★ Top Fifteen Tournament #2 - Palpatine

Actually, I’m changing my vote to Valkorion.

KingofBlades wrote:Do the sheev supporters have any counter to Valkorion scaling vastly above draining a planet in 30 seconds?

It wasn't just drain though, he ripped 'fissures' into the surface of the planet and effected the core so badly that the magnetic field of the planet fried everything in orbit.

Azronger wrote:@KingofBlades @NotAA3ripping holes in space-time and manipulating energies potent enough to raze the surfaces of worlds, being the fulcrum of the Galactic Empire through the dark side, telekinetically levitating a 19-kilometer-long Super Star Destroyer, clouding the foresight of 10 000 Jedi and unbalancing the Force through one's personal power in the dark side, and so on?

1.The fabric of space-time? I'm guessing you've never heard of Nathema. Which Vitiate could maintain and control freely, even as a disembodied spirit trapped in the temples of Yavin IV. Indicating that he did it with more ease than suppressing Vaylin's power constantly.

2.If by 'fulcrum' you mean maintaining an empire, Vitiate did that for over a thousand years through his will.

3.Sub-Nihilus at best, tbh.

4.Wasn't the Sith shrine under the Jedi Temple part of the reason too? Nevertheless, the First Son could shroud the power of hundreds of Act II Barsen'thor scale Force-users from not only the entire Jedi Order, but from themselves. He also did this whilst on the Jedi High Council as Syo Bakarn for decades, and hid his existence from his own host the entire time. The First Son only has a fraction of Vitiate's power. Nevermind Valkorion.

5.Sidious and Plagueis combining into one entity after months of non-stop 'intense' meditation unbalanced the Force. Something DE Sidious didn't cause with his return to power. So obviously, Sidious wasn't just causing it to happen through his presence. That's not even taking Mortis into account.

Even then, the Sith Triumvirate's growth in power was casually linked to the increasing power of the dark side of the Force, Nihilus is at best sub-Exar Kun who is canonically inferior to SWTOR Vitiate.

That all?

The ship Nihilus held together was 150m.

What? It was 1200 meters long, nor did you account for his fleet of 600 meter Sith Interdictors. But what makes it exceptional is the circumstances, the ships were buried several kilometers beneath the surface. So not only did he pull them out of the surface of Malachor V, but he then pulled them through magnetic storms and mass shadow gravity wells. This of course being a massively pre-prime feat for Nihilus, hence even this feat is sub-Nihilus. Just being honest.

Still waiting on the Ant/Skillz post so I can switch my vote to Valk

I'm waiting on it so I can witness the match of the century.

Az's Sheev against Skillz's Valk.

Azronger wrote:@Quorian Debatist

Fair enough: Nyax demonstrated more speed than Luke there. As I said earlier, I didn't know the context of the quote and was just going off of what MasterCilghal posted. Your evidence is better. However, it begs the question of whether Luke was exerting himself to the fullest. As Star Wars' all-time jobber, I don't see why the default assumption should be that he's going all-out and then scaling an otherwise unknown entity from him that way.

The issue with Luke's "jobbing" is that it's usually done against known opponents, where we know he should do better. Nyax, however, has nothing "lower" like a Lumiya does that you can claim Luke was definitively jobbing. So his "unknown factor" works for him as well. Couple this with Luke thinking he's walking his wife - who a novel or two back had his newborn son who Luke had to go save both from dying - into nigh-certain death and it stands to reason he is definitively less powerful. Luke already felt the measure of Nyax's power and decided he and his wife were still likely to die. I'm not certain that is congruent with him withholding much if any power per the situation.

Next, Luke was "jobbing" in the Vong War when he feared the Darkside, not every time he drew on the force. That sort of situation, however, wasn't prevalent in the Nyax fight, nor any novel besides Dark Tide to my recollection. However, his power wasn't lower, he just got exhausted from fear. In the same novel [Dark Tide] he still has the infamous Dovin Basal feat, or as you might be more familiar with it - THE BLACK HOLE FEAT!

In the Vong War his understanding of the Force is greater than ever from a source that predates NYAX:



And he himself as of 25ABY is NOW Beyond Power and Incredible:
https://i.imgur.com/fzn6AOQ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Col8cvC.jpg

Which stands to reason considering he's been a Jedi for 22 years as opposed to something like 7 for instance... I heard you're a pretty big proponent in guys growing over time or something...?


So, now a Jedi for 24 years against a guy who he thinks will probably kill him AND the mother of his newborn. It's very unlikely he was "jobbing" or withholding vast amounts of power. He might not have been very showy in the Vong War at times - Taps as opposed to a hammer - but that doesn't mean his power was lower for some reason.



However, that's not good enough.

Nyax was explicitly more powerful than Luke drawing off the same nexus. What this means is that Luke was definitely not afraid of using his power, or extra power for that matter and Nyax was still portrayed above him.

Here he is overpowering Luke in a flying boulder fight, tanking a force blast, and the narration makes note of Nyax being more powerful than any being has ever felt, and Luke is directly weaker in case we didn't get the memo.

Spoiler:

While these feats may not transfer 1 to 1 in their base forms, the message is pretty clear; Nyax is above 27 ABY Luke not afraid to heavily call on the Force. There's no way to paint Luke as of this time as above Nyax max power or not. This would naturally extend to speed and other areas. So while I can't prove Luke was going all out in the first encounter, I can show that it wouldn't have mattered anyway, along with reasons why he should have been trying.

Again, my knowledge here is very limited, but Denua Ku is a Yuuzhan Vong observing them fight, correct? Meaning he can perceive their movements? Do Yuuzhan Vong have enhanced eyesight beyond normal humans, much less Force-sensitives such as Maul, Anakin, or Leia, all of whom have struggled to see Sidious' movements with their naked eyes in a fight?

After all, we are talking about the guy who from time to time has such jobbing moments as failing to lift an AT-PT walker only a year before DE, running from droidekas in 22 ABY, and struggling against the sub-Vader Lumiya well into his Grand Master years. If it's empirically proven a Yuuzhan Vong is capable of following him fight, then he's not going very fast at all against Nyax there, is he?

Unless of course the Vong's eyesight is far greater than ordinary humans' and even some Force users, in which case you have a point. If you can also definitively prove Luke was going all-out, I'll concede on Nyax's speed.

While the Vong may lack speed feats in great detail - or rather, NJO is a big series to scour for speed feats - their perception is the thing on display here with Nyax. I'll keep out of using Shapers, Slayers, or Shimrras and stick to lesser Vong who all Vong should have access to the same kinds of implants or eyes even.



Here is Nom Anor keeping track of Oneness Ganner - through smoke and piles of bodies - who was killing thousands of random Vong in around 10 minutes. 3 plus Vong a second or something like that. I'll add that these random Vong did hit him... a lot, which means they also kept track of him to a degree.

Spoiler:

And some random speed feats. The thing with the Vong is they never really had trouble keeping track of the Jedi, so a lot of their speed feats are just beating or tagging Jedi. I'll get two actual feats that you might like out of the way first:

Denua Ku's Master who he's most certainly seen fight:

Spoiler:

Shok Choka moving almost faster than Anakin Solo's vision could process:

Spoiler:

Anakin losing to a fodder Vong while using the choreography of the Force:

Spoiler:

Early 25ABY!Luke getting tagged by a fodder Vong when he was drawing heavily on the Force - this is the fight where the "NJO exhaustion" all starts. Pretty much every novel has Luke outdo this performance, which could show growth, but important to note nonetheless.

Spoiler:

Oneness Anakin getting tagged by fodder and having to defend himself from them:

Spoiler:

There's a lot more of these kinds of feats, but the main thing is they don't seem to have a problem with perceiving movement, but rather reacting to it at times. Even then they aren't just normal humans in that range and have decent reaction feats.

Couple this with the above of what I said about Luke, and I don't think Denua is a dubious narrator in that respect.



I am highly opposed to the slight Malgus speed wank there though. Get that out of here.

The Emperor summoned a Force storm "as he perished" to "rend space" and transport his essence across the galaxy in Return of the Jedi when he had inferior control of the ability than he did in Dark Empire. It's instantaneous. Palpatine outright says he can do so "Through a simple act of Will" and with "mere thought and inclination."

Well, that goes against the actual sources. The Source aligns that it happened after the Battle of Endor:




Backed up here:




And Sheev tells the Spirits that they guided him back to life when he was destroyed by Vader. He said the spirits guided him back WHEN he was destroyed by Vader. Not their knowledge, but he implies they were there to help him.






Secondly, your theory presents some problems, notably why did he not just use a Force Storm before he died if it was instantaneous? Would you have me believe he was in a mad rage, DIED and instantly regained his composure and said oh well, might as well use a Force Storm to teleport my SPIRIT? That's not believable in the least. The Dude was literally zapping himself to death mere seconds earlier.

Why and how did he summon a Force Storm inside a reactor without Vader/Luke noticing?

Why does an essence need to use a Force Storm to travel? Are you telling me the Sith Spirits all use a Force Storm to travel planet to planet? That the Sith Spirits taught him how to master the Force Storm?

Why was there no Force Storm on Droga's end?

"As he perished" also doesn't need to be a one stage process. It could simply be him just avoiding it mid-dissolution.

Etc.



Your source doesn't make mention of an actual Hyperspace Wormhole. Only that it afforded him the ability to rend space TO transport his essence. These don't have to be separate ideas. You're talking about a guy who ultimately died from having every Jedi spirit immediately Force Storm to his location and drags his Essence down into Chaos. There are workarounds that don't have to be tied to Force Storm that still involve technically "rending space" to get his Essence across space and time.  All he has to do is bypass the limitations of space for this to be true.
Example: Every Sith and Jedi Spirit. No Kun though. I'd bring up how Valk travels differently in a similar state, but I don't want to get too in-depth with him.

You're confusing the storm appearing to Luke and Leia on the viewscreen with the storm being summoned in the first place. That they're watching it take form is self-evident as the storm gets larger over time, but doesn't mean they saw it appear out of thin air when it first manifested in the physical world. The rumbling noises that appear as Sheev starts talking continue even after Luke and Leia notice and comment on the storm - that's proof the sounds don't signify its creation before it appears in the physical realm, but rather they indicate the storm is already present.

Well no, let's look at dictionary definitions here:

Spoiler:

I don't want to keep clicking every link and post them in order. "Take Form" on its own implies the very start or very near to the start. The fact that they're watching it "Take Form" after half a minute casts doubt on its speedy nature as well.
They watch it "Take form" "AS a great storm rends the fabric of space." All of these things imply they watch the beginning stages of the wormhole opening, or very near to it.

Though I am curious as to how much it grows as they watch? Once they get to the window, they only make note of how he created another one and it's descending on the base. Which aligns well with them watching it in its infancy, but not necessarily for it growing larger until he loses control.



We don't hear the big thunder until the storm gets revealed in full if we're going by sound. The rumblings persisting after creation isn't surprising if we go by my theory. You'd assume the sound that happened when it was being created by the guy right beside them would continue to be audible somewhere in there. A bunch of power coalescing until it reaches its climax. For example, the clouds around the wormhole forming until the wormhole opens. The way I see the formation is that he whips the "clouds" into a frenzy until they create the wormhole if that makes sense. Basically clouds first and then wormhole and that's the complete Force Storm to me. So that would explain the rumblings, the will and inclination, and the timeframe to me. While he might be able to trigger the process instantaneously, it takes a little bit of time for it to erupt in full.

Though this, and your next point [ENDGAME] highlight the restrictions of the mediums we're basing this off of. One simple official animation could have cleared this matter up entirely. I tried to find a video of dudes whipping up wind tunnels to transport someone like I'm sure we've all seen a thousand times, but that took longer than writing this post and I gave up. When you want something it's hard to find.

And why would we assume that? We know the storm appeared as soon as Palpatine started talking, and we know that he can trigger them instantaneously just by thinking about it. Even if the trigger and the actual storm appearing are different phenomena (which I don't see the need to baselessly assume), it doesn't affect the technique's efficacy in a combat situation since Palpatine did tear open space with it instantaneously to transport his spirit.

Because Sheev not even having the idea from him getting his hand cut off through Luke's speech is doubtful. Do you mean to tell that during Luke's entire speech he didn't even think of it until he himself started talking? He had 8 seconds through Luke's speech. He had even more time from when he got his hand cut off. For your take to be true, he was essentially wasting all that time and the idea popped into his head after a void of nothing once he decided to start talking. In the time it took him to say "Look" he already thought about and created the storm? How is this more likely than him taking a few seconds to summon it?

I don't assume Sheev is that dumb is all. The gap is a perfect opportunity to recenter himself and summon a storm. Hence 8 seconds being a minimum in this case.

However, you do make a good point with efficiency. I don't deny it allows for a potentially easy kill. I just also think a good old fashion speedblitz is pretty easy as well, which I'm sure you'd agree with.

So even if it takes time for the energy storm to manifest from the hole in space-time, Sheev can still use just the rending itself to separate Malgus's head from his shoulders just by thinking about the storm appearing in his location similar to what Wong did to Cull Obsidian in Avengers: Infinity War. Note that Sheev doesn't even technically have to rip through Malgus' Force barrier since he's not directly targeting Malgus but the space around him.



(2:15)

The endnotes for the sixth comic issue even state he is capable of this, labelling him as "a chaotic nexus of dark energies that swell and burst open the fabric of space, tearing apart everything in the vicinity, human and machine."

Interesting point. However, due to the nature of the Force Storm, I'm not sure I'd agree it can be used in that capacity. It's essentially a wormhole, which would mean that it creates a bubble around the area in which space is warped. It expands around you. It opening on top of his head would simply shunt him to the other side of the wormhole in theory. It has only affected the space around him while his body is still attached. For your theory to hold true, Sheev would have to cut off the wormhole while Malgus is halfway through, thus closing the "door" on him. This would be hard to time due to the intense nature and speed of the pull.

What Dr Strange is doing is a thin little doorway between two planes. What Sheev is doing is creating a sort of "Cosmic Vacuum" that anything it sucks in has to travel through a long tube to get to its destination. Think of it like a guillotine for Strange. You can walk through the doorway instantly to get through the other side all you want, but once that blade comes down, one piece of your body is on one side, while the other is on the other side. Anything in-between will be severed. You are in two places at once if you are in the middle.
With Sheev, if you are in the event horizon, you are still in the process of traveling through the area no matter how quick the trip might be. You are not in two different locations at once unless space is really being whacky. The danger comes from it literally sucking you apart. So with it opening on Malgus' head, for example, the danger would be the forces enacted on him would theoretically suck his head off his shoulders and tear him to shreds. Which you know, would work too, but it's not the same as what you presented.

The Force Storm is so deadly to ships and planets because the more mass you have, the more you're going to resist the cosmic suck. But the pull is so great that it literally tears you to shreds, and it pulls harder on anything closer to the hole so it's not pulling on things evenly. You should be in less danger if you just go into the storm, than if you resist... hypothetically anyway. With humans, we have confirmation that it can rip them to shreds regardless, but this doesn't account for Force Users simply shielding from the effects. Now, I'm not saying Malgus is a Luke Skywalker, but he did resist getting torn to shreds from the same wormhole that was heavily damaging the planet and machines, so it's interesting what the limits there would be. There are ways around that like dumping into a sun or deep space...

A smaller wormhole than what Malgus can fit through should mimic the same effects as the pull against a ship on paper. It'd be similar to those videos of the crabs getting sucked through a tiny hole in the deep sea and the pressure ripping them apart. Meh, sorry, going off on a different thought here.

Assuming the Emperor would opt to use lightning before storm, let's examine his lightning, then.


In conclusion? Yoda is clearly faster and better than Sidious in a lightsaber duel. He forces Sidious into the Senate Chamber where the latter sought "refuge" as a result of being "Overmatched". On the podium, Yoda nearly forces Sidious off the edge several times, and after ramping up his speed, disarms him in three blows.

Yet he repeatedly fails to react to Sheev's lightning. In the movie he even fails to get his hands up at the start. On one occasion (two, if you count the novelization) he even has his lightsaber ready, and is fully expecting lightning as his adversary was without his lightsaber and lightning was the directly antecedent attack (in both the novel, and the movie and junior novel), so you can't say he was caught off-guard at any time there.

Sidious' lightning is much, much faster than the man himself is when dueling with a blade. So tying this to Luke, yes, he defeated the Emperor in a lightsaber duel, but that in no way means he can move faster than the Emperor's lightning as Yoda couldn't in a similar situation. Therefore, even if I did concede Nyax is faster than an all-out Luke post-DE (and to be clear, I haven't), it doesn't prove Nyax can kill Malgus quicker than the Emperor could with lightning, something which Sidious has used to open fights before (vs Yoda, vs Galen). And that's being generous to Nyax in ignoring that Luke was amped by Battle Meditation when he fought Sheev, and that we don't know if his victory was even the result of greater speed rather than superior skill, both factors which cast doubt on Nyax's alleged speed advantage over Sheev even further.

I wasn't stating which is more likely for him to use, rather I was asking which do you think would be faster if two Sheevs lined up and were asked to use the attacks. The fact that you supplied so much wank for lightning does nothing but make me question the speed of the Force Storm even more. Like I mean, there's no way Force Storm is that fast, right? The further you separate the speed of the Force Storm from lightning makes it all the more questionable of just how fast we can assume it is. If it's not as quick as lightning, then its merits as "instantaneous" are thrown into disarray. We then have to look at what is the more likely reconciliation of such quotes, and I believe I've shared a couple over my post - he can "trigger" it very easy and without deep meditation, and it happens fairly fast, etc, but the actual storm takes a little bit of time. Not too much mind you, but comparable to a charged attack. Fast for a ritual, slow for a saber duel imo.

Then we just look at both of them on the surface as well:

One shoots lightning out of his hands.

One is an entire storm surrounding a wormhole that forms away from Sheev.

That type of extravagant combination on the surface makes it very doubtful it's faster than an attack that comes from within.


Touching on lightning a bit; if Sheev can reasonably one-shot kill Malgus with lightning, then that would be ideal. The issue here is that if Malgus were combat-ready, he might conceivably block some of it, and he's proven resilient if nothing else to blasts and heavy degrees of damage. I'm not sure what the quickest time Sheev has straight-up killed an adequate force user, but I'm very hesitant to say he can reliably ash Malgus off the hop. I have the same reserves with Valk using that Arcann one-shot to say he can ash Malgus as well. A Saber is a guaranteed kill, but lightning? I guess he could just continue zapping Malgus so hmm.
More than anything I am curious about this now.

Don't want to get into the semantics of the Battle Meditation debate, but I will touch upon the possibility that he defeated Sheev through superior skill. This skill would only be expanded upon during the 17 years of training and experience he attains as a Jedi. Which would mean that Nyax not only dealt with his speed in that case but potentially vastly increased skills from the necessary skills to defeat Sheev in a duel? Not only was Nyax faster, but Luke's increased skills couldn't overcome him either. Not sure this exactly hinders Nyax to any degree tbh.



Anyway, I have maybe one more post in me on this subject, and then I'll let the people Xolthol and Cilghal decide. Very interesting discussion... for me anyway, not sure about you. The workings of these things without visual movement to guide us yields different interpretations.

I'm not wasting a potential last post on what Praxis wrote though.

Quorian Debatist wrote:I'm not wasting a potential last post on what Praxis wrote though.

Concession accepted.

Concession accepted.

OT-Good post Bran.

So when are Skillz or Ant going to post on the deadline?

@Quorian Debatist Really good post. Waiting for @Azronger response before choosing.

Voting for sidious

Voting for Valk unless the sheev supporters can make a convincing case

I've still seen nothing in the way of a real argument for Sheev here. That's exactly what I was saying from the start. No actual debate, just spam voting your era.

Palps

LadyKulvax wrote:I've still seen nothing in the way of a real argument for Sheev here. That's exactly what I was saying from the start. No actual debate, just spam voting your era.

The point of the tournament is more to gauge public consensus than to foster giant debates, though I imagine a lot of threads will end up having giant debates.

Az convinced me that while Sidious doesn't have anything of a similar nature to Ziost he certainly has adequate feats of his own. Throw me in for Palpatine.

NotAA3 wrote:Az convinced me that while Sidious doesn't have anything of a similar nature to Ziost he certainly has adequate feats of his own. Throw me in for Palpatine.

Which I replied to, and he's yet to give anything in the way of a response. In terms of arguments, he's still very much on the backfoot.

Ziost was accomplished by a spirit version of a much weaker Vitiate. Yet it's still comparable, if not outright outclasses, anything Sheev has in terms of destructive quality.

Sheev supremacy FTW

Nyax

Ant and Skillz aren't making that case after all. Disappointing.

@Quorian Debatist

I apologize since I probably won't get my response out before this thread closes, but I think we both know the outcome of this round can't be changed at this point, so I don't think it matters that much. However, I want to continue this discussion, so I'll post after the closing if that's okay with you.