Darth Bane and powerscaling

For a millennium, the Sith maintained the order in secrecy, passing down their evil heritage. As they gained knowledge of the dark side of the Force, their powers increased with each generation.
Source: Epsidode 1: The Phantom Menace Scrapbook

This is one of the sources for the idea that Bane is the weakest of the Banite line, which sort of makes sense given the point of the Rule of Two. I agree with Tempest that sort of thematic hierarchies are more consistent than feats or even accolades, and so I base my assessment of Bane mainly on this.

As I've guesstimated before, there are a lot of apprentice-master RoT transitions where the apprentice faces the master in single combat and wins. Ergo, the apprentice must surpass the master by substantial enough margin for this transition to consistently happen, and then probably continues to grow in power. We can imagine, then, that a 5% gap growth per generation would actually be fairly conservative, and given Plagueis's estimate (IIRC) of 30 sith between Bane and Sidious, Palpatine should have quadrupled Bane's power. Of course, we don't really gain much from these numbers since we don't know how significant of a disparity a % difference actually is; the more general idea is that if a one generation gap is enough for the apprentice to have a noticeably greater chance of victory (enough that the apprentice's triumph is a consistent outcome), and we compound this thirty times, by the time we reach Sidious, we've come so far from Darth Bane that Palpatine could probably one-shot him.

That's why I put Bane waaaaaay below Sidious, and probably incredibly below Dooku and Vader. I think that if you put him at Qui-Gon's level, you might get enough of a gap between Jinn and Sidious for thirty generations of power creeping.

There are a few other methods, but they're a lot fuzzier. Bane's performance against dozens of tukata is much more impressive than AotC Anakin and Obi Wan's, and he was near death and far from his prime. However, he was also on a dark side nexus, and frankly we can throw so many other things back at him, like how he struggles against X or Y fodder opponents (mercenaries, shadow guards who were stated to be "no match" for Jedi, etc.) that Anakin/Obi Wan trash with ease, that I don't take this to be a very reliable measure. His near-death and desperate state might have actually helped him draw on the dark side for a powerful wave or something.

He also mind-f*cks Andeddu's holocron which in other sources is revealed to actually contain his spirit (Drew probably didn't know this lol), but spirits tend to be weaker than their living incarnations, and we don't know much about Andeddu beyond his getting easily beaten by Wyrlock or whatever and apparently being adulated by Dooku, probably more for his esoteric knowledge than raw power.

So I currently have Bane around Qui Gon level, but I could see arguments for anywhere to RotS Obi Wan. If we used tukata scaling we could put him beyond RotS Anakin, but frankly that isn't the most reliable way of doing things.

Let's just rank him below Ezra and be done with it.

I don't buy that I'm afraid
Bane's feats are hilariously superior to jinn that it's quite silly to put them on the same level

What feats? To my memory, he has precisely two of note; knocking down the Lehon Temple and killing a bunch of tukata. Both of these are highly circumstantial. 😬

Bane struggles with fodder opponents... okay
Let's apply that logic
Dooku anakin and obi wan get captured by some drunken pirates
Vader can't tk a holocron out of a young teenagers hand
So by this logic
Shadow guards > bane > pirates and ezra > vader anakin dooku and obi-wan
Sorry, but star wars is littered with inconsistencies so don't pretend like you can focus on just one

Good thing Bane has way more than one. 😆

Originally posted by hutchy1345
Bane struggles with fodder opponents... okay
Let's apply that logic
Dooku anakin and obi wan get captured by some drunken pirates
Vader can't tk a holocron out of a young teenagers hand
So by this logic
Shadow guards > bane > pirates and ezra > vader anakin dooku and obi-wan
Sorry, but star wars is littered with inconsistencies so don't pretend like you can focus on just one

Yeah, that's why my primary argument comes from the conceptual underpinning of the Rule of Two. 👆

The problem is we don't know that each apprentice succeeded their master by beating them in a fair fight. Even Sidious killed Plagueis in his sleep.

Doesn't really matter, when each generation grew progressively stronger regardless.

On the other hand, Bane instantly killing with his Force Lighting while weakened and reducing subjects to ash while not; pulping groups of beings and shattering a woman's spine with his TK; and resisting Zannah's nexus-amped sorcery with sheer strength of will, would put him well above Qui-Gon.

Tbh, I agree that he is above Jinn.

But let's not pretend this guy is top 5 material, his best showings are against non force users, whilst on a Nexus that was able to give Shan enough power to TK Juhani, Bindo and Revan.

He's impressive off nexus, I firmly believe this, but he's not top material, at least Imho

nvm

Bane isnt by all means weak in comparison, I think this is more or less fan backlash, than anything else.

Anyway, if you base your assessment on Banenite Sith mainly on one scrapbook, then how can I take this seriously.

From that logic alone I can use Old Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader from the movie entirely, and the only input I can use is from that duel alone.

Thats not very groovy is it?

(I have much more to put, but im criticizing you only using one way to make a characters power level, when there is more than one source to use)

Originally posted by TheDarthBoy

Anyway, if you base your assessment on Banenite Sith mainly on one scrapbook,

It's almost like I already gave you in particular multiple sources in a direct rebuttal to you in the Darth Bane vs. Qui Gon thread...hmm...where was it?

For a millennium, the Sith maintained the order in secrecy, passing down their evil heritage. As they gained knowledge of the dark side of the Force, their powers increased with each generation.

Source: Epsidode 1: The Phantom Menace Scrapbook

For a thousand years we continued to follow Bane's Rule of Two, existing in the shadows, bidding our time, growing in power, feeding our hatred.

Source: Insider #88: Heritage of the Sith

Ultimately, Bane's plan produced more powerful Sith Lords with each generation.

Source: Force & Destiny: Core Rulebook

^ verbatim. If you're going to condescend to people and mock "idiots everywhere" in your sig, you can try to patch up your own competency at least a little bit. 👆

Plus, I could add on that this coincides with the very purpose of Bane's Rule of Two. Is this my own personal fan theory? Well, I do have a pretty big fan who supports me:

Bane WANTED a stronger successor to overthrow him;

From here.

Who's that, you might say? Just Drew Karpyshyn, the author of the Darth Bane trilogy. Hmmm, wow.

Your continual, unprovoked insulting and sniping of me with rather childish and uninteresting arguments isn't worth responding to anymore. Come back to me if you grow up and develop some decent respect.

Look at banes respect thread he's well above jinn

Originally posted by The Ellimist
As I've guesstimated before, there are a lot of apprentice-master RoT transitions where the apprentice faces the master in single combat and wins. Ergo, the apprentice must surpass the master by substantial enough margin for this transition to consistently happen, and then probably continues to grow in power. We can imagine, then, that a 5% gap growth per generation would actually be fairly conservative, and given Plagueis's estimate (IIRC) of 30 sith between Bane and Sidious, Palpatine should have quadrupled Bane's power.

This is ridiculous, and blatantly untrue. Zannah wasn't more powerful than Bane. And Cognus' greatest advantages have nothing to do with personal power. Her unique abilities would let her kill Zannah without overtaking her in power, just like Zannah's did to Bane. Cognus' apprentice was also a proponant of esoteric abilities that have no regard for standard power plays. Sidious wasn't more powerful than Plagueis either. And a 5% increase is completely arbitrary and speculative. It could just as well be a 0.1% increase.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
What feats? To my memory, he has precisely two of note; knocking down the Lehon Temple and killing a bunch of tukata. Both of these are highly circumstantial. 😬

He turned a Drexl into charred meat and it's riders into ash and was stated to be able to incinerate beings in DoE as well. He disintegrated a dozen enemies casually. He moved fast enough appear to wield a dozen sabers at once to Zannah and was even faster in DoE. He overpowered Nadd's sorcery as of PoD. He overpowered Andeddu's holocron (and thus, I believe, Andeddu's spirit itself). He was able to contain life-wiping power in the Force Storm ritual. He was said to be mind-bogglingly powerful to Cognus, who'd just witnessed the Sith Lord who destroyed Ambria in a vision. He smashed a 30 meter tall blast door with a casual expression of power.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
Your continual, unprovoked insulting and sniping of me with rather childish and uninteresting arguments isn't worth responding to anymore. Come back to me if you grow up and develop some decent respect.

Honestly, no one should respect your views on Bane. Calling anyone childish in regards to the topic is wildly hypocritical of you.

Originally posted by Nephthys
This is ridiculous, and blatantly untrue.

Yeah, it's not like it's a canon statement, or anything. 😬

Zannah wasn't more powerful than Bane.

She wasn't as skilled of a lightsaber duelist, but she beats him in combat and then wins the telepathy battle against him. She also isn't at her prime yet, so she likely grows more powerful afterwards. Peak Zannah is canonically more powerful than Bane. I even gave you a hype in encyclopedic mediums.

And Cognus' greatest advantages have nothing to do with personal power. Her unique abilities would let her kill Zannah without overtaking her in power, just like Zannah's did to Bane.

Canonically wrong, and also an irrelevant distinction, since we're most interested in Bane's combat ability, so whether successors are superior in raw power or a mastery in some aspect of the Force, the aggregate affect is that they're better overall than their masters.

Cognus' apprentice was also a proponant of esoteric abilities that have no regard for standard power plays.

Which is mutually exclusive from being canonically stronger...how?

Sidious wasn't more powerful than Plagueis either.

They were roughly equals to Plagueis's death, at which point Sidious gets a power boost, and then grows in power for like 36 years + his reincarnation. I'd say he's pretty substantially stronger. The question of whether he's solidly more powerful at the time of Plagueis's death is irrelevant.

And a 5% increase is completely arbitrary and speculative. It could just as well be a 0.1% increase.

The percentages themselves don't give us a particularly good idea beyond maybe scaling from the 20% Vader/Sidious gap; it's better to put it in the terms that the gap has to be significant enough that the apprentice can overtake the master in combat in the proportion of cases in which a direct confrontation occurs, and seeing as how this is sort of Bane's ideal for how the transition occurs, we can say that this probably happens in a non-trivial percentage of cases.

So imagine starting with Qui Gon, bumping him up to, say, TPM Maul, and doing this thirty times. You would probably end up with a Sidious level combatant at the very least.

He turned a Drexl into charred meat and it's riders into ash and was stated to be able to incinerate beings in DoE as well.

So? Incinerating beings isn't an elite!!! ability - snapping durasteel probably requires more energy. Qui Gon obviously can't compete in this arena because it's not exactly in his character to incinerate beings, but he can turn invisible and accelerate at hundreds of g's on a whim, which is more impressive than turning fodder into ash, quite frankly.

He moved fast enough appear to wield a dozen sabers at once to Zannah

These kinds of speed feats are ubiquitous and pretty useless. Mace and Sidious were fighting faster than the eye could follow to Anakin according to the RotS novelization.

He overpowered Nadd's sorcery as of PoD.

Feats for spirit Nadd?

He overpowered Andeddu's holocron (and thus, I believe, Andeddu's spirit itself).

I already mentioned this, lol. Andeddu's spirit is presumably weaker than his flesh incarnation (as it always is), and his flesh incarnation isn't even that powerful.

He was able to contain life-wiping power in the Force Storm ritual.

He doesn't generate the energy himself, so it's difficult to figure out how impressive this is supposed to be.

He was said to be mind-bogglingly powerful to Cognus, who'd just witnessed the Sith Lord who destroyed Ambria in a vision.

😂 OK buddy.

He smashed a 30 meter tall blast door with a casual expression of power.

Eclipsed by padawan Anakin in OCW, who is redirecting starships, lel.

Honestly, no one should respect your views on Bane.

I think you've performed above average by your standards. Granted, you completely missed, and never even acknowledged, the most definitive piece of evidence I had provided to you regarding my central point, and then ignored my argument as to why these kinds of metrics are more valuable than feats, but doing otherwise would require mastery of some complex concepts. For now, your sentences were coherent, and that's good. 👆

Calling anyone childish in regards to the topic is wildly hypocritical of you.

Making joke threads isn't the same thing as actively refusing to engage in debate and instead just sniping insults as "DarthBoy" has repeatedly done, but this concept of mutual exclusivity has been butchered in this post already, so I wouldn't expect otherwise of you. 👆

Eliminist, Dooku couldn't incinerate people with his lightning, so why is is not an "elite" tier ability? And irrespective of whether they are "fodder", the effect of ones force powers on non-Force sensitives is a good reference point by which to compare Force users, and in that respect Bane stacks up well.

Aw shucks, I forgot about our Kyp Durron debate.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
Eliminist, Dooku couldn't incinerate people with his lightning,

Is this actually stated?

so why is is not an "elite" tier ability?

Because "elite" tier lightning users have taken out AT-ATs, repowered massive engines (Starkiller), one-shotted fifty stormtroopers, and lighted up planetary surfaces (Sidious). It takes about3 gigajoules to vaporize a human, which is presumably a lot less than what it takes to knock an AT-AT out of commission, seeing as how 3 gigajoules is less than the firepower of the laser cannons on the Slave 1. Vaporizing people typically isn't enough to put you on that tier alone:

YouTube video

Vader walks through this like it's nothing, lawl.

And irrespective of whether they are "fodder", the effect of ones force powers on non-Force sensitives is a good reference point by which to compare Force users, and in that respect Bane stacks up well.

Except for when he struggles with mooks that other characters can annihilate with ease.

I mean, I could easily pick out passages where Galen Marek one-shots like a hundred stormtroopers with TK while Bane struggles to defeat far less, but these feat wars are typically incredibly noisy anyway. I think the powerscaling works better.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
Is this actually stated?

Because "elite" tier lightning users have taken out AT-ATs, repowered massive engines (Starkiller), one-shotted fifty stormtroopers, and lighted up planetary surfaces (Sidious). It takes about3 gigajoules to vaporize a human, which is presumably a lot less than what it takes to knock an AT-AT out of commission, seeing as how 3 gigajoules is less than the firepower of the laser cannons on the Slave 1. Vaporizing people typically isn't enough to put you on that tier alone:

YouTube video

Vader walks through this like it's nothing, lawl.

Except for when he struggles with mooks that other characters can annihilate with ease.

I mean, I could easily pick out passages where Galen Marek one-shots like a hundred stormtroopers with TK while Bane struggles to defeat far less, but these feat wars are typically incredibly noisy anyway. I think the powerscaling works better.

I mean we are trying to prove Bane is stronger than Qui-Gon here. 😂

To refer you to my original point:

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=15726400#post15726400

Bane's lightning doesn't always disintegrate people either though, and sometimes random Jedi padawans can dodge it (I don't see even Anakin dodging Dooku's lightning, lol), so saying "Dooku's doesn't!" isn't exactly definitive. Force attacks do not always produce environmental effects proportional to how "powerful" you'd expect them to be. I mean, hey, I've seen Dooku lift massive stone orbalisks, and Mace Windu Force push an AT-TE off a cliff; surely that takes a lot more force than which is needed to crush someone's spine! Yet we don't see Bane's TK pulverizing people like an AT-TE moving push would, so does that make him weak or something? It's difficult to judge feats this way.

Quite honestly, making Yoda absorb and redirect his lightning "far from easily" (AotC novelization) is probably a lot more impressive than disintegrating humans, seeing as how TFUII Vader can walk through an infinitely more energetic attack from Starkiller without needing to do anything but turn his head a little, and Yoda >.

Or how about when a random, no-name "shadow assassin" can withstand Bane's Force wave, but Dooku can ragdoll Obi Wan?

Feats war aside, I think the powerscaling from the Rule of Two is a more consistent framework than the random whims of authors.