Registered: Mar 2017
Location: Sith shrine below the Jedi Temple
Tenebrae was 10 when he confronted his Sith Lord father, stripping the force from him as well as his sanity.
__________________ The Sith are not placid stars but singularities. Rather than burn with muted purpose, we warp space and time to twist the galaxy to our own design. - Darth Plagueis
Registered: Jun 2016
Location: The Throne of the Sheevites
Oh?
Let’s get started with Tenebrae’s early childhood feats. When he is born, he is already “supremely strong in the dark side of the Force.” (The Old Republic Encyclopedia). This can be interpreted in several ways: As hyperbole, it is nothing but fancy wording to state Tenebrae is very powerful; as literal, it states that Tenebrae is already the most powerful dark side Force user in the galaxy at the time of his birth; or that it is literal but is referring to his dormant potential, not his current power level. All three are valid interpretations, but I am particularly doubting the second one, that Tenebrae would have supposedly been the most powerful darksider at the time, given that he did train under a Sith Master, Marka Ragnos, who gifted him the title of “Lord Vitiate” and is identified as “Vitiate’s Master” in The Old Republic video game. Why would he need a master if he was already stronger him? It wouldn’t be consistent with his character, as is seen from his other childhood feats where he kills his Mother and adoptive Father with the Force, at just the tender age of six:
Tenebrae manifested his incredible Force powers at the age of six. His dark gift marked Tenebrae for a place of power in the Empire - but it also revealed his mother's betrayal. She tearfully confessed to her husband that Tenebrae was born from her infidelity with the Sith ruler of their homeworld. Enraged by this betrayal, Tenebrae's father attacked his unfaithful wife. Awash in his father's fury, Tenebrae awakened the full extent of his power. Tenebrae took his parents' lives as he honed his talent with the dark side of the Force.
The Old Republic Encyclopedia
He then goes on a rampage across the entire planet, killing everyone who crossed his path, even other fully-fledged Sith Lords. By the age of ten, Tenebrae was feared across the entire northern continent of his home planet Medriaas. His biological Father and ruler of the whole planet, the Sith Lord Dramath came to judge Tenebrae for himself to see if he was worthy of serving him. A battle ensued, and Tenebrae proved victorious, destroying Lord Dramath and becoming the unquestioned ruler of the entire planet at the age of 13:
By the age of ten, Tenebrae was feared across Mediraas as the entire northern continent fell under his sway. Sith Lord Dramath, planetary governor of Mediraas, set out to bring the boy in line. Tenebrae broke Lord Dramath's mind, but not before revealing that he was actually his son.
The Old Republic Encyclopedia
”Lord Dramath intended to judge the child’s power to determine if he was worthy of serving the Sith Lord, or if he should simply be executed. But Tenebrae had no intention of serving—or of dying. When they met face-to-face, Tenebrae proved the stronger. Only ten years old, he stripped his father of his power and his mind.
[...]
It took Tenebrae three more years to gain control of the rest of Nathema. Dramath's firstborn son fled rather than face his formidable half brother, but other powerful Sith sought to seize the empty throne. All fell before the dark prodigy, and with each victory he grew more powerful and more ruthless.”
--Darth Nyriss
The Old Republic: Revan
The child who will come to be known as the Sith Emperor is born. Black-eyed, heartless, and supremely strong in the dark side of the Force, the boy seizes control of his homeworld by the age of 13 and earns the title Lord Vitiate.
The Old Republic Encyclopedia
As you can see, Tenebrae killed everyone who did not submit to his will, and took over Medriaas by force. It would be incredibly uncharacteristic of him to bow down to a being weaker than him and acknowledge them as his Master. Thus, it is very likely that him being “supremely strong in the dark side of the Force” does not mean he was the most powerful darksider at the time of his birth, and was still very much eclipsed by the likes of Marka Ragnos, but rather it is purely hyperbole or a reference to the potential power he could one day attain.
Nonetheless, his other feats as a child are very impressive and indicative of his immense power in the Force. One of the arguments that could be and have been made in Vitiate’s favor regarding his superiority to the likes of Palpatine is that his childhood feats showcase a greater aptitude for the dark side than Sidious or Plagueis, and given that he attained “virtual immortality” (The Old Republic Encyclopedia) and “lived more than 1,300 years” (The Old Republic Holonet (July 25, 2007)), during which he constantly drew “on his servant's strength in the Force and body to feed his ever-increasing power” (The Old Republic Encyclopedia) and relentlessly “explored the most sinister, uncharted depths of the dark side,” (The Old Republic Encyclopedia) it would stand to reason that with greater intrinsic aptitude for the Force and a far longer lifespan to study it, Vitiate would logically reach greater heights as a Force user than virtually anyone else.
The catch is that Tenebrae’s connection to the dark side isn’t greater than Palpatine’s or Plagueis’, or even Tenebrous’. In fact, I believe it is far lesser than any of the three Sith’s I am comparing him to. Yes, he may boast the most extravagant and over-the-top childhood feats out of all of them, but feats aren’t everything; powerscaling must also be factored in, and all Banite Sith get access to a form of powerscaling known as “Banite scaling.”
When Darth Bane re-established the Sith Order, he put forth the doctrine of the Rule of Two, which in essence means that there should at one time only be two Sith Lords: a master to embody the power, and an apprentice to crave it. The master would train the apprentice until the latter would be as strong or stronger than the former. The apprentice would then prove their superiority by slaying their master in single combat and taking an apprentice of their own. The cycle would continue, and each generation would always be more powerful than the latter, as noted in Star Wars: Force and Destiny Core Rulebook (July 30, 2015): “Ultimately, Bane’s plan produced more powerful Sith Lords with each generation.”
For the Rule of Two to work, the apprentice must always have greater Force potential than their master in order to surpass them. If it is inferior or relatively on par, they can never catch up to the master as s/he is improving alongside the apprentice, hunting down more and more Force knowledge and studying it (Darth Plagueis (January 10, 2012); Episode 1: The Phantom Menace Scrapbook (April 25, 1999)). Only by having a significantly greater growth-rate, i.e. greater potential and inherent aptitude, can the apprentice ever hope to surpass their master, much less live long enough to train an apprentice of their own and continue Bane’s lineage. Thus, even though Tenebrous, Plagueis and Sidious never demonstrated feats like those of Tenebrae when they were children, their predecessors - the previous members of Bane’s line - did, and the trio’s potential is far, far higher than any of the early Banites’, as we have just established, so it stands to reason that they would be capable of them, too, and, per Banite scaling, to a much greater degree.
For example, Zannah, or as she was known amongst her friends and family, Rain, snapped the necks of two fully trained Jedi Knights with ease, levitated, amd disintegrated her cousin’s hand with a thought:
Instinctively, she lashed out at him. She didn't know how she did it; it wasn't even a conscious thought. She only knew he had shot her friend. He had killed Laa! “What's the mat-" His voice was cut short as she snapped his neck with the Force. The eyes of his companion went wide in horror, but before he could do anything else she had broken his neck, too.
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction (September 26, 2006)
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Just as she had done when she had broken the necks of the unfortunate Jedi who had accidentally killed her friend, the girl unleashed a wave of unstoppable dark side energy. She acted on pure instinct, drawing on her natural affinity for the Force with no forethought, preparation, or even training. It happened so quickly Bane never even had a chance to put up his guard… but the attack wasn't directed at him. The right hand of the boy she had called Tomcat - her cousin and childhood friend - disintegrated. With a mere thought she obliterated everything below his wrist: flesh, bone and tendon vanished in a bloody explosion, leaving only a ragged stump.
Darth Bane: Rule of Two (December 26, 2007)
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Like Tenebrae, 11-year-old Zannah is capable of stomping ordinary Force users with just a thought, and on top of that can disintegrate limbs and levitate herself casually. While none of these feats quite compare to what Tenebrae did to Dramath - dominating his mind and stripping him of his connection to the Force - they certainly do come close.
Registered: Jun 2016
Location: The Throne of the Sheevites
The early feats of later generations of Banite Sith also rival and arguably match all that I’ve presented for Tenebrae so far. The Huntress, a bounty hunters who would later become Zannah’s own apprentice Darth Cognus, was capable of dampening a Jedi Knight’s connection to the Force much in the same vein Tenebrae did to Dramath, and she even managed to hinder the efforts of and pose a legitimate threat to Darth Bane in his prime, a Dark Lord of the Sith exceedingly more powerful than Lord Dramath, before she even received any training in the Force:
As he did so, he felt something fighting him. Some power was trying to block his ability to call upon the Force to shield himself. It wasn't strong enough to stop him, but it did hinder his efforts just enough so that a flicker of energy passed through the barrier.
[...]
He sprang back to his feet, simultaneously drawing his lightsaber with his right hand as he sent a blast of lightning out from the fingertips of his left hand. The violet bots should have incinerated all four of his targets on the balcony, yet again the strange power interfering with his ability to draw upon the Force hindered his efforts.
[...]
He came down with a heavy thud, the inexplicable power that still impeded his connection to the Force robbing him of a graceful landing.
[...]
The soldiers were nothing to him; it was the Iktotchi he was interested in now. She was the only opponent who posed any real threat.
[...]
Her achievements were even more impressive when one considered that she had never been given any formal training in the ways of the Force. Everything she did came from natural ability. Pure instinct. Raw power.
[...]
Her ability to disrupt the Force in others only gave further testament to her strength. She had never been trained in this rare and difficult technique; she simply unleashed it against her enemies through sheer force of will: crude but effective.
Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil (December 8, 2009)
The man who would become Darth Vectivus began experimenting with new Force powers from scratch, and then instead of a Sith Master finding him, he himself sought out the Sith, prior to receiving any training in the ways of the Force:
The director of that time hushed up the reports, closed down that mine-the rest of the operation in these asteroids was unaffected-and kept things tightly under wraps. He, too, was a Force-sensitive and had been experiencing things, experimenting, acquiring and testing new powers. When this asteroid belt eventually became less profitable as a mining operation, he closed it down, carefully mismanaged things so that the habitat would be left here and forgotten… and then, leaving it behind, he went out into the galaxy, finding the Sith, apprenticing himself, eventually becoming the Sith Master Darth Vectivus.
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal (May 30, 2006)
While most of Tenebrae’s childhood feats are impressive, they are not up to par with those of Cognus’ or Vectivus’. I do not see Tenebrae contending with the likes of Darth Bane while latter was at the peak of his power, nor do I see his abilities being of any use against him, not when he could effortlessly repel all of Zannah’s - someone who was on Tenebrae’s level - attacks whilst still two decades before his prime. Vectivus’ feats of developing entirely new Force abilities beyond basic Telekinesis and Telepathy from scratch is also something that can only be attributed to Tenebrae if one is very generous to him in interpreting his feats.
However, I have yet to mention Tenebrae’s most impressive feat he performed as a child. In the in-game codex for The Old Republic and in the seventh chapter of the game’s Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion, it is revealed that Tenebrae learned a way to twist the lattices of regular holocrons so that instead of producing an image of the creator known as a gatekeeper, it would trap their real spirits in the holocron or even destroy them completely if desired. He used this altered holocron on Lord Dramath and contained his spirit there.
Some have used this feat to argue young Tenebrae’s genius and superiority to an orbalisk-encrusted Darth Bane, due to the latter struggling with and failing to create even a standard holocron many times despite having Freedon Nadd’s holocron as a blueprint. But the thing is that Tenebrae never created the holocron that trapped his father from scratch, or at least this is never alluded to, and thus it is, in my mind, a misinterpretation of the source material. The Old Republic codex specifically states that Tenebrae “discovered a way to twist and pervert the lattice” of a holocron, not that he created it from scratch. When the Outlander finds Tenebrae’s holocron in Valkorion’s vault on Nathema and meets the real spirit of Dramath, the latter also doesn’t mention or imply that Tenebrae would have created the holocron from scratch. Thus, on the basis of being able to create a holocron at such a young age, Tenebrae cannot be attributed superiority to Bane, because he never created a holocron in the first place.
One could still say, though, that Tenebrae nonetheless managed to alter an existing holocron and twist its lattices on a microscopic level, but then, so did Darth Bane, while having his focus and concentration hindered by the constant streams of neurotoxin the orbalisks that enveloped his body pumped into his system to boot, so that point becomes moot.
Perhaps the fact that Tenebrae could twist them in such a way as to create a spirit-trapping device could be still used to argue his superiority, but then arises the question of whether the end result was intentional or accidental on his part. Valkorion, the most powerful incarnation of Tenebrae, with almost 1500 years of power-growth and mastery over the ten-year-old Tenebrae, feared the holocron he had created more than just about anything else in the galaxy, and locked it away in a vault on Nathema, where he “stored artifacts even he feared were too powerful and dangerous to use,” (Jarak, Knights of the Eternal Throne) and even told the Outlander that “the artifacts hidden there are more dangerous than [he could] image. If [he] used them, it would be at [his] own peril.” To me, that suggests he did not entirely know what he was doing when he made the holocron and regretted it later. It ended up contributing majorly to his final defeat, too, and is stated to be outright capable of obliterating even Valkorion himself from existence in The Old Republic codex.
Tell me, do you think a child ten years of age could create a device that is capable of containing the spirits of planet-devouring Force users and annihilating them without it being accidental? I certainly doubt it. If he created it on purpose, why did he if it was a threat to his own existence? If it was a threat to his own existence, why would he not undo the changes he had made to the holocron after he had used it on Dramath? If he could not undo what he had done, then wouldn’t that suggest he had no idea how the holocron actually worked, hinting at the idea that its initial creation was accidental?
Even if you believe that he created the holocron on purpose and fully knew what he was doing and how it functioned, then you must at least admit that it can’t be used as a feat of power on Tenebrae’s part, or otherwise that would suggest Tenebrae didn’t grow very much at all in the many centuries leading up to Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne and was already close to his Valkorion iteration in power as a ten-year-old, or that Valkorion’s defense is horrible and virtually non-existent compared to his offense if he gets killed by the powers of his ten-year-old self. If you do not subscribe to the notion that it was accidental and believe the creation of the holocron to be intentional, the most rational answer is that it is a feat of precision and mastery, not one of magnitude, and while it paints Tenebrae as a genius who has a superior understanding of the Force and its mechanics than someone like Bane or even Zannah, it does not mean he has more raw power or that he is a more powerful Force user, at least as a ten-year-old.
And Tenebrae wasn’t even the only one who created a holocron that could trap spirits. Darth Andeddu constructed a holocron that functioned exactly the same as Tenebrae’s own, capable of holding spirits prisoner. Andeddu even found himself the victim of his own creation, much like Valkorion feared would be his fate, and only escaped when he was able to drain the life force of one of his cultists and had the holocron placed on the chest of his actual body:
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Why is this relevant? Well, Andeddu’s holocron was discovered by Darth Bane during his trip to Prakith. He then drove his consciousness into the holocron itself and was met with the spirit of Andeddu. Given that this was indeed Andeddu’s actual spirit, it would mean he and Bane were directly contending in a battle of wills. The result was Bane’s victory, where he manage to restrain Andeddu for hours while simultaneously exploring the holocron and making microscopic adjustments to its matrix, indicating a vast disparity in power. This is further proof that Tenebrae’s feat can’t be used to put him above Bane in power, only mastery, and even there it’s heavily arguable.
Registered: Jun 2016
Location: The Throne of the Sheevites
There is still one feat for eleven-year-old Zannah that I have not mentioned, though. I saved it for last as a way to compare it to what many believe to be Tenebrae’s best feat.
During the his visit to the Temple of the Ancients on Lehon, Bane found Darth Revan’s holocron and learned many Sith rituals from it. One of them he would employ in tandem with the Brotherhood of Darkness upon his return to Ruusan. The result was a massive firestorm powered by 27 Sith Lords in unison that scorched the surface of the entire planet and absolutely annihilated any Force user caught in it… except the eleven-year-old Zannah:
Kaan, Githany, and the rest of the Dark Lords had gathered atop a barren plateau overlooking the vast forests where Hoth and his army were hiding. They had come on their fliers: short-range, single-person, airborne vehicles front-mounted with heavy blaster guns. The fliers were parked at the edge of the plateau, fifty meters away from where the Sith sat in a loose circle. The ritual had begun.
They were communing with the Force, all of them slipping into a meditative trance as one. Their minds drifted deeper and deeper into the well of power contained within each individual, drawing on their strength and combining it through a single conduit. Bane stood in the center of the circle, urging them on.
"Touch the dark side. The dark side is one. Indivisible."
The night sky filled with dark clouds and a fierce wind swirled across the plateau, tearing at the cloaks and capes of the Sith. The air shook with the thunder and crackle of a mounting electrical storm. Bolts of blue-white lightning arced through the air, and the temperature suddenly dropped.
"Give yourself over to the dark side. Let it surround you. Engulf you. Devour you."
The Brotherhood slipped deeper into the collective trance, barely even aware of the storm now raging about their physical selves. Bane stood at the eye of the storm, drawing the bolts of lightning into himself, feeding on them. He felt his strength surge as he channeled and focused the dark side from the others.
This is how it should be! All the power of the Brotherhood in one body! The only way to unleash the full potential of the dark side!
"Do you feel invincible? Invulnerable? Immortal?"
He had to shout to be heard above the howling wind and thunder. A web of lightning spiraled out from his body, connecting him to each of the other Sith. He shivered then suddenly went stiff, arms spread out at his sides. Slowly, his rigid body began to rise into the air.
"Can you feel it?" he screamed, feeling as if the raw power of the Force roaring through him might rip his very flesh asunder. "Are you ready to kill a world?"
There was very little in the galaxy that could scare a man like General Hoth. Yet as he sat looking over the latest situational reports from his scouts he felt the first glimmers of real fear gnawing away at the base of his skull.
The rift between himself and Farfalla had been mended, but now there was no way to get the reinforcements down to Ruusan's surface. Small messenger ships with a crew of one or two had been able to slip past the Sith blockade undetected, though on occasion even these vessels had been spotted and destroyed. Anything larger would never make it.
But his fear was more than the result of his frustration at having help so near yet so impossibly far away. There was something sinister in the air. Something evil.
Suddenly an image leapt unbidden to his mind: a premonition of death and destruction. He sprang to his feet and ran from his tent. Even though it was the middle of the night, he was only mildly surprised to see that most of the rest of the camp was up and about. They had felt it, too. Something coming for them. Coming fast.
They were looking to him for leadership, waiting for him to take command. He did so with a single, shouted order.
"Run!"
The storm rolled down from the plateau and rumbled across the forest. Hundreds of forks of searing lightning shot down from the sky-and the forest erupted. Trees burst into flames, the blaze racing through the branches and spreading out in all directions. The underbrush smoldered, smoked, and ignited; and a wall of fire swept across the planet's surface.
The inferno consumed everything in its path.
Heat and fire. There was nothing else in Bane's world. It was as if he had become the storm itself: he could see the world before him, swallowed up in red and orange and reduced in seconds to ash and embers by the unchained fury of the dark side.
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
Darth Bane has his own plans… To use the Brotherhood of Darkness as one in a devastating blow against the Army of Light. Meanwhile, Rain, lost in the woods, wakes up to the tremors of a dying world...
Jedi vs Sith 4 (July 18, 2001)
Bane’s world-crushing strategy almost worked but Lord Kaan, fearing Bane’s power, balked and chose to finish the Jedi with a direct attack.
Jedi vs Sith 5 (August 15, 2001)
He knew that the first army to truly unite as one would be victorious, and he eventually brought the Sith Lords together and showed them how to focus their dark side energy into a lethal blast of power that scoured the surface of Ruusan. Most of the Jedi and the Sith were utterly destroyed, but the war was far from over.
The Official Star Wars Fact File 22 (May 29, 2002)
The fires had killed most of the other bouncers. The survivors had all gone mad. All except Laa. Somehow Rain had saved her. She'd used the Force, shielding them both from the burning death and destruction, though she wasn't quite sure how she'd done it. It had just sort of... happened. Now she and Laa had nobody left but each other.
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
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You can argue around Cognus’ and Vectivus’ feats based on the fact that they were older than Tenebrae, but Zannah was only a year older than him, and her feat of tanking what was essentially an army-busting attack is beyond anything Tenebrae ever did, in terms of sheer scope and magnitude, even counting his conquest of Medriaas. Thus, I believe Tenebrae’s natural talent with the Force is more analogous to the early Banites than the later ones. He could be argued to exceed Bane, but Zannah has him matched and I’d say beat based on her Force Barrier showing.
And given that we’ve already established how Banite scaling functions, everyone after Zannah would have greater Force potential than her, and by proxy, Tenebrae himself. Thirty generations of more powerful Sith (Darth Plagueis) means that Tenebrous, Plagueis and Sidious transcend him by a country mile. To me, it’s not really even a question.
There are those, however, who do not accept Banite scaling. It is an irrefutable fact that each successive generation of Sith Lords became more powerful than the last per many sources (Force and Destiny Core Rulebook; Episode 1: The Phantom Menace Scrapbook; Book of the Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side (February 10, 2012); Darth Plagueis), but naysayers have questioned the meaning of the word “powerful” and whether it is referring to power in the Force or something else. This is a valid criticism, as “power” has multiple meanings, but it is very clear that in this case, it means power in the Force.
For a millennium, the Sith maintained the order in secrecy, passing down their evil heritage. As they gained knowledge of the dark side of the Force, their powers increased with each generation.
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace Scrapbook
In the above quote, knowledge of the dark side is directly correlated with power; as they gain the former, they increase in the latter. Thus, it becomes clear that the Banite system produced more powerful Sith Lords in terms of their strength in the Force each generation.
An argument against this exists as well, though; the Banite deniers are quite persistent indeed. In the novel Darth Plagueis, it is revealed how roughly in the middle of the Banite line one of their own, Darth Gravid, betrayed the Order and destroyed more than half of their accumulated knowledge. Darth Plagueis himself later mused that the Jedi might already have been “decimated had it not been for the setback Darth Gravid dealt the Sith.” Based on this, it is assumed that the Banite scaling quotes are simply false or outdated, retconned by more recent information.
In actuality, however, there is no contradiction between the notion of each successive generation being stronger than the last and Gravid destroying half of the Order’s knowledge, because, indeed, he only destroyed their knowledge, not their power. For how else could Darth Gean, Gravid’s apprentice, overpower his Force Barrier and defeat him in single combat with her bare hands, showcasing blatant superiority in both skill and power? The quotes do not state Bane’s plan produced more powerful Sith Lords each generation until Gravid; they state “Bane’s plan produced more powerful Sith Lords with each generation,” and Gean’s combative victory over Gravid is a testament to this; he did not break the cycle.
Registered: Jun 2016
Location: The Throne of the Sheevites
Furthermore, Sidious himself noted that the generations preceding him had challenged their masters to a duel to the death, indicating that they all had to be at least their master’s equal in order to prevail:
He sometimes wondered: Was he a level behind? Two levels behind? Such questions were precisely what had driven generations of Sith apprentices ultimately to challenge their Masters. The uncertainty about who was the more powerful. The need to test themselves, to face the definitive trial.
Darth Plagueis
Sidious also recited what his Master Plagueis had often told him, which is even more confirmation that all apprentices dueled their masters:
"How often you said that the old order of Bane had ended with the death of your Master. An apprentice no longer needs to be stronger, you told me, merely more clever. The era of keeping score, suspicion and betrayal was over. Strength lies not in the flesh but in the Force."
--Darth Sidious, to Darth Plagueis
Darth Plagueis
Obviously if an apprentice needed to be stronger than their master, then they would have dueled them, since you don’t need to be stronger than your master to kill them via deception. And given that this “old order of Bane” only ended with Tenebrous’ death, it can be deduced that all apprentices were stronger than their masters when they dueled them, until Tenebrous and Plagueis, as he did not kill Tenebrous in a duel but via misdirection which did not require for Plagueis to be stronger than his Master.
So Banite scaling is indeed a thing, and the evidence for it is very strong. Thus, I can with certainty conclude that the inherent potential of the late Banite Sith like Tenebrous, Plagueis and Sidious is vastly superior to Tenebrae’s, whose own is more in line with the early ones and arguably already surpassed by Zannah’s.
But even if, for some strange reason known only to yourself, still do not accept Banite scaling and demand feats for Tenebrous, Plagueis and Sidious, I can still prove each of them have greater potential than Tenebrae without relying on Banite scaling at all.
I’ll start with Tenebrous. Even when he was a mere apprentice, “the magnificent computational power of his Bith brain had led him far beyond the simplistic Force studies imposed on him by his Master.” (The Tenebrous Way, published in Insider 130 (December 13, 2011)) So everything that his Master told him to study, which presumably eventually included the entire Banite archives that contained “texts and holocrons that recounted the deeds and abilities of Sith Masters who, so it was said and written, had been able to summon wind or rain or fracture the skies with conjured lightning. In their own words or those of their disciples, a few Dark Lords claimed to have had the ability to fly, become invisible, or transport themselves through space and time” (Darth Plagueis), Tenebrous deemed “simplistic” and went “far beyond” all of it. So essentially, things like teleportation and time manipulation are “simplistic” things that Tenebrous already mastered as an apprentice. Tenebrae never demonstrated either of these powers as a child, and only ever showcased them after almost 1500 years later as Valkorion, when he was infinitely more powerful than as a ten-year-old. So in a nutshell, abilities that take Valkorion millenia busting his ass off to understand are mastered by Tenebrous in just a few decades. If that doesn’t scream greater talent, I don’t know what does.
For Plagueis, or Hego Damask as he was known before his indoctrination into the Order of the Sith Lords, we have him mind-tricking his playmates into suicide as a five-year-old and managing to conceal his powers from full-fledged Jedi. It’s nothing overly significant, but it should be noted that the first time Tenebrae ever awoke his power was as a six-year-old. Hego in comparison showcased restraint, mastery and control of his abilities at an earlier age. He doesn’t have anything over Tenebrae in terms of magnitude, but him being able to use his powers at an earlier age suggests a greater connection to the Force, although I admit this is heavily arguable.
Sheev has the most going for him, I believe. As an infant, he already showed an aptitude for enhancing his physical attributes with the Force, when he wrestled with his Father Cosinga with unnatural strength. Sheev then remarked how he was born mature and fully grown, indicating that all his physical attributes already matched an adult’s as a newborn baby:
“I knew this day would come. I’ve known it since the first moment I tried to swaddle you, and you fought me with a strength that was too powerful for your size or age.”
Palpatine looked out from beneath his quirked brows. “I was born mature, Father, fully grown, and you hated me for it, because you grasped that I was everything you can never be.”
Darth Plagueis
At 17 years of age, he was already masterful and powerful enough in the Force to completely shield his mind and Force signature from a full Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Plagueis, which would lead the latter to muse that Palpatine seemed like he was “sprung from nature itself” instead of flesh-and-blood parents, and that the Force was so strong in him, it had concealed itself, similar to how an object collapses into a singularity once its density becomes too great, coinciding with a description of Palpatine in the Revenge of the Sith novelization (April 2, 2005) labelling him “an event horizon” and “a black hole” in the Force.
All of this completely leaves Tenebrae in the dust. Darth Plagueis at this point has showings of outrunning blaster bolts, causing global weather phenomena with merely his presence, rendering himself as durable as stone, absorbing blaster bolts and more. He is infinitely more powerful than the featless Dramath, and resisting his telepathic influence is a feat of Sheev far greater than anything Tenebrae has, not to mention being able to use the Force immediately at birth as opposed to only as a six-year-old and performing at the same level physically as an adult while a baby, as well as his hype which also eclipses Tenebrae’s.
There’s more, however. Around the timeframe of The Phantom Menace, that is 32 BBY, Sidious noted how his powers had increased “tenfold” over the decades he had been Plagueis’s apprentice. So essentially, Sheev already possessed one tenth of his TPM iteration’s strength in the Force as a seventeen-year-old. This is significant, because around TPM, he is already identified as “the most powerful Sith Master who has ever lived” (Darth Maul: Sith Apprentice (January 16, 2012)), so basically, he is above any Sith ever, including the likes of Darth Nihilus and Tenebrae’s Emperor Vitiate incarnation who both have showings on a planetary scale (Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (December 6, 2004); The Old Republic: Rise of the Emperor). Sheev, at an insanely young age before any formal training in the ways of the Force, already possesses more than 10 % of their power, which is way more than Tenebrae himself, logically, given that for the latter took over 1400 years to reach planetary levels, during which I’d imagine he’d have time to grow a bit more than tenfold given him tirelessly researching the dark side and having “ever-increasing” power that he constantly boosted by draining his servant and via immensely complicated rituals, and so on.
So even without factoring in Banite scaling, both Tenebrous and Sidious possess early showings that mark them in another league entirely from Tenebrae in terms of potential, with the case of Plagueis is arguable. With Banite scaling enabled, which I see every reason to given it’s basically a fact, all of them practically stomp this comparison, especially Sheev. Therefore, an argument for Valkorion’s superiority on any one of these characters cannot be based on his natural aptitude with the Force, as all three clearly dominate that comparison.
Registered: Aug 2014
Location: The balance of the Force
LMFAO. You realise that it's a fvcking fact that all of the Sith were defenseless, and worse, the entire Army of Light were caught off-guard completely too. They were all sucked in and became part of the sphere. All unlike Zannah who summoned a Force shield, a technique she had an innate talent for. Even worse for your laughable comparison is the fact that random fvcking soldiers could survive the destruction, nevermind Zannah herself.
Tenebrae didn't just destroy Dramath, he completely overwhelmed him, severed his connection to the Force on the spot and tore his spirit out of him and trapped it in the Holocron which he evidently built prior to absolutely any training. Bane in his prime struggled to create a holocron and yet Tenebrae created one of the most powerful we've ever seen as a pre-teen.
But thanks for promoting Tenebrae's immense potential, but you kinda forgot that Nathema vastly increased his capacity as a Force user. So that potential is severely lesser than whatever he had after that ritual.
Better yet, for all of your arguments, one thing you forgot to mention is the fact that Tenebrae was an untrained Force user whereas Marka Ragnos had an immense mastery of the dark side of the Force. So Tenebrae being supreme isn't contradicted by that whatsoever.
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Within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
Jan 6th, 2018 07:39 PM
