Snoke vs. Count Dooku

Sidious66's interpretation is pretty persuasive and I'm not sure anything has been offered to contradict it.

We know Sheev was able to project his essence into the clone body on Exegol en route to the Death Star reactor core:

From that same passage, we know Sheev's acolytes were seeking a superior "cradle for their god-consciousness" and this quest produced a number of "unnatural abominations" to serve as "a worthy receptacle."

That same passage explicitly says "nothing worked," despite The Star Wars Book explicitly referring to Snoke as one of the strandcasts created as a result from this process:

Yes, Snoke was physically impaired... but obviously, clearly far less impaired than Sheev's "rotting corpse" of a clone body that required an Ommin harness and alchemical fluid to keep him functioning.

So, to recap:
* Sidious has the means to project his essence at whim into a blank receptacle without need of the STRIKE ME DOWN IN HATRED ritual
* Sidious was looking for a better body to cradle his consciousness
* This search was determined to be a total failure, despite the effort producing Snoke
* In terms of health, mobility, and stature, Snoke's body is objectively far healthier than the rotting clone corpse Sidious currently occupies
* Sheev has a giant jar of pickled Snokes on hand

This pretty clearly indicates Snoke is not a viable phylactery for Sheev's soul. He's not strong enough and we have no reason to believe otherwise.

All of that was already mentioned.

It absolutely does not disprove the notion that Snoke's power was on par with ROTJ Sidious.

Luke never said Snoke was as powerful as Sheev. Luke talked about mastery which can mean many things.

What else would Luke have meant by "mastery of the dark side", if not referring to Snoke's power? He certainly wasn't referring to lightsaber skill, lol.,

Anakin has more raw power than Dooku, but not more mastery. Not that hard to understand.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
[B]So, to recap:
* Sidious has the means to project his essence at whim into a blank receptacle without need of the STRIKE ME DOWN IN HATRED ritual
* Sidious was looking for a better body to cradle his consciousness
* This search was determined to be a total failure, despite the effort producing Snoke
* In terms of health, mobility, and stature, Snoke's body is objectively far healthier than the rotting clone corpse Sidious currently occupies
* Sheev has a giant jar of pickled Snokes on hand/B]

*No he was looking for a "perfect" vessel. Snoke might have been slightly better then his first body, but he was still far from "perfect".

*See above. Sidious wanted nothing less then a perfect body to occupy, and Snoke didnt fit that description. So instead of kneejerk hopping into a mutated body that he would have eventually wanted to get rid of anyway, Sidious decided to wait and see if a better vessel would surface - which it eventually did with Rey. Like some others have said; Sidious's body may have been putrid by ROS, but it was still strong enough to contain his spirit for over 30 years. So it's not like he was ever really hardpressed for time to the point where Snoke was his best option.

*Ok. So he had a jar of servants at the ready, I guess.

If Snoke was created by the time of ROTJ he is locked sub ROTJ Sidious.

Originally posted by Darthadi
Anakin has more raw power than Dooku, but not more mastery. Not that hard to understand.

Luke said that Snoke's "mastery of the dark side" was "equally as impressive and terrifying" as the Emperor's

So in the context of Luke's quote, what are you trying to say he meant by "mastery of the dark side", if not power?

Originally posted by Darthadi
If Snoke was created by the time of ROTJ he is locked sub ROTJ Sidious.

Potential has nothing to do with my point.
Raw aplicable power and mastery are not necessarly the same thing.
Mastery can refer to knowledge and control over your power.
Rey is likely more powerful than someone like Jinn, but Jinn's mastery is better
Vaylin has more power than Revan, but Revan's mastery is better.

Originally posted by Eli Vanto
*Sure but if the receptacle isn't "blank", then the strike me down ritual seems like a prerequisite.

*No he was looking for a "perfect" vessel. Snoke might have been slightly better then his first body, but he was still far from "perfect".

*See above. Sidious wanted nothing less then a perfect body to occupy, and Snoke didnt fit that description. So instead of kneejerk hopping into a mutated body that he would have eventually wanted to get rid of anyway, Sidious decided to wait and see if a better vessel would surface - which it eventually did with Rey. Like some others have said; Sidious's body may have been putrid by ROS, but it was still strong enough to contain his spirit for over 30 years. So it's not like he was ever really hardpressed for time to the point where Snoke was his best option.

*Ok. So he had a jar of servants at the ready, I guess.

Sidious can perform an essence transfer as many times as he wants. It's not like he has to choose between Rey and Snoke.
If Snoke was as powerful as the emperor's ROTJ body, Sheev would have used one of his pickle Snokes as a temporarly solution until he can find the perfect vessel.

Originally posted by Sheev
Because Luke's journal note isn't retconned just because you don't think it fits?

Given Snoke and his origins seem to have changed quite a bit from The start to the end of this trilogy, its clear any old info on him might be retconned.

Not that it matters here, given its not an out of universe canon statement. Its Lukes journal and he could simply be wrong:

1)We dont know if Luke ever witnessed Sheevs full power.

2)If Luke knew Sheev was alive then his statement is clearly wrong. If he didnt know, then his opinion is still fallible. We dont know what the ghosts of Anakin, Ben and Yoda taught him about Sheevs full power.

3) Since Palpatine was hiding his existence its very possible Luke witnessed his power and assumed it was Snokes actions. Like the Lightning destroying the Temple.

Originally posted by Sheev
All of that was already mentioned.

It absolutely does not disprove the notion that Snoke's power was on par with ROTJ Sidious.

Unless your position is Sidious radically increased in power between Endor and the unknown time of Snoke's creation*, then it strongly undermines the idea.

*possible, I suppose

Originally posted by Eli Vanto
*Sure but if the receptacle isn't "blank", then the strike me down ritual seems like a prerequisite.

*No he was looking for a "perfect" vessel. Snoke might have been slightly better then his first body, but he was still far from "perfect".

*See above. Sidious wanted nothing less then a perfect body to occupy, and Snoke didnt fit that description. So instead of kneejerk hopping into a mutated body that he would have eventually wanted to get rid of anyway, Sidious decided to wait and see if a better vessel would surface - which it eventually did with Rey. Like some others have said; Sidious's body may have been putrid by ROS, but it was still strong enough to contain his spirit for over 30 years. So it's not like he was ever really hardpressed for time to the point where Snoke was his best option.

*Ok. So he had a jar of servants at the ready, I guess.

*We have no reason to assumed the pickled Snokes are anything but blank, otherwise why would he keep any of them around.

*Snoke doesn't have to be perfect to be a colossal improvement over a literal corpse that is rotting, immobile, and requires a mechanical harness and alchemical fluid to keep mildly preserved.

* This is a really, really dumb argument. It's not like Sheev has to choose between Snoke or Rey. We know from the passage I cited that Sheev can essence transfer in a manner of seconds (he does it in the middle of his Death Star basejump) and there's no indication he's limited to a certain number of attempts. If Snoke is strong enough to contain Sheev's spirit and Snoke's body is objectively far superior to the rotting corpse Sheev occupies that leaves him trapped on Exegol... why wouldn't he occupy that body until an optimal vessel becomes available? The answer is, obviously, he wouldn't.

It'd be like refusing to take a free 2005 Toyota Camry when you're driving around a 40 year old rusted shitbox with no stereo, A/C, power steering fluid, and a screwdriver in lieu of a key on the grounds that the Camry isn't a Tesla.

* Or pickled bodies he can fish out of that bowl whenever he has need of it.

Originally posted by Darthadi
If Snoke was as powerful as the emperor's ROTJ body, Sheev would have used one of his pickle Snokes as a temporarly solution until he can find the perfect vessel.

Because from where I'm standing, if Palpatine wasn't even willing to transfer his essence into Kylo, then there's no way in hell that he would have considered hopping into a crippled abomination like Snoke. After all, Kylo would have logically been a healthy, suitable vessel that was capable of sustaining Palpatine's essence without breaking down(given that all sources point to his power/potential being equal to Rey's)... But instead, Palps still chose to wait for Rey specifically.

Goes back to what I said earlier: seems to me like Palpatine was only interested in transferring his essence into a permanent/perfect vessel, and Snoke certainly didn't fit the bill. So I still can't get behind the logic that Snoke is somehow capped below the level of RotJ Palpatine, simply because he wasn't used as a vessel. Perfection/permanency is what Palpatine was after, and he had decadeS to wait for that to come into fruition(even in his rancid clone body.)

If you disagree, then I'd like to know why you think Palpatine didn't use Kylo as a vessel either.

**There's also the possibility that undead RoS Palpatine > RotJ Palpatine... Which could be another reason why Snoke's vessel wasn't usable.

I thought the reason why Palpatine didn't posses Kylo is clear, Sheev has some big hang ups with the Skywalkers and doesn't want to share eternity with one.

I don’t think that’s it. He seemed fine with letting Kylo take over control of his sith fleet until he turned on him.

Ummm... What? How does temporarily lending Kylo a fleet equate at all with sharing a conciseness for all eternity?

Whatever his reason for not choosing Kylo to possess over Rey (perhaps Sheev identifies as a SHE now), it’s clear Kylo would have to do so knowingly and willingly, like Rey had to.

Originally posted by ares834
I thought the reason why Palpatine didn't posses Kylo is clear, Sheev has some big hang ups with the Skywalkers and doesn't want to share eternity with one.

Palpatine smiled. "No. Your hatred. Your anger. You want to kill me. That is what I want. Kill me and my spirit will pass into you. As all the Sith live in me. You will be Empress. We will be one."

[...]

The Emperor said, "The time has come!" As one, thousands of disciples fell to their knees, chanting something in a language Rey had never heard. Palpatine's eyes widened with zeal. "With your anger, you will take my life, and you will ascend."

[...]

As if reading her thoughts about Luke, the Emperor said, "I've made this very proposal before. But on that unfortunate day Luke Skywalker had his father to save him. You do not."

It was never indicated that Palpatine willingly refrained from using a Skywalker vessel, simply because he didn't like Skywalkers.

Originally posted by Galan007
The novel heavily implies that Palpatine intended to transfer his essence into Luke, though:

It was never indicated that Palpatine willingly refrained from using a Skywalker vessel, simply because he didn't like Skywalkers.

It's also possible that the ritual might not work on Kylo because he wouldn't strike Sidious in pure hatred and more for pragmatic reasons.

Not to mention other factors like Kylo's superior mastery ,(compared with Rey) which could help resisting the essence transfer as well as the fact Kylo is not related by blood with Sheev.

In TROS Sidious knew he only needed to wait a few hours/days to get Rey, so why risk trying to take over Kylo, when he ne needed him to bring Rey to Exegol.

About that....
Was it actually meant to be taken that way, that Sidious also meant to inhabit Luke? After all, the proposal he makes to Rey, he also compares to his own ascension when he killed Plagueis, which didn't involve Plagueis body hopping.

Palpatine's eyes widened with zeal. "With your anger, you will strike me down, and you will ascend. As I did, When I killed my Master, Darth Plagueis. Now, raise your saber and strike me down."

Plus, he never even says anything about his spirit to Luke, he just says "strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete" which is kinda the same proposal except without his spirit being involved.