The power to cheat death...

Naja · Post by **Naja** » 2006-10-04 02:22am

Let's assume that Sidious wasn't bullshitting Anakin, and the ancient (and "selfish," as Qui-Gon's ghost called it) Sith technique of immortality was real. What would it be like? Would Sith immortality be something like Exar Kun's spirit bound to the Massassi temple, or just some lingering ghost like in Jedi Academy? Or would it be some unimagineably powerful incarnation that no one has thought of yet?

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2006-10-04 02:35am

I think immortality the way Palpatine described, was as a living being. When he is talking about Plageus he comments on how it was ironic that he could save others from death, but not himself.

Naja · Post by **Naja** » 2006-10-04 02:38am

This is unlikely, considering Lucas' child-like attention span, but what if the Sithian immortality turned out to be Palpatine's plan to absorb the universe into his ego?

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2006-10-04 02:53am

As far as I understand it Sith immortality comes by leaching life out of others. As such it is indeed very selffish as you are stealing life from others so that you can live.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2006-10-04 03:02am

Naja wrote:This is unlikely, considering Lucas' child-like attention span, but what if the Sithian immortality turned out to be Palpatine's plan to absorb the universe into his ego?

Well then good thing we are talking about the movie characters and not GL. So lets assume Palpatine wasn't bullshitting Anakin and... Palpatine straight up says "Ironic. He could save others from death… but not himself."

freker · Post by **freker** » 2006-10-04 08:07am

according to the EU (darksaber) palpatine could indeed transfer the mind of others (maybe also himself) to a new body, like a clone body

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-10-04 04:52pm

I'd say Palps wasn't "bullshiting" Anakin - after all, both of them died violent deaths, and Palpie lived an unnaturally long life with the Dark Side. So perhaps there's a Sith secret after all.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-10-04 06:42pm

83 years is an unnaturally long life?

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2006-10-04 06:48pm

For what reason should we use to assume that Darth Sidious was lying? All his other statements he made towards Anakin were never lies to begin with.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-10-04 07:02pm

000 wrote:83 years is an unnaturally long life?

Indeed, the vitality of characters like Pellaeon and the Skywalkers in old age suggest that medical advances or other factors in the SW universe allow the average human to live easily in excess of a century, perhaps even approaching one and a half. Palpatine's age was hardly abnormal, even if he didn't look as young as he actually was in the end. I don't think that the Sith's "life-extending" abilities, if they existed as Palpatine described, were ever actually demonstrated, aside from Palpatine's mind-transfer technique, which he actually stole from a Jedi master.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2006-10-04 10:13pm

Mace Windu was supposed to be nearly 200 years old. Mind you, If I'm remembering that right, it was from an RPG book so....

Wild Karrde · Post by **Wild Karrde** » 2006-10-04 11:39pm

000 wrote:83 years is an unnaturally long life?

I'm curious, where did that number come from?

GeneralTacticus · Post by **GeneralTacticus** » 2006-10-05 06:14am

Solauren wrote:Mace Windu was supposed to be nearly 200 years old. Mind you, If I'm remembering that right, it was from an RPG book so....

...the fuck? Shatterpoint puts him in 50s (he was on the Jedi Council before he was 30, and had been on the Council "more than two decades" by Geonosis), and the RotS novelisation says he was the youngest Jedi appointed to the Council before Anakin Skywalker.

When was that book published?

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-10-05 12:17pm

It wasn't.

As for Palpatine: Behind the Magic pegs his age as of RotJ at 86 (sorry, remembered wrong). Holonet News and, if I recall correctly, the New Essential Guide to Characters confirms it.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-10-05 12:32pm

As for Palpatine: Behind the Magic pegs his age as of RotJ at 86

Oh. I see.

Does anyone know if initially there was no "long-ages" in SW EU, and when precisely did the "even ordinary humans can live for hundreds of years" retcon happen, out-of-universe?

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-10-05 07:01pm

Stas Bush wrote:
As for Palpatine: Behind the Magic pegs his age as of RotJ at 86
Oh. I see.

Does anyone know if initially there was no "long-ages" in SW EU, and when precisely did the "even ordinary humans can live for hundreds of years" retcon happen, out-of-universe?

Me, I always figured as a kid that Yoda was what a human Jedi Master would look like after nearly a millenium...

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-10-05 07:33pm

Stas Bush wrote:
As for Palpatine: Behind the Magic pegs his age as of RotJ at 86
Oh. I see.

Does anyone know if initially there was no "long-ages" in SW EU, and when precisely did the "even ordinary humans can live for hundreds of years" retcon happen, out-of-universe?

I really don't think there is any way to truly gauge whether or not long lifespans were part of the original concept; it's hardly a key plot point, and something you could only discern if C-3PO spouted out a bit of random trivia on it for some reason, which, to my knowledge, never happened. All the movies tell us is that humans age at a seemingly standard rate into middle age.

As for the retecon, if there ever was one, I suspect it occured when post-ROTJ EU writers realized just how far from the original films they were getting, chronologically or otherwise. Of course, they couldn't stop relying so heavily on Luke, Han, and the rest, so they simply started inserting references to longer lifespans. Considering the medical technology of the SW universe, hundred-year average lifetimes aren't really that far-fetched, anyways; after all, even modern medical scientists are toying with the idea of virtual immortality at some point in the future.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2006-10-09 11:47am

I prefer to think that there never was such a person as "Darth Plagueis the Wise" and Palpatine WAS bullshitting Anakin the whole time.

Much simpler explanation.

Palpy is a good liar, it's not like they can even sense his power most of the time, much less perform a virtual lie detector test on him through the Force.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-10-09 11:56am

Isolder74 wrote:As far as I understand it Sith immortality comes by leaching life out of others. As such it is indeed very selffish as you are stealing life from others so that you can live.

It would be ironic that Palpy ended up stumped at how to do this whereas Anakin was unconsciously doing this during his post-Mustafar surgery. Remember the Anakin sucking the life out of Padme theory to explain her unnatural death?

Molyneux wrote:Me, I always figured as a kid that Yoda was what a human Jedi Master would look like after nearly a millenium...

That would've been...awesome!

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-10-09 03:45pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:
Isolder74 wrote:As far as I understand it Sith immortality comes by leaching life out of others. As such it is indeed very selffish as you are stealing life from others so that you can live.
It would be ironic that Palpy ended up stumped at how to do this whereas Anakin was unconsciously doing this during his post-Mustafar surgery. Remember the Anakin sucking the life out of Padme theory to explain her unnatural death?

Molyneux wrote:Me, I always figured as a kid that Yoda was what a human Jedi Master would look like after nearly a millenium...
That would've been...awesome!

Well, he does say as much - "When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not, hmm?" - and he's never explicitly stated as NOT being human.

As a kid, I really had no sense of sarcasm whatsoever.

LaserRifleofDoom · Post by **LaserRifleofDoom** » 2006-10-09 06:49pm

And part of it is the "900 years old" quote. Yoda couldn't have been entirely sarcastic when he joked about Luke getting really old and crusty-looking.

It is definately safe to assume that Force-assisted aging can only account for part of that.

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2006-10-09 07:51pm

LaserRifleofDoom wrote:It is definately safe to assume that Force-assisted aging can only account for part of that.

... or that Yoda's species typically have lifespans that consists of hundreds of years.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2006-10-10 09:32am

Palpatine said that Plaguis had developed the ability to keep other people from dying. Presumably he needed to do something to them at or shortly after the moment of death to restore them, and he wasn't able to do that to himself.

We know that Yoda lived an extraordinarily long life, but I don't know if that's normal for his species or not.

We know that Obi-Wan and some other Jedi were able to manifest themselves as ghosts after they died.

There are several variations on the ability to use the Force to "cheat death", but none of them constitute real immortality (at least in the movies).

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-10-11 12:29am

I think it would be safe to assume Palpy has some sort of life giving/draining powers or atleast can extend life. Plageus may have been on to something bigger, but not quite at 'immortality' yet.

But the cosmic joke is that hte Jedi got immortality, atleast Obi, Gin, Yoda and Anakin. They got to keep their identidy but loose their coporeal bodies. Palpy just extended his life but missed all the bennifits of being a Force ghost.

As a side note; if Palpy did indeed have a power to extend life or take life from one thing and put it in another, wouldn't this go a long way to explain the actual death of Padme?

If Palpy had the 'Force drain life' power on and simply reached out to a great connection to Anakin, couldn't he have been the one to drain Padme to save his apprentice via a Force connection between the husband and wife? It never made much sense to me that Anakin would some how instinctively suck his wife dry to save himself. But Palpy was the Master and supposedly had drain/extend life skills....and Padme was a political enemy and a good leverage point with his new apprentice.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-10-11 12:47am

A brief list of Sith Lords and Dark Jedi who staved off corporeal death:

Arden Lyn: was able to stay alive and undamage in a stasis for 25 millennia
Darth Andeddu: was able to posess and animate his corpse
Exar Kun: was able to keep his spirit sane and able to manipulate the physical world without tying it to a particular spot
The Dark Underlord: was rumored to have been some sort of undead spirit
Darth Sion: was able to keep his destroyed body from decaying
Darth Nihilus: was able to tie his spirit to his armor in some fashion
Darth Plagueis: unknown; rumored to have been able to be truly immortal
Darth Sidious: was able to transfer his spirit to clone bodies
Darth Krayt: was able lengthen his life (if Human) via periods of stasis and some sort of symbiosis with Vong-designed armor

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The power to cheat death...

The power to cheat death...

Fuck the EU