The Tenebrous denial is getting old, and I'm inclined to believe it's largely a product of ignorance, so here goes: a comprehensive case for Darth Tenebrous as among the highest echelons of the Sith.
#1 Banite Powerscaling
First of all it's important to understand that this is just the starting point, in no way is the case for Tenebrous predicated entirely, or even mostly on Banite scaling, it merely lays the groundwork. Nonetheless it's important, so let's review.
As we know multiple sources state that over the course of 1,000 years, the Sith grew stronger with each generation:And according to Darth Plagueis this consisted of a total thirty Sith:We can't be sure if Plagueis counts himself and Sidious in this number but regardless, as a rough guide we have a thirty odd successive power creeps between Tenebrous and Darth Bane, which makes him vastly more powerful (a 5% generational increase alone would make him near quadruple in power). To put that into context remember that Bane was capable of collapsing the entrance to the colossal Lehon temple well before his prime with a Force wave; exploding a 20 by 30 meter door with a Force push; conjuring Force lightning that could incinerate its targets; and staggering Darth Zannah with the sheer strength of his attacks.
Logically Tenebrous should massively outstrip each and every one of these accomplishments, in fact, Tenebrous should be able to dominate Bane in combat rather easily. Sufficient certainly to establish him above the Maul, Dooku & even Vader tiers, who've found themselves challenged by comparable, and in some cases inferior opponents (i.e. Qui-Gon, Savage, Kenobi, Ahsoka etc.), and certainly don't massively exceed most, if any, of the aforementioned feats.
It's important however that we don't neglect to mention the accomplishments of some other of Tenebrous' predecessors, such as Darth Gravid, who was able to conjure a series of Force barriers around an entire fortress, and predated Tenebrous by some 500 years (or 15 odd generations), and Tenebrous' own master, who rent a hole in the Force, piercing a powerful "Force bubble" perpetuated by the combined presence of the entire Jedi Order over the course of a millennium. For reference:Frankly both these accomplishments are beyond the pay grade of the aforementioned, not even the likes of Caedus, Revan and Kun have demonstrated the ability to achieve either, let alone vastly outstrip Gravid's accomplishment in addition. This is not necessarily to suggest that they cannot, but merely to frame the feats within a relevant context.
In summary feats of extraordinary power should be easily accomplished by Tenebrous, and cosmic level influence is well within his abilities. Indeed if you're not paying attention, this already puts Tenebrous firmly in the Top 10, unless you're a putrid TOR wanker.
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Last edited by Beniboybling on Jan 22nd, 2017 at 04:53 PM
As I say though this is just the foundation; as we can reasonable infer that on top of this Tenebrous was at the point of his death, significantly more powerful than his apprentice. First off we have some basic instances in which Tenebrous simply outperformed him, for example he struggled to match Tenebrous' Force speed, the velocity of which almost barrelled him over:Then when caught in the ensuing mine sundering explosion there is a significant difference between how they handle it, Plagueis, floored by the (diminished) force of the blast, whereas despite turning to meet the explosion head on, Tenebrous capably holds his ground against the full impact:Next is the fact that Tenebrous had indeed neglected Plagueis' training in exchange for furthering his own designs - to bring forth the creation of the Chosen One and possess him using maxi-chlorians - an apprentice he took on only with the intentions of exploiting his talent for midi-chlordan manipulation, and in time to use his as a flesh-suit, not to serve as his successor:And though the story makes clear that Tenebrous ultimately underestimated his apprentice's abilities, the fact remains that a lack of proper training would have significantly hampered his growth, and kept the gap between master & apprentice fairly (and self-evidently) wide.
Then we have Venamis, whom when it became apparent that Plagueis might prove threatening to his designs he acquired to replace him, no more than two decades before Tenebrous' death, an apprentice whom while simultaneously devoting himself to the study of maxi-chlorians, managed to train to a sufficient level to be perceived by Plagueis as rivalling his power:Noting that we can rule out the possibility of him sensing Palpatine considering Plagueis was unable to sense his presence even in person and after multiple probings, leading him to theorise that the sheer magnitude of Palpatine's abilities led to him being naturally concealed:I also believe we can rule out the matter of latent potential rather than realised power, since the context given is a threat to Plagueis' Force supremacy and claimed stake to the dark side. Or rather a present rival, not a distant possibility, of which there could be many. And indeed as Plagueis concludes: "He would outlive any who challenged him."
Then we have the fight itself which Plagueis describes as something that could have gone on "indefinitely", forcing him to revise his tactics to off-balance his opponent, rather than overpowering him outright:Or in other words, Venamis was able to keep up with Plagueis' strength, speed and most importantly stamina. The fact that Tenebrous was able to fashion such a Force wielder to indeed replace his apprentice serving to reinforce the disparity between their power. As if Tenebrous was able to poop out an early-Plagueis tier Force user within the space of a no more than two decades while simultaneously dedicating his time to the study of maxi-chlorians, it only stands to reason that he, a full-fledged Sith Lord of infinitely greater knowledge & experience, existed in another strata of ability entirely - itself further highlighting Plagueis' own limited training, and expendability to Tenebrous as an apprentice.
The angle being got at here? If Tenebrous was some leagues above Plagueis as his master, over the course of the next thirty years during which Plagueis largely dedicated himself to the furtherance of the Grand Plan, the training of Palpatine and the study of midichlorians (the only serious noted growth in power coming as a result of his breakthrough ritual), it's highly unlikely that he was surpassed by his successor to a significant degree, and instead the gap between Tenebrous & Plagueis should be considered small.
And again, only a TOR phag denies Plagueis' rightful status as a Sith of paramount power.
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Last edited by Beniboybling on Jan 22nd, 2017 at 04:57 PM
Which brings us the icing on the cake that puts a cap on this debate. Namely the power scaling that can be begotten off good Hego. So let's revise what Plagueis was capable of in the immediate years, and in some cases immediate weeks, after Tenebrous' death:
1. With only a sliver of his power, he jellied the insides of a humanoid with Force lightning and brought a Force sensitive's blood to boil to the point of nearly igniting her.Which compared to the powerful blasts of lightning unleashed by the likes of Dooku, Malgus, Krayt etc. serving only leave their targets' outsides lightly cooked, is a highly impressive display of the kind of effortless power Tenebrous' apprentice wielded.
2. Moved at such speeds as appear like lightning, speeds which a droid capable of tracking blaster bolts was left struggling to process.How fast does lightning travel? At over two-thousand miles an hour. And blaster bolts? Sub-sonic speeds in some sources, lightspeed in others. Or to frame it in other terms, Plagueis is capable of moving at velocities that are ridiculous even for a Force sensitive, and seemingly without much effort, whereas he was left struggling to keep pace with his master.
3. Causing a disturbance in the Force on Naboo with his sheer presence, triggering freak cold weather and a series of seismic events.First of all its important to understanding that this is more than just a very cold winter, its a miniature ice age. Naboo experiences a very mild climate and in places like Theed the weather appears to resemble that you'd expect to find in a Mediterranean country (real world Naboo was filmed in Italy.) Waterfalls, let alone entire rivers to not freeze in the Mediterranean (unless your in the Alps), that typically only occurs in places that experience extreme cold like Antartica, Alaska, Canada, Russia & Northern Europe - not sub-tropical countries. And then we have the ice floes, dense packs of ice even more exclusive to polar regions that someone managed to seal off the entrances to underwater oceans kept warm by the planet's magma spewing plasmic core.
The point being that though many would be willing to dismiss this as a coincidental anecdote designed solely for dramatic effect, that's simply not logical. The Thames is not going to suddenly freeze over tomorrow, or next year, in fact that only used to happen a several centuries ago, during a major global cooling period. Likewise an extreme and unnatural weather event such as this could only have occurred by during a sustained cycle of climate change, which Naboo was not in the midst of to our knowledge, leaving Plagueis' presence as the only alternative cause.
This being without mentioned the earthquakes that came with it, entirely unrelated to a temperature drop, but just happened to occur regardless. Which only further beggars believe that this could all have happened by sheer coincidence, the chances of which are simply very low.
Which leaves us with a Sith Lord capable of causing a dramatic Force disturbance that produced tangible results on a continental, if not planetary scale. This is easily beyond the capabilities of some of the most powerful Sith, and replicated only by the strongest of beings like Palpatine and the Sith Emperor. Tenebrous is a league above this, which when paired with his superiority to his master, who rent a hole in the fabric of the Force, firmly establishes him as a being of considerable cosmic prowess.
Conclusion
So let's review:
1. Banite scaling is not the only thing that supports Tenebrous, nor is it all about Bane, but nonetheless establishes him as a Force wielder of immense power, above the likes of Maul, Dooku & Vader, and far more comparable to Caedus, Revan and Krayt.
2. There is strong evidence to suggest that due to neglected training, a considerable girth existed between Plagueis and Tenebrous at the point of the latter's death, indicating a strong proximity to Plagueis in his prime. Arguably establishing Tenebrous above the aforementioned tiers.
3. Plagueis' pre-prime feats, which include one of a largely unprecedented and cosmic level, reinforced his abilities and firmly establish Tenebrous' position among the highest echelons of Sith, alongside Sidious, Valkorion and the rest.
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Last edited by Beniboybling on Jan 22nd, 2017 at 04:59 PM
Registered: Mar 2014
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You should also mention Ramage as a point of comparison.
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Also his feat consistutes to performing several Dooku-esque feats at the same time, casually. In a novel that's far more subdued than most of the overexaggerated media like TOR or TFU.
Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
Jax Pavan learned some abilities from Ramage's holocron that allowed him to outmaneuver Vader at one point via time manipulation, and conjure illusions that Vader was incapable of dissipating.
Ramage is substantially more powerful than Jax (as he falls near the end of the Banite line, much more practiced with those abilities than Jax, and Jax only took a small portion of his Force knowledge so Ramage has much more than those abilities at his disposal.
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Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
THE MOTTO IS "IN KEK WE TRUST"
Yep, you aren't the least bit bias regarding Tenebrous at all.
[...]
Anyway, I applaud Beni for being the first person to actually make a solid case for Tenebrous. Really give the bottom feeding debaters here something to latch on to.
Just want to clarify though that in Gerard's to the speed feats you mentioned the droid was able to calculate the trajectory of the blaster bolts but once they're fired in a certain direction that trajectory is set while a sentient like Plagueis movies in unpredictable patterns that have to be reassessed constantly.
Also why didn't you mention Plagueis's present leaving a Darkside taint on a planet that Palpatine sensed from across the Galaxy?
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Registered: Mar 2014
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Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
THE MOTTO IS "IN KEK WE TRUST"