Originally posted by Borbarad
First: Thousand of years ahead of them? You do realize that technical development is different when you have a look at different governing bodies, correct? Sith ships from 5,000 years ago, were still far superior to Republic ships that were constructed 1500 years later. If you look into the "superweapon" category, they were even ahead of the Galatic Empire (blowing up star systems). So how do you know how they compare to the Vong in terms of technology? Especially when anything the Vong had is based upon bio-engineering, an art that the Ancient Sith (Alchemy) did excel in...
You're implying that the sith were more advanced than the Republic by any significant margin, which couldn't have been true because the ancient sith hadn't ever actually won a major war against the Republic.
Second: I wonder if you did actually read the NJO books. The Vong were never "controlling" or "holding" a large portion of the Galaxy. They destroyed a large portion of the Galaxy, killing about one third of all beings inhabiting it, which doesn't say much about their actual numbers, provided they used terraforming on planets and did destroy others on their way.
And in order to have destroyed a large portion of the galaxy, they had to have the numbers to compete with the GA.
To be a little bit sarcastic here: during the Second Battle of Coruscant, their ground forces were defeated by - essentially - three Jedi. And that were thousands of them. I wonder what 20 Sith Lords with their usual gimmics would have done there...
Except that one of those Jedi was the most powerful Force user (with the exceptions of beings such as Sekot) in recorded history, using a battle meld with 2 other very powerful Jedi. I'd put my money on NJO Luke, NJO Jaina and NJO Jacen over 20 sith.
Firstly: There is nothing like a "valid ABC argument", so erase that thought from your mind instantly.
9 > 8 > 7
Secondly: You're starting with a wrong premise. The Sith Empire didn't lose to the Old Republic because the Republic was more powerful. The lost because they were betrayed with the betrayal leading to losing a great part of their troops. You already fail here.
Later in your post you claim that the sith Empire was united and stable.
Thirdly: As I already said: Even the KotoR era ships were inferior to the Sith Empire counterparts. This is pretty much obvious, given that Revan did almost only use ships that were based on a (at his time) 1,500 year old design and conquered much of the Galaxy with it.
That had more to do with Revan's strategic and tactical genius.
Lastly: If the Vong were superior to the GA, they would have won the war and would now be dominating the SW Galaxy. Obviously, that isn't the case...
The Vong wasn't defeated by the GA alone. They were defeated by the GA, Imperial Remnant, New Jedi Order and a pretty much the entire galaxy. The sith Empire lost to the Old Republic, which would get curbstomped by the GA.
The only "rivaleries" between Sadow and Kressh was there, because they had different ideas about leading the Empire. Still: The Sith Empire just has two factions with one leader. The YV have how many family tribes that are busy with infighting? That aside: You do realize that having a single leader can be a weakness, provided that, when Shimra was killed, the YVs believed that their gods had turned away from them and did surrender?
Which contradicts your claim that the sith Empire lost due to betrayal.
Firstly: It would only be 5,000 years.
"only" 5000 years? 5000 years is quite a long time in terms of technological progress.
Secondly: This number still doesn't make any sense, because we don't have a uniform distribution of technological development throughout the Galaxy, much less the universe and even less when force-enhanced technology is taken into consideration.
The sith Empire lost to the Old Republic, which was from several sources technologically inferior to the GA.
Thirdly: Wow. That recent armies didn't use the same ships means what know? I didn't know that any army in the Galaxy had access to a species of force sensitve warriors, capable of navigating the Sith ships (which is done by using the Dark Side of the force). That aside from the fact that the only "production facility" for those ships was destroyed more than 3000 years in the past. Couple that with the fact that technical development doesn't seem to advance that much in the SW universe (they still use the same weapon types they have utilized 5000 years in the past) and you might come to the conclusion that this point is mood.
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Can you please clarify what ships the sith Empire used? If they were navigated using the Force then why didn't later sith Empires or even the Jedi use them?
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And gosh. The Sith head sun system destroying superweapons in their fleet and unstoppable ground forces with the Dark Reaper. Point is mood.
Ever heard of the Sun Crusher?
Oh my f*cking god.
a) Give me actual numbers for the size of the Vong fleet (quotes from the books) or shut up with the "numerical superiority".
I don't have exact numbers with me, but hundreds of millions of YV were killed in the YV battle of Coruscant alone.
b) Go and read the books. Seriously. In Destiny's Way you have one of the few occassions when the Vong engage in a "conventional" fleet battle (Battle of Ebaq 9). The result being that the New Republic alone wipes a nice portion of their invasion fleet out. Also they didn't attack the Imperial Remnant before that point in time, which kind of contradicts the idea that they did "simultaneously" took on the galactic powers.
The New Republic is technologically superior to the sith Empire, and later in the war they were indeed simultaneously taking on pretty much the entire galaxy.
Then consider this:
Sky above Coruscant. "Tens of thousands of ships" of the Sith Empire coming in. Notice that this is just one of three planets being invaded silmultaneously by the Sith forces.
They didn't define "ships". It could mean all kinds of ships down to frigates and even starfighters. It could also be hyperbole.
Excuse me. You did realize that every single soldier of the Sith Empire is a force sensitive Dark Side user? I'm just asking. Massassi are - essentially - warriors that have been altered by Sith Alchemy to be faster / stronger than regular humans already, and have the additonal advantage of being able to use the force to aid them in combat. Heck. Take a look at the Massassi or the Sith Lords in the comics. Those are muscle packed beasts - Sadow's mutated once are more than a head taller than Exar Kun.
Making things up much?
What's that? Odan-Urr stating that it seems impossible to stop the single-minded fury of the Massassi, even when using Battle Meditation? Yup. Those Massassi due have a "poor morale". ROFL.
I'm sorry, but can you please clarify? Because it seems hard to believe that EVERY single warrior of the sith Empire was Force sensitive, and even if so if they were actually well trained, because Force sensitives are very rare.
The YV have spend the past millenia traveling through the void of space. Did you miss that? And a "larger Empire"? Did you also miss that they left their original Galaxy because they had destroyed a large portion of it and used all resource there during this war...?
Well they obviously didn't use up all of their resources, because if they really did spend the past millenia traveling through space then they would have to have resouces to sustain themselves, AND they also had the resouces to wage war against the galaxy, which at that point was far more advanced than the sith Empire.
In most sources, they are affected by force lightning and other Dark Sider powers rather nicely, so the Sith wouldn't be as baffled as the Jedi were. If you want to take the fact into consideration, that the Sith were aware of a technique to seal once presence in the force off, they might be even less baffled.
What were the numbers of actual sith in the sith Empire? And could an average warrior in the sith Empire, even if Force sensitive, perform, say, Force lightning?
Oh, and from those pictures it seems as though the warriors of the sith Empire were fighting using melee weapons such as halberds.