Originally posted by Darth Sexy
You know I could argue with you the validity of a holocron vs. GAOTS events because you want to get so technical but I won't. So I'll agree that THROUGH sith magic and ONLY sith magic, he got the ship to do what it means.. Now what's next?
Without reading the entire thread...I'll just refer to Escape's initial postings. Here are my 2 cents.
Part A: Sith Lords and their goodies
a)
I don't get how you are able to consequently ingore the fact that the "gimmicks" of the Ancients were force-based while Sidious "superweapons" weren't. They aren't compareable for that single reason.
b)
The amulets at least are proven to have been crafted in Ragnos own time as he told that to Ulic and Exar himself in DLotS. The same seems to be the case with Ragnos sceptre - at least Ragnos was familiar with the weapon and it's powers.
And now for the nifty part: To construct such "tools" you need knowledge about what they should do. You can't construct a steam-engine without knowledge that steam can be used to generate power and how it's done. That means if Ragnos can construct a sceptre that force drains places / planets / people and is able to destroy things as well as give other people force-sensitivity, he must possess knowledge how to do this things without his sceptre before he can build a tool that does it. The same can be said about the amulets and Sadow's ship. And this leads me to:
c)
Contrary to your own believes there are multiple motivations for the construction of such tools, not only "something can't be done without them".
First there is the idea of archiving greater efficiency. Instead of focusing your own force powers and need some time for preparing an attack (maybe) you can simply use a tool that can do the same instantly. I can walk up steps to the 10th floor but why would I waste my breath and time if I can use the elevator instead.
Then those "tools" can be used to amplify the own force powers. But this also includes the question to which extent ? Can Ragnos drain a planet empty on his own or does he need his sceptre to do so. Can Sadow crush walls or does he need his amulet ? Simply unknown.
And there is the idea that other people can use "your" power if needed. You can just hand such an artifact to virtually anybody and let them do something without need to go and do it yourself. Particullary useful especially when you have an army of "slaves" (like the Massassi) completely dominated by your own will like Sadow (proven) and Ragnos (most likely) had.
d)
You can't seperate the Ancients from their "tools" to judge their actual power and much less their chances in a versus fight because that "tools" are used by them. With the exception of Sadow's ship that tools are always carried by those people and this pretty much makes it useless to ask what they would be able to do without them.
Conclusion
If anything their little gimmicks would give the Ancient Sith an advantage over people that don't have such tools to use or simply don't use them whatever reasons they had not to do so (Sidious). The only thing we can conclude out of the existance of this tools is that their creators must have had knowledge about the force powers those tools can generate and enough knowledge about Sith Alchemy to create them. That's it.
Part B: „Palpatine's power“
There is so much virtuousity used in this boards by certain people trying to hand us the „fact“ that Sidious is the „most powerful Sith Lord of all time“. Maybe this statement is correct but what – and that was the original question – does this mean in terms of a versus fight ?
a)
I'd like to point out that all statements of that sort are personal interpretations of some authors with some of them not even involved in the creation of certain Sith Lords. And those authors can very well be wrong with their personal opinions, sometimes they even contradict each other like we have seen with Veitch and Anderson. While Anderson puts Kun on one step with Sidious, Veitch thinks he's just some minor Sith Lord with some ego problems.
b)
Out of that these statements can't be handed in as „proof“ per definitionem. First because they're contradicting each other. Second because we don't know the thinking process of the people who handed them to us and lastly because and lastly because the mere fact that most of the characters and sometimes even different versions of the same character are created by different people.
c)
The term power is ambigious. The only situation in which is not is possibly Stover's description of the Yoda vs Sidious fight in the ROTS novel. But here we're again encountering some little problem in terms of logical reasoning. We know very well that DE Sidious is Sidious strongest incarnation in terms of force powers which logically means that ROTS Sidious is not as powerful as DE Sidious. Now the problem is that we have all the authors giving judgements about their characters and obviously they have to compare their characters to the strongest version of Sidious. Now Anderson does have the opinion that Kun is as strong as (DE) Sidious and they would have to fight to determine the strongest Sith Lord.
Problem: ROTS Sidious can't have been the „most powerful“ Sith of all times when there was somebody who was as powerful as his own (more powerful) self later. Hence the entire statement in the ROTS novel is incorrect, at least if we cling to Anderson's words.
d)
I don't see why we should use the fact that the power he was holding consumed Sidious body as a testament for him being more powerful than his „progenitors“. Did we saw any other Sith Lords (even those who were considered almost equal to Sidious) being consumed by the energy they were holding and wielding ? No. Why ? Because Sidious wielded more energy or because his body (or midi-chlorian count) wasn't enough to hold and control that amounts of power ?
Even if you want to use it as an argument for Sidious power. When Ragnos took over Tavion's body said body was consumed by the power in the matter of minutes – and it was the body of a force user. Should we conclude out of this that Ragnos must have been more powerful than Sidious because Sidious clone bodies didn't fall apart minutes after his spirit went into them ?
e)
And now we have reached the point we're comparing Ragnos to Sidious again. I love how Escape is again ignoring some facts about Ragnos. So we've never seen Ragnos using any force powers ? Hmm...I'd like to point out that Ragnos obviously was powerful enough to install the power to call him back from the grave (or generate some vision of him) into two amulets when one of those amulets (funny fact) didn't even belong to him but to Naga Sadow.
Then, even 1,000 years after his death, he was able to physically damage both Kun and Ulic by placing the Sith marks on their forehead – quite a painfull process as we've seen when Sadow received a similar mark. That just leads to the question if Ragnos spirit at this point could have simply killed Ulic and Exar if he wanted to do it.
Then we have Ragnos sceptre. I don't question that Ragnos created it himself – at least I don't have any reason to assume something different as Ragnos has already proven his Sith Alchemy skills (see amulets above). As I've already explained in my last post to create such an artifact the one who does it needs knowledge about the force powers the artifact should possess later. That means that Ragnos had knowledge of quite vicious force drains, knowledge how to keep said force energies, knowledge about how to give non-force users force powers on Jedi Knight level and of course some knowledge about „ressurecting“ people. Even if that shouldn't be the case (if Ragnos not created the sceptre himself) then we still can't seperate the thing from it's user and therefore Ragnos would have access to all abilities of „his“ sceptre.
Now of course we can ask the question what relevance those abilities would have in a fight. But first I'd like to point out something else: The fact that Ragnos (in Tavion's body) didn't use the sceptre against Korr might have resulted out of the fact that quite some (if not all) of its power was used to call back his spirit from the grave or he simply thought he would be able to crush Korr anyways („A mere Jedi child will not undo my return“, „You will kneel before me...“)
First we have the abilities with direct combat relevance. That would of course be the energy blast the sceptre can generate. After most of the energies sceptre was gone this was still enough to outright floor Kyle Katarn who was quite a gifted force-user himself and received some nice power boost by stepping in the core beam of the Valley of the Jedi. I know that the Dark Side ending isn't canon but it still can be used to show what the sceptre can do. I guess every force user (even if able to partially or completely block the blasts) would encounter some pretty difficulties defending himself against massive beams of Dark Side energy. If that's even possible.
Then we have the force drain ability. If this is based on the technique „which there is no defence against“ as Kreia did put it, then, there is no defence against it. Some people might now say that Sidious most likely had some defence against it. Well...Kreia obviously spent years with studying this particular force power and never managed to come up with a defence. The Council Members in KotoR 2 weren't able to put up any defence against it despite the fact that at least one of them was a verteran of the Sith War against Kun (Vrook). Even almost the entirety of all Jedi of this time plus an entire species of force users wasn't able to stop the effects of the technique when Nihilus used it against Katarr. It's pretty unlikely that a single person has enough power to withstand such an attack.
But the most dangerous ability (for an opponent) is the sceptres ability to store rather huge amount of force energy.To be precise the sceptre could store enough energy to give a rather huge amount of people force skills on Jedi Knight level, then call back the spirit of a Sith from the grave and after this still have enough energy left to floor one of the most powerful individuals of the NJO (Katarn). Now just think about the effect a single attack of the fully charged sceptre could have. I guess this is clearly enough to put anybody on the ground.
Conclusion:
As even the authors (Veitch at least) did state: The power difference between all those individuals is considerably close. But we're talking about combat situations here. Versus threads. Even if Sidious is the most powerful Sith (based on having more knowledge than all others) this still doesn't mean that he can destroy everybody else in a fight. We might even ask if - when two opponents with almost equal force powers enter a confrontation - the fact that the Ancient Sith and Kun had "tools" usable in combat situations this might give them some advantage over Sidious who doesn't use such tools. And then we still have the fact that Sidious wasn't really the greatest melee combatant you can find. He was good, yes. But not really a prodigy or somebody that can rely on his duelling abilities only in a confrontation.
Part C: Force spirits
This, I have to say, was especially funny to read. Somehow it looked like an essay with the topic „How to ignore information to make Marka Ragnos look as bad as possible“.
a)
Comparing Kun to Ragnos is a questionable idea on it's own. Kun willfully seperated his „spirit“ from his mortal frame using a ritual that caused the death of quite many of his slaves as well unlike Ragnos who just died. Aside of this Kun had the temples on Yavin 4 and without wanting to say that he „drained“ some energy from them those temples were put there to augment force powers (as seen when Luke's students used them to defend Yavin against an invasion).
But even with this „power back-up“ it took Kun years or even centuries to figure out how to interact with the world around him and to physically affect things arround him. Yet the greatest thing he could do was destroy a single object and toast Gantoris. Ragnos was able to physically damage the most powerful force user of era X (Kun) 1,000 years after his death. Hmm.
b)
If there is anything that can be stated about force spirits than that they are weaker than the original force users and that they lose power over time. We've seen this was the case when Revan encountered Ajunta Pall's spirit on Korriban. And because of the nice retcons happening in the timeline Pall was just 2,000 years there at max and still turned from a Dark Lord into an almost non-existing „threat“ to others. But for some mysterious reason Ragnos 5,000 years after his death should be in top-shape ?
c)
Then the nice "Kyp possessed by Kun looked more powerful than Tavion possessed by Ragnos" argument. Extremely nice. First read what's written under "a" then let me add that Kyp had by far more force potential compared to Tavion. In certain points of the NJO series Luke himself believes that Kyp might be stronger than him but at least (with the exception of Anakin Solo maybe) Kyp has shown himself to be the second most powerful force user of the NJO. Then – in contrary to Ragnos – Kun spooked around on Yavin 4 – while Ragnos took little "time-outs" in his grave or the netherworld of the force and was "freshly summoned" by Tavion.
d)
Force spirits discriptions are rather ambigious throughout the SW universe. We have spirits possessing power close to their "original" power (at least from what we can judge) like Kun or Nadd. Spirits which power did decline (Pall), spirits with almost no power shown (Kenobi, Ulic) and so on. Technically I could even ask how an almost dead Brand was able to stop the uber powerful DE Sidious - or how a mere Jedi should have been able to stop the spirit of Ragnos if they were as powerful (or even close to) their embodyments. Does this make sense ? No.
Conclusion:
The force spirits are nothing that can be used as base to determine the power of the original force users. Otherwise Nadd would be pretty much on top of the picture seeing that he was able to kill a Sith Magician, floor a 600 year old Jedi Master on the other side of the galaxy, cause some nice avalange and keep the "Jedi" Kun at bay while he was a 400 year old spirit.
Erm...Anderson never said anything about DE Sidious, Nai...I don't tink DE was mentioned at all.
and in a rebuttal to the Tavion thing...by your own admission, Tavion was 'half dead' at the time and had just sustained grievous injuries from Jaden. Same story with Brand...he was possessed and 'eaten alive by darkness' that Palpatine's spirit brought. And Palpatine's clones were different...there was some dark side magic involved in their making...hell, the only being that could sustain Sidious's spirit was Anakin Solo...
Also, by the time Jaden and Tavion fought on Korriban, two things:
Ragnos was apparently called back already.
I think it was quoted earlier that to revive ANYONE ho'd be dead five thou years, so much energy would be needed...
As for the Sith amulet thing, they were Sadow's definitely...and what actually happened to Ulic and Exar is ambiguous, considering ragnos calls them 'you of the future'...I've seen it debated whether there was a time rift of some kind or if the amulets' energies brought Ragnos and the other Sith Lords present to them.
Another detail regarding Pall and Ragnos's spirits: Pall's spirit is neither sane nor strong in the Dark Side anymore...he's guilty and unsure while Ragnos's faith in the Dark Side has never wagered and Ragnos had just received the energy of the scepter.
And it's pretty much confirmed, Nai, by Power of the Jedi and Dark Side Sorucebook-Ultimate Adversaries too, possibly- that defenses were developed...the Ultimate Guide made it clear that during the NSE, the Jedi HAD to create new defenses and techniques. And Nai, I don't suppose I need to remind you that there was very little Sith fighting in the Sith War itself...the Brotherhood saw very, very little action..
And who's to say Sidious won't use such tools? He clearly did have them. I think it's rather unfair to instasntly assume Sadow and Kun will just blast up the place when Kun is only ever shown using the amulets in a hasty bid to save his ass and Sadow didn't use his amulet whatsoever against Ludo. And Sidious had enough artifacts to dole them out to his servants like Vader, Jerec and Tremayne...the fact remains: We've never really seen those amulets put to the test against a truly powerful Force Master and we know that the times they were used, the Sith user was beaten-Kaan v Hoth, Shadowspawn and his men vs. Luke...albeit, those guys aren't Sith lords, but Kaan was certainly no weakling.
You're right, Nai, there is never a clear cut factor for fights...however, if there's a chance Ragnos could defeat anyone else, there's a chance he could be beaten as well. You once told me that Yoda might defeat him, correct?
2 things that make you wrong. One, again with nonsense. You argue different points for characters you love and instantly ignore those points for characters that diminish your favorite. You're saying because we saw Kun use his amulet once, that means he can't use it again? What kind of stupidity is that? Fine then, Sidious can only use his force storm once, and Luke can use his lightning once. See how stupid that sounds? If you plan on being a good debator, you can't conveniently leave out the points for one thing that have to do with another.. And another thing, what happened with Ulic and Exar Kun was quite clear, if you open up the comic book it's not hard to interpret.
And perhaps you need to learn how to argue. All you have done on this forum is try your BEST to diminish TOTJ characters, while getting very anal when we logically do the same to your new SW characters. Learn the rules of debate lightsnake otherwise you will be on the losing end each time.. Your point is moot as usual. If I wanted to shut you up I'd continue using your logic against you but it's too easy.
Originally posted by Lightsnake
Erm...Anderson never said anything about DE Sidious, Nai...I don't tink DE was mentioned at all.
DE Sidious is the most powerful version of Sidious by Sidious own admission. He said he had become "much stronger" since ROTJ when he meets Luke for the first time in the DE comics. Comparing Kun to any other version of Sidious would be senseless.
and in a rebuttal to the Tavion thing...by your own admission, Tavion was 'half dead' at the time and had just sustained grievous injuries from Jaden. Same story with Brand...he was possessed and 'eaten alive by darkness' that Palpatine's spirit brought. And Palpatine's clones were different...there was some dark side magic involved in their making...hell, the only being that could sustain Sidious's spirit was Anakin Solo...
Where is the logic behind this statement, Lightsnake ?
Ragnos wasn't fighting some injured person who had already lost a great part of his force potential by the injuries that forced him into a life support system, did he ?
And Palpatines clones ? Excuse me...we have seen that clones generated by using those Dark Side Magic were similar to the original force users. See Luuke and Joruus C'Baoth.
Also, by the time Jaden and Tavion fought on Korriban, two things:
Ragnos was apparently called back already.
I think it was quoted earlier that to revive ANYONE ho'd be dead five thou years, so much energy would be needed...
What does the amount of power needed to call back Ragnos does have to do with my arguments ?
As for the Sith amulet thing, they were Sadow's definitely...and what actually happened to Ulic and Exar is ambiguous, considering ragnos calls them 'you of the future'...I've seen it debated whether there was a time rift of some kind or if the amulets' energies brought Ragnos and the other Sith Lords present to them.
It was a "vision" of the Empire 1,000 years in the past if you want to thrust the narrator. What do you think how much power it takes to generate an illusion of your own self able to harm other people and interact with them. Ragnos mentions their names and seems to be informed of what both have done before.
Another detail regarding Pall and Ragnos's spirits: Pall's spirit is neither sane nor strong in the Dark Side anymore...he's guilty and unsure while Ragnos's faith in the Dark Side has never wagered and Ragnos had just received the energy of the scepter.
Which is again a stupid argument. How did Ragnos "receive energy" from the sceptre ? The energy did just summon it's spirit when it should have revived him completely. His spirit is obviously not as strong as his original self (why should he have taken over Tavion if that was the case - a force user who's potential and abilities are far below his own) and this pretty much destroys the assertion that he was as strong as when he was alive or even received "additional power" from the sceptre. Unless you want to tell me that Tavion was stronger than he himself when he was alive.
And it's pretty much confirmed, Nai, by Power of the Jedi and Dark Side Sorucebook-Ultimate Adversaries too, possibly- that defenses were developed...the Ultimate Guide made it clear that during the NSE, the Jedi HAD to create new defenses and techniques. And Nai, I don't suppose I need to remind you that there was very little Sith fighting in the Sith War itself...the Brotherhood saw very, very little action..
Yes ? Where is it stated that somebody definitely invented some defence against this certain attack ? Nowhere ? Thanks. And sorry...all Jedi that survived the Sith War were present above Yavin 4 when Kun was defeated. After this they had a nice fight against Revan and his Dark Jedi followed by a constant escape from Nihilus / Sion and their Sith assassins. If those people have no defence against a certain force power that was commonly used in their time - why would Jedi 4,000 years later have those kind of defence.
And who's to say Sidious won't use such tools? He clearly did have them. I think it's rather unfair to instasntly assume Sadow and Kun will just blast up the place when Kun is only ever shown using the amulets in a hasty bid to save his ass and Sadow didn't use his amulet whatsoever against Ludo. And Sidious had enough artifacts to dole them out to his servants like Vader, Jerec and Tremayne...the fact remains: We've never really seen those amulets put to the test against a truly powerful Force Master and we know that the times they were used, the Sith user was beaten-Kaan v Hoth, Shadowspawn and his men vs. Luke...albeit, those guys aren't Sith lords, but Kaan was certainly no weakling.
The only fact here, Lightsnake, is that we never saw Sidious using an artifact while all the Ancients permanently carried them around. Then Kun did use his amulet to exterminate Nadd's spirit and this was clearly neither "hasty" nor "to save his ass". And we other indications of him using the amulet (against the Chancellor, against Odan, against Aleema).
You're right, Nai, there is never a clear cut factor for fights...however, if there's a chance Ragnos could defeat anyone else, there's a chance he could be beaten as well. You once told me that Yoda might defeat him, correct?
Of course there is a chance that Ragnos will get defeated. On the other handside: If he's equipped with his sceptre and I was right about what this sceptre is able to do (and how off the chance is that somebody could put some real defence up against it) then Ragnos might still virtually curpstomb anybody else for the single reason that he handles an artifact like that. It's kind of an unfair advantage but well...I guess we have to live with that.
Great rebuttal, only one question. There seems to be some kind of a storyline error in the fact that Ragnos was summoned by Kun and Qel Droma, and he is describing the time where the sith were getting hunted down to extinction(I can only assume this was after the hyperspace War). But he wasn't the current DLOTS so that's a little confusing.
Why would comparing it to another version be senseless? Palpatine is still quite the powerhousen by the OT, or even ROTS given his ability to square off with Yoda...hell, Dan cited his ability to take Yoda on as a point in his favor as the strongest.
Wasn't Joruus just a normal clone? It was force sensitive because of the original Jorus...and Palpatine didn't 'fight' Brand...he beat him in a single blast. I'm saying both Tavion and Brand diedshortly after their possession, and Brand was also killed by the corruption brought about by Palpatine's spirit.
I'm just bringing up the idea that the energy needed to call Ragnos back is related to ragnos's age rather than power.
Ok, there is NO proof that vision of a millenia past was thanks to Ragnos and not from the amulets-which summoned him and the Sith Lords...and Ragnos was not the only Sith present,
Ragnos was already back before Tavion summoned him apparently..why wouldn't the scepter boost him? If it was 'calling him back', Ragnos would've been ressurected in body as well as spirit.
Ok, before Nihilius, when force Drain common knowledge to the Jedi? Since according to the DSB, the Power of the Jedi and Vader: The ultimate guide if memory serves, the Jedi developed techniques to block formely unblockable Sith techniques...add that to that we know Yoda developed or learned defenses against all of the Dark Side powers...And I'm sorry, Nai, but Kun's brotherhood saw very little action...yes, they appeared over Yavin and directed their powers, but if memory serves not a single Jedi went to the surface and actually battled Kun's servants and creatures...that's the closest most got to actually fighting Sith until the Teta fight at least.
You got another way to destroy a spirit? The thing is, he never used it against a fully accomplished Jedi master like Yoda or Mace or a Sith Lord like Sadow or Sidious...if he fired a blast at Sadow, I really doubt it'd kill Sadow...and considering Sidious is able to fire beams from his hands that rip holes in people in his weakest state...
Are we that without tavion spedning who knows how long gathering up energy, that scepter is nnot as powerful? And even if we never see Palpatine using his artifacts, we know he has them and can use them in battle. If he's allowed that scepter, then we're going to allow Palpatine everything he wants as well, including the numerous deadly sith items he has, and there's the fact Palpatine can instantly reach out into the force and kill ragnos with his instakill.
And besides, what is Ragnos going to do with the scepter? It takes some time to absorb the force and the blasts aren't exactly fatal...not to mention Ragnos casually discards the scepter in favor of his sword. And never mind how fragile that damn scepter is