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Jedi may have survived falls from great heights, but those Jedi always had hold of their senses. Force lightning when it hits a Jedi (as opposed to being caught) renders them neutral (Anakin in AotC, Yoda in RotS, Luke and Vader in RotJ) for long enough for them to splat the pavement well before they regain their senses to somehow cushion their fall, even if they weren't in intense pain from having their hand lopped off. Mace surviving that fall in RotS just isn't going to happen.Havok wrote:Well despite what the majority thinks, there really is no reason why Mace couldn't have survived that last attack and fall from Palpatine. Force lightning has never been lethal in the movies and we know that Jedi can survive falls from considerable heights.
Hav wrote:Force lightning has never been lethal in the movies.
That and how it messed up Vader is quite a testament to its lethality.Palps wrote:And now, young Skywalker, you will die
Vader's suit had the weakness that force lighting would short-circuit his life support system, it's why he could never channel lightning himself, despite being far more powerful than any Sith other than Sidious.LordOskuro wrote:That and how it messed up Vader is quite a testament to its lethality.
Please. Vader gets killed because it frys his suit which is what keeps him alive. And fucking Luke takes the biggest dose of force lightning we have seen and is... fine. In fact, he is so fine that he can drag Vader how far to his shuttle? Force lightning, as far as the movie goes is a torture weapon. Oh and Vader hardly dies instantly from the FL, as he makes the entire trip to said shuttle before dying.LordOskuro wrote:Hav wrote:Force lightning has never been lethal in the movies.That and how it messed up Vader is quite a testament to its lethality.Palps wrote:And now, young Skywalker, you will die
As for Mace, to the very least he was knocked out, wich wouldn't give him much of a chance to slow down his fall.
Yeah, I always consider this, but then I come back to the way Yoda feels. That and the fact that the Republic really is no more. I think Mace would realize that. Maybe if Order 66 doesn't get enacted he would continue to fight, but I think that that type of utter defeat would humble him pretty badly.Knife wrote:Well, I'd want to agree with you on this Havoc, but I remember in the novel that Mace admitted to himself that the one attachment he couldn't let go was his love of the Republic. If he survived, I can't see him not fighting the Empire in some way, thus being hunted down and killed by the Emperor.
I read in one of the Star Wars guides that Vader could never channel force lighting because of his mechanical arms. I'll have to find the book. Has anyone else read this?General Schatten wrote:Vader's suit had the weakness that force lighting would short-circuit his life support system, it's why he could never channel lightning himself, despite being far more powerful than any Sith other than Sidious.LordOskuro wrote:That and how it messed up Vader is quite a testament to its lethality.
Is that a novel or a reference type book? And which would be more canonical? Sounds like they're basically saying the same thing.Havok wrote:IIRC it is in Dark Lord. Palpatine is considering Vader's new incarnation. He thinks that Vader's self doubt and lack of confidence is a hurdle he must overcome and that the cybernetic parts are not a determent to his powers and abilities. Aside from not being able to channel the lightning.
Could it be possible for Force Lightning to be controlled in some way by the will of the caster? If Palpatine is trying to kill Yoda outright then it would have a killing force with each use, as indicated by the explosions. If Palpatine wants to torture someone before they die then the Force Lighting effects the victim only while its being used, like against Luke. Instead of being a fixed weapon it is variable.LordOskuro wrote:I know about Vader's suit short-circuiting, but that means that Force Lightning does actual damage, and thus could be lethal.
And what I meant with the first quote was that Palps had the intention of killing Luke with it, it might be a slow death, but is still supposed to be lethal.
Heck, when Dooku fights Yoda, the lightning beams actually explode when hitting a wall. All that energy mustn't be good on the body.
Wow. Please provide evidence for this.Gramzamber wrote:He was also a senile idiot at this point.
Yet he doesn't with Yoda?With Windu he's still got some intelligence about him, and wants to kill him outright.
Yoda still had some ability to resist. Windu just had his damn hand cut off and was screaming like a baby.Havok wrote:Hey dildo, you did notice the whole scene where Palpatine is all: 'Now Yoda, feel the FULL POWER OF THE DARKSIDE!', blasts him with force lightning and... DOESN'T kill him? Why would Sidious deal with Yoda in a manner that didn't guarantee his death? What, he's going to say "Full power of the Dark Side!" and zap Yoda with a non-lethal charge and hope the wall splats him? Oops.
The fact that his plan to lure the rebels with a decoy plan that involved the REAL target was fucking retarded?Wow. Please provide evidence for this.
See above. Moreover, Yoda was a fight. Windu was an execution.Yet he doesn't with Yoda?
I made some slight revisions to this over the course of the discussion we had in the thread, but I never edited them in.Havok wrote:This is my take and observations on Force Lightning that we see in the movies.
-Anakin in AOTC is the first person in the saga to be subjected to Force Lightning. Count Dooku is the Sith that attacks him. He takes a 4 second burst. He is visibly thrown into the wall and takes 46 seconds to awaken and 43 more seconds before he is able to battle again.
-Strangely, Palpatine is the second person we see subjected to FL. It is by his own hand from Windu deflecting it back at him. Palpatine is subjected to 34 seconds of continuous FL. During this time, he is able to have a conversation and debate Windu and the Jedi's actions to Anakin.
-Mace is the third person we see subjected to FL, and the first by Palpatine/Sidious. Mace endures 16 continuous seconds of FL. He seems to be conscious the entire time. I don't think unconscious people scream.
-*Yoda is the fourth person we see get hit by FL. He takes a 1 second hit and is thrown back hard into a wall. He takes 49 seconds of movie time, where a scene of Anakin and Obi-Wan dueling is cut to, to wake up, but only 21 seconds if you count the time from him being knocked out to the time he opens an eye. If you remove the inter cut scene which, it is just the time it seems like it takes for Palpatine to walk over to Yoda and begin gloating. Otherwise Palpatine just sits in his chair for about 28 seconds during the inter cut scene.
-The next person to endure FL is Luke in ROTJ. It is from Sidious and first he takes 7 seconds of intermittent strikes, before he takes 22 seconds of continuous lightning. He then is subjected to 22 more seconds of lightning for a grand total of 51 total seconds, the most we see anyone subjected to, which leads to...
-Vader, the final person hit with FL, takes 8 seconds of lightning from Palpatine. Not all the lightning is directed at Vader as Palpatine is being hoisted up and is firing uncontrolled.
-On Maintaining Consciousness
So from the above I gather that Force Lightning, no matter how strong, doesn't seem to knock you unconscious. The two that lose consciousness are Anakin and Yoda. In each of their cases they are thrown HARD into walls along with being hit by the lightning. Yoda seems to be thrown back by the sheer force of Palpatine's attack, while Anakin seems to be thrown by the Force by Dooku in concert with getting hit by the lightning. I chalk up their getting knocked out to the head trauma that they endure and not the lightning because...
Luke, who endures the most lightning, is very awake and conscious and is able to plead with Vader for help. Mace, while incapacitated like Luke was, is screaming during his duration and does not lose consciousness. Palpatine endures over half a minute of lightning, which is obviously causing him great pain and disfiguring him, but is still able to have a coherent conversation. Immediately after he is subjected to the lightning, he is again able to summon it and then, other then his disfigurement is fine.
Vader, who is dependent on his electrically run suit for life, and who has a skeleton laced with metal, is the unknown in this situation. After he is struck by the lightning, he continues to breathe indicating that that function of his suit is still working, but we are not sure if he is conscious or not as we don't see his face until later on the flight deck of the DSII.
However after watching the scene several times again tonight, and based on the body position Vader takes, he seems to be looking down the shaft, possibly contemplating all his mistakes or finally realizing he is free of Sidious, I believe Vader is quite conscious.
-On Force Lightning Users
In the movies we see two people project FL. Dooku and Palpatine. I think that it is reasonable the believe that Sidious has more control, and has lightning that is more powerful due to the fact that he is the Master and from what we know of Palpatine he is loathe to teach any one all his tricks. My problem with this is. that I personally can't imagine a way that Palpatine could limit how strong Dooku's lightning is. My only answer, is that Palpatine is a much more powerful Force user then Dooku to begin with, so any power he uses will be stronger.
The movies give some insight as Yoda was able to deflect Dooku's first strike of Lightning easily and then able to absorb his next strike with little more effort then the deflection. However he was not able to absorb or deflect Palpatine's initial attack and then later was only able to absorb so much until he "overloaded" granted Palpatine was firing quite a bit more lightning than Dooku did. Still I do think it is safe to say Palpatine had the stronger lightning of the two.
-On The Variable Strength Of Force Lightning
Based on what we see, I believe that FL can be adjusted to variable strengths, which is an obvious statement if you have seen the movies.
The first clue to this is the "glow" factor.
In ROTS and ROTJ we see two separate people, Mace Windu and Darth Vader, struck with FL so intense that their bones "glow" through their bodies.
Mace Windu as far as we know has no metal or prosthetics in his body, while we know that Vader has had extensive cybernetic enhancements.
We also know that Anakin, before receiving extensive implants did not "glow" when hit by FL in AOTC. Yoda and Luke, both enhancement free, except for Luke's hand, also did not "glow" when struck by FL.
What this leads me to believe is that Mace was hit with about as powerful of FL as can be conjured. Palpatine, after witnessing Anakin's betrayal, was about as excited as he could possibly be and unleashed his absolute full power on Windu. His accompanying words of "Unlimited Power!" and his gleeful delivery gives more credence to this as he knows that he can finally "cut loose" so to speak, after so many years of maintaining his charade. This full power unleashing caused Mace to "glow" with the full power of Palpatine's lightning. Keep in mind however, that as strong as it was, Mace did not at any time lose consciousness.
I believe that after Windu, Yoda, was struck with the second most powerful blast of Force Lightning. As we see in the film, Yoda is slammed back from Palpatine's 1 second burst. Yoda in AOTC was easily able to deflect Dooku's initial attack with the same amount of forewarning as he had from Sidious. Here however Yoda was completely overcome. I think that Yoda was unprepared for the sheer amount of strength difference from Dooku to Sidious. Note though that he did not "glow". This however can be attributed to the very short nature of the Emperor's attack and not necessarily the power level of the lightning attack. Also, Yoda does not writhe in pain as Luke and Mace do, but again, this can be attributed to the short burst and his loss of consciousness from his very hard impact with the wall.
Next I have two people getting hit with the same strength blast. Luke and Vader in ROTJ.
Now Luke's situation is unique as he is the only one of this group to be subjected to what I feel are different strength FL blasts.
At first when Sidious attacks him, he clearly is just "toying" with him, while he gloats over his final and utter victory. Absolute eradication of the Jedi, and absolute control over the Galaxy. However when he speaks the words "Now, young Skywalker, you WILL die.", he switches into another gear.
Here is where I feel we see the true nature of Force Lightning and what it is actually for, but I will touch on that later.
At this point, I feel that the FL the Emperor is using is almost as strong as what Yoda endured and slightly less still then what Mace endured for two reasons.
Reason number one; The Emperor does not have the added emotional jolt of his first taste of true victory as he did with Mace or the joy he showed of destroying his greatest enemy in Yoda nor the franticness and excitement of fighting for his life.
Reason number two; He really wants to draw out and enjoy Luke's death. He destroyed his first DS. He is the one person that he fears. He tried to revive his hated enemy in the Jedi. He is Yoda's final student. he was hidden from him for 18 years.
So for those two reasons, I feel that Sidious may be holding back just a bit, or is just not emotionally charged enough to deliver the kind of attack Yoda, and certainly not Mace, received. This is why Luke does not glow, and this is why Luke is not hurled back like Yoda.
Vader, when he turns on the Emperor is subject to this lightning as well. I feel it is possible that the Emperor amped up the voltage once he realized what Vader was doing, but I feel that fear is not going to make the lightning stronger at all as fear in ones self makes you weaker with the Force, not stronger. Now Vader does "glow" here, but as I cited earlier, he has extensive cybernetics throughout his body as well as metal either grafted onto, or actually replacing, his bones. This is what I believe causes Vader's "glow" and not just the sheer power of the FL as it did with Mace.
Now, strangely again, I feel this is where Palpatine belongs in this power ranking, attacking himself. In the fight with Windu, Sidious has his lightning turned on himself. Palpatine obviously needs to keep the lightning strong enough to hold Windu at bay, but he also needs to keep it weak enough that it does not cause himself serious harm or damage him more than he is willing. Also, during this 34 second lighting onslaught Palpatine has to convince Anakin to come to his aid, so he has to be able to speak and be coherent enough to counter Windu's arguments as well. Palpatine also holds and maintains the level of FL to the last possible second when he finally believes he has convinced Anakin to betray the Jedi and serve him in order to save his wife.
There are two things I feel this example establishes, one which I mentioned earlier. Palpatine's superior control of the power level of his FL, also shown in his attack on Luke in ROTJ, and an obvious resistance to his own power.
As for the strength of the FL, Palpatine shows no sign of the "glow" that Mace is about to exhibit, nor does he writhe in pain as Luke does.
Last we have Anakin, while still a Padawan, being hit with the FL from Dooku. While Dooku is a formidable and powerful opponent, Yoda clearly has no trouble dealing with his FL even when it was an unknown. Obviously, no "glow", in Anakin this first time, although there is some pain shown, but not much more than what Palpatine endures and not nearly as much as Luke or Mace. he is knocked out, but again, this can be attributed to the impact with the hanger/cave wall.
-On The Use of Force Lightning
Based on what we have seen and I have stated above, I do not believe that Force Lightning is an effective lethal offensive weapon. In the movies, we see no one die from being struck with Force Lightning, even though we see arguably the strongest Dark Sider, in Palpatine, ever, using it at it's full strength.
In the most extreme case, Mace, the lightning was used to dole out severe punishment and pain, but death was ultimately caused by a Force Push out the window.
We see a freshly minted Jedi, albeit probably the strongest ever, able to with stand almost a full minute of FL and then very shortly after drag a 250lb+ cyborg kilometers through the DSII and then casually fly away with no more than a broken sweat.
We see a 60 year old man endure half a minute of FL who is then able to rise and continue his duties as ruler of the galaxy.
We don't even see a loss of consciousness without an added impact from either a Force push (Dooku V Anakin, AOTC) or the sheer overpowering of the initial impact of the first strike, throwing them into a wall (Sidious V Yoda, ROTS).
My conclusion is that the true nature of Force Lightning is a very effective and insidious torture weapon/tactic to be used against Jedi and other Force users, that the Sith have adapted into a weapon of terror and fear, but one that isn't very effective at killing.
-Some notes.
I didn't mention resiliency of the Jedi and Sith and their use of the Force to help against the FL, because I figure it is a given.
I made this based solely on a Jedi Vs Sith situation. I have no doubt that FL would rip a regular person a new one.
I based this solely on the movies. I did not take any EU into consideration at all. Nor did I take the novels, as they didn't provide times that I could use, It also seemed dishonest to use the novels for added information when the bulk of my info is from the movies.
Feedback is encouraged and very welcome.
*I didn't include Yoda's first encounter with Dooku as the second person we see get attacked by FL because he first deflects the lightning and then absorbs it. For this same reason I didn't include his battle with Sidious in the Senate chambers as he does this again and it gives no evidence of how Force Lightning effects one when it hits as intended.
Or like a man that just had his hand severed. Really? Are you really going to start with the 'pussy' talk? I bet all those soldiers that got shot in WWII were just being babies too huh? Sorry we aren't all as tough as you.Gramzamber wrote:Yoda still had some ability to resist. Windu just had his damn hand cut off and was screaming like a baby.Havok wrote:Hey dildo, you did notice the whole scene where Palpatine is all: 'Now Yoda, feel the FULL POWER OF THE DARKSIDE!', blasts him with force lightning and... DOESN'T kill him? Why would Sidious deal with Yoda in a manner that didn't guarantee his death? What, he's going to say "Full power of the Dark Side!" and zap Yoda with a non-lethal charge and hope the wall splats him? Oops.
You mean the target that was reducing the rebel fleet to atoms? You mean the possessive asshole that killed his own wife an turned on every single person he knew and loved? Yeah why would Sidious think that Anakin would be OK with that?The fact that his plan to lure the rebels with a decoy plan that involved the REAL target was fucking retarded?Wow. Please provide evidence for this.
That he actually expected a possessive asshole like Vader who just spent the entire movie and the last trying to get Luke to join him would sit by and watch his only son get deep fried?
What? Yoda never came half as close to beating Palpatine as Mace did. You are a retard.See above. Moreover, Yoda was a fight. Windu was an execution.Yet he doesn't with Yoda?
No, he cried like a baby. So what? If I had my hand cut off I'd probably cry like a baby too.Havok wrote:Or like a man that just had his hand severed. Really? Are you really going to start with the 'pussy' talk? I bet all those soldiers that got shot in WWII were just being babies too huh? Sorry we aren't all as tough as you.
A gratuitous display of power.You mean the target that was reducing the rebel fleet to atoms?
Because one was done in the spur of the moment which he's regretted for all these years ("NOoooooOOOoooOOOoo!" and all) and the other is him watching as Palpatine slowly kills his son right after declaring his intentions to discard Vader.You mean the possessive asshole that killed his own wife an turned on every single person he knew and loved? Yeah why would Sidious think that Anakin would be OK with that?
Are you dense? Windu's performance in the previous fight is completely irrelevant, at the moment he was killed he was disarmed, in agony and helpless.What? Yoda never came half as close to beating Palpatine as Mace did. You are a retard.
That Yoda was in a position to resist and Windu wasn't.And see above what? Yoda resisted what? Being slammed into the wall even harder?
