Reasons for modern era characters to be more powerful
I'm not referring to the actual evidence, .i.e. Lucas's comments about the Golden Age of the Jedi, the fact that Yoda and Palpatine are the most powerful to their times, yet others in their era are stronger relative to them than older eras were relative to weaker leaders, etc., but rather possible explanations for this. It does seem as though the presence of Force sensitive varies by some supernatural periods independent of demographic concerns, seeing as how it was said that the dark side was growing stronger over the course of the Banite sith, the Celestials were a thing, etc. But we can also look at more mundane reasons:
1. Training and techniques improve over time. The Jedi Order can obviously store information, so it's relatively unlikely that it would lose info faster than it would gain it. We can point to several direct examples of new inventions and innovations (.i.e. vaapad) over just the course of the movie era, so it's not difficult to imagine that those improvements compounded over 25,000 years. And it's unlikely that things hit a complete plateau, not only because of said direct counterexamples, but also looking at other things, such as technological feats, that clearly advance over the eras (you see no ships like imperial star destroyers in the time of kotor, for instance).
2. The population probably grows. Even with widespread birth control options, the richer parts of the western world still experience population growth IIRC, so I could imagine the same happening the SW galaxy, especially since many planets aren't super heavily populated. Moreover, in the thousand years since Ruusan, the Jedi probably have a much better infrastructure for finding Force sensitives, given the prosperity and lack of competition. So that means you have a higher chance of finding Force sensitives from all across the spectrum, and so you'll produce more outliers like Yoda.
3. Sidious and Plagueis in particular benefited uniquely from their midichlorian manipulation, which may have allowed them to boost their potentials past barriers earlier sith had naturally run into.
Now, there are two counterarguments commonly given; one, that lots of arcane techniques were lost, and two, that the ancient Jedi/Sith had to fight more wars. The former is partially true in the sense that sorcery and such were more common in the older days, although the newer times come with their own abilities, but I don't think that factors into overall Force mastery as much as you'd think. Take Palpatine, for instance; he was very knowledgeable on sorcery but just used more "conventional" techniques in combat anyway, as if by that level of raw power and mastery, such gimmicks were no longer as important.
The latter isn't as important as it appears either. What we're talking about - lightsaber combat and mastery of the Force - can easily be developed given the technological capabilities of the Star Wars universe without the need to actually go into combat. Likewise, modern UFC fighters are far superior in their particular area to any ancient army soldiers, and had we lived in constant warfare, we probably wouldn't have developed the resources and infrastructure to train them, ironically enough. You may say that there's less of a drive or impetus to train in the combat arts...except clearly the Order hasn't adopted that mentality, seeing as how an incredibly large portion of its training still involves just that. So excluding celestial like beings, I still see no reason to doubt the large body of evidence pointing towards the modern era being the most potent, on average, in galactic history .
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It's only logical that later eras would advance themselves better than older ones, that's kind of shown in RL history.
I mean a Roman Centurion wouldn't have the same physicals or training as a Knight, they wouldn't have the same armor or weaponry because they improved on it and their techniques.
Of course the SWU is rather limited in as far as seeing advancements, but they are there.
Example being the 2-1B surigcal droid, these weren't around during the Kotor Era or TOR or even the Clone Wars(at least in Legends).
Human Replica Droids the same thing, they weren't even around until the Rebellion era.
Registered: Aug 2014
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Ah so era wars, is it?
I suppose it wouldn't matter to you that the Jedi Order was considered to have another prime as of Tales of the Jedi, with tens of thousands of members.
I suppose it wouldn't matter that it's outright stated that the dark side was more prominent back in the days of Naga Sadow and Exar Kun.
I suppose it wouldn't matter that Ossus was the greatest collection of knowledge in the history of the Jedi Order, rivalled solely by the Jedi Archives in the Jedi Temple.
I suppose it wouldn't matter that the greatest collections of Sith knowledge were lost to history, such as the Dark Holocron, the most powerful Sith holocron in history, the Trayus Academy as well as the necropolis of Malachor V. Something confirmed in regards to Exar Kun, confirmed further by Darth Plagueis.
The Old Republic era had its primes as did the Rise of the Empire era, arguing one over the other is just nonsensical.
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I was coming up with causal explanations, not comparing the empirical data, but very well:
Where was their Yoda, Windu, Anakin, or Obi Wan? They were all pathetic next to Exar Kun, while Sidious had a handful of Jedi capable of either matching or challenging him. If their average members were comparable, their most extraordinary clearly weren't.
Where?
But the Jedi Archives exist...and all Jedi can access them far more casually than they could that library.
Yet Sidious had, by Dark Empire, been suggested to have already mastered all previously known powers. And he and Plagueis demonstrated abilities that had never been seen before in the history of the sith.
But as I said, the ancients did do more visible sorcery, though they didn't compare in overall Force mastery. Nor did they ever managed to deliberately unbalance the Force itself through sheer meditation for that matter.
That's a weird golden mean fallacy; we clearly can compare them, that's the whole point of this debating community.
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Most of the galaxy didn't even know Palpatine was a sith. The Galactic Empire was not nominally a sith one; Palpatine encouraged the belief that the sith were extent.
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But Star Wars is a fantasy not RL. A common trope in Fantasy is the notion that magic users have weakened as times go by. One need look no farther than the granddaddy of fantasy itself, LotR, to see this.
And doubtlessly some SW authors think this; but then others probably think the opposite. And Lucas does employ this trope, but only in the span of the decades between the PT and the OT; as a whole he considers the prequels to be the prime of the Jedi.
But anyway, that trope is an out-of-universe consideration.
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Eh I was more looking at overall, not just specifically going for Force Users. But then there's stuff saying that the later era Jedi were either more powerful or just re-training as they did before, so I don't think there would be that much of a gap.
But I was looking overall, as noted, there's tech in later eras that weren't seen Clone Wars and back, yet later on there was more advancement there.
Registered: Aug 2014
Location: The balance of the Force
The era referenced, stretches across until the end of the Old Sith Wars, which had Jedi such as Revan, Thon, Lucien Draay, Meetra Surik, Kreia, Vodo Siosk-Baas, and the like. Considering Meetra Surik's teachings were the foundation of the Jedi Order seen in the Old Republic, we also have the likes of the Barsen-thor, the Outlander and the others. But nice attempt at a scaling fallacy.
There's a great book called Darth Plagueis, you may have heard of it.
What? Ossus was the center of the Jedi Order before its destruction and was the greatest of them all, Odan-Urr had spent the last thousand years building the greatest collection of knowledge. The Jedi Path makes it very obvious that much Jedi knowledge was lost in the millennia afterward. Hell even Mical has stated that the Jedi Order was at risk of losing all knowledge, permanently.
He is rumored to be, which is pretty contradictory given his wanting of the Tedryn Holocron.
Given the spirits of Freedon Nadd and Marka Ragnos have caused lasting disturbances in the Force, and that Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma had become great powers of the dark side in the cosmos of the Force across the galaxy. Given the Sith Triumvirate were being mentally empowered by a palpable misery of a broken and shattered Republic, something they had caused, and that there were echoes in the Force causing Jedi to outright lose their ability to touch the Force, and even die, because of the Triumvirate, and the screams of masses of dying Jedi wounding the Force itself. Given Darth Revan and Darth Malak had caused actual dark side domination in the galaxy.
Not all that impressed tbh.
You're attempting to state that 'x' Force users from 'y' era are most powerful, as if that matters in a debate, it doesn't because it is nonsensical.
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But then according to the Fact File, the Jedi Archives on Courscant were the unrivaled respiratory of knowledge including the old Jedi Order. Plus according to the Jedi Path, they have knowledge from both Tython and Ossus.
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Last edited by Zenwolf on Sep 5th, 2016 at 04:52 AM
Registered: Aug 2014
Location: The balance of the Force
There are three sources contradicting that, one states the Jedi Temple is the only rival to the Great Library of Ossus, interestingly the Jedi Temple was designed on the Great Library itself. Other sources state the Great Library was the greatest collection ever.
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So you just used like two thousand years of content, and still couldn't really come up with enough to match a seventy or so year stretch (Yoda, Anakin, Windu, Obi Wan, Luke, Kyp, Katarn, etc.) Case in point.
Plagueis then changes his mind after his midichlorian manipulation succeeded and concludes that he's the most powerful sith on record.
Yeah, but you admitted that the Jedi Archives rival it, which make sense given that there were then several millennia of study after Odan's time, and you've yet to make a case as to why ancient jedi with less time and tech would be more productive.
Show me again the ancient sith who could tear the surfaces off of planets on their raw power, tip the balance of the Force via sheer meditation, increase their own midichlorian count, or prevent people from dying via midichlorian manipulation?
No Chosen One needed for any of those things. It's not the same thing at all.
The fact of the matter is that Exar Kun, Marka Ragnos, Vitiate and others were Force users to which the Jedi had no individual counter, and needed large strike teams to handle. Then comes along Sidious, canonically the most powerful Sith in history, and within a few decades of time there is one who could beat him (Luke), one who could stalemate him (Yoda), two who could defeat him under certain conditions (Mace and Anakin), and several with potential rivaling or surpassing his own (.i.e. Galen, the Skywalker line). Doesn't this seem a little suggestive of a talent disparity?
Why does this have to matter for another debate, rather than as a debate unto itself?
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Registered: Aug 2014
Location: The balance of the Force
350 years somehow equates to two thousand, but okay.
Changes his mind after the unbalancing of the Force affords him more power?
Rivalling something doesn't equate to it.
There were Sith who could devastate numerous worlds and caused dark side domination in the cosmos by merely existing. You're also equating no other Sith ever trying it, with no other Sith could.
Given the likes of Valkorion and Nihilus were ravaging worlds and were genuine galactic threats, both of whom were causing galaxy wide effects on the Force, I'm not seeing how exactly we're facing a vast disparity.
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They also continued to build knowledge after the Gravid-Gean fiasco. And really, how many Force users could you list as more knowledgeable than just about any Banite Sith?