Mace Windu's power

[Spartan]

However we want to think EU Palps is wank...unless we have proof that he used temple or oblesiks on the Eciplise. This is just poor logic.

Seriously they made him have the power, made not one word of any funky doodads helping him(notice they do for every other Sith lord?).

So unless you have proof, the burden is upon you to show even a single piece of dialogue that he has ever mentioned needing said power conduits.

Actually I don't think its wanking. I like the Idea of Palps being able to call up that kind of power. Him doing it all by himself and unassisted...so much.

You realize that not all of the sith power-ups, are barn sized. Note the "crystals" .

How do we know that he wasn't sporting a fetching jewel broach, of strange and wonderous power under his robe. Not that any fanboy should concern himself with what's under the Emperor's robe... ur ...anyway

Seriously, though GR he never ever displayed that level of power before, not even in his original death-explosion thing. My point was that its very unliky that he himself generates that kind of power.

Even if we nix the sith artifact angle (yes, its speculation, but plausible); there is still the fact that he is a lifeforce vampire, he is using poer that is not coming from him to complete those feats.

Remember the Eclipse and surrounding fleet had thousands of crewman's souls that he could have been tapping into. No way is it and cut and dry.

If I recall correctly weren't those force storms, speculated to be 1E28 range? That's allot of power if he can do it unassisted. Makes it rather strange that he just didn't raze the Jedi temple to the ground ages ago...through a hyperspace worm hole, from somewhere nice and sunny.

[18-Till-I-Die]

No it doesnt. Obliterating teh Jedi temple would get rid of his competition but not make him Emperor, his way he gets both done without lifting nary a finger.

[18-Till-I-Die]

OTOH, I think you have a point about the lifeforce vampire thing. He could've been feeding off Byss or his own fleet and crew for that matter. The only problem is, weather it sounds good or not, and it does, just like the Eclipse is a Dark Force relic idea there simply isnt any evidence or credible evidence of it.

[Ghost Rider]

However we want to think EU Palps is wank...unless we have proof that he used temple or oblesiks on the Eciplise. This is just poor logic.

Seriously they made him have the power, made not one word of any funky doodads helping him(notice they do for every other Sith lord?).

So unless you have proof, the burden is upon you to show even a single piece of dialogue that he has ever mentioned needing said power conduits.

Actually I don't think its wanking. I like the Idea of Palps being able to call up that kind of power. Him doing it all by himself and unassisted...so much.

You realize that not all of the sith power-ups, are barn sized. Note the "crystals" .

How do we know that he wasn't sporting a fetching jewel broach, of strange and wonderous power under his robe. Not that any fanboy should concern himself with what's under the Emperor's robe... ur ...anyway

Seriously, though GR he never ever displayed that level of power before, not even in his original death-explosion thing. My point was that its very unliky that he himself generates that kind of power.

Even if we nix the sith artifact angle (yes, its speculation, but plausible); there is still the fact that he is a lifeforce vampire, he is using poer that is not coming from him to complete those feats.

Remember the Eclipse and surrounding fleet had thousands of crewman's souls that he could have been tapping into. No way is it and cut and dry.

If I recall correctly weren't those force storms, speculated to be 1E28 range? That's allot of power if he can do it unassisted. Makes it rather strange that he just didn't raze the Jedi temple to the ground ages ago...through a hyperspace worm hole, from somewhere nice and sunny.

Also notice it's said that he Learned these techniques while he rested and recovered on Byss as well?

So unless we can see RoTJ Palps and DE Palps are of the EXACT same power and experience...why is the need to go into something that is pulled out of thin air, given not once does he, nor any anything given about him using any sort of conduit.

And the energy he takes from them is to power himself at a bare minimal level, in fact it's said they never notice the loss. Plus this then goes into the insanity that of near Matrix level.

So he's taking energy from people to accomplish feats to destroy Cap ships.

Funky how they only shut him from his rage and he lost control, and not have any saying about shutting him from any source of power.

This would be no different if I said he controls Vader because he has implants throughout the man's armor to shut down his breathing capablities.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

And the energy he takes from them is to power himself at a bare minimal level, in fact it's said they never notice the loss. Plus this then goes into the insanity that of near Matrix level.

They never notice the loss because they never use the power and never feel it. That is not the same as it being insignificant as far as Palpy is concerned. Under optimum inductive conditions, if you believe the RPG, he can get up to a 4D+2 skill increase to all his Force rolls, which means a total of 14D of increase (4D*3=12D; 3 pips is considered to roughly equate to 1D so 2pips*3 = 2D and 12+2=14D).

14D of total skill difference ain't nothing. IIRC It is most of the difference between a just-starting-out Knight (17D) and a Master (36D), and instantly elevates a beginner Master (36D) to Jedi Council (45D), and Palpy is already insanely strong (equivalent of 48D total). Add all those 14D and he's some 62D, way above any Jedi Council Member.

Funky how they only shut him from his rage and he lost control, and not have any saying about shutting him from any source of power.

By shutting off him from his rage, the man only loses ... oh, his whole guidance/inductive system for his Force usage. No wonder the man loses control.

Could he make a Force storm without? The listed difficulties imply he can, but they are all Heroic difficulties, and one failure (you have to make a Heroic roll every round you maintain it) means you get swallowed. So of course he wants more "dice" (reserve power in real terms) to reduce that chance.

[Ghost Rider]

Ummm...using stats?

Isn't this just a wee bit reaching given what the heck do we begin to quantify with them.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Ummm...using stats?

Isn't this just a wee bit reaching given what the heck do we begin to quantify with them.

It is also the very absence of stats listed for the harm done to the "victims" that allow us to presume the damage done to them is no worse than a mosquito bite.

The Force Skill description, sadly, is the closest thing we got that begins to quantify the effects to the User (substantial) and the Victim (none that registers on the game scale).

[Kane Starkiller]

Vader is at least as powerful as Yoda. He has definetly demonstrated abilites surpasing Mace or Dooku.

When?

Dooku- Force lightning. Shifted large mass of rock to cause Yoda to have to stop the fight and save Obi and Anakin from getting squashed.

Mace- Lack of evidence of him doing much of anything besides jumping around, really.

Vader- Force choke. Tossed some debris. Blamed the Force for his inability to hit a target flying straight and level, rather than the three sixpacks he'd downed that evening a preemptive 'Farewell to the Rebellion' party.

First of all Mace
combat with a non force user:
1.deflect incoming blaster bolts with a lightsaber
2.run towards the attacker
3.slice of his hand
4.slice of his head with a mean looking expresion on your face

Vaders combat with a non force user:
1.deflect incoming blaster bolts using your hands
2.pull the blaster from enemy hands using force
3.cordially invite the enemy to join you for dinner

Winner: Vader

Secondly Dooku
First I will discuss the force lightning. I don't know why everybody assumes that the lighting created by Dooku is of the same strength as that of Sidious. Every other force ability has "levels" of power and lightning should be no exception.Not to mention that Dooku was warding off Anakins attack while Sidious was fighting like a cornered animal. Secondly the ability to use lightning doesn't automaticaly mean that you excell in every aspect of the force over someone who can't use it.

Now let's compare Dooku and Vader throwing things.
Dooku threw two pieces of machinery by pulling it out of the cave walls and throwing it towards Yoda. Then he used the force to pull pieces of rock from the cave. Every time he had to use his ful concentration, he would look towards the object, extend a hand and then point a hand towards Yoda.
Vader would stand in the room and pieces of machinery would get simultaneously ripped from the wall, and sent flying towards young Luke. Also there were some boxes also getting thrown around. Vader also engages in saber fight with Luke and STILL continues to throw things at Luke. He never has to look at the object or point hands at it to throw it.

Not to mention that Dooku wanted Yoda dead and is using all of his power while Vader was merley playing with Luke.

Also let us not forget that Vader is the ONLY individual who demonstrated using the Force on someone/something who is not in the same room with him and not in direct line of sight. He choked Ozzel and while he was doing that he camly gave Piett new orders and a promotion.

[Spartan]

And the energy he takes from them is to power himself at a bare minimal level, in fact it's said they never notice the loss. Plus this then goes into the insanity that of near Matrix level.

GR, come on were not talking about three or for people here, we’re talking about billions. There is no reason for him to bleed each person dry. For all we know having your soul leached might even be a pleasant experience. Honestly if you had your soul leached and the symptoms were similar to say the flu; the average citizen is going to mot even consider the former possibility.


A Sith's rage is what lets them focus their power. Just because the Skywalker twins block his rage in know way proves that he wasn't drawing that energy from a source from outside himself. Since we know he can open hyperspace wormholes, he could have been drawing on any number of sources including Byss.

Also notice it's said that he Learned these techniques while he rested and recovered on Byss as well?

So unless we can see RoTJ Palps and DE Palps are of the EXACT same power and experience...why is the need to go into something that is pulled out of thin air, given not once does he, nor any anything given about him using any sort of conduit.

That was the point I was trying to make actually. He was clearly not that powerful during the time of the films. Had he been there would have been no need to go through all the hoops and convoluted plans, he did. Assuming we want to stay with Suspension of Belief, and not make him a moron.

The point is, there are ways to allow him to do the things he does in DE, without him being vastly superior to: Yoda, Anakin, or Luke. Its significant that the force vampire angle was brought up at all in the DE source book, but not in the DE series itself. Clearly that information was included to justify the thing seen in the comics.

Now I love DE, well except for Empires End...and the endless super weapons. But every force capable character in that series was Uber. Even the to kids Luke picked on Ossus. With at most a couple days training, their capable of taking on; and winning against Dark Jedi , that were trained by Palpy over a period of years. Hell, the girl even ghosted out and disappeared when she died.

[Petrosjko]

First, I'll pass on Mace because beyond Geonosis we have little quantification of his 'heavy lifting' abilities, as it were.

Secondly Dooku
First I will discuss the force lightning. I don't know why everybody assumes that the lighting created by Dooku is of the same strength as that of Sidious. Every other force ability has "levels" of power and lightning should be no exception.Not to mention that Dooku was warding off Anakins attack while Sidious was fighting like a cornered animal. Secondly the ability to use lightning doesn't automaticaly mean that you excell in every aspect of the force over someone who can't use it.

First of all, I never have assumed that Dooku's force lightning is as powerful as Palpy's. We have no evidence by which to quantify if his lightning is weaker or even possibly stronger than Palpy's. Nor can we even say if there are 'levels' of power for Force lightning. Simply no evidence to work with.

Furthermore, granted that the usage of Force lightning is not necessarily an indication of superior power. However, it does indicate either a talent or degree of mastery that Vader did not demonstrate.

Now let's compare Dooku and Vader throwing things.
Dooku threw two pieces of machinery by pulling it out of the cave walls and throwing it towards Yoda. Then he used the force to pull pieces of rock from the cave. Every time he had to use his ful concentration, he would look towards the object, extend a hand and then point a hand towards Yoda.
Vader would stand in the room and pieces of machinery would get simultaneously ripped from the wall, and sent flying towards young Luke. Also there were some boxes also getting thrown around. Vader also engages in saber fight with Luke and STILL continues to throw things at Luke. He never has to look at the object or point hands at it to throw it.

Not to mention that Dooku wanted Yoda dead and is using all of his power while Vader was merley playing with Luke.

Two very different fights, however. Dooku was facing the leader of the Jedi Council, a wise and incredibly experienced Jedi Master who also happened to be his former teacher. Take the notion that duels between Masters include an incredible amount of unseen Force dueling, and one can easily see why Dooku would have to actually put full concentration into doing his TK work, whereas Vader could simply toy with Luke.

Also let us not forget that Vader is the ONLY individual who demonstrated using the Force on someone/something who is not in the same room with him and not in direct line of sight. He choked Ozzel and while he was doing that he camly gave Piett new orders and a promotion.

Something that neither Palpy, Yoda, Luke, or young Anakin did either. Do we take this as evidence of his greater power than all theirs?

Of course, if we dive into the EU this gets even messier because then we have Corran Horn soaking up immense amounts of energy, Force storms from the Emperor, Mace's ability to determine 'shatterpoints', etc., etc.

[Ghost Rider]

And the energy he takes from them is to power himself at a bare minimal level, in fact it's said they never notice the loss. Plus this then goes into the insanity that of near Matrix level.

GR, come on were not talking about three or for people here, we’re talking about billions. There is no reason for him to bleed each person dry. For all we know having your soul leached might even be a pleasant experience. Honestly if you had your soul leached and the symptoms were similar to say the flu; the average citizen is going to mot even consider the former possibility.


A Sith's rage is what lets them focus their power. Just because the Skywalker twins block his rage in know way proves that he wasn't drawing that energy from a source from outside himself. Since we know he can open hyperspace wormholes, he could have been drawing on any number of sources including Byss.

And what I am saying is you want to pigeon hole this by going "C'mon it looks good"

Provide something beyond your viewing of writer's intent.

Also notice it's said that he Learned these techniques while he rested and recovered on Byss as well?

So unless we can see RoTJ Palps and DE Palps are of the EXACT same power and experience...why is the need to go into something that is pulled out of thin air, given not once does he, nor any anything given about him using any sort of conduit.

That was the point I was trying to make actually. He was clearly not that powerful during the time of the films. Had he been there would have been no need to go through all the hoops and convoluted plans, he did. Assuming we want to stay with Suspension of Belief, and not make him a moron.

The point is, there are ways to allow him to do the things he does in DE, without him being vastly superior to: Yoda, Anakin, or Luke. Its significant that the force vampire angle was brought up at all in the DE source book, but not in the DE series itself. Clearly that information was included to justify the thing seen in the comics.

Now I love DE, well except for Empires End...and the endless super weapons. But every force capable character in that series was Uber. Even the to kids Luke picked on Ossus. With at most a couple days training, their capable of taking on; and winning against Dark Jedi , that were trained by Palpy over a period of years. Hell, the girl even ghosted out and disappeared when she died.

So we are to discount he had time to train and can do such, but it's okay to go "It's obvious it was Force vampirism?"

Once again, it's stifling to go "It's all because of this one thing" when it's shown that there was more then that. This is why I dislike the notion that he has hidden nodes or he gathered energy, but was storing it like a woodchuck.

If so, why didn't he display immense power in the OT? He had Coruscant for what 30 years? He had Byss for what...even according to the EU less time, around 15 years.

He nor is it ever mentioned even in passing reference of some device to personally fuel his power. Hell given the visual medium we deal in, you're going to say that they could not have shown ONE picture of him even implying of some device to do such?

This is just going "He might have" with nothing more then maybes to go 'The Eu really didn't mean for him to be that powerful" which is bullshit assertion of dechiphering writer's intent.

[Spartan]

So we are to discount he had time to train and can do such, but it's okay to go "It's obvious it was Force vampirism?"

Not at all, it could easily have been a combination of both. You may be right about the training aspect he didn't have access to the knowledge he acquired from the Jedi holocrons he acquired after the Purge. Which led him to the knowledge of how to drain sentient life forces for his own personal use.

He is not the first to do so; look at Exar Kun, and the Massi (spelling?). Kun siphoned off all the life-force of the Massi to beat off that Jedi attack, using technology no less. Palpatine like his technology mixed with his Darkside sorcery; he use both interchangeably in DE.

Once again, it's stifling to go "It's all because of this one thing" when it's shown that there was more then that. This is why I dislike the notion that he has hidden nodes or he gathered energy, but was storing it like a woodchuck.

Your discounting that every other comparable exhibition of Sith power, was assisted by artifacts or other boosting methods that. Exar Kun, Naga Shadow, nearly the entirety of the dark lords; they all sported 'blessed' trinkets and talismans. Look at the OT VD, Palpy did where a broach with his cloak.

He doesn't have to be storing it, he could just be actively leaching off of people when he's exhibiting these powers.


That said it comes down to this:

1. Palpatine never exhibited such power prior to pre-DE.
2. We have the explicit statement that he, was absorbing the life energy from a planet with a population in the billions.
3. Sith and Jedi are known to on occasion to use artifacts and technology to artificially boost their abilities.

Now either:

A. He was always this powerful and simply did not know it.

or

B. He learned a new trick that allowed him manipulate vastly more power than he himself was capable of.

Or

C. Some combination of the above.

If so, why didn't he display immense power in the OT? He had Coruscant for what 30 years? He had Byss for what...even according to the EU less time, around 15 years.

Yes, but when he was on Byss, he wasn't running a Galaxy. He spent nearly nine years recovering from his "death" in ROTJ. Doubtless he had the time on his hands to study. In DE wer'e told that the Byss Citadel is dedicated to the study of darkside lore from around the Galaxy not just Sith and Jedi knowledge.

Remember tha Byss, was 'one' of his retreats. I doubt he spent much time there, except when changing clone bodies, during the OT; and I'd wager he had some clones available to him on Courscant as well.

He nor is it ever mentioned even in passing reference of some device to personally fuel his power. Hell given the visual medium we deal in, you're going to say that they could not have shown ONE picture of him even implying of some device to do such?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Its not necessary for me to proof that he did boost his powers with a handy artifact. I only need to prove that it is possible to do so. Said artifacts do exist, and Palpatine did have access to them. We may even see something similar in ROTS, at least according the spoilers I've seen posted.

This is just going "He might have" with nothing more then maybes to go 'The Eu really didn't mean for him to be that powerful" which is bullshit assertion of deciphering writer's intent.

Not so. I simply take issue with people tossing about the 'Force Storms' as an indicator of Palpatine’s power level, without qualifications.

And what I am saying is you want to pigeon hole this by going "C'mon it looks good"

Provide something beyond your viewing of writer's intent.

Sometimes what looks good is also what, fits the known facts. The writer’s intent is not necessary to my argument; is plenty of evidence for Force users boosting their powers beyond the norm.

[PainRack]

Speaking of "blessed artifacts", it should be noted that the Decipher Card Game and etc does play upon this angle, what with the Obiwan, Palpatine and Vader "artifacts" cards as well as the of course, Glove of Darth Vader series./

[Spartan]

Speaking of "blessed artifacts", it should be noted that the Decipher Card Game and etc does play upon this angle, what with the Obiwan, Palpatine and Vader "artifacts" cards as well as the of course, Glove of Darth Vader series./

Wasn't there also a storyline about Kenobi's lightsabre as well? And lets not forget the 'Uber' crystal from Splinter in the Mind's Eye. Also the dessicated corpse and musoleums that Dark Lords have left strewn about the Galaxy; for any angst ridden teen to trip over.

[Kurgan]

Anakin was an only child, born of immaculate conception.

Nitpick: proper term would be "virgin birth."

Unless you want to argue that Anakin was born without original sin.

[PainRack]

Speaking of "blessed artifacts", it should be noted that the Decipher Card Game and etc does play upon this angle, what with the Obiwan, Palpatine and Vader "artifacts" cards as well as the of course, Glove of Darth Vader series./

Wasn't there also a storyline about Kenobi's lightsabre as well? And lets not forget the 'Uber' crystal from Splinter in the Mind's Eye. Also the dessicated corpse and musoleums that Dark Lords have left strewn about the Galaxy; for any angst ridden teen to trip over.

Yup. Not to mention the Emperor also collected Anakin orginal lightsabre after Luke lost it and there are multiple Tales/comic storylines about collecting Jedi artifacts, like the amulet Corran Horn found and of course, the Holocron.