Originally posted by Azronger
All of history acknowledges Vitiate. So does the Darth Plagueis novel, and the Legends Epic Collection.
And which of them contains the definitive quote saying that Sidious is more powerful than him?
Care to elaborate? Vitiate having 8000 Sith inside him and a longer lifespan than Sidious haven't made his feats superior - at all.
Right.
I must have missed the feats of RotS Sidious that beat mindcontrolling 8,000 Sith Lords and then drain them with an entire planet worth of people and other lifeforms to start with. Instakilling a dozen of the most powerful Sith Lords in the universe with a single force attack - Vitiate has done that. Becoming immortal and being capable of granting immortality to others? No problem for Vitiate, where even DE Sidious did utterly fail.
Sidious' only claim to fame is unbalancing the Force. An act that was neither performed alone, nor would it have been possible without consent of the Force itself, who didn't offer any kind of resistance to the manipulations of the Sith but, instead, pretty much gave in. Woohoo. Wonder what good that would do in battle.
Based on what can Vitiate mindrape these two?
Based on the fact that he was capable of mindraping everybody else, even notoriously strong-willed characters such as Revan. So what exactly stops him from doing the same to Sidious and Plagueis? Wishful thinking? There is not a single instance in which his mind-control has failed on somebody who had experienced it before or was taught by someone who did. Neither of that is true for Sidious or Plagueis.
And, you know, maybe I should point out that, while Plagueis certainly sees himself on par - and even above - the Ancient Sith after shifting the balance of the Force, that is not only mereley his opinion but the facts demonstrate, that neither Plagueis nor Sidious did ever reach Vitiate's level of mastery (hint: immortality, granting immortality), even in singular aspects they did strive to master.
And how does a lack of variety (which they don't lack) correlate into them losing, when they're simply more powerful? And Palpatine can tank infinitely more than anyone here.
Arguing in circles is certainly funny. But since you fail to provide evidence for the idea that Plagueis and Sidious are more powerful than Vitiate and Revan, one can just wonder why we would assume this as given fact.
And Sidious can tank "infinitely more" than anyone here? Not only is that quite the exaggaration, but it also begs for prove. Especially when comparing him to Revan. Seriously?
Revan could just absorb (and redirect) lightning powerful enough to reduce armored soldiers to ash in split seconds, yet Vitiate was hitting him with an attack far more powerful than that. The result? Revan's skin "[...]began to boil and blister, the flesh of his face melting and sticking to the superheated metal of his mask[...]". Despite that fact, he immediately after that starts to heal himself and is back on his feet in less than a minute.
Revan didn't bend God to his will, like Plagueis and Sidious did
Heavy concept fail. They didn't bend anything to their will. The Force just "stepped aside", offering not a single bit of resistance against them and then totally screwed them through Anakin. Apparently, everything that happened did happen according to the designs of the Force. Assuming something else would be stupid, given that - as you mentioned yourself - the Force is a godlike entity.
@The Ellimist
Originally posted by The Ellimist
Nai's dismissing of the quotes is predicated on the idea that the out-of-universe publication date matters to the point where a quote literally doesn't count if it describes something to which new information was added (even if the new information doesn't contradict the old). This sort of breaks suspension of disbelief and renders a continuous universe that we can argue from very difficult to form.
My dismissing of the quotes is based on the fact that we are arguing two entirely different universes here: the Legends universe and the (Disney) Canon universe. Utilizing sources from the latter to try and argue against characters from the former is simply faulty reasoning. When a source just examines the "movie universe", there isn't much of a discussion about who is the most powerful Sith, since there is just Sidious and his apprentices. But using a quote that describes that status and then attempting to transfer that quote into the Legends universe is just illogical, because that heavily alters the meaning of the quote (from "Sidious is the most powerful movie Sith" to "Sidious is the most powerful Sith"😉 in ways that were clearly never intended.
@Sinious
Originally posted by Sinious
I think in a situation like that, coming closest to the truth would be accepting that the authorial intention regarding the more recent information matters more than what the older source was meant to cover (assuming that one doesn't out-canon the other). So, take Plagueis vs novel Vitiate for an example: questioning whether Drew intended to keep Vitiate within "Plagueis > all the sith who came before" scaling or not rather than simply dismissing the older source + comparison analysis' of both characters' showings would reveal how powerful these characters are, imo. So, take Plagueis vs novel Vitiate for an example: questioning whether Drew intended to keep Vitiate within "Plagueis > all the sith who came before" scaling or not rather than simply dismissing the older source + comparison analysis' of both characters' showings would reveal how powerful these characters are, imo.
Baing anything on "authorial intention" is rather ridiculous.
First: We can just speculate about authorial intent, since that doesn't get served to us on a silver plate. Staying with your example: I don't know if Plagueis is really intended to be more powerful than Sith coming before him, or if the author's intention was just to illustrate the power boost the unbalancing of the Force gave Plagueis by making him think that is the case, which is what is done in the book.
Secondly: Arguing authorial intent becomes completely mood where it is left ambigious. Literature analysis usually limits itself to the text for a reason. If an author fails to make his intention clear within the text, it is simply considered not to be clear, as the definition of "auhtorial intent" just considers the intent of the author as they are encoded in his text. You don't ask the author and then "reinterprete" his work according to his means. This is even more true for SW sources, provided that each of them needed / needs to pass LFL, with some authors claiming that they were asked to edit wording in certain sentences sometimes. That means, that once they submit that stuff, their authority just ends there, with the exception of the part of it that is contained within the text they submitted.
Thirdly: If authorial intent was any real basis to make arguments here, certain debates would look much different. Kevin J. Anderson for example, revealed his ideas about Exar Kun once: The guy should be capable of challenging DE Sidious for the "most powerful Sith" title. James Luceno once revealed his idea, that TPM Plagueis would most likely defeat TPM Sidious in a fight, which is commonly ignored here. From there one could - with the doubts of a significant increase of power for Sidious between TPM and RotS presented here - question if Plagueis would also be capable of taking RotS Sidious down. One cane
So it really comes back to an examination of feats and believeable accolades. Which leaves Sidious with some nice displays of duelling abilities with a lightsaber and some nice TK / lightning. The same, essentially, being true for Plagueis. I wonder how that compares to versatility of Revan and the sheer raw power and knowledge that Vitiate has amassed during his reign.
Originally posted by Nai
And which of them contains the definitive quote saying that Sidious is more powerful than him?
With the galaxy now ripe for conquest, the Emperor has become the most powerful Sith Lord of all and a master of the Dark Side of the Force, ordering the extermination of the Jedi Order with the aid of his apprentice, the deadly Darth Vader.
-Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Volume 1
Darth Plagueis also acknowledges Vitiate's existence, yet still states Plagueis > all.
Right.
I must have missed the feats of RotS Sidious that beat mindcontrolling 8,000 Sith Lords
Vitiate did not dominate any number of Sith on Nathema - Read. He doesn't have anything on Sidious, who was clouding the minds of 10000 Jedi, including Yoda's, for three years:
For a decade, there was no physical signs of the remaining Dark Lord, but evidence of his power began to appear.
The Jedi ability to use the Force inexplicably began to diminish.
-Databank: Jedi Order (Link:_http://web.archive.org/web/20080523.../thejediorder/?_)
Note the underlined part. The databank is a completely objective, third person source, which states the Jedi's ability to wield the Force diminishing was the result of Sidious hindering it with his personal power, and not any unbalancing that happened almost two decades ago. Way better than what Vitiate has shown with telepathic and Force suppression powers.
and then drain them with an entire planet worth of people and other lifeforms to start with.
Vitiate only drained the planet with a ritual. Not a combat-related showing. Sidious, only a few months after RotS, started to dominate and drain the people of Byss with his own power from across the galaxy:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/12/124590/4221875-3643360187-19943.jpg
Almost mindless under the oppression of the Emperor's dark side influence, the people of Byss find their life energies constantly leeched off during the Emperor's vile machinations.
Throughout the worlds submissive to the Empire, Byss is renowned as a paradise, whose siren call multitudes to willingly apply for emigration to its shores. Once there, wrapped in the power of the dark side, the immigrants become completely submissive, their life energy forever enslaved to the mind that would devour a galaxy.
-Dark Empire endnotes
Note the underlined parts. The implication here is that Sidious never stopped. He went about his daily life for almost three decades without ever stopping, dominating and draining them from across the galaxy.
And there is no proof of any significant power increase in such a short time, so I doubt he'd be incapable of this in his RotS incarnation. That's a far better demonstration of raw power, Force mastery, and almost endless Force reserves than what Vitiate has ever shown.
Instakilling a dozen of the most powerful Sith Lords in the universe with a single force attack - Vitiate has done that.
You mean the Dark Council? I fail to understand how one-shotting fodder translates to defeating non-fodder e.g. Revan, or in this case, Sidious and Plagueis. For example, an atomic bomb could kill literally as many humans at would it in its radius, yet it wouldn't destroy a single nuclear bunker. Quality > quantity.
On top of that, it's likely that none of the Dark Council members had proper Force defenses up, since the blast happened on the steps of the Citadel, and not in the Throne Roon, where they had expected to find Vitiate, meaning they wouldn't be prepared for an attack:
It remains a mystery how the Emperor learned of his council's treachery. He allowed their plan to play out, but when they gathered to confront the Emperor, his punishment was swift and devastating. Eleven members of the Dark Council died in a sudden flash on the steps of the Citadel.
-The Old Republic Encyclopedia
Becoming immortal and being capable of granting immortality to others? No problem for Vitiate, where even DE Sidious did utterly fail.
I don't see what this has to do with combat. Vitiate can still die, and at this point he hasn't achieved his "entity" status, and even then, he did eventually die of natural means:
Yet, immortality is an impossibility. No matter how strong, how powerful, how godlike, all must perish. In the end, Valkorion could not escape the inevitable, permanent end to his existence. Finally, after thousands of years, the Immortal Emperor--his body, his spirit, the very essence of his being--is no more.
-The Fall of Valkorion codex entry
Sidious' only claim to fame is unbalancing the Force. An act that was neither performed alone,
Sidious did unbalance the Force with his own power - Read. It's a feat of raw power Vitiate never performed.
nor would it have been possible without consent of the Force itself, who didn't offer any kind of resistance to the manipulations of the Sith but, instead, pretty much gave in. Woohoo. Wonder what good that would do in battle.
Didn't offer resistance? Then why did they have to meditate intensely and for months on end, if the Force wasn't actually resisting their efforts?
And what do you call Anakin Skywalker? If the Force could've defeated Sidious and Plagueis in a battle of wills, it would have. They overthrew God. Better than what Vitoate ever achieved.
Based on the fact that he was capable of mindraping everybody else, even notoriously strong-willed characters such as Revan.
When did Vitiate mindrape Revan, aside from when he was caught off-guard and already on the verge of the dark side? Last time I checked, even Lana Beniko resisted Vitiate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKzqj9IMVa4&t=3m32s
So what exactly stops him from doing the same to Sidious and Plagueis? Wishful thinking? There is not a single instance in which his mind-control has failed on somebody who had experienced it before or was taught by someone who did. Neither of that is true for Sidious or Plagueis.
If all it takes for an average Sith Lord to resist Vitiate is a bit of mental prep, then I doubt he'd be able to do anything to even a 17-year-old Sheev, who was resisting one of the most powerful Sith ever in Darth Plagueis, much less a fully trained Darth Sidious.
Let me ask you a counter-question - what prevents Sidious from mindraping Vitiate? Revan was fairly successful in influencing him despite having the Dread Masters for aid:
He wanted information on the Republic and the Jedi. How strong were they? Where were they vulnerable? How much did they know about the Sith and the Emperor himself? He wanted information on Revan. What had happened during his own invasion of the Republic? Why had it failed? How had he freed himself from the Emperor’s control?...
The answers were all there, but Revan would not surrender them easily. Though he was physically helpless, mentally he was strong enough to wage war against the Emperor, guarding his secrets for however long it might take. And Revan knew something the Emperor did not.
–The Old Republic: Revan
"The Emperor sought to pry the Foundry's location from the Jedi's mind. But for centuries he resisted."
"The Emperor had three hundred years to break this man...and he never succumbed?"
–Darth Malgus and The Emperor's Wrath, The Old Republic
"So many centuries. The Emperor and his Dread Masters, trying to wrench me apart, to unleash my anger and hatred..."
–Revan, The Old Republic
And Sidious' TP feats - like probing Yoda, clouding the Force on a galaxy-wide scale - are better than Revan's or Vitiate's.
And, you know, maybe I should point out that, while Plagueis certainly sees himself on par - and even above - the Ancient Sith after shifting the balance of the Force, that is not only mereley his opinion but the facts demonstrate, that neither Plagueis nor Sidious did ever reach Vitiate's level of mastery (hint: immortality, granting immortality), even in singular aspects they did strive to master.
(Continued)
1. I never said Plagueis' opinion on the Ancient Sith is valid.
2. Mastery in ritualistic, non-combative Force feats? Probably not. Mastery in combat-related Force powers? Sidious surpasses Vitiate.
And Sidious can tank "infinitely more" than anyone here? Not only is that quite the exaggaration, but it also begs for prove. Especially when comparing him to Revan. Seriously?Revan could just absorb (and redirect) lightning powerful enough to reduce armored soldiers to ash in split seconds, yet Vitiate was hitting him with an attack far more powerful than that. The result? Revan's skin "[...]began to boil and blister, the flesh of his face melting and sticking to the superheated metal of his mask[...]". Despite that fact, he immediately after that starts to heal himself and is back on his feet in less than a minute.
Sidious tanked his own lightning bolts - which are more powerful than Vitiate's based on them distorting a lightsaber blade in both the movie and the novelization (Link) - like they were flea bites:
Force lightning spat from the Emperor’s gray fingers, surrounding Yoda in a blue nimbus. But Yoda had faced Force lightning before. To deflect the first bolts, he had to stop his intended strike at the Emperor. Once his initial surprise was over, he reached out to the living Force. The lightning bent, arcing back toward the Emperor.
“Destroy you, I will,” Yoda said grimly. “Just as Master Kenobi, your apprentice will destroy.”
The Sith Lord only redoubled his attack. Hurling Force lightning, the Emperor backed away, to the very edge of the platform. Following him was like walking against hurricane winds. Never had Yoda faced one so strong in the dark side. Before he came within reach, a particularly strong blast knocked Yoda out of the pod.
-Revenge of the Sith junior novel
Note the underlined parts. Sidious' only reaction to being blasted with his own lightning is to intensify his lightning further, meaning it was not worth the effort to even attempt to deflect it back, indicating it was completely harmless to him.
In the same fight, he was also hit in the face with a Force attack twice as powerful - based on it consisting of the combined power of Sidious and Yoda - and still didn't receive a scratch (Link). Revan doesn't compare in the slightest.
Sidious would walk right through Vitiate's Force Lightning Storm, like Superman did to Goku:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0D0VGomWb4&t=11m10s
Heavy concept fail. They didn't bend anything to their will. The Force just "stepped aside", offering not a single bit of resistance against them and then totally screwed them through Anakin. Apparently, everything that happened did happen according to the designs of the Force. Assuming something else would be stupid, given that - as you mentioned yourself - the Force is a godlike entity.
Already addressed this.
And just because the Force is a godlike entity means it cannot be overthrown? As noted in Force and Destiny:
More than any others, it is the Force-sensitive beings of the galaxy who have the greatest influence upon the balance of the Force.
Note the underlined part. "More than anything" would mean even more than the Force itself. The Force does not have much say in whether it is balanced or not, and in this case, Sidious and Plagueis, with their sheer power of their minds - and later Sidious with his mere presence - shifted it on a galactic scale, towards the dark side.
Sidious as of RotS could bypass even Yoda's attempts to conceal his emotions, whereas he was able to conceal his Force sensitivity from Yoda.
Also, in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, the mere onset of Sidious' hologram incited storms on planets across the breadth of the galaxy. Vitiate has absolutely nothing to compare.
My answer took me longer than expected. I blame work. There you go:
@Azronger
With the galaxy now ripe for conquest, the Emperor has become the most powerful Sith Lord of all and a master of the Dark Side of the Force, ordering the extermination of the Jedi Order with the aid of his apprentice, the deadly Darth Vader.-Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Volume 1
Context? Reference frame? Literature Analysis 101?
"The Empire Volume 1" is a collection of comics that were released in 2006, long before SW:ToR. So how would a source like that factor Vitiate in exactly?
Darth Plagueis also acknowledges Vitiate's existence, yet still states Plagueis > all.
"Darth Plagueis" is entirely narrated from the point of view of its main character. So, essentially, Plagueis thinks of himself as > all, which doesn’t make it true. As a matter of fact, neither him nor Sidious, despite putting a lot of effort into that task, was ever capable of becoming immortal the way Vitiate did. Nor were they capable of granting immortality to others (as Vitiate did with Scourge).
Vitiate did not dominate any number of Sith on Nathema - Read.
I did read and this was hilarious.
First: Your notion that "it's non-canon" applies to everything now labeled "Legends", which would include the source that you quoted yourself just above. For debates in the EU forum, we can't dismiss Legends sources, especially not when dealing with character that aren't present in the actual "canon" SW universe (here: Vitiate).
Second: While I agree, that characters aren't reliable sources per se, I don't see anything there to dismiss Nyriss account on the tale. Again, I can merely point to the "context" of the source material you are dealing with. And in the case you're trying to make, your omission of crucial details of the storytelling is quite laughable:
"The Emperor erased Nathema from the history books and the astrogation charts to hide all evidence of his crimes." – Darth Nyriss, Revan: Star Wars (The Old Republic), Chapter 12.
So Vitiate was actively manipulating information regarding Nathema. And the other accounts of the story don't exactly disagree with Nyriss. Much like yourself, they just leave information out. Nyriss also happily states that the Sith Lord agreed to participate in the ritual and came to Nathema. But once they joined in, Vitiate destroyed them:
"He dominated their minds, crushed their resistance. He turned them into slaves to his will, forcing them to participate in the most complex ritual of Sith sorcery ever attempted. Calling on the dark side, Lord Vitiate devoured them.” – Darth Nyriss: Revan: Star Wars (The Old Republic), Chapter 15.
So that is where Nyriss provides information that differs from two other sources. Seriously? The texts in the Encyclopedia and the Codex could very well follow the – manipulated – accounts that Vitiate gave of the story ("The Ritual of Nathema is celebrated among Imperial scholars as a rare and amazing coming together of Sith for the good of the Empire."😉, which could have been a result of the events depicted in the Revan novel.
But that account doesn’t appear reasonable anyway: No Sith would sacrifice himself for a "greater good" and had those Sith Lords given their lives, one would expect some sort of memory site on the planet to remind the people of the Empire of their sacrifice. Instead the planet has been hidden away by Vitiate (according to Nyriss) but is very clearly not part of the "common knowledge" among Imperial population – at least not at the time of the Revan novel.
He doesn't have anything on Sidious, who was clouding the minds of 10000 Jedi, including Yoda's, for three years:For a decade, there was no physical signs of the remaining Dark Lord, but evidence of his power began to appear.
The Jedi ability to use the Force inexplicably began to diminish.
-Databank: Jedi Order (Link:_http://web.archive.org/web/20080523.../thejediorder/?_)
Note the underlined part. The databank is a completely objective, third person source, which states the Jedi's ability to wield the Force diminishing was the result of Sidious hindering it with his personal power, and not any unbalancing that happened almost two decades ago. Way better than what Vitiate has shown with telepathic and Force suppression powers.
Since the link doesn't work, I can’t comment on the quote directly. But from the link "20080523", it is clear, that you’re quoting a version of the entry that dates to 2008, long before any information about the actual "balance shift" became available. As the Plagueis novel pretty much makes clear that the shift that Sidious and Plagueis has caused, would be senseable immediately for all Force users, that notion above is clearly retconned.
That aside, SW:ToR also makes clear, that Vitiate would have succeded with his plan to consume the entire Star Wars Galaxy, which I consider a little more impressive than the manipulations of Sidious and Plagueis.
Vitiate only drained the planet with a ritual. Not a combat-related showing.
I’d thought, that it was rather clear that I was referring to force mastery…
Vitiate only drained the planet with a ritual. Not a combat-related showing. Sidious, only a few months after RotS, started to dominate and drain the people of Byss with his own power from across the galaxy:http://static.comicvine.com/uploads...60187-19943.jpg
Almost mindless under the oppression of the Emperor's dark side influence, the people of Byss find their life energies constantly leeched off during the Emperor's vile machinations.
Throughout the worlds submissive to the Empire, Byss is renowned as a paradise, whose siren call multitudes to willingly apply for emigration to its shores. Once there, wrapped in the power of the dark side, the immigrants become completely submissive, their life energy forever enslaved to the mind that would devour a galaxy.
-Dark Empire endnotes
Note the underlined parts. The implication here is that Sidious never stopped. He went about his daily life for almost three decades without ever stopping, dominating and draining them from across the galaxy.
And there is no proof of any significant power increase in such a short time, so I doubt he'd be incapable of this in his RotS incarnation. That's a far better demonstration of raw power, Force mastery, and almost endless Force reserves than what Vitiate has ever shown.
Nice. Too bad you totally ruined your own argument with the link to the comic you posted:
"This planet is a dark side conduit. A call to the force summons an exponential flood. But the Force demands balance. In order to give energy it must take energy."
Emphasis mine. So Sidious himself links that effect to the nature of the planet and not to his own power and Force mastery.
You mean the Dark Council? I fail to understand how one-shotting fodder translates to defeating non-fodder e.g. Revan, or in this case, Sidious and Plagueis. For example, an atomic bomb could kill literally as many humans at would it in its radius, yet it wouldn't destroy a single nuclear bunker. Quality > quantity.
I fail to understand how one sorts in the members of the Dark Council as "fodder". Those are, last time I checked, the most powerful Sith present in the Sith Empire who clawed their way up to the top, most likely leaving a nice numbers of corpses of the less capable people in their wake. Those people are no push-over. Hence your comparison is pretty stupid.
On top of that, it's likely that none of the Dark Council members had proper Force defenses up, since the blast happened on the steps of the Citadel, and not in the Throne Roon, where they had expected to find Vitiate, meaning they wouldn't be prepared for an attack:
I don’t know why "maybe they were surprised by the attack" is still a thing when discussing force users? Those people are capable of precognition and even with defense summoned ad hoc the usually do survive attacks up to a certain level of magnitude. Force users are pretty hard to kill as virtually every available source – starting with the movies – makes pretty damn clear. And those were, just to emphasize it again – not your average Sith Lords, but the members of the Dark Council. And still Vitiate killed them with a single force attack. And I fail to see how the fact, that he wasn’t even physically present for that makes that feat less impressive for him. So he can wipe out a collective of a dozen powerful Sith Lords from a remote location? I bet Sidious would have liked to have that kind of ability when he needed to deal with the Jedi Council.
Continued...
...continued...
I don't see what this has to do with combat. Vitiate can still die, and at this point he hasn't achieved his "entity" status, and even then, he did eventually die of natural means:Yet, immortality is an impossibility. No matter how strong, how powerful, how godlike, all must perish. In the end, Valkorion could not escape the inevitable, permanent end to his existence. Finally, after thousands of years, the Immortal Emperor--his body, his spirit, the very essence of his being--is no more.
-The Fall of Valkorion codex entry
You probably don't see what this has to do with combat, because I was talking about force knowledge and mastery, both disciplines in which Valkorion / Vitiate clearly eclipses the likes of Sidious and Plagueis, who had to go by the scraps of what the Ancient Sith (read: Vitiate’s generation of Sith Lords) left behind in terms of Dark Side lore.
And your attempt to counter my argument still doesn't make sense. Neither Sidious or Plagueis were even close to archiving what Vitiate did in terms of personal "immortality" and had Vitiate continued to do what he did in his Valkorion incarnation he just would have lived forever. That he, apparently, choose not to continue on this path has nothing to do with his ability to do so. Which would still overshadow the feeble attempts of Plagueis and Sidious to archive the same, which was the reason to bring that up in the first place…
Sidious did unbalance the Force with his own power - Read. It's a feat of raw power Vitiate never performed.
Nope. Sidious didn't unbalance the Force with his own power. Your crude interpretation of Sidious thoughts, which are packed with insecurities, doesn't change that. And Vitiate was essentially about to end the Force in the Star Wars Galaxy by absorbing all energy into himself. Which, sorry, still tops everything Sidious has ever done.
Didn't offer resistance? Then why did they have to meditate intensely and for months on end, if the Force wasn't actually resisting their efforts?
You may want to read the corresponding text instead of blaming me for the fact, that it doesn’t support your views:
"No counterforce had risen against them. In what amounted to a state of rapture they knew that the Force had yielded, as if some deity had been tipped from its throne. On the fulcrum they had fashioned, the light side had dipped and the dark side had ascended." – Darth Plagueis, Chapter 24.
Emphasis mine. They didn't meet any direct resistance from the Force. The Force merely shifted, without putting up any kind of resistance. Fact.
And what do you call Anakin Skywalker? If the Force could've defeated Sidious and Plagueis in a battle of wills, it would have. They overthrew God. Better than what Vitoate ever achieved.
Pardon me. Are you, somehow, mentally retarded?
The Force is an omnipotent and omnipresent energy field. You can't force it to do anything. You can convince. Or, and that is what Plagueis and Sidious probably did, you can delude yourself with the notion that the Force is acting according to your will, when you are merely a pawn acting according to the will of the Force. Why did the Force chose Anakin as an option, contrary to what Plagueis and Sidious did actually expect:
"Brazen and shameless, and at their own mortal peril, they had waged etheric war, anticipating their own midi-chlorians, the Force’s proxy army, might marshal to boil their blood or stop the beating of their hearts." – Darth Plagueis, Chapter 24.
Emphasis mine. The Force, had it been willing to do so, could just have killed them at any given point in time – even following the very own thoughts of the Sith, represented here. Instead, it chose to take a detour and send Anakin in to bring balance. And again: Not as the "perfect Jedi", trained from infancy on, an avatar of Light, but precisely the way that Anakin came to be – with dire consequences for the Jedi Order first and for the Sith later. This was so obviously the plan of the Force, that I seriously wonder how people still don’t get it.
When did Vitiate mindrape Revan, aside from when he was caught off-guard and already on the verge of the dark side? Last time I checked, even Lana Beniko resisted Vitiate:
I don’t get what Revan’s affiliation in the Force has to do with Vitiate's ability to just dominate his mind. Or that of Malak, the Hero of Tython, the entire Jedi Master strike team accompanying the latter or the citizens of Ziost (along the Jedi special task force on the planet) for that matter. And Lana has not only prepared her mental defenses specifically to resist Vitiate, but was also dealing with a discorporate, freshly resurrected version of him, that would most certainly be less powerful than himself in the flesh.
If all it takes for an average Sith Lord to resist Vitiate is a bit of mental prep, then I doubt he'd be able to do anything to even a 17-year-old Sheev, who was resisting one of the most powerful Sith ever in Darth Plagueis, much less a fully trained Darth Sidious.
Again: What "average Sith Lord" are you even talking about? Lana? She is neither "average", nor was she confronting Vitiate in his flesh, who casually overpowered the minds of people far more powerful than Lana.
Let me ask you a counter-question - what prevents Sidious from mindraping Vitiate?
The fact that, contrary to Vitiate, he never did that to another powerful Force user? Thanks for playing, chump.
Revan was fairly successful in influencing him despite having the Dread Masters for aid
Yeah. Because "influencing" a single decision of an individual is, somehow, compareable to using individuals like puppets…
And Sidious' TP feats - like probing Yoda, clouding the Force on a galaxy-wide scale - are better than Revan's or Vitiate's.
Lmao.
Aside from your rather hilarious interpretations of Star Wars canon with a heavy bias for Sidious, let me just point to the fact, that Vitiate was running the Sith Empire while running Zakuul at the same time as Valkorion. So his "game version" rules two Empires with an iron fist at the same time, with two separate host bodies to control, controls hundreds of children throughout the Galaxy, communicates with the "Hand" and keeps Vaylin's powers in check mentally. That all at the same time. Sidious doesn't even register next to Vitiate when it comes to mind-controlling powers and telepathic abilities.
Continued...
...continued...
Mastery in combat-related Force powers? Sidious surpasses Vitiate.
Ipsedixitism doesn't win debates. Proof up or shut up.
Sidious tanked his own lightning bolts - which are more powerful than Vitiate's based on them distorting a lightsaber blade in both the movie and the novelization
I fail to see how bending the energy beam, that is a lightsaber blade, is a testament to power of Sidious’ lightning. Especially in the context of arguing the most powerful ToR character, when far lesser beings then him have been seen to completely absorb the energy of a lightsaber blade (Satele Shan) and Vitiate in his Valkorion incarnation could block lightsaber swings with his bare hands. Again: Both actions apparently beyond Sidious.
And, contrary to Sidious lightning, Vitiate's lightning has been shown to cause heavy damage when he disintegrated T3-M4 with a quick blast, not even talking about superheating Revan’s mask in split seconds, enough to have it burn into his face, with Revan being quite capable of redirecting / absorbing lightning. By comparison, Vader looked quite well, after getting electrocuted by Sidious in RotJ, after it has been mentioned multiple times, that he was pretty weak against lightning / electricity throughout the saga.
Note the underlined parts. Sidious' only reaction to being blasted with his own lightning is to intensify his lightning further, meaning it was not worth the effort to even attempt to deflect it back, indicating it was completely harmless to him.
I don't see, why I would accept lesser canon, clearly overwritten by the depiction of the duel in the movie. In short: That never happened. And getting his own lightning thrown back into his face by Mace Windu was enough to have his face "melt" and beg Anakin for help in RotS. So his lightning being harmless to him is pretty much contradicted by on-screen evidence.
In the same fight, he was also hit in the face with a Force attack twice as powerful - based on it consisting of the combined power of Sidious and Yoda - and still didn't receive a scratch (Link). Revan doesn't compare in the slightest.
I fail to see how Yoda redirecting Sidious lightning does make the lightning more powerful. Yoda doesn't add any kind of power to the attack. And there is also the fact, that Sidious is never hit by that lightning. The energy simply keeps going back and forth between the two opponents until it – finally – explodes. With that explosion not being that impressive, when we consider the fact, that it represents the energy Sidious was capable of putting out over an extended amount of time (at least several seconds). Especially not when compared to the damage Vitiate does with his attacks.
Already addressed this.And just because the Force is a godlike entity means it cannot be overthrown? As noted in Force and Destiny:
More than any others, it is the Force-sensitive beings of the galaxy who have the greatest influence upon the balance of the Force.
Note the underlined part. "More than anything" would mean even more than the Force itself. The Force does not have much say in whether it is balanced or not, and in this case, Sidious and Plagueis, with their sheer power of their minds - and later Sidious with his mere presence - shifted it on a galactic scale, towards the dark side.
I fail to see where you already addressed this. And, apparently, you still fail to see the point.
In order to influence the Force, you would need to use the Force. So, obviously, when the Force doesn’t "allow" you to use it, you face some kind of problem. Should the Force, as a binding element of all life, decide to counteract against your plans, you’re just toast, because it can – as Sidious and Plagueis assumed – just end you on the spot.
So acting against the will of the Force is impossible, unless the Force allows it. If the Force allows it, it cannot totally be against its will. But this is essentially discussing some metaphysical energy field and has been done for our world quite enough with God as an entity (who cannot be all-good and all-powerful and let bad stuff happen, as was argued by some). The same goes for the Force. It doesn’t immediately counteract for whatever reason, despite being able to do so, but decides to deal with the thread by sending Anakin – in the very specific way it did.
But the arrival of Anakin is already testament to the fact that Sidious and Plagueis did never manage to bend the Force to their will. While causing a shift in the Force, the Force still acts against them. And finally wins.
And that aside: The quote you've brought there does obviously compare force-sensitive beings to those who aren't force-sensitive. Nothing more. The conclusion you're trying to draw from there is simply ridiculous. And factually wrong anyway: The Force has the means to reestablish balance itself. Which was, last time I checked, the entire story of Star Wars Episode I to VI.
"The Emperor erased Nathema from the history books and the astrogation charts to hide all evidence of his crimes."– Darth Nyriss, Revan: Star Wars (The Old Republic)
So we're back to Pre-Nanthema Vitiate dominating the minds of 8000 Sith lords, nice. Don't know if this puts him above Sheev, considering his mind-wipe feat of the lusankya, but still very impressive none the less. It makes sense that the historians wouldn't detail the utter domination against the wills of 8000 individuals.
That's Nyriss' claim, which isn't verified. According to Nyriss, there were only two hundred Sith Lords on Nathema, IIRC, nowhere near the 8000 suggested by the TOR: Encyclopedia.
Either pick Nyriss' account and take it to be flawed, or refer to the Encyclopedia, but not both. You can't have two bites of the cherry.
Originally posted by SunRazer
That's Nyriss' claim, which isn't verified. According to Nyriss, there were only two hundred Sith Lords on Nathema, IIRC, nowhere near the 8000 suggested by the TOR: Encyclopedia.Either pick Nyriss' account and take it to be flawed, or refer to the Encyclopedia, but not both. You can't have two bites of the cherry.
Shit son. You got a quote?
