I will even learn to stop people from dying

[Ghost Rider]

It's an interesting thought...but then again why would Yoda's be so high given his size as a lifeform?

As for the Anakin bit...it would add a layer to him being the chosen one.

That and Anakin, most are presuming loses lot more than an arm against Obi-Wan(actually it's pretty much specualtion how much he really loses...still has Lungs so far)

[Crown]

It's an interesting thought...but then again why would Yoda's be so high given his size as a lifeform?

That has occured to me too, in fact it's the main stumbling block in my whole 'thought' process. But this brings us back to was Luke more powerfull than Vader? Anakin? Yoda?

[Stravo]

It's an interesting thought...but then again why would Yoda's be so high given his size as a lifeform?

That has occured to me too, in fact it's the main stumbling block in my whole 'thought' process. But this brings us back to was Luke more powerfull than Vader? Anakin? Yoda?

I tentively say yes. Luke learned Jedi skills on Dagaobah in the space of a month, Anakin took YEARS of training to get to the same level. In essence if one looks at results, Luke got the most bang for his buck, achieving knighthood in about three years with sporadic training compared to years for both Anakin and Yoda.

Plus quite frankly Luke beat Vader, no holds barred, no cheap tricks he ouotpowered him.

[Crown]

I tentively say yes. Luke learned Jedi skills on Dagaobah in the space of a month, Anakin took YEARS of training to get to the same level. In essence if one looks at results, Luke got the most bang for his buck, achieving knighthood in about three years with sporadic training compared to years for both Anakin and Yoda.

Plus quite frankly Luke beat Vader, no holds barred, no cheap tricks he ouotpowered him.

I agree, but (and I am sorry for just repeating myself here) was Vader more powerfull than Anakin? I mean this something which should be settled in EpIII, but there is no harm in theorising.

[Ghost Rider]

Hmmm...that brings up an interesting thought.

I suppose the real problem is also that how are we to rate it fairly?

Anakin loses to Obi-Wan(but we are not sure of the circumstances nor the fight in of itself)

Obi-Wan loses to Vader(but it seemed like it was Obi-Wan wanted to lose)

Luke beats Vader.

I mean if we just take the fights for face value it appears that Luke is more powerful.

Overall an interesting thought nonetheless.

[Master of Ossus]

It's an interesting thought...but then again why would Yoda's be so high given his size as a lifeform?

That has occured to me too, in fact it's the main stumbling block in my whole 'thought' process. But this brings us back to was Luke more powerfull than Vader? Anakin? Yoda?

I tentively say yes. Luke learned Jedi skills on Dagaobah in the space of a month, Anakin took YEARS of training to get to the same level. In essence if one looks at results, Luke got the most bang for his buck, achieving knighthood in about three years with sporadic training compared to years for both Anakin and Yoda.

Plus quite frankly Luke beat Vader, no holds barred, no cheap tricks he ouotpowered him.

Yoda is the most powerful Jedi that has ever lived up to TPM. I doubt that Luke is more powerful than he is, though he may be better at fighting. The EU hints that Vader lost a great deal of his combat abilities to the fall that finally transformed him (being "more machine, now, than man," does not help combat abilities for Jedi, apparently), but Luke has also had enormous difficulty doing things in the EU that other Jedi have done relatively easily. I would think that Yoda is more powerful than he is. It is unclear whether or not Vader at his prime would have been more powerful, though Luke is obviously more powerful by RotJ. It is interesting that the beating Vader gave Luke in ESB was actually meant to show how powerful Luke was, as opposed to Vader, when seen in the grand scheme of things.

[Stuart Mackey]

Yoda is the most powerful Jedi that has ever lived up to TPM. I doubt that Luke is more powerful than he is, though he may be better at fighting. The EU hints that Vader lost a great deal of his combat abilities to the fall that finally transformed him (being "more machine, now, than man," does not help combat abilities for Jedi, apparently), but Luke has also had enormous difficulty doing things in the EU that other Jedi have done relatively easily. I would think that Yoda is more powerful than he is. It is unclear whether or not Vader at his prime would have been more powerful, though Luke is obviously more powerful by RotJ. It is interesting that the beating Vader gave Luke in ESB was actually meant to show how powerful Luke was, as opposed to Vader, when seen in the grand scheme of things.

In the SOTE and ROTJ Vader points out that Luke is the most pwerful Jedi ever, more so than Vader. How ever, power and combat abilitys are two different things. What we see in the OT is a cripple, an old man who admits he cannot do it all any more and a untutored, whiney, farmboy.
Vader may well have lost a lot of his combat abilities compared to a fully trained Jedi but certainly not to a mere mortal, and this is why only a fully trained Jedi could take him on and win. Luke, I feel, bested Vader because Vader wanted to convert him and Luke, while powerful, did not have the experience, finesse of a properly trained Jedi.
But Luke had enough abilities to survive, which in the end was all that was needed while Anakin brought balance to the force.

[Kurgan]

His self-proclaimed prophecy came true... he learned how to freeze people in carbonite (Han Solo) thus, theoretically putting them into hybernation, preventing them from dying.

; )

[Steven Snyder]

Stravo,

I heard that line too, and it sounded big to me also.

First of all, I think that Anakin, because he is a vergence of the force is more of a manifestation than a living person. This is why he did not die when he fought Kenobi, simply put he cannot die until he brings balance to the force. He wears the suit to move, it does not keep him alive. When he told Luke that nothing could stop his dying, it was because his destiny was complete and the force was allowing him to die and rest.

Now that moves to a second thing...Why did Yoda and Kenobi vanish...

Because they had already been killed, either by Vader or someone else. However, Anakin/Vader could deal with this grief and quite literally stopped them from dying. Their physical bodies were dead though, so they became manifestations of the force, not alive but not dead. After this Anakin/Vader released them and told them to never return.
Incidently, this explains why the Emperor was not seeking Yoda and Kenobi out, he had already seen their corpses and assumed they were quite dead.
Remember, when Vader meets Kenobi in Episode 4, he says, "You should not have come back!". This would be a very ironic thing to say to someone had they left you for dead in a pool of molten steel. This is exactly what you would say to someone if you had let them go and told them never to return.

So when they died in Episodes 4 and 5, they vanished. Their original bodies had been left where they died those many years ago, and when they took a fatal wound their manifestation simply dissipated.

[Kurgan]

So what about Qui Gon Jinn? He was planned to appear as a ghost in Episode II, but due to an accident, he could only appear in voice form (according to IMDB.com).

We DID hear his voice, either out loud, or in Yoda's head in AOTC. But we never saw his body disapear... then again we didn't see Vader's disappear either...

So does burning the body have a hand in it? (or is it just customary Jedi funeral procedure?)

Note that the only other funeral we've seen in Star Wars (for Shmi Skywalker, a non-Jedi) is simple burial (though maybe they burned the body first, but there's no reason to assume that).

Perhaps the destruction of their earthly remains helps them to "release" the Jedi's spirit, if he didn't have enough power to do it at the moment of death (like Obi-Wan and Yoda did).

[Durandal]

Bean, perhaps your power with the Force only depends on midichlorian density?

[Kurgan]

Maybe.

Because I was wondering, if its based on that... is Vader more or less powerful when his body is less biological? Is it all in the blood? Maybe the smaller you are, the more powerful you are. Interesting thought. ; )

[Slartibartfast]

But midichlorian count from a sample wouldn't give you the total amount of midichlorians. It would give you midichlorian density anyway.

[MirrorUniverseSpy1]

I agree with Stravo in the first post.

[Kurgan]

Assuming, even, that the midis are evenly distributed throughout the body's cells...

[BenRG]

"Master Yoda, you can't die."

"Strong am I with the Force... but not that strong."

Now, Yoda did prevent himself from "dying" in the sense that you took it to mean.

I have always thought that this implied that some Force users become so powerful that they cannot die. Not eternally-lived like an elf. Immortal. You would shoot their planet with a Death Star and you would find them floating around in one piece looking very POd at you.

I think that is the ability that the Emperor was aiming to emulate in the EU 'Dark Empire' stories. Using clones and Sith Soul Jump is a rather ham-fisted brute-force variant on the skill, though.

[Lord_Xerxes]

Immortal=cannot die by aging.
eternal=cannot die period.

You had those backwards.


The idea that one one person could be that strong in the Force is ludicrious.

And in response to what someone wrote about the burning, IIRC didn't hte novel say that Vader's armor was burned, and not his body and armor?

[Slartibartfast]

Assuming, even, that the midis are evenly distributed throughout the body's cells...

They should be, else the whole sample testing would be pointless. Either it's evenly distributed OR they draw it from a spot where there's a higher or more consistent concentration. That this happens to be the spot normal blood samples are collected from is too much of a coincidence IMO.

[BenRG]

Immortal=cannot die by aging.
eternal=cannot die period.

You had those backwards.

No, I think I got them the right way round.

Eternal = lives for eternity (defines itself).
Immortal = not mortal. Cannot die (without 'mortality', the ability to die in Latin). Like the guys in 'Highlander': Take bullets, blades and even car crashes, then come out smiling.

Semantics aside, why should it be ludicrous? Other than a slight dislike about adding potential demi-gods to the Star Wars universe, I can't see any reason why some little monk in a force-adept monastic order somewhere might have clued onto the big secret.

[Kurgan]

Kurgan wrote:

Assuming, even, that the midis are evenly distributed throughout the body's cells...

They should be, else the whole sample testing would be pointless. Either it's evenly distributed OR they draw it from a spot where there's a higher or more consistent concentration. That this happens to be the spot normal blood samples are collected from is too much of a coincidence IMO.

We're assuming the midichlorian "test" is similar to the blood sample that Qui Gon did on Anakin in TPM, which is reasonable.

It wouldn't have to be the only test for force sensitivity of course. The (less canonical of course) example from the EU is that device that scanned a person's "aura" (the whole thing). It could have provided data on midichlorian count in the entire body (of course the EU authors at the time wouldn't have known about George's idea yet). ; )

Then again, the blood sample was from Anakin's arm (?) so we might be able to rule out any specific part of the body that has a concentration of them over any other part.

[Slartibartfast]

Immortal=cannot die by aging.
eternal=cannot die period.

You had those backwards.

No, I think I got them the right way round.

Eternal = lives for eternity (defines itself).
Immortal = not mortal. Cannot die (without 'mortality', the ability to die in Latin). Like the guys in 'Highlander': Take bullets, blades and even car crashes, then come out smiling.

Semantics aside, why should it be ludicrous? Other than a slight dislike about adding potential demi-gods to the Star Wars universe, I can't see any reason why some little monk in a force-adept monastic order somewhere might have clued onto the big secret.

Immortals in Highlander can be killed, they die when beheaded. I'd guess that they would also die by standing on a planet that's been superlaser-ed by the Death Star. They are merely very hard to kill and don't age.

[Slartibartfast]

Kurgan wrote:

Assuming, even, that the midis are evenly distributed throughout the body's cells...

They should be, else the whole sample testing would be pointless. Either it's evenly distributed OR they draw it from a spot where there's a higher or more consistent concentration. That this happens to be the spot normal blood samples are collected from is too much of a coincidence IMO.

We're assuming the midichlorian "test" is similar to the blood sample that Qui Gon did on Anakin in TPM, which is reasonable.

It wouldn't have to be the only test for force sensitivity of course. The (less canonical of course) example from the EU is that device that scanned a person's "aura" (the whole thing). It could have provided data on midichlorian count in the entire body (of course the EU authors at the time wouldn't have known about George's idea yet). ; )

Then again, the blood sample was from Anakin's arm (?) so we might be able to rule out any specific part of the body that has a concentration of them over any other part.

I seriously doubt that the arm is some kind of special midichlorian gathering point. Blood tests are normally taken from the arm, because that's where the vein is more visible and easier to puncture.

Whether there's is some big, complete force aura viewer or not, if getting a blood sample and analysing it WON'T give correct density results, then it's worthless. Since they use it, it's not worthless. If it's not worthless, then it gives correct density count.

[BenRG]

Note to Slartibartfast. I know about the vulnerabilities of a 'Highlander' immortal, thanks. I was just pointing out the difference between etermal life and immortality. Shoot someone with eternal life and they die. Shoot a true immortal (not one of those 'Highlander' ET fakers) and they walk away with a superior smirk.

The point is that, in ESB, Yoda implies that it is possible for a force adept to become so powerful that it is impossible for them to die, no matter what happens to them.

[Stravo]

Note to
The point is that, in ESB, Yoda implies that it is possible for a force adept to become so powerful that it is impossible for them to die, no matter what happens to them.

I don't think that's actually true. I took it the opposite way. "Strong am I in the Force but not that strong" Yoda is the most powerful force user in the galaxy yet even he must die. It is the way of things, its the way of the Force.

[Mad]

The way Yoda said it, I always took "strong am I in the Force.. but not that strong!" Or, "I'm strong in the Force, but not that strong physically." Just something in his tone of voice made me think that.

Of course, the "not strong enough in the Force to keep from dying" is also a valid way of looking at it.

So, which way was intended?