★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis

While we are on the topic of Sith metaphysics, something else dawned on me.


The Sith on every level from the most micro to macro have had a certain way of expressing, and gaining power, over themselves, others, the galaxy as a whole and across long expanses of time. It's directly bound up with their personal philosophy and approach, and it has clearly evolved over time.


I think there is a metaphysical component to why the ancient Sith (Naga, Kun, Vitiate etc) have such flashy displays of power, so many trinkets and favour to have armies in their command. They think power comes externally. They think it comes from having a big enough ritual or superweapon to collapse a stars core, or millions of Sith to invade a planet, or a trinket imbued with enough energy to destroy anyone they fight, or a powerful enough nexus. Everything they do in the pursuit of power is big, flashy and external.


Bane changed this on a fundamental level and Sidious was the result. The Sith would no longer dilute their power but would concentrate it internally. They have no need of rituals or trinkets, no need of legions of followers: they realised that they can embody the full power of the dark side in as little as one or two beings. Their feats are all metaphysical, or microscopic: midichlorian manipulation, dominating the very fabric of the Force, etc. Their style of fighting is smaller, more concentrated and more potent: no grand sorcery or draining rituals where a blast of pure, undiluted dark side power in the form of lightning will do. Instead of commanding armies of selfish, mutinous, fearful Sith and sycophants, they bend fanatical followers to their will, making them a quite direct extension of their willpower: the power comes from within and emanates outward, influencing everything it touches. The power is not sought outside of the individual.


Basically, the RoT Sith read Nietsche, and the ancients read astrology charts. The Jedi have stayed pretty samey throughout history.

REVAN’S LIMITS?

Azronger’s argument: Revan channeled the energies of the Machine Core into an immense attack that would have dealt massive damage to all enemies within a kilometer radius. Because Revan needed a nexus and time to do this feat, that caps his powers far beneath planetary-tier Force users.

I agree with you that Revan 'needed' a nexus and time to do this feat. However, I disagree over what the feat entailed. 

Per Theron Shan, the coalition base that held “the Imperial and Republic command fleets” were stationed “nearby” Revan. The base was within viewing distance of the Temple of Sacrifice. The coalition armies quickly established permanent perimeters much closer to the temple (i.e. at Prowler’s Trail and Verdan Swamp). The coalition armies then cleared the Training Grounds and captured Imperial Guards stationed there. The Hero of Tython fought his way up to the red line, where he met Revan’s spirit. Altogether, the coalition armies had secured territory up to within perhaps one-hundred feet of the entrance to the temple. However, the army also moved to secure footholds along the sides of the temple, as shown by the armies charging its sides in the final battle cutscenes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSGTAK-DpEQ&t=1h07m58s). This explains why Revan extended the Machine Core attack to a kilometer radius rather than just the kilometer facing the temple, too. The “command fleets” of two galactic factions likely possessed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of soldiers, Jedi, and Sith. Satele Shan's fleet alone consisted of "many thousands." The battle that waged against the temple was described as “conflict on a scale we’ve never seen.” So, there’s thousands upon thousands of enemies, including countless Force users, were well within the kilometer radius.



As you agree, Revan’s Machine Core attack was purely “kinetic,” meaning it would be done by telekinesis, not Force drain. Moreover, the attack was not indiscriminate. The description specifically states it would harm “all enemies,” not everyone. That makes sense, as all the beings closest to Revan’s position are Revanite allies, and Revan stuffed all his “most powerful supporters” within the temple to avoid being consumed by the ritual. 

Though, did Revan *really* 'need' the nexus and time to do the feat?

Revan planned, immediately after the Temple of Sacrifice fight, to battle Vitiate in an end-all, be-all showdown over the fate of the galaxy. Moreover, on the Forgotten Terrace, Revan proclaimed that the Hero of Tython--who had just led the Temple of Sacrifice assault, which Revan acknowledged in the dialogue--cannot fathom his full power: “You have no idea what I am, what I've become." / "You don't even begin to comprehend what I've become.” Thus, it’s plausible that Revan wanted to conserve energy for the bigger fight, and so he may have used the Machine Core energies to avoid wasting his powers unnecessarily. Note Revan had teleported to a higher level of the temple, with all the strike teams members trapped a level below with no way to reach him. Revan was not pressed for time nor strained when he started the channel, so there was no need to rush it or exercise much of his power. Spirit Revan levitated massive rocks for the strike team to reach and ambush Revan’s position. Revan lost control of the energies, and they “backlashed” and “overloaded” inside of him. 

Also, don't forget that the Machine Core--which Revan planned to use to drain all life on Yavin IV and resurrect Vitiate--was soon thereafter destroyed. Rather than give up, Revan just planned to do everything himself--namely, “snuff out all life on the world by hand” and conduct complex rituals to both funnel that power into Vitiate’s spirit and create a new body for him. This would have been done in rapid time, as Revan was surrounded on all sides by the coalition armies. That all gives heavy credence to the idea Revan could indeed lay waste to a planet in a way similar to Ziost when push comes to shove. 

Altogether, Revan used the Machine Core energies to launch a telekinetic wave that would have caused “massive damage” across thousands of Force users without harming the Revanites. Between Revan reserving his energy to fight Vitiate, and the circumstances not forcing Revan to launch an instattack anyway, there is no way to put any cap on the feat. And Revan’s plans after the Machine Core was destroyed can best and only be explained by Revan’s ability to drain a planet with little resources and time. If all that is Revan’s worst display, then I will be certainly solidifying my support for Revan as #8 on the list. 

TELEPORTATION

This perfectly illustrates my point above: despite one of the Emperor’s dark side adepts possessing teleportation, he doesn’t even seem to be on the Emperor or Darth Vader’s radar. Palpatine is known for frequently testing his apprentice’s mettle and looking for replacements, even turning to a ”pool of minor wizards and political sycophants” as pointed out by you during Super Fight III. Yet this particular teleporter adept never seemed to catch his eye as a worthy opponent for Vader despite the Sith cyborg mainly and often only utilizing his lightsaber and simple telekinesis in battle. The facts that Vader himself made it his goal to ”Never suffer rivals” and was personally in charge of overseeing the training of the dark side adepts on Byss, as seen in the comics Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison and Evasive Action: Recruitment, respectively, support this belief. No amount of esoteric shenanigans - teleportation included - is going to outdo pure power in a fight if the disparity is large enough.

The dark side adept was on Palpatine’s radar: he’s the “master” of all the dark side adepts overseeing Palpatine’s Imperial Archive. However, Palpatine didn’t force anyone of note to fight Vader to the death. Palpatine didn’t for Jerec, who had powers approaching Vader’s, and he didn’t even like Jerec. Victory in combat also wasn’t Palpatine’s only consideration in an apprentice, as shown by him shooing C’baoth away to guard an archive because of his insanity. I don’t think there’s any reason to dismiss this Master Force Adept as necessarily far below anyway. Not that that really matters, though, as I agree with you that teleportation is not “going to outdo pure power in a fight if the disparity is large enough.” I never argued otherwise. However, I did argue that its a differentiating advantage against peers or even loosely comparable combatants, as Revan usage of it greatly increases his odds of winning. 

VS DARTH BANE

Therefore, the actual amount of energy that Revan endured upon the detonation of the backlash is entirely unquantifiable.

Any attack that damages thousands, including countless Force users, is a powerful attack. Recall that a planetary dark nexus then concentrated into the region of a cave had energies eclipsing peak Palpatine or even Abeloth. Likewise, potent energies spread across a kilometer then funneled into an explosion within Revan should be wildly powerful. Also, Revan was more-than-likely deep into the channel, as it was only 120 seconds long in length and the strike team had to climb a series of unstable levitating rocks to reach (unless you want to go with the mechanic where spirit Revan teleports them to Revan’s location. Though, if spirit Revan--who dares not even directly confront actual Revan--can teleport giant strike teams while weighed down by the nexus you’re overly hyping up, then actual Revan’s teleportation abilities should absolutely be everything I’ve been saying and way more). Revan then had to hold his body together through sheer force of will as these concentrated energies overloaded within him. 

First and foremost, one’s attention should be directed to the fact ”Several of the parasites on his chest and stomach hadn't survived, their brown shells turned black and brittle by the lightning's electrical charge.” In case someone isn’t aware, orbalisks shells are lightsaber-resistant, as in, they can literally tank lightsaber strikes effortlessly. This is seen many times by the book when Bane and the Jedi strike team on Tython attempt to cut through the orbalisks, to no avail. Yet Bane’s lightning was enough to reduce their shells ”brittle,” and Bane himself endured that same lightning, ultimately better than the orbalisks did, in spite of the lightning ”cooking his flesh from the inside,” “frying innards”. On top of that, Bane was simultaneously experiencing ”thousands of tiny teeth” “sawing away at subcutaneous tissue, chewing through muscles, tendons, and even bone.” What’s incredible is that ”Bane had stayed conscious through the torture of the electricity cooking him alive and the agony of the teeth burrowing into his flesh,” only blacking out upon experiencing ”the indescribable pain from the chemicals released by the exploding orbalisks dissolving his body on a cellular level.” Now, as a reminder, your premise was that “internal organs aren’t coated with a Force shield,” from which you conclude that ”Revan surviving suggests his body is highly tethered to his will, not biological functions.” Bane’s case should therefore be identical: lightning was ravaging his innards, and regular, squishy organs are obviously not more durable than literal lightsaber-resistant material under normal conditions (a much weaker Bane has disintegrated non-Force-users with casual bursts of his lightning, proving this), so Bane surviving suggests that, indeed, like Revan, his body is more linked to and dependent on his strength of will than ordinary biological functions.

This is not comparable to Revan’s feat. 

Unlike with a lightsaber blade, orbalisks absorb Force energy. The text goes into heavy detail describing them absorbing exorbitant amounts of Bane’s energies: “The creatures absorbed the power, hungrily devouring it until they became so engorged that the soft, pliant flesh of their underbellies had began to swell.” / “But burrowing deeper hadn't stopped the creatures from feasting on the electricity coursing through Bane's frying innards. They'd continued to expand until they had begun to pop, rupturing like overfilled balloons pinched beneath the hard shells.” 

Yes, “some” of the orbalisks died: “Several of the parasites on his chest and stomach hadn't survived, their brown shells turned black and brittle by the lightning's electrical charge.” Zannah noted that all the dead orbalisks have been turned black by the lightning’s charge. However, the text stated earlier that the orbalisks were dying because they were rupturing with Force energy. These dead orbalisks, now vulnerable through the rupture point, must have then been charred with the lightning. Ergo, Bane’s lightning was not directly overpowering the orbalisks in a way the lightsaber couldn’t. 

With so much of the energy then being absorbed by the orbalisks, and with many/most of the orbalisks surviving showing their absorbing capabilities weren’t even fully maxed out, there’s no way to claim the remaining energy necessitated Bane holding himself together through sheer will. The only lightning that went into Bane was likely through the areas without the orbalisks (which is rather small) and where “some” of the orbalisks died. Everywhere else, which is most of his body, the orbalisks would have covered for him. Also, by definition, the many surviving orbalisks may have helped regenerate some of Bane’s internal tissue damage.

Revan’s maximum damage soak can therefore be quantified, and it’s certainly not high enough to endure a direct hit from a lightsaber, whose potency is greater than that of ”a small nuclear blast”:

“A small nuclear blast” is not at all necessarily beyond the kilometer explosion. The U.S. army has produced “small nuclear blasts” the equivalent to 10 to 20 tons of TNT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)). I’m not even sure why you’re arguing this anyway, as padawan Satele literally broke a lightsaber blade with tutaminis, and Revan scales laughably beyond her. 

---

Alright, that covers most of the relevant anti-Revan arguments you made. They were well-written, but nonetheless all wrong.  

I will respond to your arguments on Revan’s resurrection and The Ellimist’s general Revan arguments on Thursday, and your arguments about LFL canon policy either Thursday or Friday. I believe Bran plans to respond to the midi-chlorian manipulation stuff on my behalf, but I’ll cover any loose ends there and on the sever Force shannegings on Saturday. I will further review your Force in Balance arguments and share my thoughts hopefully on Saturday as well. Note, unlike the stuff above or the resurrection, the Force in Balance argument is not a key Revan argument and just something I devised to get some direct comparisons between Revan and Plagueis, so it’s success or failure is not at all make-or-break (not that you claimed it was anyway). Beyond that, I will be busy Sunday-Friday of next week, so any potential follow-up responses likely will not come until the following week. And, if I could make one request to the Plaugeis camp, which you can feel free to disregard, please allow me to respond to most of your arguments before you begin writing twenty more. The Ellimist has expressed annoyance a few of his has not been covered yet, but it's an impossible task to quickly respond to everything as just one debater. Note in advance that I will always respond to arguments concerning these arguments above, along with Revan's resurrection, before I respond to anything regarding LFL/Plagueis/Caedus.

In addition to the very important posts for Plagueis made in the previous page (in case one forgets about them / they get buried), here's a quick pass of the first part of Ant's recent post (Azronger will make a more thorough one):

DarthAnt66 wrote: So, there’s thousands upon thousands of enemies, including countless Force users, were well within the kilometer radius.[/size]

1. The fact that the attack's described potency specifies a radius and a charge time without caring about the number of enemies in the radius suggests that it's an omnidirectional release of energy that doesn't really care about how many people are in it. It doesn't say "to enemies within a one kilometer radius if there are a few thousand of them, but if there are just a few hundred then this attack will only take twenty seconds."
2. "massive damage to enemies" is a pretty weak phrase in comparison to what a massive death wave Ziost or Nathema style would entail.
3. This is massively sub-Starkiller, given that Starkiller has various feats that would require releases of energy far, far beyond the range of high-yield nuclear weapons.
4. Vitiate should be able to do this with a death wave extremely easily, unless if you want to abandon the claim that Vitiate can do such a thing. So either the Revan-Vitiate scaling is moot, or Vitiate is not nearly powerful enough to justify any consideration of circumventing Plagueis/Sidious supremacy statements (and feats).

As you agree, Revan’s Machine Core attack was purely “kinetic,” meaning it would be done by telekinesis, not Force drain.

If Revan can seriously Force drain Yavin IV, or anything on a planetary scale, why couldn't he just use a millionth of that to drain his enemies there?

Moreover, the attack was not indiscriminate. The description specifically states it would harm “all enemies,” not everyone.

It's not uncommon for a description of an attack to describe the damage to enemies; that doesn't mean that it's discriminate. Aka "this weapon will destroy your enemies".

Revan proclaimed that the Hero of Tython--who had just led the Temple of Sacrifice assault, which Revan acknowledged in the dialogue--cannot fathom his full power:

You were just trying to dismiss a disembodied narrator, but now you're taking the self-assessment of an explicitly insane dark side Revan who thinks he can defeat Vitiate?

Thus, it’s plausible that Revan wanted to conserve energy for the bigger fight,

But he ended up losing? So at what point did he decide to stop conserving energy? He had used most of it up at the end, and his power had faded.

Also, what hurry is he in that he needs to conserve energy? If he can destroy all of his enemies, it's not like he then has to revive Vitiate within minutes.

If you seriously think that he can destroy all life on Yavin IV, then getting rid of some soldiers and Jedi in a one kilometer radius would be a minuscule fraction of his power.

This is all just "well maybe this could be true", but why do we need to jump through hoops to pretend that Revan has the ability to drain planets? He literally can't do it to 1 200 millionth of a planet on a nexus.

-----

So to a voter, unless if you seriously think that Revan can snuff out all life on a planet through his own power, even though he needs a superweapon and two minutes of charging to do damage to enemies in a one kilometer radius (aka about 200 million times smaller than the surface area of the Earth), what do we have here that is a solid, scalable comparison? How does this compare to Darth Plagueis's feats (as shown in detail in the last page), or the solid scaling supported by multiple independent sources putting Plagueis above Revan? That he can teleport while in the center of one of the most powerful nexuses in Star Wars?

A lot of Ant's posts are like "well, maybe this is true", but since he's 1) making an extraordinary claim, and 2) trying to argue for tossing out multiple explicit statements capping Revan below TPM Sidious, it isn't enough for him to just say that there's some interpretation by which his ideas are accurate.

I vote Revan.

Caedus: Knowledge of Luke

One consistent argument that was used to cast doubt on the Luke comparisons was that Luke was severely hindered following Mara's death. It is likely true that Luke was hindered - but that is not the point. The point is to compare Luke's power to earlier incarnations that nonetheless scale far above his EoDE levels that defeated DE Palpatine.

E.g.: (100% LotF Luke >>>>) Luke that Jacen has seen > TUF Luke >>> EoDE Luke

That hindrance was largely faded by Revelation/Invincible anyway - Ant even provided a passage where Luke lets go of it, and then in Revelation Luke shows power beyond what Jacen had seen prior.

With that in mind, the key question here is how well does Jacen know Luke's power? If it's about knowing 100% LotF Luke, the answer is that he doesn't (maybe even Luke doesn't). But if it's about knowing versions of Luke >= EoDE, the answer is clearly that he is aware:

• He sees Luke in TUF. Indeed, Luke's unleashing in TUF was largely inspired by a conversation with Jacen where Jacen encourages him to use it.
  
• He experienced UnuThul, and knows that Luke defeated him.
  
• He is astonished by Luke's ability to pin him in Inferno, suggesting that that is >= TUF levels.
  
• When his starfighter is TK'd by Luke in Revelation, he notes that he realizes just how much power Luke can generate, suggesting that that is >= TUF levels (at the least, if Jacen just assumes zero growth from Luke). He likewise thinks he's seen the full extent of Luke's powers when he makes the illusory fleet.
  
• He has generally seen more of Luke's power than perhaps any other character.
  

So at the very least, he gauges Luke's power to be >>> EoDE Luke. Again, not grasping 100% EoLotF Luke is not the point.

Let's look at suggested rebuttals:

Jacen is just really clueless -> aside from this being at odds with his portrayal as extremely intelligent and astute, Jacen, who regularly muses about Luke's power, is the one who drew out Luke's full power in the first place in TUF, and then encouraged that again in DN. In some sense, Jacen is like an in-universe vs. debater; he thinks about power levels a lot.

Jacen thinks Luke's feats were just a one-off -> firstly, it happens multiple times. Secondly, that would not explain Jacen's repeated astonishment over Luke's power (not just in esoteric areas, but easy comparisons like TK). Jacen thinks Luke can summon TUF-level power at will, since he tells Luke to do so.

Jacen knows Luke is hindered but this is just left out of his PoV -> firstly, at this point it becomes more and more like extreme mental gymnastics, given how many Jacen PoVs are about Jacen thinking of ways to beat Luke and speculating about his power. Secondly, Jacen has seen manifestations of Luke post-Mara death that he thinks are >= TUF levels, so he clearly wouldn't think that he's still hindered by Revelation relative to his old versions (which he wasn't). Thirdly, Jacen attributes Luke's hindrances to being scared of the dark side. When he sees "Luke" in Invincible:

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

Doesn't sound like Jacen thinks Luke is hindered. He has visions of Luke taking his mantle as the Dark Lord of the Sith.

When the argument comes down to pretending that Jacen has this assumption about Luke that is never mentioned once, it gets a little absurd. Why not just take the more straightforward interpretation?

Caedus: Amped Jaina

So with the very high-tier showing against amped Jaina, who Caedus thinks was Luke, we have one of the best combat feats in the mythos. During the fight, he does not think that "Luke" is unusually weak, despite having time to analyze his combat style, which he finds to be ruthless but hardly inferior. 

You might say that he's caught up in the moment - but then afterwards, he has time to think and the idea that it could've been an illusion is brought up to him. Of course, Caedus is well aware that Luke can pull off super-illusions; he just had it done to him in Revelation. But he dismisses that possibility even though nobody can figure out how Luke got there.

Now the question is: why did he dismiss it?

Well, already off the gate, if amped Jaina were really only a tier 8 as Ant proposes, Caedus would get suspicious given that he just saw > TUF levels in the previous book. 

Now Jacen explicitly notes Jaina's performance against him as a reason to not believe that it was Jaina.

The main rebuttal that was given is:

Jacen's incredulity at Luke's illusion is not because amped Jaina was so powerful, but because he doesn't think Luke could pull off such a feat. ->


To be clear, the claim is that Jacen doesn't think Luke could amp Jaina to a tier 8 (from like a tier 7, at least under Ant's paradigm). 

...what? Why not? He just saw Luke pull of an entire illusory fleet!

The distance is too great -> Luke has done illusions over those distances, as have the likes of Lumiya, Alema, etc.
Overlaying Jaina is too hard -> again, this is Lumiya/Alema tier stuff. Jacen's position is there's zero chance that the most powerful Jedi of all time, whose power Jacen fears, can't pull off a body-illusion?
Amping Jaina is too hard -> again, amping tier 7 -> 8 is elementary battle meditation.

The only part of this that would be extraordinary would be if Luke had amped Jaina all the way to TUF+ levels; as Ant himself noted, that has never been done before. All the rest are just parlor tricks.

And again, you'd have to argue otherwise that Jacen doesn't see Luke being tier 8 despite being tier 10 and despite Jacen's reaction to Luke's rage being "his rage is a problem" not "his rage is a weakness" as any indication that it could be an illusion.

Reasonable Standards of Evidence

The thing is, the scrutiny and doubt being applied to this scaling is very selective. The amount of evidence and precedence for Jacen being aware of Luke's power is far beyond what you would normally require for an argument. Likewise, the argument that Jacen would think Luke would hold back makes no sense when he thinks Luke is out for his blood. 

At some point, the reasonable case has to be that Caedus really did contend with a tier 10(+).

Slipping in them DM's to slide Plagueis a cheeky vote.

I’ll vote for Darth Plagueis.

Retracting my vote. All three are close together and I don't think any of them should be getting the no. 8 slot (except maybe Revan, but I hold Mace and the Outlander above him).

Well there's plenty of other people that deserve the number 8 spot, but out of all of the major contenders, I think Revan deserves this one the most.

As if I didn’t hate Darth Maul enough already...

i'm voting plaguies

caedus still

@Cheth: And if you or others are unsure, wait until the debate has concluded on Saturday. Things can be deceiving if you just see the one side spamming posts. 

Seen as the big boys are dog piling. 

Regarding Aurra

@elm 

The Aurra Sing fight is kind of overblown.

@elm 

Firstly, Jacen literally TP dominates her at the start:

Context context context...


> She was taken by surprise 
> It required "all his concentration" 
> A lapse was all that's needed to snap her out
> He opened himself up fully to his hatred and anger 
> It's said he never hated or wanted to kill anyone more than Aurra Sing before that point. 
> This is probably true after that point as well.  


You know what kind of boon that does for someones power?  An entire tier jump according to Gillard, as illustrated in the ROTS Anakin vs Dooku.  This is one among several articles pronouncing hatred as the fundamental linchpin for Dark Power.  You have this to say on the matter :

@elm 

the "hatred" would presumably apply even moreso to a peak Caedus)

To which I retort :  Where is his peak? 

Is it in invincible where he, upon an epiphany, recognises how he's falling to far and vows to restrain his emotions?  

Or is it in Revelation where he syphons the anger of subordinates in order to TP a room of people, because he apparently couldn't do it all himself? 

Like I said he never wanted to kill anyone more than Auura.  Given that the only thing being "overblown" is how much Jacen changes throughout the series,  I don't see why this feature can't be used to demonstrate how pEAk cAeDuS stacks up with the rest of the PT.  

Spoiler:

And as the predominant argument for Caedus remains thus :

He understands Luke's power + never wonders if Luke is performing weaker  = Luke must be operating at +DE Palpatine level in the series
 
Doesn't gel with :

> Jacen thinks he's nearing Luke's level in Bloodlines, 
> supposedly undergoes sum dAiLy gRoWtH 
> Needs all his concentration and dark side amp to subdue Sing in the next book.  
> Can only do it as result of catching her unaware. 


Which means the first presumption fails.  There is either something seriously wrong with Jacen's understanding of Luke's power, which is subject to variety of possible errors... or....... Aurra Sing rivals Palpatines Strongest incarnation.  

@elm 

being unable to break free of someone's domination typically isn't the sign of some sort of parity.

Dependent, once again, on the context







What Jacen does to Aurra is not unlike how Maul handles Obi Wan.  

> Mauls hates him more than anything 
> Presumably using most of his Dark
> Can't hold his choke when distracted 

The only lacking component is the surprise advantage Jacen had against Sing... yet I would be underselling Kenobi by proclaiming he only has "some sort of parity to Maul" in TCW.  

They're close in power.  A much bigger gap is demonstrated with how Dooku chokes Ventress in Dark Rendevouz.  Or How Luke pinned Caedus to that chair.  Maul probably exerted most of his effort to keep Kenobi under his clutches.  Jacen clearly needed all his effort to freeze Sing.  Parity is likely.  "Some sort of Parity" is evident just by this comparison alone. 
 

@elm 

So Aurra's initial attack was while Jacen had to stop the thermal detonator.  She had a bunch of hits to land on him

Cliffs : He had to flick the switch of a remote already in his hand. 

Dooku can fight Kenobi with Anakin dominating his flank.

Maul can bumrush Ayla Secure while fending off Mace.  

Kun can dispatch Alema Keto whilst brawling with Qel Droma....
 
Yet Jacen can't flick a switch whilst adequately responding to an old, debauched and rusty Aurra Sing. 

then Jacen basically ragdolls her ("holds" his Force shove)

Which, upon impact with a wall, doesn't seem to phase her despite the fact he was drawing from the pain of her prior attacks. 

That she disarmed him while it was happening also went unmentioned by your analysis... 

about to hit her with Force lightning when Allana appears, at which point Aurra takes advantage of that distraction again. 

That she does, but Aayla managed to beat her without lightning too. It's certainly possible that lighting may have ended Sing, but as Jacen's prior force push didn't even seem to wind her, it also highly possible she would have blocked it with a barrier or her blade. 

Like, it's not a high showing for Jacen

And how exactly could you be the judge of that, when you didn't even go into detail? 

As for a full summary of what actually happened. 


- Aurra attacks, Jacen Parries
- He flicks the detonator remote 
- She winds him with a kick, sends him crashing on a table 
- While he's on the floor she attacks him again
- They saber-lock 
- He just about prevents the blade from catching his eye 
- He's vision is very briefly impaired by afterglow, which fades quickly
- She kicks him around for a bit with a spiked toe cap
- He empowers himself from the pain and force pushes her
- She disarms him while being force pushed 
- He's inevitably to weak to incap her with TK
- He opts for lightning 
- Alana bursts in, he discards lighting 
- Sing charges him
- He feints her, she takes the bait 
- He cartwheels over her head 
- As he's landed, she spins round
- He barely catches her wrist
- He wasn't fast enough to execute the manoeuvre he intendedintended
- He buckles her knew with a kick
- She's still fighting though
- He intended to break her arm 
- Alana injects Aurra with a sedative agent


Here's the the thing.  Aurra is so low on the Totem poll that anything other than a negligent swatting aside is a bad showing.  Dooku and Maul types would easily be capable of this in their formative years.  In this fight however he needs his full might and can't be distracted by the slightest event, otherwise he's venerable.  That is demonstrated multiple times.  He caught her unaware and froze her with the force, but that wasn't sustained without his full concentration and dark power.  He couldn't even divide his attention between parrying her and flicking a switch without conceding a load of hits.  Given this, it's reasonable, more than reasonable to say that with support in the form of a lesser fighter Aurra could have won.  Two Aurra's stomp the shit out of him.  There also instances showing parity to his force augmentation.  She is too fast for him to control the fight in the way he wants to in the very least, which means at this point they're close in power.  Jacen only gains the upper hand through superior skill.  But why would I care about that, when the markers for power are more important ?  Jacen spent the last few decades honing his talents and while Aurra was deabuching in nightlife festivities and hadn't had serious fight since early empire days.  Aurra Sing was close to Jacen in power during Tempest.  and you'd need evidence of unprecdiended growth among all sith and Jedi to put him above Plagueis.  

but it's not some sort of argument you can use against him if you're trying to say that the Luke fights are too "circumstantial" given how circumstantial the fight above is. 

Well actually Elm, I can use it against him, given the comparison between how he "dominated" her and how Luke actually dominated him whilst pining him to a chair.  The difference is the maximum effort Jacen needed to control Sing and minimal - or no effort at all - Luke used subdue Jacen.  

Secondly, that's not even what I'm arguing.  I'm arguing that Luke is sufficiently hindered/ holding back/whatever to the point where a critically injured Lumiya can compete with him in some capacity... despite her poor showings against nobody Jedi.  And that Jacen needs favourable circumstances just to survive against that version of Luke.  And on that topic 


Regarding Lumiya

As for the Lumiya fight, which of course comes right after Mara's death, the only reason there is a "fight" at all is the mechanics of the lightwhip - which we don't really have other reference points for.

She beat him once in LOTF Tempest using the whip. Just to demonstrate how low Luke can sink too.

She couldn't beat Nelani Dinn (Jedi Random) Mara Jade or Tresrina Lobi without help.  

As soon as Luke gets past the whip, it's four hits like a battering ram and she's done.

Nah that's not what happened.  

He forced her back, step by step, as she tried to maintain the distance she needed.

Excerpt From: Karen Traviss. “Sacrifice.” 

It's said he drove her back "step by step".  Unless, the edge of the cliff was only four paces away.  In which case, her being done is not necessarily a failing on her part, rather that she's literally on the edge of cliff.  It must of course be said if that is the case, placing herself in such a disadvantageous position is emblematic of her willingness to die.  She doesn't want to win, let alone survive.  She is putting on a show one final time to Distract Luke and allow Caedus to for fill the imperative. If the terrain was more neutral there would be more ground to give - meaning she lasts a lot longer.  Him driving her back isn't evidence of a sizeable gap especially when you consider 1) she's injured 2) in the event of her using the hilt to block Luke's saber, she has less leverage.  What happens next however is important. 

Lumiya held the whip handle in both hands like a staff and blocked his downward sweep. For a moment they were locked in a stalemate, pushing against each other and grunting with the effort, with only the sounds of exertion because they had nothing left to say to each other.

Her rear foot began to slide backward as she struggled for purchase. The edge of the mesa was cracked and fissured. The smooth glittering stone began to crumble.

Excerpt From: Karen Traviss. “Sacrifice.”

I can see why you'd want to downplay that as much as possible, because it shows that Lumiya can briefly match his strength under poor circumstances.  That Luke would struggle to push her back means she's close to whatever level Luke is operating in this fight, and presumabley his next fight with Jacen, as he's in a similar mindset.  It doesn't matter how long the moment is.  It can be a few seconds and there is still parity to be found.  In this case, it's implied there is time enough for both to exchange a few words that neither want to hear, before Lumiya edges backwards, and the the cliff crumbles. 

Luke doesn't literally one-shot her, but one-shots in saber duels basically never happen.

They happen plenty when you have say, an inquisitor level character against someone on DE palpatine level or higher.  They happen in between those tiers within smaller thresholds too.  But him not "one shooting" her isn't the primary take away her.  The fact She competes with his force augmentation in the most direct manner possible while injured.  She made him struggle to push her, and given that Lumiya is basically shit - as an aggregate of her feats would suggest as well as source books detailing how lackluster her power is, means that Luke is demonstrably very far away from DE palpatine.  The possibility of a being with TUF Luke powers surfacing in this series is all but gone.  And I don't see any reason to believe he's performing on that level against Caedus either.

To summarise Elm. 

You may think your scaling comparison to TUF Luke works, but I can demonstrate why it doesn't work. 

This is evident by the fact that : 

- Jacen thinks he's close to Luke early in the series.  He then gains power and suffers terrible feature comparisons to Aurra Sing, Mara Jade and Katarn's Strike team.  Also believes Saba would be a hard fought victory.  TUF Luke's power doesn't factor into this equation

- Caedus believes that 8 YVH droids is a good enough force to Slow down Luke even with backup in Fury.  You claim that Luke stormed a fortress 1000's of elite Vong all Jedi knight level in TUF. 

 Are YVH droids worth 100 Knights :

“In a one-on-one match between a Jedi Knight and a YVH droid, the odds were about even.”

Excerpt From: Aaron Allston. “Fury.” 

TUF Luke's power doesn't factor into this equation. 

Luke struggles to force back an injured Lumiya in a saber lock, despite an aggregate of low showings and implications of sub Vader level.  TUF Luke power doesn't factor into this equation. 


Without TUF Luke factoring into the equation, you can easily make the case that Jacen is one of the weakest Dark lords of the Sith to ever reign. Certainly below plagueis who you espouse to be above every Sith that came before him.  

So why don't you be intellectually honest and ditch your support of Jacen for a clearly more deserving sith.  But really, even Revan would be a better choice.

Ziggy; would you be interested in doing an SS on this topic? At this point the runoff vote will be Plagueis vs. Revan anyway.

Ziggy wrote:Context context context...


> She was taken by surprise

?? But you were just willing to use a case where Jacen was taken by surprise thanks to Allana's distraction? What about the Luke chair-pinning scene, in which Luke took Jacen by surprise?

> It required "all his concentration"

Telepathically dominating another Force user is extremely difficult, yes. Valkorion couldn’t do it to a comatose Outlander despite consistent effort (and this being his specialty).

> A lapse was all that's needed to snap her out
> He opened himself up fully to his hatred and anger
> It's said he never hated or wanted to kill anyone more than Aurra Sing before that point.
> This is probably true after that point as well.

Wouldn’t this make it more likely that circumstances like needing to prevent the thermal detonator from hitting his daughter affect the fight? Pure rage may increase raw power, but they are highly unlikely to make it easier to deal with distractions, and your entire case is predicated on the assumption that distractions don’t matter (unless it's to lowball Luke or Jacen?).

To which I retort : Where is his peak?

Is it in invincible where he, upon an epiphany, recognises how he's falling to far and vows to restrain his emotions?

He restrains his anger in social interactions, not in fights, where he explicitly draws on his anger and hate.

Or is it in Revelation where he syphons the anger of subordinates in order to TP a room of people, because he apparently couldn't do it all himself?

When does context matter, and when does it not? This was a specific room of undetermined size somewhere in an entire planet, while Jacen was in orbit. And you sometimes say that the excessive emotions from the prior battle meditation was overwhelming him; here, he uses this feat to discharge that anger that you say he was trying to dissipate.

Like I said he never wanted to kill anyone more than Auura. Given that the only thing being "overblown" is how much Jacen changes throughout the series, I don't see why this feature can't be used to demonstrate how pEAk cAeDuS stacks up with the rest of the PT.

Caedus's power growth is mentioned multiple times in the books.

Nor is the claim that Aayla Secura stomped Aurra Sing very accurate either. Aurra gets several hits in - she loses, but it's not at all clear that Secura did better. You might argue that she took less damage than Jacen did, but she also dealt less; fights in LotF involving Jacen tend to be physically brutal both ways.

Furthermore, you are assuming that Jacen taking damage is something that really hinders him, or that his style is designed to minimize. Seeing as how pain actually makes Caedus stronger (so long as it isn't literally physically crippling to the point where it overpowers that), it isn't too shocking that in most of his fights, both he and his opponent take far more damage than, say, the PT duels involved.

And as the predominant argument for Caedus remains thus :

He understands Luke's power + never wonders if Luke is performing weaker = Luke must be operating at +DE Palpatine level in the series

Correction: he understands past Luke's powers. The scaling is (Full power LotF Luke >>>>) Luke that Jacen sees > TUF Luke >>> EoDE Luke

Seeing as how he witnesses TUF+ tier feats multiple times, explicitly comments on them, explicitly analyzes his uncle's powers multiple times, almost to the point that he's an in-universe vs. debater, is the one who actually identified Luke's fear of using his raw power in TUF and encouraged him to use it, and is described as a highly astute tactician and strategist with several esoteric abilities including ones to do with sensing other Force users, the notion that he's exceptionally delusional about Luke's power despite knowing it better than any other character is just the height of straw grasping to dismiss any possible feat that Caedus has, no matter how well supported.

Doesn't gel with :

> Jacen thinks he's nearing Luke's level in Bloodlines,

See above: this doesn't contradict Jacen's knowledge of TUF/DN Luke.

(Also, Jacen does not say that he’s “nearing” Luke’s level except that he’s getting closer, which doesn’t say anything about his absolute distance)

> supposedly undergoes sum dAiLy gRoWtH

That's in the story, yes.

> Needs all his concentration and dark side amp to subdue Sing in the next book.

To TP-dominate her and only not end things there because of several distractions, yes. And the fight itself might have lasted 10 seconds, minus the distractions and pauses.

Do you think Steve Rodgers ~ Thanos in Endgame?

> Can only do it as result of catching her unaware.

But when she catches him unaware, it doesn't matter?

Which means the first presumption fails. There is either something seriously wrong with Jacen's understanding of Luke's power, which is subject to variety of possible errors... or....... Aurra Sing rivals Palpatines Strongest incarnation.

Well you actually haven't quantified LotF Aurra Sing at all, except for the musings of people in the universe who know nothing about her LotF self.

What Jacen does to Aurra is not unlike how Maul handles Obi Wan.

Then why do you always use the Luke chair-pinning feat?

A lot of arguments can be made that Maul is far stronger in the Force, at least telekinetically, than TCW Obi Wan, anyway. But it doesn't match because telepathically dominating someone is far rarer than telekinetically restraining them.

I can guarantee that if that passage were swapped and it were Luke telepathically preventing Jacen from doing something, you'd be using it in every single debate ever.

Cliffs : He had to flick the switch of a remote already in his hand.

Dooku can fight Kenobi with Anakin dominating his flank.

Actually, fighting multiple duelists is something that master duelist Dooku would have more experience with than Jacen having to deal with the specific situation of grabbing from midair a thermal detonator that was about to kill his daughter (and that was making him panick) and then turning it off while being attacked by a Jedi hunter who specializes in taking on Force users more powerful than herself using tactics like this, while he’s being overwhelmed with anger and rage.

Yet Jacen can't flick a switch whilst adequately responding to an old, debauched and rusty Aurra Sing.

Only if you pretend that it was just an exercise of flipping off a switch and not trying to stop it from reaching his daughter, whose safety he has in his mind constantly throughout the fight.

Why are you using a contextual fight where a far pre-prime Jacen is defending his daughter in a very chaotic situation instead of his performance in 1 v 1, non-contextual fights? Wouldn't it make more sense to use the latter instead of speculating on how relevant the numerous factors in the former would go?

then Jacen basically ragdolls her ("holds" his Force shove)

Which, upon impact with a wall, doesn't seem to phase her despite the fact he was drawing from the pain of her prior attacks.

It's not stated at all that it doesn't phase her. It doesn't incapacitate her, but that wasn't claimed.

That she disarmed him while it was happening also went unmentioned by your analysis...

So what? She got pushed across the room and telekinetically ragdolled, so her momentary disarm was pointless.

about to hit her with Force lightning when Allana appears, at which point Aurra takes advantage of that distraction again.

That she does, but Aayla managed to beat her without lightning too. It's certainly possible that lighting may have ended Sing, but as Jacen's prior force push didn't even seem to wind her, it also highly possible she would have blocked it with a barrier or her blade.

Or it's possible that a highly circumstantial fight where a pre-prime Jacen telepathically dominates her, gets distracted multiple times, and has to protect his daughter throughout the fight, which lasts maybe like 15 seconds or less in total, is not a more accurate barometer of power than his 1 v 1 confrontations with Luke and amped! Jaina, whose circumstances you hype up despite being far less muddy than this Aurra Sing fight.

- Aurra attacks, Jacen Parries
- He flicks the detonator remote
- She winds him with a kick, sends him crashing on a table
- While he's on the floor she attacks him again
- They saber-lock
- He just about prevents the blade from catching his eye
- He's vision is very briefly impaired by afterglow, which fades quickly
- She kicks him around for a bit with a spiked toe cap
- He empowers himself from the pain and force pushes her
- She disarms him while being force pushed
- He's inevitably to weak to incap her with TK
- He opts for lightning
- Alana bursts in, he discards lighting

So that’s...about four strikes. Aka a matter of seconds, and then the fight was probably over until Allana came in. AotC Obi Wan lasted longer against Dooku.

The TK point makes no sense, as if the point is that Jacen can just destroy Aurra with TK in the split second before she can attack Allana, or that he wouldn’t just use the more surefire way of doing so even if TK would’ve worked.

The flesh wounds that Jacen took actually made him stronger, so I don’t know why you’re counting that as an L for him. He consistently takes those blows and doesn’t care.

The TK point makes
- Sing charges him
- He feints her, she takes the bait
- He cartwheels over her head
- As he's landed, she spins round
- He barely catches her wrist
- He wasn't fast enough to execute the manoeuvre he intendedintended
- He buckles her knew with a kick
- She's still fighting though
- He intended to break her arm
- Alana injects Aurra with a sedative agent

So another 4-5 blows; a matter of seconds, and Aurra lands zero hits. Jacen having to change his move to something else isn’t some crippling weakness; that’s a major point of duels.

Here's the the thing. Aurra is so low on the Totem poll that anything other than a negligent swatting aside is a bad showing.

You don’t even know how powerful LotF Aurra is, and she specializes in doing exactly what she does here; taking advantage of circumstances to fight more powerful Force users.

and you'd need evidence of unprecdiended growth among all sith and Jedi to put him above Plagueis.

Then go ahead and vote for Plagueis, but let’s not pretend that the Aurra Sing defend-Allana fight is a better indicator of combat ability than a 1 v 1 fight in Caedus’s prime against top competition.

Regarding Lumiya

Luke’s performance right after Mara’s death, which you argue hindered him, does not scale to Jacen’s perception of his power by Invincible. For one thing, as you yourself have used before, there is a scene where Luke consciously lets go of this hindrance. For another, just prior in Revelation Luke twice exhibits power that Jacen categorizes as beyond what he’s seen of Luke before. So why is Jacen basing his assessment of Luke’s power on a fight he never even witnessed?

The argument that you seem to be making is that Jacen just takes it for granted that Luke’s power will be hindered when they fight. I’ve explained in past posts, including the last one, why this doesn’t work. We see Jacen’s PoV multiple times where he analyzes Luke’s power and ways to defeat him, and never once does he think to take advantage of Luke’s power being impacted by such events (because Inferno Luke may have been hindered next to LotF Luke, but does not appear hindered next to Jacen’s conception of Luke’s power based on TUF/DN). We see Jacen attribute in the past Luke’s fluctuating performances to his restraint, yet when he sees “Luke” in Invincible his reaction is that Luke is far more dangerous this time because he would not show mercy, not that he’s now weakened several tiers.

What you are suggesting requires that Jacen:

Forget about what just happened with Luke’s power in Revelation, where he showed power beyond what Jacen had seen before.
Either analyze Luke constantly and never factor this in, or factor it in entirely off-screen and have this mysteriously be left out in every PoV of him even when his analysis of Luke’s power is the primary thing being discussed.

She beat him once in LOTF Tempest using the whip. Just to demonstrate how low Luke can sink too.

She couldn't beat Nelani Dinn (Jedi Random) Mara Jade or Tresrina Lobi without help.

Wasn’t “circumstances” your main point about Jacen’s TP domination of Aurra Sing? Why don’t the circumstances in that fight factor in here? Let’s keep pretending that was a standard 1 v 1 fight.

BTW, this doesn’t address my point about the lightwhip at all.

This also doesn’t matter because Jacen interprets “Luke” in Invincible as bloodlusted and using the dark side or being close to it per his visions.

As soon as Luke gets past the whip, it's four hits like a battering ram and she's done.

Nah that's not what happened.

He forced her back, step by step, as she tried to maintain the distance she needed.

Excerpt From: Karen Traviss. “Sacrifice.”

It's said he drove her back "step by step". Unless, the edge of the cliff was only four paces away. In which case, her being done is not necessarily a failing on her part, rather that she's literally on the edge of cliff. It must of course be said if that is the case, placing herself in such a disadvantageous position is emblematic of her willingness to die. She doesn't want to win, let alone survive. She is putting on a show one final time to Distract Luke and allow Caedus to for fill the imperative. If the terrain was more neutral there would be more ground to give - meaning she lasts a lot longer. Him driving her back isn't evidence of a sizeable gap especially when you consider 1) she's injured 2) in the event of her using the hilt to block Luke's saber, she has less leverage. What happens next however is important.

Lol, Lumiya being four paces away from the cliff, as the text indicates (or perhaps being more but being driven back “step by step” as in stumbling backwards per hit), doesn’t mean she wasn’t trying to win. Yes, she had a willingness to die because she knew that she could not defeat Luke, and made it clear to Jacen that she would lose (which kind of belies your claim that the fight was close). That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t go out swinging. As for her proximity to the cliff, there are all sorts of reasons why she might do that - perhaps she wanted to increase the chances, however slight, that Luke would fall with her.

So this is four hits. Four. Like, OK, maybe Lumiya was doing fine and she could’ve been OK without the cliff, but that’s your burden, not mine. What happened in the very short fight is that Luke drove her back in four moves and she fell off the cliff. Whether she could have done better isn’t up for me to debunk because you’re the one factoring this claim into your argument.

It doesn't matter how long the moment is.

How does it not matter? What if the moment was a split second? Where is this idea that the weaker opponent lasting for “a moment” suggests any sort of parity? Even RotJ Luke blocked Palpatine’s lightning for some moment.

This is also Lumiya’s final stand, where she was presumably putting everything into her last attempt to not fall off the cliff and would have no reason to conserve energy, while there’s zero indication that Luke is tired after the fight (beyond his emotions).

It can be a few seconds and there is still parity to be found. In this case, it's implied there is time enough for both to exchange a few words that neither want to hear, before Lumiya edges backwards, and the the cliff crumbles.

So potentially less time than Dooku’s lock with AotC Obi Wan, Sidious’s lock with Maul, or Kit Fisto’s resistance to Sidious?

Luke doesn't literally one-shot her, but one-shots in saber duels basically never happen.

They happen plenty when you have say, an inquisitor level character against someone on DE palpatine level or higher. They happen in between those tiers within smaller thresholds too.[/quote]

Where do they happen? The only time I can think of against a non-fodder combatant is Sidious vs. the B-team, which was itself circumstantial (like Sidious using TP).

But him not "one shooting" her isn't the primary take away her. The fact She competes with his force augmentation in the most direct manner possible while injured. She made him struggle to push her, and given that Lumiya is basically shit - as an aggregate of her feats would suggest as well as source books detailing how lackluster her power is, means that Luke is demonstrably very far away from DE palpatine. The possibility of a being with TUF Luke powers surfacing in this series is all but gone. And I don't see any reason to believe he's performing on that level against Caedus either.

A saber lock happening for “a moment” does not imply any sort of parity.

You are attributing a comical level of ineptitude to Jacen’s ability to gauge Luke’s power, despite knowing it more than any other person, analyzing it constantly, witnessing it at >= TUF levels multiple times, including right before the final book, and being the one who even talked through how to access it more reliably with Luke. This revisionist notion of a ridiculously clueless Jacen is completely at odds with the story.

He then gains power and suffers terrible feature comparisons to Aurra Sing, Mara Jade and Katarn's Strike team. Also believes Saba would be a hard fought victory.

Well now you're adding more examples with circumstances. Jacen vs. Kyle lasted less than 10 seconds, and Jacen just said that he can defeat Saba "with difficulty"; almost any actual fight would take "difficulty" (Saba herself is extremely powerful and I don't know why you just tacitly assume that she's unimpressive). Mara Jade was an even more skilled assassin than Aurra Sing, and the same circumstances with tactical maneuvering apply. Indeed, Mara has been described as Luke's most powerful ally, putting her above both Avatar-avatar mauling Saba and singularity-manipulating Kyp Durron.

Are YVH droids worth 100 Knights :

It's not scalable in the same way. How well a YVH and a Jedi knight would fare against each other 1 v 1 does not equate to the ability of multiple YVH droids to unload simultaneous firepower in a confined space.

Also, Jacen's reliance on the YVH droids is a moot point because he had no other choice. He didn't say "these droids will defeat Luke!" but rather "well I hope it can take out some of these Jedi..." which would include Ben, Leia, and Saba.

Without TUF Luke factoring into the equation, you can easily make the case that Jacen is one of the weakest Dark lords of the Sith to ever reign.

Lmfao

elm throwing fists right now. its getting real

This is a response to various nitpicks/attempted counter-arguments towards my main post advocating for Revan. More to come. 

SHADOW OF REVAN:

Teleportation

All of the feats I listed have circumstances that mitigate/nullify the relevance of the Yavin IV nexus. That's why I choose them and not others. For teleportation specifically, as I see many addressing it, Revan teleported on the Foundry while on the brink of death, on the Temple of Sacrifice after having been defeated and while his life essence was being "violently stripped" from him, and on the Forgotten Terrace as he was wearing down towards the end of the fight. Moreover, based on the Dread Masters and Master Force Adept teleporting rapidly and frequently, the ability is likely not that it's super taxing to use. Instead, the difficulty is likely integrating it effectively in combat. As most of Revan's other opponents are also amped, so far more so than him, I see no reason to consider Revan's performance unreliable.

Battle Precognition

Funny that this didn't show up in the Revan Novel at all. 

Revan doesn't do a lot of lightsaber fighting in the Revan novel but, when he does, he's able to anticipate an Imperial Guard's attacks well enough to kill him in two swings. Note the Imperial Guard were good enough to challenge Scourge and the Exile, and are "formidable opponents capable of standing toe-to-toe with a Jedi, or a Sith." Even if battle precognition hypothetically didn't show up in the Revan novel, so what? Does Revan no longer have the ability now? 

Immortality

Let's look at that. Your example of Revan holding his body together happens on an insanely potent dark side nexus. 

To quote Super Fight III: 

Yes, passive dark side energies of Yavin 4 flowed through Revan, amplifying him. Further, Revan concentrated the powers of the Machine Core into himself, meaning he had both the stream of power from the Yavin 4 nexus and the Machine Core. However, Revan lost control of these energies when the strike team ambushed him, and the power “overloaded” within him. Thus, the passive dark side energies that were originally amplifying Revan were no longer at his disposal but actively included in the “backlash” of harmful energy against him. In other words, Revan can't use the same out-of-control energies literally ripping him apart to simultaneously prevent him from being ripping him apart--that doesn't make any sense. 

Also, more generally, Revan held his body together ever after he resurrected from the Foundry. 

Fights

Some non-Force sensitives who came out unscathed, even from his charged TK (as opposed to a near-death Plagueis immediately vaporizing dozens of armored attackers with uncharged TK).

That's not even a rebuttal. The only way that's relevant is if you're insinuating Revan fared so poorly against the strike team he couldn't even kill non-Force sensitives.

(1) Revan instantly killed eight armored Republic soldiers with a passive burst of energy at the start of the fight. 

(2) The strike team dialogue confirms they were pressed to the brink ("Grant me strength!" "Be strong!" "Tough sucker!" "Let's go, people!"), using their full power ("Press the attack!" "Have some more!" "Don't let up!" "Hit him with everything!"), and amazed by Revan's power ("So much power!" "He is strong with the Force!" "Tough sucker!"). 

(3) Revan had most of the strike team dead to rights in stasis but choose to "slowly destroy" them, not anticipating spirit Revan's intervention. 



Out-of-universe, SWTOR is explicitly a medium that interprets non-Force sensitive versus Force sensitives as the films and Lucas does. For example, Lucas stated Mace could not kill Jango easily. Note LOTF holds the same view, commonly having Caedus struggle against non-Force sensitive Mandalorians. In-universe, the non-Force sensitive combatants were shielded by many and overlapping external forces--reactive energy shields, portable shield generators, Lana and Satele's Force barriers, etc.--and had Satele constantly "healing" and "reviving [them when] incapacitated" throughout. 

No offense, but this is a lot of words to pretend that it's impressive to handle multiple projectiles or something.

Also you: "So Aurra's initial attack was while Jacen had to stop the thermal detonator from killing Allana, and so she had a bunch of hits to land on him."

Apparently, Caedus getting the pounced on by 80 year old retired Aurra is fine because he's also distracted by a thermal detonator, but Revan simultaneously fending off torrents of blaster fire, grenades, stick grenades, thermal detonators, micro missiles, Force lightning, telekinesis, lightsaber swings, and targeted bombing runs is just him "handling multiple projectiles or something." Nice. Good faith debating there. 

Some people have argued that Satele's BM can offset the dark side super-nexus on which Revan does any of his impressive feats.

Everyone's abilities were explicitly "greatly increased," so much so they all entered into "battle clarity." In-game, this is reflected by everyone's baseline stats being doubled.

Even then, by the end of his fight his power had subsided and he was on his knees.

You're mixing the first and second fights. The kilometer explosion happened in the first fight within the Temple of Sacrifice. Revan got back up and continued to fight for a long time after that. Revan fell to his knees at the end of the second fight, which happened not long after the first, but can be largely attributed to spirit Revan empowering the Hero of Tython to free the strike team after Revan had pinned and encased them in raw light and dark side energies. 

(*** NEW REVAN FEAT ***) 

At the end of the first fight, the Machine Core was "rendered critically unstable" and it became "a violent maelstrom of twisted force essence, indiscriminately stripping the life force from everything in the vicinity.  The Machine Core had already been "primed inside the temple" to "eradicate all living things on the moon." All Revan had to do was "fire"/"activate" it, which matches the launch trailer seemingly show Revan priming the Machine Core at an earlier time (link). These planetary-ravaging energies then turned to violently strip away the life force of just the immediate vicinity. This attack should be far more concentrated and powerful than the kilometer explosion. Nevertheless, Revan used a Force bubble to still withstand and survive it, even ripping out Force attacks as it happened.

 

(Note: For those still getting the timeline mixed up, Satele, Marr, etc. weren't apart of the strike team that destroyed the Machine Core. The strike team was made up of "a large strike team of elite heroes" handpicked by the Hero, and all of them besides the Hero could have died. Moreover, spirit Revan was literally resurrecting strike team members anyway--"target has been recently resurrected by an outside force"--so even the Hero could have died and been resurrected.).

Responding to next: "Re:Re: Revan's Limits?" and Azronger's stuff on Revan's resurrection.

SUPREMACY QUOTES REBUTTAL:

@AZRONGER:

1. Everything prior to April 25th, 2014 is Legends canon unless stamped with the Infinities logo or otherwise declared non-canon on a case-by-case basis. There are no “Lucas continuity” sourcebooks, period. Battle for Naboo is perfectly acceptable as Legends material.

2. The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia is ”compiled by some omniscient committee of historians and scholars taking a look back over tens of thousands of years of galactic history [...][hideedit] 150 years after the Battle of Yavin.” Furthermore, ”The author/editor is solely responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation.” Given we have a precedent, an in-universe source isn’t necessarily non-omniscient because the errors within can be blunders by the author, not indicative of the ignorance of the person(s) from whose perspective(s) it is written. A third person omniscient perspective should always be assumed by default because otherwise nothing is certain; if everything is questionable, then truth literally cannot be obtained and Star Wars debating as a hobby ceases to function. The claim that a specific source is written from an inherently fallible, non-omniscient perspective needs to be proven on a case-by-case basis, every time.

Unlike The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, the “errors” presented in the DK Readers series are not unintentional. For example, the expanded universe has held that Boba Fett survived the sarlacc for over two decades. It’s probably the most well-known fact of the expanded universe. Explicitly stating Boba Fett died is a *deliberate* parting from that/Lucasfilm Licensing chronology. And that *deliberate* parting is readily explained through the fact the source is in-universe. The in-universe author’s knowledge of events must have been *limited* to film-centric content. There’s no reason to think the TCSWE’s preface that “the author/editor is solely responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation” is a general precedent and not a necessary addendum considering the source is highlighted to be written by an “omniscient committee of historians.”

I know you probably don’t care--though others might and should--that DK Readers states that Plagueis died before Palpatine began to try Maul. Ironic that the specific sources being used to scale Plagueis, through Palpatine, above all past Sith holds that Plagueis died perhaps decades before Episode I. Coupled with the in-universe debacle, and it’s overall an embarrassment to act like this is debate-ending proof that Plagueis stomps Revan.

The Old Republic Encyclopedia is ”Written entirely in-universe” and states that ”In the final moments of the Battle of Rakata Prime, Jedi Knight Bastila Shan confronts Darth Malak aboard the Star Forge.”

That description refers specifically to the image beside it, not the historical event. It’s taken from a bubble denoting the image, and it’s in the present tense (meaning it’s describing the scene as shown) rather than in the past tense like the article’s actual account of the Battle of Rakata Prime. In-universe, that specific art piece was painted by the Jedi Order for the Journal of Gnost-Dural. The fact The Old Republic Encyclopedia shares this in-universe artwork and provides a description doesn’t shed light on the narrator’s potential omniscience either-way. As to why I believe the source is effectively omniscient, note that, unlike the authors in the DK Readers books living thousands/millions/billions of years after the films, the TORE authors finished writing the book in 3641 BBY. No mortal being or group could simultaneously know the activities of Sith spirits like Kallig, the inner workings of Republic and Imperial Intelligence and the Emperor’s Hand, the private affairs of the Jedi Council and Vitiate, and the origin stories of Vette and Mako all within almost real-time of them unfolding. And even if you still disagree with them being omniscient, this unknown entity is clearly an insanely reliable and knowledgeable source (note I don't just throw away in-universe limited quotes--I just point out they're not absolutely binding). 

@THE ELLIMIST:

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.

But who is the in-universe character saying this? The disembodied narrator lives in-universe? Yet somehow knows the precise thoughts of every character and can shift perspectives on the fly?

TCSWE reveals the existence of omniscient historians. If they’re omniscient, they would know the thoughts of everyone who has ever lived, yes.

That doesn't mean it's IU, at least not in the sense that it's a fallible character living in the universe. It just means that it's speaking from a certain vantage point in the future of the Star Wars universe. Nothing prevents an OOU narrator from anchoring to a specific point in time.

Red herring. I never said a source being in-universe precludes them from being omniscient. I indicated the opposite, actually, and I stated as much in Super Fight III.

Given that plenty of "OOU" sources use the present tense or mix the present and past tense, this doesn't mean much. (aka Sidious "is the most powerful practitioner of the Sith in modern times")

It depends on the surrounding context, and DK Readers leaves no doubts that it’s in-universe. The opening is literally that this happened "a long time ago." That doesn't make sense out-of-universe. The out-of-universe author is not randomly "anchoring" to thousands of years in the Star Wars universe's future to then reflect backward from that arbitrary point.

BTW, the films famously do this too. Are the opening crawls IU?

Uh, yeah? That was the original idea per Lucas--”There was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events”--and Disney Canon even put out a story where the Whills discussed how they should frame the opening crawls.

A big myth that pops up is that the Plagueis supremacy quote isn't canon because it's a novel blurb. This just isn't true - it's published Lucasfilm material. Everything from random promotional materials in magazines to the captions at the bottom of action figures are canon. Some like to quote Chee's statement that blurbs have a "license to be subjective", but every medium has a "license" to be subjective. If you look at the Plagueis blurb, there are two sentences, the first of which is a matter-of-fact statement that Plagueis was the most powerful sith who ever lived and the second of which is a question. There's no reason to think that the former is inaccurate. (Not that the novel blurb is necessary anyway)

Lol. Leland Chee responded with the “blurbs have a license to be subjective” line specifically to AncientPower’s question of if the Darth Plagueis blurb is absolute. I can’t stress that enough: Chee’s statement directly addresses Plagueis’ accolade. It’s not just Chee randomly observing that language has the capability of questions. Also, there’s a difference between subjective and objective questions anyway. Asking if Plagueis could be the only Sith Lord to ever die is an objective question (as there’s a clear-cut yes or no answer--the answer being “no”). Also, how does "every medium have a license to be subjective?" Sourcebooks don't. “License to be subjective” instead refers to the fact that the content of blurbs can be inherently subjective.

---

RECAP:

To recap, Plagueis has/scales from three "most powerful Sith" quotes, two of them about TPM Palpatine. Unfortunately, none of them are binding. 

(1) "Meet Darth Sidious – the most powerful Sith Master who ever lived." (DK Readers)

-> In-universe limited source that is unaware of or excludes EU content, and ironically holds Plagueis died decades beforehand anyway.

(2) "Sidious is the most powerful Sith ever." (DK Readers)

-> In-universe limited source that is unaware of or excludes EU content, and ironically holds Plagueis died decades beforehand anyway.

(3) "Darth Plagueis was the most powerful Sith to ever live." (DP blurb)

-> Specifically addressed by Leland Chee to be interpreted as a subjective statement.

(Note to whom it may concern: In-universe limited means the claims within the source is not necessarily true.)

tl;dr: PLAGUEIS HAS NO BINDING "MOST POWERFUL" QUOTES OVER REVAN.

Now, ROTS Palpatine has many more "most powerful Sith" quotes. However, Palpatine experienced a mega power surge after killing Plagueis, "his vessel filled suddenly to bursting" and his power becoming so great "that he feared might into it." Across the Clone Wars, Yoda could "sense that the Sith are becoming stronger." Also, for eoROTS quotes, Yoda sensed Palpatine "becoming very powerful" across Order 66, and "the ascendant dark side has made Sidious stronger." Ergo, Plagueis does not benefit from any of these quotes or any ROTS-centric scaling in general. 

Without these quotes, what does he have to match Revan? 

(1) Tit-for-tat, Plaguieis' conventional/quantifiable feats are blown away by Revan's. If you're reading this and disagree, write me some you think surpass Revan's. 

(2) Plagueis' Banite scaling is checked by countless TOTJ/KOTOR/SWTOR scaling chains feeding into Revan.

*** IMPORTANT ***

(3) Plagueis' offensive midichlorian manipulation is, per the Book of Sith endnotes, just sever Force, and even if you think it's unique Plagueis states it can still be resisted through willpower. Meanwhile, Plagueis' defensive midichlorian manipulation, which is hyped endlessly, cannot even be used in combat. The regeneration process is explicitly slow--"He began to sense that not only were his damaged tissues healing, but his entire body was rejuvinating itself"--which is backed by Palpatine giving him minutes to try to heal from his suspect Force lightning, and just not logistically feasible. Amped Malgus shoots Force lightning at Plagueis, Plagueis decides to tank it via midichlorian manipulation. Plagueis is now in a weakened state so has to divert his focus and powers to slowly heal his body and fight Malgus. All using midichlorian manipulation has done is hurt Plagueis' chances. Just using a Force barrier is far more effective, and Revan has a Force barrier+holds himself together through sheer willpower. Revan's other main abilities, e.g. Force in Balance and teleportation, can also actually be used in combat in meanwhile ways.

(4) Alleged parity with TPM Palpatine is useless given TPM Palpatine neither has valid supremacy quotes to scale off past Sith nor can he scale off ROTS titans as ROTS Palpatine is far more powerful.

Besides super-meta Force feats that are super-unquantifiable, there's no reason to vote for Plagueis here. Revan has better feats and better abilities. 

@AlexSerp @Gianfi @DarthAdi @King Joker @BoD @Jedi_Jesus @The lord of hunger

I don't really care about anything else, but I'm in disagreement with how the lightning feat is presented here so I'll just focus on that.

@The Ellimist


I'm not entirely sure as to why you're incredulous of Sheev "toying" with Plagueis? In the context of the audiobook, it took around 10 and a half minutes for Plagueis to die after the initial burst of lightning. Sheev had only fired two bursts within the initial minute and largely gloated over Plagueis the remaining time aside when he tried to get up.

He didn't continue blasting Plagueis as we know he can unleash continuous waves of power. He didn't try to saber him, he didn't try to smash him around with TK. He was lambasting him with words and scathing remarks so that Plagueis went to the grave understanding that he was beaten at every corner in his life. His torture was suffocating to death while having to hear how Sheev outplayed him. The lightning in this instance was only done initially and whenever it seemed like Plagueis was getting his feet under him.

I'm also not sure why you're so adamant that Sheev was force choking Plagueis immediately after the second burst either. Sheev had placed his palms on the table and went on a long rant with no indication that he was ever choking Plagueis at that time. It wasn't until after you say Plagueis threw up a storm that Sheev was ever implied to have been choking him.

Darth Plagueis wrote:The question lingered for only a moment, then Sidious unleashed another tangle of lightning, drawing more deeply on the dark side than he ever had.

“Let’s go over the second part of the speech, shall we,” he said, smoothing his tousled cloak. “You useless old fool.”

With a snarl, he threw the cloak back behind his shoulders and leaned toward Plagueis, planting his palms on the low table that was now puddled with spilled wine.

“It was Hego Damask as Darth Plagueis who came to Naboo, determined to suck the planet dry of plasma and set the Trade Federation up as its overseers. It was Hego Damask as Plagueis who then set his sights on a seemingly confused young man and, with meticulous skill, manipulated him into committing patricide, matricide, fratricide. Darth Plagueis who took him as an apprentice, sharing some of his knowledge but withholding his most powerful secrets, denying the apprentice his wishes as a means of controlling him, instilling in him a sense of murderous rage, and turning him to the dark side.” Sidious stood to his full height, glaring.

“It was Plagueis who criticized the early efforts of his apprentice, and who once choked him in a demonstration of his superiority.

“Plagueis, who denigrated him in private for hiring an inept assassin to carry out the murder of Senator Kim—and yet who allowed himself to be tricked by the Gran and nearly killed by mercenaries.

“Plagueis, who turned away from the Grand Plan to focus entirely on himself, in an egotistical quest for immortality.

“Plagueis who had the temerity to criticize his apprentice for having inculcated too much pride in the assassin he had trained.

“Plagueis who attempted to turn his equally powerful apprentice into a messenger and mere intermediary.

“And Plagueis who watched in secret while his apprentice tasked their true intermediary to reveal the reborn Sith to the galaxy.”

Sidious paused, then, in derision, added, “Plagueis the Wise, who in his time truly was, except at the end, trusting that the Rule of Two had been superseded, and failed to realize that he would not be excused from it. Plagueis the Wise, who forged the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known, and yet who forgot to leave a place for himself; whose pride never allowed him to question that he would no longer be needed.”

Still struggling for breath, Plagueis managed to stand, but only to collapse back onto the couch, knocking a statue from its perch. Sidious moved in, his hands upraised to deliver another bolt, his expression arctic enough to chill the room. A Force storm gathered over the couch, spreading out in concentric rings, to wash over Sidious and hurl objects to all corners. In the center of it, Plagueis’s form became anamorphic, then resumed shape as the storm began to wane.

Sidious’s eyes bored into the Muun’s.

“How often you said that the old order of Bane had ended with the death of your Master. An apprentice no longer needs to be stronger, you told me, merely more clever. The era of keeping score, suspicion, and betrayal was over. Strength is not in the flesh but in the Force.”

He laughed. “You lost the game on the very first day you chose to train me to rule by your side—or better still, under your thumb. Teacher, yes, and for that I will be eternally grateful. But Master—never.”

Sidious peered at Plagueis through the Force. “Oh, yes, by all means gather your midi-chlorians, Plagueis.” He held his thumb and forefinger close together. “Try to keep yourself alive while I choke the life out of you.”

Plagueis gulped for air and lifted an arm toward him.

“There’s the rub, you see,” Sidious said in a philosophical tone. “All the ones you experimented on, killed, and brought back to life … They were little more than toys. Now, though, you get to experience it from their side, and look what you discover: in a body that is being denied air, in which even the Force is failing, your own midi-chlorians can’t accomplish what you’re asking of them.”

Which brings us to another point, had it been Plagueis the one who threw the Force Storm, then it would mean that Sheev entirely allowed it to happen and proceded to gloat without skipping a beat, then he spoke a few lines and then started to choke him. There was never any rush in Sheev's actions as he knew he had the time to say and do everything he needed to say. If he allowed Plagueis to throw the Force Storm and didn't immediately retaliate or defend himself, then that implies he wasn't worried at that moment.

You're thinking of the scene as though Plagueis needed constant pressure from Sheev's powers. In reality, he was choking to death on his own due to Sheev blasting the breather and any added powers weren't necessarily needed. Sheev knew he was dying, and in that specific scene - while Plagueis was still alive - he felt invincible. He could see how pitiable Plagueis was, and anytime he pissed him off Sheev could unleash a bolt. The choking for instance (if it were actually used) was never needed as Plagueis was choking to death well enough already. Sheev had complete control in that situation and was only using powers after the first minute to further Plagueis' suffering. Keep in mind Sheev watched Plagueis gasp for breath, was unable to stand, and then decided to attack him again while Plagueis was flailing around. It wasn't that Palpatine was failing to kill him after the second bolt, it's that he wanted to inflict more pain.

Think of it this way; if ILS were choking to death very slowly, would you be content to just let him meander around until he ran out of breath while you left the room, or would you go over there and throw a punch or two while you knew he was going to die? Maybe throw down a rant of how shitty Krayt is?

And that's the difference between nuking Plagueis and killing him up close. Sure he would have loved to kill Plagueis from afar, but it's not as personable; it doesn't evoke the same emotions as seeing and doing it yourself. He didn't know how much he would enjoy Plagueis suffering at his feet until he was put in that situation, and he wanted to make the most of it. It went from assassination to a crime of passion.



How he felt afterward doesn't erase what he felt at that moment. The idea that Plagueis could survive after that would remove all the control Sheev had at that moment. Sheev had just seen him as weak and incapable of functioning without his breather. Had Plagueis survived, it would mean he was gaming Sheev the entire scene and actually didn't need his breather at all. It would mean that he let that entire scene play out with the wherewithal that he was perfectly fine. It would mean that everything Sheev just witnessed was a farce and he has no real measure of his master. That is why he was nervous; because the idea that Plagueis survived that would mean he was toying with Sheev, and everything Sheev had just said was wrong. If Plagueis was still alive, it means he likely became immortal among other implications of power.

We see this sort of demoralization in fights sometimes. When one fighter comes within a hair's breadth of winning a fight but just can't close the deal. Think of your emotions when you're sure you had beaten someone and they just rise as nothing happened. Had Luke just suddenly risen after Sheev was blasting him do you not think this would ignite worry in Sheev?

Imagine after you had watched ILS choke to death - and delivered a couple of soccer kicks to his dome - that he just jumped up and shook his finger at you like "You gotta do better than that mate," with no real discernable damage. Because that's what the worry was with Palpatine; the implications that Plagueis survived. How are you going to actually put down ILS if the thing he's relied on for many years - breathing air - isn't necessary for his survival?

That's not to say I'm in full agreement with what's been presented here of course. I do believe the second bolt was intended to at the very least put a stop to what Plagueis was doing, but after that, he was very whimsical and confident in what he was doing. He was self-assuring his own belief in the upper hand and power as he went along. He didn't want him to die until he said his piece. That's not completely opposed to your idea, but it's different enough I feel. I'm not sure how you can read/hear that scene and get a sense of urgency out of it tbh. Palpatine was enjoying himself until he pondered if Plagueis was actually immortal. Neither the before or after however change his feelings in that scene. He wanted Plagueis dead, but that doesn't mean that when it finally came within his grasp that he couldn't prolong it. He didn't fire prolonged bursts of lightning at him, he didn't stab him to death, and he wasn't force choking him the entire time. The theory that he was doing everything he could to kill him doesn't work, and it goes against the intention of the scene anyway. Plagueis was dying and everything in-between was just icing on the cake.

Plagueis was sufficiently conscious to launch a TK storm. He was far less defenseless than Luke (and the quote does not suggest that the entire duration of the lightning was at full power, since it's clear that Palaptine distinguishes between before and after Luke "will die"). Nor does Palpatine doing this in a totally different situation where he did not fear Luke (who at that stage, you yourself argue is one-shot fodder material for him), and hardly was terrified about whether RotJ Luke was many steps ahead of him in power as Palpatine was of Plagueis, mean that he would do so against Plagueis. At the most, this would just be an impressive feat for RotJ Luke.

Luke was so weak because Sheev was zapping him for around 40 seconds of cumulative time. The only let up Sheev gave Luke was in-between his one-liners. Then after Luke was drained so much that he was completely defenseless, Sheev delivered more intensive bolts for 20 seconds straight while in an angered state and after confirming Luke will die. It's not exactly conflicting in any way, nor is it hard to fit in either with the scene.

Sheev's continuous zaps to weaken Luke were akin to letting Plagueis suffocate to death. There was no outside source afflicting Luke like Plagueis was so that took the place if you're going to interchange the scenes. Sheev didn't let Luke do anything. He allowed Plagueis to move around.

And of course, Sheev feared Luke, though not necessarily his current power. The entire reason Luke needed to die was that he was either his greatest creation or his greatest rival. Piling on to differentiate the scenes however do not erase the intention behind the scene. Sheev was going to kill him, and he was not happy:

Luke vs Sheev:

The fact is that Luke did at least as good as Plagueis if not better against more extended bursts, and a more powerful Sheev. While his owned power was low and on the verge of death. He had no MM of his own and no time to use it if he had.

So I'm not entirely sure why Plagueis getting zapped is absolute proof of his MM is all. If this is the primary feat - which I'm not saying you're using it as - then we might as well vote in anyone who scales from ROTJ Luke. Wonder who that could be...

My contention with Plagueis is the contention of this feat primarily. It's not that Plagueis had a bad feat per se, it's just that it's been beaten or resisted by a decent amount of people who withstood Sheev's lightning without using MM to heal themselves for long periods of time. If they aren't getting incapacitated with a blast or suffering huge damage, then it's doubtful one quick 2-3 second burst would be enough to kill Plagueis - MM aside.

You are very vocal about Anakin having been super-amped.

If his MM were unsuccessful, then without a barrier Plagueis would've been killed instantly. If Palpatine didn't want to kill him instantly (which he did), he would've been COMPLETELY incapacitated.

These two things aren't congruent. You can't overwrite something because it's more powerful and then say without a barrier he would have been incapacitated.

If you're under the understanding that an amp without a barrier can mitigate the effects of lightning, then you'd be thinking that merely gathering as much power would do the same no?

"Plagueis’s eyes snapped open, the Force gathering in him like a storm, but he stopped short of defending himself."

We've seen simple increases in power or willpower help stave off the incapacitating effects of lightning many times. Since you've been a fan of using Bane, we see him merely get angrier and shrug off a force pike like a bug bite. 5 put him on his knees earlier.

Rule of Two wrote:All four assassins died in the attack, though one managed to land a single blow with his force pike before his throat was slit, the wound so deep it nearly severed his head. Fueled by rage and fury, Bane shrugged off the deadly electrical shock like a rancor shrugging off the bite of a venn-bug.

Also, we see Bane actually live through the attack that charred the Orbalisks as well when the lightning was noted to be ripping through his decaying body.
We see Yoda taking it not really defending himself, Mace die to the fall, Revan takes lightning "infinitely" more powerful than lightning that ashed Nyriss and Vitiate continued to pour it on through his body, Savage continually almost shrug it off even though he has no defense against it, FOTJ Luke getting cheapshotted multiple times with it, FOTJ Luke withstanding Abeloth holding her hand to his chest and blasting him, etc.

And of course, Sheev drawing so deep that he's bending a lightsaber and simultaneously draining himself/destroying his masque taking it. I'm not sure how he would have put up a barrier at that time? Starkiller-walk example works too I guess... on both sides.

The barrier argument also works insofar that it would mitigate damage, but there are still large amounts of electricity ripping through your organs if it gets through. So if your barrier gets pierced it would appear to be that everyone gets treated equally no matter the power level per your implication, but that's not the case.

If we're continually seeing willpower and power stave off the damage and severity of lightning, then it would stand to reason that simply powering up would give you a better defense than not powering up no matter how many barriers you have, correct? These force users are capable of amping their bodies to untold degrees and capable of surviving hits that would be otherwise deadly to a normal human. Besides the stated examples (and more) of people surviving lightning without barriers, would it not make sense to think that an increase in durability and force energy would make you less susceptible to a force attack?

They may be a human at base, but they become increasingly less "human" the more energy they use to power themselves up. The barrier just gives them an added layer of protection.

You could add in passive barriers too, but you can also explain the increase in power to that as well.


So with that said, Plagueis did indeed amp himself before the second attack. If we're under the assumption that power increases "durability" to lightning - as you seem to be by using Anakin surviving Sheev - then it was a case of Plagueis' durability with a bunch of gathered energy vs lightning. You can throw in MM if you want, but it's not needed. He doesn't HAVE to be incapacitated if that's the case, though I'm not denying it still looks good.

And if that is the case - and you believe Sheev was equal to Plagueis - then do you believe that Plagueis could one-shot kill a TWIN Plagueis while he was challenging his TWIN with the force (no MM)? Basically, should a force user be able to kill their exact equal while their body is filled with the force and ready?

But one more example, though you'll probably like this one.

Jaina with Luke's amp takes a surprise lightning bolt with a palm placed right against her. While she's hurt, she is still alive and functioning. Caedus was above her in power at this stage.

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

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

Why was I tagged twice?

Tagging mishap, but take it as double the love.