Palpatine's huge invisible army of Dark Jedi

[Kurgan]

Why would the 'born force sensitives' have a greater chance of survival before they had any training? Luke didn't seem to have any special powers before he met Ben Kenobi, and Leia as well until the end of ROTJ.

Yes, I realize Anakin seemed to be special, but he was "the Chosen One" an amazingly powerful one, and could be an exception. The son and daughter of the Chosen One don't seem to be so gifted...

Well, as I remember the RoTJ novelisation describes Leia as being a better pilot at 300 mph than the scout troopers because of the talent in the family.
Sensing the danger a few moment earlier can help a lot to survive a war as a civilian in my opinion.
However as I did not counted it as a factor it does not affect that guess.

Fair enough point (though Leia in this case is a soldier, thus having fighting instincts, but still). This might just be a Skywalker thing too maybe. Perhaps they have "so many" midichlorians that they just have that extra edge, even without trying.

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I'm fighting two notions here... one, that force sensitives would be immediately detected by the authorities, and two, that they would have built in defenses to hold their own above mere mortals, simply by virtue of being born force sensitives.

I think it's more likely that many of these natural force sensitives could have lived their lives without knowing their potential or been killed off before they could realize it, and the ones who do become Jedi were simply lucky, especially in the pre/post-Republic years.

They do have built in defenses to hold their own above mere mortals, simply being force sensitive enhances all the natural senses plus adds several others to result in an individual having an uncanny aptitude at surviving specifically and a seeming natural aptitude for a wide variety of tasks. The enhanced senses would be unconcious abilities that are just always there, their bodies are naturally receptive to the force even if they are not actively trying to be.

There comes a point though, where I think a force user becomes aware of what they can do and starts actively using force powers creating a presence in the force far more noticeable to other force users. They become switched on in a manner of speaking and instead of just receiving more and stronger sensory information through the force, they start reaching out into the force to try and conciously gather more information and manipulate their surroundings. There are descriptions of force users drawing on the force for power which suggests that the active use of force power creates effects in that can be detected by other force users.

If you don't use any active powers at all, which after you become accustomed to a certain amount of awareness of what's around you, may be very difficult, then force sensitives could very well be able to be completely unnoticed by other force users regardless of talent potential. This line of thought makes me believe that Palpatine didn't really do anything that requires any special abilities, just incredible discipline. He just didn't conciously use the force and put himself at the mercy of his mortal senses and the extra information being fed to him through them and the force at the unconcious level.