SS - The Tyrannical Ten - Darth Plagueis (The Ellimist) vs. Valkorion (Azronger)

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This thread is apart of a larger tournament between ten Suspect Insight members. You can read the other debates here:

• Preliminary round - Darth Caedus (DC77) vs Darth Vader (Ethanion) [Finished]
  
• Preliminary round - Darth Krayt (Azronger) vs Darth Tyranus (ArkhamAsylum3) [Finished]
  
• Round one - Arcann (XSupremeSkillzX) vs Darth Maul (ILS) [Finished]
  
• Round one - Darth Caedus (DC77) vs Kyp Durron (SithArchaeologist) [Finished]
  
• Round one - Darth Krayt (Azronger) vs Revan (DarthBane77) [Finished]
  
• Round one - Darth Tenebrous (The Ellimist) vs Exar Kun (Decaf Wizard) [Finished]
  
• Round two - Darth Caedus (DC77) vs Darth Tenebrous (The Ellimist) [Finished]
  
• Round two - Arcann (xSupremeSkillz) vs Darth Krayt (Azronger) [Finished]
  
• Final Round - Darth Plagueis (The Ellimist) vs. Valkorion (Azronger)
  

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Darth Plagueis as of Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Valkorion as of Knights of the Fallen Empire - Chapter 1.

There will be five posts per side. The opener will have a maximum of 15,000 original characters, not including response or sourcing quotes, and a time limit of one week. The second post will have a maximum of 25,000 maximum characters, and a time limit of two weeks. The third post will have a maximum of 32,500 characters, and a time limit of three weeks. The fourth post will have a maximum of 40,000 maximum characters, and a time limit of one month. The finisher will have a maximum of 20,000 characters, and a time limit of two weeks. Neither debater is allowed to make entirely new arguments for their respective character in the fourth or finisher posts. Neither debater is allowed to attack the opponent's case, merely to reinforce their own existing arguments and to articulate why they won the debate, in the finisher post. The verdict will be decided by a panel of moderators.

This thread follows all default stipulations listed in the "Guidelines" thread. Additional rules are as follows:

• Feats take precedent over directly and indisputably contradicted statements.
  
• Quotes are binding and have no expiration date unless directly or subtextually contradicted. For the latter, such a case must be made within the debate itself.
  
• All letter or number statistics ascribed to characters from C-Canon sources, including role-playing games and trading cards, are banned.
  

Oh, my fucking God.

Also, why not Tenebrous vs Krayt?

TAEP.

T4V

AlexSerp wrote:Oh, my fucking God.

Also, why not Tenebrous vs Krayt?

We both wanted to change characters

So excited to see this debate.

Az repping Valk will be an interesting one.

az repping valk and elm repping plagueis 

this should be a titanic battle first time i see this

WOW this is a fight ! TAEP

Well there's something you don't see every day.

OMNIKORION AWAKENS

"You presume limits to my power. There are none."

@The Ellimist

I. THE VALLEY OF THE JEDI

The Valley of the Jedi was a Force nexus of biblical magnitude formed from the souls of 2,000 Sith and 100 Jedi absorbed into the thought bomb.

Star Wars: Darth Bane - Path of Destruction wrote:Despite the danger, virtually every single member of the Army of Light volunteered for the mission. General Hoth realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, these were Jedi, willing to sacrifice everything - even their lives - for the greater good. In the end he did what he knew he would have to do all along: he himself chose who would accompany him to certain death.

He selected exactly ninety-nine others to go with him. The decision was agonizingly difficult. If he took less, the Sith might be able to fight their way out of the cave and escape, only to detonate their thought bomb somewhere else. But the more he took, the more Jedi lives he might be needlessly throwing away.

Choosing who would go with him was even more difficult. Those Jedi who had served at his side the longest, the ones who had joined the Army of Light at the very beginning of the campaign, were those he knew best. He knew how much they had already given in this war, and these were the ones he least wanted to lead to their doom. Yet these were the ones with the most right to stand by his side when the end finally came, and when all was said and done that was how he made his selection. Those with the most seniority would go with him; the others would fall back with Lord Farfalla.

The hundred Jedi - the ninety-nine chosen plus Hoth himself - stood anxiously at the entrance of the tunnels. The sky above was growing dark as night fell and ominous storm clouds rolled in. Still, the general did not give the command to advance. He wanted to give Farfalla and the others enough time to get clear. If it had been possible, he would have ordered all those not going into the cave to leave Ruusan. But there wasn't time. They would simply have to get as far away as possible, then hope they were beyond the range of Kaan's thought bomb.

If one absorbed the collective power of the Valley - meaning the strength of 2,100 Force-users - they would gain "the ability to infuse the Force into non-sensitives, achieve near-omniscience, or even destroy a star." Jerec succeeded at this, and merely feeling that level of power sensitized him to the currents of the Force enough to by default understand "The will of the Force, Chaos, the ancient civilizations of the Rakata and Xim, what lay beyond the galactic barrier, and the origins of the universe."

Star Wars: Dark Forces - Rebel Agent wrote:The human knew without being told that this was a place of death, a prison full of unreleased spirits, and a repository of unthinkable power. Power so vast, so terrible, that it could extinguish a sun, plunge an entire solar system into darkness, and condemn billions to death. But only if it fell into the wrong hands….

II. THE RITUAL OF NATHEMA

The Ritual of Nathema was similar to the thought bomb in that it devoured the souls of those within its vicinity, but its range covered the entire planet and it bound the souls inside Vitiate himself instead of an external container. Upon activation, 8,000 Sith Lords were condemned to a disembodied existence within the Emperor. But beyond that, everything the ritual encompassed - all the flora, fauna, sound color, and the Force itself on the planet - was assimilated into Vitiate. Essentially, the Ritual of Nathema turned Vitiate into a sentient, beefed up version of the Valley of the Jedi - instead of a little over two thousand Force-users, Vitiate absorbed eight thousand in addition to all other life and Force energy on the planet.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Revan wrote:There was something strange about the Emperor’s voice. It didn’t sound like the voice of a single being. It had an unusual echo and resonance, almost as if a great multitude were speaking his words in perfect symphony.

A grim theory passed unbidden through Scourge’s mind: was it possible all those that had been consumed by the ritual on Nathema still existed in some form within the Emperor himself? Nyriss said he’d devoured them, but what if she was only partially correct? What if he had imprisoned their spirits inside his own corporeal form, slowly feeding on their life energy over a thousand years to keep himself young and strong?

III. FINAL FORM

While during Revan, Vitiate could not fully draw on the godly power within him due to the constraints of his body, explaining why he didn’t instantly crush Revan (cf. Palpatine), he eventually came to master the secrets of midi-chlorian manipulation to allow for the creation of host bodies strong enough to contain his full power. As cited above, the Dark Forces Campaign Guide considers turning non-Force-sensitives into Force-users as bordering "on the realm of plot device" alongside near-omniscience and obliterating suns, and as seen with the non-Force-sensitive Outlander, Valkorion doesn’t just turn them into an average Force-user, but forges them into "a vessel of supreme power--worthy of preserving [his] spirit" with nary a wave of his hand.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Revan wrote:As they drew closer to the throne room, Revan’s thoughts drifted back to his last confrontation with the Emperor. In all his battles, he had never faced an enemy with that kind of power. The dark side had radiated from him in palpable waves, his physical shell barely able to contain the crackling energy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGsRIQ1PVUo&t=7m46s



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbTdLy3xO3E&t=3m33s

Naturally, this feat is far in excess of Plagueis’s achievements with midi-chlorian manipulation; and logically, if Tenebrae can create enough midi-chlorians to contain star-busting+ energies on a whim in another being, he would have done so to his Valkorion body before its loss (which he is occupying for this fight). He has Plagueis beat in both conventional strength and esoteric know-how by an inconceivable margin - although not surprising, considering the insights his near-omniscience would grant into the Force, and the centuries of time he had to ponder and study them.

Great opening ! Really interresting way to scale Valkorion above Plagueis.

Fakeorian News

There is no reason to assume that:

1. Nathema is comparable to the VotJ in power.
2. The energy of Nathema can actually be harnessed by Valkorion in a fight (whereas, as Azronger acknowledges, Vitiate clearly cannot).

A Pale Imitation

The text claims that Jerec had "absolute omniscience" and knew about everything, including the "will of the Force". This clearly cannot apply to Valkorion, as he misses lots of information that evidently precludes any sort of omniscience. E.g.:

• Getting stabbed in the back by Outlander
  
• Underestimating Outlander's willpower
  
• Not knowing about "my mind, my rules"
  
• Not knowing he was ultimately going to lose and that his plan was futile, and adjusting his strategy accordingly
  
• Not knowing as much about "sith power" as Darth Bane per fact files.
  

etc.

There's also just insubstantial reason to believe that there's any relativity at all. We don't know how powerful Kaan's surviving Sith were compared to the ones who joined Vitiate on Nathema (given the absurd feats of Kaan alone), or how the passage of time affected the potency of the bomb, etc. I'm pretty sure there are some quotes calling the thought bomb the deadliest ritual ever constructed, but anyway - there's no clear link between the two.

Indeed, by the same logic why aren't we also scaling Nihilus above the Valley of the Jedi? Darth Plagueis is the most powerful Sith who ever lived up to his time, so he's more powerful than VotJ by this line of reasoning anyway.

Limitations to his Power, there are Some

Azronger's argument assumes that the reason behind Vitiate's inability to use the full power of Nathema that allegedly exists is that his body is limited in potency. There is no textual evidence for this being the cause for the limitation. Another explanation (aside from him not being as powerful as Azronger is asserting) is that the energy of Nathema is going into preserving his immortality, which actually does have at least circumstantial support as all descriptions of the ritual emphasize its role in giving him near-immortality, not in just making him more powerful.

Even so, let's further scrutinize the claim that Valkorion made his host body capable of harnessing his full power.

1. There is no evidence that Valkorion can midichlorian manipulate to the level of harnessing his full power. The only evidence that was provided:
   

   "a vessel of supreme power--worthy of preserving [his] spirit

   was his own poetic claims made to the Outlander, and arguably the most evil entity in Star Wars trying to manipulate you (who he couldn't even TP despite being allegedly a star busting omniscient god) isn't exactly a reliable source.
   
2. If he can do it to Valkorion, why can't he do it to his Revan novel body? The entire argument for him doing it to Valkorion should also apply to novel-Vitiate. Did he not yet know how? But I thought he scaled above "absolute omniscience" post-Nathema?
   

So there's no reason to scale Nathema above VotJ, and even if there was, no reason to think that the source of the initial limitation of Vitiate's ability to harness this power comes from a weak body rather than the need to use the spirits to maintain his life force, and even if there was, no reason to think that he ever overcame this limitation.

Plagueis Stomps

The Most Powerful Sith

So we've all seen the quote labeling Plagueis the "most powerful Sith who ever lived". Valkorion claims that he's no longer a Sith, but Valkorion claims all sorts of things; the TOR codex calls him a "Sith entity", which would logically bound him under Plagueis.

The Shadow

We've all seen the two quotes already putting pre-Plagueis death TPM Sidious as the "most powerful Sith Master who ever lived" (Darth Maul, Sith Apprentice). This is how Sidious reacts to Plagueis:

The Muun's renewed vigor had taken Sidious by surprise. The mere fact that he had escaped the devastation on Sojourn made him seem almost omnipotent. Though even when ensconced in his affluent citadel in the Manarai district, he had yet to relax his vigilance or submit to sleep.

----

A few meters distant, Sidious came to a halt, gazing at Plagueis for a long moment, as though making up his mind about something. Then, blowing out his breath, he set his own glass down and reached for the cloak he had draped over a chair. Swirling it around himself, he started for the door, only to stop shortly before he reached it. Turning and stretching out with the Force, he glanced around the room, as one might to fix a memory in the mind. Briefly his gaze fell on the droid, its glowing photoreceptors whirring to regard him in evident curiosity.

A look of sinister purpose contorted Sidious's face.

Again, his eyes darted around the room, and the dark side whispered:

Your election assured, the Sun Guards absent, Plagueis unsuspecting and asleep...

And he moved in a blur.

---

Was it possible that the wily Muun had deceived him? Had Plagueis unlocked the key to immortality, and survived after all? Never mind that it would constitute a petty move for one so wise-for one who had professed to place the Grand Plan above all else. Had Plagueis become ensnared in a self-spun web of jealousy and possessiveness, victim of his own engineering, his own foibles?

If he hadn't been concerned for his own safety, Sidious might have pitied him.

Wary of approaching the corpse of his former Master, he called on the Force to roll the aged Muun over onto his back. From that angle Plagueis looked almost as he had when Sidious first met him, decades earlier: smooth, hairless cranium; humped nose, with its bridge flattened as if from a shock-ball blow and its sharp tip pressed almost to his upper lip; jutting lower jaw; sunken eyes still brimming with menace-a physical characteristic rarely encountered in a Muun. But then Plagueis had never been an ordinary Muun, nor an ordinary being of any sort.

Here Sidious had already wanted Plagueis dead long before he killed him, and resorted to trying to blindside him with a nuclear bomb. That failed, which made him seem "almost omnipotent". He only dared to actually take on Plagueis when his master was drunk and sleep, and even then, was clearly wary of doing so, hesitating and pondering (even though we've established that he already wants him dead). Even after he had disposed of Plagueis, he was so paranoid that he was wary of even approaching his body.

Sidious clearly thinks that Plagueis is an extremely substantial threat to him. And this is what he tries to do to him:

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.

He attacks Plagueis with more effort than he had ever exerted in his life (e.g. including unbalancing the entire universal cosmic Force). This is a drunken, just recently asleep Plagueis who had already been zapped once by Sidious, whose breathing apparatus had failed, and who wasn't even defending himself:

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

Yet he is still able to try to stand, and to launch an admittedly ineffective Force attack at Sidious. Why does the half-asleep, drunk Plagueis fail? Because he can't breath:

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."

The lightning didn't work. If Sidious - who was so scared of his "nearly omnipotent" master that his plan A was to drop a nuclear weapon on him - couldn't just taken him out with lightning, he would've, and he clearly tried given that he drew "more deeply on the dark side than he ever had". But Plagueis's MM was able to tank the lightning. The only thing that got to him was the fact that his breathing apparatus failed and SIdious was choking him (suffocation is mechanistically completely different from one's ability to tank raw power).

In fact, if you read the fight you would notice that there's not even any indication given that the lightning attack did anything significant to Plagueis. It's said that Plagueis struggles to breath while trying to stand:

Still struggling for breath, Plagueis managed to stand, but only to collapse back onto the couch, knocking a statue from its perch.

But Sidious attributes his demise to his sustained Force choke.

This is extremely impressive. Taking someone's full power lightning and still being able to do anything is very difficult even if you're comparable to or even stronger than them. Mace Windu getting hit by Sidious's lightning was unable to survive a landing that AotC Anakin tanked casually; Yoda got incapacitated by Dooku's lightning, and TCW Anakin too; Kol got killed by a lightning-in-the-back from a far weaker foe.

So a drunken, half-asleep Plagueis has a combat feat surpassing anything Valkorion has done.

Unbalancing the Force

A massively pre-prime Plagueis and Sidious (who at the time was far weaker than Plagueis) are able to unbalance the entire cosmic Force through sheer force of will, and then maintain it passively. This surpasses anything Valkorion has done.

Is that a lightsaber?

If you cannot decide which combatant is more powerful, the tiebreaker should go to Plagueis for two reasons:

1. He can use a lightsaber, and battles that are not completely lopsided in Force combat usually end up being a melee combat, given that a noticeable gap is needed to overwhelm another's active defenses with the Force.
   
2. He is a well trained and experienced combatant. Valkorion's list of combat failures are quite comical, from his pitiful showing in the Revan novel to walking onto a lightsaber to getting stabbed in the back by the Outlander and ragdolled by Lord Dramath. He simply doesn't know how to fight properly. He's used to taking on infinitely inferior opponents.
   

Good post!

Good post. This debate is awesome !

OMNIKORION’S RETRIBUTION

"Your striving is insignificant. Let your death be the same."

@The Ellimist

THE RITUAL OF NATHEMA > THE VALLEY OF THE JEDI

The Ellimist wrote:The text claims that Jerec had "absolute omniscience" and knew about everything, including the "will of the Force". This clearly cannot apply to Valkorion, as he misses lots of information that evidently precludes any sort of omniscience.

Of course, much like Jerec got severed from the Force by Kyle Katarn, neither character had literal omniscience. This doesn’t detract from Jerec understanding "The will of the Force, Chaos, the ancient civilizations of the Rakata and Xim, what lay beyond the galactic barrier, and the origins of the universe" simply by feeling that level of power. I have already provided a citation that states he achieved "near-omniscience" anyway, so nitpicking about literal omniscience isn’t auspicious for you. Valkorion may not in detail be able to predict the future or every action that is about to happen in the moment, but his insight into the universe and the Force dwarfs Plagueis’s own.

The Ellimist wrote:Not knowing as much about "sith power" as Darth Bane per fact files.

Citation needed.

The Ellimist wrote:There's also just insubstantial reason to believe that there's any relativity at all. We don't know how powerful Kaan's surviving Sith were compared to the ones who joined Vitiate on Nathema

We do. The Sith who assisted Vitiate were 8,000 of the most powerful of the time. This means each individual Sith on Nathema is above any Sith who didn’t contribute to the ritual, including Naga Sadow himself who was still alive in exile. Naga Sadow in turn is more powerful than Darth Tenebrous, who is above Darth Bane, who is above Lord Kaan, who is above every other Sith involved in the thought bomb. Ergo, because there were more Sith on Nathema than on Ruusan, and because each Sith on Nathema is infinitely stronger than each Sith on Ruusan including Kaan, the Ritual of Nathema is far more powerful than the Valley of the Jedi.

Star Wars: Darth Bane - Path of Destruction wrote:Lord Kaan knew he was no match for Bane, either physically or through the power of the Force. Yet he wasn't about to surrender so easily. Not while he still had cunning, guile, and his unique talents of persuasion on his side.

https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t2804-a-case-for-the-neo-antediluvians

The Ellimist wrote:or how the passage of time affected the potency of the bomb, etc.

Why would it have changed? The Force energies laid there dormant.

The Ellimist wrote:I'm pretty sure there are some quotes calling the thought bomb the deadliest ritual ever constructed

Citation needed. Not to mention that it being the “deadliest” ritual doesn’t mean the overall quantity of Force energy it sapped from its victims exceeded that of the Nathema Ritual - it could just mean its effects are harder to resist, for example.

The Ellimist wrote:Indeed, by the same logic why aren't we also scaling Nihilus above the Valley of the Jedi? Darth Plagueis is the most powerful Sith who ever lived up to his time, so he's more powerful than VotJ by this line of reasoning anyway.

Why would Nihilus scale above the Valley of the Jedi?

VALKORION’S ABILITY TO HARNESS HIS POWER

The Ellimist wrote:Indeed, by the same logic why aren't we also scaling Nihilus above the Valley of the Jedi? Darth Plagueis is the most powerful Sith who ever lived up to his time, so he's more powerful than VotJ by this line of reasoning anyway.

I gave you a direct citation from the novel: Vitiate’s body could barely contain his passive energies as he was just sitting down.

The Ellimist wrote:Another explanation (aside from him not being as powerful as Azronger is asserting) is that the energy of Nathema is going into preserving his immortality, which actually does have at least circumstantial support as all descriptions of the ritual emphasize its role in giving him near-immortality, not in just making him more powerful.

It would only take a fraction of Nathema’s total power to keep him ageless - not to mention all the rituals he has at his disposal, like the ones he used to make Scourge immune to lightsabers and sustain Revan with, which clearly don’t take star-busting energies to perform. Vitiate is still easily sun buster++ in his total Force reserves.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Revan wrote:“THE RITUAL IS ABOUT TO BEGIN,” the Emperor intoned.

Scourge nodded, though even if he had wanted to refuse it was far too late now.

He was standing in the center of a cylindrical metal platform roughly two meters across. Dozens of wires and IV tubes had been hooked to his body. The wires were connected to several generators arranged in a circle around the platform, the IV tubes ran to clear vats filled with a strange green bubbling liquid.

They were still inside the citadel, but this private chamber was much smaller than the throne room. It was unfurnished and, apart from the Emperor, Scourge, and the infernal machinery he was hooked up to, completely empty.

In the wake of Revan’s defeat, the Emperor hadn’t made him a member of the Dark Council after all. Instead, he had created a new position for Scourge: the Emperor’s Wrath.

The Emperor had believed his explanation about Revan. As a reward Scourge was to become his personal enforcer and executioner, taking his orders directly from the Emperor and answering to no one but him.

That wasn’t the full extent of his reward, however. For his role in exposing Xedrix, Nyriss, and Revan, the Emperor had promised to grant Scourge the gift of eternal life. He would forever serve at the Emperor’s side, an honor far greater than even that of being selected for the Dark Council.

Scourge had eagerly accepted, knowing his new position would give him both time and opportunity to find another way to stop the Emperor before his madness and hunger consumed the galaxy.

“Open yourself to the dark side,” the Emperor said, and Scourge felt the air around him begin to swirl with power.

Betraying his allies had not altered the inevitable outcome; the Emperor would have won regardless. At least this way Scourge was still alive to carry on their cause.

Revan was still alive, too, but he was as good as dead to Scourge. The Emperor was holding him prisoner in a secret facility, and Scourge knew he could never risk trying to find its location. He couldn’t do anything that might suggest an ongoing connection between him and Revan. Doing so would expose the truth to the Emperor, making his sacrifice of the Jedi pointless.

“Let the spark of eternal life ignite within you!” the Emperor called out.

Scourge felt a sharp burst of heat in his chest. He gritted his teeth in pain as the heat grew more intense.

He felt no guilt or remorse over what he had done. He knew the Jedi would never have chosen this path, of course. They would have felt the price of betrayal was too high.

Scourge knew they were wrong. There was no sense in throwing his life away with theirs. Betrayal was the cost of stopping the Emperor, and he alone had been willing to pay it.

Revan had been right about one thing, however: the attack had made the Emperor step back from his plans to invade the Republic. Instead of looking beyond the borders of the Sith Empire, he had turned his attention inward, focusing on restoring stability and control over Dromund Kaas and the other worlds he ruled.

The Dark Council would have to be rebuilt. It was inevitable there would be infighting and high turnover in the first few years as the new members vied with one another to curry favor with the Emperor. And he, in turn, would keep a close eye on the actions of the Council until the plots and schemes returned to a more normal and expected level.

It would be several decades, maybe longer, before the Emperor revisited the idea of invading the Republic. In that time, much could happen. Revan had spoken of another champion who would rise; Scourge had seen that champion in his final vision. Blessed with eternal life, Scourge would serve faithfully at the Emperor’s side, biding his time as he waited for that champion to emerge from the mists of time.

While serving, he would study the Emperor. He would learn everything about him. He would come to understand his strengths and weaknesses so that when the time came, he could help Revan’s prophesied champion destroy the Emperor once and for all.

“Feel your mortality as it is stripped away.”

Scourge screamed as invisible claws tore at his insides, seemingly shredding his vital organs.

The heat in his chest had spread to the rest of his body; it felt as if his blood were made of fire. The agony became unbearable, and he shrieked and collapsed to the floor.

“The ritual cannot be undone,” the Emperor said as Scourge writhed and wept at his feet.

Through his torment, Scourge realized with dawning horror what the Emperor was saying. The ritual was over, but the searing heat and the rending of his insides continued unabated.

Focusing his will, he managed to still the convulsions racking his body. He forced himself to his knees, though every movement seemed to amplify the pain. Trembling, he rose to his feet and addressed the Emperor.

“How long will this anguish last?” he asked, his jaw clenched.

“As time passes you will learn to accept and endure your suffering,” the Emperor answered. “Your mind and body will find ways to deal with the pain. After many months you will become accustomed enough to it to function in your role as the Emperor’s Wrath. Eventually you will simply become numb, unable to feel anything at all.”

“Why?” Scourge asked, his voice something between a sob and a moan.

“Everything has a cost,” the Emperor explained. “This is the price of immortality.”

The Ellimist wrote:There is no evidence that Valkorion can midichlorian manipulate to the level of harnessing his full power. The only evidence that was provided:was his own poetic claims made to the Outlander, and arguably the most evil entity in Star Wars trying to manipulate you (who he couldn't even TP despite being allegedly a star busting omniscient god) isn't exactly a reliable source.

What? He says this in the moment of his victory after he’s dropped all pretense. Not to mention his literal plan was to possess the Outlander’s body - why would he settle for something defective? Further proof is that Valkorion literally does enter the Outlander’s body alongside the spirits of Dramath, Vaylin, Arcann, and the Outlander’s own spirit, with all of them using the Force to their full capacity within it, and it doesn’t explode or suffer any damage like it did when Valkorion previous attempted to harness his power through it.

The Ellimist wrote:If he can do it to Valkorion, why can't he do it to his Revan novel body? The entire argument for him doing it to Valkorion should also apply to novel-Vitiate. Did he not yet know how? But I thought he scaled above "absolute omniscience" post-Nathema?

It’s not a contradiction. Him being nearly omniscient doesn’t have to mean he instantly could make his novel body able to contain his full power. Remember, we are talking about someone whose Force reserves exponentially surpass literal star-busting - even Palpatine couldn’t keep up with the decay of his body, brought about by his immense power, even with a combination of midi-chlorian manipulation and using 20 billion people as batteries. It makes sense that it would take a while for Tenebrae to master the ability to literally snap his fingers and spawn enough midi-chlorians to contain star-busting++ power on the spot.

DARTH PLAGUEIS’S STUFF

The Ellimist wrote:If he can do it to Valkorion, why can't he do it to his Revan novel body? The entire argument for him doing it to Valkorion should also apply to novel-Vitiate. Did he not yet know how? But I thought he scaled above "absolute omniscience" post-Nathema?

Plagueis is labeled the most powerful Sith Lord. Valkorion is called a Sith entity. Plagueis’s accolade doesn’t apply to Valkorion.

The Ellimist wrote:We've all seen the two quotes already putting pre-Plagueis death TPM Sidious as the "most powerful Sith Master who ever lived" (Darth Maul, Sith Apprentice). This is how Sidious reacts to Plagueis:

The statement from Darth Maul: Sith Apprentice refers to post-boost Sidious as it identifies him as Chancellor Palpatine. Plagueis does not benefit from this statement, and the same problem applies anyways: Valkorion is not stated to be a Sith Master anywhere.

The Ellimist wrote:The lightning didn't work. If Sidious - who was so scared of his "nearly omnipotent" master that his plan A was to drop a nuclear weapon on him - couldn't just taken him out with lightning, he would've, and he clearly tried given that he drew "more deeply on the dark side than he ever had". But Plagueis's MM was able to tank the lightning. The only thing that got to him was the fact that his breathing apparatus failed and SIdious was choking him (suffocation is mechanistically completely different from one's ability to tank raw power).

This is irrelevant since Valkorion also has access to Force choke and can disable Plagueis’s breathing apparatus the same way Sidious did.

The Ellimist wrote:So a drunken, half-asleep Plagueis has a combat feat surpassing anything Valkorion has done.

The Ellimist wrote:A massively pre-prime Plagueis and Sidious (who at the time was far weaker than Plagueis) are able to unbalance the entire cosmic Force through sheer force of will, and then maintain it passively. This surpasses anything Valkorion has done.

Citation needed on these feats being superior to any of Valkorion’s. Regardless, even if Valkorion hadn’t done anything on par with these, it doesn’t mean he couldn’t.

The Ellimist wrote:If you cannot decide which combatant is more powerful, the tiebreaker should go to Plagueis for two reasons:

He can use a lightsaber, and battles that are not completely lopsided in Force combat usually end up being a melee combat, given that a noticeable gap is needed to overwhelm another's active defenses with the Force.
He is a well trained and experienced combatant. Valkorion's list of combat failures are quite comical, from his pitiful showing in the Revan novel to walking onto a lightsaber to getting stabbed in the back by the Outlander and ragdolled by Lord Dramath. He simply doesn't know how to fight properly. He's used to taking on infinitely inferior opponents.

Irrelevant since Valkorion can one-shot Plagueis before it would ever come to a duel.

--- --- --- --- ---

OMNIKORION’S OMNI-ONSLAUGHT

"I hold the patience of stone and the will of stars."

I. ZIOST

The Ellimist wrote:This is how Sidious reacts to Plagueis:

The Muun's renewed vigor had taken Sidious by surprise. The mere fact that he had escaped the devastation on Sojourn made him seem almost omnipotent. Though even when ensconced in his affluent citadel in the Manarai district, he had yet to relax his vigilance or submit to sleep.

Sidious deems Plagueis "almost omnipotent" because the latter "escaped the devastation on Sojourn." The detail you have omitted is that the devastation mentioned by Sidious amounts to a single nuclear device that leveled "everything within a twenty-kilometer radius from ground zero." Given Sidious’s impression of a being who survived the detonation, it is likely that tanking such an explosion head-on with the Force is well beyond his capabilities at this point. In a vacuum, this is not a black mark against Sidious; excluding superweapons, such a nuke is immensely destructive even in the context of Star Wars’s advanced technology - but it still clearly pales in comparison to phenomena on the celestial scale.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis wrote:Plagueis swung to the navicomputer as concussions rocked the ship. He had placed one hand on the device’s keyboard when the sky seemed to give birth to a sphere of blinding light. Following a moment of absolute stillness, a cascade of infernal energy descended on what remained of the fort and concentric rings of explosive power radiated outward, leveling everything within a twenty-kilometer radius from ground zero. The Infiltrator was lifted like a bird caught in a thermal, and for a moment all its systems failed.

Plagueis sat in enraged disbelief.

Somehow, Veruna and his cohorts—Gardulla, Black Sun, and the Bando Gora—had gotten their hands on a proscribed nuclear device. None of the Sun Guards could have survived the blast; but then they didn’t deserve to. Nuclear weapons were scarce, and the Echani had obviously neglected to check with the few black-market suppliers that had access to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNJ-8gdi8TA

The above citations juxtapose quite nicely: on one end, we have the detonation of a powerful - but nonetheless an ordinary - nuke, and on the other end, we have a star being drained of energy along with the complete annihilation of an entire biosphere. Indeed, upon closer inspection, Ziost’s sun changes its color from a bright blue to a brownish green. On the Morgan-Keenan stellar classification scale, blue stars have both the highest temperature and luminosity of all stars, while more yellowish and greenish stars are significantly less hot and bright - in other words, they contain and emit far less energy. Vitiate leeching so much energy out of Ziost’s sun as to transform it from blue to green in seconds pegs him as orders of magnitude stronger than Sidious and, by proxy, Plagueis, merely on the merits of the feat alone. Yet when one considers that the feat is only reflective of Tenebrae’s capabilities before his peak - that the absorbed energy would still increase his preexisting power exponentially - the implications become all the more harrowing for Plagueis.

II. CHAINED VAYLIN

Valkorion’s daughter, Vaylin, is belittled by the Outlander at the start of Knights of Eternal Throne as "far from matching the stunt [Valkorion] pulled on Ziost." However, Valkorion’s direct retort to the comment is that "My child is more powerful than you can imagine." Later on, the Outlander rues his words as he is swiftly defeated by Vaylin in their first fight, amending his previous statement by proclaiming Vaylin "even stronger" than Valkorion himself even after personally witnessing him devour Ziost’s biosphere and drain its star. While Valkorion again corrects the Outlander by clarifying that she isn’t his superior, this is only due to the power he gained from Ziost; Vaylin hasn’t siphoned similar amounts of energy, but her existing power level is still enough to match Tenebrae’s act of doing so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iSpUH8CGjs&t=6m

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VgXsdJgyNA

III. ARCANN

After either purging himself of his hatred and rage in the light side path, or by succumbing further to these emotions following the murder of his mother in the dark side path, Valkorion’s son, Arcann, undergoes an intensification of his powers that enables him to contend evenly with Vaylin even after her domination of the Outlander earlier. Their fight lasts approximately one minute, which is significant considering that "few duels lasted more than a minute." In the dark side path, after the family squabble, Arcann retains enough strength to give a fresh Outlander (who just two chapters later would go on to challenge Unchained Vaylin) "a grueling battle," cementing his status as a legitimate rival to Chained Vaylin, and thus an equal recipient of the scaling from Vitiate’s Ziost feat.

Star Wars: Darth Bane - Dynasty of Evil wrote:Lightsaber battles were brutal in their intensity; few duels lasted more than a minute. Even for a trained Jedi, the effort of all-out combat was exhausting - particularly when using the acrobatic maneuvers of Ataru. It didn't take long for Zannah to sense that her opponent was wearing down. She, on the other hand, was barely winded. At Bane's urging, she had become an expert in the defensive sequences of the Soresu form. It was simple for her to parry, redirect, or evade her opponent's blows by using Set's own momentum against him, easily keeping the Dark Jedi at bay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-j92zpONRo&t=15m

IV. UNCHAINED VAYLIN

Vaylin, while still chained, tanks six beams firing at her and through her, but she is visibly strained and at her clear limit. She is incapable of mustering a successful defense and is forced to keep her body together telekinetically whilst the energies rummage inside her and threaten to tear her apart. However, as this continues for several minutes, she begins to gain control, first blocking the beams with a Force barrier and then completely overpowering them. Unchained Vaylin can therefore, at will, block and cancel out attacks that instantly bring Chained Vaylin near the breaking point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2_M0CUhtU&t=12m30s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2_M0CUhtU&t=16m15s

V. VALKORION

The Ellimist wrote:He is a well trained and experienced combatant. Valkorion's list of combat failures are quite comical, from his pitiful showing in the Revan novel to walking onto a lightsaber to getting stabbed in the back by the Outlander and ragdolled by Lord Dramath. He simply doesn't know how to fight properly. He's used to taking on infinitely inferior opponents.

You cite Valkorion being ragdolled by Lord Dramath as a showing of combative ineptitude, meaning you consider the ending battle sequence literal. In that case, Valkorion simultaneously immobilizes the Outlander, Unchained Vaylin, and Arcann for over 20 seconds in an analogous manner to Luke Skywalker and Darth Caedus - the latter instance is one of the most overt displays of dominance and superiority between two characters, and here Valkorion does to three Force-users at once, each of which scale substantially above draining a star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbTdLy3xO3E&t=11m20s

By consequence, Plagueis gets ragdolled. His proximity to TPM Sidious, who caps out at nuke level, makes him orders of magnitude weaker than each of the three people whom Valkorion casually subdued. There is nothing stopping Tenebrae from effortlessly and instantly shredding through whatever defense Plagueis might attempt to raise and tearing him apart limb from limb.

possibly the most interesting debate i have read

This is awesome! Keep going !

lol forgot about the time limit

here's what I can type up rn then, ugh:

Jerec was able to immediately access "Force powers beyond imagination", along with either absolute or near-omniscience that gave him knowledge of the universe on the level of Marvel-style cosmic awareness, from knowing the origins of the Force to the history of the galaxy.

Vitiate, meanwhile:

• Couldn't figure out that Revan and Malak had failed on their mission
  
• Didn't know about the weak state of the Republic
  
• Failed to anticipate Revan knocking his lightning back on him
  
• Failed to anticipate, and had to divert all his attention to blocking at the last minute t3's flamethrower
  
• Failed to detect Scourge's deception
  
• Failed to accurately gauge the Outlander's willpower
  
• Didn't know about "my mind, my rules" mechanics

So either:

1. Vitiate's Nathema ritual is not nearly as powerful as the thought bomb (the claim in the reverse is based on assumptions that went unsupported, like the claim that Naga Sadow > Bane [linking to a long external blog doesn't count...], or

2. Vitiate cannot actually harness all of his power as of the novel, and not even as of KOTFE.

#2 brings up the question of how Jerec can access so much more of the power than Vitiate can? Does this mean that the thought bomb and Nathema aren't analogous in their mechanisms?

BTW:

The Sith who assisted Vitiate were 8,000 of the most powerful of the time.

"8,000 of the most powerful" does not mean "the 8,000 most powerful", so this rather bizarre claim that all 8,000 Sith were stronger than Naga Sadow doesn't work, and so even if we just assume that Sadow > Bane, no relativity between Nathema and the thought bomb has been established.

Also, Valkorion scales below Knightfall Vader, who is the "most powerful enemy ever faced by the Jedi", and had the highest midichlorian count in history to harness that power with, yet Vader was unable to figure out his premonitions or midichlorian manipulation, and was tagged by Cin Drallig (per RotS video game), and just generally clearly did not have a complete understanding of the nature of the Force that Jerec allegedly obtained just by touching that level of power.

If you want to be very generous to the case for Vitiate and dismiss all of these blatant contradictions, while also just assuming that there's some relativity between Nathema and the thought bomb that hasn't been supported at all, you still have left explaining why we should say that Valkorion at any point in time is able to access all of his powers.

First problem - the energies could be going into his immortality:

Master Azronger wrote:It would only take a fraction of Nathema’s total power to keep him ageless -

Based on what? The level of near-immortality Vitiate attained hadn't been attained by anyone prior, including extremely powerful Sith who were obsessed with immortality. It very clearly isn't a trivial thing to do - Naga Sadow's meditation sphere allowed him to collapse stars but did nothing for his attempted immortality.

not to mention all the rituals he has at his disposal, like the ones he used to make Scourge immune to lightsabers and sustain Revan with,

That ritual made Scourge incapable of feeling anything, while Vitiate was obsessed with being able to experience everything, so it's hardly analogous.

which clearly don’t take star-busting energies to perform.

How do you know that? Your case here clearly isn't relying on intuition if it's claiming that all 8,000 Sith in the ritual were individually above Naga Sadow (or all the other claims being made here), so what is the evidence?

So this problem hasn't been dealt with.

Second problem - there's no evidence he can make a body powerful enough, and his own vague claims don't cut it:

What? He says this in the moment of his victory after he’s dropped all pretense.

That's the case for taking a vague statement Valkorion said while gloating to be literally true? A Sith saying that something has "supreme power" is a joke in terms of credibility.

Not to mention his literal plan was to possess the Outlander’s body - why would he settle for something defective?

He had nowhere else to go!

Further proof is that Valkorion literally does enter the Outlander’s body alongside the spirits of Dramath, Vaylin, Arcann, and the Outlander’s own spirit,

He had previously been in his original body too, which you don't think could harness his full power, so him entering the Outlander's body means nothing.

with all of them using the Force to their full capacity within it,

Where does it say that?

and it doesn’t explode or suffer any damage like it did when Valkorion previous attempted to harness his power through it.

That just suggests it's stronger than it was before.

OK now onto Plagueis.

Plagueis is the most powerful Sith Lord in history.

Plagueis’s accolade doesn’t apply to Valkorion.

But Vitiate is called a Sith Lord in the TOR encyclopedia and various other sources, even though he was already Valkorion at that point.

Furthermore, the quote talks about who is the most "powerful", without any regard to the practical applicability of said power.

Plagueis tanked Sidious's lightning.

This is irrelevant since Valkorion also has access to Force choke and can disable Plagueis’s breathing apparatus the same way Sidious did.

Sidious did that to a completely unsuspecting, half-drunk, asleep Plagueis who didn't bother to use any defenses aside from midichlorian manipulation. In reality, it is much more difficult to penetrate TK barriers than it is lightning barriers (e.g. Mace deflected Sidious's TK but couldn't handle his lightning, Sidious nearly overwhelmed Yoda with lightning despite their being stated to be equals vs. the statement that it requires several Jedi to overpower a single's barrier, etc.).

The statement from Darth Maul: Sith Apprentice refers to post-boost Sidious

Post-boost Sidious still interpreted Plagueis's spirit reaching out to him as a "power greater than himself".

Valkorion is not stated to be a Sith Master anywhere.

Vitiate had an apprentice, and has Nathema's power.

Given Sidious’s impression of a being who survived the detonation, it is likely that tanking such an explosion head-on with the Force is well beyond his capabilities at this point.

The idea was to catch Plagueis off-guard. If Plagueis had warning, he could just leave (as he did). And this is pre-prime Plagueis anyway. The point of the statement is to show where Sidious perceived Plagueis's power relative to his own.

we have a star being drained of energy

OK, a few points:

1. Plagueis's death rearranged entire constellations.
2. Ziost was done on a nexus with the possession of potentially millions of beings and hundreds-thousands of Force users.
3. This still pales in scale next to unbalancing the entire cosmic Force.
4. It's never confirmed that the star changed colors; that could just be a cinemati-the way that the light was being scattered from the perspective of the camera (e.g. changes in the way sunlight interacts on Earth do not come from changing the sun itself, but rather scattering and refraction of light).
5. Changing colors via rituals doesn't necessarily translate to literal changes in temperature; Nathema drained the color out of the planet but this doesn't reflect some changing of starlight or the radiation absorptive properties of the planet's surface.
6. Ziost could've easily been a ritual.
7. This doesn't have direct relevance to the ability to tank a surprise nuke, given that Valkorion couldn't tank a lightsaber to the back.

Vaylin's combat ability is way below her raw power.

"even stronger" than Valkorion himself

Valkorion was a weakened spirit at the time.

You cite Valkorion being ragdolled by Lord Dramath as a showing of combative ineptitude, meaning you consider the ending battle sequence literal.

It was combat; that doesn't mean it was literal.

So we can use several metrics:

Accolades - Plagueis wins, because Vitiate/Valkorion is a Sith and so Plagueis scales above him.
Combat feats - Plagueis wins, because he tanked Sidious's lightning. Your only combat feat for Valkorion is based on inaccurate scaling from Vaylin based on Outlander's claims with respect to a weakened spirit Valkorion. In fact, Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't have very many combat feats of relevance.
Environmental/cosmic feats - Plagueis wins, because unbalancing the universal cosmic Force >>>>>>>>>>>>> anything Valkorion has done.
Skill - Plagueis wins, because Valkorion sucks at fighting.
Sabers - Plagueis obviously wins.

noice

Awesome, this debate is lit

Great post considering it was last minute.

Less impresive post than previously. Clearly obvious that was a rushed post. But still interresting points made

OMNIKORION OVERPOWERS

"Do you think you’re making a difference? In the end, the Emperor wins."

@The Ellimist

COUNTERS TO PLAGUEIS WANK

The Ellimist wrote:But Vitiate is called a Sith Lord in the TOR encyclopedia and various other sources, even though he was already Valkorion at that point.

Aye, he had multiple contemporaneous personas, but only one of them was a Sith Lord. Plagueis’s accolade doesn’t apply to Valkorion.

The Ellimist wrote:Sidious did that to a completely unsuspecting, half-drunk, asleep Plagueis who didn't bother to use any defenses aside from midichlorian manipulation. In reality, it is much more difficult to penetrate TK barriers than it is lightning barriers (e.g. Mace deflected Sidious's TK but couldn't handle his lightning, Sidious nearly overwhelmed Yoda with lightning despite their being stated to be equals vs. the statement that it requires several Jedi to overpower a single's barrier, etc.).

Valkorion can casually penetrate Plagueis’s telekinetic barriers as the star scaling proves, so this is not an issue. He chokes Plagueis out.

The Ellimist wrote:Post-boost Sidious still interpreted Plagueis's spirit reaching out to him as a "power greater than himself".

Nope, that was pre-boost Sidious. Also, he merely theorizes it might be Plagueis, but that it could also simply be the feeling of apotheosis. Your argument has no leg to stand on.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis wrote:Plagueis slid to the floor and rolled facedown. Death rattled his lungs and he died.

OneOne-FourDee started to approach, but Sidious motioned for it to stop.

"We're going to have to find you a new home and a new body, droid."

OneOne-FourDee looked once at the Muun, then at Sidious. "Yes, Master Palpatine."

Sidious moved to the window, then turned to regard the murder scene. Hego Damask would appear to have died because of a malfunction of the breathing apparatus. He would have the droid alert the medtechs. But no autopsy would be performed, and no inquest would follow. Holos of their appearance at the Galaxies Opera would run on the HoloNet, and pundits would weigh in. Senator Palpatine might garner even greater sympathy; his delight in being elected to the chancellorship diminished by the sudden death of a powerful financial ally.

Sidious moved back into the room to take a closer look at Plagueis. Then, after a long moment, he returned to the window and pulled the drapes aside.

His spirit soared, but briefly.

Something was shading his sense of triumph: a vague awareness of a power greater than himself. Was it Plagueis reaching out from the far side of death to vex him? Or was the feeling a mere consequence of apotheosis?

Outside, the summits of the tallest buildings were gilded by the first rays of daylight.

The Ellimist wrote:Vitiate had an apprentice, and has Nathema's power.

This does not necessarily make him a Sith Master. It could simply make him a Sith teacher. Sidious himself distinguishes between the two.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis wrote: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."

The Ellimist wrote:The idea was to catch Plagueis off-guard. If Plagueis had warning, he could just leave (as he did). And this is pre-prime Plagueis anyway. The point of the statement is to show where Sidious perceived Plagueis's power relative to his own.

Plagueis surviving the detonation because he was warned beforehand clearly wouldn’t make him seem almost omnipotent to Sidious. Sidious clearly thought he tanked the explosion, which means such a feat is beyond his ability.

Also, the nuke was only like a month or two before Plagueis’s death, so he wasn’t that far off his prime.

The Ellimist wrote:1. Plagueis's death rearranged entire constellations.

Could have easily been a chain reaction. He’s clearly not that strong combatively.

-- -- --

None of Plagueis’s wank binds Valkorion. As I’ll demonstrate below, Valkorion’s wank does bind Plagueis, though.

COUNTERS TO VALLEY OF THE JEDI SCALING COUNTERS

The Ellimist wrote:Jerec was able to immediately access "Force powers beyond imagination", along with either absolute or near-omniscience that gave him knowledge of the universe on the level of Marvel-style cosmic awareness, from knowing the origins of the Force to the history of the galaxy.

Vitiate, meanwhile:
Couldn't figure out that Revan and Malak had failed on their mission
Didn't know about the weak state of the Republic
Failed to anticipate Revan knocking his lightning back on him
Failed to anticipate, and had to divert all his attention to blocking at the last minute t3's flamethrower
Failed to detect Scourge's deception
Failed to accurately gauge the Outlander's willpower
Didn't know about "my mind, my rules" mechanics

As I already said and you conveniently ignored, Jerec also got severed from the Force by Kyle Katarn in spite of his enlightenment and supreme powers. Therefore Vitiate making similar blunders in combat does not deprive him of his right to Valley of the Jedi+ level power either. Not to mention that, as I have already stated, Vitiate wasn’t fully able to contain all that power as of the novel, meaning he couldn’t tap into those reserves fully to ascertain the things you criticize him for.

And the last two I’m not even seeing any evidence for. Where is it indicated he was unable to gauge the Outlander’s willpower or was ignorant of the rules of The Dark Side Sourcebook?

The Ellimist wrote:1. Vitiate's Nathema ritual is not nearly as powerful as the thought bomb (the claim in the reverse is based on assumptions that went unsupported, like the claim that Naga Sadow > Bane [linking to a long external blog doesn't count...],

I do not see how it doesn’t count; it provides substantiation for my claim.

The Ellimist wrote:#2 brings up the question of how Jerec can access so much more of the power than Vitiate can? Does this mean that the thought bomb and Nathema aren't analogous in their mechanisms?

No, it simply means Jerec had more midi-chlorians than Vitiate from the get-go.

The Ellimist wrote:"8,000 of the most powerful" does not mean "the 8,000 most powerful", so this rather bizarre claim that all 8,000 Sith were stronger than Naga Sadow doesn't work, and so even if we just assume that Sadow > Bane, no relativity between Nathema and the thought bomb has been established.

And which college dropout came up with this logic?

The Ellimist wrote:Also, Valkorion scales below Knightfall Vader, who is the "most powerful enemy ever faced by the Jedi", and had the highest midichlorian count in history to harness that power with, yet Vader was unable to figure out his premonitions or midichlorian manipulation, and was tagged by Cin Drallig (per RotS video game), and just generally clearly did not have a complete understanding of the nature of the Force that Jerec allegedly obtained just by touching that level of power.

The Jedi never faced Valkorion as an organization, so the accolades don’t apply to him. Also, prove that Anakin had the highest midi-chlorian count among any being ever - as far as I know, it was only among recorded Jedi in history.

The Ellimist wrote:Based on what? The level of near-immortality Vitiate attained hadn't been attained by anyone prior, including extremely powerful Sith who were obsessed with immortality. It very clearly isn't a trivial thing to do - Naga Sadow's meditation sphere allowed him to collapse stars but did nothing for his attempted immortality.

Darth Sion was so weak he repeatedly died to random Jedi in combat but still became immortal through sheer will. Clearly, being immortal doesn’t require that much power and only an infinitesimal fraction of the strength afforded by the Nathema Ritual would be going into keeping Vitiate ageless.

The Ellimist wrote:That ritual made Scourge incapable of feeling anything, while Vitiate was obsessed with being able to experience everything, so it's hardly analogous.

Scourge clearly feels self-preservation and wistfulness. In fact, he, too, is obsessed with sensations and feelings, much like Vitiate, so it’s not a contradiction. Vitiate’s quest may even have been inspired by the very same ritual he subjected himself to that he also did to Scourge. Scourge even likens his condition to that of the Emperor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vTOEamtNgk&t=6m44s (6:44 to 7:50)

The Ellimist wrote:How do you know that? Your case here clearly isn't relying on intuition if it's claiming that all 8,000 Sith in the ritual were individually above Naga Sadow (or all the other claims being made here), so what is the evidence?

The ritual just involves some liquids pumped into one’s body through tubes. It’s clearly not something that takes star-busting energies or even a fraction of that.

The Ellimist wrote:That's the case for taking a vague statement Valkorion said while gloating to be literally true? A Sith saying that something has "supreme power" is a joke in terms of credibility.

Valkorion is literally just saying that the Outlander is the most powerful body around. That’s what "a vessel of supreme power" means in this context. It has nothing to do with Sith arrogance. No reason to be suspicious of it.

The Ellimist wrote:He had nowhere else to go!

Uh, no, he could have just bided his time like he did for entire two expansions while continuing to mold the Outlander into a suitable vessel. That he didn’t suggests the Outlander was already prime for containing his full power.

The Ellimist wrote:He had previously been in his original body too, which you don't think could harness his full power, so him entering the Outlander's body means nothing.

The Ellimist wrote:Where does it say that?!

The Ellimist wrote:That just suggests it's stronger than it was before.

All of them are fighting for their lives, so it’s clear they are all using their full power. Despite this, the Outlander’s body is in perfectly fine condition. It proves Valkorion made it strong enough to contain his full power with just a flick of his wrist.

Also, proof for Tenebrae occupying his original body previously (as in, after the novel)?

-- -- --

None of your arguments are sufficient. Valkorion’s Valley of the Jedi scaling stands.

COUNTERS TO THE STAR SCALING COUNTERS

The Ellimist wrote:2. Ziost was done on a nexus with the possession of potentially millions of beings and hundreds-thousands of Force users.

Subsequent characters in the chain scale above the feat regardless, so it doesn’t matter that it was on a nexus.

The Ellimist wrote:3. This still pales in scale next to unbalancing the entire cosmic Force.

I’ve asked you to prove that before and you haven’t. Also, prove that they unbalanced “the entire” Cosmic Force.

The Ellimist wrote:4. It's never confirmed that the star changed colors; that could just be a cinemati-the way that the light was being scattered from the perspective of the camera (e.g. changes in the way sunlight interacts on Earth do not come from changing the sun itself, but rather scattering and refraction of light).

The camera moving slightly while in space wouldn’t completely alter the color of the entire star, just like in real life it doesn’t do that to our sun. If you dismiss it as a cinematic filter, I will dismiss the entire Darth Plagueis novel as hyperbole. Writing off feats like that is just plain dishonest.

The Ellimist wrote:5. Changing colors via rituals doesn't necessarily translate to literal changes in temperature; Nathema drained the color out of the planet but this doesn't reflect some changing of starlight or the radiation absorptive properties of the planet's surface.
6. Ziost could've easily been a ritual.

If you dismiss it as a ritual, I will dismiss all of Plagueis’s feats as rituals prepared off-screen. Nathema’s color changing came as a byproduct of all its Force energy being stripped away, which supports the idea that Vitiate drained the sun of its energy.

The Ellimist wrote:7. This doesn't have direct relevance to the ability to tank a surprise nuke, given that Valkorion couldn't tank a lightsaber to the back.

Valkorion didn’t have his defenses on at the time.

The Ellimist wrote:Vaylin's combat ability is way below her raw power.

The Outlander concluded that she’s more powerful than Valkorion from her performance in combat, so her combative ability scales above Ziost regardless.

The Ellimist wrote:Valkorion was a weakened spirit at the time.

Red herring. The Outlander is comparing Vaylin’s power to what he’s seen of Valkorion, and the pinnacle of that was Ziost. That peak Valkorion in reality was stronger than that isn’t the point.

The Ellimist wrote:It was combat; that doesn't mean it was literal.

You said “ragdoll,” which is clearly in reference to a literal action. Don’t try to backpedal. Otherwise I will rewrite this entire debate.

-- -- --

None of your arguments are valid. The star scaling stands.

--- --- --- --- ---

OMNIKORION’S ONE-SHOT

"Conjure a hundred more holocrons, an arsenal of superweapons… Nothing will stop me."

I. DARTH SIDIOUS

Darth Sidious surpassed Darth Plagueis in power. You have already posted several of the quotes proving this, so I don’t need to.

II. UPEKZAR

Upekzar is a completely random planet in Sith space. However, when its nexus energies were condensed into one being, that concentration of energy was more powerful than anything Luke Skywalker had ever experienced, including the reborn Palpatine or Abeloth.

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Ascension wrote:They all felt it, down to the last Jedi Knight. Luke could sense the dark side here more strongly than anywhere else he could recall. And even he found his stomach clenching and his skin erupting in goose-flesh; he, who had looked into the face of the dark side and defeated it more times than he could recall.

The evil was not merely ancient. It was-

"Distilled," Jaina said, stepping beside him as they looked at the ruins of the city before them. Directly above the city and the dormant volcano a mere three kilometers away roiled an ugly black cloud. No simple storm, this; it did not drift from its site, and its gray-black depths occasionally flashed with blue Force lightning. Wind blew from the city, strong and foul smelling and cold. The storm, and the dark-side energies, were here.

Just here.

"A good word," said Kyle Katarn. "It's ... coalesced here, somehow."

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Ascension wrote:"Of course, sir." She nodded at him. Luke gave Ben a final concerned, affectionate glance, then started off with his Jedi.

Toward a city more full of concentrated dark-side energy, of hate, and anger, and fear, and violence, than anything Luke Skywalker had known before.

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Ascension wrote:The crack widened, and more darkness was revealed - darkness that was luminous, pulsating. Abeloth had somehow managed to harness all, or close to all, the dark-side energy that permeated this world, and compress it into this one pitiable being. What had once been Tola Annax now contained unfathomable dark-side energy waiting to be released. It had been both a trick and a test. Had they attacked her, leaping into the pit and slicing her to ribbons with lightsabers, they would have been at the center of the explosion. No one would have survived - and they might yet not survive.

III. THE RITUAL OF NATHEMA

The Ritual of Nathema was "the largest dark side nexus the galaxy would ever see" Note that Upekzar still existed as a Sith world during this era, so the Ritual of Nathema scales above it, and when condensed into one being, would be even more potent than Upekzar condensed into one being. Given Vitiate internalized the nexus, he is more powerful than even Palpatine or Abeloth, and therefore vastly more powerful than Plagueis.



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Valkorion one-shots Plagueis.

Good post and really interresting scaling chain provided for Valkorion. However, because the previous post from Elm was rushed this post in his response is less impressive. Thus the global level of this debate isn't as high as it could have been.