I have to say, you pointed nothing out about the easiness of manipulating a giant mound of earth weighing a few tons and managing to control it as it speeds down a hill in the middle of a storm.
I do realize that Janus does indeed work for George Lucas and even outranks Leeland Chee it terms of merit of opinion but I have to boldly say that he's quite wrong and I found the sentences proceeding the end of your quotation of Shatterpoint to be most interesting...
This is where your quote of the book ended:
"....Mace was much less confident in his own raw power"
Then, it continues with:
"But he had other talents.
A new tremor from the eruption shook the dirt cliff under his feet. He felt it sag: undercut by the river of lava, the shaking was rapidly destroying the cliff's structural integrity.
Any second now it would collapse, sending Mace down into the river, unless he did something first.
The something he did was to reach deep through the Force until he could feel a structure of broken rock ten meters below him and five meters in from the face. He thought, "Why wait?" and shoved.
The dirt cliff shook, buckled and collapsed.
With a subterranean roar that that buried even the thunder of the eruption and the clamor of the steamcrawler's laboring engine, hundreds of tons of dirt and rock poured into the river of lava, organics bursting into flames that the growing landslide instantly smothered as it built itself into a huge wedge-shaped burm of raw dirt across the gully; as lava slowly bulged and climbed the upstream face, the downward side of the cliff continued to collapse, piling over the cooler lava that hardened beneath it, pushing the hotter more liquid lava into a wave that washed around the steamcrawler's side, welled to the lip of the precipice, then plunged in a rain of fire upon the black jungle far below.
The landslide built into a wave of its own that filled in the gully as it rolled down toward the steamcrawler and the screaming, sobbing children-and on the very crest of that of that wave of dirt and rock, backpedaling furiously to keep from being sucked under by the landslide's roll, came Mace Windu.
Mace rode that crest while the wave sank and flattened and finally lurched to a halt, it's last remnant's trickling into a ridge that joined Mace's position with the corner of the steamcrawler's cabin. Nearly all of his concentration stayed submerged in the Force, spread throughout the slide, using a wide Force-grip to stabalize the rubble while he scrambled down to the steamcrawler's roof."
Wow, upon reading that, I found some "happy mistakes" basically things I think some had overlooked after reading about the whole "ride a hill thing", first, with the hill, he basically gave it a nudge as you saw then used the Force to actually keep control of it as he rode it. Now, If you've never lifted weights before in your life, imagine climbing a small mountain of 45 Lb. plates and then with a couple extra arms, having to keep a hold of so many of them at once to keep yourself stabilized as you come down the "hill". That takes considerable strength and muscular control.
Mace's ability to ride but more importantly keep manipulative control over elements of the hill demonstrated considerable telekinetic strength and mental control.
It's just that the situation which showed this was subtle and the mechanics hard to grasp for some.
Now, after some heart-warming comments and things of that nature, the impressive feats continue:
"The steamcrawler lurched, the hatch going even higher; his sudden movement had been enough to tip it's precarious balance, toppling it toward the precipice.
Mace bared his teeth to the night. With the Force, he seized the streamcrawler and yanked it back into place - but a squeal from above grabbed his attention. In seizing the 'crawler he'd lost his Force-hold on the landslide, and the unstable mound of dirt and rock had begun to shift under the little girl and the two boys, sending them sliding down toward the lava.
Mace calmed his hammering heart and extended one hand; he had to close his eyes for a moment to reassert his control on the slide and stabilize it- but it's shift had left it less solid than before.
He could hold it for the minute or two it would it would take the girl and boys to reach relative safety of the outcrop above, not much more. And now he could feel the 'crawler slowly titling beneath him, leaning higher and higher toward the point of no return."
Heh, for those who haven't read the book yet, I won't spoil what happens to he and the children, does he save them, do they all die terribly? who knows?
Anyway, I had forgotten that the whole thing took place in the middle of an erupting volcano! Lol.
A sandcrawler is basically as big and as heavy as that durasteel girder that Yoda lifted up and moved away from Obi-Wan and Anakin in AotC to save them.
The girder seemed to be near Yoda's limit and when Mace seized the equally heavy and big Sandcrawler, he was able to tier it into place.
He also knew he could hold the cliff and keep it there for a few minutes If needed.
All of that was very impressive and gives us the necessary information to know that Mace is at least close in power If not actually equal to Dooku's in terms of telekinesis.
So, yes, of course the ability to "ride the hill" was impressive and showed his telekinetic ability - it's mentioned alot for a reason.
And the after mentioned ability to hold the multi-ton sandcrawler up and into place, and then the slide itself at the same time also is something not to be forgotten.
Looks like you may need to look farther than Janus for your answer's my friend, like canon.
In terms of the Force Crush scenario, you were absolutely right to point out that a Jedi does learn to resist telekinesis as younglings, truthfully I had forgotten that. That was a smart thing to point out.
However don't forget that at times those defenses can be broken through, such as Yoda pushing Sidious.
I think your right that his 13 years as a Sith Lord would defiantly lend salt to the fact that he could defend against the attack.
Though it's hard to say for sure. I don't think Dooku has ever had anyone use Force-Crush on him before and the array of telekinesis used in the technique itself is complex and subtle, which may make it hard to defend against, that and it is an insta-kill ability which means Mace would only have to simply close his fist to make Dooku die.
So, it's a toss-up.
On another note, that ability Dooku used against Assaj was most interesting.
I didn't know he knew Moricho.
Indeed, If he were to use that attack on Windu, the results are also a toss-up, though I'm sure Windu has better defense than Assaj.
1) Where is Mace stated to be a master of the Broken Gate style?
A: Mace has been stated in official sources to be a master of hand-to-hand combat, and seeing as it was confirmed he didn't use Teras Kasi, he was also indirectly referred to as using Jedi fighting techniques(also known as Broken Gate) in shatterpoint.
2) Heat up the molecules in his fists? That was never mentioned in Shatterpoint, when he gets his ass handed to him by Kar Vastor.
A: I know, that's why I wrote this afterwards: "(As seen in Clone Wars V1)". Since you might not have been able to figure it out, Clone Wars V1 means "Clone Wars Volume 1". He used an extremely rare Force ability called Biocombustion to speed up the molecules in his hands, heating the surface of his skin up to inject kinetic energy into his opponents, the superbattledroids.
3) And is Dooku just going to stand there and get pounded into the ground? If Mace is unarmed, Dooku eventually tears him apart with Sith lightning; there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.
Either way, Windu wins, I would say all 3, winning the second just barely.
A: If Mace decided to use Broken Gate on Dooku, the Sith Lord wouldn't have a choice in the matter. If he tried to "tear him apart with Sith Lightning" then the lightning would merely hit the area where Windu had been.
Tapping into Vapaad, Mace would become invisible to Dooku in terms of speed, and he would just blast his face into fragments with his fists.
With that, there's this: "Windu went toe-to-toe with Kar Vastor on Haruun Kal, and demonstrated blinding speed by landing six blows to the man's body before he could blink. On Dantooine, having lost his lightsaber, Mace took to tearing super battle droids apart with his bare hands, showing incredible strength and resilience as he crushed armor and tore out circuitry with his fingers. " - Wookieepedia
"In a strict duel? Probably. In an all-out fight? Maybe.
But in a pure Force contest, there's nothing to suggest that Mace could hold his own."
In a strict duel, certainly.
For the all out Force powers, there has been plenty shown to suggest Mace could hold his own.
Been good sparring with you.
