Well, Sidious's mastery of the Force is not subliminal, nor is it on a level that no other Sith Lord has reached. He is most certainly not a match for those along the lines of Exar Kun, Marka Ragnos, or even Darth Traya.
Janus, on the otherhand, has given some excellent points regarding the potential that Sidious had, regarding the Force. Not to mention that he is so attuned to the Dark Side that it deteriorates his very body. This is confirmed by the official website and by Lucas. While Master Windu is responsible for the current status of his face, Sidious's body is being corrupted by the immense Dark Side energies flowing through it. This is a sign that Sidious's mastery of the Force, as well as his potential is very great.
Also, he is exceptionally skilled in many of the arcane Sith arts. He has delved deeply into the art of necromancy, considering he is able to maintain his life, even as a spirit. Though he requires a clone or uninhabited body to return to a corporeal state, he is one of the few Sith Lords that we've seen - such with Exar Kun and Ragnos - to maintain his spirit after his death.
Then, he is able to put the extremely ancient Jedi Master Yoda to the test, as is Dooku. Thusly, while Dooku and Sidious may be PT Sith, they are well above the average in terms of power, potential, and ability.
Originally posted by Veneficus
WTF is this? Battle Meditation on the entire galaxy? No ffing way.
He did it on the Imperial Fleet. No, I don't believe Glentract meant all of the Empire, its territory, and citizens. Regardless, Sidious has a very skilled amount of mastery over the Force - the Dark Side especially.
Originally posted by Darth_Glentract
Not use it on the Rebels? It may have required to much concentration or perhaps they were to fanatical to make it have a noticeable effect.
The idea of Sidious being able to use Battle Meditation on his forces (And them totally sucking without it) at all times without apparent effort or a channeling device just reeks of bullshit. It may be from a valid EU source, but it's still ridiculous.
And the explanation above seems a bit loopholish. It'd be like saying Grievous is weaker because he was force crushed by a jedi...
wait, that contrived excuse has ALSO been used. Silly me.
Originally posted by calvin44
wtf? if he had such good battle meditation why dont the show it in aotc or rots?
Why don't you try to become a little smarter and type using proper English.
First, he was in hiding during AOTC and ROTS.
Second, he may have been using it. You don't know how the battles would have turned out had he not been using it.
Janus, I don't see anything wrong with my explanation.
Also, he did have many meditation chambers throughout the galaxy. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
Originally posted by Ianus
And the explanation above seems a bit loopholish. It'd be like saying Grievous is weaker because he was force crushed by a jedi...wait, that contrived excuse has ALSO been used. Silly me.
Why is that a contrived excuse? We see it, that's why he develops a cough, and we can see from the blaster bolt in the movie killing him that it was an important organ. A design flaw to be sure, but if shooting it can kill him, crushing it acting as a crippling blow is hardly outside belief to me.
As to Sideious, he was a through and through sith, of power at least comparable to yoda, and he was able to hide in plain sight of an increadbly dense concentration of force users, apparently able to cloud their visions of the future as well as orchestrate their downfall in front of them with little trace of his actions untill very near the end. That'd be a master to me.