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I wonder what kind of a force user he would have become. I also wonder how many midi-chlorians he lost after he got toasted. Remember Palpatine saying he would have become more powerful than either him or Yoda, maybe even Mace too. Turns out he never did anything that impressive that we've seen other Jedi and Sith do. TK, precog, the usual.

I doubt that his quadruple amputation really made Anakin lose midichlorians (I've heard speculation that a midichlorian count is more a measure of density than number). Basically the biggest limitation I've heard regarding Vader is that conjuring lightning would fry his life support.

Similar note. I'm guessing that Vader probably has to deal with a great deal of pain as a result of his condition. Could he still have the same owning everything potential, but needs to spend most of it to keep functioning/not appear weak in front of his flunkies?

For all we know midichlorian count is just an indication of force sensitivity, not its cause. I’d assume it takes a fair bit of his power simply to keep himself alive, that machinery might not be the end all of it. Having prosthetic limbs can’t be helping his agility.

A few details from recent EU novels that might be considered spoilers by some, so I shrunk the font.

Vader being unable to use Force Lightning is confirmed in "Dark Lord", but the same novel also shows Vader tearing through scores of Wookiee soldiers with ease as well as other impressive physical feats. The same book also has Palpatine stating that Vader's weaknessess are psychological, not physical.

"Death Star" shows Vader lamenting the technological deficiencies of the suit. He knows that the Empire could build him a better body, but that he would not survive his removal from the suit into a new one, even with a hyperbaric chamber such as the one on the Executor.

"Allegiance" shows Mara Jade killing the lights in a room in order to avoid being cut down by Vader, whose vision takes a split second longer to adapt to sudden changes in light than natural eyes.

In "Shadows of the Empire", Vader is working on breathing without the aid of his suit and the chamber, but the happiness he feels at his accomplishment inhibits the effect of the Dark Side energies fueling the healing. This indicates to me that Vader still possesses at least some psychological weaknesses later in his career that he might not have had without the suit.

Shrykull wrote:I wonder what kind of a force user he would have become. I also wonder how many midi-chlorians he lost after he got toasted. Remember Palpatine saying he would have become more powerful than either him or Yoda, maybe even Mace too. Turns out he never did anything that impressive that we've seen other Jedi and Sith do. TK, precog, the usual.

People covered the naive assumption of midichlorian values already. However, why should he have "special" powers rather than simply more adept at the ones he does have?

As has been said midichlorians are an indicator, if midichlorians were the cause then naturally the Iron Knights would be impossible, they're silicon based, sentient, force-using, crystals that were plugged into droids and trained as Jedi. Naturally as crystals they would have no blood, and thus, no midichlorians.

I don't think the amputations lowered the count. DS says that he had 25,000 midichlorians per cell, didn't it?

Alexian Cale wrote:I don't think the amputations lowered the count. DS says that he had 25,000 midichlorians per cell, didn't it?

Yeah, and he lost a lot of cells from his amputations and getting burned.

What I meant was, he never did anything really impressive unlike some old Sith Lords such as destroy stars as Nada Sadow did, or use a force storm to destroy a planet (why even bother building the death star if he or the emperor could do it, as they claim that the force's power is greater than that of destroying a planet. Maybe they meant in some other way) or stand up to several Jedi masters and Knights at the same time like it took to take down Exar Kun.

General Schatten wrote:As has been said midichlorians are an indicator, if midichlorians were the cause then naturally the Iron Knights would be impossible, they're silicon based, sentient, force-using, crystals that were plugged into droids and trained as Jedi. Naturally as crystals they would have no blood, and thus, no midichlorians.

They would have no cells. But what about when Qui-Gon said no one would have any knowledge of the force if it wasn't for midi chlorians?

....It's concentration, not total count that matters. Let's look at this logically. Now, I haven't read Death Star, but if this is to be believed:

Alexian Cale wrote:DS says that he had 25,000 midichlorians per cell

than one simply cannot argue that it is total count.

Remember, 25,000 per cell, and what does Obi-Wan freak out about? That Anakin's midichlorian count is "Over 20,000" that kind of rules out the possibility of what is called midichlorian concentration by Qui-Gon being a total. Unless, Anakin somehow magically had 25,000 midichlorians in one cell, and maybe 2,000 divided amongst all his other ones. As opposed to a density, which make much more sense, and is the only explanation that fits the facts.

Shrykull wrote:

Alexian Cale wrote:I don't think the amputations lowered the count. DS says that he had 25,000 midichlorians per cell, didn't it?

Yeah, and he lost a lot of cells from his amputations and getting burned.

What I meant was, he never did anything really impressive unlike some old Sith Lords such as destroy stars as Nada Sadow did, or use a force storm to destroy a planet (why even bother building the death star if he or the emperor could do it, as they claim that the force's power is greater than that of destroying a planet. Maybe they meant in some other way) or stand up to several Jedi masters and Knights at the same time like it took to take down Exar Kun.

Sadow required the use of technology and Sith arcana (his ship) to perform that feat.

Alexian Cale wrote:
Sadow required the use of technology and Sith arcana (his ship) to perform that feat.

What's more, a much less skilled Sith was able to blow up a star using the same ship. Clearly the Sith devices in the ship are doing the lion's share of blowing up the star.

Shrykull wrote:

General Schatten wrote:As has been said midichlorians are an indicator, if midichlorians were the cause then naturally the Iron Knights would be impossible, they're silicon based, sentient, force-using, crystals that were plugged into droids and trained as Jedi. Naturally as crystals they would have no blood, and thus, no midichlorians.

They would have no cells. But what about when Qui-Gon said no one would have any knowledge of the force if it wasn't for midi chlorians?

Would you mind giving the exact quote? I have a feeling that it could easily be interpreted as not know about someones force-sensitivity without it.

Unless the human body is constantly manufacturing midichlorians, Anakin lost a LOT of them when he lost his limbs.

But if the midichlorians are able to use the body's resources to multiply (maybe something inherent to the host determines/enables the midichlorians to multiply) then losing the limbs would be only a temporary setback.

I've often wondered if Vader uses the force to control his limbs rather than relying on the neuron/prosthetic bridge.

What people are saying is that the midichlorians might be an *indicator* of force power level, rather than the *cause* of it. So the stronger your force power, the higher your midichlorian density.

So it doesn't matter that he loses the midichlorians in his limbs, because that doesn't affect his force power level. It just means that he's lost the midichlorian indicators in his limbs.

To go back to the TC's original question, I doubt that Anakin *would* have had any new powers, only a new level of comfort with the usual powers. He would have been able to more easily and more readily manipulate force-lightning, use his focus, etc. The reason he wouldn't have gotten new powers is because of whom he was working for, Palpatine, who had a vested interest in a easily controlled and swayable apprentice as opposed to the Darth Tyrannus type.

-AHMAD

If midichlorian totals were all that important, Yoda wouldn't be a very notable Jedi, and Hutt Force users like Beldorion would tower over all other Force users. The loss of cells argument is a dead end.

I suppose at the very least we could use Expanded Universe Luke as an indicator of what Anakin may have later evolved into, mainly since Luke seems to be on par with Anakin. Luke hastily crushed an AT-AT in Dark Empire and the Reborn Emperor also believed that he possessed the ability to generate Force Storms. In TESB Luke raises his X-wing out of Dagobah's swamp for a few seconds. As Luke is scarcely as knowlegible as Anakin in the ways of the Force, Anakin probably would have done much better, perhaps even equalling Yoda's accomplishment.

From the movies:

Anakin held up reasonably well against a powerhouse such as Dooku in AOTC, and three years further he went on to completely decimate him. We can reasonably conclude from this that even in his later apprenticeship Anakin would have competed fairly well against fully trained Jedi knights (Dooku's considered to be a fairly powerful Jedi Master). Its also my opinion that when Anakin enters dark side rage mode his power in ROTS may rival and/or exceed a Jedi Master's!

With the way Anakin's and Luke's power continues to escalate, one can rationally speculate that Sidious's comment about Anakin growing more power than him or Yoda would have actually come to pass. Obi-Wan thought him to already possess the potential to rival Master Yoda as a swordsman by AOTC. The only thing then limiting Anakin is how well he can control the Force--he already has raw Force ability superior to anyone else.

We can only guess what sort of Force powers Anakin would have possessed, but we can easily infer that Anakin would have been stronger in nearly all known fields of Jedi training.

If midichlorian totals were all that important, Yoda wouldn't be a very notable Jedi, and Hutt Force users like Beldorion would tower over all other Force users. The loss of cells argument is a dead end.

This is an interesting point. I guess sheer number doesn't mean anything after all.

I'm not exactly sure Anakin lost anything besides some of his agility and a bit of flexibility. He was able to absorb a blaster bolt, then pull it out of Han Solo's hand, something he didn't do in the other movies. At first I thought that Vader's gloves were blaster-proof, but it says in "I, Jedi" that Vader absorbed the energy using the force.

What he lost in agility, he seemed to make up for in brute strength. We all saw how he throttled Captain Antilles and dealt with Luke the first time. If anything, I think he just got more powerful, with the dark side and a robotic body.