I'm evidently playing devil's advocate here.
Originally posted by Beniboybling
Frankly I don't buy this chain, Yoda may have exerted himself in attempting to take the count down in lightsaber combat, but it remains feasible that Yoda would have been capable of dominating him with telekinesis, this is however, against the Jedi way.
He dominates plenty of people with TK; Ventress, clone troopers, those two royal guards, etc.
Darth Sidious would have no such qualms and indeed has effortlessly dominated Dooku over hologram.
It's not like Dooku is going to try to fight back against his master lol.
Likewise we know him capable of dominating Maul quite effortlessly, via powerscaling we know he'd obliterate Kenobi, and if we consider Yoda's Force induced vision in TCW to be accurate, we know Anakin would be obliterated by him as well. And by again powerscaling we can conclude that he could annihilate the B-team in an eye-blink, and indeed that's exactly what he did. The fact he chose to do so with a lightsaber is hardly a mark against him.
He can dominate Maul and Kenobi, although I'm not sure if a sorcery-induced vision designed to trick Yoda is a very accurate rendition of reality. But Valkorion is implied to be able to dominate entire teams of characters many put near Dooku or even Vader's level.
An example of this would be the dread masters; Vitiate is implied to dwarf the combined abilities of all six of them. Six Force users, each of which is capable of literally dominating entire fleets!
We've also seem him dominate individuals well in excess of all of the above i.e. if we consider non-canon endings to be against accurate, Darth Vader and Galen Marek.
Yeah, "if" we consider those endings. BTW, both of those endings are still somewhat conditional; he basically hits Marek while he's engaged in a lightsaber lock, and then smashes a starship into him that he doesn't do anything about because he only turns around at the last moment. Likewise, Vader only ignites his lightsaber right before Palpatine knocks it out of his hands, but he doesn't even have time to get it into a guard position. It wasn't like he smashed through their best defenses.
So the idea that Sidious is "inconceivably" more powerful than his contemporaries is hardly unreasonable, and he is repeatedly appraised to be as such.But solely on the basis of hype, we can hardly draw accurate conclusions from any of these claims as to just how much more powerful Vitiate is than these individuals.
It's pretty heavily implied that even a concerted strike team of the best Force users in the galaxy could not stand a chance against Vitiate. You can call it hype, but the characters themselves seem to believe it, and there's no reason to find them delusional.
On the other hand Revan, Meetra & Scourge were a legitimate threat to Vitiate as of Revan, something we can surmise from Meetra's oppurtunity to kill him, Scourge's visions, and the aftermath in which Vitiate created Voices to defend himself.
Hmmm...yeah, Meetra's saber throw was a bad showing on his part, but it was more the result of not being used to dealing with multiple threats or holding a lightsaber, not a fault in raw power. It's otherwise implied that he probably would've won.
He also has a 300 year power creep + a noticeable one from Ziost + a jump to Valkorion. This poses a big problem for the Sidious supporters; if you put Valkorion below him, just how big of a gap do you leave between Valkorion and novel Vitiate? Because there should logically be an enormous one. How far are you going to be able to lowball novel Vitiate in order to maintain this chain before it gets ridiculous?
And note that as well, the primary reason Vitiate created Voices was as a means of self-defense, he was afraid that others could kill him as Revan & co. almost did, note that Palpatine never had any such fears.
Palpatine had a pretty extensive security detail. He just never demonstrated the ability to create voices or do any of the weird "multiple places at the same time" thing Vitiate does.
The problem here being that an off-hand remark from George Lucas, can hardly be considered a particularly accurate way of assessing power, beyond the basic generalities.
Well, the 80% thing doesn't really tell us anything beyond that Sidious is stronger, since cannot tell from the quote alone what that 20% gap actually translates into.
Again this entirely depends on the assumption that Revan would pose no threat to Vitiate, when we can only conclude that based of subjective statements made by Marr and the protag, who lack any first hand knowledge of the Emperor's abilities.
I don't think it's reasonable to assert that they're talking out of their asses. Vitiate has solo'd the entire dark council, one-shotted Arcann, one-shotted a bunch of other Force wielders, solo'd armies, he's just generally a more dominating combatant than Sidious is.
This is an accurate assement, but I feel the impression is given for different reasons.The difference between Palpatine and Vitiate combatively is that Palpatine almost always resorts to lightsaber first, Force powers later, whereas Vitiate almost always attempts to overwhelm his opponents through sheer Force power. Simply put, Palpatine isn't want to abuse his Force advantage as Vitiate is, and tends to indulge his adversaries in lightsaber combat first.
Maybe it's because he can't. What's the alternative - that he has some sort of aversion to it? Lol.
But fact is many opponents Palpatine has faced, if not all of them i.e. Maul, Savage, Windu, Yoda, would and were quickly overwhelmed (with the exception of Yoda, though he too was ultimately beaten) by Palpatine's Force powers when turned against him. The fact he doesn't immediately do so however, gives the false impression that they can actually contend with him.
Or it creates the impression that he needs to beat their guards down before he can overwhelm them.
The devil's advocate? Careful, that's Nai's job.
As far as your argument goes, that's why anymore I just stick with Sheev. The fact of the matter is that Star Wars is complicated and inconsistent and in very few cases are power levels enough of a creative priority to be faithfully depicted. It's why I don't bother with top 10s anymore or whatnot. I stick with Sheev because his status among Sith is probably the MOST affirmed hierarchical note in the entire mythology. Feats aren't especially reliable and even accolades represent their own problems from time to time. Since those are the foundations for power scaling, the result is probably imprecise at best.
So it makes for interesting positions, very few of them probably ever truly right.
Except, again, Sheev. 👍
Originally posted by The_Tempest
The devil's advocate? Careful, that's Nai's job.As far as your argument goes, that's why anymore I just stick with Sheev. The fact of the matter is that Star Wars is complicated and inconsistent and in very few cases are power levels enough of a creative priority to be faithfully depicted. It's why I don't bother with top 10s anymore or whatnot. I stick with Sheev because his status among Sith is probably the MOST affirmed hierarchical note in the entire mythology. Feats aren't especially reliable and even accolades represent their own problems from time to time. Since those are the foundations for power scaling, the result is probably imprecise at best.
So it makes for interesting positions, very few of them probably ever truly right.
Except, again, Sheev. 👍
Well, if we go too far down this line of reasoning we start to shatter the fourth wall and get to the real answer: that these characters don't actually exist and there's basically no objective standard for their comparative abilities. It's true that authors don't really put effort into parsing through which feats are consistent with a charcters' supposed place in the mythos relative to the demonstrations of other combatants. But what do we use then? Authorial intent? What if the author didn't intend anything with respect to how powerful Malgus is relative to Prequel Trilogy characters? What if two different authors of a character have different opinions? What if the PT writers disagree, and think theirs are stronger? What do you do then?
The advantage of using feats and accolades is that we get to suspend disbelief and actually argue this universe as though it were real, rather than trying to guess authorial intent. The downside is that we're kinda deluding ourselves into trying to apply rational consistency to a fantasy universe that has none. But I think we need to do some suspension of that reality for the sake of vs. debates, or else the curtain comes down and we realize that we're quibbling over shadows.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Well, if we go too far down this line of reasoning we start to shatter the fourth wall and get to the real answer: that these characters don't actually exist and there's basically no objective standard for their comparative abilities. It's true that authors don't really put effort into parsing through which feats are consistent with a charcters' supposed place in the mythos relative to the demonstrations of other combatants. But what do we use then? Authorial intent? What if the author didn't intend anything with respect to how powerful Malgus is relative to Prequel Trilogy characters? What if two different authors of a character have different opinions? What if the PT writers disagree, and think theirs are stronger? What do you do then?The advantage of using feats and accolades is that we get to suspend disbelief and actually argue this universe as though it were real, rather than trying to guess authorial intent. The downside is that we're kinda deluding ourselves into trying to apply rational consistency to a fantasy universe that has none. But I think we need to do some suspension of that reality for the sake of vs. debates, or else the curtain comes down and we realize that we're quibbling over shadows.
My personal methodology has involved use of quotes/accolades/Word of God, feats, and whenever possible, creative intent.
But as I said, the reason I rarely ever indulge in top tens or anything anymore is because you're almost always bound to find some sort of major contradiction somewhere down the road. It's not something I care to invest an abundance of time in anymore.
Except Sheev. Because that's the most consistently affirmed hierarchical note in the Star Wars lore.
I mean, I don't begrudge anyone if they try to fashion some sort of rough holistic hierarchy across the board. Lots of people do. I used to. Just not anymore. 👍
Originally posted by The Ellimist
It's not like Dooku is going to try to fight back against his master lol.
Because he just doesn't have the power to do so.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
He can dominate Maul and Kenobi, although I'm not sure if a sorcery-induced vision designed to trick Yoda is a very accurate rendition of reality.
The vision was made to be real to Yoda, who had absolutely no confidence that someone who easily killed Dooku in such short order could offer any help whatsoever to someone who rivaled himself [Yoda].
Logically, it should be taken as a fair representation of Sidious's power.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
But Valkorion is implied to be able to dominate entire teamsof characters many put near Dooku or even Vader's level.
Vitiate has never accomplished such a feat without additional power or on neutral ground, without prep. Definitely no team consisting of Vader or Dooku levels.
On the other hand, Sidious was able to play around with and easily ragdoll a maxed-rage Maul. Base Maul's power rivals that of Savage, being more refined than his brother however. And we've all seen what Savage is capable of doing while pissed off, which includes momentarily dominating the likes Dooku and Ventress Simultaneously, and later flooring Anakin/Kenobi/shielded battle droids with a wave of TK energy. If Savage is capable of doing this while pissed off, then logically someone who not only rivals him in power, but who is also far more masterful at channeling their rage and the dark side can do so as well, no? I mean, look at what a very pissed off Ventress was capable of.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
An example of this would be the dread masters; Vitiate is implied to dwarf the combined abilities of all six of them. Six Force users, each of which is capable of literally dominating entire fleets!
How did the dread masters accomplish that tho? Certainly not by throwing around ships with the force.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Yeah, "if" we consider those endings. BTW, both of those endings are still somewhat conditional; he basically hits Marek while he's engaged in a lightsaber lock, and then smashes a starship into him that he doesn't do anything about because he only turns around at the last moment. Likewise, Vader only ignites his lightsaber right before Palpatine knocks it out of his hands, but he doesn't even have time to get it into a guard position. It wasn't like he smashed through their best defenses.
Poor defense on Vader and Marek's part? You should examine Vitiate's feat against the jedi strike team more thoroughly too. Only two jedi managed to catch Vitiate's attack, meaning Vitiate only needed to break the saber defenses of two jedi. At least Vader doesn't need his lightsaber to tank massive amounts of energy based attacks.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
It's pretty heavily implied that even a concerted strike team of the best Force users in the galaxy could not stand a chance against Vitiate. You can call it hype, but the characters themselves seem to believe it, and there's no reason to find them delusional.
Different eras; different force users.
You do realize that out of thousands of force users, were you to take away just a handful of certain force users from the galaxy, that could possibly leave EU Dooku the dominate one, it would then require a team to take him out as well. Would we then place Dooku as a peer of Vitiate's, or would we consider the quality of the combatants. See why that line of reasoning just doesn't hold?
Sidious is established as the most powerful sith in history, with feats to support it, therefore the power of the few who could go toe to toe with him is far more relevant than who can't go toe to toe with Vitiate in Vitiate's era.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Well, the 80% thing doesn't really tell us anything beyond that Sidious is stronger, since cannot tell from the quote alone what that 20% gap actually translates into.
Given Sidious's hype and feats, rather or not you take that quote serious, Vader is closer to Vitiate than he is to Sidious in terms of power. So we should leave that quote alone, unless this is a Vader vs Vitiate/Valk.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
I don't think it's reasonable to assert that they're talking out of their asses. Vitiate has solo'd the entire dark council, one-shotted Arcann, one-shotted a bunch of other Force wielders, solo'd armies, he's just generally a more dominating combatant than Sidious is.
Sidious has done the same, except with far less mystery surrounding his showings, being that his most impressive ones have been shown on panel. Generally people ignore it when it comes from Sidious because he plays saber clashing, whereas Vitiate usually can't afford to and needs to throw out his most powerful attacks in order to finish off his opponents as quickly as possible. Sidious just seems more secure in confrontations.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Maybe it's because he can't. What's the alternative - that he has some sort of aversion to it? Lol.
More sadistic and more secure. He plays with his victims. To be honest, it just seems more impressive on Palpatine's part, as it gives his opposition what seems to be a fighting chance to the audience, so that when Palpatine is beaten it can easily be attributed to his arrogance rather than an inconsistency in power showings.
As it stands tho, Palpatine has proven capable of over powering multiple adversaries at once. Considering how easily and casually he can dominate Maul and Savage simultaneously with one force move, do you think adding in two Ventress' to the mix would bridge such a very vast gap?
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Or it creates the impression that he needs to beat their guards down before he can overwhelm them.
Without external power, who has Vitiate taken down without needing to overpower their guards? And I'm meaning without external power. It took him about 30 seconds of spamming storms to over power the defenses of only two. Yeah, I know he grew in power, but how does that conclude being Sidious's equal or superior (again, without amps and such)? Hell, even with prep, none of Vitiate's feats beat Palpatine's ability to literally destroy portions of reality with his own natural power.