Borbarad
Advocatus Diaboli
While I pretty much like both of you for being competent debaters. Before you go on with this "Sidious vs Dooku" stuff for eternity let me give both of you (or maybe only Escape81) some different perspective with some character analysation:
Sidious:
Sidious is by any means a coward. He's a sith and his modus operandi are the rules of the Sith. He uses manipulation, betrayal, deception, stealth actions and so on to archieve his goals. His "power" is an outcome of his philosophy. Most of it (talking about political influence) was archieved through the kinds of actions I mentioned above. While being a capable force user and duellist he doesn't like to rely much on both - at least not when confronted with equal fighters (seen when he tried to escape from Yoda and he killed his own master while his master was sleeping and therefor defenceless).
Dooku:
Dooku while being a Sith completely rejects the "philosophical" part of the Sith lore. He's a political idealist which is the opposite of what Sidious is. When it comes to confrontation (be it political or duells) he always gives his opponents a fair chance. Have a look at it:
- he basically told the Jedi where the Sith Lord can be found by revealing that the Senate is under the control of the Dark Lord.
- he gave Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme a chance to survive by placing them in the arena confronting them with monster instead of simply executing them
- he never attacks people before they aren't ready for a fight
The point is: Dooku is very focused on "honorable" action and "fair play" which might come from his aristocratic heritage or from his Jedi education. Keep that point in mind when I now try to give some statements about the most important questions in your debate:
"Dooku fearing Sidious"
By any means of logic I don't see a reason why this should be the case. Dooku is a trained warrior and has experienced some wars (Stark Hyperspace War, Battle of Galindraan against the Mandalorians). He's very skilled in terms of force use and he's an exceptional duellist and he had encountered the most powerful force users and lightsaber duellist of his time (Yoda and Mace) back in times when he was a Jedi.
Now why should he fear Sidious ? In terms of personal power (Force powers, lightsaber skills) they are on a very close level. When it comes to political power: They both controlled an army while Dooku had some advantages here.
a) He's one of the richest individuals in the entire Galaxy.
b) He would have been able to reveal Palpatine as being Sidious at any time he wanted
And just to add it: When Dooku first met Asajj Ventress he tells her what is the difference between a Sith and a normal Dark Side user and this is that "Sith don't fear anything". And "anything" includes Sidious.
The point is that Dooku with his ideals and beliefs would never have seen Sidious as a personal threat because they are on the same side and "betrayal" is nothing that Dooku would even think about which makes the idea of Dooku fearing Sidious quite senseless and leads me to the next point:
"But Dooku was the apprentice"
Yes. He was. The point is: If Dooku would ever had the intention to overthrow Sidious he would have tried to do it in a "fair fight". If he had the intention to do that - and would willfully have done that at any costs he could have easily done that with betrayal.
- before AotC he simply could have told the Jedi who the Sith Lord was they were searching for. The Jedi had limitless confidence in Dooku - hell...they even thrusted him when he has revealed himself as a Dark Sider.
- in ROTS when Sidious was sitting around in this chair Dooku could have simply cut him down. Fear or not. Sidious was without a weapon and defenceless. If Sidious can kill Plagueis in such an situation (and Sidious knew that Plagueis was much more powerful than him) Dooku could have done the same to Sidious.
Fact is: Betrayal doesn't fit Dooku's character. I don't even believe that he ever had in mind to overthrow his master despite the fact that he was a dark side practicioner because being the man he is. If Dooku just had searched for power he could have used his nearly infinite amount of money to buy Senators and make himself the Emperor, he could have used the CIS and overcome the Republic with sheer force.
And he was in fact shocked when his master betrayed him. Shocked because he never thought that his master would be able to do that. Shocked because "betrayal" doesn't fit into his ideology same way "corruption" doesn't fit into it.
That basically means he could never have become the "master" because he totally lags the normal Sith "qualities" and not because he wasn't able to take Sidious out or feared Sidious.
"Sidious is more powerful"
Again we're entering the vast field of speculation.
I wouldn't doubt that Sidious is the most powerful Dark Side practioner in the movies because he simply was trained in the ways of the Dark Side for his entire life where Dooku started to train Dark Side powers at some point after TPM (so he did it for a maximum of 13 years).
But the point is "Dark Side practioner" here.
Dooku on his own was one of the most powerful people that were trained in the Jedi Order during the last centuries. He was able to overpower Mace (although Mace was younger at this point) and Mace is a force prodigy if you consider the facts that he was a Knight at the age of 13 and a Council member at the age of 28 (which means he's basically developing twice as fast as "normal" Jedi).
So Dooku might have a greater potential than Sidious (this is aided by the fact they both have shown a nearly equal mastery in Dark Side powers) and he might be the greater overall force user.
And thinking about it I must say that I my personal view is that this discussion is quite senseless since there is no proof for both opinions (Dooku stronger or Sidious stronger) and it doesn't even matter because they are both on a very equal level. If one of them has an advantage over the other that is only a marginal advantage.
Conclusion:
Dooku and Sidious can't be compared because having a completely different mindset on certain topics. Sidious is a Sith in force use and ideology while Dooku is not. Dooku doesn't see the Jedi as "worthless enemies" he threats then with respect and even helps them. There's no room in his ideology for Sith ideals.
And if they both would ever enter a real fight for the title of the Dark Lord we can't really tell who would have won. On equal ground and without any opportunity to gain advantages through the enviroment I pretty much believe that Dooku would win because they are basically equal in terms of force powers while Dooku is the better duellist.
If "anything is allowed" Sidious will most likely win this because Dooku will fight according to his philosophy which can be compressed into the idea of a "fair fight". And fighting fair against somebody who's ideology is to use "dirty tricks" will most likely result in the fair fighter losing.
Or to make it clear: In a fight like Mace vs Sidious, Sidious will most likely get defeated by Dooku (the same way Mace defeated him) while in a fight that is more like Sidious vs Yoda, Sidious will most likely defeat Dooku.