Sorry. I was busy during the last days...
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Or they've utterly destroyed your arguments regarding the Ancient Sith to which your only recourse was throwing out insults, projecting your character flaws on other people, and then leaving for an extended period of time. It's humorous, I've never met anyone who speaks so much of "evidence" and "common sense", yet always refuses to use it.
Oh really, Beef? Where have they destroyed my arguments? Let me check:
Knowledge
Premise I: The Ancient Sith were the originators of most knowledge that is commonly perceived as "Sith Lore". Fact.
Premise II: The wealth of their knowledge was so, that they installed planet-sized store houses to archive that knowledge (Malachor V in the KotoR games). Fact.
Premise III: As mentioned in KotoR, the Sith Lords didn't share all of their knowledge but took their most precious secrets to their graves with them (KotoR I). Fact.
Premise IV: Through various events in the history of the Galaxy, a tremendous amount of said knowledge was lost and destroyed. If this isn't apparent enough for you, here is your proof:
"Locked within the recesses of that Sith Holocron - the only Sith Holocron, as far as anybody knows - are the forgotten histories and lore of the Sith, dating back a hundred thousand years and more" (Odan-Urr on the Sith Holocron he discovered on the abandoned Sith ship during the Great Hyperspace War, The Essential Guide to the Force, p. 15)
So 1,000 years after the Fall of the Sith Empire, the Holocron in the possession of Odan-Urr (later taken and destroyed by Exar Kun) was the only Sith Holocron known to the Jedi Order.
"King Adas's holocron was stolen during the Jedi Purge, and it seems the remaining holocrons were destroyed before Palpatine or his agents could claim them" (Tionne Solusar, The Essential Guide through the Force, p.20)
The "remaining holocrons" are all Sith Holocrons stored in the Jedi Temple. I can remember Gideon proclaiming that Sidious and Vader got a nice trove of knowledge from there. Apparently, that wasn't the case. Duh?
"According to records, the Sith Lord might have gained greated knowledge of their subjects from an ancient Sith library temple on Krayiss II. Apparently, this library housed Holocrons and artifacts about the Sith species, but ruins on Krayiss II have yet to be identified as a library and its collections may have long turned to dust" (Seviss Vaa, The Essential Guide through the Force, p.159)
Another place that hosted Sith Lore destroyed, without anybody looting the knowledge once stored there (as that was done by the Jedi who didn't loot any other holocron than the one Odan found).
"Perhabs the greatest loss during that period was Veeshas Tuwan an ancient Sith library on the Sith world Arkania." (Seviss Vaa, The Essential Guide through the Force, p.160)
And another apparently rather important source of Sith knowledge lost, 5,000 years before the reign of Sidious.
And of course we have Sidious hating the Jedi for "laying waste to so many Sith artifacts" while pointing out that Vaa doesn't "mention the destruction of the planet Malachor V and its Sith academy" (The Essential Guide to the Force, p.160). That would be additional knowledge and artifacts destroyed.
Premise V: Apparently, the lifespan of the Ancient Sith was several centuries. The Sith Emperor (ToR) managed to prolong his life over a time-span of 1,400 years. I think that offers quite more time to study the mentioned knowledge above longer than some human who lived for 90 years (Sidious).
Conclusion: In terms of Sith Lore, the Ancient Sith had sources at their disposal that Sidious has never seen or accessed. The did hold knowledge in amounts so great that it filled planets, and it was terrible enough to have later generations of Sith outright fearing certain abilities ("Darth Bane: Path of Destruction"
. And on top of these, they had more time than anybody else to master that knowledge.
Do you want to argue this? Based on what? Based on sources saying that "it was said that Sidious mastered all techniques" (source released in 1994, when Sidious and Vader were the only Sith known) or that he "gathered knowledge from millions of worlds" (without specification of that knowledge, so that he might have searched on millions of worlds to find one Sith book). Yup. My argument was totally destroyed. Lmao.
Power
Premise I: Families that were founded by force users usually produce children that are also strong in the force (the Sunriders, the Qel-Dromas, and - last but not least - the Skywalker family). Fact.
Premise II: The Ancient Sith were born as heirs to Dark Jedi that did procreate among their ranks or interbreed with a species of force users. Fact.
Premise III: Since the Ruusan reformation, Jedi weren't allowed to form attachments (and as a result have families) any longer. Fact.
Premise IV: According to Qui-Gon Jinn ("The Phantom Menaces"
the Jedi would have found Anakin if he would have been born in Republic space.
Conclusion: While in the Ancient Sith Empire just force users interbred, the later days of the Republic didn't offer a wealth of bloodlines strong in the force any longer. Because those were, effectively, forbidden by the Ruusan reformation. So you had to be lucky in order to find a force sensitive child. The Jedi had their ways to find every child with enough power to become a Jedi Knight in Republic space. This would have resulted in the Sith either having to pick teenagers or adults from the ranks of the Jedi (which would have been noticed) or find children on planets not in Republic space.
So the material the Sith of Bane's Order were able to work with was limited, at least compared to an Empire filled with nothing but force sensitives. Why should we assume that the best of that limited potential in the latter Republic days held a greater force potential than the one that ruled the Empire of force sensitives in it's "Golden Age"? Especially if we take into consideration that the "gimmicks" the Ancient Sith commonly used enhanced their natural force powers.
Oh, right. Because we have Yoda, in the midst of a battle, thinking that Sidious is the most powerful Sith Lord ever (without any context applied here) - and Vader thinks the same. Gosh. Yeah. That does, of course, totally destroy my argument. *shrug*
Combat abilities
Premise I: Bane's Sith Order was built upon stealth and secrecy rather than brute force. Fact. ("Darth Bane: Rule of Two"
Premise II: Sidious made his way to the top of the Republic with careful planning and political manouvering. (The entire PT)
Premise III: Sidious was more a coward than somebody who would risk a fight (George Lucas in the RotS commentary describing Grievous; start of the RotS battle between Yoda and Sidious).
Premise IV: The Ancient Sith Empire followed the agenda of "the strongest shall rule".
Premise V: The Ancient Sith fought among themselves to archive the mantle of the Dark Lord of the Sith. Duels and entire civil wars happened because of the quest for that title. Fact.
Premise VI: The Ancient Sith utilized metal swords that they were capable of wielding as fast as lightsabers ("The Golden Age of the Sith", "Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy"
and appeared to be rather muscle packed beings (artwork of "The Golden Age of the Sith"
Conclusion: Who would you rather face in combat: A sixty year old regular trained human being with a lightsaber, or a muscle packed giant wielding a metal sword as long as himself? Do you really think that Sidious could stand up in mano-a-mano confrontation against beings like that? Really? Even if you - again - take gimmics such as Sadow's amulets or Ragnos sceptre into consideration?
Why? Because Sidious managed to defeat duellists, that Mace "generous" Windu labelled as "some of the best duellists ever", with a surprise attack? Or Mace himself? Or Yoda? Two beings that we simply can't compare to anybody not living in their own era? Yup. I'm totally beaten here.
Really Beef. Go and check Gideons brilliant essay and look if you can find anything to disprove the points above. Or try it yourself. Or, better than that, get yourself some education on literature analysis, philosophy and logic - some of the basic requirements to argue literature.
Maybe this enables you to figure out what Lightsnake and Gideon did in the past years. They used outdated and overwritten sources, ignoring further development of the franchise and context (and, as demonstrated above, even the sources they quoted themselves), to "prove" something that those sources don't offer proof for. You won't find a "Sidious can beat any Ancient Sith" anywhere. Because LFL doesn't want that to happen. And you won't find an attempt to contest any of the above directly. As I said: Ignorance towards the facts, nothing else.
Now tell me: Does it make sense to assume, that a 90 year old learned more than persons who had centuries to learn, while the latter people had access to a far greater knowledge base? Does it make sense to assume that somebody who was trained to overcome his enemies with stealth and manipulation can take out people in a straigth duel, that grew up in an enviroment of constant challenges from other dark siders?
I don't think so and - surprise - none of the sources I've seen so far proclaims anything like that directly. It's all about "likeliness", with the proof of Sidious superiority consisting of nothing but having more accolades to his name. Fact. You want to argue that? Have fun. But please spare me your usual one-liners and try to debate...
