Originally posted by DarthAnt66It's by Spindrall, remarking how he feels about the Force. He then states that they'll confront Revan on Yavin IV, but will fail to stop Revan's plans.
The relation to Revan is established in the Rakata Prime flashpoint, in which the disturbance felt is stated to be Revan.
Uh, yeah, that's what I said. "It" (in reference to my original post) being Revan's disturbance.
A disturbance in the Force that stretches across the galaxy, is maintained over the course of several months, and affects the tapestry of the Force itself, is an unbalancing, lol.
The entire concept of a disturbance of the Force is a temporarily unbalancing of the Force, generally in a specific area, but can sometimes briefly extend across the galaxy (ex. the destruction of Alderaan).
No, she feared that the disturbance of the Force (i.e. Revan) may be why she's unwell and not thinking straight.
You never even played the game. Why are you telling me what's indicated and not indicated? Again:
[/B]
Fair enough.
You noted that the Force itself was in flux which isn't what the quote was stating.
No it just means that the disturbance itself exists and as was noted was growing which is why it is a flaw in the tapestry that is the Force. Not that the Force itself became unbalanced.
No it's simply a presence or occurrence that is notable which is why genocides or the tilting of a world to one side of the Force or another doesn't unbalance the Force as a whole.
"I worry that these concerns are merely the figments of a deranged mind."
Try again.
I'm saying by what you explained and going by the quote that simply because the ship's coordinates randomly lead the protagonist to Revan it doesn't mean it was the will of the Force. Random chance still exists in the galaxy as probability is a universal concept.
Ant:
Revan's disturbing* of the Force, accomplished by her sheer presence, is not comparable*, and an outright inferior feat*, to Darth Plagueis and Palpatine's unbalancing.
Fixed your opening premise.
"The Force roils and convulses like never before [according to Spindrall, from his own, inevitably limited, perspective]."
It exists nowhere and everywhere at once. Writhing, growing [according to Beniko's, again, inevitably limited, perspective.]
That tapestry has become flawed. I speak of a persistent disturbance. A cyst, dense and tangled and unpleasant. It began small and nearly imperceptible but has been growing ever larger... [which is not entirely different from the linked video below - a Force user's presence having a lasting impact on another's senses, even over great distances.]
Considering the strange disturbance I sense that continues to pervade the Force, I worry that these concerns are merely the figments of a deranged mind [well, she's not wrong - Revan is quite deranged at this point.]
I find it difficult to agree that these subjective experiences of a character’s feelings of, emphasis, disturbances - not a total lack of balance - because of the presence of another Force user, is in any way comparable to this:
From the start Tenebrous had told him that he lacked the talent for Sith sorcery, even though the inability hadn’t owed to a deficiency of midi-chlorians. It’s an innate gift, the Bith would say when pressed, and one that he had lacked, as well. Sorcery paled in comparison with Bith science, regardless. But Plagueis now understood that Tenebrous had been wrong about sorcery, as he had been wrong about so many things. Yes, the gift was strongest in those who, with scant effort, could allow themselves to be subsumed by the currents of the Force and become conduits for the powers of the dark side. But there was an alternative path to those abilities, and it led from a place where the circle closed on itself and sheer will substituted for selflessness. Plagueis understood, too, that there were no powers beyond his reach; none he couldn’t master through an effort of will.
Starting from this paragraph is important for what follows; the premise is that, even without an innate talent for, say, Sith Sorcery, one can become a master of the art through sheer willpower; in other words, by exerting your will over the Force, to make the impossible possible.
Extra note; Darth Wyyrlok concurs that sheer willpower is the key to unlocking the secrets of the Dark Side, and follows the same philosophy. Case in point: he killed Darth Andeddu with his own mental technique in a battle of willpower, something endless study of the Force hadn’t to that point provided him with the ability to do.
If a Sith of equal power had preceded him, then that one had taken his or her secrets to the grave, or had locked them away in holocrons that had been destroyed or had yet to surface.Fun notes? It’s suggested that Plagueis does not know of any other Sith to have been capable of recreating what he is going to do in the later text; however, he knows who Vitiate is, which I think is telling. Whether Plagueis knew enough of Vitiate’s exploits to make the call, or if it’s an implication by the author that Vitiate isn’t among those to master Midichlorian manipulation, it’s interesting. And, as you’ll find out, it’s already obvious since we, the audience, know Vitiate hasn’t managed this technique.The question of whether he and Sidious had discovered something new or rediscovered something ancient was beside the point.
All that mattered was that, almost a decade earlier, they had succeeded in willing the Force to shift and tip irrevocably to the dark side. Not a mere paradigm shift, but a tangible alteration that could be felt by anyone strong in the Force, and whether or not trained in the Sith or Jedi arts.Revan’s shit wasn’t felt by absolutely anyone with a connection to the Force, trained or otherwise. Pretty telling that this is a bigger deal. The Force hasn’t just gone through a “mere paradigm shift”, i.e a change in pattern, or “disturbance”, but rather a “tangible alteration”. In other words, a change that feels so real you can touch it, which suggests something of greater permanency than just feeling Revan or Savage Opress from across the galaxy.
The shift had been the outcome of months of intense meditation, during which Plagueis and Sidious had sought to challenge the Force for sovereignty and suffuse the galaxy with the power of the dark side. Brazen and shameless, and at their own mortal peril, they had waged etheric war, anticipating that their own midi-chlorians, the Force’s proxy army, might marshal to boil their blood or stop the beating of their hearts. Risen out of themselves, discorporate and as a single entity, they had brought the power of their will to bear, asserting their sovereignty over the Force. No counterforce [until Anakin] 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.Are we now on a similar page, if we weren’t already? What Ant describes in the OP is of far less magnitude than what’s quoted above. Revan did not challenge the Force - the universal, all-binding energy field which pervades every living thing and exerts it’s will via Midichlorians - for sovereignty. He did not suffuse - spread through/over - the entire galaxy with the Dark Side, bearing in mind that this is only one aspect of a “Force” that is made up of equal parts “Light Side”, which even when it is disturbed or out of perfect balance, retains enough amounts of both that it does not rebalance itself naturally. He did not “age etheric war”, “bringing his will to bear” and eventually make the Force “yield” “as if some deity had been tipped from it’s throne.”
As we know, the result of this was that the Dark Side clouded the senses of every Jedi, including Yoda, even during their deepest meditations. They couldn’t sense Sidious’ presence in either those meditations or right in front of him. Hell, Sidious before TPM gave Maul distant tours of the Jedi temple and the Jedi were none-the-wiser. That’s impressive enough, but it’s not the important bit. What follows is what is important, and I admittedly neglected before how intertwined the unbalancing of the Force and midichlorian manipulation are.
On the same day they had allowed Venamis to die.
Then, by manipulating the Bith’s midi-chlorians, which should have been inert and unresponsive, Plagueis had resurrected him. The enormity of the event had stunned Sidious into silence and overwhelmed and addled 11-4D’s processors, but Plagueis had carried on without assistance, again and again allowing Venamis to die and be returned to life, until the Bith’s organs had given out and Plagueis had finally granted him everlasting death.
And that’s just the point of the etheric war waged on the Force; the Force’s building blocks are Midichlorians. It’s “proxy army”, to quote Plagueis, through which the Force exerts it’s own will. The greatest affront to the Force, the most unnatural attack against it, is then logically, to manipulate those fundamental building blocks of the universe - something that would, surely, not go uncontested (and at the time, it did, or so we thought).
That’s why they had to not only disturb and unbalance the Force, but to dominate it through sheer willpower. To make it yield. The founding principle of the usage of the Dark Side is bending the Force to your will; this, then, this manipulation of Midichlorians, the vessel of the Force’s expression on the physical world, is not just the greatest usage of the Force ever, but the greatest abuse of it. The greatest expression of the Dark Side ever perpetrated. Revan would be as confounded as Valkorion would be erect at seeing this happen.
And yet, I’m not even finished; what follows is an even greater and more advanced abuse of the Force than I’ve already described.
But having gained the power to keep another alive hadn’t been enough for him. And so after Sidious had returned to Coruscant, he had devoted himself to internalizing that ability, by manipulating the midi-chlorians that animated him. For several months he made no progress, but ultimately he began to perceive a measured change. The scars that had grown over his wounds had abruptly begun to soften and fade, and he had begun to breathe more freely than he had in twenty years. He began to sense that not only were his damaged tissues healing, but his entire body was rejuvinating itself. Beneath the transpirator, areas of his skin were smooth and youthful, and he knew that eventually he would cease to age altogether.
So, then, even more impressive than manipulating the Midichlorians of another to reverse death, Plagueis successfully reverses age, making himself effectively immortal. Even creating more Midichlorians than he was born with, which is effectively having partial control over life as well as death.
Drunk on newfound power, then, he had attempted an even more unthinkable act: to bring into being a creation of his own. Not merely the impregnation of some hapless, mindless creature, but the birth of a Forceful being. The ability to dominate death had been a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t equivalent to pure creation. And so he had stretched out—indeed, as if invisible, transubstantiated—to inform every being of his existence, and impact all of them: Muunoid or insectoid, secure or dispossessed, free or enslaved. A warrior waving a banner in triumph on a battlefield. A ghost infiltrating a dream.”Newfound power” and “an even more unthinkable act” again pointing out that since the domination of the Force itself, Plagueis has only been going further, and growing more powerful, since then.
But ultimately to no end.
The Force grew silent, as if in flight from him, and many of the animals in his laboratory succumbed to horrifying diseases.
Regardless, eight 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 he had finally returned to Sojourn. The dark side of the Force was theirs to command, and in partnership they would someday be able to keep each other alive, and to rule the galaxy for as long as they saw fit.
So he tries to create life, immaculate conception of a Forceful being. Now, from what I can tell, it wasn’t Plagueis that created Anakin Skywalker, but rather the Force conceived Anakin Skywalker in response to Plagueis’ machinations, to return itself to balance. In other words, it created a living plot device, the most powerful Force user imaginable, to put an end to Plagueis’ domination of the Force. To once again bring Light into the galaxy and take back control from the Dark.
Which is, essentially, given to us in the form of a metaphor just after in the novel.
To be sure, the light had been extinguished, but for how long and at what cost?Plagueis blots out the Light Side almost completely, in other words the Jedi are nearly eradicated, but there is still a tiny sliver of light left - Luke Skywalker. And when the Dark Side was defeated, it’s domination over the Light Side lifted, the Light shone immensely. Which, I suppose, is another way of saying that, in the space of minutes, Sidious and Vader both died, leaving only the last Jedi left.
He recalled a stellar eclipse he had witnessed on a long-forgotten world, whose single moon was of perfect size and distance to blot out the light of the system’s primary. The result hadn’t been total darkness but illumination of a different sort, singular and diffuse, that had confused the birds and had permitted the stars to be seen in what would have been broad daylight. Even totally blocked, the primary had shone from behind the satellite’s disk, and when the moon moved on there had been a moment of light almost too intense to bear.
Gazing into Sojourn’s darkening sky, he wondered what calamity the Force was planning in retreat to visit upon him or Sidious or both of them for willfully tipping the balance.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that Plagueis can also instruct Midichlorians to return to the Force, essentially removing them from the host body and killing them.
“Let me explain what is happening to you,” Plagueis said. “The cells that make up all living things contain within them organelles known as midi-chlorians. They are, in addition to being the basis for life, the elements that enable beings like me to perceive and use the Force. As the result of a lifetime of study, I have learned how to manipulate midi-chlorians, and I have instructed the limited number you possess to return to their source. In plain Basic, Veruna, I am killing you.”
Plagueis did this quite casually, albeit to a non-Force sensitive, but it’s certainly worth entertaining the idea that he could use this in-combat against a Force sensitive, much like he was able to heal himself while Sidious drained life from him with Force lightning. He was drunk and caught off-guard against Sidious, and was still mounting a resistance, so against a weaker being like Revan or Valkorion, Plagueis’ unrivalled mastery over life and death should prove more useful.
And that, my friends, is why I believe Plagueis is, by necessity, a greater Force user than any who came before him, in terms of the overarching narrative of Star Wars, holism, logic, magnitude or otherwise. Everyone uses the Force, or lets the Force use them; Plagueis manipulates the very building blocks of the Force, and in doing so controls the molecular building blocks of life, giving it, taking it, or simply maintaining life indefinitely. And the consequence for him exerting this kind of unnatural control over the Force was for it to retaliate by creating a living plot device, the Chosen One, potentially the most powerful Force user ever, to undo the damage Plagueis and Sidious did. Valk and, for logic’s sake, Revan, aren’t really scratching the surface of what Plagueis is capable of.
To round up:
In comparison, the below are facts concerning the unbalancing of Palpatine and Darth Plagueis:1. And what they did in months, Valkorion failed to come close to in thousands of years.1. It was accomplished after "months of intense meditation."
2. For the "first several months," little progress was seen.
3. No "counterforce" had risen against them during that time.
4. They were completely united as a single, incorporeal entity.
5. The end result of the war was the creation of Anakin Skywalker.
6. A rift in the Force was already established by Darth Tenebrous' master.
Are we seeing the picture now? The central narrative of Star Wars, the light and dark sides of the Force and the balance between the two, is being in-part embodied by the actions of the Rule of Two Sith, culminating in Sidious and Plagueis’ actions. Valkorion, and anyone preceding Plagueis, couldn’t hope to be as relevant. Which is why I continue to roll my eyes at people arguing over “look at all the big shit being lifted/destroyed, dude!”
I just don’t understand. How can anyone read Darth Plagueis objectively, understand the explicit and underlying meanings of the text, and still be capable of “Yeah, well, Nyriss has better lightning feats.”
While the feats, ignoring all circumstances, is likely more impressive for Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis, since it yielded the creation of the Chosen One itself, note that Revan never even attempted to wage war against the Force, nor did he mediate for months straight. His mere presence was enough to not only affect the Force on a galaxy-wide scale, but likewise force the Force to initiate a "counterforce" to the disturbance, similar to how the Chosen One was created. The notion that Revan, in months of deep meditation and specifically aiming to war with the Force, couldn't replicate the results of these two when he's already doing it without realizing it, is absurd.
I think you’re mistaken here; sure, what the Force may have done with Revan, and also did with Plagueis, may be similar, they are of an entirely different magnitude. The Force is always expressing it’s will through midichlorians, which are embodied by Jedi, Sith and everything in between. Whenever one side is getting too dominant, the other rises up, and the war continues infinitely. The difference is that the extent of the Force’s retaliation to Plagueis’ actions was far, far, far larger than it’s retaliation to anything Revan or Valkorion have ever done, simply because he is a bigger deal as a Force user and a story-element. Again, what Sidious and Plagueis did to the Force in months - suffuse the entire galaxy with the Dark Side, dominate the Force’s will and cause it to retreat from them, abuse the Force on the most fundamental level, and cause a plot device to rise against them - is something Valkorion did not scratch in thousands of years, let alone Revan. It suggests that, as a threat, Valkorion is warranting of less extreme measures in maintaining the fundamental balance of the universe. He isn’t as big of a threat, as great an expression of the Dark Side.
And that, my friend, is why Sidious will always be better than Valkorion. Plagueis, I’d argue, too.
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On a side-note, in regards to the part of my post about willpower, I’ll talk about what Plagueis meant when he thought that any Force ability could be mastered through sheer willpower.
It was noted earlier that despite some Force users being predisposed to abilities like Sith Sorcery, but not others, it is still possible to master those abilities through sheer willpower. Even if the Force wills that some beings are going to be better at some abilities than others, one with enough willpower can exert control over the Force, overcome barriers, and learn techniques that would otherwise be kept from them, even without materials to study from - circumventing the need for innate talent. Practice makes perfect, essentially. The world is what you make of it.
What, then, does this imply? That Plagueis being capable of mastering the most advanced Force technique ever through sheer willpower, means he either can, or did, master every other lesser technique, or, didn’t feel the need to. Either way, the implication I take is that by the time he was in his prime, Plagueis had no need of any technique that may have came before him.