I don't recall ever being presented with any evidence that indicates the Jedi's ability to use the Force in general was diminished. In fact, the only powers I've ever seen referenced were long-term precognition and clairvoyance, not base TK, telepathy, etc.
Sounds like it's a baseless interpretation of Mace's remarks. 😂
Though it is interesting that Nai simultaneously tries to lowball Plagueis and Sidious's unbalancing the Force, and claim that it actually caused a universal change in the amount of midichlorians present in every Force user's body in proportion to the emotions they draw on, from that moment onwards.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
The big picture: Given the mental gymnastics you need to explain why this decrease and then restoration of combat ability between the balance shift and Sidious's death is never once materialized in any source material, commented on clearly by anyone, or experienced by any person who survives this, it's a far more reasonable interpretation to say that this shift pertained to specific things like midichlorian manipulation (which explicitly battles the Force) or long term foresight, rather than just assuming it affects your short-term abilities when you're just assuming this because you think your quotes talk about "general" Force power. Occam's razor, and anything.
The "big picture", and also the question you've dodged: Who survives and is in any way form or shape qualified to cast a judgement here?
Seriously. The only people we encounter that have been trained Force users under Sidious regime and have survived his death do pretty much either only appear in sources released before the "balance stuff" was introduced (e.g. Vima-da-Boda, Empatoyajus Brand, the Emperor's Hands like Mara Jade) or they appear in sources far after Sidious' demise (e.g. Lumiya). So I don't need "mental gymnastics" to explain why nobody notices any shift in combat abilities, when nobody even notices or mentions a shift in general where "Darth Plagueis" makes it clear that the unbalancing should have been sensed by anybody strong in the Force - so the opposite should have been the case too, or not?
As I'm sure you know, that was in the context of their not sensing the existence of the clone army. It's never once suggested that, say, Obi Wan was befuddled by why he can't jump as high as he could in TPM, or that TPM Windu would've defeated AotC Windu. Never once in all of the published material do we get any indication that this has happened, and it becomes ridiculous to try to do mental gymnastics to say that this was going on behind the scenes.
Urm.
How, pray tell, does a shift of the entire Force towards the Dark Side just affect singular abilities that aren't even "light side abilities" in the first place? And there is also the fact, that there was a slight shift in the Balance already archived earlier (50 or 100 years or something like that, can't remember). Also the shifting that Sidious and Plagueis caused occured eight years prior to TPM (maybe even nine) as Plagueis remembers the incident was eight years ago either in the year or one or two years before TPM (and his death).
Otherwise, Maul in TCW should have utterly destroyed Obi Wan in all of their encounters.
See above.
Wow, that's clearly more profound than a planet steeped in the dark side from thousands of dark siders having lived and died there, and amulets designed to amplify and focus one's powers into energy blasts, lol.
I would think that a galaxy-wide shift of balance of the Force would be of more profound effect than that, yes. If you have a different opinion, I will happily point that out the next time the entire "shifting of balance" thing is brought up to prove the superiority of Sidious over other force users. Because, well, if you think that some gimmicks are more profound than that, I suppose you also think that the people who constructed those gimmicks are more powerful than the guy who merely caused a balance shift in the Force, right? 😉
Oh, so disallowing excessive external help is unfair? OK, why don't we just give Vader the Executor and the rest of the death squadron? 🙄
Because Vader doesn't carry the Executor and the rest of Death Squadron in to battle on a regular basis. Why don't we take his armor away or remove his artificial limbs?
If the novel actually says this, you're doing a really poor job of picking out the relevant quotes. That doesn't imply that the ritual actually made them more powerful. It says that Plagueis was really powerful, and that he had discovered an ancient ability. That could just mean he succeeded in that ability because he was really powerful (as a side note, it's interesting that none of the ancients succeeded in doing this).
Do I need to repeat myself again? The entire damn chapter is one testatement to the ritual making them more powerful. I'm not going to post it in its entirety. So either get the source yourself or stop attempting to argue it.
Furthermore: I wonder how it is interesting that none of the Ancients succeeded in doing this, when none of them even conducted research in that particular direction, probably because they seemed to be powerful enough from Plagueis' own pre-shift perspective.
And even if it did, again, you just provided us with a quote that suggests it literally increased his midichlorian count, which would be a permanent change. How else would this work? When someone turns to the dark side following this shift, do they magically gain midichlorians in their cells? What happens if they just use it temporarily? What if they turn dark and then turn back to the light? What happens then?
I wonder how speculation does anything to counter the given facts. I don't know how that increase worked or if that would vanish again once the balance is restored. But if midichlorians can increase in a "host body" there is certainly the possibility of a decrease as well, right?
The Force did, actually. It didn't directly resist their attempts to tip the balance, but it was resisting their attempts to manipulate midichlorians, and when they tried to create life, it retreated and they couldn't do it.
Where? Quote?
"While midi-chlorians appeared to resit manipulation of a sort that might imperil the balance of the Force, they remained passive, even compliant, in the case of a weak-willed being maniuplated by one who was strong in the Force. Perhaps that explained why it was often easier to call oon the Force to heal someone other than oneself. Extending life, then, could hinge on something as simple as being able to induce midi-chlorians to create new cells, to subdivide at will, increasing their numbers into tens of thousands to heal or replace damaged, aging or metastatic cells. Midi-chlorians had to be compelled to serve the needs of the body; to bestow strength when needed; to overcome physical insult, or prevent cells from reaching senescence.
If one accepted the tales handed down in accounts and holocrons, the ancient Sith had known ho to accomplish this." - Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, Chapter 5.
That's the only allusion to midi-chlorians "resisting" anything that I could find...
You're assuming causation going one way, that is, the balance shift literally making Plagueis and Sidious more powerful.
I'm not assuming anything.
"Regardless, eigth long years later, Plagueis remained convinced that he was on the verge of absolute success. The evidence was in his own increased midi-chlorian count; and in the power he sensed in Sidious when had finally returned to Sojourn." - Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, Chapter 24.
😉
What, so the number of midichlorians in their cells would magically decrease?
Why not? After all, it did magically increase as well.
Jerec, Lumiya, etc. None of them commented on growing weaker because of this balance shift. The lost tribe of the sith didn't either. There's no indication of Luke being far more powerful in the material immediately after RotJ. Sidious himself never said that he had to make up for lost ground, nor did anything that you'd expect to happen from this actually happen.
Are you ignoring my arguments on purpose?
Jerec appeared only in sources before the invention of the balance shift. Same goes for DE Sidious and Luke in the early post-RotJ material. They couldn't mention it, because it wasn't invented yet.
Lumiya did "return" to the stories decades after the in-universe occurence of the shifting / re-shifting, so why would she comment on it? The Lost Tribe of the Sith also didn't enter galactic events more than three decades after Sidious final demise. Why would they pick up that narrative?
Sure you can quantify them. You can compare their feats with and without, use benchmarks like Vjun Dooku vs. Yoda, etc.
Since Kun always had his amulets on, there are no "without amp" for him past his first visit to Yavin 4. So, you really want to use Padawan!Kun here? Then I suggest we use pre-Artificial limb Vader (since those artificial limbs are very powerful) and make this Padawan!Kun vs AotC Anakin. 🙄
Originally posted by AncientPower
See what happens, the Vader supporters have to nexus/amulet wank to continue making their point (because Vader didn't have an amulet in his guantlet constantly). Now it's devolved into whose amp gets wanked more.Kun wins.
You must be pretty butthurt that his spirit feats are inconsistent and his TK showing was debunked by Gideon. GG Vader kills him 👆
Originally posted by AncientPower
See what happens, the Vader supporters have to nexus/amulet wank to continue making their point (because Vader didn't have an amulet in his guantlet constantly). Now it's devolved into whose amp gets wanked more.Kun wins.
I'm still on the borderline but a) do you seriously believe Nai's idea b) which feats do you think solidify Kun's win?
@Carthage, your bait is pointless, and your incoherent ramblings only serve to further establish your parasiting off of actual genuine debaters, in a vain attempt at remaining relevant in anybody's eyes.
@Ellimist, no I don't.
His feat as an exhausted Spirit, of choking the melded Jedi group is better than any of Vader's telekinetic showings. That simple.
Originally posted by The Ellimist
You're assuming that the meld is an amazing feat because more powerful versions in a prepared move TK'd those star destroyers at the cost of one of their own lives, while consciously harnessing the temple's energies?
I'm assuming that, because that feat is absolutely insane and even a fraction of that would be far more powerful than Starkiller. The main claim to fame people are using here is Vader gripping a mid-move Starkiller, before Starkiller broke out of it. Well an Exar Kun at a fraction of his power was choking out, to a greater degree, a melded Jedi group that is far more impressive.