River Tam vs. Darth Vader.

[The Romulan Republic]

Inspired by a weird dream I had last night. Immediately post-Serenity River, Rebels/Rogue One Vader. I figure that this puts both combatants at the height of their powers and abilities, with River being a bit more stable.

Scenario One: River vs. Vader, with standard weapons (light saber for Vader, sword and pistol for River), in a room full of Ysalamiri (hence Vader cannot use the Force).

Scenario Two: River and Vader, full powers, both armed with light sabers.

Vader's goal is to capture River to interrogate her, and subject her psychic powers to Imperial experiments. Failing that, kill her.

River's goal is to defeat Vader, or failing that, delay him while Serenity's crew runs like hell. For added motivation, and to ensure that she'll be motivated to actually use her abilities effectively against Vader, Vader just stabbed/Force choked Simon.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Or Kaylee. Or Mal. Or, even Jayne. Post-Serenity River is also more stable than Firefly River.

That little girl's beating up the burly Sith Lord. Oh, the con-tooosions. Mister Universe would have a catharsis.

[The Romulan Republic]

Or Kaylee. Or Mal. Or, even Jayne. Post-Serenity River is also more stable than Firefly River.

Yeah, pretty much.

That little girl's beating up the burly Sith Lord. Oh, the con-tooosions. Mister Universe would have a catharsis.

??

But my honest estimate would be-

Pure sword fight, no TK, River probably wins. I'd reckon she's as fast and skilled with a blade as Vader, at least.

Bring TK into it, though, and her only chance is that Vader holds off from using it immediately to fight her sword to sword, or that she can close very rapidly and keep him too busy defending against her attacks to focus on TK-ing her (ie, the Grievous approach to fighting Force-users). And even that would be a hell of a long shot, and probably only buy a little time before Vader defeats her.

So for the first scenario, she can take him, unless her weapons can't penetrate his armor effectively. Second scenario, she probably loses pretty fast, but might be able to slow him down if he opts for a sword duel or they're fighting in very close quarters.

Edit: Although I will concede that in even a pure sword duel, Vader has a formidable edge in size and reach that might prove decisive.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I was paraphrasing Mister Universe's take on River's, fight in the Maidenhead, from the Serenity novelization.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ah, okay. I've never read the novelization.

Is it any good?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Enough so for my copy to be ragged and dog-eared. di Candido not only captured the characters beautifully, but provided the little details that end up on the cutting room floor with movies.

What boggles my mind is Wheddon did such a good job on the movie with only a $50 million budget.

But, returning to vector, you make excellent points. The only way Vader doesn't use his, full Force abilities is if River's talent forces the roots of his fall to the dark side to the fore, and he empathizes with her own tortured past.

Then it's likely Vader and the Serenity crew will go gunning for Obi-Wan and Yoda, especially if Mal takes a strong dislike to the dhitty way the Order treated Anakin, and pushed him into Palpatine's arms.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yoda and Obi-wan made mistakes, but I can't see Mal taking Vader's part against them, even considering his dislike of holy men.

Honestly, Obi-wan is a Sheppard Book type character. Yoda even more so.

As to turning Vader... I don't know, I think the only people who could get through to him at that point are his children (and Leia probably wouldn't have tried), and maaaybe Ashoka if she had played their encounter differently (she didn't really accept that it WAS Anakin at first).

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Leia wouldn't have tried. In fact, in the Legends Canon, she never forgave Anakin, and it took Jacen's fall and death for her to try and understand him.

[The Romulan Republic]

Leia wouldn't have tried. In fact, in the Legends Canon, she never forgave Anakin, and it took Jacen's fall and death for her to try and understand him.

Which makes me very curious as to what Leia's feelings towards her father are in the current canon, given Kylo.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Likely even more negatively disposed toward Anakin. Shame we'll never know for sure.

[Shroom Man 777]

If she gets close in, she MIGHT have a chance. Kylo has ungodly people-freezing blaster-stopping TK and mind-abilities but those Guards were still able to close in, since they were numerous and well-trained and possibly enhanced or something. If she's smart and Batmans it, she could fare alright. I mean, everyone and his mom's cousin's dog's vet's manicurist's grandpa's therapist's nephew's PE teacher's taxi driver's milkman's mechanic's dentist's obstetrician's flatmate's etc. has been able to barely fend off Vader, MAYBE inflict some damage to his hardware or crack his mask, in epic confrontations and possibly even survive. I'm sure everyone in Mos Eisley's got a story of narrowly escaping Vader, having to crash a whole station or starscraper on him, blah blah blah. Everyone on Tattooine. I'm sure even Bessie the Bantha's had one too, a lucky escape thanks to her cowbell and the creative last-minute use of a blue milk sucker and reversing the quantum flux polarity of a moisture-vaporator.

If she finds DASH RENDAR's shoulder pads somewhere in the fighting area, then I say she takes it. She tosses Dash Rendar's shoulder pad at Vader, at first it fails, but she might use the distraction to hit him and then the next shoulder pad works and gets Vader. There'll be a bit of a struggle as the shoulder pad shakes a bit, but eventually DING Vader's now in the shoulder pad, IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE, he's fully contained, and River gets a new entry in her Sithodex.

Maybe a midichlorianstone or midiberry or holocrondy or TMidichlorian-345 can help Vader evolve or learn new powers like Sith Lightning.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yup, she has to close fast, preferably with surprise on her side. Basically the Grievous approach. Though she's still at a disadvantage due to Vader's greater size/reach with a blade, and the fact that he will be much harder to intimidate than the Jedi Grievous often went up against.

[TheFeniX]

In scenario 2, River gets WTFPWNED by Vader. At this point in his life, the guy has fought everything from Dark Lords to Battle Droids.

In scenario 1, it depends on how tough Vader's suit is: is it capable of deflecting blaster bolts or was that Vader? And how "naturally" tough are Jedi? How much conscious use of the force do they need to survive what they survive? Obi-Wan had an entire platform dragged onto him, while unconscious, and was no worse for the wear. In the presence of Ysalimari, would that have killed him/crushed his lower body? Would Jango Fett's helmeted headbutt have split his face open? Would Grievous' kick had knocked a hole in his chest?

I don't know. But Lucas, way back, has talked about the basis for the Jedi which leads me to mostly consider them akin to Physical Adepts from Shadowrun: warrior monks who just do things we can't. SR has magical background counts. These make it harder to cast a spell like "Improve Body Attribute." (this would increase the resistance you have to damage). But it does nothing to impede a physical adept who has purchased the Improved Body Attribute power since it's part of who he is now.

EDIT: I should add, based on my reading, there IS NO way to impede a Physical Adepts powers without permanently damaging their ability to use magic or incapacitating them (drugs, limb loss, damage). There are multiple ways to impede Sorcery based (DnD type wizard stuff) magical use.

Do force users channel some of that force inward? I mean, it sounds lame, but that's the gist of what I got from some of those old Lucas interviews.

Moving on: The grievous approach worked for a few reasons. The Jedi at that time was mostly set in their ways and hadn't dealt with someone capable of meeting them head on with both a lightsaber and not being force-sensitive. Up to that point, I think only your heavy-hitters: Anakin, Kenobi, Yoda, etc had even SEEN, much less fought, a Sith. And they were hurting for troops either way. Seems to be an opposite SWTOR type-deal: they were willing to train about anyone who fit the criteria (young enough) and didn't seem to wash many Jedi out. They also seemed incredibly lax in their control over their "troops."

There seemed to mostly "Jedi fodder," and few competents, and the badasses. And Grievous killed a bunch of Jedi fodder. I mean, I still think it's dumb how far he got, but whatever, make Jedi act like Horror Movie Teens that just had unprotected sex and their flashlight just went out, all to make your new badguy look cooler. And all their precog counted for shit because.....? And really, Grievous did most his work against nameless terrified, outnumbered, and beatdown Jedi who were probably not anywhere near worth the title of Knight.

His cybernetics also allowed him inhuman speed and being capable of dodging whatever you call those "TK Blasts" that Jedi do because Lighting be Evil.™

Faced with someone like Vader? Here's what happens to Grievous (and likely River):


And even though he's not built for speed like Grievous: Vader without the Force is still a seasoned badass with tons of Star Wars grade cybernetics and a lightsaber.

[The Romulan Republic]

Reg. the question of the suit, I always believed that Vader had reflected Han's blaster shots with the Force in ESB, although the suit may very well be blaster-proof regardless. In the duel with Luke in ESB, it seems at least slightly lightsaber-resistant (obviously not completely, given that Luke severs his hand in their subsequent duel in RotJ). Luke lands a glancing blow on Vader's shoulder during the last part of the duel, which seems to piss off Vader more than injury him (that blow on an unarmored opponent would likely be crippling, I'd think).

[TheFeniX]

I thought I read in some fluff that Star Wars personal armor had "lost" the arms race with the energy output of portable blasters. Basically, armor is mostly useless against blasters, but said armor is also near impervious to slugthrowers and most blunt and stabbing weapons. So, I don't recall Firefly guns being much different than modern tech. Wasn't Tam's a Desert Eagle .50 with some prop-bullshit thrown on it?

That's a hand cannon, but we make vests right now that can at least hold up to it, maybe with the person behind the vest being wrecked. I assume Star Wars armor, outside the joints but maybe even the joints, would put up a much better showing. This is if Vader's suit is actually armored at all. It might not be except the shoulder cups. River is also a superhuman marksman, so she could aim for the eyes and without the Force, I don't know how effectively a Force User can deflect with a lightsaber.

If she ditches the gun in favor of going up against Vader with a knife and him holding a lightsaber, I don't see that ending well. She's great at Hollywood-Fu, but her performance in Firefly was mostly her slowly spinning in circles owning a bunch of "This is the part where you fall down" extras in shitty makeup. She's superhuman in that she probably weighs a buck (100lbs) soaking wet and can still toss guys around as if she were a Pro-linebacker.

[The Romulan Republic]

I thought I read in some fluff that Star Wars personal armor had "lost" the arms race with the energy output of portable blasters. Basically, armor is mostly useless against blasters, but said armor is also near impervious to slugthrowers and most blunt and stabbing weapons. So, I don't recall Firefly guns being much different than modern tech. Wasn't Tam's a Desert Eagle .50 with some prop-bullshit thrown on it?

Not sure. So far as I can recall, the only time that she uses a gun is in the episode "War Stories", during the boarding of Niska's station, when she shoots a few of the station security (with her eyes closed). Her big fight scene against the Reavers in Serenity is all melee weaponry, I believe, as is her bar brawl earlier in the film.

That's a hand cannon, but we make vests right now that can at least hold up to it, maybe with the person behind the vest being wrecked. I assume Star Wars armor, outside the joints but maybe even the joints, would put up a much better showing. This is if Vader's suit is actually armored at all. It might not be except the shoulder cups. River is also a superhuman marksman, so she could aim for the eyes and without the Force, I don't know how effectively a Force User can deflect with a lightsaber.

Probably not very.

Yeah, aiming for the eyes might be a tricky shot for most people, but probably not for River.

If she ditches the gun in favor of going up against Vader with a knife and him holding a lightsaber, I don't see that ending well. She's great at Hollywood-Fu, but her performance in Firefly was mostly her slowly spinning in circles owning a bunch of "This is the part where you fall down" extras in shitty makeup. She's superhuman in that she probably weighs a buck (100lbs) soaking wet and can still toss guys around as if she were a Pro-linebacker.

Yeah. Scenario one, she wants to keep her distance and try to put a bullet or two through an eye, or a vital piece of machinery on the chest plate (or maybe the lightsaber hilt).

Scenario two, she wants to close as fast as possible and pray she gets very, very lucky.

Edit: Correction: she does draw a gun on Mal a couple times during Serenity, but they were stolen guns. I don't think she has a standard sidearm. But since the odds are high enough against her here, give her the heaviest handgun she could reasonably have access to (and Jayne probably has everything under his bunk).