in Inferno

That’s a pointlessly circular argument; your entire buildup was to show Caedus was close to Luke, but if Krayt's directly shown to be closer then the former is irrelevant.

(The Apocalypse scaling is nonsense, but that’ll be addressed more below)

(For reference, here’s my blog on the Luke vs. Caedus fight:

https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t858-luke-skywalker-vs-darth-caedus-fight-analysis )

Read the rules please.

Apocalypse: Krayt Third Wheeling

Of the numerous problems with the Krayt Apocalypse scaling arguments, one I’d like to add is that there seems to be a conflation between the question of how much Krayt contributed to the fight and how much it indicates his power.

Krayt’s Force drain and “stick hand in gut” move probably did contribute noticeably to the fight (though hardly the majority - Luke by himself has contended with Abeloth and he had initially planned to fight her alone, while Krayt by himself would be crushed in seconds). But Leia’s battle meditation probably played a large role in EoDE too, as did Vegeta’s attack against Cell that allowed Gohan to finish him off. This doesn’t mean that Leia has relativity with DE Luke or that ASSJ Vegeta has relativity with SSJ2 Gohan.

Krayt took advantage of Abeloth’s preoccupation with Luke, and delivered substantial damage through:

• A direct, sustained physical attack from the side on an Abeloth who was getting pummeled by Luke.
  
• A Force drain where Krayt put so much into it he was getting physically harmed, that was applied against Abeloth over an explicitly indeterminate amount of time, which was stated to be potentially hours or days.
  

These were doubtlessly tactically helpful maneuvers. They did not, however, require any sort of remote relativity with Luke. Maul, or maybe even Sirak, could’ve done the same to a distracted Sidious. Star Wars fights have never been such that a distracted character would still be beyond the ability of another Force user to injure. A stray blaster bolt could injure or kill DE Sidious.

Krayt never takes on Abeloth’s full power for even a moment after her initial uncharged lightning blast. He has no scaling except that Luke probably can’t oneshot him, but even that’s Beyond Shadows where durability is much higher.

The summation of the reply to this is basically “well maybe she was distracted, but hurting her would still be difficult!” No, that’s not enough. Prove that hurting someone who is being pummeled is so difficult Beyond Shadows. Prove that draining someone over the course of hours is relevant in a 1 v 1 fight either as a technique or a proxy for power. Just waving your hands and guessing that Krayt’s support role required insane levels of Force energy doesn’t work.

Krayt the nexus moocher

ILS wrote:The way a Force nexus works in the physical universe is that there is an abundance of Living Force energy, which means there is more available energy in the environment for the Force user to draw upon - they are limited by either their own midichlorian count, or the available energy in the environment.

Beyond Shadows is a non-physical realm where only the "essence" or "spirit" of a Force user is present. There are no midichlorians acting as a go-between for the spirit and body. Ergo, it is not at all clear or proven that a nexus Beyond Shadows works the same way,

The lack of midichlorians is irrelevant given that spirits can clearly draw on nexuses - that’s how most dark side spirits retain their “anchor” and empower themselves. Spirits draw on nexuses all the time throughout Star Wars.

and just because Luke can sense that the dark side imbues the Font, it does not mean that one can draw on that power without drinking from the Font itself.

If Abeloth’s planet is a nexus, nexuses can be sensed beyond shadows, and spirits can draw on nexuses, the most reasonable conclusion is that the nexus matters. To deny it at this point is the same “nitpicking” you were complaining about, turned up to the nth degree.

Furthermore, this is how Luke experiences the Force when Beyond Shadows:

Luke experiences a full and undiminished connection to the Force, so the burden of proof is on you to prove that one could be amped by a nexus in the traditional physical manner in a non-physical realm of pure Force energy.

So becoming a purer manifestation of energy would decrease Krayt’s ability to draw on a nexus? That doesn’t make sense. Even if you think Luke wasn’t hindered, Krayt was still amped.

Again, spirits in Star Wars can draw on nexuses, and we know that nexuses can be felt from Beyond Shadows, so trying to argue that the nexus magically doesn’t apply here is some extreme straw grasping.

As for the bliss and amp, that doesn’t preclude the dark side nexus - it’s a separate variable.

So: the overwhelmingly reasonable interpretation is that there was an immense dark side nexus during the battle. This isn’t some minor nexus that can be considered trivial - it’s literally Abeloth’s homeworld, where the Ones used to live. “Holistically” it wouldn’t be surprising were it the most powerful planetary nexus outside of Mortis in the mythos.

This makes basically everything below irrelevant; you can’t even handwave that Krayt probably made it up by Reborn because we’re talking about such a ludicrously powerful nexus, and as we see below, Luke was seriously injured. There is no reason to think that this reflects Krayt’s base power - and it isn’t even that impressive.

Luke's gauntlet of injuries

”Smellymits wrote:Luke had just fought through literal armies of Sith and then Abeloth herself earlier in the book before going to fight Abeloth Beyond Shadows with no apparent medical treatment. This is after a multi-book run of constantly fighting Abeloth and Sith squads, many times at near-death states.

Luke as of TUF, who isn’t on the same level as FotJ, stormed through Shimmra’s citadel without even breathing heavily. It required a lopsided battle with 15 slayers where Luke had to protect his niece and nephew to actually cause him to exert himself.

Did Luke have to fight Abeloth several times in TUF? Did he not have a Force meld? Did he go weeks without food or water? Did he black out multiple times and suffer several severe wounds?

The fact that 15 Slayers pushed him so hard beyond the thousands of Vong shows that you can’t then pretend to scale the difficulty of fighting Abeloth to fighting said thousands of Vong.

Is there any evidence Luke was tired, or are you just saying words?

Did you read FotJ? Throughout it Luke several times loses consciousness, gets impaled by Abeloth, suffocated by an energy net, and destructively injured in practically every conceivable way. Fatigue alone isn’t even the primary factor, though it probably is a major one too. Here’s an example from just earlier in the book:

They came together in a collision that left Luke's head spinning and his bones aching. He knew his lightsaber had struck home because he smelled scorched flesh. The hilt was wobbling against his hand as Korelei struggled to free herself of the searing blade. He felt a palm press itself to his chest, so he brought his free hand up and grabbed her armˇ...ˇtoo late. His entire body sizzled into the joint-crushing grip of a Force lightning strike.

The agony seemed to last forever. Luke could feel his own flesh charring beneath the palm pressed to his chest; he was paralyzed by the lightning, unable to fight free or attack with a head-butt, or even flick his lightsaber blade and finish Korelei. He simply hung paralyzed, one hand clutching her arm, the other pressing the hilt to her chest, wondering how long it would take her to die.

And that’s not even in the top 30 list.

So not only was Krayt amped and Luke hindered by the nexus sprung from Abeloth’s presence over the course of thousands of years and the Ones themselves once having lived there, but he was also fresh while Luke had just fought through one of the most dire gauntlets in the mythos, including several near-death encounters with Abeloth. This once again invalidates everything below.

Krayt's mighty cheapshot

I was making the point that just because an attack opens a hole in the energetic form, it does not cause the damage needed for essence to pour out of it. Penetration is part of it but the damage caused internally is the other part (not to mention the victim resisting, but I come onto that below).

This “Krayt injured a distracted Abeloth!” wanking is incredibly incoherent. To use your own phrase, it’s “just saying words”. There’s so much micro-analysis, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Why not just focus on something else, like the Force drain?

So we agree that in the real world, this wouldn’t be impressive at all to do on a distracted foe, since Star Wars isn’t DBZ. As you note, you agree with this point. Sirak could probably have done the same to Palpatine.

You are really into the fact that essence is described as spilling out of Abeloth in that scene, but not in the one where Abeloth lightning’d Krayt. Maybe that’s because the scene cuts right after the attack hits Luke? So Luke is himself on the ground in agony (though it’s not said that the attack penetrates him), and in the moments before a scene cut, he has to explicitly note that some black stuff is coming out of Krayt?

But didn’t you in your own post claim that Krayt was also elbowing and striking Abeloth at the end even though it wasn’t mentioned, because it was from Luke’s PoV so it was just omitted?

But even if we threw you that bone, what the hell are you trying to prove? That Krayt’s hand was more damaging than Abeloth’s lightning? That’s not very impressive - it’s common for an uncharged lighting bolt to be less damaging than a direct physical hit against a distracted foe (let alone a full penetration into someone’s body). If you reply by saying that those differences don’t matter Beyond Shadows:

They obviously do - otherwise all parties would just spend all their time doing a single attack. What was the point of Krayt’s drain combined with Luke’s grappling? Why was Luke using specific fighting moves? Why was Abeloth doing the same, despite being experienced Beyond Shadows?
Does this mean Krayt > Abeloth? You are adamant in not even arguing that Krayt ~ Luke, so I guess the answer is “no”, which means that attacks DO have differences.
Why didn’t Krayt’s other attacks aside from drain do the same?

As for the energy knot, that this specific technique doesn't involve essence oozing out doesn't tell us anything. It's clearly not analogous to a hostile, unprepared for penetration because Luke and Krayt don't get dropped to their knees in the same way they did with the lightning penetration. So it could be that they are manipulating their spirit bodies in a controlled way - regardless of the specific mechanism, it's an incredible feat in straw grasping to scale Krayt's hand over anything, and even if you could, that wouldn't be a direct reflection of their power unless if you think Krayt > Abeloth, which you don't.

So even if you established your pet theory about penetration, it doesn't mean anything because you haven't quantified the difficulty of Krayt's attack. Even if you established that it's just 100% Force essences, you haven't established the difficulty of Krayt's attack. The entire rest of the body of the Star Wars lore tells us that injuring a distracted foe isn't that impressive.

tl;dr: It’s pretty indicative of how unimpressive Krayt’s performance was that half of the case for him involves trying to argue that hurting Abeloth by coming in from the side and cheapshotting her while she’s distracted is some grand feat.

”ILS” wrote:

Apocalypse wrote:Then Luke was there at Abeloth's side, stomp-kicking her legs, knife-handing her throat, grabbing for her head. It was like cotton striking gauze-no popping ligaments or crunching cartilage, just Force essence pushing into Force essence. But the damage was done. Luke's foot went through Abeloth's knee; her leg buckled. His hand sank into her larynx, and she drew back wheezing.

So, even though Luke is kicking out a knee and Abeloth's knee is buckling... there are no physical knees buckling. It's just energy, just essence pushing into essence. Energy destroying and diminishing other energy. It's just a representation of an energetic clash "But the damage was done". So don't take it as Abeloth's knee literally buckling, take it as a sign she has suffered damage and her energy has been diminished.

Yes, but when Luke kicks Krayt’s knee, he falls down, which means that there is still some analogy to physical concepts like gravity, positioning and center of mass - the practical difference is not as large as you are implying.

The bait-and-switch that seems to be used here is that because certain things don’t apply Beyond Shadows, other things also must not apply even though they were narrated as being central to the outcome of the battle.

”Smellymits” wrote:Doing lots of damage once his hand is inside Abeloth. Um, if your hand is literally in someone's guts, it's not that hard to do lots of damage even if you're far weaker than them. You might say that Beyond Shadows is different, but again, that would require elaboration - what's so difficult about grabbing that essence stuff once your hand is inside? Is the essence being glued together with some sort of Force barrier proportional to their power? Based on what?

Krayt’s hand is not “literally in someone’s guts”.

How do your quotes address the point at all?

The absence of bone ligaments doesn’t change the fact that geometry still exists - it still matters whether Krayt is attacking Abeloth from the side and “reaching for whatever he could find”, as opposed to Luke punching and kicking a resisting one. Ergo, Krayt getting his hand into Abeloth and doing damage when she’s preoccupied and he has free reign to tear his hand around inside her isn’t provably harder than Sirak doing the same to Palpatine, which would be completely feasible.

If elements like “distraction”, angle of attack, wrestling, etc. didn’t apply, why aren’t Luke and Krayt just using TK? Why does Luke use specific melee techniques and grapple with her? Why does Abeloth do the same, and then try to retreat? The ridiculous “instinctively reached for his lightsaber” argument has been debunked, so there is nothing here.

This harped on “feat” is just Krayt injuring someone while they’re distracted and not resisting. It’s an attempt to grasp at the tiniest evidence that Krayt did something.

----------

I've noticed that the "Krayt's hand went into Abeloth" feat is so stupid and incoherent that it's actually difficult to summarize just how little it makes sense - you don't even know where to start.

Here's the flow chart:

Hurting a distracted opponent when you're hand's inside them with a massive hole isn't very impressive. Sirak could do that to Palpatine.
--- "But Beyond Shadows is different!"
How?
--- "Penetration isn't enough...because Abeloth's lightning!"
The scene cut as soon as the lightning hit, so the lack of mention of stuff coming out doesn't mean much. Even if it did, the penetration question is a red herring - the point still is that Krayt surprised Abeloth and had his hand in a pretty vulnerable position against an undefended Abeloth. By what criteria was this difficult to cause damage with?
-- "But kicks and punches didn't do the same!"
Yeah...kicks and punches against a resisting Abeloth didn't have the same effect as Krayt coming in from the side and sticking his hand into her gut. Duh?
-- "But the energy knot!"
The energy knot on a per-time basis didn't do as much direct damage as either the lightning bolt or elbows and kicks either, so regardless of the penetration mechanics scaling above the energy knot in damage makes no sense.
-- "It's just pure force essences, so it's about power!"
OK...and? Krayt applied enough power to somewhat hurt a distracted Abeloth by putting his hand into her torso...so what? There's clearly a difference between different attacks given that different attacks are used to different effects. 
-- "But now it's up to you to show Yoda could replicate it!"
What? Replicate what? He stuck his hand in a distracted Abeloth and caused damage - that doesn't sound impressive at all. It's not like he incapacitated her either. You can't say "here's this totally ambiguous feat, now it's on you to quantify it so you can show someone else can replicate it!"

It just makes absolutely no sense.

--------

Hence why Luke is the no.1 character in this tournament: he is able to outright resist the Force manipulations of Abeloth.

And Krayt does absolutely nothing in the fight that involves resisting Abeloth’s full attention (besides not immediately dying from her initial attack - ooooh, how impressive) or getting through her prepared defenses. Every single thing he does involves attacking Abeloth while she’s distracted. In Star Wars, it is not at all difficult to do damage to a distracted combatant in the contexts Krayt was in. Sirak’s hand inside Palpatine would do serious damage, and I’d reckon that if Traya had hours to use Force drain on a Palpatine that was wrestling with someone else, it would have a serious effect.

At no point does Krayt accomplish anything that Ventress couldn’t do against Sidious.

You keep mentioning Yoda. Yoda as far as I know doesn’t automatically inherit the feats of other characters. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that Luke left Yoda in the dust 40 years ago, that was kind of the point of Dark Empire. Can you explain to me why you think Yoda is close to FotJ Luke at all?

I don’t think Krayt is close to FotJ Luke at all, so that question is irrelevant. The only relativity Krayt has to Luke is that he didn’t get literally oneshot by Abeloth’s initial uncharged bolt, which is itself difficult to quantify because durability Beyond Shadows is clearly far greater given the wounds they take, and that Abeloth can’t ragdoll him with a single TK blast while she’s preoccupied fighting Luke and has a hand inside her grabbing at stuff (which you just argued seriously harmed her).

Of course it requires exceptional power on Krayt’s part to cause Abeloth that much damage - he needs the opening, sure, but no more than Luke needs Krayt draining Abeloth to stop her from turning around tentacle-molesting him. It’s fallacious to say that just anyone who has an opening on Abeloth can cause massive damage to her - I have proof of what Krayt can do, if you want to say someone else can replicate his feat, the burden of proof transfer to you, the person making the claim.

You’re trying to redirect the burden of proof here in an odd way. If I establish a feat, it’s up to me to quantify it to some reasonable degree, whereas all you can say is that it’s “hard”.

Analogy: if I show a feat of Obi Wan lifting a rock, and someone asks me to quantify the rock’s weight, I can’t just say “well now the burden is on you to show that so-and-so can replicate the feat!” Likewise, if you can’t establish how difficult it is to make essence come out of someone Beyond Shadows, this is an unknown - or we defer to what we already know in the physical world, which makes this a sub-Maul feat.

Using real-world Star Wars dynamics, Krayt’s feat isn’t impressive at all. Literally a stray blaster bolt from a battle droid can injure or kill a distracted opponent, let alone another Force user - Star Wars isn’t DBZ. Your case is predicated on Beyond Shadows being different, but you keep making distinctions without a difference. None of your stuff about energy knots or bone ligaments proves that it’s oh-so-impressive to injure a distracted opponent.

Stand still and let me drain you for days, top tier feat

So, that pronounced difference happened purely because of Krayt's drain - he hadn't yet ripped his arm out of her.

So what?

Over the course of an explicitly indeterminate amount of time which the narrator thinks could’ve been hours or days, Krayt causes lots of damage to Abeloth using drain and sticking his hand inside her.

At no point in time does Abeloth have the opportunity to turn her full attention to Krayt. We have no idea how much Krayt is contributing to restraining her - well, we do, in that the description makes it clear that Luke is principally doing it. Luke is the “tank”, in RPG terms.

It is not that impressive to do serious damage to a distracted foe over the course of hours or days. I reckon that Maul sticking his hand in Sidious and attacking him non-stop for hours while he’s distracted would have a good chance of killing him outright.

The hidden "tweets are C-canon" announcement

The idea that Krayt is as far away from Luke as you claim, and indeed, as far away from him as Yoda (who Luke is in another galaxy from power-wise) seems silly on its face.

What’s silly on its face is attempting to patch together an author’s tweet about power levels and “FotJ Luke >>>> LotF Luke >>>> NJO Luke >>>> Yoda” powerscaling as though the author’s conception of power levels were congruent with any of the scaling chains used in this forum. You don’t even believe this, because if you did then you would argue Reborn Krayt >> Apoc Krayt ~ Luke, but you were accusing me of strawmen for thinking you thought that (which I didn’t).

If one takes author tweets from their personal accounts as authoritative (with zero basis in Chee or Lucasfilm’s policy), one would have to accept a lot of off-the-books author statements that nobody, certainly not ILS, accepts.

Also, what was again ignored was that the author literally told you (because it apparently wasn’t already understood) that he was dodging the question.

If you want to play mindreader

Trying to apply pedantry to in-universes sources is one thing. However, trying to pretend that Denning would say “Krayt absolutely oneshots Obi Wan” or “Luke completely demolishes Yoda” and hiding behind some high standard of proof as if you didn't know that Star Wars authors don’t think that way is just grossly dishonest. If the goal here is to look for reasonable arguments instead of petty gotchas predicated on the hope that nobody will bother to actually tweet authors, this would be a bad place to start.

Not that this conversation is even relevant until you show me where tweets are canonized. Once you do, I will ask several twitter profiles and establish that Krayt ~ Obi Wan and Maul ~ Satele Shan, and you will presumably be honor-bound to follow your own methodology.

Summary

Let’s summarize:

• Krayt was amped by a mega-nexus.
  
• Luke was hindered by said mega-nexus *and* had gone through several near-death experiences fighting Abeloth multiple times and armies of Sith throughout a killer gauntlet of several books, including just hours before.
  
• Krayt never has to deal with an Abeloth whose full attention is on him, except for a single uncharged lightning bolt. His entire defensive role revolves around attacking Abeloth from the side and tagging along behind Luke.
  
• Krayt is able to come in and cheapshot Abeloth from the side while she’s getting pummeled by Luke, and Krayt’s other showings are so pathetic that this hilariously trivial non-feat is wanked as some major accomplishment.
  
• Krayt is able to seriously injure Abeloth through drain/knots/whatever over the course of an explicitly indeterminate amount of time that is described as potentially hours. Basically, when Abeloth is being pummeled and wrestled down by Luke, Krayt using all of his might (to the point where he’s hurting himself) over the course of hours with a hand stuck in Abeloth can do damage. It’s no exaggeration to say that Sirak could seriously hurt Sidious if he had hours to do so against a distracted Palpatine who is getting pummeled.
  

What does this establish? At most, that Krayt isn’t one-shot material for Luke - and even that is Beyond Shadows, where durability is greater. I don’t see evidence that Yoda is “one-shot material” for Luke.

Accept Krayt’s weakness and inferiority.

Let's do a mini-summary of my portion of the rebuttal (see: my posts above) - not including Ant's own arguments.

Re: Caedus vs. Luke

• A quote posted by ILS inadvertently undermined the entire point because it showed that Caedus still did not know Luke's power even after the Inferno fight. And even after the Invincible fight, he couldn't fathom that Luke could do the illusion and foresight feats that he did - the possibility could not even occur to him.
  
• Luke's emotional state and level of effort can make him vary from beyond DE Sidious to getting pinned down by YVH droids. In this case, he was still in turmoil from Mara's death, so the idea that he was fighting at his peak given his history is absurd.
  
• ILS conflated the ideology espoused by Vergere with the LotF NJO which had abandoned it to argue that Luke wasn't scared of drawing on the dark side even though he admonished Ben for that literally in the exact same fight.
  
• For some reason ILS quoted Jacen's experience in Oneness to get people to think that Jaina in the battle meld was in a similar state even though the two were completely unrelated amps.
  
• In both fights, Caedus would've been down in seconds were it not for 1) his damage soak (which isn't scalable at all) and 2) convenient environmental traps.
  
• There's no evidence that Krayt is cosmically more significant than Jacen, seeing as how Jacen changed the current of the Force, nor would that suggest Krayt's superior personal power given his command over an entire Sith Empire with millions of Sith.
  
• The Apocalypse scaling tacked on at the end makes the entire scaling off of Caedus pointless.
  

Re: Apocalypse Krayt

• The fight took place in one of the most potent dark side nexuses in history. I have no idea how the lack of midichlorians would matter when spirits draw on nexuses in Star Wars all the time.
  
• Luke had run through an unprecedented gauntlet of several Abeloth avatars, armies of Sith, etc. during which he was stabbed several times, blacked out repeatedly, suffocated with nets, went weeks without eating or drinking, etc. Even then, his initial plan was to face Abeloth alone. 
  
• At no point does ILS's shaky beyond shadows mechanics guesswork actually address the fact that Krayt was attacking a distracted Abeloth over a protracted period of time, and that at no point in Star Wars does this require any remote relativity in power - Sirak could perhaps do that to Palpatine. Scaling it above an energy knot that isn't meant to cause immediate damage makes no sense, regardless of the specific mechanics. 
  
• At no point does Krayt have to deal with the full attention of Abeloth. The most he does is survive a single uncharged lightning blast and hold onto her while she launches a single TK attack at both of them while she is being pummeled and penetrated.
  
• Krayt's drain and hand-in-gut are done over the course of potentially hours or days. At no point in Star Wars is there precedence for it being difficult to harm someone who is distracted while you attack them with everything you have over the course of hours or days.
  
• Krayt's contributions are not the same as his power - he tactically undermined Abeloth while she was preoccupied engaging with Luke, but never had to actually take her on.
  

---------

Meanwhile, we can look at Yoda, who matched Sidious at the end of RotS, who had himself grown noticeably stronger from when he was already the most powerful Sith Lord in galactic history, putting him above the likes of Vitiate and Plagueis. We can look at how pre-prime Sidious unbalanced the Force to an unprecedented degree by merely existing and triggered the creation of the Chosen One, as opposed to Krayt needing to take over the galaxy first with an army of millions of Sith to unbalance the Force, and ILS argued that this directly reflects their power.

Vote for Yoda, KF Vader, Vol, UnuThul, etc. - so many options other than Krayt. Krayt isn't even top 10.

@The Ellimist: That's honestly probably the most devastating post I've read in my 8 years of debating.

My responses concerning Cade, the Sith Trooper feat, and KFV overall will be out tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was busy tonight with other stuff.

@ILS @Azronger @The Ellimist @DarthAnt66 : Great post from you all. This is insanely enjoyable to read them and thrilling when each time I change my opinion. Pls keep going !
Nonetheless from what I have seen so far, it seems that Az and ILS are arguing in favor of Krayt as the n°5 on this list while Ant and Elm argued at  him not being as high as place by Az and ILS but no argument so far have clearly establish any sort of superiority for KF Vader over Krayt.
And this is the problem here, all of this debate happend after only having two possible options: Krayt and KF Vader. Because of this and until a convincing argument will be made in favor of KF Vader, my vote is still with Krayt.

Ant will likely address this in more detail, but I'd like to just briefly say:

Azronger wrote:And telepathically commanding his Sith Troopers are enough to grant him the number 5 spot. To go into the last feat a but more, since it hasn't been talked about yet, basically, one of Krayt's captured Sith Troopers revealed that there are millions of his kind, all of them "linked through the dark side" to Krayt, their wills tantamount to his own.

That doesn't mean that he's TP'ing them. Some dying Sith Trooper poetically claims that they are "linked through the dark side", which could mean all sorts of things (including nothing substantive at all), and that "his will is our will", which could just indicate fanatical loyalty. It's quite an extreme stretch to go from this to "Krayt is telepathically dominating millions of Force users across the galaxy 24/7".

And we know this wasn't just propaganda; the Sith Troopers start going on suicide bombing runs en masse once they detect Krayt has been killed. They were slaves to his will, entirely codependent.

That's not even beyond what many fanatical cultists do in real life when their cult leader dies. That doesn't indicate some galaxy-wide TP at all. The Sith Troopers are also designed cyborgs - they could've easily been made to have extreme loyalty. There are plenty of examples of minions in Star Wars having extreme, suicidal dedication to their masters.

The above quotes also lay the foundations of the Sith Troopers feat: long before that, Krayt had been sinking his psychic fangs into the minds of his servants, and even the Force itself. Krayt notes in his Holocron that he has bent the Force to his will, and the Legacy Era Campaign Guide notes that "the influence of the dark side is stronger than ever," "The dark side clouds everything, and the galaxy's future is harder to see than ever before," and that "If the influence of the dark side waxes and wanes, during the Legacy era it reaches peaks unseen except during the grimmest times in galactic history."

As you later acknowledge, Krayt is only able to do this with the help of a massive army of millions of Sith and domination of the galaxy. If anything, it could scale his Apocalypse self below pre-prime Plagueis. Nowhere is it established that Reborn Krayt can do this just on his own power. You proceed to present other feats for him, but none that relate to the unbalancing. Those other feats are impressive, but hardly beyond the capabilities of RotS Sidious, given that Sidious was shrouding the precognitive abilities of the entire Jedi Order at its peak and unbalancing the entire cosmic Force through his own sheer will, and scales above Vitiate.

Not to mention that Plagueis himself acts to TP every living being in the galaxy and only fails because the Force actively intervened.

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Re: Obi Wan scaling

Azronger wrote:Many arguments for Mustafar Vader being hindered have been offered over the years, but none have been satisfactory, and they are all directly refuted by the source material. 

For the record, all of your points are in regards to:

- Vader's raw power
- Vader's dueling skill

Seeing as how Vader's anger prevented him from sensing Obi Wan as Padme descended (despite Anakin having a deeply intimate connection with Obi Wan's Force signature). I'm sure you've seen all of the quotes for the hindering - they don't contradict the quotes that say he has more raw power or is a tier 9 duelist at all. But we're talking about dueling below, so anyway:

Some might assume Kenobi’s heightened state of enlightenment was circumstantial and only present for this one fight,

Well Kenobi started crying in clear attachment to Anakin as soon as he won and couldn't bring himself to finish him off due to his attachment (per both the movie and Stover), so it clearly wasn't a permanent state. That's not to say that I couldn't see Obi Wan drawing on that Enlightened state again, but the description of his effort against Vader and his duel with Hett aren't remotely comparable.

Indeed, Obi Wan wasn't even trying to kill or seriously maim Hett, which would explain why he's clearly on the defensive for most of the fight, only explicitly sweeping at his legs and then moving to disarm him. Meanwhile, by that point in the fight he was willing to kill Vader.

but that is incorrect. Shortly after the Mustafar duel, Kenobi runs faster than any Force user in history, including Yoda and Sidious, so fast that his atoms were beginning to be ripped apart by the velocity

While this is an impressive feat, it's not clearly linked to his Enlightenment (though was perhaps facilitated by it), nor is it a speed that he was replicating in his fight with Hett. If anything, it suggests that Obi Wan in times of great need can amp himself to great heights, which explains events like:

- piercing the shroud of the dark side
- suddenly overloading Grievous's defenses by amping up his intensity
- going from being physically dominated by Vader to matching him blow for blow
- moving faster than any Jedi in history (despite not being more powerful than the likes of Yoda at base)
- going from struggling against Hett to just disarming him in seconds right after thinking about Luke

Ultimately, the descriptor of being enormously better than someone is too vague to make any precise conclusions about how close the fight would be.

That's odd because your arguments about Hett's subsequent growth are heavily predicated on such kinds of adjectives.

As to the sometimes-tossed-around notion that Ben won as he soon as reminded himself he was fighting for Luke, warriors’ motivations circulate around their brain constantly. Ben going in his head “Oh shit, I just remembered this is the farm where Anakin’s son is living. I better try a bit harder against this guy” as if he hadn’t once thought of the possibility that bloodthirsty Tuskens would kill Luke makes absolutely no sense.

The stream of consciousness is in chronological order. He happens to take down Hett in seconds right after he thinks about that. Coincidence?

Of course Obi Wan wasn't just mailing it in before then. But there's a big difference between "putting in effort" and, say, his fight against Anakin which was the biggest fight of his life where he drew on the Force more deeply "than ever before" and ended up having an Enlightenment state. Seeing as how "base" Obi Wan had previously gotten ragdolled by Dooku, it's clear that he doesn't always fight at that intensity. I'm not denying that he can if he wants to - but when he upped the intensity against Hett, he beat him within seconds.

It's not an uncommon theme for someone to kind of do OK in a fight and then get a renewed resolve and turn the tide. This is clearly what happens with Obi Wan. Meanwhile, Hett is motivated to kill Obi Wan from the start.

While the text notes Hett was more experienced fighting on sand, this is hardly a factor. Firstly, let us make clear that it only gave Hett an advantage, and did not give Kenobi any disadvantage, as inferior fighters like Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul weren't bothered by the desert environment at all. Secondly, we are talking about Force users here: something as trivial as sand beneath their boots isn't going to boost their precognition, augmentation, reflexes or clarity of mind - far more pertinent factors in a lightsaber duel than simple technique or raw skill. The fact that Hett had more experience fighting on a desert doesn't take away from the fact that Kenobi didn't ragdoll, speedblitz or do anything to Hett that would indicate he could stomp. It would be a hard-fought battle in any environment.

Then why does Kenobi/the narrator go out of his way to make a note of it more than once? Indeed, the sand is stated directly as the reason for Obi Wan not easily deflecting his attacks - a direct reading of Kenobi's thoughts suggest that he would deflect them easily on more even terrain:

Ben blocked each blow, but he wasn't doing it with ease. Hett was far more experienced at fighting on the sand and in the desert heat.

I think Obi Wan knows more about the importance of terrain than you could just speculate on, and it's not difficult to imagine that terrain plays a role in a high-speed exchanging of deadly energy blades, even if only altering things by small fractions of a millisecond. Obi Wan even thought that a few meters of elevation on Mustafar ended the fight (and he was correct).

Even if we ignored Obi Wan's clear increase in resolve at the end, his lack of willingness to kill Hett, and the terrain, let's not overstate Hett's performance here. Obi Wan doesn't deflect his blows "with ease", but we don't know what that means in the same lens of you questioning the magnitude of the 8-9 gap due to adjective ambiguity. Could Obi Wan deflect Kit Fisto's blows "with ease"? It's not like he wouldn't have to strain himself at all. Would Usain Bolt have to strain himself to outrun a good high school track runner? Yes, he would, to some degree. Obi Wan never says "oh my god I might actually lose", nor does he have the same intensity as his fight with Vader where he's backtracking and backtracking and having to put his every being into his defense.

Hett gets a kick and a punch in, OK - does it actually do anything? No. He seems more analogous to when Captain American got mjolnir and put in a few hits on Thanos for a few exchanges before clearly getting dominated. 

In his fight against Kenobi, Vader did initiate a physical grappling moves several times, but despite being the physically superior fighter, he failed to overpower Kenobi each time, even from a position of advantage. 

He was physically dominating Obi Wan, who only got free by manipulating the electronics in Anakin's hand.

Anyway, let's look at all of the factors putting the scaling of Knightfall Vader to Hett in question:

• Obi Wan suggested that he wasn't deflecting Hett's blows easily because of the terrain. The implication is that he wouldn't have had difficulties without the terrain.
  
• Obi Wan was not interested in killing Hett, while Hett was clearly interested in killing Obi Wan.
  
• In the chronological stream of thoughts, Obi Wan notes that he is defending Luke and then defeats Hett within seconds. Analogously, his "move faster than any Jedi in history" feat happens to be while taking care of Luke.
  
• Obi Wan was constantly giving ground against Vader - it's much easier to last when you're giving ground.
  
• Obi Wan knew Vader's every move, which is explicitly noted in sources as a reason for his high performance.
  
• At the end of RotS, Obi Wan enters a peak state that he then comes out of as soon as he beats Anakin and his attachment visibly comes back. It's possible that he can go back into that state at times of great need, but there is no description suggesting that he does it against Hett.
  

There's also this implication in your argument that all of these growths in Hett's dark side power would cover for the gap between him and Vader in sabers. Dueling ability does increase with Force power, but it's not as extreme (hence why duels are usually closer than Force clashes between otherwise disparately powerful Force users). It's not clear that going from Hett to Krayt makes up for the gap between sub-Obi Wan and someone who is explicitly in Yoda or Sidious's tier.

So Hett doesn't scale to Knightfall Vader in the slightest. He scales to losing to a non-killing-mood Obi Wan despite advantageous terrain. 

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So so far, Krayt has been thoroughly debunked - Apocalypse is nothing, the Cade fight is an anti-feat, he didn't legitimately contend with Obi Wan, and the legitimate telepathy feats aren't really beyond BoTPM Sidious.

xolthol wrote:Nonetheless from what I have seen so far, it seems that Az and ILS are arguing in favor of Krayt as the n°5 on this list while Ant and Elm argued at  him not being as high as place by Az and ILS but no argument so far have clearly establish any sort of superiority for KF Vader over Krayt.

OK, so let's say we've debunked all of the major Krayt arguments - he doesn't scale from Luke in Apocalypse, he wasn't TP'ing millions of Sith, he could only unbalance the Force through having a massive army of Sith, etc. He's left with some decent telepathic communication feats and some circular scaling from other characters in Legacy (which Ant has/will demonstrate are often anti-feats).

What do we have with Knightfall Vader? The outline - and we can go into more detail later - is this:

Anakin as of RotS already has several, perhaps up to a dozen, sources placing him as the most powerful Jedi in history in a combative context. Even if you think he cannot access that power reliably at the beginning of RotS, he explicitly figures out how to do so ("fear as a weapon") on the Invisible Hand, where he absolutely dominates Dooku (who was more powerful than he was in TCW), turning "even his mastery of the Force [into a] joke", with far greater ease than Yoda did. Then he grows even more powerful as Knightfall Vader, to the point where Sidious is wondering whether Vader is already more powerful than him (which is clearly not a reference to potential, as that wouldn't even be doubted).

We also have Gillard saying that Anakin/KF Vader has the fewest flaws in his form among the tier 9's, and that Vader might be pushing a 10.

This is strong enough reason to establish that KF Vader is at least in the same tier as Yoda and RotS Sidious. The argument could be made that Sidious is overall a deadlier combatant than KF Vader due to his superior mastery of the dark side, and there are conflicting accolades putting either Anakin/Vader or Sidious at the top. None that would matter against Krayt though - Krayt doesn't have any legitimate feats that put him as a tier 9 combatant. He can't even stomp Wyrlokk, who was weaker than Karness Muur and struggled against Darth Andeddu. It's very difficult to read the Legacy comics and conclude that "struggles with Cade" Krayt is a Palpatine-tier combatant, which is probably why most of the members here who read through it didn't even entertain that idea until very labored attempts were made to fit scaling chains to it.

So I think the script now flips on the Krayt side to provide legitimate feats for him that compare to RotS Sidious/KF Vader/Yoda's tier.

But anyway, as of now the focus is on debunking Krayt per the above posts, but we will start to more actively lay out the case for KF Vader (though I would still encourage a vote for someone other than Krayt).

ILS wrote:Yeah, it seems clear to me that out of all of the threats that came about post-Sidious, aside from Abeloth, Krayt was the most powerful - and certainly the most successful and influential - manifestation of the dark side, and whether that is a direct reflection of his power or an indirect reflection of his power, it's hard to deny that it is a reflection of his power, just as Sidious' success was a reflection of his power.

It's somewhat correlated to his power; it's also correlated to the decades he spent in secret gathering a massive military and base of Force users. If the magnitude of threat were just about personal combative power, what's the point of Krayt even bothering to get himself a fleet? Note that Krayt only unbalances the Force after he achieves success militarily.

So while this can be used as a sort of generalized proxy for his abilities, it isn't nearly precise enough to say that Krayt is above or comparable to RotS Sidious/Yoda/KF Vader. If anything, it suggests that Krayt as of Apocalypse could not match Plagueis or pre-TPM Sidious's power.

For that reason he understood just how dangerous this new Sith Lord was. He hadn't had a sense of that danger until he had fought Dooku on Geonosis. Then he understood. In self-exile for a thousand years, the Sith had not merely been waiting for an appropriate time to reemerge and exact revenge, but for the birth of one strong enough to embrace the dark side fully and become its dedicated instrument.

?? Then why vote for Krayt above Yoda (= EoRotS Sidious)? Sidious as early as pre-TPM and certainly by AotC was replicating what you claim Krayt with millions of Sith did. You can use your methodology to scale Plagueis far above Apocalypse Krayt. Or you could refute that using arguments that would end up forfeiting the meaningfulness of the unbalancing feats at all.

However, it's clear that there is a bifurcation between the Shadow, which marks what is to come and his birth is dated decades after Tenebrous' death, and the One Sith which would rise after the Shadow - Darth Krayt's One Sith Order, as well as the fact he is the "One Sith" whose will is made manifest through that Order, which is a manifestation of the Banite Rule of Two coming to an end

There is no such bifurcation. Tenebrous is elaborating on what the Shadow would bring - the One Sith (aka Sidious ending the Banite Line as he intended, perhaps what he would do further out in Tenebrous's timeline). If he were predicting Krayt's rise after Palpatine:

• Why would he call the rise of the Shadow the "end of history" if the Shadow gets replaced by Krayt, presumably not voluntarily?
  
• Why would he describe the Shadow/Sidious as invincible and dominating everything forever if he gets replaced by Krayt?
  

Furthermore, even if Tenebrous were referring to Krayt (which he isn't), that wouldn't say anything about the actual Krayt's power. So many things happened that Tenebrous didn't anticipate. For one thing, the fact that he allegedly imagined Krayt as invincible clearly doesn't align with the fact that Krayt got killed by Cade, so either he was just wrong altogether or Krayt never got to become as powerful as he would've (perhaps due to factors beyond Tenebrous's predictions like the Chosen One's redemption, Jacen altering the current, Plagueis dying to Palpatine, etc.). 

So, Krayt and Sidious are the two most cosmically significant Sith Lords in history in terms of their ability to rule the galaxy: they were seen in Tenebrous' calculations of the future, they were seen in visions and dreams (the dark stranger of Luke and Jacen's dreams who is seen on the Throne of Balance), their coming marked times where the galaxy would be most shrouded by the dark side and most out of balance - and all of this, per numerous quotes, is a direct result of their power.

This doesn't establish that Krayt is one of the two most cosmically significant Sith at all, and it doesn't mean his personal power is proportional. He only unbalances the Force to a degree comparable to Palpatine after invading the galaxy with millions of Sith, as opposed to pre-prime Sidious doing this by himself. I suppose by your metric TPM Sidious ~ Krayt's entire empire? You have this incredibly vague extrapolation from Tenebrous's incorrect musings that empirically overestimates the power of the One Sith even if he were referring to Krayt.

Is Krayt more cosmically significant than Caedus, who changed the very current of the Force? What about Plagueis, who unbalanced the cosmic Force (without a galactic army) and was deep enough into midichlorian manipulation so as to trigger the Force's retaliation with the Chosen One? Or Vitiate, who was going to consume the entire galaxy and was thwarted in part by the Force creating the Outlander and sending visions to multiple people in a centuries long counter?

Re: closing time. The original plan was 10 days and 48 hours. Then 72 hours in light of me and Az posting. For my part, I'll leave my final thoughts and vote in the next 12 hours and adhere to the original deadline.

After a long evaluation, I give my vote to Krayt

(Edit: retracted)