Star Wars Tournament: Top 50 Most Powerful Force Users: Continuation

I'm taking a break from SW debating for a few weeks, someone else can take the torch.

I'll take over and we'll hop to voting immediately, I'm not interested in seeing Xolthol fail to respond.

Don't be a dick DC.

NO ONE VOTE. Let Xolthol make their case.

DC77 @The Chosen One It's OK if you go on the voting time. Except if you can wait at least 3 weeks in order for me to made my case. I'm really busy IRL for the 3 coming weeks (I didn't have the time to read HP counter to Az on the Tournament).

Fuck it, I don't wanna be a douche. I'll wait.

I would like to add one quote to my original post regarding the Sinkhole station fight: Vestara gives her own assessment on the fight and notes that when her master had died she was “hopelessly outmatched”, further proving her massive inferiority over her master, when you consider that prior they were fighting him to a stalemate ( to an extent): 
--

Mere hours before, she and her Sith Master, Lady Rhea, had confronted Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker. Lady Rhea and Vestara had fought the galaxy’s most experienced, most famous Jedi to a standstill. Vestara had even cut him, a graze to the cheek and chin that had spattered her with blood—blood she had later tasted, blood she wished she could take a sample of and keep forever as a souvenir.
But then Skywalker had shown why he carried that reputation. A moment’s distraction, and suddenly Lady Rhea was in four pieces, each drifting in a separate direction, and Vestara was hopelessly outmatched. She had saluted and fled.`
-fate of the Jedi: backlash

Gaalan. Cilghal explained it perfectly.

Bump.

I can't be bothered running this but we should move on. At this rate it'll be Christmas by the time Xolthol responds.

Azronger should just reassert control tbh.

I concur.

I'm willing to take over for now.

Anyway, everyone vote for this round then we can progress to the next.

People made their perspective clear early on. This does nothing but needlessly prolong the inevitable. Gaalan wins, advance to the next round.

I'm agreed that Gaalan wins.

Yeah I think we should proceed, unless @Xolthol intends to make a case.

Proceed, I will made a case when will have some time and put it inot an other topic on the forum.

@MasterCilghal @O-Siri @NotAA3 @DC77 (Reborn) @Gaunter O'Dimm

Thanks to all of you we agree to wait until I have some time IRL to made my point.

This is my case for Vestara beating Gaalan.

You have all in mind the scaling chain from Cilghal showing that Vestara is clearly outmatch by Gaalan. But this scaling chain is faulty because of one theory that Cilghal have:

MasterCilghal wrote:Of course Vestara went through a power growth, but nothing indicates she became massively more powerful , especially considering that her legends prime is like a year later.

This theory isn't right at all. Indeed we learn in the FotJ series that :

"Perhaps I'm not as skilled as Ben or you, but good enough. I learn fast."
"Learn fast?" Ben said, instantly alert. Luke was, too—did she mean she hadn't had much training?

This is further empathize during her duel with her father where the latter and herself agree on her improvement:

Was she really that much better a fighter after her time with the Skywalkers?

Gavar Khai wrote:“Very good,” he said. “Your skills have improved

Now that we all know that Vestara have improve, the real question is: by what margin ? Enough to defeat Gaalan ?

The response is yes. Lets jump into the proof.

Luke versus Gaalan:

First of all, I want to clear some false idea that could be find in your mind. While Luke is in better shape than in the Sinkhole station he is still far from acting at the peak of his power:

Fate of the Jedi: Backlash wrote:But Luke, despite recent exertions, had  time to recover

Gavar Khai versus Viun Gaalan

Gaalan was part of the crew of the High Lord Sarasu Taalon in his expedition to find Abeloth. He was sent by the High Lord to take the Nightsisters on Dathomir. This were the reason why he encounter Luke.

But another sith who was in this expedition is Gavar Khai, father of Vestara. Contrary to Gaalan, he always follows the Taalon where  this latter go, particularly in every dangerous mission (he was there on each encounter with Abeloth, faced many times Luke and so on,...). So we can think that Gavar is more powerful than Gaalan. 

This point is further solidified by the explanation of Taalon:

Sarasu Taalon wrote:"And I select only the strongest and most powerful Sith to accompany me now," said Taalon. "Khai. You and Faal will accompany me."

As you can see, Taalon have that Khai is one of the two top sith of his expedition. And Gaalan isn't. 

Now the question is: what is the validity of this claim ? 
From a simple debate point of view, this have exactly the same validity that the one Luke made for Gaalan (claiming this latter could defeat Sinkhole station's Luke). In addition to this, when looking at the situation (just to remind you, Luke decide Taalon to go with him in Mind-Walk in order to find Abeloth, he warned the High Lord for the huge threat during this travel), Taalon have just no reason not to choose the best Sith. He want to kill Luke and capture Abeloth, he would be foolish to choose to lower sith that what he can have. 

As a result we have : Gavar Khai > Viun Gaalan.

Daughter versus Father:

Now we have the fight between Vestara and her father :

FotJ : Ascension wrote:

For a precious instant Vestara was so stunned at her father’s actions, she hesitated as he sprang at her. Surely it was a ploy, to distract the Jedi so that the Sith could destroy them. Once they had been dispatched or captured, she would explain everything to her father. He would be in good spirits with such a victory and— This is not “Papa.” This is Father. And Father has come to kill me . With the barest fraction of an instant to spare, Vestara brought her lightsaber up and blocked what would surely have been a single, killing blow. He stared at her with loathing, his dark eyes piercing her mere centimeters from her face, and spat on her. “You have disgraced my name!” he shouted. “Perhaps you are not even my get!” Vestara’s mind flashed back to the theoretical discussion she’d had with Ben—what she would do if her mother had ever had an affair. Anger rushed through her at his implication. Her mother loved her father. She would never betray him. But Vestara would. Hadn’t she already? Was betrayal in actions, or in thoughts? Were her “letters” to a fictitious Jedi parent betrayal? She shoved the distracting thought aside, focusing on the hot anger, channeling it and using it—as he had taught her to do. He sensed the change in her and smiled contemptuously. “ Now you listen to my lessons,” he snarled, “but it is too late for you to save yourself.” He sprang up and leapt over her head, turning as he went to slash out with the lightsaber, attempting to carve through her skull. Vestara ducked and struck upward with her own glowing red weapon, shoving it aside so that Khai had to twist to avoid striking himself. She was surprised at how easy it was. Was she really that much better a fighter after her time with the Skywalkers? “Very good,” he said. “Your skills have improved. But not your loyalties.” And suddenly Vestara understood what was going on. Why he seemed so out of control; he, Saber Gavar Khai, who had prided himself on using his emotions as he saw fit,who would never surrender to them. Her own sense of outraged betrayal surged through her at the realization. “Where does your loyalty lie, Father? Not with the Lost Tribe, I think!” Shocked, he dropped his guard for a moment. She took advantage of the opening and charged, feinting left and then sweeping right with the glowing red blade. Lithely he dodged, recovering quickly. Their blades clashed and he twisted hard, using both the torque of the blade and the Force to nearly snap her wrist. She dropped her lightsaber and he closed in for the kill. Her heart shaking her with its pounding, Vestara shoved one splayed hand out in Khai’s direction and extended her other hand. Her lightsaber flew toward her as her father, Force-shoved, stumbled back. He looked—surprised. A fierce grin twisted her mouth and she sprang on him, raining blows and shouting wordlessly. More surprise came from him as he was forced to use all his years of expertise to block her. Vestara was a mixture of surging emotions. Rage, hatred, hurt, love—she gathered them to her and used them all. Her father had loved her, but still had used her for his own ends. And when she had stumbled, he had not forgiven. He had not forgiven, because he was Sith, and Sith do not make mistakes and live. She had turned her back on the Tribe, letting her heart wander to Ben, and yet she had been a dutiful daughter. All the contradictions, all the logic and illogic—she used them as fuel to the fire of her intense desire to survive. Khai recovered quickly. “So be it,” he said, acknowledging her renewed, laser-keen intensity, volatile and violent. “I am done with you.” No. She was done with him. Vestara’s world constricted to this, and nothing but this: the blending of body, will, and passion, and the centimeters of space between two living beings … one of whom would be dead soon. [...]Vestara had never looked more beautiful, nor more deadly. Her long brown hair was flying with the speed of her movement, her lightsaber a blur as she pushed the attack. Gavar Khai took one step back, then another and another, even with a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm clearly having difficulty countering his daughter’s savage attack. Vestara cried out, sharply, wordlessly, her voice raw as she swung with all her skill and speed. Her red blade sliced through robes and flesh, cutting through him from right shoulder to left hip. He collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.

Now we must analyze this fight in order to know if Vestara win by cheapshotting her father, by some contextual reasons or by being better than him.

We can divided the fight in 3 parts which will correspond to the three states of mind of Vestara.

1. Distract but able to resist: As you can see this start with a disadvantage for her "For a precious instant Vestara was so stunned at her father’s actions, she hesitated as he sprang at her" but succeed into resist the first attack. Then after some other reflexions and a taunt from her father she : "shoved the distracting thought aside, focusing on the hot anger, channeling it and using it—as he had taught her to do". From this we immediately know that she is at least in the league of her father. Being able to counter an attack while being distracted by other thoughts cannot be done if you are way below your ennemy both in term of skills and force power.
   
2. Understanding her true capacity: Then in while the fight progress, she show that she is far from outmatched by her father :"Vestara ducked and struck upward with her own glowing red weapon, shoving it aside so that Khai had to twist to avoid striking himself. She was surprised at how easy it was" During this fight, she even takes a little psychological advantage but it didn't give her the win: 
   "Shocked, he dropped his guard for a moment. She took advantage of the opening and charged, feinting 
   left and then sweeping right with the glowing red blade. Lithely he dodged, recovering quickly". She even succeed into surviving while being disarm by Gavar. She just push him. But after this, she clearly get the edge over her father: "More surprise came from him as he was forced to use all his years of expertise to block her". Here, Vestara understand that now she is more than able to compete with is father and even to take the advantage.
   
3. Going for the kill: Even though, the elder Khai was able to :" recovered quickly. “So be it,” he said, acknowledging her renewed, laser-keen intensity, volatile and violent", she clearly outmatched him as you can see in the end of the fight: "Gavar Khai took one step back, then another and another, even with a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm clearly having difficulty countering his daughter’s savage attack. Vestara cried out, sharply, wordlessly, her voice raw as she swung with all her skill and speed. Her red blade sliced through robes and flesh, cutting through him from right shoulder to left hip. He collapsed, dead before he hit the ground." There is nothing to add here, this was a clear win, whithout any cheapshot or exterior intervention that can explain the loose of Gavar against his daughter.
   

So as you can see, Vestara Khai legitimately defeat her father in this fight. She is clearly above him. Because of this, we now have this scaling chain:

Viun Gaalan < Gavar Khai < Vestara Khai.

Anticipating some (potential) counter-arguments:

RandomGuy wrote:Gavar Khai wasn't going for the kill while Vestara was.

Gavar was also going for the kill as you can see in the three following quotes:

Gavar Khai wrote:“No. But I did not stop her[his wife] from being killed,” Khai said. “I will start fresh. A new wife, a new child. Both are easily replaced.”

Gavar Khai wrote: “but it is too late for you to save yourself.

FotJ: Ascension wrote:Vestara brought her lightsaber up and blocked what would surely have been a single, killing blow

I think that I didn't need to add something here, the quotes speak for themselves.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

RandomGuy wrote:Gavar wasn't at his peak as acknowledge by Vestara

Vestara Khai wrote:His mind—he wasn’t the way he used to be. I think that’s why I was able to win against him at all—because he wasn’t as focused.

This is a more interresting claim, Vestara think that her father wasn't in the right set of mind while fighting. But when you read FotJ: Ascension where Gavar decide to follow Abeloth, you see that Gavar didn't change from who he had been before, just switching his loyalty from the Lost Tribe to Abeloth because she was more powerful and was the winning side. When you see the quote in its context you easily understand that was a mistaken statement from a girl who have just lost her father (killed by her own hand) and who is a bit lost:

FotJ: Ascension wrote:“I think … she was doing something to him.” “Like with Taalon?” Luke recalled the metamorphosis of High Lord Taalon after he had drunk from the Fountain of Knowledge. He had started to become like Abeloth. “Not that dramatic,” she said. “But … mentally. His mind—he wasn’t the way he used to be. I think that’s why I was able to win against him at all—because he wasn’t as focused. He was so proud of being Sith, so proud of what the Lost Tribe had accomplished. Now he’s—he was—blindly following Abeloth.

Clearly in the whole book (and in the preview) we have no clue that Abeloth have done anything to him, except showing him how powerful she is. So no, we haven't any reasons to think that he have been under such influence which could have made Gavar less powerful/efficient. 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

RandomGuy wrote:Vestara was boosted by her feelings so was under a sort of amp because she faced her father.

During the fight, we can indeed see that Vestara drawn heavily on her emotions. But she is a sith and the sith way rely on drawing on your emotions. Now lets see the three moments where she use her feelings in order to see whether or not some of them only exist because she faced her father:

1. "focusing on the hot anger, channeling it and using it—as he had taught her to do" Here we have nothing more than the classic use of feeling that sith are doing, nothing more, nothing less. Clearly this have nothing to see with her father presence. She could do this absolutely any time she want.
   
2. "Vestara was a mixture of surging emotions. Rage, hatred, hurt, love—she gathered them to her and used them all.[...] All the contradictions, all the logic and illogic—she used them as fuel to the fire of her intense desire to survive" Here, I must acknowledge that lots of her feeling comes from her past and are heavily link to her father. Nonetheless, she didn't use this feeling as a reason for her to fight, but as "fuel to the fire of her intense desire to survive" and this is clearly the central point. The real place where come her power is her desire to survive which will exist in any single fight where she will be involved, she just need to find other feeling to feed this desire. And knowing all her story, there isn't any doubt that she will be able to find something in order to win. 
   
3. "Vestara’s world constricted to this, and nothing but this: the blending of body, will, and passion, and the centimeters of space between two living beings … one of whom would be dead soon" This is once again the classic sith use of the emotions while fightning, something that can be use at any time needed. 
   

During this whole fight, we can see that Vestara rely 2/3 of the time on classical use of feelings which each time allow her to compete or even outmatched her father and 1/3 of the time on something that is link to her past and her father but only as a fuel so something that can be replaced by something else while fighting other ennemy. 
Because of all of this, it is pretty easy to understand that she wasn't under an amp that allow her to defeat her father.

Conclusion:

This is more than enough to proove that Vestara will be able to defeat Viun Gaalan in a fight, nonetheless I want to add a point which will further solidified my demonstration. 
As you can see, in a really short matter of time, Vestara grow from far below Viun Gaalan to clearly above him. This is mainly due to the fact that she is an impressive force-user as acknowledge by Luke Skywalker and Gavar Khai:

Luke Skywalker wrote:And she was extremely, in fact exceptionally, strong in the Force.

Gavar Khai wrote:and raised their tremendously promising daughter, Vestara, very well

Obviously, she haven't reach her prime during this fight but later. This will let her growing even more powerful than before.

With all of this, anyone could now see clearly why Vestara will defeat Viun Gaalan and to be honest she will destroy him.

@Xolthol will respond very soon I read that fight recently so already have counterpoints in mind.

Solid post. Interested to see how Cilghal will counter.

Just give me a few days

In the last few days I have been highly demotivated from writing this post due to the anti-njo (especially against Caedus) bias that is going on in this forum. As such, Sorry for the wait to everyone who was expecting it. Thankfully, there are people like Xolthol, who genuinely care about the era and who has bothered to create a good argument in Vestara’s favor, which, if I’m being honest, i wasn’t expecting anymore (sorry but I had to write this). As for the argument itself, believe it or not, I completely agree with what Xolthol has presented in regards to Vestara’s growth (a mistake on my part) and the fight against her father. That being said, there is a fundamental problem in the whole scaling, that being Gavar’s supposed superiority to Galaan. As you can imagine, if I menage to prove that Galaan is Khai’s superior, all the arguments Xolthol has presented will be rendered completely irrelevant, and that’s what I’m gonna try to do. 

Xolthol wrote:Luke vs Galaan

First of all, I want to clear some false idea that could be find in your mind. While Luke is in better shape than in the Sinkhole station he is still far from acting at the peak of his power:
Fate of the Jedi: Backlash wrote:
But Luke, despite recent exertions, had  time to recover

The quote you presented here actually states the exact opposite of what you’re asserting. It literally says Luke had recovered, despite the recent exertions. You will have to find a far more convincing statement to convince me that Luke hadn’t fully recovered. The idea of him not being at his peak is something I myself have presented in my blog regarding the Galaan fight, but it is nothing more than a theory, not confirmed anywhere in the lore (at least as far as I know). 

Galaan>>Khai 

You have presented a fairly interesting argument for why Gavar Khai is supposedly superior to Galaan. Before I address it, let me present my reasoning for why I think the exact opposite. 


1- different rank:
Galaan is a Sith Lord, while Gavar Khai is a simple sith saber. While such a distinction means very little within the Jedi order in regards to power, it does hold a lot of weight within the lost tribe of the sith, because having great strength in the force is required in order to advance thorough the ranks. This is noted several times, both in the novel omen and ascension: 

"The Sith had strictly defined castes-a slave caste, a religious caste, an engineer caste, and a warrior caste. There was no transitioning from one to the other. That is, I think, where the Lost Tribe is superior. When we arrived on Kesh, we did not believe in such divisions. Any Keshiri could rise according to his ability with the Force-as you have seen."
-Ascension 

This can be seen in the cases of Vol and Workan: the former is on the highest rank because he’s stronger than anyone on the planet, while the latter is stronger than all the Sith Lords: 

Lord Darish Vol was no casual observer of others. He had not climbed as high as he had, nor lived as long as he had, without being superior to any who would challenge him. He had lost count of the assassination attempts and political ploys that had been thrown his way over the last eight-plus decades. But he had learned from each one. And so he played the good, benevolent host smoothly while taking stock of all he saw.
-Ascension 
Vol was a striking, almost heavy presence in the Force; he was not the Grand Lord without reason. No one on this world was stronger in the Force than he.
-Omen 

In The case of the latter, lady Sashal, a Sith Lady (who is noted as Workan’s inferior in rank) is noted to be nowhere near  as powerful as Workan himself: 

Sith take what we want," said Sashal, stepping toward Workan. Vol watched both of them closely, idly wondering if Sashal was issuing a challenge to her superior. It would be foolish. She was nowhere near as powerful as Workan. But sometimes ambition and wisdom did not go hand in hand.
-Ascension 

So this system clearly applies both on paper and in practice. As such, I see no reason to believe that Galaan is Khai’s superior, and by a huge margin at that, considering how we’ve seen on many occasions that the difference between each rank is enormous. 

2- performance against Luke
As you probably know, both Galaan and Khai have fought Luke. However, it is clear Galaan performed far better than his adversary, as he was able to meet his blows ( to some extent) and even counter a telekinetic exertion. By contrast, here is what Luke did to Khai: 

"Jedi treachery!" Khai extended a hand and used a blast of Force energy to splash the image away, then turned to glare at Ben. "I should have killed you days aaah-"
Khai's threat came to a startled end as he went sailing across the Pool. He slammed into the far wall of the grotto and remained there, pinned in place by the invisible hand of the Force.
"Days ago, Gavar, you might have had a chance to succeed,"Luke said, stepping to the pool. "Now that the odds are more even, you'd do well to avoid threatening my son."
-Fate of the Jedi: Vortex

“The objection came to a shrieking end as Luke whirled around, using his own Force strength to supplement Khai's. The Sith left the ground and flew across five paces of courtyard into the iron-tight grasp of Luke's artificial hand.
"Someone needs to intervene," Luke said calmly. "And since her father won't, I will."
-Fate of the Jedi: Vortex

As seen here, he is able to ragdoll Khai on two different occasions with zero effort. In fact, in the second instance he wasn’t even there. While it is true he might have been holding back against Galaan, it’s clear it would have taken him some effort to overwhelm the Sith Lord. Keep in mind that Luke literally said “he’s countering my power”. 


3- performance against Ben Skywalker
During the fight between Galaan and Luke, Ben Skywalker engages in combat Galaan’s aide ( a sith Saber who is obviously below him by a lot) : 

One Sith Saber was down, dead. This still should have been a lopsided match, Gaalan matching Luke, the first female Saber matching Ben, the second Saber overmatching Dyon and almost killing the Jedi washout instantly.
-backlash 

Note that the novel specifically mentions matching in the sense of fighting equally, which is further suggested by the use of the term “overmatching” when addressing the fight between Dyon and another saber. Ben later succeeds in besting the saber but through a trick rather by actually being better. 
Now, Ben has fought Gavar Khai, right after facing Abeloth:

Ben let out a shout of delight and continued to press the attack on Gavar Khai, who no longer was smirking and gloating, but instead felt genuine concern that he might not make it out of this alive.
-Allies

It’s clear his opponent was being driven back, despite Ben not even using the dark side but, as stated earlier, fighting calmly. As such I see no reason for Khai to be above Galaan when he couldn’t even beat Ben Skywalker in a straight-up  duel.

4-addressing your argument 

Xolthol wrote:But another sith who was in this expedition is Gavar Khai, father of Vestara. Contrary to Gaalan, he always follows the Taalon where  this latter go, particularly in every dangerous mission (he was there on each encounter with Abeloth, faced many times Luke and so on,...). So we can think that Gavar is more powerful than Gaalan. 

This point is further solidified by the explanation of Taalon:
Sarasu Taalon wrote:
"And I select only the strongest and most powerful Sith to accompany me now," said Taalon. "Khai. You and Faal will accompany me."

As you can see, Taalon have that Khai is one of the two top sith of his expedition. And Gaalan isn't. 

Now the question is: what is the validity of this claim ? 
From a simple debate point of view, this have exactly the same validity that the one Luke made for Gaalan (claiming this latter could defeat Sinkhole station's Luke). In addition to this, when looking at the situation (just to remind you, Luke decide Taalon to go with him in Mind-Walk in order to find Abeloth, he warned the High Lord for the huge threat during this travel), Taalon have just no reason not to choose the best Sith. He want to kill Luke and capture Abeloth, he would be foolish to choose to lower sith that what he can have. 

As a result we have : Gavar Khai > Viun Gaalan.

All of what you said is true, but there is a fundamental problem. When Taalon chooses Faal and Khai as those who would accompany him it’s not made clear whether or not Galaan was present. In fact, After his shuttle leaves Dathomir he never appears again. And don’t forget that there is quite a wide gap in time between Galaan’s retreat and Luke’s meeting with Taalon and their alliance to defeat Abeloth, It is entirely possible he could have left the sith fleet. 

So, here we have it, Galaan completely outclasses Gavar Khai, rendering any scaling based on the latter completely pointless and making the idea of Vestara beating Gaalan completely preposterous. 

Nice post.

ILS wrote:Nice post.

Thanks