Originally posted by Unbowed
In that case I have to concede. SunRazer, you are a reasonable guy. Completely unlike the quote worshiping guys who would use a publisher blurb to argue for a character's a priori supremacy over any other character in any other medium.Yup, you are a paragon of open-mindedness.
Yeah, you go ahead and concede.
I outright said I was willing to take an argument from you in opposition to the quotes, but you decided to press on with an ad hominem instead. You might've realized that I actually noted Valkorion could be argued to be excluded from the quotes of even Palpatine, never mind Plagueis.
Have you ever considered that these quotes are just evidence? If you'd like to explain to me how using evidence amounts to not being able to think for yourself, I'm going to listen. Instead of trying to attack people for using canonical material as evidence, try telling us why the evidence doesn't work.
Using a publisher blurb to argue something doesn't make you either open or close-minded. I'm open to having those quotes disproved; that seems pretty open-minded to me. If anything, you're the one being close-minded; your comments here imply an inherent bias against the publisher blurb that prevents you from ever accepting it as a legitimate form of evidence (not to mention completely ignoring the all-important point of it working in tandem with the in-novel quote about Plagueis' supremacy). And where are the publisher blurbs in this thread?
Nobody here claimed to be a paragon of anything; I'm just saying that I've argued against quotes before. But ignore that. Keep up your revolutionary independent thinking and just avoid presenting any argument whatsoever. 👆
Originally posted by SunRazer
Actually, the whole "hunger weakening him" thing hasn't been explicitly stated to my knowledge and is mostly an online assumption.
Well I'll take your word for it for now.
But rather, the quotes would logically refer to Sidious at his optimum level of power being above Nihilus at his optimum level of power.
The problem is how you define optimum though. Obviously I think everyone agrees that such quotes would have an idea of everyone being in their prime, but it's also true that there are various circumstances that might make a Force-user more powerful than he naturally/usually would be. If such quotes have in mind a person's natural/usual level of power, then they don't account for whether Sidious is more powerful than someone as they both are when their power might be due to circumstance greater than it otherwise would be, such as when a Force-user might be enhanced by a powerful artifact. If such quotes have in mind a person's level of power at its absolute greatest, including such cases of abnormal circumstance, then they don't account for whether Sidious is more powerful than someone as they both are at their natural/usual level of power.
As this forum, as far as I'm aware, will usually have Sidious operate under conditions of natural power but won't necessarily hold others to the same standard (e.g. orbalisk Bane), the conventions of this forum capture an asymmetry in circumstance that such quotes presumably do not, hence not making the quotes perfectly suitable for our purposes.
Though obviously this would have been a lot more relevant if it was indeed the case that Nihilus' power did fluctuate greatly and that it was mysterious what "natural" or "usual" would be for him, which was what originally motivated me to address the quotes using this line of thought.
Most of his showings, including all of his best, are circumstantial in nature, and sources, including those that include him and his act on Katarr, continue to describe Palpatine (and Vitiate) as the most powerful Sith Lord in history (up to TOR in Vitiate's case). Plagueis himself, almost certainly familiar with Nihilus' Devastation of Katarr, eventually came to believe that he could rival any feat of power from any Sith before him; this is vindicated by a factual quote describing Plagueis as the most powerful Sith Lord up to and of his time. And we know Sidious becomes even more powerful than Plagueis.The need to constantly search for arguments of circumstance to bolster Nihilus' standing betrays the inherent weakness of his position. He's obviously extremely powerful, but if you're going to support him against beings who are factually stronger than him, you're rightfully facing an uphill battle.
I agree that it's harder to establish Nihilus' position due to his limited appearances and the fact that how he operates is shrouded in mystery. At the same time, I don't think it's particularly wise to dismiss something as profoundly great as devastating an entire planet simply because "he had prep". There practically hasn't been a single Sith in canon who hasn't had considerable freedom to prepare their machinations at some point in their careers, and yet such feats happen very rarely, if ever. And you can appeal to the possibility of mysterious circumstances for almost any feat in canon if you choose to. At least at face value, the destruction of Katarr is far greater than anything Sidious has ever done, with the exception of summoning Force Storms.
Regarding the quotes, I think you're mistaken in thinking that they establish your position as strongly as you believe them to. There are countless ways to expose fallibilities in both the quotes themselves and the strategies people use regarding them. I'm not saying you can't build an argument off of them, but to declare that they conclusively establish facts is borderline dishonest imo.
Originally posted by S W LeGenD
Well I'll take your word for it for now.The problem is how you define optimum though. Obviously I think everyone agrees that such quotes would have an idea of everyone being in their prime, but it's also true that there are various circumstances that might make a Force-user more powerful than he naturally/usually would be. If such quotes have in mind a person's natural/usual level of power, then they don't account for whether Sidious is more powerful than someone as they both are when their power might be due to circumstance greater than it otherwise would be, such as when a Force-user might be enhanced by a powerful artifact. If such quotes have in mind a person's level of power at its absolute greatest, including such cases of abnormal circumstance, then they don't account for whether Sidious is more powerful than someone as they both are at their natural/usual level of power.
As this forum, as far as I'm aware, will usually have Sidious operate under conditions of natural power but won't necessarily hold others to the same standard (e.g. orbalisk Bane), the conventions of this forum capture an asymmetry in circumstance that such quotes presumably do not, hence not making the quotes perfectly suitable for our purposes.
Though obviously this would have been a lot more relevant if it was indeed the case that Nihilus' power did fluctuate greatly and that it was mysterious what "natural" or "usual" would be for him, which was what originally motivated me to address the quotes using this line of thought.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. Sidious is not actively enhanced by anything like Orbalisks or similar factors that cause his power to fluctuate. One can safely assume that circumstantial factors, especially brief ones, aren't going to be factored into these quotes.
I agree that it's harder to establish Nihilus' position due to his limited appearances and the fact that how he operates is shrouded in mystery. At the same time, I don't think it's particularly wise to dismiss something as profoundly great as devastating an entire planet simply because "he had prep". There practically hasn't been a single Sith in canon who hasn't had considerable freedom to prepare their machinations at some point in their careers, and yet such feats happen very rarely, if ever. And you can appeal to the possibility of mysterious circumstances for almost any feat in canon if you choose to. At least at face value, the destruction of Katarr is far greater than anything Sidious has ever done, with the exception of summoning Force Storms.
There's no exempting of Force Storms here; they're entirely valid.
If we're going to take feats that are relatively bereft of context, then Sidious' Byss feat could be argued to exceed Nihilus' Katarr showing. Sure, Nihilus' instant consumption of life on the planet vastly outstrips Sidious slowly draining the life forces of those on Byss, but that's where the comparison stops becoming favourable for Nihilus (and we know Sidious wasn't actively interested in replicating Katarr on Byss, so it's not conclusive proof that he couldn't — it also means we can ignore the presence of Palpatine's dark side adepts in the draining process). Sidious drained a populace of twenty billion; Nihilus drained a couple million of Miraluka and well under a hundred Jedi, an infinitely smaller number. Sidious more or less drained Byss passively; it fed him continuously even when he was across the galaxy on other business, in contrast to Nihilus' draining of Katarr being a direct, active attack, and only when in Katarr's vicinity. So Nihilus' Katarr feat hardly exceeds Palpatine's Byss showing to begin with, let alone by far.
And this is just a comparison of Drain, Nihilus' forte. Comparisons in other areas are even less favourable towards him.
Regarding the quotes, I think you're mistaken in thinking that they establish your position as strongly as you believe them to. There are countless ways to expose fallibilities in both the quotes themselves and the strategies people use regarding them. I'm not saying you can't build an argument off of them, but to declare that they conclusively establish facts is borderline dishonest imo.
There's nothing dishonest about my position; if you believe that it's fallacious then I'll hear you out. But if a concept is repeated in all manner of sources, spanning decades, from all manner of authors, then I'd think it pretty conclusively establishes said concept as a fact. I'd like a stronger basis to disregard the quotes than just deeming a couple of them questionable.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. Sidious is not actively enhanced by anything like Orbalisks or similar factors that cause his power to fluctuate. One can safely assume that circumstantial factors, especially brief ones, aren't going to be factored into these quotes.
Which raises the question of whether the quotes establish him as being more powerful than the likes of the Ancient Sith who would regularly be equipped with power-enhancing artifacts, which was part of my point.
There's no exempting of Force Storms here; they're entirely valid.
Huh? I wasn't saying they weren't valid. Just pointing out that aside from that, there isn't really much that Sidious does in an overt manner that's particularly impressive.
If we're going to take feats that are relatively bereft of context, then Sidious' Byss feat could be argued to exceed Nihilus' Katarr showing. Sure, Nihilus' instant consumption of life on the planet vastly outstrips Sidious slowly draining the life forces of those on Byss, but that's where the comparison stops becoming favourable for Nihilus (and we know Sidious wasn't actively interested in replicating Katarr on Byss, so it's not conclusive proof that he couldn't — it also means we can ignore the presence of Palpatine's dark side adepts in the draining process). Sidious drained a populace of twenty billion; Nihilus drained a couple million of Miraluka and well under a hundred Jedi, an infinitely smaller number. Sidious more or less drained Byss passively; it fed him continuously even when he was across the galaxy on other business, in contrast to Nihilus' draining of Katarr being a direct, active attack, and only when in Katarr's vicinity. So Nihilus' Katarr feat hardly exceeds Palpatine's Byss showing to begin with, let alone by far.
"Sure, Nihilus' instant consumption of life on the planet vastly outstrips Sidious slowly draining the life forces of those on Byss,"
This is really the only relevant part of what you said, as obviously the thing I find impressive about what Nihilus did is both the scale of what he did and the fact that he was able to do it in such a short amount of time. I wouldn't say that Sidious' feat is or isn't as good, it's just not the same kind of feat period. One violently brings a building down in an instant, the other slowly chips away at a much larger building over a period of decades. You're comparing apples and oranges.
And this is just a comparison of Drain, Nihilus' forte. Comparisons in other areas are even less favourable towards him.
TK?
There's nothing dishonest about my position; if you believe that it's fallacious then I'll hear you out. But if a concept is repeated in all manner of sources, spanning decades, from all manner of authors, then I'd think it pretty conclusively establishes said concept as a fact. I'd like a stronger basis to disregard the quotes than just deeming a couple of them questionable.
Are you arguing authorial intent? Because that is ultimately speculation, and even if we agree that maybe that's what a certain number of authors/editors were hoping to establish, their intentions are ultimately futile when dealing with a shared universe involving a bunch of creators that do not share that intent (and it's very likely that the makers of KOTOR2 would be such people, given that they're clearly not closely involved with mainstream canon). You'd have to prove that all works have been policed with the intention of establish Sidious as the most powerful Sith of all time; it isn't adequate that that may have been the intent in a certain number of works.
Another point to consider. Power as it's generally relevant to our purposes is a bundle of attributes - raw power, control, number and variety of powers, the value of the powers themselves, and specific skill with each power. Power as you've defined it only accounts for a tiny part of that bundle. So even if Palpatine was the most powerful in the sense that he could access the most Force energies, that doesn't mean that he's the most powerful in the other sense. It's possible that Nihilus could be close to as powerful in that sense, and yet have a far more devastating ability in his arsenal that he's also far more proficient with.
Not even mentioning that there hasn't been a single quote I've ever come across that can't be questioned on certain grounds. If all else fails, it's entirely possible that they might be simple exaggerations. You certainly can't prove otherwise.