It is ultimately Palpatine who, at a period of advanced age and physical frailty, was able to absorb more punishment than Darth Bane.
Absorb more punishment? He didn't absorb the lightning in any way, he resisted the damage that it was causing. Your comparison is beyond being non parallel.
That calls for speculation, I'm afraid,
LOL. Are you ever going to get past committing the burden of proof fallacy? You made the point that it was essentially Palpatine's presence that altered the landscape of the planet, and I was simply pointing out how you lack the proof to assert such a thing. The fact that it's stated that it was his energies that achieved the result does not mean that the result was a natural product of them.
aside from being a very pathetic red herring.
Red herring? How so? Explain yourself.
Really, Nebaris, if you're going to try to distract people from the text by asserting that "Palpatine might have wanted to do it", let a better point result from it.
Now you're just being silly. I was in no way trying to "distract" people from the text, I was pointing out how the text does not necessarily come to the conclusion that you made. If you learnt how to analyse passages properly I wouldn't have to. The point is, the feat is no way near as impressive as you tried to make it out to be. Nothing points to what happened as a natural effect of Palpatine's power in the dark side, like you were trying to point out.
As I have said before, however, Palpatine hardly ever went to Byss, so occupied was he on Coruscant and further training himself in the dark side of the Force.
And as has been explained, this is only ever stated to be the case during the beginning of Palpatine's rule.
I'm afraid you fail to make a point, Nebaris. Freedon Nadd conquered a hostile planet, whereas Byss was already subjugated under the Galactic Empire. This wasn't about "conquering a planet" so much as it was "enslaving a planet", and making it a virtual, planet-sized Sith laboratory. Which Palpatine did. By himself. With the Force.
I'm afraid you fail to understand the point, Gideon. The fact that he conquered the planet rather than enslave it is insignificant. The point is, he, like Palpatine, singlehandedly used his force powers to dominate a Planet sized group of individuals.
[qoute]When he hardly visited.
As has been pointed out, unproven.
[quote]It is not a hyperbole.
Yes, it is. It's stated in the previous passage that he did so "slowly, but steadily," meaning that he didn't constantly do it. You don't really have a point here.
I am not saying that the Emperor just hacked away at their life energies and took all he wanted.
Wonderful, I never said you did.
But he did so constantly ('steadily'😉...
Constantly.
Steadily.
If you fail to see why I'm posting the definitions, here's a hint: they're not the same word.
when he was hardly ever there.
As can be seen, unproven.
I'm afraid that they really do.
As wonderful as this one word rebuttal is, it doesn't change the fact that the feats you've mentioned have been largely replicated, or surpassed, by Sith (including Bane) before him, and it doesn’t change the fact that it doesn't even add to what Sidious can already do.
You've yet to prove that Darth Bane "channelled and absorbed more power".
You're being purposefully dumb. Power capable of destroying an entire planet > power capable of altering the landscape of an entire planet.
Especially when the then-Chancellor Palpatine was able to absorb Force lightning full-on in the face, whereupon it melted,
He didn't absorb shit, Gideon, he tolerated the damage that was being caused by the lightning.
in an inferior position
Relevance? How does the inferior position add to the difficulty in resisting he bad effects of the lightning? Oh that's right, it doesn't.
for a long duration of time, yet still demonstrate enough power to nearly kill Jedi Master Mace Windu -- and all the while, the only weakness demonstrated was 'feigned'.
As in the weakness displayed after the lightning exchange had ended, sure.
So to recap, your argument sucks. The amount of lightning that he resisted the bad effects of is completely unknown. We have no idea how much lightning had been absorbed by Mace's lightsaber before being directed back at Palpatine. Not to mention, you’re committing endless irrelevant misdirections.
Darth Bane put himself into a coma in a surprisingly stupid maneuver,
Read Ro2 and know what you're talking about. He got completely taken off guard by a Jedi who sacrificed his life force to wrap Bane in a giant blue orb that directed Bane's lightning back onto him. There was no stupidity involved.
despite being protected by orbalisks.
Despite being protected by orbalisks? The orbalisks are what put him into the coma. They're weak to lightning, and upon being hit by millions of volts of the stuff, they injected toxins into Bane's body, and that was what put him into a coma.
And that Bane was killed when he clearly didn't absorb the attack
I think you'll find that Bane's perfectly alive and well by the end of Ro2, Gideon.
is proof enough that his lightning is a far cry from being "planet-destroying power" like you credit the Force Storm to be.
Your argument, again, makes zero sense. Your premise doesn't follow your conclusion. How would the idea that Bane had not absorbed his own lightning and was killed by it detract from its potency? Your points have been getting me seriously perplexed here, Gideon. I'd suggest putting down the Jack Daniels and continuing this when you're able to think clearly.
Ergo, one can conclude that the incident on Ruusan was "ritualistic in nature". 😉
I don’t know if you’re trying to be clever, or funny, here, but you fail on both counts. My main argument for Bane, being the amount of energy he was able to absorb, and the mastery he displayed in containing it and directing it, is not undermined by the fact that he had to receive the power in the first place through a ritual. As for Palpatine’s Force Storms, the ritualistic nature of them has everything to do with them being worthless. As explained, the nature of the Storms means that they don’t speak for Palpatine’s level of ability, and given that there’s no proof that he’d be able to use them against Bane in this scenario without destroying himself, they’re quite simply worthless.
Dealt with already.
You tried, Gideon, extremely hard, but no, nothing you’ve said changes the fact that there’s no proof that the altering of the Planet’s landscape was in any way a natural product of Palpatine’s power. The text does not undeniably point to that.
I'm afraid the text simply proves that he did so to the entire planet,
Seeing as you ignored most of them:
And exactly how did he do that? What were the circumstances? How many did he do this to? Did he do it to a large group of individuals all at once, or to them individually? How much time did it take him?
As for what the text indicates, all it refers to is the people of Byss. This does not indicate, nor imply, that the entire population were enslaved and drained of their life.
despite hardly ever being present on the planet itself.
As can be seen, unproven.
Excellent. I'm sure you'll have no problem proving it.
Given that they would have all essentially been able to do the same thing, the difference being the Ancient Sith was able to concentrate it into one force attack after attempting a complex Sith Ritual, and Nihilus was able to do so whilst not at his full level of power, and expending energy onto his ship and crew, the feat still wouldn't compare under the best circumstances.
Simple facts, Nebaris. Palpatine would use the life energies for his dark side experiments, as well as to prolong his own life.
Irrelevant misdirection.
That Byss's population is well in the billions and that it was his secret throne world, where he built up a small mini-empire, one can safely conclude that he did not attempt to butcher the people there.
Given that you haven't provided proof for the number of beings that he enslaved to have been any sort of relatively large portion of the population, as far as we know, Palpatine could have done as much without leaving any sizable dent in the population of the planet.
As for Palpatine being "on par" with the real titans of the Sith, he's not. He's above them. The numerous statements speak for themselves, as does this.
Well you would say that after constantly failing to prove that they solely reach your interpretation.
We need to get past the stages of grief. The first is denial. Palpatine is the most powerful Sith in history, and perhaps, with help, you can finally put your angered, tempered, unwilling attempt to contradict that to rest.
We clearly do. Now you can rely on flawed reasoning all you want, but at the end of the day, he's displayed nowhere near the power that Sith like Darth Bane, Exar Kun, or Darth Nihilus have, and nothing points to him being more powerful than any of them. Now start actually substantiating your points rather than arguing from personal incredulity and then get back to me.