Registered: Aug 2014
Location: The balance of the Force
Understanding Exar Kun's spirit.
So given that people are making threads like these on a whim, I thought I'd do the same, in an attempt to make clear what Exar Kun's status really was by this point.
Many people dismiss Exar Kun's feats in Jedi Academy as being amped by Yavin IV, whilst Kun's spirit does utilise the focusing points of the temples on Yavin IV, this merely sustains his will over four millennia:
Exar Kun instead subsides off of the residual energy of the students of Luke's Jedi Praxeum, allowing him to remain a presence:
Exar Kun eventually corrupts Gantoris, Streen and Kyp Durron; but even their Force reserves cannot afford Exar Kun his full powers:
This is interesting given that the Jedi Academy trilogy has stated that if Kyp Durron was corrupted to the dark side, his powers would rival Darth Vader's:
Exar Kun's plan infact is to resurrect himself by draining power from Luke Skywalker and all of his students:
This resurrection would entail regaining his long lost reserves of energy from before his 'death' and regaining physical form:
Clearly sources have established that Exar Kun had never reached parity with his physical prime, for if he had regained that power via any means, he would have taken physical form.
So Exar Kun in his living prime is clearly fully capable of replicating all of the powers he displayed in Jedi Academy, but with even greater magnitude.
These feats include dominating Master Luke Skywalker with Force lightning; Force choking the melded Jedi Streen, Brakiss, Dorsk 81, Cilghal, Tionne, Kam, Jaina, Jacen and Kirani Ti; Summoning vortexes capable of launching multiple Jedi thousands of feet into the air; Telekinetically manipulating the circuitry of the Suncrusher whilst it was stuck inside the core of the sun Yavin Prime; Mentally manipulating Kyp Durron from across the galaxy; and senses capable of becoming one with an entire solar system.
__________________
Within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
I was going to respond to this when it was initially posted, but was pressed for time.
However, AP seems inclined to construe this as some kind of game changer, which it really isn't, and has asked me to share my thoughts. So I'll oblige.
Note that most of this is essentially recycled arguments from SWTOR that AP has conceded to me in the past. First off regarding this quote from the JA sourcebook:To paraphrase myself this statement is in a word, non-descript. Kun prior to this event absorbed the Force power of thousands of Massassi to empower his spirit, that may very well have significantly increased his capacity to wield the Force, as Nathema did to Vitiate.
Kun was also capable of many powers that went beyond his natural capabilities by way of amulets, ritual apparatus, Sith temples etc. and in his spirit state, was completely unshackled from mortal limitations, in particular having a logically infinite capacity to store Force energy.
Altogether it is neither implicit that these are powers he'd be, without any kind of aid, naturally capable of in life, nor can we assume these powers would be realised through that natural capacity when, for stated reasons, Kun is capable of going beyond his natural ability.
Next let's address the claim that Kun needed "all" Luke's students to resurrect himself, an assertion that appears to be based on the following statements:Except it's nowhere actually stated here that Kun needed all of them, merely that his resurrection involved Luke and his students, instead it's elsewhere remarked that:Implying that rather than all 12, any one of them would be sufficient to restore his lost power, it merely being a matter of finding a sufficiently pliable host.
Finally, the assertion that "if he had regained that power via any means, he would have taken physical form", I'm afraid that that is an assumption, not a logical deduction.
What Kun wanted to do was essentially create a dark side avatar, a body, fashioned from the Force, in which to house his spirit. Logically speaking the creation of such a thing would require a considerable amount of power in and of itself, and we've no basis to assume that would entail more power than he ever had when he was alive.
And without physical form, Kun has no means of maintaining pre-existing strength indefinitely, hence achieving that state would be intrinsic to permanently recovering his lost reserves.
Altogether I'm failing to see a valid premise for taking the feats Kun accomplished with aid, at face value as is being suggested. Instead let's review the circumstances of said feats.
First of all, when he put Luke Skywalker in a coma, where we should note the following:So when Exar Kun (and Kyp) recovered the Sun Crusher, and attacked Luke he was, at that point, "very powerful", while simultaneously augmenting Kyp's already profound ability that as AP points out, had the potential to rival Vader's if he turned to the dark side, which he did.
And it's only through their combined strength, by tag-teaming Luke, that he's defeated:Noting that Kyp's unlocked dark side strength, seemingly without Kun's initial aid, is itself capable of generating powerful lightning and dark side tendrils. And that this is the same "full might" that could toss freighters, manipulate black holes and is supposedly Vader tier.
Which brings me onto another claim AP makes, namely that the Yavin 4 temples merely sustained his will rather than being sufficient to empower him. And while this is a reasonable assumption, it was not the case for the individuals that Kun channeled his powers through, Kyp for example taps into it:Noting of course that Luke confronts Kyp immediately after in this same spot.A cosmic focal that Kyp knew how to tap into, not great odds for Skywalker.
Now for the Streen showing, which it should also be noted, was also performed within this cosmic focal point:Now we can't say with certainty that Streen, like Kyp, was drawing on the temple for strength, but it's certainly a possibility.
More importantly however is the fact that Streen has an innate talent with Alter Environment, capable of for example, countering Exar Kun's Force choke, buffeting a massive Leviathan with a wind storm, and repelling plumes of lava. Evidently if that kind of talent is augmented by a powerful Force user like Kun, the results will be tremendous, but that doesn't mean that Kun, who lacks that innate talent, would be able to achieve that feat without that level of genius.
Finally, in regards to the one notable showing he accomplished without aid, namely Force choking, what has come to my attention to be not just some of Luke's students, but all twelve, while they were employing a Jedi meld.
Now considering that with the powers of the entire Jedi Academy combined where able to Force push seventeen Star Destroyers out of the system, I think it stands to reason that if this feat is interpreted as AP and others have suggested, that it proves, again as AP and others have suggested, that Exar Kun can telekinetically dominate beings in excess of Galen Marek.
And of course we are supposed to interpret this as a low ending showing.
Forgive me for being skeptical, when in life Kun was incapable of overpowering a pre-prime Ulic-Qel Droma. Yes, it's been raised that this was before Kun's own prime, but only by a year, and by which point Exar Kun was already fully seated in the dark side. And surely if we consider that Spirit Kun was supposed to be weakened, it really doesn't matter.
The logical explanation of course being that this is an outlier.
Is this a reasonable assertion to make? Yes. Exar Kun as a spirit, is completely unbound from the mortal coil, there is therefore, in brief, no limitation to his ability to channel the Force at any given time. Given that, an explosive burst like this seemingly well beyond what he's been shown to be capable of accomplishing in life, as a last ditch attempt that left him seemingly utterly depleted (seeing as he's overpowered and sealed away immediately after), isn't necessarily outside of reason.
Good job both of you, now I'm pretty convinced Kun can challenge Savage in a saber combat and will resist Vader's TK for a while
Not sure about more
__________________
They are angry because they have been forced to recognize that their hour has arrived; that the time has come to surrender power to Shimrra and the new order."
Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
An marijuana timing
__________________
Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
THE MOTTO IS "IN KEK WE TRUST"
Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
Beni, what do you make of the feeble touch temple suncrusher shit that has been used to argue Kun>>Spirit Kun>>>Kyp+Temple?
__________________
Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
THE MOTTO IS "IN KEK WE TRUST"
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: keep your dirty fantasies out of this jokerYou mean this?
Behind him, Kyp felt the black-ice power of Exar Kun arise, tapping into him and reinforcing his abilities. His own feeble exploratory touch suddenly plunged forward like a blaster bolt. Kyp felt larger, a part of the jungle moon, then a part of the entire planetary system, until he burrowed into the heart of the gas giant itself.
I don't feel it really proves anything really. All that's being referred to here is Kyp's sensory powers, not his overall mastery over the Force. So its not as if its being stated that Kyp is altogether feeble in comparison to Kun, or even comparing him to Kun at all.
That said, Kyp's exploration into the Force is pretty feeble, and he has nothing on Kun's vast knowledge and experience, but that doesn't change the fact that Kyp wields immense raw power, which if anything Kun is here and elsewhere merely helping him to unlock.
Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
So your suggesting it's a display of mastery over power rather than raw power itself? That's exactly what I was thinking.
__________________
Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
THE MOTTO IS "IN KEK WE TRUST"
Apr 15th, 2016 06:30 AM
