The Ellimist
If I had more time/weren't lazy, I'd try to make a respect thread or something with actual sources and whatnot, but this more haphazard detail should do for now.
Just how f*cking powerful is Luke when he's actually trying? Because one should note that it's a fairly recurrent plot point that Luke holds back almost all of the time out of fear of the dark side, which explains a lot of his lower showings. But there are moments where he lets his true power seep through.
Lucas states in the ESB commentary that Luke can become what Anakin could've, in the context of his Force potential, .ie 200% of Sidious. To put it in perspective, a 20% gap between Vader and Sidious is enough for Vader to basically be crap next to his master. Now, it's not clear that Luke has exact the same potential as Anakin, and he probably never achieves it all, or at least we don't see him at that stage - but by FotJ he's been learned in the Force for like forty years, so he's probably gotten pretty f*cking close. This seems particularly clear given how quickly Luke grows in power - he probably hits diminishing returns, but it's difficult to imagine that he hasn't achieved at least a significant majority of his potential by the last time we see him. By any reasonable metric, given the 200%/20% thing, the gap between him and Palpatine should be greater than the gap between Palpatine and Vader.
In LotF, Luke is able to pin Darth Caedus to his chair without even gesturing, and hold him there with no apparent effort. Granted, Luke does take him by surprise, and Caedus seems to grow more powerful through the series. But even in Revelations, Luke is still able to ragdoll Caedus through his starfighter cockpit and make him see an illusory fleet of starships, and then in Invincible, make Caedus imagine Luke's presence, despite Caedus being aware of Luke's trickery and pretty desperately trying to counter him. So while he, in bloodlust, foolishly engages Caedus in a melee with a bad knee that one time (and still wins), Luke is more powerful than Caedus to the point where he can essentially f*ck him through the Force at will. Caedus, in turn, is stated to be more powerful than Darth Vader, which I know some people dismiss for being a publisher's summary, but unless if it's clearly contradicted by other source material, I see not reason to do so (and it's hardly unreasonable). Can anyone think of a non-entity character in Star Wars owning someone on Caedus's level in such a dominating fashion? I can't.
Luke not only stops cold the telekinesis of a guy with the collective Force potential of a colony of killiks (billions?), and subsequently owns him, but is described as being the very essence of an immovable object who can't be moved by the black hole at the center of the galaxy. I don't think this is hyperbole - the author seems to know that we'd dismiss it as such, and so goes into a very excessive amount of detail and affirmation of this fact, or exactly what you'd expect someone to do to show that it's literal, short of saying "literally".
In TUF, Luke takes on seven slayers and kills them without significantly troubles. Meanwhile, a single slayer infected by a virus designed to kill it had gained the upper hand against Kyp Durron. Kyp, who is insinuated to be potentially more powerful than Darth Vader, has used freighters as telekinetic weapons, and has manipulate dovin basals. So when he's actually going all-out, Luke is so far beyond Kyp that it's kind of insane.
I am open to the idea that by FotJ, Luke can obtain oneness either at will, or with far more ease than most people can. Against Abeloth he basically gets this just by calling upon his love for people, and he seems to be described in a similar state during The Unifying Force.
In LotF Invincible, there's a throwaway line where Luke sends a shuttle tumbling into a battalion of soldiers just by glancing at it. This one of the best casual, mid-combat TK feats I can think of.
In LotF Invincible, Luke not only amps Jaina to his own power level, but makes Caedus think he's fighting him. So were this in his character, he could just send other Jedi to fight X enemy and then amp them.
Luke can physically project himself from long distances to the point of being able to fool Darth Caedus.
Luke can create a literal physical copy of the Jade Shadow, which is a few hundred meters long, through the Force, or at least a good enough copy to look outwardly identical. Like, AFAIK he's not using illusions, since he's dealing with Vong - he actually makes a copy. The first time he does this it leaves him heavily drained, but the second time it doesn't hurt much at all.
Pre-NJO Luke can cloak a several hundred meter long capital ship with the Force. He doesn't know how long he can do it for, but given the above precedent and his growth curve, he could probably do it for quite a while, and to larger things, by FotJ.
Pre-NJO Luke can rebuild and then destroy Vader's fortress, which IIRC is like mountain sized, without much difficulty.
Luke can move singularities generated by dovin basals. If they behave like black holes - and the text repeatedly describes them as such - this should be equivalent to moving Everest sized objects at the least.
Luke typically learns Force abilities at a frightening speed, and is described in FotJ to have trained in a ridiculous amount of hand to hand fighting styles, which probably isn't even a very big focus of his.
In LotF Luke can not only foresee the precise outcome of missions and events just through meditation, but can jam and alter Caedus's own visions just by meditating about him.
Caedus thinks he might be the best duelist of all time.
He has fold space and shatterpoint, and can cut through Vong-resistant armor through sheer force.
Pre-NJO Luke muses that he could easily dominate the minds of several hundreds of meter long battlecruisers if he wanted to, or he could rip their hull plating and deform their weapons emplacements. Note: he doesn't do this because he's afraid of the dark side, but plenty of sith who aren't can't replicate it, lawl.
The illusory fleet of ships Luke fools Caedus into seeing also fools the star destroyer's sensors.
His emerald lightning can one-shot slayers, who are supposed to be immune to the Force lol.
Oh and BTW, Luke literally goes from not knowing what the Force is to matching Darth Vader in personal combat (plenty of sources make it clear that he's legitimately his match) within like three or so years.
This isn't by any means an exhaustive list of his feats, but it provides us with enough data with which to wank him. He should be substantially beyond DE Sidious by FotJ, given his performance against him thirty years before his prime and subsequent power growth. Given how much Sidious sh*ts on the rest of the mythos, Luke's power beyond everyone else should be insane. Given how effortlessly he tools Caedus, as well as seven Force-immune slayers, a single of which can beat a Vader+ tier combatant (Kyp), it's unclear if even large strike teams of Vader tier characters could do much against him.
We also know that he can hack his way into being essentially unbeatable against practically any military force or even army of Force users. His illusions can trick ship sensors and fleet crews of tens of thousands, he can dominate their minds if he wants to, he can cloak f*cking capital ships, he can just cast projections of himself and fight using those. He can also telekinetically destroy warships long before his prime.
Conclusion: without PIS or CIS, Luke Skywalker is so monstrously above any non-entity character in the mythos it's not even funny.
Just how f*cking powerful is Luke when he's actually trying? Because one should note that it's a fairly recurrent plot point that Luke holds back almost all of the time out of fear of the dark side, which explains a lot of his lower showings. But there are moments where he lets his true power seep through.
Lucas states in the ESB commentary that Luke can become what Anakin could've, in the context of his Force potential, .ie 200% of Sidious. To put it in perspective, a 20% gap between Vader and Sidious is enough for Vader to basically be crap next to his master. Now, it's not clear that Luke has exact the same potential as Anakin, and he probably never achieves it all, or at least we don't see him at that stage - but by FotJ he's been learned in the Force for like forty years, so he's probably gotten pretty f*cking close. This seems particularly clear given how quickly Luke grows in power - he probably hits diminishing returns, but it's difficult to imagine that he hasn't achieved at least a significant majority of his potential by the last time we see him. By any reasonable metric, given the 200%/20% thing, the gap between him and Palpatine should be greater than the gap between Palpatine and Vader.
In LotF, Luke is able to pin Darth Caedus to his chair without even gesturing, and hold him there with no apparent effort. Granted, Luke does take him by surprise, and Caedus seems to grow more powerful through the series. But even in Revelations, Luke is still able to ragdoll Caedus through his starfighter cockpit and make him see an illusory fleet of starships, and then in Invincible, make Caedus imagine Luke's presence, despite Caedus being aware of Luke's trickery and pretty desperately trying to counter him. So while he, in bloodlust, foolishly engages Caedus in a melee with a bad knee that one time (and still wins), Luke is more powerful than Caedus to the point where he can essentially f*ck him through the Force at will. Caedus, in turn, is stated to be more powerful than Darth Vader, which I know some people dismiss for being a publisher's summary, but unless if it's clearly contradicted by other source material, I see not reason to do so (and it's hardly unreasonable). Can anyone think of a non-entity character in Star Wars owning someone on Caedus's level in such a dominating fashion? I can't.
Luke not only stops cold the telekinesis of a guy with the collective Force potential of a colony of killiks (billions?), and subsequently owns him, but is described as being the very essence of an immovable object who can't be moved by the black hole at the center of the galaxy. I don't think this is hyperbole - the author seems to know that we'd dismiss it as such, and so goes into a very excessive amount of detail and affirmation of this fact, or exactly what you'd expect someone to do to show that it's literal, short of saying "literally".
In TUF, Luke takes on seven slayers and kills them without significantly troubles. Meanwhile, a single slayer infected by a virus designed to kill it had gained the upper hand against Kyp Durron. Kyp, who is insinuated to be potentially more powerful than Darth Vader, has used freighters as telekinetic weapons, and has manipulate dovin basals. So when he's actually going all-out, Luke is so far beyond Kyp that it's kind of insane.
I am open to the idea that by FotJ, Luke can obtain oneness either at will, or with far more ease than most people can. Against Abeloth he basically gets this just by calling upon his love for people, and he seems to be described in a similar state during The Unifying Force.
In LotF Invincible, there's a throwaway line where Luke sends a shuttle tumbling into a battalion of soldiers just by glancing at it. This one of the best casual, mid-combat TK feats I can think of.
In LotF Invincible, Luke not only amps Jaina to his own power level, but makes Caedus think he's fighting him. So were this in his character, he could just send other Jedi to fight X enemy and then amp them.
Luke can physically project himself from long distances to the point of being able to fool Darth Caedus.
Luke can create a literal physical copy of the Jade Shadow, which is a few hundred meters long, through the Force, or at least a good enough copy to look outwardly identical. Like, AFAIK he's not using illusions, since he's dealing with Vong - he actually makes a copy. The first time he does this it leaves him heavily drained, but the second time it doesn't hurt much at all.
Pre-NJO Luke can cloak a several hundred meter long capital ship with the Force. He doesn't know how long he can do it for, but given the above precedent and his growth curve, he could probably do it for quite a while, and to larger things, by FotJ.
Pre-NJO Luke can rebuild and then destroy Vader's fortress, which IIRC is like mountain sized, without much difficulty.
Luke can move singularities generated by dovin basals. If they behave like black holes - and the text repeatedly describes them as such - this should be equivalent to moving Everest sized objects at the least.
Luke typically learns Force abilities at a frightening speed, and is described in FotJ to have trained in a ridiculous amount of hand to hand fighting styles, which probably isn't even a very big focus of his.
In LotF Luke can not only foresee the precise outcome of missions and events just through meditation, but can jam and alter Caedus's own visions just by meditating about him.
Caedus thinks he might be the best duelist of all time.
He has fold space and shatterpoint, and can cut through Vong-resistant armor through sheer force.
Pre-NJO Luke muses that he could easily dominate the minds of several hundreds of meter long battlecruisers if he wanted to, or he could rip their hull plating and deform their weapons emplacements. Note: he doesn't do this because he's afraid of the dark side, but plenty of sith who aren't can't replicate it, lawl.
The illusory fleet of ships Luke fools Caedus into seeing also fools the star destroyer's sensors.
His emerald lightning can one-shot slayers, who are supposed to be immune to the Force lol.
Oh and BTW, Luke literally goes from not knowing what the Force is to matching Darth Vader in personal combat (plenty of sources make it clear that he's legitimately his match) within like three or so years.
This isn't by any means an exhaustive list of his feats, but it provides us with enough data with which to wank him. He should be substantially beyond DE Sidious by FotJ, given his performance against him thirty years before his prime and subsequent power growth. Given how much Sidious sh*ts on the rest of the mythos, Luke's power beyond everyone else should be insane. Given how effortlessly he tools Caedus, as well as seven Force-immune slayers, a single of which can beat a Vader+ tier combatant (Kyp), it's unclear if even large strike teams of Vader tier characters could do much against him.
We also know that he can hack his way into being essentially unbeatable against practically any military force or even army of Force users. His illusions can trick ship sensors and fleet crews of tens of thousands, he can dominate their minds if he wants to, he can cloak f*cking capital ships, he can just cast projections of himself and fight using those. He can also telekinetically destroy warships long before his prime.
Conclusion: without PIS or CIS, Luke Skywalker is so monstrously above any non-entity character in the mythos it's not even funny.
