Vader and Sidious vs. Luke and Mara

Betrayal
Mara checked to make sure her lightsaber and other equipment were in place. Then she rolled over the lip of the roof and fell two stories to the sidewalk, landing as lightly as a leaf fluttering to the ground.

She held herself in a crouch, her dark robes making her all but invisible, and waited until there was no speeder cross-traffic to be seen. She came up out of her crouch like a sprinter and was across the avenue and up against the base of the featureless duracrete wall a moment later. A quick flex of the legs and boost of the Force and she was atop that wall

Not quite. She did not allow herself to come down on the walltop. It, too, was said to have pressure sensors on its walkway and would reveal her presence if she did so. Instead, she caught herself with the Force, creating a bubble between her and the top of the wall, and drifted just over that surface until she was above the blue clover on the far side.

It was time to be a Jedi instead of a spy. As a spy, she'd probably have fixed a line thrower to the top of the CorSec building, launched a driller projectile, trailing a nearly invisible cable, to affix itself to the top of Thrackan's dome, and used a powered or hand-cranked winch to carry her the quarter kilometer from rooftop to rooftop . . . and even so, her chances of detection would have been very high. Instead, she carried almost no equipment, and her chances of detection would be determined by her own concentration.

She allowed herself to float down to stand just above the blue clover. The bubble of Force energy that kept her aloft was easier to maintain when she was mere centimeters above the surface-merely having the mental image, the paradigm, of it as a sort of air-filled balloon improved her ability to perceive it, to maintain it. She'd need to employ all the concentration tricks she knew, because what she was about to do was very tricky.

At the base of the wall, she stood a moment, eyes closed, and focused on the other things she'd have to do to cross two hundred meters of sensor-filled open space.

Air. She could not keep air from moving, of course. As she moved, she would displace it. But she added motion to the air she displaced, so that it moved out in a single stream, losing neither speed nor coherence for dozens of meters ahead of her. To a sensor, it would read not as the movement of a person across the lawn, but as a breeze.

Heat. That would be the trickiest part. If she radiated heat, infrared sensors would inevitably pick it up. She surrounded herself with another bubble, this one of containment . . . and immediately felt her temperature begin to rise as the heat she expended stayed within centimeters of her skin. She could even control herself to the point that she did not sweat, and would need to do so here-but that, too, would increase her internal temperature.

She couldn't sustain the effect of heat entrapment for long; she would end up collapsing. But she should be able to sustain it long enough to cross the open space between wall and bunker . . . and in that time, infrared detectors would not see her.

Probably.

She stepped forward, concentrating on the act of walking, reminding herself that the movement of her legs was only a comforting paradigm-levitating in some other pose would require more of her attention. Each step felt a bit wobbly, as though she were moving across a flexible playground surface, but she fell into a regular pace and let her muscle memory do the work for her.

Yes, any Jedi Knight might know one of these three techniques-most commonly, the technique of levitation. But only a Jedi Master was likely to know all three or be able to sustain them simultaneously across such a broad distance.

Mara bumped her nose into something hard and stopped. Immediately ahead of her was uniform grayness.

She looked up along the curved surface of the bunker wall. And only a Jedi Master is likely to become so focused that she walks into a wall, she told herself.

She swayed where she stood, suddenly dizzy from the heat. Come on, Tiu, she thought. You should have detected me by now

A cord, millimeters thick, transparent and almost invisible in the darkness, fell across her face. Hurriedly, she grasped at it, wrapped it around her waist three times, and gave it a tug.

It hauled at her and she walked up the wall, her arms trembling and legs increasingly faltering as the heat threatened to overwhelm her. An eternity later, she was ten meters up the wall and a wedge-shaped slit in the duracrete surface beckoned her. She stepped into darkness, dropped a meter to a hard floor, and landed badly, collapsing to the floor as her legs failed.

She released the heat entrapment and felt the built-up energy flow away from her. With her last bit of strength, she held her control over the surrounding air long enough to send much of that heat streaming out through the slit in the wall, even as the slit slid closed. And then she burst into a sweat, a sudden head-to-toe sheen that felt like heavy motor oil against her skin.

We see that Mara's feat is indeed extraordinary. She totally shuts down her own heat emissions as she travels across 200 meters of sensors. This leads to a nontrivial distraction in and of itself. To this self-imposed sauna she adds the distraction of maintaining a constant air flow and levitating herself. Dooku is noted to have been exceptional in his TK abilities by his use of "Force Flight," among other things. To this technique she adds two others, one of which dramatically decreases her ability to focus.

My contention was that Mara has a greater command of the Force. Vader has never been shown to do anything as intricate as this maneuver. The Force Unleashed, a conscious attempt to aggrandize Vader's Force abilities, doesn't even come close.

"But wait, Nemesis! Vader is so much more powerful than Mara that her masterful control of the Force won't matter. Brute force will carry the day!"

Nope. Look at how she deals with an opponent stronger than herself, on information she obtains while crash landing:

Sacrifice:
She grabbed her bag and everything from the cockpit that could be used as a weapon, then found some cover while she consulted her datapad for charts and surveys of Kavan. It was honeycombed with ruined monuments and tunnels. Fine. If I get him in a confined space, he can't use all his Force skills, but I can make the most of what I've got. She decided to make her way into the maze of buried passages and get Jacen to follow her.

She was nowhere near any centers of population, so she was also a long way from any help. She didn't intend to summon any, anyway. Not until it was time to remove the body.

She secreted all her weapons in her jacket, belt, and boots, and sprinted for the first tunnel she saw. It was getting easier by the minute to disappear into the Force for as long as she needed. But now she needed to be visible, a beacon for Jacen to lure him onto the rocks.

[...]

Meanwhile, Mara was challenging him, pinpointing herself in the tunnels that ran deep under the Kavan countryside, thinking she was still an A-list assassin and that she could take someone who had complete mastery of the Force.

She was a superb assassin, but her Force skills were crude compared to his. Once Jacen removed her, it would be easier to deal with Ben. And Luke . . . he'd cross that bridge when he had to.

Jacen checked his belt, pockets, and holster, and decided to oblige Mara. Lumiya and Ben seemed to be elsewhere having their own showdown. Now it all fitted. Lumiya had to be silenced for what she knew, and Ben would do it. It was tidy. It was a food chain.

Jacen loaded four poisoned darts into an adapted blaster and slipped the others into slots on his belt, wondering how he could think such things so calmly. He approached the tunnel mouth with slow care. While he could sense the layout, Mara had vanished from the Force again. There was about a meter of headroom as he edged carefully along the central tunnel, and he could see horizontal shafts at about hip height branching off. It had been built to drain storm water; in harsh winters, local Kavani had once made emergency homes down here.

Jacen stood and listened.

"Okay," he said. "I know you can hear me, Mara. You can still back out of this."

His voice echoed. There was no response, just as he expected, so he began walking deeper into the maze of drains, lightsaber in his right hand and blaster in the other. The only light around him now was a green haze from the glowing blade of energy.

"I could," he said quietly, "go back, block the entrance to this complex with flammable material, and set fire to it." She could hear him, all right: he could hear water dripping slowly deep in the tunnels. Sound was magnified, even if it was hard to pinpoint the origin. "And the fact that these tunnels have vents means the chimney effect would smoke you out, asphyxiate you, or barbecue you."

Silence.

He held his breath, listening.

Crack.

His right knee exploded with blinding pain as Mara cannoned out horizontally, Force-assisted, from a side conduit and caught his leg on the joint with her boots, ripping the tendons. As he lost his footing in the narrow passage, screaming, he found himself wedged for a second and groping for support. He lashed out with his lightsaber, shaving powdery brick from the wall. Mara dropped to the muddy floor to dodge the lightsaber, then sprang up and sprinted away down the tunnel.

It wasn't a good start. Jacen swore and made himself run after her, willing endorphins to numb his leg and telling himself that he knew she was setting up a trap. She wanted him confined, pinned down, penned.

If she thought tunnels would even the odds, she was wrong. He'd bury her here.

Mara found the perfect trap at the end of one of the culverts. She could hear Jacen's running footsteps and she had a good fifty meters on him.

From here, the vaulted ceiling became lower, and even Mara had to run at a crouch. It wasn't the place to swing a standard lightsaber. The tunnels were in poor condition, and the brick arches were starting to sag and collapse in places.

So he wouldn't oblige her by revealing his physical position in the Force. Fine. She spotted a rusty metal sheet about half a meter wide and laid it carefully across the tunnel floor, propped on stones so he'd tread on it and give her an audible warning when he reached that point. An intense Force shake of the brickwork and arches in front of and behind the metal plate weakened them, and then she stopped them from collapsing by Force pressure.

Hold 'em up. Wait for him to hit that plate . . .

Going after Jacen would never work. He could never be allowed to set the agenda. He could come after her.

Trap, immobilize, kill.

It wasn't pretty, and it wouldn't capture the public's imagination like a lightsaber display at the academy, but her training was in destruction. Jacen's was in deception.

She could hear him breathing, and the irregular vzzzm-vzzzm-vzzzm of his lightsaber as he stalked, jumping and turning to be sure she wasn't behind him. Then she could hear that he wasn't swinging the blade so much; the short staccato hums and buzzes told her he was running out of room.

She was trapped too, of course, unless she counted the ventilation shafts every fifty meters. But when she said she was leaving here over his dead body, she meant it.

She felt the beginning of a compassionate human thought about Leia, but killed it stone-dead. It would weaken her.

Jacen's boots crunched over bricks. He was impatient. She was in his way, holding him up when he wanted to get on with something.

Crunch . . . crunch . . . crunch.

If she'd timed it right, he was close to stepping on that rusty plate.

Clang. . .

The rumbling began. She brought down both sections of tunnel, before and behind, with a massive exertion in the Force that made her breathless. She didn't hear him call out. Even in the damp conditions, clouds of fine debris filled the air and made her choke.

Mara waited, one hand over her mouth and nose, shoto drawn, and listened in the Force.

There was whimpering and the chunk-chunk sound of the last falling bricks. She didn't expect that weight of debris from a low ceiling to cause impact injury, but to engulf and immobilize him. He wouldn't be dead-yet.

She waited in silence, a nonexistent presence herself, until she could hear no more movement.

Okay. Let's see what I have to do to end this.

An arm was all that protruded from the rubble. Through a fist-sized gap, she could see the wet, blinking glint of an eye and bloodstained face. A hand reached out to her, fingers splayed, bloody and shaking. Other people might have felt an urge to take that hand, the most distinctively human of things, but it was an old, tired Sith stunt, and she'd used it herself too many times.

She took her blaster and leveled it at the eye, one-handed, forefinger resting on the trigger. She had the shoto ready in case a coup de grace was called for.

She felt as detached and steady as she'd ever been as the Emperor's Hand.

"Tell my mom I'm sorry I failed her," Jacen whispered.

"She knows," Mara said, and squeezed the trigger.

___________________

They said that the human body was capable of extraordinary feats of strength when in extremis. For a Jedi, it was something else entirely.

Jacen Solo wasn't ready to die, not now, not so close to his ascendance, and not in a stinking drain like vermin.

He deflected the energy bolt with one last surge of the Force and sent the rubble erupting off his crushed and bleeding body like a detonation. Bricks hammered the walls and rained fragments, knocking Mara flat like a bomb blast. She made an animal noise that was more anger than pain and flailed for a moment as she tried to get up.

The effort froze Jacen for two vital seconds. But he knew if he didn't get up now and fight back, Mara would come in for the kill, again and again, until he was worn down and too weak to fend her off.

He scrambled to his feet, staggering more than standing, and suddenly understood.

It was Mara who had to die to fulfill his destiny.

Killing her was the test: the words of the prophecy were meaningless, and at a visceral level he knew that her death was the pivotal act. He didn't know how, and this wasn't the time to stop and think about it. He surrendered totally to instinct for the first time in ages. Whatever guided a Sith's hand had to guide him now.

But he was hurt, and badly.

Ben ... he didn't know where Ben fitted into this, but now he knew he did, as surely as he knew anything. Jacen didn't care, because he knew he had to kill Mara now and nothing else would make sense until he did that.

He fumbled for his lightsaber and thumbed it into life again. Mara was already back on her feet, coming at him with the shoto and vibroblade, brick dust and black-red blood snaking down her forehead from a scalp cut. She leapt at him with the shoto held left-handed, fencing-style, seared the angle of his cheekbone, and caught him under the tip of chin with the vibroblade as he jerked back.

She shouldn't have been able to get near him. He had total mastery, and she was just athletic and fast. He pushed back at her in the Force, sending her crashing against a wall with a loud grunt, but she kept coming at him, one-two, one-two with the shoto and the blade, and he was being driven back, his strength ebbing. He needed space to fight.

He drew his dart gun and fired one after the other, but Mara scattered all four needles in a blur of blue light. They fell to the ground. He turned and scrambled through the collapsed brick, using the Force to hurl debris up at her from the floor of the passage while she leapt from block to boulder to chunk of masonry, until she Force-leapt onto his back and brought him down.

They rolled. This wasn't a duel: it was a brawl. She thrust her vibroblade up under his chin and he jerked his head to one side, feeling the tip skate from his jaw to his hairline as it missed his jugular. He couldn't draw the weapons he needed. He was losing blood, losing strength, waning, flailing his lightsaber to fend her off. It was almost useless in such a close-quarters struggle. Mara, manic and panting, flicked the shoto to counter every desperate stabbing thrust.

"Ben . . . I'll see you dead first. . . before . . . you get . . . Ben."

Jacen was on the knife-edge between dying and killing. They grappled, Force-pushed, Force-crushed: he threw her back again, trying to Force-jolt her spine and paralyze her for a moment, but somehow she deflected it and bricks flew out of the wall as if someone had punched them through from the other side. She almost Force-snatched the lightsaber from his hand, but even with his injuries he hung on to it. He wouldn't die. He couldn't, not now.

"You can't beat me," he gasped. "It's not meant to be."

"Really?" Mara snarled. "I say it is."

Then she launched herself at him-unthinking, a wild woman, hair flying-and he Force-pushed to send her slamming against a pillar in midleap. But the battering he'd taken and the ferocity of her relentless attack had blinded him to danger from another quarter. As he lurched backward to avoid her, his legs went from under him and he stumbled into a gaping crack opened up by the subsidence. He fell badly: red-hot pain seared from ankle to knee. His lightsaber went flying. Pain could be ignored, but the moment it took him to get to his feet again was enough for Mara to right herself and come back at him with the shoto and plunge it into the soft tissue just under the end of his collarbone.

Lightsaber wounds hurt a lot more than he ever imagined. Jacen screamed. He summoned his own weapon back to his hand and Mara crashed into him, knocking him flat again and pinning him down. Her vibroblade stopped a hand span from his throat as he managed to grab her hair and drag her face nearer and nearer to his lightsaber. She struggled to pull back, hacking at him with the shoto but blocked by his dwindling Force power each time.

Her vibroblade grazed his neck. He fumbled in his belt for a dart. She jerked back with a massive effort, leaving him clutching a handful of red hair, and the only thing that crossed his mind as she arched her back and held her arms high to bring both shoto and vibroblade down into his chest was that she would never, ever harm Ben.

Jacen stared into her eyes and instantly created the illusion of Ben's face beneath her. She blinked.

It gave him the edge for that fraction of a moment. It was long enough to ram the poison dart into her leg with its protective plastoid cone still in place.

It was just a small needle, ten centimeters long. He stabbed her so hard that the sharp end punched through the cone and the fabric of her pants.

Mara gasped and looked down at her leg as if she was puzzled rather than hurt. The dart quivered as she moved, and then fell to the floor.

She out-thought him and out-fought him. Mara used the environment and her own skillset. Even with a severely limited amount of time to prep with an even smaller set of data, she beat him. (Well, kinda.)

The color coding illustrates the Author fiat. (We are assuming that the 3rd hand is not a prehensile *scrubbed*)

The fight is long- really long- so I've bolded the important factors. The parts where Mara outdoes Jacen in terms of speed, bladework, and cunning. The parts where non-situational aspects of her combat style are evident.

The matchup is taking place in the Jedi temple on Coruscant. Wookieepedia notes that "Using precise blueprints of the original temple, every hallway and chamber was exactly identical to the former structure." (The source appears to be Legacy 0, but it is not explicitly noted.) Mara will know the Jedi temple like the back of her hand. This puts her in an even better position than she was at against Jacen.

We are pitting Mara against a Sith Lord of far greater power than her own. She knows this. She has had personal interaction with Vader and knows of him, even if she hasn't had the opportunity to see him in action. She will be just as crafty in using her home against him as she was using some random cave against her nephew. This is Mara's strongsuit. The location is not "the plains of Naboo" or "demiplane of monotony Y." This is her home turf.

Mara's unique set of skills, learned as an Emperor's hand, in conjunction with her exemplary control of the Force, afford her, at the very least, a chance of victory in this arena.

Nemesis
But only a Jedi Master was likely to know all three or be able to sustain them simultaneously across such a broad distance.

...

This isn't it, is it? If so, I'm not impressed: the fact that she has powers that are Master-level do not make a difference. Do you know who else was a Jedi Master? Coleman Trebor. Do you know who killed him? Jango Fett. Does the text say "a particularly powerful Jedi Master"? No. Does it say "a reasonably powerful Jedi Master"? No. Does it even say a "slightly above average Jedi Master"? No.

It says Jedi Master. Who is the most prolific killer of Jedi in galactic history? Her opponent, Darth Vader.

Point moot.

As far as telekinesis is concerned, Vader is able to deconstruct bridges and environments and hurl them at his enemies. He's fine in the TK department.

As far as understanding the Jedi Temple is concerned, I'm pretty sure Darth Vader has been there. At least once, anyway.

As far as her performance against Jacen is concerned, for all of his skills and pain threshold, Vader's threshold for abuse is miles above his grandson's. He's not going to be reduced to tears due to a well placed kick to the shin.

Conclusion: You've yet to provide how she'd be anything beyond a nuisance.

Much to learn, you still have.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
This is interesting. Mara v. Force Unleashed Vader would be a spectacle. Vader is obviously physically stronger, but Mara has (arguably) a greater command of the Force and is unquestionably more athletic. Her bladework may even surpass Vader. (?)

Anything to substantiate this? Theres nothing to show how mara's command of the force would even surpass that of vaders considering how he was able to choke people millions of lightyears away(bounty hunter wars) and effortlessly tool jedi that could rip a command module off a space station with utter ease.

Do you really think that mara's tactics are going to overwhelm vader?

Like gideon said, vaders tolerance for pain and abuse vastly surpass that of even caedus, look at the massive beating vader received when galen thrashed him in their final duel.

And look at how vader got back right to his feet(and still having the stamina to fight another round in the DS ending) and took no damage from galens suicide attack that destryoed an entire tower and killed every storm trooper within the area.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest mara would even be a threat to vader, so what if she knows of him? Doesn't vader "know of her" as well? Or does this not apply?

EDIT.

And its likely that if she attempted to beat him through strategy its highly likely vader would already know that considering he can peer into his enemis mind and interrupt them before they can implement any strategy.(RODV backs this up).

As far as telekinesis is concerned, Vader is able to deconstruct bridges and environments and hurl them at his enemies. He's fine in the TK department.

This does not mean that it will help him against Mara. She has been shown to have a nuanced and fine control of her power, in a way that Vader doesn't. For example: Vader can throw things at her (like he did to Luke). Her style would be to redirect those projectiles back at Vader or to nudge them subtly away. She doesn't have to match his power directly to nullify his advantages.

As far as understanding the Jedi Temple is concerned, I'm pretty sure Darth Vader has been there. At least once, anyway.

Yeah, it isn't as though Mara has been shown to be particularly adept at using the environment to her advantage, or that Vader has been shown to be oblivious to that aspect of combat.

Spoiler:
He didn't have the high ground.

As far as her performance against Jacen is concerned, for all of his skills and pain threshold, Vader's threshold for abuse is miles above his grandson's. He's not going to be reduced to tears due to a well placed kick to the shin.

You'll have to do a hell of a lot of work to outdo Jacen's pain tolerance.

Miles above Jacen, who stayed in the Embrace of pain for weeks? Miles above Jacen, who feeds on pain. Miles above Jacen, whose pain tolerance allowed him to meet multiple Jedi masters in open combat while still injured from a bout with Luke and emerge victorious?

The embrace of pain equates to the ability to feed on pain more than half man half machine? Yes, I think Vader(I fought 10+ Jedi simultaneously as they were slashing at me, as well as stabbing through my suit to kill the Maul clone" wins in the pain category.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis

This does not mean that it will help him against Mara. She has been shown to have a nuanced and fine control of her power, in a way that Vader doesn't. For example: Vader can throw things at her (like he did to Luke). Her style would be to redirect those projectiles back at Vader or to nudge them subtly away. She doesn't have to match his power directly to nullify his advantages.

What is stopping vader from reaching out with the force and outright ragdolling her with it like he did to more powerful jedi than mara?

Even starkiller could barely reflect anything vader had thrown at him so how could someone of a much lower level power of SK and vader could possibly even hope to deflect such massive objects?

The setting is in the jedi temple is it not? Which give vader a huge advantage when it comes to seizing a telekinetic storm.

And its amusing how mara can "deflect" anything vader throws at her but your assuming vader can't.(Funny how he redirects massive pillars at galen though).

Originally posted by Red Nemesis

Miles above Jacen, who stayed in the Embrace of pain for weeks? Miles above Jacen, who feeds on pain. Miles above Jacen, whose pain tolerance allowed him to meet multiple Jedi masters in open combat while still injured from a bout with Luke and emerge victorious?

You'll have to do a hell of a lot of work to outdo Jacen's pain tolerance.

Firstly survived being crushed by 3 gigantic pillars(which would have already killed the majority of combatants in the mythos), objects that are obviously denser then wood(one tree killed the dark woman, a jedi that can phase through objects.

We then have vader getting back on his feet and then his helmet torn off and face smashed into a heat generator and subsequently smashed through a wall shattering it to pieces and then smashing through another pillar.

And what was his most severe injury? A blackout for less than five minutes and then getting on his feet and getting unharmed by galens suicidal attack that killed everything in the tower but vader and palpatine.

Nemesis
As far as telekinesis is concerned, you are again ignoring my argument. I agree with you. Mara is not as [b]strong as Vader. I've argued in the past that Vader has some of the strongest TK in the mythos.[/b]

You're correct so far. I expect that to change.

Nemesis
This does not mean that it will help him against Mara. She has been shown to have a nuanced and fine control of her power, in a way that Vader doesn't. For example: Vader can throw things at her (like he did to Luke). Her style would be to redirect those projectiles back at Vader or to nudge them subtly away. She doesn't have to match his power directly to nullify his advantages.

Except that you have offered nothing to corroborate or support that notion. All you've proven is that she has the finesse and control of "a Jedi Master" -- that's nothing compared to Vader.

Nemesis
Yeah, it isn't as though Mara has been shown to be particularly adept at using the environment to her advantage, or that Vader has been shown to be oblivious to that aspect of combat.

Spoiler:
He didn't have the high ground.

I'm looking for the punchline, since this is obviously a joke. Vader, off the top of my head, gave the first demonstration of "manipulating the environment" in the saga.

Hint:

Spoiler:
You referenced it.

Nemesis
For example: Vader can throw things at her (like he did to Luke).

...An incompetent Vader, fresh into the ranks of the Sith, does not constitute the mighty Sith he became.

Mara's potential environmental advantage is rendered moot: this isn't unfamiliar terrain to Vader.

Nemesis
Miles above Jacen, who stayed in the Embrace of pain for weeks? Miles above Jacen, who feeds on pain. Miles above Jacen, whose pain tolerance allowed him to meet multiple Jedi masters in open combat while still injured from a bout with Luke and emerge victorious?

You'll have to do a hell of a lot of work to outdo Jacen's pain tolerance.

Yep. Vader's been demolished in ways Jacen cannot even begin to conceive and shrugged it off. His pain threshold is higher.

Except that you have offered nothing to corroborate or support that notion. All you've proven is that she has the finesse and control of "a Jedi Master" -- that's nothing compared to Vader.

I'll feat mine later. You cannot dispute the magnitude of the feat based on the ambivalent narration alone. Fact: She multitasked, something few Jedi have been capable of. Fact: She did so while under extremely strenuous conditions.

I'm looking for the punchline, since this is obviously a joke. Vader, off the top of my head, gave the first demonstration of "manipulating the environment" in the saga.

Hint:

Spoiler:
You referenced it.

If you mean Vader just before the BigReveal (tm) on the Death Star (where he chucks random crates at Luke) then you'll have to rationalize why a combatant as quick (speedblitzed Caedus at one point) and agile (jumped over a wall and landed in midair) as Mara Jade is gonna fail to evade an attack even baseball bat Luke was capable of deflecting. (Difference of degree, not kind.)

you
[quote]Me
For example: Vader can throw things at her (like he did to Luke).

...An incompetent Vader, fresh into the ranks of the Sith, does not constitute the mighty Sith he became.[/quote]
So ESB Vader is now "incompetent" and "fresh into the ranks of the Sith"?
No.

Mara's potential environmental advantage is rendered moot: this isn't unfamiliar terrain to Vader.

Yep. Vader's been demolished in ways Jacen cannot even begin to conceive and shrugged it off. His pain threshold is higher.

I have to question how much of that is because mechanical limbs don't feel pain, but I'll admit that Vader is more durable than Caedus.

You've yet to show that he is more resistant to pain.

😐

WTF

You're joking, right?

Nemesis
I'll feat mine later.

Translation: I'll make a claim, but can't be bothered to support it.

Nemesis
You cannot dispute the magnitude of the feat based on the ambivalent narration alone. Fact: She multitasked, something few Jedi have been capable of. Fact: She did so while under extremely strenuous conditions.

"Something few Jedi have been capable of"? The source material itself indicates that a random-ass Jedi Master possesses the capability, so we can chalk this up to the latest in your series of embarrassments.

Nemesis
If you mean Vader just before the BigReveal (tm) on the Death Star (where he chucks random crates at Luke) then you'll have to rationalize why a combatant as quick (speedblitzed Caedus at one point) and agile (jumped over a wall and landed in midair) as Mara Jade is gonna fail to evade an attack even baseball bat Luke was capable of deflecting. (Difference of degree, not kind.)

This was the feat I was referring to (as indicated by my usage of your quote), and Luke "I can outmaneuver Prince Xizor's top enforcer [a ridiculously skilled assassin droid named Guri] by my Force-enhanced speed and reflexes" Skywalker was overwhelmed. Furthermore, Vader was not trying to kill Luke, in case you haven't actually watched the movie...

...And since the location was Cloud City, and not the Death Star, you might have.

Nemesis
So ESB Vader is now "incompetent" and "fresh into the ranks of the Sith"?
No.

That was a reference to Anakin not having the high ground, where he was both incompetent and fresh into the ranks of the Sith.

Nemesis
It doesn't have to be. The advantage is not that he is unfamiliar but that she is. Her ability to capitalize on her surroundings is demonstrably greater than his own.

Vader overwhelmed Roan Shryne, Luke Skywalker, the Dark Woman, and others through manipulation of the environment. You've cited a single instance when she successfully ensnared the Anakin-class incompetent Darth Caedus, who is not Darth Vader. He is a skilled tactition, unlike his grandspawn.

So prove it.

Nemesis
I have to question how much of that is because mechanical limbs don't feel pain, but I'll admit that Vader is more durable than Caedus.

You've yet to show that he is more resistant to pain.

Correct: he has a higher pain threshold because his mechanical limbs are resistant. He's far more durable and therefore Mara will have to work much, much harder in order to injure him.

The source material itself indicates that a random-ass Jedi Master possesses the capability

This is an untruth. The line you are referring to, "But only a Jedi Master was likely to know all three or be able to sustain them simultaneously across such a broad distance" does not say that any Jedi master could do it. It does not even say that most Jedi masters could do it. It says that of the set [Jedi], only a subset {Master} would have the hope of the capacity to do so.

There is implication, and then there is fabrication. You are changing the meaning of the line to something it was never meant to be. This says that doing what Mara did was hard. That is all.

Skywalker was overwhelmed.

You think a Master like Mara will be completely unprepared for such an attack? You think that someone like Mara will be incapable of surpassing ESB Luke's capabilities?

Now you'll have to substantiate this. Luke is by no means a god at this point.

so prove it

Later.

Correct: he has a higher pain threshold because his mechanical limbs are resistant. He's far more durable and therefore Mara will have to work much, much harder in order to injure him.

Gideon
...

This isn't it, is it? If so, I'm not impressed: the fact that she has powers that are Master-level do not make a difference. Do you know who else was a Jedi Master? Coleman Trebor. Do you know who killed him? Jango Fett. Does the text say "a particularly powerful Jedi Master"? No. Does it say "a reasonably powerful Jedi Master"? No. Does it even say a "slightly above average Jedi Master"? No.

It says "Jedi Master." Who is the most prolific killer of Jedi in galactic history? Her opponent, Darth Vader.

Point moot.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis

I'll tackle proving that Mara is the batman of Star Wars (and find the poster that I stole that from)

🤘

just this on the pain-tolerance thing:

Since fire hurts more than amputations, the most pain Vader felt was getting burned. He could not function while burned. He had to be rescued. I am aware that he remains burned (for some undisclosed reason) His pain at the VERY LEAST makes him angry.

Jacen functions through every injury he ever took. He ignored the pain applied to him by the World Brain, he functioned THROUGHOUT that pain.

So the question is: What hurts more? The embrace of pain? Or burns?

burns hurting a lot is actually a misconception.

the lava on mustafar was apparently so hot that anakin caught on fire without even touching it... so it stands to reason that his nerves were most likely burned away near instantly meaning he most likely didnt feel as much as he thought he was feeling.

Originally posted by truejedi
just this on the pain-tolerance thing:

Since fire hurts more than amputations, the most pain Vader felt was getting burned. He could not function while burned. He had to be rescued. I am aware that he remains burned (for some undisclosed reason) His pain at the VERY LEAST makes him angry.

Jacen functions through every injury he ever took. He ignored the pain applied to him by the World Brain, he functioned THROUGHOUT that pain.

So the question is: What hurts more? The embrace of pain? Or burns?

Fact remains that vader can take far more punishment than caedus.

The three pillars that collapsed on vader would have killed the vast majority of combatants in the mythos and that would include and caedus and this is vader being caught completely off guard, vader got right back to his feat barely showing any pain at all.

Getting crushed by giant pillars, getting smashed through a wall till it smashes to pieces, getting your face forcefully smashed onto surging energy and getting a massive shield generator thrown in your direction is far more painful and punishing, and vader survives all this with nothing but a blackout and then getting back to its feet mere minutes and even having enough strength to fight with galen in the alternate dark side path.

Hell vader has even blocked force attacks that was powerful enough to instantly kill his storm troopers.

I see absolutely no way mara can kill vader nor even be a threat to him in a straight up fight(force and sabers only), the ONLY way mara can beat vader is via unconventional means(setting traps or killing him with a starship).

I think Vader survived the crashing pillars was due to not just his pain threshold but his armor as well. In fact, regardless of ability to cope with pain, if your body suffers enough damage, you die. So place Caedus in Vader's armor, and let's see how that goes.

Just how durable was his armor anyways? It certainly isn't plated and appears that only his chest and shoulders were armored while his stomach and lower body were just covered in leather.

And i recall it was vaders head that took most of the beating, especially when he had his face slammed into surging energy and then through a wall.

The crashing pillars were large and heavy enough to crush a car so i don't think his armor would have helped him much.

I mean a single tree is able to crush a large car.... you know what i mean.

Lol find a car in the Death Star. I don't really know if there's enough info on Vader's armor to make a good case out of it. But physically speaking, if that armor couldn't withstand those beams, Vader's life support should be kaput. Whether the man can take the pain or not isn't going stop his body from breaking.