- The EllimistLevel Five
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:12 am
DarthAnt66 wrote:No, that's not what Jaina said. Jaina said Caedus' damage soak "proved how much greater his Force powers were than her own," not that Caedus' damage soak allowed him to contend with a foe with greater Force powers. After a long fight with Caedus, amped Jaina still believed his powers were "much greater" than hers. No reason to backtrack, as you stated this yourself: "Jaina assesses the fight by noting that Caedus's Force powers were far greater than her own even while she was amped." The quote binds amped Jaina significantly below prime Luke, and also shows that Caedus' lack of mentioning of how good Luke is performing is a flawed metric to scale Caedus. I cannot see how you can try to continue the debate beyond this. There's nothing more to grab besides straws.
?? Yes, I know - that's what Jaina the in-universe character said. My point is that Jaina was attributing Caedus's performance exclusively to his greater Force powers, which isn't unfair since she's used to Jacen being far more powerful than her. That doesn't mean that Caedus is necessarily far more powerful than amped Jaina; the fight itself doesn't indicate that (though it does show that Jacen did very well, relatively speaking).
Why are you trusting Jaina's assessment of the sudden powers she got just a few seconds ago relative to Jacen's (current) powers (and she hasn't really interacted with him in years), or specifically disentangling them from his damage soak, over Jacen's far greater knowledge of Luke's (past) power, and of his own power which wasn't a few-minutes long amp?
And again, you ignored the part where the claim isn't that amped Jaina = LotF Luke; it's that amped Jaina is comparable to earlier versions of Luke. You have not established that Caedus cannot contend with those earlier versions, or even be stronger.
No. I argued Luke would not have put his full power into Jaina because he's exhausting so much of his power casting the illusion and imprinting his Force signature from across the fleet. Caedus gave two reasons for why he believes it's Luke (i.e. the Force presence and that Luke can't be two places at once), neither being the power-amp.
Actually, he pointed to his arm and noted that Jaina couldn't have possibly done that.
You don't think it's taxing to overlay Jaina's active body for a prolonged period, across a vast distance,
You're basically saying that amping a tier 7 combatant (in your eyes) to a tier 8 from some miles away while putting an illusion over her face is so unimaginably difficult that Jacen could not even fathom the notion that his uncle could do it?
The distance has been pulled off by Luke before - he's projected himself to Jacen over such distances. The amp (in your quantification of it) isn't even very high tier BM. The body illusion is not even that special - it doesn't compare to creating a lifelike copy of the Rogue Shadow to fly in sync with the real one and fool enemy sensors, to cloak a capital ship, or even to some things that Lumiya or Alema have done. This is arguably sub-Dooku's dopplegangers, so I guess Jacen perceives a determined, bloodlusted Luke's power to be below where we would put Dooku.
It's far more plausible that Jacen is incredulous because Jaina seemed to have the power and weight of Luke Skywalker, at least to the level that Jacen is aware Luke Skywalker to be, aka TUF/DN.
with a hyper-real Force illusion that even Jacen's esoteric illusion-detecting abilities can't pierce?
Revelation (and earlier books) shows that Jacen cannot detect Luke's illusions at all, including one where he was projecting himself from a far distance and talking to him. (and Jacen knows this)
I think you misread the quote? I don't think he's labeling the presences as real specifically because they can bat back blasterfire.
Creating illusions that can affect the physical world is not beyond Jacen's ability.
It's straightforward to say a Force user in the worst mental state ever seen in Star Wars will be super-weak relative to his normal power-level, lol.
Calling it the "worst mental state ever seen in Star Wars" is of course hyperbolic, and again, the point isn't whether Inferno fight Luke is weak relative to 100% LotF Luke. Jacen's understanding of Luke's power does seem to lag a bit, since he was in awe of TUF Luke and IIRC was hesitant on Luke vs. UnuThul, but he presumably doesn't think that Luke would get weaker. And Jacen is obsessed with figuring out a way to defeat Luke, but apparently never went "ah, Luke is now like a tier 8!" I mean, look at his reaction to seeing "Luke" in Invincible - he notes his knowledge that Caedus killed Mara as a reason to be especially concerned, not as a reason to rejoice that Luke is now hindered.
Jacen has noted that Luke restrains himself in the past, but he has always attributed this to his fear of the dark side - he thinks in Invincible that Luke is out for blood, and has had visions of Luke killing him and sitting on his dark throne.
You might have some other Caedus arguments,
Indeed, and they have not been addressed. Caedus has deflected capital ship turbolasers.
He also has scaling above Kyp Durron; maybe more on that later.
-----
Basically, your entire case is predicated on Jacen not merely being off about current Luke's power, but having absolutely no idea how powerful any meaningful iteration of his uncle is, to just hilarious degrees. Of everyone else, only maybe Mara knows Luke's powers better (maybe). It's just a little ridiculous to attribute complete and utter ignorance to him.
- JakeLevel One
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:36 am
I’ll switch to Revan
- The LostLevel Five
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:57 am
Gonna take Caedus out of my voting order.
Ant's raised some points that got my noggin joggin. I think we all intuitively know that because Revan is an MMO boss, and game mechanics in MMO boss fights are usually bombastic compared to the cutscenes etc, that we probably have an exaggerated view of what happened "in canon". The dialogue during the fight indicates it's a good fight, but I'm not sure it should be taken hyper literally either. It's like dialogue from any fight in a video game where every time you hit a boss or dodge him he screams out "asshole stay still!". It's pseudocanon but nonetheless scripted.
Still, hard to deny that taking on such a strike team is an immense feat, and we know that such a strike team was needed because it's not a fight where you have the option to drop a few players. The question becomes, how did Revan do it, considering how infrequently we see 8v1s that aren't a complete slaughter?
I think there's a few reasons, namely:
1. 8 people cannot all hit 1 target at the same time, they can only do it with space and a clear shot.
2. It's easy to hit your teammates in such a chaotic situation.
3. Revan has several abilities and traits that lend well to survivability: regeneration, teleportation, a keen mind for tactics. He won't be in one place for long, can tank some lethal hits and will use the enemy against each other.
4. The nexus could well have been fueling Revan's use of more esoteric and useful abilities which he wouldn't be able to spam off nexus, meanwhile everyone else gets a generic power boost (and battle med but I digress).
5. When you have 8 people, it's not like all the attention is focused on you. You get a chance for a breather which you typically don't in a focused 1v1, you get to take a few pot shots, you don't have to overly commit yourself. So in a way everyone here could have been taking it a bit easier on Revan than they would someone in a typical duel.
We know Revan stands head and shoulders above all these people, but I think this fight is for lack of a better term more of a 1vFodder type deal... the same way Revan fighting Malak is more impressive than Revan fighting the SF armies because Malak is the boss.
It's the same principle here, in that Revan isn't pitting his power squarely against one boss, but is using a wide array of tactics and advantages to outmaneuver and whittle down a group of fodder. Only in this case it's not 100 fodder Sith but 8 powerful and skilled Jedi, Sith and gunslingers, so it's in a weird middle ground between the two.
Ant's done a good job of highlighting Revan's unique advantages like teleportation, regen etc, but in a way that has kind of undermined his case because it's these very abilities that the MMO uses to explain why Revan is able to last in such a fight. It's not linearly transferrable to say, Revan vs Plagueis, or simple enough to say "well lets see Plagueis or Starkiller fight a team like this". Whether they can or not, it's entirely possible they would do worse than Revan in such a fight but still be better than him one to one.
Also, while Revan holding a corpse together with sheer will is an advantage in that he can tank physical trauma and ignore stuff like bloodloss, the principle remains the same as usual: his will, his spirit, the source of his power, is finite. When it fatigues or has taken too much damage, he collapses or dies. And having to hold himself together means he wastes power doing what his body would normally do for him.
Ant's raised some points that got my noggin joggin. I think we all intuitively know that because Revan is an MMO boss, and game mechanics in MMO boss fights are usually bombastic compared to the cutscenes etc, that we probably have an exaggerated view of what happened "in canon". The dialogue during the fight indicates it's a good fight, but I'm not sure it should be taken hyper literally either. It's like dialogue from any fight in a video game where every time you hit a boss or dodge him he screams out "asshole stay still!". It's pseudocanon but nonetheless scripted.
Still, hard to deny that taking on such a strike team is an immense feat, and we know that such a strike team was needed because it's not a fight where you have the option to drop a few players. The question becomes, how did Revan do it, considering how infrequently we see 8v1s that aren't a complete slaughter?
I think there's a few reasons, namely:
1. 8 people cannot all hit 1 target at the same time, they can only do it with space and a clear shot.
2. It's easy to hit your teammates in such a chaotic situation.
3. Revan has several abilities and traits that lend well to survivability: regeneration, teleportation, a keen mind for tactics. He won't be in one place for long, can tank some lethal hits and will use the enemy against each other.
4. The nexus could well have been fueling Revan's use of more esoteric and useful abilities which he wouldn't be able to spam off nexus, meanwhile everyone else gets a generic power boost (and battle med but I digress).
5. When you have 8 people, it's not like all the attention is focused on you. You get a chance for a breather which you typically don't in a focused 1v1, you get to take a few pot shots, you don't have to overly commit yourself. So in a way everyone here could have been taking it a bit easier on Revan than they would someone in a typical duel.
We know Revan stands head and shoulders above all these people, but I think this fight is for lack of a better term more of a 1vFodder type deal... the same way Revan fighting Malak is more impressive than Revan fighting the SF armies because Malak is the boss.
It's the same principle here, in that Revan isn't pitting his power squarely against one boss, but is using a wide array of tactics and advantages to outmaneuver and whittle down a group of fodder. Only in this case it's not 100 fodder Sith but 8 powerful and skilled Jedi, Sith and gunslingers, so it's in a weird middle ground between the two.
Ant's done a good job of highlighting Revan's unique advantages like teleportation, regen etc, but in a way that has kind of undermined his case because it's these very abilities that the MMO uses to explain why Revan is able to last in such a fight. It's not linearly transferrable to say, Revan vs Plagueis, or simple enough to say "well lets see Plagueis or Starkiller fight a team like this". Whether they can or not, it's entirely possible they would do worse than Revan in such a fight but still be better than him one to one.
Also, while Revan holding a corpse together with sheer will is an advantage in that he can tank physical trauma and ignore stuff like bloodloss, the principle remains the same as usual: his will, his spirit, the source of his power, is finite. When it fatigues or has taken too much damage, he collapses or dies. And having to hold himself together means he wastes power doing what his body would normally do for him.
- The EllimistLevel Five
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:30 am
Several of those on the strike team were not Force sensitives. This really should nullify the overwhelming nature of the numbers; e.g., a near-death Plagueis is vaporizing entire squads of armored maladian assassins with uncharged TK, so if you translated him directly into Revan's place, he would presumably be able to just get rid of half of the strike team with a gesture (while nexus-amped Revan's charged TK didn't even incapacitate them).
Of course, to step outside of the typical vs. debating style scaling for a bit, there is clearly a variation in source material with regards to how effectively non-Force sensitives can fight Force users. Realistically no competent Force user should lose to Jango Fett without special circumstances, but that seems to happen anyway. Nitpicking Plagueis vaporizing the armored assassins and applying it to the Revan fight would seem to ignore that translation.
However, applying holistics and that level of meta-coherence to the lore would have to apply both ways and nullify a lot of pro-Revan arguments as well.
Of course, to step outside of the typical vs. debating style scaling for a bit, there is clearly a variation in source material with regards to how effectively non-Force sensitives can fight Force users. Realistically no competent Force user should lose to Jango Fett without special circumstances, but that seems to happen anyway. Nitpicking Plagueis vaporizing the armored assassins and applying it to the Revan fight would seem to ignore that translation.
However, applying holistics and that level of meta-coherence to the lore would have to apply both ways and nullify a lot of pro-Revan arguments as well.
_________________
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
- The LostLevel Five
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 4:10 am
I didn't have time to finish earlier so as an addendum:
Hopefully nobody mistook my point about medium exaggeration as being about that (all mediums are exaggerated). The main point was that because the medium in question (MMO boss fights) is exaggerated, it's important to tow the line between it being informative of how the fight went and it being more flashy than a normal cutscene. An example I guess is comparing Malgus to Revan. Malgus doesn't do anything but use melee, TK and lightning. Funnily enough he can also he soloed. He uses no abilities that lend well to a group fight (I wonder if he would use Maelstrom if he was an Operation boss). Whereas Revan uses a wide variety of powers that lend themselves well to survivability and crowd control.
Secondly: I think it's self explanatory why the most knowledgeable, advanced, powerful Force wielders use predominantly the same powers (sabers, TK, lightning) in one to one combat against similarly powerful foes. Because these are the most effective abilities for that task. You use a screwdriver for screwing, and a hammer for hammering. You use teleportation to jump around and confuse a group, lightning to annihilate a lone enemy. Revan using his weirder abilities would probably be a waste of time unless the circumstances were irregular.
Revan's genuinely insanely skilled and versatile, unlike Caedus who is touted as having lots of oddball powers but never really puts them to use when it matters. And he can take a beating well past his expiration date. But I'm unconvinced he's a special snowflake in regards to the way we normally assess these fights.
Doesn't take away from his more straightforward feats, mind you. He has some decent scaling (honestly his KOTOR and KOTOR2 stuff is better than the shit from TotJ due to how sorcery is only useful against muggles/fodder apart from in some extreme cases, and Revan doesn't scale from Zannah or Wyyrlok's sorcery). His novel feats are also among his best. Not enough to stop Plagueis, Windu or Starkiller from fisting him to death, but enough for the likes of Caedus.
Hopefully nobody mistook my point about medium exaggeration as being about that (all mediums are exaggerated). The main point was that because the medium in question (MMO boss fights) is exaggerated, it's important to tow the line between it being informative of how the fight went and it being more flashy than a normal cutscene. An example I guess is comparing Malgus to Revan. Malgus doesn't do anything but use melee, TK and lightning. Funnily enough he can also he soloed. He uses no abilities that lend well to a group fight (I wonder if he would use Maelstrom if he was an Operation boss). Whereas Revan uses a wide variety of powers that lend themselves well to survivability and crowd control.
Secondly: I think it's self explanatory why the most knowledgeable, advanced, powerful Force wielders use predominantly the same powers (sabers, TK, lightning) in one to one combat against similarly powerful foes. Because these are the most effective abilities for that task. You use a screwdriver for screwing, and a hammer for hammering. You use teleportation to jump around and confuse a group, lightning to annihilate a lone enemy. Revan using his weirder abilities would probably be a waste of time unless the circumstances were irregular.
Revan's genuinely insanely skilled and versatile, unlike Caedus who is touted as having lots of oddball powers but never really puts them to use when it matters. And he can take a beating well past his expiration date. But I'm unconvinced he's a special snowflake in regards to the way we normally assess these fights.
Doesn't take away from his more straightforward feats, mind you. He has some decent scaling (honestly his KOTOR and KOTOR2 stuff is better than the shit from TotJ due to how sorcery is only useful against muggles/fodder apart from in some extreme cases, and Revan doesn't scale from Zannah or Wyyrlok's sorcery). His novel feats are also among his best. Not enough to stop Plagueis, Windu or Starkiller from fisting him to death, but enough for the likes of Caedus.
- MPModerator | Champion of Darkness
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 9:19 am
Ant’s points have failed to convince me, and Elm has done a great point of responding to them. I’ll like to add my own thoughts in defence of Plagueis, and why he should be considered over Revan. As in my previous post, I’ll point everyone towards these two sources of information:
https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t387-ss-darth-plagueis-meatpants-vs-galen-marek-arkhamasylum3
https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t2225-ss-the-apprenticeship-tournament-darth-plagueis-the-ellimist-vs-luke-skywalker-darthskywalker0
---
@BoD
Wanna address some nitpicks with you first from a couple of pages back:
Here’s a section from my SS where I addressed this point:
So Luceno clearly thinks Plagueis had a shot taking Sidious down combatively. But what's more to the point, the idea that Plagueis being immortal was the only concern of Sidious' is more speculative and less based on the facts than my stance. Sidious doesn't seem incredulous at all over the prospect of Plagueis causing the tremor that "shook the stars themselves"; he regards Plagueis as insanely powerful. Plagueis' survival as an immortal entity isn't a possibility that arouses feelings of indifference or amusement in Sidious, but abject fear. Consider that even though he feared Ventress in the Clone Wars and saw her as a threat to his power, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be wary of engaging her. Case and point: he engaged Sidious and Savage, stated threats to the Rule of Two and engaged them in a lightsaber duel. And even though he knew after the fact that Ventress and Maul weren't dead, he was dismissive because they posed no threat to his plans. In other words, this is a singular case where he not only considers a being a threat to his person, he's also in abject fear of that being, even after being boosted in power. Even if Plagueis was unkillable, there's no reason Sidious couldn't capture and imprison Plagueis. If he was significantly more powerful than Plagueis, he wouldn't be so out of character with abject fear and concern for his own personal safety.
---
@DarthAnt66
From your introductory post:
This feels like a bit of a cop-out. You should be proving why Revan is on the same level of power as Plagueis/Caedus/Windu etc.; especially considering that these guys are comparable to the ROTS titans. Nowhere in your “Power” section have you explained why scaling above Kreia and/or Revan’s performance against Vitiate puts him on this power level intuitively.
The attempts to dismiss the Sidious supremacy quotes just seems overcomplicated. Really, the argument is clearly made specifically to provide a counter to Sidious being the GOAT by TPM and to serve Revan’s Vitiate scaling.
---
ILS has demonstrated why Revan is virtually the most optimal guy to face an eight-man strike team, at least it’s the best way to utilise his set of skills. And of course, it follows that you can’t conflate this to how he would fight a single opponent. Plus, both times he used teleportation was on a nexus. Also, people should consider that the Banites have gone beyond hoarding special techniques and abilities. The real lessons are passed down in unrecorded training sessions. Furthermore, as ILS pointed out, there’s a reason why most high tiers don’t use many different types of powers all the time, even though they would know them (Sidious, for example, could pull off way more things than lightning). So I’m not really seeing why Revan’s teleportation (assuming he can actually do it off-nexus) would prove to be much more than a minor surprise factor when Ant has failed to prove why Revan is “in the same ballpark” power-wise with ROTS titans.
---
Also, Caedus/Revan aren’t the only ones who can soak damage, from my earlier post:
In terms of endurance, we all know of the Maladian assassination, where Plagueis massively pre-prime was atomising people while suffering heavy blood loss, half his jaw missing and one of his hearts in cardiac arrest. He fended off against dozens of assassins who were trained and capable of killing Jedi, killing most of them before Sidious arrived to help him.
---
Not really convinced Revan’s power and/or his abilities can outperform those of Plagueis, Caedus or even Windu (who’s a nigh virtual peer of Yoda); Malgus would require a larger boost to defeat any of the latter three.
My vote remains with Plagueis.
https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t387-ss-darth-plagueis-meatpants-vs-galen-marek-arkhamasylum3
https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t2225-ss-the-apprenticeship-tournament-darth-plagueis-the-ellimist-vs-luke-skywalker-darthskywalker0
---
@BoD
Wanna address some nitpicks with you first from a couple of pages back:
Both of these quotes are in the context that Sidious feared Plagueis had achieved immortality:
[...]
Sidious feared that Plagueis had become immortal and could never therefore be killed by him.
Here’s a section from my SS where I addressed this point:
So Luceno clearly thinks Plagueis had a shot taking Sidious down combatively. But what's more to the point, the idea that Plagueis being immortal was the only concern of Sidious' is more speculative and less based on the facts than my stance. Sidious doesn't seem incredulous at all over the prospect of Plagueis causing the tremor that "shook the stars themselves"; he regards Plagueis as insanely powerful. Plagueis' survival as an immortal entity isn't a possibility that arouses feelings of indifference or amusement in Sidious, but abject fear. Consider that even though he feared Ventress in the Clone Wars and saw her as a threat to his power, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be wary of engaging her. Case and point: he engaged Sidious and Savage, stated threats to the Rule of Two and engaged them in a lightsaber duel. And even though he knew after the fact that Ventress and Maul weren't dead, he was dismissive because they posed no threat to his plans. In other words, this is a singular case where he not only considers a being a threat to his person, he's also in abject fear of that being, even after being boosted in power. Even if Plagueis was unkillable, there's no reason Sidious couldn't capture and imprison Plagueis. If he was significantly more powerful than Plagueis, he wouldn't be so out of character with abject fear and concern for his own personal safety.
---
@DarthAnt66
From your introductory post:
I would wager most debaters have Revan's power at least in the ballpark of Caedus' and Plagueis'. If so, it's going to come down to the differentiating characteristics of the three. The rest of this posts highlights Revan's unique advantages and why they make him a relatively far more difficult opponent to defeat.
This feels like a bit of a cop-out. You should be proving why Revan is on the same level of power as Plagueis/Caedus/Windu etc.; especially considering that these guys are comparable to the ROTS titans. Nowhere in your “Power” section have you explained why scaling above Kreia and/or Revan’s performance against Vitiate puts him on this power level intuitively.
The attempts to dismiss the Sidious supremacy quotes just seems overcomplicated. Really, the argument is clearly made specifically to provide a counter to Sidious being the GOAT by TPM and to serve Revan’s Vitiate scaling.
---
ILS has demonstrated why Revan is virtually the most optimal guy to face an eight-man strike team, at least it’s the best way to utilise his set of skills. And of course, it follows that you can’t conflate this to how he would fight a single opponent. Plus, both times he used teleportation was on a nexus. Also, people should consider that the Banites have gone beyond hoarding special techniques and abilities. The real lessons are passed down in unrecorded training sessions. Furthermore, as ILS pointed out, there’s a reason why most high tiers don’t use many different types of powers all the time, even though they would know them (Sidious, for example, could pull off way more things than lightning). So I’m not really seeing why Revan’s teleportation (assuming he can actually do it off-nexus) would prove to be much more than a minor surprise factor when Ant has failed to prove why Revan is “in the same ballpark” power-wise with ROTS titans.
---
Also, Caedus/Revan aren’t the only ones who can soak damage, from my earlier post:
In terms of endurance, we all know of the Maladian assassination, where Plagueis massively pre-prime was atomising people while suffering heavy blood loss, half his jaw missing and one of his hearts in cardiac arrest. He fended off against dozens of assassins who were trained and capable of killing Jedi, killing most of them before Sidious arrived to help him.
---
Not really convinced Revan’s power and/or his abilities can outperform those of Plagueis, Caedus or even Windu (who’s a nigh virtual peer of Yoda); Malgus would require a larger boost to defeat any of the latter three.
My vote remains with Plagueis.
- lorenzo.r.2ndLevel Three
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 9:38 am
anybody know what the votes are as of now?
- IGLevel Four
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 9:40 am
Around 13-10-9 iirc
- MPModerator | Champion of Darkness
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 10:06 am
Plagueis: 12
Caedus: 11
Revan: 10
Geth: 1
And some other ones wasted on characters like Tano and Jooj.
Caedus: 11
Revan: 10
Geth: 1
And some other ones wasted on characters like Tano and Jooj.
- lorenzo.r.2ndLevel Three
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 10:10 am
Meatpants wrote:Plagueis: 12
Caedus: 11
Revan: 10
Geth: 1
And some other ones wasted on characters like Tano and Jooj.
smh my head
- The Fallen WarriorLevel Four
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 10:35 am
I'll vote Caedus
- DarthAnt66Moderator
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 10:44 am
You already voted for Caedus in pages 2-3.
Anyway, good discussion yesterday. I expect another twenty post exchange later this afternoon/tonight after classes. Good luck to all.
Anyway, good discussion yesterday. I expect another twenty post exchange later this afternoon/tonight after classes. Good luck to all.
- BreakofDawnLevel Seven
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 10:52 am
@Meatpants
Sidious' fears are two-fold:
1) He fears Plagueis truly became immortal and has evolved beyond Sheev's abilities to destroy.
2) Sheev isn't actually aware of the limits of Plagueis' strength. His fears are based on a reverence of Plagueis emphasised throughout the novel, as shown above. We also have Plagueis being wary of antagonising pre-boost Sidious, who while Sidious doesn't know the limits of Plagueis' strength, Plagueis knows - or more accurately, can predict - the limits of Sheev's.
All of these speculations about post-boost Sheev and Plagueis' comparability are founded around Sidious' insecurity around his own power, but we have explicit evidence he had no idea what Plagueis' limits and full power looked like. Sidious' fear isn't proof that Plagueis actually is more/comparably powerful, merely that Sidious fears the possibility of an immortal, invulnerable being with mysterious power limits he himself isn't sure of. What we do have is Plagueis doing everything he can to avoid angering Sidious:
Fair points, but we also know that Sidious has absolutely no idea how powerful Plagueis is, as I addressed in my response to Corvinus:So Luceno clearly thinks Plagueis had a shot taking Sidious down combatively. But what's more to the point, the idea that Plagueis being immortal was the only concern of Sidious' is more speculative and less based on the facts than my stance. Sidious doesn't seem incredulous at all over the prospect of Plagueis causing the tremor that "shook the stars themselves"; he regards Plagueis as insanely powerful. Plagueis' survival as an immortal entity isn't a possibility that arouses feelings of indifference or amusement in Sidious, but abject fear. Consider that even though he feared Ventress in the Clone Wars and saw her as a threat to his power, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be wary of engaging her. Case and point: he engaged Sidious and Savage, stated threats to the Rule of Two and engaged them in a lightsaber duel. And even though he knew after the fact that Ventress and Maul weren't dead, he was dismissive because they posed no threat to his plans. In other words, this is a singular case where he not only considers a being a threat to his person, he's also in abject fear of that being, even after being boosted in power. Even if Plagueis was unkillable, there's no reason Sidious couldn't capture and imprison Plagueis. If he was significantly more powerful than Plagueis, he wouldn't be so out of character with abject fear and concern for his own personal safety.
You miss the clear context of the quotes from the novel:
Sidious knew that his own powers had increased tenfold over the decades, but he couldn’t be certain he had learned all of Plagueis’s secrets—“his sorcerer’s ways,” as the Sun Guards referred to them — including the ability to prevent beings from dying. He sometimes wondered: Was he a level behind? Two levels behind? Such questions were precisely what had driven generations of Sith apprentices ultimately to challenge their Masters. The uncertainty about who was the more powerful. The need to test themselves, to face the definitive trial.
The point here is that honestly, Sidious had no clue what the gap between Plagueis and himself was, which is the point of the Rule of Two. Plagueis deliberately kept his full power and how it compared to Sidious' out of his apprentice's awareness, lest his apprentice decide that he could overthrow him. Sidious has absolutely no idea how powerful he is in comparison to Plagueis, so his musing that he could be a level or two behind - and the suggestion that the two even at this point could be comparable - makes this comparison irrelevant.
Sidious' fears are two-fold:
1) He fears Plagueis truly became immortal and has evolved beyond Sheev's abilities to destroy.
2) Sheev isn't actually aware of the limits of Plagueis' strength. His fears are based on a reverence of Plagueis emphasised throughout the novel, as shown above. We also have Plagueis being wary of antagonising pre-boost Sidious, who while Sidious doesn't know the limits of Plagueis' strength, Plagueis knows - or more accurately, can predict - the limits of Sheev's.
All of these speculations about post-boost Sheev and Plagueis' comparability are founded around Sidious' insecurity around his own power, but we have explicit evidence he had no idea what Plagueis' limits and full power looked like. Sidious' fear isn't proof that Plagueis actually is more/comparably powerful, merely that Sidious fears the possibility of an immortal, invulnerable being with mysterious power limits he himself isn't sure of. What we do have is Plagueis doing everything he can to avoid angering Sidious:
Palpatine nodded. “The sniveling toady knows about the blockade. I suspect that he’s on the loose, and out for profit.”
Damask’s eyes flashed yellow. “This is what happens when beings are promoted beyond their level of competence!”
Palpatine tensed in anger.
“Not you,” Damask said quickly. “Gunray and his ilk! The Force harrows and penalizes us for consorting with those too ignorant to appreciate and execute our designs!”
Palpatine took comfort in the fact that even Plagueis had his limits. “I failed to heed your words about sudden reversals.”
Damask frowned at him, then relaxed. “I ignore my own advice. The blockade must wait.”
“I will recall Maul,” Palpatine said.Damask’s eyes flashed yellow. “This is what happens when beings are promoted beyond their level of competence!”
Palpatine tensed in anger.
“Not you,” Damask said quickly. “Gunray and his ilk! The Force harrows and penalizes us for consorting with those too ignorant to appreciate and execute our design
Palpatine took comfort in the fact that even Plagueis had his limits. “I failed to heed your words about sudden reversals.”
Damask frowned at him, then relaxed. “I ignore my own advice. The blockade must wait.”
“I will recall Maul,” Palpatine said.
- Blade_of_DorinLevel One
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 11:04 am
Isv wrote:Revan dies
IG cries
- The lord of hungerLevel Two
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 11:15 am
Meatpants wrote:Plagueis: 12
Caedus: 11
Revan: 10
Geth: 1
And some other ones wasted on characters like Tano and Jooj.
- GuestGuest
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 12:32 pm
So Luceno clearly thinks Plagueis had a shot taking Sidious down combatively. But what's more to the point, the idea that Plagueis being immortal was the only concern of Sidious' is more speculative and less based on the facts than my stance. Sidious doesn't seem incredulous at all over the prospect of Plagueis causing the tremor that "shook the stars themselves"; he regards Plagueis as insanely powerful. Plagueis' survival as an immortal entity isn't a possibility that arouses feelings of indifference or amusement in Sidious, but abject fear. Consider that even though he feared Ventress in the Clone Wars and saw her as a threat to his power, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be wary of engaging her. Case and point: he engaged Sidious and Savage, stated threats to the Rule of Two and engaged them in a lightsaber duel. And even though he knew after the fact that Ventress and Maul weren't dead, he was dismissive because they posed no threat to his plans. In other words, this is a singular case where he not only considers a being a threat to his person, he's also in abject fear of that being, even after being boosted in power. Even if Plagueis was unkillable, there's no reason Sidious couldn't capture and imprison Plagueis. If he was significantly more powerful than Plagueis, he wouldn't be so out of character with abject fear and concern for his own personal safety.
I addressed this in our SS, though.
- GuestGuest
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 1:17 pm
I vote Revan (idk whether I already changed my vote).
- MasterCilghalLevel Three
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:26 pm
I retract my vote.
- SeturnaLevel One
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:33 pm
After very much thinking i decide to vote Revan
- Jedi_Jesus
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 2:42 pm
After reading everything over, il admittingly digress that ant, and MP have both done well in making me hesitant on who i wanted to side with, Plageuis and Revan.
However, BoD's final post regarding plags comparability to TPM sheev, as well as the vasy scaling sheev already boasted even as of the end of TPM, makes me lean towards plageuis in a final bout. I dont feel as if Revan can weather the storm that is the offensive capability of plageuis without signifigant difficulty, and i am going to side with Plageuis for now.
Changing my vote to plageuis, abeit hesitantly.
Gethzerion, Darish Vol, Pre Pool taalon, Revan, all need to enter this list before a cap off at top 20.
However, BoD's final post regarding plags comparability to TPM sheev, as well as the vasy scaling sheev already boasted even as of the end of TPM, makes me lean towards plageuis in a final bout. I dont feel as if Revan can weather the storm that is the offensive capability of plageuis without signifigant difficulty, and i am going to side with Plageuis for now.
Changing my vote to plageuis, abeit hesitantly.
Gethzerion, Darish Vol, Pre Pool taalon, Revan, all need to enter this list before a cap off at top 20.
- The EllimistLevel Five
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:00 pm
Summary so far -
There is no good counter to the supremacy quotes. Lucasarts policy says that the DK novels (which aren’t the only quotes…) are canon in Legends. “A long time ago” doesn’t mean that there’s a literal physical being in the universe writing this - it’s just a reference to the opening crawls. Likewise, unrelated errors in sources, which can be found almost *anywhere* (and some of them can be rationalized) do not offer grounds to blanket dismiss a statement that is repeated numerous times across multiple sources. Likewise, personal dislike of the supremacy quotes isn’t an argument against them.
The counter to the **insane* lightning MM feat is nonsense. So as we see, a half-asleep, drunk Plagueis can tank lightning from Darth Sidious, the most powerful Sith Lord in galactic history, without a barrier. The argument that because his clothes weren’t affected, the lightning must be weaker, makes no sense; Force attacks don’t have to have environmental collateral damage beyond their target. Ant has already acknowledged that the lightning may have just been used a different mechanism for dealing damage. The key point here is that any claim that the lightning is weaker or cannot scale to Sidious’s power (>>>>>>> Bane’s, whose lightning can kill lightsaber-proof orbalisks) must handle the fact that SIDIOUS WAS EXPLICITLY DRAWING MORE DEEPLY ON THE DARK SIDE THAN HE EVER HAD.
A vastly pre-prime Plagueis and vastly, vastly pre-prime apprentice Palpatine unbalanced the entire cosmic Force through sheer power, something that was unprecedented in Star Wars.
Revan’s special feats were on one of the most powerful nexuses in Star Wars. It was more than just the Yavin IV nexus - it was on a nexus within that nexus. Nor can you say that it would be trivial - multiple characters in-universe explicitly note its overwhelming power. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated how Satele Shan, who was overwhelmed by the nexus, dispersing her BM across her allies could not have hindered Revan to a greater extent than the nexus amped him.
Revan cannot scale to Vitiate/Ziost because he needed a super-weapon in a super-nexus to charge from for two minutes just to damage life in a one kilometer radius. It has been shown that the “he was targeting the fleet!” argument makes zero sense either grammatically or given that the fleet wasn’t within a kilometer.
Caedus has more knowledge of Luke’s power than perhaps any other person. He may not know 100% LotF Luke, but he knows 100% TUF Luke and probably knows close to 100% DN Luke. He’s even very specifically analyzed the mechanics of Luke’s restraint to his power and how to unleash it in TUF.
Caedus thought amped Jaina was Luke, and was still holding his own. He was carefully analyzing the situation and came to this conclusion; then, later on, the possibility of it being an illusion is brought up, and he dismisses it. One of the grounds for doing so was that Jaina could not have possibly been that powerful. However, Jacen is obviously aware that Luke can cast illusions and amp people with BM, so the only factor that would make it so impossible to imagine that it was Luke’s trickery (which had just manifested a book earlier multiple times) was that Jaina had the power of Luke (or at least ~ what Jacen has seen before, aka >>> EoDE), and that someone actually imposing their full power on a vastly weaker combatant from miles away was unheard of. If “Luke” were suspiciously super-weak, Jacen would’ve found the illusion explanation far more believable.
Caedus did not believe Inferno Luke was hindered. He reflects on the battle more than once afterwards, and is obsessed with analyzing any way to exploit Luke’s weaknesses, yet he never got the impression that he was hindered. It’s very plausible that Luke was hindered relative to 100% LotF Luke, but not relative to earlier incarnations that still scale far above EoDE Luke.
Why Plagueis > Revan
There is no good counter to the supremacy quotes. Lucasarts policy says that the DK novels (which aren’t the only quotes…) are canon in Legends. “A long time ago” doesn’t mean that there’s a literal physical being in the universe writing this - it’s just a reference to the opening crawls. Likewise, unrelated errors in sources, which can be found almost *anywhere* (and some of them can be rationalized) do not offer grounds to blanket dismiss a statement that is repeated numerous times across multiple sources. Likewise, personal dislike of the supremacy quotes isn’t an argument against them.
- That's not to even start on the TPM Mauls supremacy quotes...
The counter to the **insane* lightning MM feat is nonsense. So as we see, a half-asleep, drunk Plagueis can tank lightning from Darth Sidious, the most powerful Sith Lord in galactic history, without a barrier. The argument that because his clothes weren’t affected, the lightning must be weaker, makes no sense; Force attacks don’t have to have environmental collateral damage beyond their target. Ant has already acknowledged that the lightning may have just been used a different mechanism for dealing damage. The key point here is that any claim that the lightning is weaker or cannot scale to Sidious’s power (>>>>>>> Bane’s, whose lightning can kill lightsaber-proof orbalisks) must handle the fact that SIDIOUS WAS EXPLICITLY DRAWING MORE DEEPLY ON THE DARK SIDE THAN HE EVER HAD.
A vastly pre-prime Plagueis and vastly, vastly pre-prime apprentice Palpatine unbalanced the entire cosmic Force through sheer power, something that was unprecedented in Star Wars.
Revan’s special feats were on one of the most powerful nexuses in Star Wars. It was more than just the Yavin IV nexus - it was on a nexus within that nexus. Nor can you say that it would be trivial - multiple characters in-universe explicitly note its overwhelming power. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated how Satele Shan, who was overwhelmed by the nexus, dispersing her BM across her allies could not have hindered Revan to a greater extent than the nexus amped him.
Revan cannot scale to Vitiate/Ziost because he needed a super-weapon in a super-nexus to charge from for two minutes just to damage life in a one kilometer radius. It has been shown that the “he was targeting the fleet!” argument makes zero sense either grammatically or given that the fleet wasn’t within a kilometer.
Jacen Reaction Scaling
Caedus has more knowledge of Luke’s power than perhaps any other person. He may not know 100% LotF Luke, but he knows 100% TUF Luke and probably knows close to 100% DN Luke. He’s even very specifically analyzed the mechanics of Luke’s restraint to his power and how to unleash it in TUF.
Caedus thought amped Jaina was Luke, and was still holding his own. He was carefully analyzing the situation and came to this conclusion; then, later on, the possibility of it being an illusion is brought up, and he dismisses it. One of the grounds for doing so was that Jaina could not have possibly been that powerful. However, Jacen is obviously aware that Luke can cast illusions and amp people with BM, so the only factor that would make it so impossible to imagine that it was Luke’s trickery (which had just manifested a book earlier multiple times) was that Jaina had the power of Luke (or at least ~ what Jacen has seen before, aka >>> EoDE), and that someone actually imposing their full power on a vastly weaker combatant from miles away was unheard of. If “Luke” were suspiciously super-weak, Jacen would’ve found the illusion explanation far more believable.
Caedus did not believe Inferno Luke was hindered. He reflects on the battle more than once afterwards, and is obsessed with analyzing any way to exploit Luke’s weaknesses, yet he never got the impression that he was hindered. It’s very plausible that Luke was hindered relative to 100% LotF Luke, but not relative to earlier incarnations that still scale far above EoDE Luke.
- GuestGuest
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:11 pm
A small case for Starkiller, consisting of 3 key points. My post may not be as detailed as some others, but that's due to lack of time, and lack of investment.
1) The raw power Galen is boasting must be immense. Firstly, he's described as having Luke Skywalker level potential:
Considering Luke himself went from failing to lift an X-Wing to giving Vader a decent fight within a short span of time, the amount of growth Galen experienced must have been immense, given that he was trained far more ruthlessly than Luke and for far longer (he experienced a "decade and a half of torture and abuse") With that immense power growth, Galen must be able to perform some truly immense Force feats, like I don't know, re-directing an ISD, for instance:
Or defending himself from heat comparable to that in "the outer layers of a star" while shifting The Salvation, before atomising it:
So, yeah his raw power is clearly immense. I don't recall Revan, Caedus, or Plagueis performing wacky environmental feats like that. However, while I have showcased his raw power nicely, some may be wondering, what about combative examples? How effectively can SK use this power in a fight? That brings us to point 2.
2) Galen has been shown to utterly dominate high-level combatants with his incredible power. For example, at the end of TFU, he ragdolls Vader:
Considering that Sidious cannot ragdoll TCW Darth Maul - he needs to wait for an opening which he immediately "pounces" on with a "snarl" - this feat is clearly highly impressive and definitely places him bare minimum as a high tier 8 even if you somehow think Vader is this tier 7, Kit Fisto tier combatant. The only way to consider this unimpressive is if you don't think Vader is even a tier 7 which I'm assuming most of you do.
The gap between Vader and Starkiller is reflected further when Galen destroys an army of Starkiller clones that could have "easily" overpowered Vader despite exhausting the vast majority of his reserves on destroying The Salvation just prior:
The only one with feats of dominating combatants in such a manner is Revan (e.g. his fight with Nyriss), meanwhile, Plagueis lacks feats of utterly destroying established opposition, and Caedus has consistently shown inability to dominate high-level combatants (see his fights with Katarn, Mara, Sing, and his statements on Saba). So, yeah, Galen has shown to be able to effectively utilise his raw power - dominating powerful opponents in such a way that virtually none of the other contenders have shown. However, if you want more evidence of his power, here's a final point.
3) Galen has shown to be able to contend with Sidious, who's credited several times as the most powerful Sith in history, placing him above Sith like Vitiate whose capabilities I'm sure you're all aware of. Note that, if you remove Caedus's proximity with Luke (which Ant has done a decent job at doing) then he really doesn't have anything of this nature (i.e. a feat against a high tier combatant), and Plagueis is a massive boost of power and a decade of growth away from Sheev. The only other one here who has feats against opposition like this is Revan (depending on how you view his fight and telepathic war with Vitiate). Anyway, here is the feat in its entirety:
Observe that Sidious was in "desperation" per the text, so he was clearly going all out. While one may point out that this is Galen's POV and thus is fallible, I don't find this argument particularly convincing for a multitude of reasons, but the main one is that Sidious is never remotely implied or stated to be feigning this desperation. This is Galen's pivotal moment of self-sacrifice, wherein he holds out against Sheev's Lightning for the rebels. Arguing that Sheev could have just bypassed his defences if he were actually trying seems to go against the core intent of the passage given that Galen's willpower is emphasised, not Sheev being a retard and giving the rebels a chance to escape by not utilising his full power against Galen. It's noted in the passage that Galen "had to see this through" and how "he clung to his consciousness with a feverish will", yet you're telling me that the writer wanted to convey that Galen's struggle was fruitless and that Sidious could have overwhelmed him if he pleased? That's utter nonsense which, once again, is implied nowhere and seems to go against the obvious narrative intent.
Anyway, to summarise:
Galen's performing environmental feats none of the combatants have demonstrated the ability to replicate, ragdolled high tier combatants (which Plagueis hasn't shown he can do, and which Caedus has failed to do on multiple occasions). On top of all this, he held his own against the most powerful Sith in history (Caedus has no way to compare to this besides Luke proximity), who is demonstrably far beyond Plagueis. While other characters may have other advantages they can use to bridge it, there clearly is a distinct raw power gap between Galen and everyone else here. So, yeah, vote Galen (or Revan, he's got a lot going for him and seems to be able to somewhat match what Galen can do). And if none of you feels like voting Galen right now due to other characters, at least consider this case when voting in future rounds.
Anyway, I wrote this in like 20 minutes, so I'm sorry if it's filled with typos, I just felt like wanking Galen after finishing editing and shit for my post to Memepants (though I've still got sourcing and transferring). Also, if anyone responds, it'll probably take me a while to get back to you, and I might not even manage to respond. So, yeah, if you're planning on writing a response keep this in mind.
1) The raw power Galen is boasting must be immense. Firstly, he's described as having Luke Skywalker level potential:
- Spoiler:
- Insider 100 wrote:The Apprentice is the photo negative of Luke Skywalker. He's been raised by Darth Vader, and is what Luke would have become if he had joined his father. Vader's not a very nice daddy. This guy has been raised to be a Jedi. When the Jedi use the Force, they respect it and don't overuse it. The bad guys - the Sith - keep testing their limits. Vader discovered this person who had the potential to be the most powerful Force user ever. He's up there with the top tier. He's extremely powerful. Vader has trained him in such a way that he just kept pushing his limitations, seeing how far he could use the Force. So, where a normal Jedi might use the Force to trick his way past a few stormtroopers, the apprentice might use the Force to bring down an adjacent building on top of those stormtroopers. He's extremely confident in everything he does. He's been trained by Vader to be an assassin, an unstoppable force.
Considering Luke himself went from failing to lift an X-Wing to giving Vader a decent fight within a short span of time, the amount of growth Galen experienced must have been immense, given that he was trained far more ruthlessly than Luke and for far longer (he experienced a "decade and a half of torture and abuse") With that immense power growth, Galen must be able to perform some truly immense Force feats, like I don't know, re-directing an ISD, for instance:
- Spoiler:
- The Force Unleashed Novelization wrote:Can't you see it, he wanted to say, then realized who he was talking to. He described the scene in as few words as he could, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight of the disintegrating shipyards. Huge, molten chunks were tearing free and tumbling either out into deep space or down into lower orbits while further explosions continued to tear the facility apart. The scaffolding around the nearly completed Star Destroyer had bent and torn completely away, leaving the ship free to power down into the atmosphere of Raxus Prime. Already it was visible as a distinct triangle glowing orange around its leading edges and conning tower. It was coming directly toward him.
It was aiming for him.
"Juno can't fly the ship at the moment," said Kota firmly, "and neither can PROXY. We have to find another solution."
"What's wrong with Juno?"
"Concentrate on what's important, boy. That Star Destroyer is coming down fast. You'll never get clear in time. You need to pull it into the cannon."
The apprentice was temporarily lost for words when he realized what Kota was suggesting.
Kota wanted him to move the Star Destroyer using nothing but the Force.
"You're insane," he gasped. "It's massive!"
"What is mass?" Kota said. "It's all in your mind, boy. You're a Jedi! Size means nothing to you!"
Kota's voice had changed. The surly, drunken slur was completely absent; in its place was the durasteel bark of the seasoned combat veteran the apprentice had first met.
"Can you hear me, boy? Reach out and grab that ship, or you'll die on this trash heap!"
The Star Destroyer was growing visibly larger and hung like a burning, triangular moon low in the sky of Raxus Prime.
You're a Jedi! Size means nothing to you!
He wasn't a Jedi but the message was the same. The Force didn't recognize big or small, heavy or light, hard or easy. The living flows of the galaxy encompassed all scales, from the very small to the extremely large. The Star Destroyer was part of it, and so was he. The Force bound them as surely as gravity. He could make its invisible muscles flex, if he dared.
Had his Master ever done anything like this? Had the Emperor? Had any Sith or Jedi in the history of the galaxy?
He doubted anyone would ever know about his success or failure in the next few minutes. "Be quick about it, boy!"
Fast or slow were also irrelevant to the Force, but the apprentice took Kota's point. The sooner he started, the sooner it would be done.
Deactivating his lightsaber and attaching the hilt to his belt, he adopted the opening stance of the Soresu form, with his right arm and fingers outstretched, pointing at the Star Destroyer. His empty left hand he tucked in next to his heart. With his legs braced firmly in the trash, he reached as deep as he had ever reached into the Force, and then went farther still, feeling as though a mighty chasm had opened up under him and his mind and will plunged down into it. The chasm filled. His mind opened. The physical existence of the Star Destroyer slid painlessly inside.
Nearly sixteen hundred meters long and capable of carrying a crew in excess of thirty-seven thousand, the ship was a familiar design. Its engines and armament weren't fully installed, but its Class One hyperdrive would have taken it anywhere in the Empire at speed, there to deploy walkers, fighters, barges, and shuttles. Armed with a host of turbolaser and ion cannons, plus no less than ten tractor beams, it could have blockaded an entire system on its own. The reinforced durasteel hull was solid enough to rip a gouge in Raxus Prime that might take centuries to fill. Scavenger droids would have a field day when it came down. Wherever it went down . . .
There is no wherever, he told himself. There is only where I tell it to.
Focus.
The tip of his right index finger and the Star Destroyer became as one in his mind. Every nut and bolt and plate and wire of the massive machine was contained within that tiny space. It wasn't hard to move an arm, a finger, a single human cell. He could direct one barely without thinking, so why not the other, too? Instinct was clearer on that point than the workings of his mind. Ignoring perspective, the two were about the same size in his field of vision.
Except the Star Destroyer was growing larger with each passing second, and waves of TIE fighters and TIE bombers were pouring forth from its brand-new hangar decks. Laserfire cut huge super-hot channels through the atmosphere ahead of them.
The apprentice ignored it all. While the illusion held, he moved his hand a very slight distance to his right. The sensation of containing a vast, million-ton machine in the tip of one finger was deeply disorienting. He felt as though every muscle fiber, nerve, and bone groaned along with the metal seams and joints of the ship. What it felt, he felt, too, and even a small acceleration had a profound effect on such a large scale. It resisted with all the momentum it possessed. Hatches swang open; rivets popped; bulkheads twisted; pipes burst.
The Star Destroyer didn't appear to have moved much in the sky. It was still coming in low on the horizon, aiming to pass over him and strafe him from above. He shifted his hand a second time, but instead of changing its course he mistakenly gave it a slight tumble. He needed to apply the Force the right way for this to work, taking the growing forces of friction and the shifting of its center of gravity into account. A spinning Star Destroyer would do more damage than one burying itself nose-first into the cannon and its superstructure. Damage was good, when it came to destroying the Emperor's handiwork, but too much damage could destroy him and perhaps the Rogue Shadow as well under a deadly rain of molten shrapnel.
Bring it down in one piece, he told himself. Bring it down hard.
The ship growled and squealed in metal torment. He was getting the hang of it; he could see how its course was slowly shifting. As wide across as his outstretched hand now, it was hitting the atmosphere at a steeper angle than he had intended, burning bright red and already gouting a trail of black smoke and sparkling debris. He became aware of a sound communicated through his feet: a rumbling much deeper and more sustained than the pounding of the cannon, which had fallen silent after the firing of the third projectile. The Star Destroyer's incomplete frame was acting like a giant tube, and the atmosphere was resonating inside. His whole body sang with it.
More. The Star Destroyer was really picking up speed now. The thickening atmosphere had a slight braking effect, but nothing could prevent the inevitable. It was going to hit soon. A wild exodus of droids ran past him, fleeing the crash site. The TIE fighters it had launched raced ahead of the chaotic atmospheric waves it generated. He ignored them and concentrated on shifting ground zero as close to the cannon as he could.
Sparks danced in front of his eyes. The edges of his vision faded to black. Light and dark swirls spun around him, wraithlike. He felt momentarily faint and wondered if it was possible to dissolve into the Force. He was a speck caught in the updraft over a forest fire - yet somehow he had the audacity to try to command the fire to do his will.
Who did he think he was?
A sudden panic almost made him lose control. The Star Destroyer, now a burning, shrieking meteor, filled his entire forward vision. The hull was peeling away in fiery, golden strips, each one weighing hundreds of tons, exposing the darker skeleton beneath. It looked like a death's head, a ghastly mask not dissimilar to his Master's, but one molten like lava. This could well be the end of everything, he thought distantly. Of him, of his plans, of his feelings for Juno, and of the boy called Galen who had lost a father a long time ago and whose grief had already been effectively erased
But his name had survived, and names had power. The apprentice clutched at it with desperation, needing to regain control of the Star Destroyer lest it tear itself apart and disperse the impact. He needed to find his focus again, to ignore the feeling of dissolution eating at the edges of his self, and to tip the balance of power back toward him.
Galen had stood up to Darth Vader as little more than a child. Galen had wrested the lightsaber from a Dark Lord of the Sith and stood bravely in the face of death. Galen may have been ground down by years of training and darkness since, but was he truly gone - or had he just gone into hiding until the opportunity came to emerge back into the light?
Are you there, Galen? I need your help!
No answer came.
The Star Destroyer's catastrophic reentry made the world shake. There was no time to try again. For Juno, then.
He gritted his teeth and snarled at the sky. The dead weight of the Star Destroyer shifted one last time, changing its angle of descent just enough to hang together those last few hundred meters, but not enough to risk bouncing. Only seconds remained before it hit and it was still getting bigger. It was impossible that the sky could contain so much metal!
Abandoning his control over the ship, knowing there was nothing now that he could do to alter its course, the apprentice staggered backward, dazed. The Force fled from him, leaving him wrung out and drained. With a sound like the world ending, the Star Destroyer completed its first and final journey. It hit the cannon, exactly as it was supposed to, and the sky turned white. The ground buckled beneath the apprentice's feet. He pinwheeled, unable to find his balance, as a tsunami of junk and waste rose up ahead of him and blotted out the sun.
Or defending himself from heat comparable to that in "the outer layers of a star" while shifting The Salvation, before atomising it:
- Spoiler:
- The Force Unleashed 2 Novelization wrote:Barely a minute into the dive, Starkiller knew he had to move. Nebulon-B frigates weren't designed for rapid reentry. Anything over eight hundred kilometers an hour risked tearing off control vanes and external sensors - and the Salvation was already doing far in excess of that.
The ship shook and thundered. Strange screeching noises ran from nose to tail, as though it might tear apart at any moment. It would physically hold together long enough - he was sure of that, but the controls in the bridge were already approaching useless. The main display was full of static. He could barely make out the planet, let alone the location he was aiming for.
He needed a better vantage point if he was going to pull this off.
That he was effectively riding in a giant metal coffin was an additional thought he tried to suppress.
The ship could fly itself for a short time. He had patched the navicomp into what remained of targeting computers, leaving him reasonably certain that it could point and thrust effectively while his hands were off the controls. He didn't want to leave it long, though, so he ran for the exit and headed upward as fast as he could, taking turbolift shafts and passages cur by the bounty hunter wherever he could. He ignored bodies, personal effects, fires - everything. Where doors or bulkheads lay in his path, he telekinetically ripped them aside and kept running.
The ship lurched beneath him as he entered the upper decks. That, he presumed, was the result of the primary forward laser cannon being ripped away by the rising atmospheric friction. Its center of gravity perturbed, the ship began to sway from side to side. He tried not to imagine superheated air boiling up through the infrastructure from the hole left behind. He would be exposed to the same soon enough.
He reached the freshwater tanks and began moving horizontally, toward the rear rather than forward. When he reached the surgery suite - even more of a bloody mess than it had been before - he headed upward again, to where the short-range communications array protruded from a bulge on the frigate's upper fore section.
He could hear the air rushing past as he approached the outer hull. It sounded like a mad giant screaming.
The ship lurched again, but less noisily this time. The rupture was more distant - probably the static discharge vanes on the aft section, he decided. That would rob the ship of even more stability.
Even as he thought that, the Salvation began slewing from side to side.
"Hang in there, " he told the ship. "I'm coming. "
He found a maintenance ladder leading to an air lock and leapt up it in two bounds, blowing the inner hatch as he came. He could feel a wild drumming from the far side of the outer door. The ship was moving so fast now that unexposed flesh wouldn't last a microsecond. He would have to rely on a Force shield to keep him safe. A single lapse in concentration would be the end of him.
He took a second to compose himself.
For Juno.
Then he raised a hand and telekinetically burst through the outer hatch.
Instantly the world was fire. The air around the ship consisted of a blinding plasma, hotter than any ordinary flame. He forced his way into it, bracing himself against metal rungs that had turned instantly red on exposure to the outside. His eyes narrowed to slits in order to make out even the nearest outline. He could barely see the fingers in front of his face.
He didn't need to see. The Force guided him, move by move, out onto the hull, where he braced himself with his back to the short-range array and turned to face forward. Like Kota, he would see without eyes.
A trembling shape up and to his left chose that moment to give way, showering molten fragments all along the spine of the ship. The primary array was no great loss: he couldn't have heard anyone anyway over the racket in his ears. But the forward turbolasers and primary sensor unit, the next two chunks to go, were more of a concern. The ship was seriously unbalanced now. It shuddered underfoot, pulling wildly in different directions. If he was going to prevent it slipping into an uncontrollable rumble or rearing apart, he had to act quickly and decisively.
This was where it got difficult. He needed to maintain the Force shield against the sort of hear he might find in the outer layers of a star. He also had to keep in mind the target ahead - a target he couldn't see through the plasma, but had to hit square-on or else the planetary shield generators wouldn't fail. No matter what happened, he had to fly straight.
Starkiller took a deep breath. The cool trapped air behind the shield would last long enough, he hoped. He had been too worried about frying to consider suffocating to death.
He raised his hands and spread his fingers wide. His eyes closed tightly against the fiery brightness of the plasma. With each bucking and shaking of the ship beneath him, he encouraged himself to ride with it instead of fighting it. He was part of the ship, not a passenger. He was the ship, not a reckless pilot guiding it to destruction.
In the same way that he could feel his fingers and toes, his mind seeped outward into the metal and plastoid of the frigate, until every joint and weld, every porthole and deck became part of his sense of being. There was no line anymore between Starkiller and the Salvation. They were one and the same being, from the perspective of the Force.
He raised his right arm, and the ship followed the movement, listing slowly and heavily to starboard. Some of the headlong shuddering faded, as though it were grateful to have someone at the helm again. Even the wind's shrieking seemed to ebb.
Something tore away at aft of the ship, and he bent his knees slightly to absorb the shock.
The Salvation steadied, found a new center of gravity, and roared on.
Confident that his vast metal charge was now under control, he cast his mind outward. He was shocked by how far he had fallen. The Salvation must have punctured the planetary shield itself some time ago, and he simply hadn't noticed in all the turbulence. Now the cloud cover was less than a hundred meters below and coming up quickly. Behind the Salvation, a long fiery wake stretched across the sky, trailed by starfighters, and, farther back, capital ships on both sides, coming through the hole in the shield. The generators below would soon repair the hole, if he didn't guide his hurtling missile correctly, leaving the Rebel ships on the inside trapped, with him.
Assuming he survived...
For Juno.
The frigate slammed into the clouds with a rearing sound. At that speed, individual droplets of water hit like thermal detonators. The Salvation's own shields were holding, barely, but even so it lost still more of its mass to the ongoing battering. Several lower decks peeled back and were swept away, including the bridge. Most of the short-range array was gone, leaving him with just the base to hold him steady. He clenched his hands into fists and willed the ship to keep going.
Something succumbed to the plasma with a flash. A bright spark tumbled in his wake - the secondary reactor he had spent so much energy saving from the giant droid. He ignored it. The bottom of the cloud layer was approaching, and with it would come his first clear glimpse of the shield generators.
The air became still and relatively quiet when the Salvation punched through the clouds. The extra friction had slowed the frigate somewhat, making it a more manageable beast. Starkiller opened his eyes and discovered that he could see over the bulge of the forward decks to his destination. Perhaps some of the hull had been ripped away there, too.
The cloning facility lay spread out ahead of him. Had he wanted to, he could have hit it dead-center and wiped it off the face of Kamino. And had Juno not been inside, he would have been tempted. He felt no sentimental attachment to the place of his rebirth, and if there was any chance of taking out Darth Vader with it, all the better.
His sole target, however, was the shield generator buildings, and at last he saw them, as clear as they had seemed from the bridge, directly ahead.
Carefully, wary of putting too much strain on an already overtaxed chassis, he nudged the Salvations nose down. If he came in low and hit the ocean first, he could concentrate the damage to one location. If he overreached by so much as a degree, he might miss the ocean completely and scrape a long, fiery line right through the heart of the facility.
The Salvation resisted. He pushed harder. The nose descended and held there for ten seconds, strain echoing all through the ship. It wasn't made for anything like this. Nothing larger than a starfighter was. Neither was he.
With a bone-jarring crack, the spine connecting fore and aft sections of the frigate snapped clean through. Starkiller reached out with the Force, trying desperately to keep the two pieces together, but nothing could be done. They were already moving on slightly different trajectories. Air and debris sprayed from the great wound that separated them, providing entirely unpredictable thrust.
Groaning, juddering, the fore section began to lift again. Starkiller didn't fight it. With so much mass already stripped from it, the damage it would do when it hit was negligible. The rear was the priority. The heavy engines and main reactor continued powering forward on the trajectory it had originally been following. Was that the right trajectory or not? Starkiller anxiously studied its fall, projecting it forward to the best of his senses.
It looked good. He felt positive about it. Keeping an eye on the stubby rear section as it passed under him, he braced himself for impact. Barely a minute remained now. If he survived the crash, he would soon know whether he was right or not.
Ahead, a series of cloning towers loomed, standing as upright and tall as wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk. The fore section he stood upon was going to come down among them, doing a considerable amount of damage in the process. Starkiller didn't mind. Until their memories were activated, clones weren't truly alive; they were little more than meat in suspended animation. And the technicians attending them were servants of the Empire, and therefore viable targets. Some of them, perhaps, were responsible for his birth, if clone he truly was, and for their complicity in Vader's twisted plans. He smiled as his fiery steed descended toward them, imagining them fleeing in the face of the meteor as it grew large in the sky.
He could actually see tiny long-necked figures running through the complex, white-armored stormtroopers resolutely standing at their stations, and a black-robed figure looming high above them all, watching him approach.
Vader.
Below and slightly ahead, the engines struck the surface of the sea, sending a wave of superheated steam radiating outward along the wave tops.
Starkiller couldn't take his eyes off his former Master. He was right in his path, and not even moving! For a moment Starkiller couldn't understand why - until, next to Vader, bound in shackles and so small he had barely noticed her, he saw-
Juno.
A huge eruption heralded the impact of the engines into the side of the shield generators. The sky and sea convulsed. A shock wave spread through the facility, making the cloning towers sway. The fore section of the Salvation rolled to starboard, but not by enough to miss the cloning towers. Its terminus was fixed.
Just seconds remained before the Salvation's fore section hit Kamino. The facility was in close focus ahead of him, and he imagined he could see Juno's eyes widening on seeing him, haloed with his Force shield on top of her precious ship. Did she know it was him, or did she wonder at this strange apparition? Did she imagine that he was her death coming at last, from the skies instead of Darth Vader's hand?
Starkiller closed his eyes. He didn't have time to wonder what was going through her mind. He had to think of something fast, or Juno was going to die.
There was only one thing he could do, and although he knew he wasn't likely to survive, he didn't hesitate. What was death when the love of his former life was at stake? Besides, anything was possible. Dying, as he had thought once before, always seemed to bring out the best in him.
With his mind and all the power of the Force, Starkiller embraced what remained of the frigate beneath him - and blew it into a billion pieces.
So, yeah his raw power is clearly immense. I don't recall Revan, Caedus, or Plagueis performing wacky environmental feats like that. However, while I have showcased his raw power nicely, some may be wondering, what about combative examples? How effectively can SK use this power in a fight? That brings us to point 2.
2) Galen has been shown to utterly dominate high-level combatants with his incredible power. For example, at the end of TFU, he ragdolls Vader:
- Spoiler:
- The Force Unleashed Novelization wrote:Vader prepared for combat again. His power over the apprentice, however, was gone. His lightsaber went skittering and sparking across the floor, twisted out of his grip by telekinesis. The Force wrenched him into the air, as he had once lifted the apprentice's father, and a barrage of missiles struck at him with increasing strength. He raised his gloved hands to defend himself, but the battery continued until, with a crash, the apprentice ripped the energy field generator in the center of the room right out of the floor and hurled it at his former Master.
The generator exploded with greater force than he had expected, throwing him and everyone else to the floor. The transparisteel dome shattered. Debris rained everywhere. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears for an unnaturally long time afterward.
He was the first to his feet, striding across the rubble to where Darth Vader lay face-forward, gravely wounded and stripped of his armor in places. Flesh and machinery showed through the gaps. Finally, some real blood was flowing.
Considering that Sidious cannot ragdoll TCW Darth Maul - he needs to wait for an opening which he immediately "pounces" on with a "snarl" - this feat is clearly highly impressive and definitely places him bare minimum as a high tier 8 even if you somehow think Vader is this tier 7, Kit Fisto tier combatant. The only way to consider this unimpressive is if you don't think Vader is even a tier 7 which I'm assuming most of you do.
- Spoiler:
- Darth Maul: 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.
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.
The gap between Vader and Starkiller is reflected further when Galen destroys an army of Starkiller clones that could have "easily" overpowered Vader despite exhausting the vast majority of his reserves on destroying The Salvation just prior:
- Spoiler:
- The Force Unleashed 2 Novelization wrote:He sought strength from within himself, and pushed outward with all his might. Clones went flying. The empty rubes from which they had emerged shattered into millions of pieces. Platforms buckled and fell with reverberant crashes. The interior of the cloning tower rang as though struck with a giant hammer. Every muscle in his body shook with the effort of it.
The echoes faded, and he felt a peculiar kind of quiet descend.
The air was misted red, and every surface was slick with blood. He tasted it on his tongue and smelled it in his nose. His blood. A veritable ocean of it.
The only one with feats of dominating combatants in such a manner is Revan (e.g. his fight with Nyriss), meanwhile, Plagueis lacks feats of utterly destroying established opposition, and Caedus has consistently shown inability to dominate high-level combatants (see his fights with Katarn, Mara, Sing, and his statements on Saba). So, yeah, Galen has shown to be able to effectively utilise his raw power - dominating powerful opponents in such a way that virtually none of the other contenders have shown. However, if you want more evidence of his power, here's a final point.
3) Galen has shown to be able to contend with Sidious, who's credited several times as the most powerful Sith in history, placing him above Sith like Vitiate whose capabilities I'm sure you're all aware of. Note that, if you remove Caedus's proximity with Luke (which Ant has done a decent job at doing) then he really doesn't have anything of this nature (i.e. a feat against a high tier combatant), and Plagueis is a massive boost of power and a decade of growth away from Sheev. The only other one here who has feats against opposition like this is Revan (depending on how you view his fight and telepathic war with Vitiate). Anyway, here is the feat in its entirety:
- Spoiler:
- The Force Unleashed Novelization wrote:"You fool!" snarled the Emperor, sending another wave of Sith lightning into Kota's back. "He will never be yours."
Kota fell with his arms upraised, and the apprentice knew that it wasn't over yet. The moment of truth had arrived.
Without hesitation, he stepped between Kota and the Emperor, taking the full brunt of the Sith lightning into his own body.
The pain was incredible, searing every nerve back to its individual cells, skewering each of them on white-hot needles. He had never before felt anything like this. He wanted to recoil from the source, to curl into a ball and let unconsciousness take the pain away, but somehow he stayed standing, seeing the world through a crackling blue light, and even took a step toward the Emperor.
"Go!" he hissed at Kota. "Hurry!"
The general hesitated only for a moment. He, too, had seen a glimpse of the future, the apprentice remembered. He knew that it came down to a simple choice: him and the Rebels or the apprentice and darkness forever. Gathering up the Rebels, Kola ushered them toward the descending ship.
Another staggering, painful step and the Emperor was within the apprentice's reach. With shaking fingers, he took the old man's bony shoulders in his hands and gripped them tight. The Sith lightning spread to engulf the two of them, fueled by both their desperations. The Emperor tipped back his head and howled in lascivious pain. Darkness threatened to envelop the apprentice's mind, but he clutched to consciousness with feverish will. He had to see this through. He had to.
Observe that Sidious was in "desperation" per the text, so he was clearly going all out. While one may point out that this is Galen's POV and thus is fallible, I don't find this argument particularly convincing for a multitude of reasons, but the main one is that Sidious is never remotely implied or stated to be feigning this desperation. This is Galen's pivotal moment of self-sacrifice, wherein he holds out against Sheev's Lightning for the rebels. Arguing that Sheev could have just bypassed his defences if he were actually trying seems to go against the core intent of the passage given that Galen's willpower is emphasised, not Sheev being a retard and giving the rebels a chance to escape by not utilising his full power against Galen. It's noted in the passage that Galen "had to see this through" and how "he clung to his consciousness with a feverish will", yet you're telling me that the writer wanted to convey that Galen's struggle was fruitless and that Sidious could have overwhelmed him if he pleased? That's utter nonsense which, once again, is implied nowhere and seems to go against the obvious narrative intent.
Anyway, to summarise:
Galen's performing environmental feats none of the combatants have demonstrated the ability to replicate, ragdolled high tier combatants (which Plagueis hasn't shown he can do, and which Caedus has failed to do on multiple occasions). On top of all this, he held his own against the most powerful Sith in history (Caedus has no way to compare to this besides Luke proximity), who is demonstrably far beyond Plagueis. While other characters may have other advantages they can use to bridge it, there clearly is a distinct raw power gap between Galen and everyone else here. So, yeah, vote Galen (or Revan, he's got a lot going for him and seems to be able to somewhat match what Galen can do). And if none of you feels like voting Galen right now due to other characters, at least consider this case when voting in future rounds.
Anyway, I wrote this in like 20 minutes, so I'm sorry if it's filled with typos, I just felt like wanking Galen after finishing editing and shit for my post to Memepants (though I've still got sourcing and transferring). Also, if anyone responds, it'll probably take me a while to get back to you, and I might not even manage to respond. So, yeah, if you're planning on writing a response keep this in mind.
- The Fallen WarriorLevel Four
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:31 pm
Put me down for Caedus
- Corvinus
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:33 pm
@BoD
Yeah, them being equals was never my case. I said Jinn was “mentioned in the same breath as Mace”, which he was. There’s no arguing with that. It doesn’t make them equals, which they aren’t, and is not what I said. What it does do is inform the reader that Jinn and Mace are the standout duellists that Bondara has sparred with. Not Mace and any member of the B-team or Mace and any other Jedi, but Mace and Jinn.
As to Mace being deadlier, yeah he is – which is why I posted the source stating it and specifically put it in the scaling chain. It seems you follow the scaling chain and agree with it, so what are you even debunking?
Power growth or raw power? Again, not my case. You either have a false premise for your argument or you are strawmanning.
This is just nonsensical.
Bondara is comparing his contemporaries. Jedi he has actually sparred with. Mace has sensed Anakin’s and Yoda’s power and deems Kar to be in the same ballpark. The Sith quote what, lists humans and near-humans across different eras? So not contemporaries, or sparring partners who know each other and can compare them to others.
Try bringing in relevant quotes rather than pulling mental gymnastics to say my reply proved your point .
This only proves that Sidious does not actually believe himself to be Plagueis’s superior as he doesn’t bat an eye at Plagueis being powerful enough to both dominate the Force (through Midichlorian Manipulation) into granting him physical immortality, and cause such tremors as the one he felt.
If he really did think himself more powerful he would be confident in his ability to disable and contain Plagueis, even if he couldn’t kill him. Instead, he showed fear and wariness and wouldn’t even go near the body physically.
No, this is something that actually happened earlier in the novel:
As for Zannah, she actually did, as Bane attempted Essence Transfer and she fought against it, winning the mental battle and taking a portion of his power into her. I imagine this is why Luceno included such a scene, as a call back to the Bane novels:
Zannah is the first one to take in Bane’s power, which is passed down the Banite line from master to successor.
You have to prove that, rather than just saying it and expecting me to take it at face value despite evidence to the contrary.
We’re not talking about other beings, we are talking about Sidious. Anakin’s power growth bears no relevance.
In its simplicity is its weakness. You've got two quotes: one which doesn't compare Jinn and Windu beyond saying they're > Anoon, and the other which establishes Mace as superior by an undefined and frankly unquantifiable margin. Neither of them support your case that Jinn was ~ Mace especially since one literally establishes Mace's outright superiority in deadliness.
Equally, neither of them relate to power growth or raw power, which Mace should be considerably stronger than Jinn in.
Yeah, them being equals was never my case. I said Jinn was “mentioned in the same breath as Mace”, which he was. There’s no arguing with that. It doesn’t make them equals, which they aren’t, and is not what I said. What it does do is inform the reader that Jinn and Mace are the standout duellists that Bondara has sparred with. Not Mace and any member of the B-team or Mace and any other Jedi, but Mace and Jinn.
As to Mace being deadlier, yeah he is – which is why I posted the source stating it and specifically put it in the scaling chain. It seems you follow the scaling chain and agree with it, so what are you even debunking?
Power growth or raw power? Again, not my case. You either have a false premise for your argument or you are strawmanning.
You've proven my point for me. Your quote attributes Qui-Gon and Mace as simply being superior to Anoon, nothing more. Anakin doesn't need to be equal to Yoda for this to be true as Mace is just saying his raw power is around that level, nor do the Sith in that quote need to be on the same power level as it's just to say that they're powerful. Your quote is no different.
This is just nonsensical.
Bondara is comparing his contemporaries. Jedi he has actually sparred with. Mace has sensed Anakin’s and Yoda’s power and deems Kar to be in the same ballpark. The Sith quote what, lists humans and near-humans across different eras? So not contemporaries, or sparring partners who know each other and can compare them to others.
Try bringing in relevant quotes rather than pulling mental gymnastics to say my reply proved your point .
Both of these quotes are in the context that Sidious feared Plagueis had achieved immortality:
Sidious feared that Plagueis had become immortal and could never therefore be killed by him.
This only proves that Sidious does not actually believe himself to be Plagueis’s superior as he doesn’t bat an eye at Plagueis being powerful enough to both dominate the Force (through Midichlorian Manipulation) into granting him physical immortality, and cause such tremors as the one he felt.
If he really did think himself more powerful he would be confident in his ability to disable and contain Plagueis, even if he couldn’t kill him. Instead, he showed fear and wariness and wouldn’t even go near the body physically.
Pure speculation. We have no idea if he experienced it. Zannah for example didn't when she killed Bane.
No, this is something that actually happened earlier in the novel:
Darth Plagueis wrote:With 11-4D deep in processing mode, Plagueis withdrew a vial of his own blood and subjected it to analysis. Despite the recent amplification of his powers he sensed that his midi-chlorian count had not increased since the events on Bal'demnic, and the analysis of the blood sample confirmed his suspicions.
As for Zannah, she actually did, as Bane attempted Essence Transfer and she fought against it, winning the mental battle and taking a portion of his power into her. I imagine this is why Luceno included such a scene, as a call back to the Bane novels:
Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil wrote:From a safe distance, the Iktotchi had watched the two figures from her dreams wage battle. She was an impartial observer, having no preference as to which one would emerge victorious. She only wanted to serve whoever proved the stronger.
The conflict had been brief but intense: she had marveled at the speed of their blades, their movements so fast she could barely follow the action. She had felt the awesome power of the Force unleashed through bursts of lightning and the sinister tendrils that crawled up from the ground. She shivered in anticipation with the knowledge that she, too, could one day learn to wield such power.
She had seen Bane knock the woman to the ground and slap her weapon away, only to have his arm hewn off by the touch of one of the black tentacles. And then there had been a flash so bright she had been forced to close her eyes and look away.
When she looked back Bane was gone, his body reduced to a pile of ash. The blond woman still lay on the ground, dazed but alive. The deadly tendrils were nowhere to be seen.
Cautiously she approached the scene. Bane’s severed arm lay on the ground, but the rest of his body had been consumed by the crimson flare. In the instant before she had looked away, however, she had felt something.
Even from a distance, she had sensed an incredible burst of power—the same power she had sensed in Bane himself. She didn’t know how it was possible, but it almost seemed as if the Dark Lord’s life energy had burst free of his physical form in one glorious instant, releasing itself upon the material world. Then, as suddenly as she had sensed the presence, it was gone, vanishing like an animal gone to ground.
Crazy as it might seem, there was only one place she could imagine it could have gone.
The woman on the ground shifted, her eyes fluttering open as she rose slowly to her feet. She moved awkwardly and couldn’t seem to stand up straight, as if she was unfamiliar with how her own limbs and muscles worked … though this could simply have been the result of exhaustion from the battle.
She shook her blond head from side to side, and the motion seemed to restore some sense of her equilibrium. Standing straight and tall, she turned and fixed the Iktotchi with a cold stare.
Knowing how insane her words would sound, Cognus hesitated before asking, “Lord Bane?”
“Bane is gone,” the woman replied, her voice confident and strong. “I am Darth Zannah, Dark Lord of the Sith and your new Master.”
Zannah is the first one to take in Bane’s power, which is passed down the Banite line from master to successor.
Sidious' significant power growth suggests pre-boost Sidious' growth =/= post-boost Sidious' growth.
You have to prove that, rather than just saying it and expecting me to take it at face value despite evidence to the contrary.
It's to show power growth and skill growth are not necessarily the same for every being. Plagueis' power growth doesn't mean Anakin for example grew at the same rate.
We’re not talking about other beings, we are talking about Sidious. Anakin’s power growth bears no relevance.
- DarthAnt66Moderator
Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis
February 3rd 2020, 3:33 pm
@The Ellimist: Classes are over. May the odds be ever in your favor.
- SS - The Apprenticeship Tournament - Darth Plagueis (The Ellimist) vs Arcann (xSupremeSkillz)
- Darth Plagueis & TPM Darth Sidious vs Darth Tyranus & Mace Windu
- Darth Plagueis versus Darth Tenebrous and Darth Maul
- Darth Krayt, Darth Plagueis, Darth Tyranus vs DE Luke, Darth Vader, Darth Caedus
- Darth Sidious, Darth Plagueis & Darth Tenebrous vs. Darth Krayt, Darth Caedus & Valkorion
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum