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Setting is in the Geonosis Arena.Who wins?

I might get crucified for saying this, but until such a time when Marka Ragnos's abilities have been properly displayed - and where he has been shown to possess the powers to repulse a Force Storm, then I will go with DE Sidious.

Sidious. His mastery over the darkness is much greater.

-H6

DE Sidious.

Sidious. Ragnos is THE most overrated character and Ragnos's own creator considers Sidious above him. That's enough for me.
Especially as Sidious's force storm was the strongest usage of the Dark Side in galactic history, and he's got mastery of every Sith and Jedi powers that ccan possibly best someone

It's up there. Force drain as well.

I wouldn't say all the things that lightsnake said but i agree that DE sidous would win

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Sidious. Ragnos is THE most overrated character and Ragnos's own creator considers Sidious above him. That's enough for me.
Especially as Sidious's force storm was the strongest usage of the Dark Side in galactic history, and he's got mastery of every Sith and Jedi powers that ccan possibly best someone

Dont you mean his creator considers Exar Kun above him?

No actually I think he has said that Sidious is above him as well.

Sidious should be able to pull this off. His incredible grasp of the dark side of the force is terrifying. However, Ragnos is incredibly powerful and was one of the most powerful of the ancient sith at his time, which speaks volumes for his power.

Originally posted by Admiral Akbar
Dont you mean his creator considers Exar Kun above him?

Sidious was called "the most powerful Sith ever" in the New Essential Chronology, which was co-written by non other than Kevin J. Anderson, who created Kun and Ragnos (and who stated that Kun > Ragnos).

Sidious is hardly the most powerful sith ever. He is powerful though.

And who would be the most powerful sith then?

Hmm... overall Sidious is stronger because with his Force Storm he can destroy entire fleet's at a time. But against Ragnos? I say it depends on whether or not Ragnos is able to block the Force Storm.

I strongly doubt it, very strongly...

Force storm isn't even Sidious greatest ability. Teleportation is.

wtf? Were is this coming from again?

And yeah, MArka Ragnos is a pussy. Sids takes this.

Just to be an *sshole I'll say Ragnos pwns Sidious.

The quote had nothing to do with KJA. It was all Wallace's personal opinion.

Wasn't the quote very vague as well? IIRC, it was used pretty casually.

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
Force storm isn't even Sidious greatest ability. Teleportation is.

The "teleportation" is the Force Storm. Sidious can either destroy the target or transport it.

Originally posted by Generic Hero
The quote had nothing to do with KJA. It was all Wallace's personal opinion.

I read the e-mail.

It was also LFI approved, and Kevin J. Anderson's name is on the cover of the book. I'm sure that if he disagreed with it, it would've been changed.

Secondly, according to Lightsnake (though he may be incorrect), his email from KJA said that "if Kun or Palpatine ever had a fight, we'd find out who the greatest Sith Lord was."

Meaning that, from his opinion, Kun or Palpatine is the most powerful.

I consider them seperate attacks.

That's not word for word, but that's the gist of it

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
Force storm isn't even Sidious greatest ability. Teleportation is. Uh, what? Teleportation? I think it's time I read DE, do they have it at swcomics.com?

I think so

I have a question about DE. When palpatine is about to transfer himself to a new body and Luke tries to kill all the Clones, it says "Realizing the Enperor can only transfer his consciousness to a living body, Luke lunges for the nearest Clone Vat." so if killing all the Clones could stop him from transferring his consciousness to a living body why couldn't Palpatine transfer it to someone like Leia or someone far away, does he have to transfer it to someone in the same room? And did Luke plan to make Palpatine transfer his consciousness into Luke's body sp Luke could destroy them both or what?

Good question.

I don't know why, as he was willing to possess the body of Anakin Solo when he was born.

My personal theory is that, perhaps, Luke's own will and strength in the Force could have been a danger to Palpatine. Perhaps it wouldn't be a completely guarenteed possession, if you follow me.

Possibly because it was easier to grab onto one of the bodies there...and proceed to teach Luke a lesson

Here's why I think he didn't try to enter a different body.

1) Luke would have repelled him. He was strong in the Force and probably could have resisted the takeover.

2) Palpatine wanted a powerful body. His clones were powerful because they were copies of himself. Luke was powerful, but a Jedi like Luke could resist. And Leia wasn't all that powerful in comparison to Luke at the time. Imperial officers aren't Force-sensitive, and the Dark Jedi in Palpatine's control were too weak. Palpatine inhabited the body of Jeng Droga once, one of the Emperor's Hands, only so he could be transported to a clone. The process drove Jeng insane.

Plus, Rex, you forgot that Leia was female.

Though, in all actuality, I highly doubt that Emperor Palpatine would opt to possess the body of a female Force-user, no matter how powerful she may be.

Originally posted by Escape81
It was also LFI approved, and Kevin J. Anderson's name is on the cover of the book. I'm sure that if he disagreed with it, it would've been changed.

Of course...because anybody would ask Anderson about his opinion, right ? In fact Anderson himself contradicts the statement that Sidious was the most powerful because he himself thinks it's not possible to determine who's the more powerful out of two people until they have fought each other.



And again...This is simply nonsense. Anderson himself said that it's impossible to determine who's more powerful until you have a direct confrontation between two characters. Did we see "Ragnos vs Kun" anywhere ? No ? So Anderson has no basis to put Kun above other people than the ones Kun did actually fought and defeated - according to his own rules.
Not to mention that this was Anderson's answer on the question if Sidious or Kun would be more powerful (given the circumstances under which said question was asked) and it's pretty stupid to conclude anything else out of it.

Aside of this I pretty much love the way people keep "debating" things here. Let's just try to downplay the other character as much as we can and ignore the finer comments given in the original sources. 100 % "I win" guarantee in every debate. For example we can take the Dark Side Sourcebook that labels Sidious force storm "the possibly greatest use of the Dark Side" forget the "possibly" ignore the fact that we've seen possibly greater usage of the Dark Side in sources released after the Dark Side sourcebook (e.g. Nihilus draining a planet empty) et voilą: Sidious must be the most powerful Sith ever. Or we simply take the NEC comment that "Sidious is the most powerful Sith Lord ever" ignore the ambigious nature of the word "powerful" and then state that this comment wouldn't have been given if Anderson hasn't agreed with it - when we see Anderson obviously not agreeing with it. And again we've created another nice "fact". Way to go...

Ragnos ruled the Ancient Sith Empire in it's "Golden Age" (so the absolute high point of Sith magic and Sith alchemy) basically undefeated and with an "iron fist" (which hints to some conflicts at least). We know that almost any Dark Side power we've seen in use so far comes from that ancient time period including force storms (see TOTJ companion), various life-drain and force-drain techniques including large scale instakills (see KotoR 2), force lightning, force choke and so on. We have this nice statement that Sidious knows all that stuff (of course he never uses it because of some mystical reason) so let's assume this is the truth. Do you think it's quite possible that the Dark Lord of the Sith ruling the Sith Empire in it's golden age would have knowledge about all this stuff too or even more knowledge since he lives at the high point of the Sith "culture" ? I think so. Can it be that the guy with access to all this knowledge and several centuries to study + entire groups of people who had access to the same stuff and wanted his position might possess more refined knowledge about said stuff than the guy who just studied it for a century with almost no need to ever use it ? Hmm...

And at this point were reaching the funny "Ragnos is overrated" paradoxon. We have two people here that were the "top products" of their respective "Sith culture". We know that both had very similar knowledge (Sith magic, Sith alchemy, Jedi powers). So how can we "overrate" one of the characters and try to downplay the other in the same moment. Answer: It doesn't work because we can't declare the very same knowledge "not useful" for person A and then say it's "priceless" when person B has it.

It's even getting more hilarious when we introduce Anderson's statement here. Anderson himself is not sure who will win a battle between Kun and Sidious. Kun ? Anderson himself limited Kun's dark side knowledge to:

a) a very high amount of knowledge coming from Sadow
b) some bits of knowledge coming from other source but still with the "ancient Sith" as the main source

And now we can deceide ourselves if:

a)
Anderson is so in love with his own creation that he estimates Kun can master every bit of Sith knowledge not only better than the originators of said knowledge - no - he should be able to do this more than 100 times faster than the ancient Sith. This would not only require an impossible amount of intelligence (for fast learning) - he must have had an almost impossible amount of potential too as we have seen that even Anakin, the guy with the most potential ever wasn't able to overpower his own master Obi-Wan force wise.

b)
Anderson didn't even think about the ancient Sith when giving this comment to Lightsnake because the original question was if Kun would be able to beat Sidious - or who of them is the most powerful. And in this case the "Anderson thinks Kun is more powerful than Ragnos point" is quite mood. Oh no...wait...this statement is already pointless because if Kun is more powerful than Ragnos and more powerful than Sidious there is no way to conclude who would be stronger between Sidious and Ragnos here.

So while we don't have any concrete base to compare Sidious and Ragnos except that there knowledge was very possibly quite similar (in which case they would "neutralize" each other) there are some hints that Ragnos would be more likely to win a physical confrontation.

a) Thanks to all that nice retcons in the ancient time period we now have some nice proof that lightsabers were known to the ancient Sith but they prefered their Sith swords. Why ? As it seems, the swords were more powerful weapon otherwise they wouldn't have been used.

b) Ragnos is more impressive physically than Sidious.

And really people...what would it give to Sidious that he can use force storms. I'm pretty sure he won't archieve victory by crushing Ragnos and himself with said ability or teleport both of them into oblivion. And Ragnos might be able to pull the same stuff off. So what ? Stalemate through death of both participants ? Or can it be that some people that accuse others of "overrating" Ragnos constantly are now "underrating" him ?

Right, sith swords were more powerful? Nope, according to the actual material, the sith preferred the visceral feel of the sith swords rather than the sterile saber. And that sabers faded from use with the times.

Secondly? The man who CREATED Ragnos said himself it's between Kun and Sidious when I asked him DIRECTLY, he said he didn't have a way of measuring the strongest Sith, but if Kun and Sidious ever fought, we'd find out who the strongest was. You're not dancing around this, my question was clear and concise: Who is the strongest Sith, Sidious or the ones you created. Of all the ones he used for STRONGEST EVER, he didn't use Naga or Ragnos, he used Exar Kun as the strongest of the old times and said if he fought Sidious, we'd find out who was stronger.

The 'Golden Age?' of the ACTUAL EMPIRE, not the Sith themselves and two generations of Sith after were said to have surpassed the SE's 'grandeur and majesty?'...when the New Sith were creating newer and stronger techniques and creations of alchemy with the Dark Side? When they were learning to call spirits back from Chaos? When they were mastering what the Ancients had to offer and getting their own new stuff? Knowledge is GAINED over time, too. And Darth Rivan, Belia Darzu, the Dark Underlord AND Volfe Karkko were students ofthe Sith and Dark Side for centuries, are they stronger than Sidious? HYou always fall back on 'but he had centuries!' So what? Time isn't a subtitute for power and ability. Hey, how about the guy who was described as a God in the dark Side, a Titan in the Dark Side, the master of every aspect of the Force, Sith and Jedi alike...

And Sidious was stated to have used the forcd storm to a greater extent than ever before, 'greatest usage of the dark side' in history, anyone? Anderson put Kun and Sidious together, but you know what you constantly ignore? He considers them the two strongest Sith and put Kun directly above the Ancients.

Oh yes. Power is so ambiguous in that context. Get the hell over yourself, Nai. I find it truly, truly amazing how - in only Sidious's case - "power" has ambiguity to it.

Marka Ragnos was called "the most powerful of the most powerful". Well, I submit to you that, like Sidious's, that use of the word "power" is also ambiguous. Perhaps they meant physical power. Perhaps they meant political power.

Yeah, come to think of it...show me a single force user who managed to tear the fabric of reality itself...without technology.

I have to agree with Nai, Ragnos is pretty underrated here. He was incredibly powerful and Sidious wasn't too much more powerful.

Yeah, based on... what?

I believe that the correct and actual statement is: "Yoda could not defeat the most powerful Sith Lord in history". The question that Ush posed to Illustrious when he argued the exact same thing is why would the meaning of power - in this case - be "political", when it absolutely doesn't fit in context with the sentence?

Well he was in the same league as people such as Sadow, who could destroy a star...

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
Well he was in the same league as people such as Sadow, who could destroy a star...

...with his ship.

Originally posted by jollyjim311
Yeah, based on... what?

Essentially, all the pro-Ragnos factions argue that he is the most powerful based primarily on two things:

a) The statement made that: "Marka Ragnos was the most powerful of the most powerful".

b) His contemporaries feared him.

My response:

a) There has not been any source that specifically labels Marka Ragnos as "the most powerful Sith Lord ever". However, The Essential Chronology, the New Essential Chronology (co-authored by Kevin J. Anderson) and the Dark Empire sourcebook both state that Palpatine is the most powerful Sith Lord ever.

More sources cite Palpatine as "the most powerful" than any other Sith Lord! - be it Kun, Ragnos, Sadow, or any other.

And, since Nai likes to argue that Palpatine being labeled the most powerful is "ambiguous" - I submit the same thing with Ragnos.

Two can play at this game.

b) Like I told Nai before (who used to argue that Dooku > Sidious), fear isn't an exact indicator of power. Especially when that is the only thing you can base it on.

Please note. Ragnos has not been shown using any Force power to my knowledge. No comics feature him pwning people left and right, making Force-storms, crushing stars, and all that jazz. They base their assumptions primarily on fear.

Fear and a single unsupported statement which only indicates that Ragnos may have been the most powerful during his lifetime and not in history.

Furthermore, Kevin J. Anderson (creator of the Ancient Sith) said that in order to determine who would be the most powerful Sith Lord, Kun and Palpatine would have to engage in battle - and whomever would be victorious would be "the most powerful Sith Lord".

Thus meaning that the only two candidates for "most powerful Sith Lord" are Exar Kun and Emperor Palpatine and NOT Ragnos at this point in the juncture.

Case closed.

Originally posted by Escape81
...with his ship.

In DLOTS, he instantly closes his hand into a fist and boom, the star goes nova.

Don't get me wrong, he clearly wasn't the most powerful sith ever. He's not even up there imo, but neither is Sidious. They are still both clearly extremely powerful.

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
In DLOTS, he instantly closes his hand into a fist and boom, the star goes nova.

On his ship.

Please note that Sadow's "ship" focuses and augments Sadow's own power.

Sadow is EXTREMELY powerful. EXTREMELY EXTREMELY. But the supernova thing is inconclusive because he was on his ship when he did it.

There is no indication that he uses the ship to amplify his power. I thought it had been confirmed that he used amulets to do so, and not his ship in that particular case.

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
There is no indication that he uses the ship to amplify his power. I thought it had been confirmed that he used amulets to do so, and not his ship in that particular case.

I'm not aware of that, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

However, there again. His amulets. His items help to focus and augment his power. Strip all of them away (and the damn ship), and who knows if Sadow could do it.

I totally agree with you, but the fact remains that in a battle situation, he would have said items.

What part of 'DLOTS' is a reenactment and NOT THE EVENT THAT WE ACTUALLY AND PHYSICALLY SEE HAPPEN IN FOTSE is so hard to get? Sadow is even HUMAN in DLOTS

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
I totally agree with you, but the fact remains that in a battle situation, he would have said items.

We're not talking about a "battle". We're discussing power.

Nai, finally changed his mind about certain aspects of our argument concerned with Sidious and Dooku. Now, he accepts that Sidious > Dooku in "power", but that Dooku "still" has a chance of beating him.

Palpaitne, with his massive collection of weaponry and artifacts would probably have said items too...he gave Vader a Sith amulet.

Originally posted by Escape81
We're not talking about a "battle". We're discussing power.

Nai, finally changed his mind about certain aspects of our argument concerned with Sidious and Dooku. Now, he accepts that Sidious > Dooku in "power", but that Dooku "still" has a chance of beating him.

Using your logic, Exar is basically powerless compared to how he is displayed.

Exar killed Jedi MAsters and froze thousands of people

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Exar killed Jedi MAsters and froze thousands of people

Because of his powers that were amplified by sith amulets.

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Right, sith swords were more powerful? Nope, according to the actual material, the sith preferred the visceral feel of the sith swords rather than the sterile saber. And that sabers faded from use with the times.


"Hey. This is the most powerful melee weapon I've ever seen !"
"Want to use it ?"
"No. I prefer this stupid sword because it feels better !"

Yeah. Right. Let's just ignore the fact that a weapon who can withstand direct lightsaber hits but, in contrary to a lightsaber, has some weight (kynetical power) can be "felt" by the user might be just better than a lightsaber.



Do you even read the bullshit you are posting.

a) Anderson himself said he doesn't have a way of measuring the strongest Sith - other than putting characters directly against each other in a fight.

b) Question: How can he determine who's stronger between Kun and random Sith Lord X without putting them against each other especially when:

c) Kun is his only creation because Veitch designed the entire rest of the era - something Anderson gave him credit for multiple times ?

Oh my. He can't.



Irrelevant missdirection number 27,000 - 27,005.
The interpretation that the Golden Age just refers to the actual Empire is coming from you. Point mood. "Grandeur and majesty" no equals "force knowledge" ? No ? Point mood. The New Sith were creating new and stronger techniques ? Where ? Nowhere because all we see them using came from the ancients. Point mood. They could call spirits back from the Chaos ? Like Ragnos sceptre could ? Point mood. No proof for any "new stuff"...nice...point mood. Knowledge gained over time ? You mean enough knowledge is gained to not only cover prior losts of knowledge but to create even more knowledge than that which was there in the first place ?



It's nice how you completely fail to see a connection between "available knowledge" and "time to study it".



And again you cut the "possibly" out of the "greatest usage of the dark side" statement. It's getting boring. Same with your personal interpretation of Andersons words - if any of them even come from Anderson.

Hmmm....let's see. The canon says Sith preferred Sith Swords as d dangerous techniques? When'd Ragnos's spirit call spirits back from Chaos? Oh, right, his scepter could revive people, which was discovered by Tavion...according to Evil Never Dies, Tavion called Ragnos back from the realms of Chaos and elped him regain his former pothey like dthe more visceral feel and the lightsaber faded from use. Garu's mighty Sith Sword failed him against a lightsaber...Murtauggh killed the Sith Sword using Underlord, Satal Keto was using a sith sword...SUCH superior weaponry! Sorry, Nai, but according to the guide to weapons and technology..

Oh, give it a rest. KJA has been given FULL CREDIT for the Ancient Sith Empire, which Veitch didn't create! In fact, KJA had full writing credits for the Ancient Sith Empire! Veitch's vision of it was different! KJA created Ludo, Simus AND Marka Ragnos, Veitch had left by the time that was in DEVELOPMENT! And didja miss how he said he didn't have a way of determining it between Kun and Sidious? He totally took Ragnos out of the running! This is a man who at the very LEAST worked on and designed said characters and put Kun and Sidious at the top, meaning the man who WROTE Ragnos as 'the most powerful of the powerful' , the man who CREATED RAGNOS considers both Kun and Palpatine above him.

Oh, give it a rest: Ragnos even says the golden age is due to the grandeur and wealth of the Empire. There is never a HINT about 'power' or 'force knowledge' and considering later Sith empires were said to have surpassed the Golden Age of the past, point is MOOT. Oooh, and did we miss how Sith Lords like Seviss Vaa, Rivan, Kaan, Belia Darzu etc had created new anwer! Oh, and Ragnos wasn't 'so strong he needed all that energy', the game said that energy would be required to revive someone dead so long! And while I'm on the subject, Palpatine devised new techniques at his pleasure.

stated to have used the forcd storm to a greater extent than ever before, 'greatest usage of the dark side' in history, anyone? Anderson put Kun and Sidious together, but you know what you constantly ignore? He considers them the two strongest Sith and put Kun directly above the Ancients.

Except we've seen those people with more time to study it lose to people with a fraction of said time. Point=Moot. Oh, yeah, didja miss how it was directly stated what they knew, meaning you can't argue a damn thing as it's never been contradicted or retconned?

Ooooh, no, sorry. The force storm was 'possibly' the strongest force technique...SIDIOUS'S force storm was just THE greatest usage of the Dark Side...no possibly there, Nai, try again And don't try it. I posted the email out of a scan that one time, remember? Stop this sour grapes stuff because you can't argue against Anderson, because I'm sick of it. You think you know better than two LFL writers to date? Based on crap like 'But they had more time!' (Which's been countered) and 'But everything came from them!' (Countered). And personal inteprretation? There's some ambiguity about "If Kun and Sidious fought, we'd find out who the strongest was?"
Yeah, right. Deal with that. Along with how the Ultimate Guide states that the New Sith Emprie surpassed the Ancient Golden Age

Originally posted by Escape81
Essentially, all the pro-Ragnos factions argue that he is the most powerful based primarily on two things:

a) The statement made that: "Marka Ragnos was the most powerful of the most powerful".

b) His contemporaries feared him.


LOL. Great. Did you see one of those two statements in my argument. No ? Petitio principii, dude. Your answer on arguments not used exactly gives you...nothing.



Argumentum ad verecundiam based on non-existing authority. Why the hell you keep siting that the NEC was co-written by Anderson if he just contradicted the statement in the NEC (and therefore all others) himself ?



And it still gives you nothing because I try to reconstruct Ragnos power level out of those things his subordinates did show while all you have is that Sidious is stated to be the "most powerful".



And more irrelevant missdirections. You just estimate fear where Sadow didn't show much "fear" when confronted with Ragnos spirit. So...how did Ragnos keep Sadow under his belt ? Because he was more powerful maybe or at least powerful enough for Sadow not trying to act against him ? We saw that Sadow did everything to receive the Dark Lord title when Ragnos was gone - before Ragnos death he didn't do so because of "fear" we don't see him show ?



And again bullshit. May I remind you that Ragnos defeated Simus in direct confrontation where Simus is sited to be Sadow's mentor and teacher ? All Sadow had was coming from Simus and Simus wasn't enough to stop Ragnos. Guess who's better yourself now and stop handing me pseudo-arguments against "assumptions" when the base of said "arguments" is nothing more than other assumptions.



And the fact that he was the only ruler of the Sith Empire who died because of natural age. And the little fact that he was the only person to reign said Empire for more than a century since Adas times. And of course the little fact he tooled Simus in direct confrontation. But when the next Sidious fanboy comes in all this happened because people "feared" Ragnos - of course without any attempt of a thought what this "fear" is based on. Especially in an Empire where we saw rulers commonly getting tricked and / or assassinated.



As Anderson stated multiple times that Veitch was responsible for creating everything else except Kun you might stop calling him the "creator of the Ancients" - he just told their story.



Drawing conclusions out of incorrect statements. Logical fallacy. If Anderson is asked if his creation(s) or Sidious would be stronger and he himself sees Kun as his only real creation he just can give a statement about "Kun vs Sidious". It's like asking J.K. Rowling how many of the figures named "Harry Potter" created by her would be able to beat Voldemort. There is only one possible answer because there is only one "Harry Potter".

Not joinging the debate here, but just one thing Borbarad. Simus might have taught Naga everything, but that doesn't mean they have the same potential or that Naga proceeded to evolve them to a greater degree than Simus....

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Hmmm....let's see. The canon says Sith preferred Sith Swords as d dangerous techniques? When'd Ragnos's spirit call spirits back from Chaos? Oh, right, his scepter could revive people, which was discovered by Tavion...according to Evil Never Dies, Tavion called Ragnos back from the realms of Chaos and elped him regain his former pothey like dthe more visceral feel and the lightsaber faded from use.

Oh it's so nice how you simple ignore that Tavion did it using Ragnos sceptre. There goes your argument, dude.



In ROTS and AOTC we saw Jedi using lightsaber getting gunned down with blaster weapons. According to your statement blasters > lightsabers now.



See above and stop stressing my nerves with this stuff. If Anderson says Veitch is responsible of the creation of the entire Ancient Sith Empire I'm not going to contradict his opinion. Yes...the comics site him as author. So ?



They surpassed them in terms of ruled space and that's it. The Golden Age refers to grandeur and wealth ? Wow...that's why Ragnos is telling Kun that he will bring another "golden age" ? Also nice double-standart. The later generations surpassed the ASE in "grandeur" and hence the individuals of the newer generations must be more powerful than the Ancients. Stop make me laugh.



"Look they created new knowledge !" - "Where ?" - "I don't know but they created new knowledge !!!" - "*yawn*" - "And Sidious was able to pull new force powers out of his ass at will !" - "What kind of force powers ?" - "I don't know ! But because he could do it he must be more powerful !!!111"

Force-lightning-fried-pizza anybody ?



Err...?



Stop boring me to death with handing me the same bullshit over and over again. Statement given about Sidious force storm: 10 years old. Actual revelance ? Zero. Thanks. "Everything came from the ancient Sith" - you countered that were ? Nowhere ? Thanks. And the only one who argues Andersons words (VEITCH DID CREATE EVERYTHING EXCEPT KUN) is you. Ups.

Originally posted by kamikz
Not joinging the debate here, but just one thing Borbarad. Simus might have taught Naga everything, but that doesn't mean they have the same potential or that Naga proceeded to evolve them to a greater degree than Simus....

The same way it doesn't mean that Naga had the same / or a greater potential than Simus or did evolve the knowledge passed to him by his mentor to a greater degree.
As you can see such thinking leads nowhere. Obviously Sadow did nothing to end Ragnos reign when he had more than a century of time and Simus still alive in form of a head to tell him if he would be able to challenge Ragnos or not.
It's one thing to think you're not powerful to challenge somebody because he killed your mentor (that would be "fear". It's another thing to have your mentor just defeated and the possibility to become more powerful than the guy who defeated your mentor - and your mentor at your side that might tell you when your time has come. If you decide not to challenge your possible opponent in this case then because you know you won't be able to beat him.

No, actually, She awakened Ragnos BEFORE she started the cult. There's no mention of her using the scepter to call him back. In fact, there's nothing suggesting she had the scepter until Ragnos became her master.

Shame the ones I was listing were one on one.

Where do I see Vietch's name as the author of Golden Age or Fall? Doesn't exist, that's right. Nowhere did Anderson give Veitch full credit for developing the Ancient Sith. The Empire and most of the characters? Totally KJA. In Veitch's work, Sadow was even human.

Yep, looks like Kun will create a large empire with grandeur and wealth. Since Ragnos even POINTS OUT to the Sith the grandeur and wealth when he exemplifies the golden Age. Knowledge is never even mentioned.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...except that statement about Sidious's force storm, from both the DE handbook and Dark Side sourcebook? Oh, it's old! So it MUST be invalid! Just because it beats your argument into the ground

And the NSE was described as having surpassed the Golden Age of old, thanks. I'll ask you again: are Darth Rivan and Volfe Karkko the strongest Dark Jedi ever? They're the oldest known.

Oh, and Veitch created most everything until KJA took over at around TSW...double bladed saber? KJA is given full and complete credit for the Ancient Emprie so quit this semantics BS. And everything came from the Ancient Sith: Countered where the New Empire was stated to have been developing new techniques in the Dark Side and Sidious devised new techniques at his pleasure. K then. It's kinda fun...does your opinion override what the canon Dark Side Sourcebook, Dark Empire sourcebook and handbook and Evil Never Dies when none of have been contradicted or overwritten and are still used as canon? Do you overwrite Kevin Anderson who co-wrote exactly what Ragnos was and basically said he's inferior to Kun? Please. Wanna get really specific? If Ludo and Naga could destroy fleets with the force, or even move a ship like even Luke by DE could do, then they would never have lost how they did.
Oh, and stop the sour grapes: New knowledge was created and that it hasn't been specified changes nothing.
Oh, and Simus was cited as a powerful sith....where? Just that he was 'old, wise and noble', great credentials.And Sadow spent his time in political bickerings with Ludo's faction and crafting new experiments to further the Empire
I'm waiting for proof of a reigning DLOTS in the Ancient Empire being challenged. Since the Sith were forced to assassinate one and all signs point to when you're in, you're in for life without regard for others. Since Naga said himself: "All must obey the Dark Lord." Nothing about power, whatsoever. Just that you won in the past.

I didn't say he was able to defeat Ragnos, and I didn't say he was able to defeat Simus either, but you put it like he was either his equal or worse than Simus, "because they had the same teachings". This is untrue, one must be superior. Though it is impossible to say (except if we can compare them in any way) we cannot say that they are equal for that....

Originally posted by Lightsnake
No, actually, She awakened Ragnos BEFORE she started the cult. There's no mention of her using the scepter to call him back. In fact, there's nothing suggesting she had the scepter until Ragnos became her master.

Ah. Lightsnakes famous "Ragnos sucks" game versions out of the blue. Tavion found the sceptre on Commenor where it was kept by a merchant. She didn't have to do anything with Ragnos before since it's explicitly stated that the sceptre was needed to "call Ragnos spirit back from the netherworld of the force".



Jango Fett VS Coleman Trebor. Ups.



"In the comics, Tom Veitch and I have developed the life story of Exar Kun, a villainous Dark Lord of the Sith, whose spirit appears in my Jedi Academy books" - Anderson giving Veitch credit even for Kun's creation partitially.

"Tom Veitch and I gave him a two-page questionnaire about what Dark Lords of the Sith can or can't do and Lucas defined all the parameters for us." - ups. As it seems he and Veitch worked together on some Dark Lords at least. That would be what Dark Lords if not the ancients ?

Excuse me - but I thrust Anderson himself more in the question "who created what" than I do thrust your personal assertions. If Anderson says he worked everything out with Veitch than that's the end of the story.




And it's not mentioned for the NSE. And it's not mentioned for the people you named. And it's not mentioned for Sidious himself other than mastering "everything" which of course is limited to whatever was available. Creatio ex nihilo - because we don't know anything we know that Sidious had the greatest amount of knowledge when quite many sources indicate something different. Woopie.



No. Just because that most direct references on Ragnos were given far beyond the release of both books (JK:JA, KotoR I + II and so on...).



Surpassed the Golden Age in terms of what ? No answer - no argument.



See above. Anderson > you.



Oh my. Techniques we never seen ? Techniques that range from "unknown X" to "unknown Y" ? The point is that when they fought they just used stuff already known to the ancients. Anything contradicting this ? No ? Pwned.



See above. Boring, boring and boring. Can DE Sidious defeat Nihilus in a fight...tick, tick, tick, boom. He can't because the only person to do so is the Exile ? My. Nihilus > Sidious ?



Yes. Irrelevant missdirection again. So Sidious isn't even able to stop a single guy because otherwise Vader wouldn't have tossed him into the reactor core in ROTJ. My grandma with a walking stick can do it. My grandma > your godlike Sidious. Any more dumb reasoning ?



See above. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant to the power of creating a Pizza with a diametre of 20 metres."



And the leader and most powerful of the Sith priest caste. Ups.



I guess Simus lost his head to Ragnos in an accident. "Here Simus look at my new sword. Ups." And "the strongest shall rule" was just a meaningless phrase.



See above. Simus was beheaded by Ragnos. Ding, ding, ding.



And because all must obey the Dark Lord nobody freaking cared about this "rule" once Sadow was off for war, correct ? And Kressh even ignore this great "rule" right after Sadows "election". Wow ? And of course we have some Dark Lords that were assassinated. Ups ? More brainless assertions you want to talk about or was that all ?

Not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with anybody here (how was my Kamikz impression?), the NEC is written from an in-universe perspective. So when Palpatine is vaguely stated as the most powerful sith ever, it is not 100% fact.

Well, that's how the people in the Star Wars Universe see him as. If, say, Han Solo looked back in history, he'll think RotS Palpatine can own Marka Ragnos, or whatever.

It was stated....where? Tavion apparently apprenticed herself to him before she got the scepter.

Miss how Coleman wasn't a warrior, was focusing on Dooku and Jango was one of the deadliest men in the galaxy? And when Jango faced a very skilled duelist minutes later...

Ulic, Satal, freedon...KJA gets credit for the Ancients, he designed their culture and species entirely and abel said as much. And all you've proven is they worked together on things. KJA's opinion still carries weight, I'm afraid.

Bullshit. Sidious mastered every aspect of the force and every technique of the Sith, Jedi, among others from the Jensaari to the Fallanassi to the Nightsisters to the Sorcerers of Tund to the Monks of Palawa. What're these other sources indicating what's different?

and Anderson>You. Ragnos<Kun and Sidious, thanks! Considering Kevin wrote the story he appeared in and at the very least co-designed him and his culture, well, I trust what he says more than your opinion.

To quote: "Created new techniques." Belia Darzu invented the technique of creating technobeasts which was infusing the dead to her alchemical creations, for one. And It said they created NEW techniques...and Palpatine knew all known, all previously unknown and forgotten and devised new techniques at his pleasure. Try again.

Oh, how mature, Nai. Right, miss the prophecy? Ragnos was beaten by a guy who was just knighted. Kun was beaten by toddlers.


Simus was CUT DOWN by Ragnos -Not beheaded- in a battle to determine who'd become Dark Lord! Try again.
Where is Simus sited as leader of the Kissai? Oh, he's NOT! That's the succesion ritual, miss that? Give me one source where Simus is sited as a Dark Lord, because he and Ragnos fought to see who'd become Dark Lord.

More sour grapes, Nai? Just give it up: Not everything was derived from the Ancients and the text proves this

Sadow was the firstmin ages to break the ritual and became Dark Lord through unconventional means. He and KRessh were having the ceremonial duel until Ragnos stopped them. And Kressh kinda discovered that Naga murdered Simus and betrayed the Empire. Until then, he wasn't acting against Naga. And notice the circumstances were highly irregular? If the succesion ritual was finished, Ludo wouldn't have been alive to protest.

Originally posted by GM Nebaris
Not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with anybody here (how was my Kamikz impression?), the NEC is written from an in-universe perspective. So when Palpatine is vaguely stated as the most powerful sith ever, it is not 100% fact.




Yeah, I've used that phrase once or twice and now it is my trademark, awesome...

Originally posted by Lightsnake
It was stated....where? Tavion apparently apprenticed herself to him before she got the scepter.

Pass what you're smoking. Tavion was left alive by Katarn as we all know then traveled to Commenor, found the sceptre and used it to call back Ragnos spirit. That's it. Or did you see Ragnos influencing Tavion at any point of the game ? All I did see was him rising from his grave in spirit form...



Miss how you aren't getting the point again ? To judge the effectivity of a certain weapon it's pretty dumb to state who did won a fight with another weapon. Got it ?



Anderson himself contradicts that dumb opinion. So what do you want to tell me ? That Veitch can't even possible have been involved in the creating process when Anderson himself states something different ? LMAO.



Rofl. Yes. Knowledge of the Fallanassi he didn't even know about ? Pfft. He could only master what was still available. If I wipe some strings of knowledge out of existance they are gone. Some of it can be rediscovered but "anything" ? Hardly...



Are you that dumb or do you just want to act like this ?
Ragnos wasn't created by Anderson alone. Kun wasn't created by Anderon alone. The ancient Sith - not even created by Anderson since he directly states that the ideas came from Veitch. Uh-hu ? Andersons opinion here doesn't matter because he just gave you a blanket statement saying "think what you want - we will never know". Only way to deal with notorious fans.



This is why that is called an "ancient technique" named mechu-deru, correct ? Even further spoken: Infusing the dead to her achemical creations ? I thought you did read "Leviathan", dude ? Already done by people during the hundret-year-darkness.



I'm pretty sure that even you can figure out that "knowing forgotten techniques" is an impossibility, correct ? If you can't better stop debating.



Sidious was beaten twice by crippled dudes in life-support systems. I guess that were the less impressive deaths of a godlike being I've ever seen.



Read GAotS. Come tell me again.



More dumb reasoning. Everything we see in use is ancient Sith knowledge. If they invented something new they never used it ? Why ? Maybe because the ancient techniques were plain and simply better ? Yes ? Thanks.



LOOOOOOOOOOL.
A "ceremonial duel" ? That's why Ragnos moved in to stop it saying basically that they shouldn't fight against each other ? And I love the "highly irregular" comment.

Of all the Dark Lords we know about:
- Dathka Graush was assassinated and became Dark Lord because winning a civil war
- Tulak Hord was mentioned to be an unbeaten duellist. Do you really think that he gained this image because of one fight (which made him the Dark Lord) ?
- Sadow was directly opposed by Kressh and some others before they found out what Sadow was really doing
- Kreia mentions that "civil wars" were quite common in the Sith Empire

So because we have one Sith Lord that died because of his natural age opposing to other getting killed the one must be the "regular" not the "exception". Because we obviously are confronted with constant civil wars and duels nobody did ever touch the Dark Lord - and again Ragnos is not the exception here. Because of that those two specific things are pointed out in every damn source mentioning Ragnos because they were nothing special. Logic anybody ?

And Kressh immediatly denied to follow Sadow's commands, dude. "All have to obey the king" - "F*** You, Sadow" - "See...all obey the king !"

About mechu-deru,
'Using the Sith power known as mechu-deru, she created the frontline of her force: hulking part-creature, part-machine technobeasts infested with nanogene droids. In combat, the tiny droids could infect their enemy, rewriting the unfortunate being's genetic code until she became a undead technobeast herself.'

There doesn't seem to be any indication that she invented it.

Originally posted by kamikz
Yeah, I've used that phrase once or twice and now it is my trademark, awesome...

Dude I was just kidding.

Yeah I know, so was I.

Give me a break...Tavion called him back long before we saw him at Korriban according to Evil Never Dies. When was the scepter even mentioned?

How about: When we see practically every user of a certain weapon fall to a wielder of another weapon, it's safe to assume some superiority. Especially when you put a guy with a blaster against a guy with a saber...on average, the guy with a saber's victories tend to number in the...hundreds?

Oh, give it a rest! Anderson said one thing very clearly. Anderson is given credit for the Ancients. You have NOTHING but an interpretation of a quote that came about before Anderson took over TOTJ completely!

Miss how there was a FALLANASI TRAITOR who collaborated with the Emprie for years? Yes, you did. oooh, and sorry, **** your opinion! The canon says 'everything'...making it 'everything.

Great, Veitch helped. Who wrote them in the stories? Anderson. Whose name is on the credits? Anderson. Who built up the culture? Anderson. Who has more a say than you? Anderson. who considers Ragnos to be inferior to his creation and Sidious? Anderson. And sorry, but he has right to say that's that, considering he wrote the damn comic. Man, even if Veitch went up to you and said Ragnos is weaker than Darth Sidious, you'd still find a way to wiggle out of it.

Mechu-Deru's hardly ancient. It was based on Ancient alchemy, but the technique was invented by the NSE. Oh, and where did the Leviathan 'infuse the dead?' It stole souls, that's hardly the same thing.

Except you can know forgotten techniques because you discover and learn them. Says he did, your opinion means nothing.

Once more: hell with your opinion. Ragnos was beaten by a pre-teen and Kun was driven away by Padawans and toddlers.

*Reads GaoTs* You were saying? Simus is only ever referred to being 'cut down'...species don't survive immediate decapitation

Gee, show me one comic with the New Sith Empire...And there's somrthing called 'necessity'

Dathka was Dark Lord before the Dark Jedi even arrived and was a full blooded Sith. Apparently he's been taken out of the 'DLOTS' category thanks to Abel. Tulak was likely one of the exiled Dark Jedi who went to the Sith worlds with Ajunta and the others. So, it's likely he had plenty of duels at the start of the empire. Especially sincew his time frame is well before there was stability within the Empire. And miss how Sadow's duel of succesion was interrupted and Kressh discovered he murdered Simus....especially as Sadow didn't become Dark Lord via orthodox means. And yeah, civil wars WERE quite common in the empire...after Adas died and before the Dark Jedi arrived, Evil never Dies explained that away. And Sadow pretty much said "Eh, let them do what they want."
Did you miss how Sadow was the first Sith Lord in a long time to break the orders and guidelines? Especially when Sadow says he only obeyed Marka because 'everyone' must obey the Dark Lord

In fact...show me a source that says Ragnos died to old age.

Actually, I can't argue this as I'm having some honest to god true problems involving university right now. anyone else involved, have fun,. If you want a further reason, Nai, just PM me...I'm having serious problems and don't have time to continue this

You have no point.

You have nothing detailing the fight between Ragnos and Simus. Nothing - other than the outcome, which is Simus without a body. But, much like Yoda vs. Sidious, if you don't have the details of the fight, we'd assume that Yoda lost, having fled and all.

You have absolutely NOTHING (emphasis on nothing) that accurately indicates Ragnos's power other than a single quote and that his contemporaries feared him.

Unless of course, you've got more.



Sidious is stated to be the most powerful.

However, you (being arrogant and reluctant to believe it) want to argue the context of "power" in Sidious's case? Lol, see, I always considered that a pathetic attempt to downplay Sidious. Remember how you always accuse others of downplaying specific characters?

Well, welcome to their club.




Once again. This is the same argument with different people. You once argued that Dooku's fear of Sidious was irrelevent, and yet it was sufficient enough that Dooku didn't dare act against his master - and even had no trouble throwing himself into battle against Yoda (whom you believe to be a good ways above Sidious himself).

Kind've in the same situation.

I don't doubt that Ragnos is at least as powerful as Sadow, making him one of the most powerful Sith Lords.



If I may use your term, "bullshit".

May I remind you that the details of their fight remains inconclusive to this day. For all you know, Ragnos got a lucky hit. Or a tactical advantage as you so associate with Palpatine.



Erm . . . so what? I never denied he was the strongest of his time.



See above.



And, of course, you don't know the specifics of the fight.

Wait, lol. I forgot. You have the nifty ability to read into the actions and thoughts of authors.

Gosh, I wish I had that.



Okay. Well, Veitch specifically called Palpatine "the most powerful Sith Lord ever" and Ragnos as "the most powerful of his time".

Case closed.

Palpatine > Ragnos.



Bottom line, Nai.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And, what's that? NOTHING - in terms of feats or otherwise puts Ragnos on Sidious's level.

When you can tell me for a FACT that he can do what Sidious can - and more - then I'll believe you.

Originally posted by Escape81
Sidious is stated to be the most powerful.



Originally posted by GM Nebaris
Not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with anybody here (how was my Kamikz impression?), the NEC is written from an in-universe perspective. So when Palpatine is vaguely stated as the most powerful sith ever, it is not 100% fact.

IS the Dark Empire sourcebook written in universe too? Why does Lucas keep using Sidious as a measuring stick for the Sith? Why does the Ultimate Guide say his power by DE surpassed the Sith of times past?

Well the DE Sourcebook is hardly canon.
And I am not familiar with The Ultimate Guide.
And since when has Lucas been using Sidious as a measuring stick for the sith.

Um, no, sorry...DE sourcebook is just as canon as anything else.

And since Lucas said Maul or Dooku could never have surpassed Palpatine and anakin wound up eighty percent of Sidious when he could've been twice as powerful

Maybe because they're movie characters dillhole.

And the DE Sourcebook is hardly canon.

Except it is as sourcebook story is canon as any book or comic and subject to the same. According to the Holocron

And Lucas STILL uses Sidious as a measuring stick...especially for Anakin who would have become the strongest Jedi...

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Except it is as sourcebook story is canon as any book or comic and subject to the same. According to the Holocron

And Lucas STILL uses Sidious as a measuring stick...especially for Anakin who would have become the strongest Jedi...

That's because Lucas tends to ignore the EU.

Not all the time. Especially as he made up Darth Bane, and collabroated with the Ancients

Originally posted by Escape81
You have absolutely NOTHING (emphasis on nothing) that accurately indicates Ragnos's power other than a single quote and that his contemporaries feared him.


This is so funny. Yours and Lightsnakes usage of logical reasoning seems to stop at a certain point where it becomes uncomfortable. So...the people "feared" Ragnos. What was the reason for this fear ? You simply ignore that question because you already know the answer.

When do people "fear" something ?
a) When they encounter something "unknown" to them. Something that possibly might be a threat for them. This is an irrational kind of fear that exists because of a "possibility".

b) When people know that there is a threat for them that they aren't able to counter or avoid. If you know there is a bomb next to you while you're bound on a chair and you know that you can't get away and the bomb will kill you - you develop fear for the moment of the explosion.

Now there is this very disturbing fact that Simus survived his fight with Ragnos. Simus knew exactly how powerful Ragnos was and, given that he was the mentor of Sadow, he could give an accurate judgement of how powerful Sadow is compared to Ragnos. Or Sadow could do that himself since he directly witnessed that fight (like Kressh) as it's told in GAotS.

And this point is important. Obviously all people have seen what Ragnos did to Simus and after that fight nobody challenged Ragnos. Why ? Because they just "feared" him ? Why would they ? They have seen him fighting for the Dark Lord title - they knew his strength considering force mastery and fighting skills. And the fact that he wasn't challenged by one of them is only a testament for the idea that none of them had the skills required to do so. And this means that he couldn't have defeated Simus with a "lucky hit" but must have pretty much wiped the floor with him - or Simus was much more stronger than all the other Sith Lords too.

So Ragnos hoovered above them all for more then a century and not because they feared him - because they knew that they couldn't beat him.



Excuse me. In contrary to you I see "powerful" as an ambigious statement no matter who is affected. In all prior debates concerning the topic all that I saw on this certain point was always the same:
People try to limit the comment about Ragnos ("only of his era", "only of the ancient Sith", "only in his time" where no limitation is given while other limitations concerning Sidious own power are consequently ignored.

The force storm is a nice example for this. Lightsnake steps in and repeats his "Sidious mastered everything" sentence when Sidious own words in DE say that he wasn't able to completely control the last force storm he summoned which was what enabled Luke and Leia to turn the storm against him and make him lose control (Luke's own words in DE). Everything according to Lightsnakes means.

With the DS Sourcebook it's the same. The DS Sourcebook (watch the game stats - although I know they aren't canon) labels Ragnos more powerful than Sidious - it's self contradicting. Oh no. It's not because Lightsnake again did cut some part of the statement.

Quote from Lightsnake himself:


Ups. Of Bane's order ? Isn't it a pitty how this statement suddenly becomes worthless in this thread because Ragnos doesn't belong to Bane's order ?



To create an analogy that actually fits: Imagine Dooku still being Yoda's apprentice. He watches a fight between Yoda and Sidious that Yoda loses - but Yoda stays alive. Now Dooku knows exactly what Sidious is able to do and he wants to defeat Sidious at any costs.

Ask yourself: If we wouldn't see Dooku challenging Sidious in this situation would it be out of "fear" that he might lose or because he has knowledge that he would 100 % surely lose the fight ?



Oh wow. Now Veitch gave statements about Sidious and Ragnos ? Where, dude ?



Everything we saw Sidious using so far was ancient Sith knowledge: Force storms, force / life drain abilities, lightning, some alchemy. And now you can tell me how the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith would not possess knowledge about force techniques created before or in his era ?
It's simply irrelevant what Sidious learned, mastered or invented unless somebody is able to give a convincing argument for that stuff being more useful than ancient Sith knowledge which is quite unlikely because even Sidious himself used ancient Sith knowledge only when it came to direct confrontations.

Okay, so the Ancient sith would've known everything from 100,000 years from Adas's holocron when it was heavily restricted? why do you constantly ignore Palpatine was able to devise new techniques?
Or, that he invented the technique to 'reach out' with his anger and destroy someone by DE?

Oh, and Lucas said Dooku does not have the potential to be above Sidious.; And Dooku was terrified of Sidious. And Sidious is the most powerful practioner of the Sith arts in modern times. And the strongest Sith of Bane's order...Dooku falls into those categories.

Oh, and dear me! You're trying to use game stats to argue? Oooh, sorry, by that logic, Kun is weaker than Vader. And notice how you just IGNORE any evidence: Sidious had mastered everything, did you miss how the force storm was volatile and he controlled at least three just fine before he was bound by the light? Of course you did, that would hurt your argument.

And when you're Dark Lord, you're in for life. Sadow says he obeyed Ragnos because everyone must. Oh, and he was busy with his experiments and political issues. Ragnos was politically savvy, remember? Prove how Ragnos beat Simus. NOW. I want direct proof it wasn't a cheap shot or 'tactical'

You know what's especially sickening? How you keep trying to use one quote with Ragnos as gospel when it's very clear it was only talking about that era. Did you miss the 'Now he is dead.' Did you miss the 'was'? Notice how it only applies to that time and Dan Wallace clarified as much? Oh, wait! Nai knows more than any author at LFL who makes Star Wars his job! Funny how LFL has let all this stuff about Sidious slip if it was so contradictory...man, clinging to that quote is just plain desperation. You even ignore how KJA considers Kun to be above those characters and considering he wrote about them himself...Wow, just plain desperation. I think his opinion on the subject firmly overrides yours. Especially given how he, y'know, wrote that little statement about Ragnos. And Golden Age. And Fall

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Give me a break...Tavion called him back long before we saw him at Korriban according to Evil Never Dies. When was the scepter even mentioned?

Ah...now the sceptre is written "out of existance" because it's not mentioned in Evil Never Dies. I'm awafully sorry if some authors are completely inable to keep informations handed to them in line.



No. It's save to assume superiority of the duellist - not of the weapon.



No. Anderson didn't say anything clearly - you just think he did. Did he clearly state that Kun is more powerful than Ragnos, Simus, Sadow or Kressh ? No ? What a pitty.
And interpretation of a quote ? That "quotes" are coming from Anderson after the release of GAotS so he already "took over" the series and he directly say that Veitch and him did work together on Dark Lords (plural dude) and even Kun. And this totally destroys his ability to give accurate guesses on their force powers - he didn't create them alone, he can't judge them alone.



The "canon" in this case contradicts the actual source material as well as basic logic. "**** reality" would be a better statement from you.



Irrelevant missdirection. Writing a story about something (or descriping something) doesn't equal creating something. Did Einstein "create" the fundamental rules of the universe ?



Irrelevant missdirections again. Anderson himself contradicts the credits. And the culture ? You mean the same culture we've already seen descriped in DLotS when Veitch and Anderson collaborated ? The same "culture" which entire background story was invented by George Lucas according to Veitch and Anderson ?



Print that statement out and pin it on your monitor.
Anderson: "I didn't create the Ancients on my own !"
Lightsnake: "He's giving credit for the Ancients so he did create them !!!!"

Huh ?



No.No.No. Who considers that Anderson considers Ragnos to be inferior to Kun ? Lightsnake. Did give Anderson a direct statement like this ? No.



No. He doesn't have the write because the characters don't belong to him and even they would do he himself said that he can't determine the strength of different characters from different eras. Does Ragnos come from another era than Kun ? Yes ?
So if Anderson says he can't determine something - why should we estimate he can. Much more: Why should we even accept Anderson's opinion on topic X when he contradicts what we believe to be the truth on topic Y ? Double-standarts much ?



Unfortunatelly mechu-deru is directly refered to be an ancient Sith technique which descripes the process to infuse mechanical objects with the Dark Side of the force. And this was even used by the Rakata so it's hardly a "new invention".



If I wipe a certain amount of knowledge (X) from existance gained over - let's say - 20,000 years. How high is the chance that a being (or even several beings) would be able not only completely regain the entire amount X in just 1,000 years but invent new knowledge (Y) that was not contained in X before ?



And Sidious had his ass handed to crippled ex-Jedi in life-support systems.



Hilarious. Species also don't survive as a head in a yar for more than a century. Usually species surviving their own death are very rarely seen. Do you have any smart-ass reason why Simus just kept his head alive instead of his entire body if he wasn't beheaded. "I'd rather be a helpless head carried around by a slave than somebody who can walk on his own" ?



Dathka is called "Dark Lord" and Abel made it clear that the first "Dark Lord" was one of the Dark Jedi that came to Korriban.



It's getting more illogical the more I think about it. So...you have multiple people (as it seems entire armies) of people fighting for the title in the first place. Then...for some mysterious reason...they simply accept the rule of one Dark Lord and never question it.

Illogical point here: Given that the Dark Lords lived over centuries there is enough time for several generations to raise in power. Then: Why didn't the bloodline of the "first" Dark Lord (most likely the most powerful) kept dominating the Empire ? And why we suddenly just have two possible successors in every generation ?



When did the "stabilisation" of the Empire happen exactly ? Imagine the situation: You always have multiple people (and their heirs and so on) fighting for the Dark Lord title. Because of this every form of "stability" would basically end with every death of a prior Dark Lord. And given this atmosphere of concurrence for power while considering the nature of the Sith philosophy I find it very unlikely that all (or even a majority) of the Dark Lords died because of natural age.



Lightsnake: Kressh immediatly denied to follow Sadow's rule before he found out that Sadow killed Simus and manipulated all that stuff. Sadow was Dark Lord, Kressh ignored it. And now please give me a convincing argument why this shouldn't have happened in former generations among similar "arch-enemies". If you want power and somebody else takes it there is no way to supress things like envy or old conflicts between the new "ruler" and other people.

And Sadow maybe wanted to seem "cool". Technically Ragnos was dead and dead people aren't respected normally. And I'm almost sure they didn't have guidelines like "What to do if the former Dark Lord decides to come back from the grave".



Both KotoR games as far as I remember. At least KotoR 2. Not to mention that if somebody would have killed him that person would have become the next Dark Lord automatically - and we would have received something in the comics if an action like that happened.

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Okay, so the Ancient sith would've known everything from 100,000 years from Adas's holocron when it was heavily restricted? why do you constantly ignore Palpatine was able to devise new techniques?
Or, that he invented the technique to 'reach out' with his anger and destroy someone by DE?

Restricted even to the Dark Lord himself ?
And it doesn't matter that he deviced new techniques until we don't know what exactly he deviced and how useful it is. Yeah...reach out with the force and kill people...never happened before.



And WTF has Dooku to do with Sidious VS Ragnos ? Nothing ? Great.



Did you miss how the last force storm is descriped to be more powerful than the others he used before ?



"I want to be the Dark Lord but I guess I'd rather do some experiments and care about some political issues instead of crushing the reigning Dark Lord". For the other stuff: See postings before.



You know what's especially sickening? That you keep accusing me to use statements I didn't use in the entire thread and keep modeling quotes in a way that they fit your opinion. Let's turn "most powerful of Bane's order" into "most powerful ever".



Isn't it nice how many time people can waste to counter arguments that were never given ?



Let's again ignore what Anderson said about the Ancient Sith just to stay with our precious opinion. And let's keep Anderson as the ultimate source of knowledge which makes the NEC comment USELESS but we can also ignore this as long as we can stay with our precious opinion.

Let's cling to double-standarts and model statements as we like them just to win some debate. Hey...

Lightsnake: "This is an egg."
Anderson: "I don't know exactly."
Lightsnake: "But you created it."
Anderson: "No. I didn't."
Lightsnake: "Ok. And because you created the egg and say the egg might be more powerful than the chicken this must be the truth. But then I have another statement that the chicken is the most powerful thing ever. That contradicts your opinion. So you are wrong - so I can't thrust your judgements. But I will ignore that fact and keep handing your statement to others as long as it's useful for me, ok ?"
Anderson: "*rolleyes* OK...whatever"

...and so on...

Give me actual proof she used the scepter to summon Marka. Can you? No.

Hm, sith swords are proving remarkably superior, then...

Oh, give me a break! "If Kun and Sidious were to fight, we'd find out who the strongest was!" That leaves room for interpretation how? It doesn't. It's just you clinging to some outdated belief when someone who has authority on the matter shoots you the hell down. And he can't judge them alone? BULL! Veitch was GONE by the Sith war, Anderson claims full credit for the Ancients and what happened during the 5000 BBY stuff! You know what? He's more official than you. What'll it take, Tom Veitch walking to your house? First it's 'But Wallace isn't official!' Then, it's 'But KJA can't judge them alone!' Kun was created BEFORE he was put in DLOTS, so don't even try that. They worked together, but who WROTE the story? Who designed the characters and gave them life? Veitch wasn't working on them anymore, remember? I trust KJA before I trust you.

Except it doesn't. Canon quotes>you. Sour grapes again, Nai! Find me something contradicting...wait, you can't! because an official source says 'everything'...making it 'everything!'

Except KJA did create Kun. And Ludo. And Naga's character. And Ragnos.

Really now, when in DLOTS are we shown Sith culture? OMG! A Holocron! A sith Sword! KORRIBAN! Didja forget that we saw in the ancient visions in DLOTS, spaceships flying around ina futuristic city, later retconned y KJA's work? Keep it coming...especially as GaoTS was billed as the first real look into the ancients. And where did GL invent the story? Oh, no...he didn't. He just defined the parameters of a DLOTS for them...

Anderson said himself that he considers the title of the strongest to be between Kun and Sidious and if they ever fought we'd find out who the strongest was. Just try wiggling out of that one, Nai. Just try telling me he meant different.

Except he created the characters so his opinion means more than yours. Oh, and you know what's hilarious? I defined what I meant by era and lumped Naga, Ludo, Kun and Ragnos into the same era...and he said Kun was the strongest of the time! Wow! There's no contradiction, just you refusing to accept.

Except it's not as the New Sith created it drawing upon ancient Sith alchemy. Try again! And Belia Darzu invented the process of converting creatures to techno beasts

And Kun was beaten by Toddlers...gthat 'cripple' was pound for pound able to lift starships and didja miss hwo Sidious was torturing Luke and using Battle Meditation simultaneously? Miss how Ragnos was beaten by a guy who was training for maybe a month? Or how Ludo was beaten by a dying ship by or your precious Kunny was chased off by Mara Jade?

Tell it to Celestrina. And yeah: Simus was cut down and used Sith magic to have his head transferred and had to be encased to be kept alive. Notice how dathka Graush used something similar to remove his own heart?

And Adas was called a Dark Lord originally. Dathka also lived a century before the Dark Jedi arrived. Meaning he was the reigning Jen'Ari.

Which is why it was said they had an ordered, rigid system and Naga was the first to break away from it in ages? When all that warring was referring to the times BEFORE the Dark Jedi arrived?

According to Evil Never Dies, the empire stabilized when the Dark Jedi arrived and interbred with the Sith. And your'e the only one throwing out this natural age stuff. For all you know, Ragnos was poisoned.

Could it be because Naga had just become Dark Lord in highly unorthodox manners and if done properly, Kressh wouldn't be ALIVE to question his rule? Naga KNEW Kressh wouldn't follow him. The reason this wouldn't have happened before is when those arch enemies fought, one of them wouldn't have a word to say about the other's rule due to being six feet under. Ludo refused to accept Naga as rightful Dark Lord, and that's rare due to the guy who normally would object meeting his end at the point of a sword in a duel.
And did you miss Naga Sadow telling off Ragnos and not doing what he expressly told them to do? Y'know, unity and all? Ragnos advised unity and stopped their duel. What was it Naga said..."Takes more than a ghost"? After Ludo proposed peace to him.

I want the source. I want the quote of ragnos dying of old age. For all YOU know, he died in an experiment gone sawry. When was it ever said "whoever kills the reigning Dark Lord becomes Dark Lord!"
when did it ever say the others were terrified of him? Admired, obeyed and respected, but Naga showed nothing but contempt for him. Ludo certainly didn't fear Naga...and isn't there a quote about Ragnos playing the Sith against one another to keep power?

Considering there was an appointed guardian to Adas's Holocron-Garu in this case, few had access to said holocron whatsoever.

Didja miss how he controlled it fine until his force powers were resticted? Yep.

More like "I can't do anything while Ragnos is alive and I'm continuously opposed by that damn Ludo Kressh!""

Give me a break, wanna talk about the DE sourcebook now? Where's 'Bane's order' mentioned there? Or the canonically accepted NEC? If you can disregard KJA's opinion, then hell with wallace's! He wrote it, so it's teh canon.

Now that's just a new level of esperation. Anderson says he can't give me a definite measurement on the strongest Sith, and says Kun was the strongest Sith Lord of the old era which is what allowed him to do so much- didja miss how I lumped the 'Ancient times' to be everything before Bane's order?- And then he says if Palpatine and Kun'd fight, we'd find out who the strongest Sith wa.s Game, set, match. You're being so hypocritical here, Nai. Nothing matters if it doesn't support your opinion, does it? Kevin J. andersonn himself put Kun AND Palpatine above the Ancients and he CLEARLY SAID
and where did he say Veitch created the Ancients? I'm sick of you throwing that out, PUT UP OR SHUT UP, Anderson only refers to the stuff PRIOR to the Sith War as Anderson gets FULL credit and never denied it! he wrote GAOTS and FSE exclusively, his name is on the products and his alone! Give me proof now, Nai! Something DEFINITE, something saying "Veitch created the ancients" because Veitch's version of them differed HEAVILY from what we actually saw!
What I'm especially tired of is the moment someone who actually created the setting gives a differing opinion, they're suddenly invalid.

Kevin said exactly that it was between Kun and Sidious. "If LFL put a comic featuring Palpatine against Sidious we'd find out!"
In DIRECT response to my asking who the strongest Sith was. He told me he didn't have a DEFINITE answer for me, but he gave me his opinion and what he thought would be the deciding factor.

If you don't accept this, too bad. Kevin wrote the comics and he's a lot more credible than you

Really, Lightsnake. Is it so hard to spot the obvious errors in your pretty arguments ? It's really easy:

"Anderson did create the entire Ancient Sith"
The mere fact you try to push this assertion through the debate as "truth" based on the single fact that only Anderson's name appears in the credits of GAotS and FotSE is either a testament for your stupidity or your blatant Sidious fanboyism. Let's have a look at the inconvenient facts

1)
The ancient Sith all appear far before Anderson even was involved in the series. Nadd (+his backstory including Sadow) were created by Veitch before and same with the DE series that introduced the idea of the Ancient Sith first.

The most important things here are the appearence of Ossus (Freedon Nadd uprising / Dark Empire) before DLotS was started and the appearance of Sadow and Nadd in DLotS.

When we see Ossus in the DE series it's said that this planet was destroyed by a Sith attack (supernova) which means that Veitch who created those stories on his own had the entire action of the Sith War which cumulated in the destruction of Ossus already in his mind.
We also see Sadow in an Anderson / Veitch cooperation and it's mentioned that he:
- was in oposition with the Dark Lord on Korriban / was Dark Lord himself
- was an enemy of the Republic forces
- tried to take over the Republic
- finally ended up on Yavin 4 with his Massassi slaves


2) You have to understand that Kun is just a "foreign character" put into an already existing storyline. Or as Anderson himself said in the interview:

"I asked him if I could write a guest issue telling the origin of Exar Kun, but Tom was thinking much bigger. He said, "Let's do this grand epic where we pit your guy against my characters in a big war that wrecks half the galaxy." That certainly sounded more fun than a guest issue."

"In the comics, Tom Veitch and I have developed the life story of Exar Kun, a villainous Dark Lord of the Sith, whose spirit appears in my Jedi Academy books."

You have to understand the following thing here: Veitch had the story of the Sith War already in his mind and he had the antagonists needed (Satal, Aleema, Ulic, Nadd) to start a nice war which he needed because he already released the fact that Ossus (the former Jedi "headquarter" was destroyed by a large-scale Sith supernova that hit the planet. Then Anderson came up with Kun. Anderson and Veitch did develop Kun's background together (see above) and the story of the Ancient Sith to a certain extend (see DLotS).
And all this was done under influence of Lucas. Read the "Fanmail" pages in FotSE #1. Somebody complains about the Sith being an alien race conquered by the Dark Jedi. The Editor replies with:

"Sorry you don't like the framework of the Sith and the Dark Jedi, but that background came directly to us from George Lucas. We're following his guidelines and building a story within the parameters he himself laid down."

Bing. And said "parametres" were laid down during the time of Anderson's and Veitch's cooperation and even before as both have directly stated.

Veitch (TOTJ #1):
"We had to prepare questionaires to explain what we wanted to do. Those were reviwed by George, because he wants to make sure ,if you're going to tell about the ancient Jedi,he wants to have imput on it.We have to write very carefully detailed questionaires and list the ideas we want to use. He reads them and gives approval or disapproval."

Anderson (interview on the Dark Horse page):
"Lucas said to make him a Dark Lord of the Sith; so then I had to ask what a Dark Lord of the Sith is. Tom Veitch and I gave him a two-page questionnaire about what Dark Lords of the Sith can or can't do and Lucas defined all the parameters for us."

Keep that stuff in mind.

"The credits, the SW universe and the entire rest"
Like all human beings that think of themself to know the truth, be it acquired from their ancestors, gained through personal revalation or prescriped by authority, you neither care about logic nor about the question if your fundamental assumptions are correct.

When three different authors are working on a certain topic (in this case: The backstory of the Sith) it's simply impossible to say that one of them is the absolute and ultimate authority on the topic. If you want to go by "credits" only then you are encountering the inconvenient fact that all credits of the DE / EE and the TOTJ series (before DLotS) are given to Veitch and only Veitch.
And what does the series include ? The most powerful version of Palpatine with the full extend of his knowledge and power. All TOTJ characters except Crado, Sylvar, Vodo and Kun.

And now we can play a funny game. Let's call it "M.A.P.O.P.P." (multiple authors personal opinion ping pong):

Wallace: "Sidious is the most powerful Sith Lord ever."
Anderson: "To determine who is the most powerful Sith Lord ever we would need a fight between Sidious and Palpatine."
Veitch: "Anderson wasted some of my characters especially Ulic Quel-Droma".

Now let's play. Wallace contradicts Anderson's opinion when Anderson must be right here because he created Kun. But Kun's entire story contradicts the ideas of Tom Veitch who must be right because he created all TOTJ characters. That of course means that Anderson might overestimate the power of his beloved Kun. Does it matter ? No. Because Anderson compares Kun's power to that of Sidious which most powerful incarnation is a creation of...tatatata...Veitch. But when Veitch is the only person with complete knowledge about the powerlevel of his creation (DE Sidious) how can Anderson come up with a statement like this.

Do you now see the crux of the matter ? In an area where mutiple people are working on the same literaric topic you can simply take one of them out of the team and threat his personal opinion as absolute and undenyable canon because the only source for that stuff would be official LFL statements and Lucas own words. Both don't exist on the topic and will never exist because the fans are important to LFL and Lucas and they don't want to spoil things there.

Hence versus topics are the no-man's-land of the SW universe. If a fight didn't happen you can't determine the outcome. Hell...people here use to deny the outcome of a fight even if we saw it happen by throwing certain ideas in. You yourself did it when "Mace vs Sidious" was discussed here multiple times. We see Mace beating Sidious but because of some sidenotes we can assume that this won't happen every time they fight. I did the same thing multiple times when discussing "Dooku vs Anakin". We see Anakin beating Dooku but that's not enough (at least not for me) to say that everytime Dooku and Anakin fight Dooku will lose.

Now add the little fact that every work of an author in the SW universe directly becomes property of LFL when it's released. We can unleash a roundelay of author's personal opinions here without solving anything. Do you think that Veitch/Anderson would have allowed Ragnos spirit to get beaten by a mere Padawan when they've shown that the same spirit can simply interrupt a fight between (according to Anderson) one of the two most powerful Sith ever and his future apprentice and physically harm them (placing the marks on their foreheads) apparently without them having anything to defend themselves against it ? No.
And now imagine the same situation but with Ragnos appearing to kill Ulic and Kun. Would they have simply died there from the overwhelming power of their progenitor ? Would that cause a new line of power with Jaden Korr being more powerful than DE Sidious (Jaden > Ragnos spirit > Kun = Sidious) ? Wait. Is Jaden Korr already more powerful than all Ancient Sith in the Golden Age because he managed to defeat Ragnos spirit ?

Do you see now why clinging to the personal opinions of authors is pointless ? I guess if you'll ask the creators of Nihilus if Sidious would be able to beat him they would say no because the only person able to do it - according to them - would be the Exile because of his / her special and unique nature. Sidious wouldn't be the most powerful Sith Lord any longer since we would have a person able to defeat him. Or he would stay the "most powerful" but we would have to live with the fact that the amount of actual "power" (in terms of duelling capability and force knowledge + force potential) doesn't always determine the victor.
Or you can take Sion and put him against Kun with Kun not being able to brake Sions will (because this requires "background information" from Kreia). Would Sion win ?

cont...

...cont.

The entire point here is that all we have about Sidious is that he might be the most powerful Sith Lord ever (Anderson denies it) without any statement how much more powerful (if he is) he would be compared to Ragnos. We know that he learned and mastered every force technique available - yet we don't know which what grade of effectivity he would be able to use it against one of his most powerful progenitors in terms of Dark Side usage. We even don't know what amount of his knowledge would be useful in a direct confrontation.

And again...this is the question that matters. Take DNA as example. Some amphibic beings have 10,000 times more DNA material than humans have. The amount doesn't matter - what matters is the way it is used. Now in the figurative sense: Sidious has an amount of knowledge (A) that possibly exceeds Ragnos amount of knowledge (X). Then Sidious has an amount of knowledge (B) useable / important in a fight which we can't compare to the amount of knowledge (Y) Ragnos would have in the same area.

What we know is that Sidious offensive abilities are quite limited to stuff already known in Ragnos time. Force lightning (ROTJ, ROTS, DE), force storms (DE), force TK attacks (ROTS). And because of the fact that this was already known in Ragnos time, Ragnos will most likely have some knowledge to counter it. We already saw people deflecting force lightning, we already see people countering force TK and we did see that control about force storms can be lost. Technically all Ragnos has to do is disturb Sidious when he tries to use this ability. Or they both pull some instakill abilties of and wipe each other from existance.

The point is that we have two ridiculous powerful characters (the Sith Lord of the Ancient times and the Sith Lord of modern times) entering a duel and for me it's senseless to base the entire judgement who wins on two personal opinions handed in by two authors who are - to top everything else - contradicting each other. Especially when the fight happens in a universe were the "more powerful" doesn't necessarily win a fight. See Anakin vs Obi-Wan or Mace vs Sidious.

And by this you might ask yourself how much sense a debate makes without debating. "DE Sidious vs Nihilus" - "Hey Sidious wins because he's the most powerful Sith Lord ever. Case close."

Oh, by the way: I'm not gonna respond because it's game over.

From Tom Veitch:
Ragnos is definitely Anderson's character. I'm not sure about Naga Sadow.

cheers,

Tom

Get it, Nai? I'm gonna scan this emai;l through, I'll post it right here:
Tom ****ing Veitch HIMSELF told me Anderson created Ragnos...and you know something? Anderson himself created Exar Kun and designed his history himself. I'm asking Tom even more and he's said that he just left the Ancient Empire in the background and let others fill in the blanks later! Moreover, he said Palpatine tapped into the ancient secrets and added some of his own to the mix.

Nice chap, uses http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/8800/veitch8kn.th.jpg
And the hypocrisy of you trying to throw that on Sidious when all of a sudden Ragnos is Mr. Extreme power who trounces everyone and wins all the time....the irony is not lost.

While I'm on the subject? Wallace's opinion is current and in print. Veitch told me it was a very difficult question and though there were very powerful Sith back then, Palpatine used their secrets and added his own. Anderson believes it;s between Kun and Palp...and you know something? Veitch himself just confirmed Ragnos is 'definitely Anderson's'

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Get it, Nai? I'm gonna scan this emai;l through, I'll post it right here:
Tom ****ing Veitch HIMSELF told me Anderson created Ragnos...and you know something? Anderson himself created Exar Kun and designed his history himself. I'm asking Tom even more and he's said that he just left the Ancient Empire in the background and let others fill in the blanks later! Moreover, he said Palpatine tapped into the ancient secrets and added some of his own to the mix.

Nice chap, uses http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/8800/veitch8kn.th.jpg
And the hypocrisy of you trying to throw that on Sidious when all of a sudden Ragnos is Mr. Extreme power who trounces everyone and wins all the time....the irony is not lost.

While I'm on the subject? Wallace's opinion is current and in print. Veitch told me it was a very difficult question and though there were very powerful Sith back then, Palpatine used their secrets and added his own. Anderson believes it;s between Kun and Palp...and you know something? Veitch himself just confirmed Ragnos is 'definitely Anderson's'

I love how you simply ignored the fact that the "most powerful" doesn't always win. May I again site Mace vs Sidious and Anakin vs Obi-Wan ?

So ok. Anderson created Ragnos. Anderson thinks Kun is more powerful than Ragnos. Veitch say Sidious is the most powerful. Perfectly ok. And when they clash we still can't determine the victor because of that single statement (see above).

But thanks for the new information.

Being more powerful helps. It certainly gives Palpatine the edge. And Anderson thinks Palpatine is stronger than Ragnos as well, let's not ignore that. And, while the strongest doesn't always win, there's still the detail that it would likely go to a force duel. Their knowledges are at the least equal

Like I said, being more powerful certainly helps. It also shows Ragnos won't be Wtfpwning anyone...and Veitch also says Sidious added 'some of his own' with the secrets of the Ancients. He said himself there were extremely powerful Sith Lords way back when, but I've never argued there weren't

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Being more powerful helps. It certainly gives Palpatine the edge. And Anderson thinks Palpatine is stronger than Ragnos as well, let's not ignore that. And, while the strongest doesn't always win, there's still the detail that it would likely go to a force duel. Their knowledges are at the least equal

Why would it go to a force duel ? If there amount of knowledge usable in a fight are almost or completely equal than I don't see anyone of them gaining the advantage in a force fight. And when it comes to melee combat I'd say Ragnos has some nice advantage there.

We see that happen in the duel between Yoda and Dooku (ends with lightsaber duel) and technically in the duel between Sidious and Yoda too. They first threw eachother through the room (lightning / push) then engage in a lightsaber fight and then we see a force battle happen again with Yoda being the - unlucky - loser.

Still...to win against Ragnos I still say Sidious needs some terrain advantage or something similar. On a flat area I guess they'd stalemate in a force contest and then Ragnos defeats Sidious in a saber fight.



Ah...see...
I'm pretty sure I've never said Ragnos would "wtfpwn anyone else" outside of sarcastic comments. He would most likely win against anybody else (sometimes close) because he has most of the knowledge other people have (or at least most of what they did use in fights) but had far more time to develop this knowledge or fitting counter-measures. My point was that Sidious wouldn't "wtfpwn" anybody else just because he's "the most powerful".

Ragnos used a saber? I'm pretty sure he used a Sith sword... Though I'm probably wrong.

Palpatine is stronger in the force than Ragnos and given that he knows both Jedi techniques and what he invented, he certainly has the edge. And Palpatine's no slouch with a swordsman, DE Sidious as a swordsman was quite effective. Palpatine is extremely smart with his tactics and would most certainly fight smart. In the force fight, which Sidious would most likely force, he has the edge however

The problem is now, Nai, we've finally made some progress to establish Marka is NOt the most powerful and as Kun and Luke have both proved, knowledge sometimes yields to potential and general power. It's not unheard of for someone to counter attacks instinctively.

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Palpatine is stronger in the force than Ragnos and given that he knows both Jedi techniques and what he invented, he certainly has the edge.


Ragnos has Jedi knowledge too as his progenitors were Jedi.



Ragnos is a freaking monster physically compareable to the likes of Vastor and Shimmra. And we've seen people able to outfight Sidious having some huge problems with that. The point is that given at least equal force knowledge there is not point in seeking victory via force contest. Sidious tried it against Yoda and just won because of Yoda's physical nature.



The problem here is that Ragnos lived in a surrounding were almost every being could drop force attacks on him and unlike Sidious he had to fight Dark Siders (and considerably powerful ones) before to receive his Dark Lord position and stay with it.
Sidious on the contrary choses manipulation over direct confrontation and while he's not exactly the weakest duellist he didn't have any need to focus on training melee combat or defending himself against force attacks where both skills were essentially needed to survive in Ragnos times.

Ragnos having Jedi knowledge, if he'd even want to bother with it is conjecture and he certainly wouldn't have Jedi techniques that focus primarily on the lightside that Sidious made use of, and were created later.

by DE, PAlpatine is physically fit as Luke, and we've never seen Ragnos in the flesh, I really doubt he's as physically strong as Shimrra who was practically eight feet tall with extreme strength already greater than twice that of a human enhanced to hell and back...if an older, exhausted Luke could match him blow for blow...Palpatine is capable of using the force to enhance his strength and speed and by DE, he did plenty. Physical strength isn't always the clincher.

Sidious also honed his skills religiously, since he had to just in case the Jedi ever converged on him. Power was his currency and he had to excel in it. Hell, Kaan lived in a time more turbulent than Ragnos's, so'd the Dark Underlord...both are on record to losing to Jedi-note, lose. Kaan survived the fight with Hoth. even if he didn't favor direct fights, this is Sidious post twenty six years and at his strongest and best, with at the very least equal knowledge, speed and an extreme power in the Dark Side. This certainly isn't open and shut anymore, and Palpatine certainly has a chance, and given his uperior raw power now, he could most certainly win.

Not to be rude, Nai, but this is beautiful.

You have outright evidence stating that Sidious > Ragnos. So, now that your argument has been, quite frankly, blown to hell, you're going to argue that Ragnos wins because "the most powerful does not always win!!111!11".

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Hard.

A bit more from Veitch:
I think that with the Sith, knowledge and darkside "wisdom" are more important than "strength". Their greatest power lies in being able to seduce their enemies (and friends) to the dark side -- not use physical force against them. Palpatine was one of the best ever at that. Comparatively, Exar Kun was a rather minor adept with an overblown idea of his own importance. ;-)


I have the feeling someone doesn't like Exar...

In all seriousness though, we've proven Palpatine has the edge and removed some utterly ridiculous restraints. Nai is absolutely right: Power doesn't guarantee a victory, it gives an edge and now we know Ragnos won't be taking on Palpatine, Luke and Yoda at once...Honestly, this's what I've been trying to show all along. There's nothing saying Exar'd beat Marka 100 percent of the time, or PAlpatine beating them. We know for certain they're stronger, but there are other factors.

I'm not joining the debate here, but IMO I think Ragnos is not as powerful as people make him out to be. DE Sids has shown he can do a lot more than Ragnos. And size/strength isn't everything.

Originally posted by Escape81
Not to be rude, Nai, but this is beautiful.

You have outright evidence stating that Sidious > Ragnos. So, now that your argument has been, quite frankly, blown to hell, you're going to argue that Ragnos wins because "the most powerful does not always win!!111!11".

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Hard.

LOL Escape.
Wanna play the arrogant b**** now ?

Read the post I've type down here before Lightsnake came up with Veitch direct statement and you mind find out that still the author's don't have any permission to give "official" statements about the power of certain persons because said "persons" are the property of LFL and LFL doesn't give statements like that.

So to make it clear: I could just stay with my opinion and say Ragnos is the most powerful until Lucas himself shows up and says Sidious is the most powerful - and even then I could site Lucas own quote how he "doesn't get involved too much in the EU" and declare his opinion baseless.

There is virtually no way to install something at the absolute and undeniable truth - not in the real world, not in the SW universe. I've already told you why this is the case and I'm still impressed by your complete inability to accept this.

Aside of this it's nice how "changing an opinion" now is a "fall" or some kind of "weakness". Unless this board is part of some political system in which dumb people never change their opinions even if you smack them with the hardest evidence contradicting their opinion and see their own idiocy and ignorance as strength - I don't see what's so wrong with changing opinions. You might try to explain this to me hovering around in your cloud of imagined superiority. If you want some philosophical smackdown just ask for it instead of giving some underhand comments like this, dude. Because as far as I've seen you've exactly done nothing here except to cling to Lightsnake coat-tails.

Originally posted by Lightsnake
A bit more from Veitch:
I think that with the Sith, knowledge and darkside "wisdom" are more important than "strength". Their greatest power lies in being able to seduce their enemies (and friends) to the dark side -- not use physical force against them. Palpatine was one of the best ever at that. Comparatively, Exar Kun was a rather minor adept with an overblown idea of his own importance. ;-)


I have the feeling someone doesn't like Exar...

Of course Veitch doesn't like Exar. What do you expect from the guy that stated that Anderson "wasted" his characters in the Sith War ?



Meh...in all seriousness: Who did ever honestly argue that Ragnos on his own would defeat DE Sidious, NJO / DN Luke and Yoda all at once in direct confrontation ?
In fact I can remember that I once stated that Yoda on his own might be able to take Ragnos (or virtually any Ancient Sith) down on his own because of a single line in the ROTS novel talking about a "change in philosophy" among the Sith with the result that if you use the light against them the result is that their darkness gets stronger (or something like that). And I still remember that fights like "NJO Luke vs Ragnos" or similar topics where debates that required some long breath of all participants.

Nai, I remember quite clearly you saying you didn't see Ragnos losing a fight against Shimrra, DN Luke AND Exar at once...

But yes, glad we're seeing where the other is coming from. However, bearing all this in mind, until we get something else, I think it'd be fair, in power at least to put Ragnos below Palpatine and Exar, given his own creator's feelings and toughts on the subject. This is, of course, subject to change if LFL should decide, of course. I will agree that Exar had nowhere near as much Dark Side knowledge that Palp and Marka did, but apparently he's stronger than the latter

Originally posted by Lightsnake
Nai, I remember quite clearly you saying you didn't see Ragnos losing a fight against Shimrra, DN Luke AND Exar at once...


Huh ? Where did we ever had a thread about this. If I said this it was clearly not meant seriously.



We'll always reach the same deadlock in argumentation by limiting everything to such things as "strength" and "power".

Power, strength, potential, experience aren't enough to determine the outcome of a fight.

We've seen less experienced people winning (Anakin vs Dooku), we've seen less powerful people winning (Mace vs Sidious), we've seen people with less knowledge winning (Luke vs Sidious in DE) and we've seen people with less potential winning (Obi-Wan vs Anakin).

Bottom line: Narrative causality doesn't help in versus fights.

And in this case. What is it that makes Sidious the "most powerful" (by whatever margin) ? Following Veitchs comments it's the fact that he has a larger amount of knowledge. Then he doesn't necisserily need more potential (or raw power) than the others to be the "most powerful" - just a knowledge advantage. The Jedi are a good analogy here. Yoda is said to be the most powerful Jedi while Anakin's raw power clearly exceeded his (as stated in TPM).

When we know get back to the original topic. Sidious has the advantage of having more knowledge (proven now) but he doesn't necessirily more potential. Ragnos clearly has more experience in fighting other Dark Siders (as Sidious precisely just fought Maul as far as we know), more melee combat experience and more force combat experience. Who wins ? If there's just a small gap between both individuals in terms of power (at least the source material and Veitch's comments hint this) Ragnos might still defeat him due to a greater experience in direct confrontations.

I thought Ragnos was unchallenged, shouldn't that mean he never fought anyone during his reign? The only fight we know is Simus isn't it?

Originally posted by kamikz
I thought Ragnos was unchallenged, shouldn't that mean he never fought anyone during his reign? The only fight we know is Simus isn't it?

Even if he didn't fight anybody "during his reign" (which is still an assumption): He possibly had more than a century (or several centuries) before his reign to do so. It's very unlikely that he even reached the position to battle with Simus for the DLotS title without prior duels or wars in a society were everyone and their mothers were given the titles of "warriors" and "warlords" by the narrator.

It was a while back, Nai, aqnd considering the general debate we were involved in, I'm not exactly sure you're recalling it correctly...hell, I saw people on this board once claiming Ragnos could take Luke, Palp AND Exar at once!

Well, it's probably a given Sidious and Plagueis fought sometimes, even if not to the death-setup like how Sidious and Maul did so- and Palpatine held his own rather well with Yoda and Mace for a time, even if his saber skills didn't exceed theirs. While I admit Palpatine loved to set things up so he didn't have to fight, he still kept himself ready to and when he had to or wanted to, he focused mainly on tactical ability. And in DE, his physical and saber abilities have been enhanced, both artificially and thanks to his young, healthy body when it's not ravaged completely. Sure Ragnos MIGHT still defeat Sidious, but Sidious could also defeat Ragnos. It's likely Ragnos had fought his share of fights, readily given...however, AFTER he became Dark Lord, before his death, it could've been over a decade, or even most of the span of a century since he truly fought a battle.
Since knowledge in the Dark Side, would generally translate to power and abilities...Ragnos may have more experiences in a fight, but that is certainly not the deciding factor in a fight between them.

And we now know that around three hundred constitutes a 'ripe old age' for a Sith

Originally posted by Lightsnake
It was a while back, Nai, aqnd considering the general debate we were involved in, I'm not exactly sure you're recalling it correctly...hell, I saw people on this board once claiming Ragnos could take Luke, Palp AND Exar at once!

Wasn't that in this funny thread when we had all of them standing on the top of the Himalaya on different mountains ? You don't really expect serious comments in threads like this, do you ?



Sidious still had to murder his master while he was sleeping and Maul wasn't a worthy opponent exactly. While Yoda and Mace both (Mace proven, Yoda hinted) disarmed him.
And as I said: Ragnos is a monster in terms of physical shape at least as he appears in the sources.



Do you really think his tactical abilities would exceed those of the guy who kept an Empire with at least 10 quite powerful Sith Lord under his belt for more than a century. Not to mention that raw channeled agression with the needed amount of muscles behind it often enoughs "trumps" the more "refined" ways of fighting (Luke vs Vader, Anakin vs Dooku)



Well...Sidious last lightsaber action as far as we know happened 3 decades before DE and (ROTS + DE) he was losing 3 out of 4 lightsaber fights.



Certainly ? All we have seen mattering in a melee fight concerning force powers either happens on an "unconcious" level (reaction) or is very basic use of the force (enchanced speed or strength). Given two opponents with very close force knowledge / power I have to give a melee confrontation (!) to the guy who has the greater natural physical strength and more melee combat experience - in this case Ragnos.
Even if you take a fight like Dooku vs Anakin + Obi-Wan in ROTS we see that Dooku outclasses them both by far in enchancing his natural phyiscal abilties. He's physically weaker, has less potential (or raw power) than Anakin and still manages to block Anakin's two handed strike + an attack of Kenobi at once using just one hand. And the only reason I see for this is that he's more experienced in melee combat than both of them.



Yes. But what's the "equivalent" in terms of human age ? Sadow must be well over 100 years old in GAotS/FotSE and he seems to be in his "best years" so they might get 200-250 years old giving Ragnos 100-150 years of experience before starting his reign. Maybe even 200.
And well. What would you consider a "ripe old age" for a human ? 100 years ? As we've seen people coming from considerable powerful blood-lines (forcewise) can easily become twice as old (Vima-Da-Boda) which would make it at least possible that Ragnos was 300, 400 or even 500 years old when he died.

Replaying JA... Ragnos looked human in his temple.

Weird.

The debate was going rather seriously for a bit, and you certainly didn't seem to be joking...

Yeah, but so were Shimrra, Kar Vastor, Uda-Khalid...physical size and strength alone means little to Jedi...hell, Obi-wan killed a freaking rancor on his own. And Palpatine killed Plagueis the way he did because he viewed it as more ironic and humiliating for Plagueis

Tactical abilities in an actual duel? We've never seen Ragnos fight and since I doubt formal duels between Sith Lords are are anything other than even ground...the most tactics we saw from that empire was Naga chucking stone blocks. And Palpatine's mastered all seven forms, so he could likely be adept to counter anything fierce and unrefined...hell, look at Yoda.

We know Palpatine had duels in the interim between the PT and OT. He only kept his personal trophies in his room on Byss and he had quite a few of them. And in the interim, there wasn't a day where Palpatine didn't spend trying to further himself in some way.

The idea for Dooku being able to do that is before that, Kenobi and Skywalker are holding back to trick him. When Anakin goes off on him, Dooku falls. And once again: Palpatine was able to square