precog vs. reaction time.

[His Divine Shadow]

It seems to me that jedi precog and superfast reaction times would create a really troubling situation.

Imagine that a culture drone is assigned to take out a jedi with a laser, the drone decides to attack, the jedi has already begun moving, the drone sees it's going to intercept his attack and compensates, but given that the jedi sees the future the jedi should actually be intercepting his corrected attack, but then the drone will have no problems of altering for said movement either, but if the jedi sees the future it will have seen this second alteration and will then from the beginning have moved to intercept this one, but the drone who is so fast will have no problems compensating but again if the jedi sees the future all these compensatiosn will have been done and taken into account.

This can go on for fucking ever!

[Darth Wong]

That said, we've never seen Jedi moving their arms "faster than a nerve impulse" as mentioned above.

Not faster than the nerve impulse itself, but faster than a human arm could possibly move when controlled by nerve impulses, which is what I interpreted him to be saying.

At least not that I'm aware of. I'm under the impression that except for the occasional super-sprint (ala the beginning of TPM) the Jedi aren't really that much faster than a well-trained human. /shrug

Because of George Lucas' apparent reluctance to use slow-mo (an unusual trait in this era of John Woo, Wachowski, and Peter Jackson), it would be unlikely to see Jedi using very high speed except in special situations, but it could easily be argued that it must have occurred offscreen in many situations. To take just one example, if you look at the very high ROF on the superbattledroid gun in the AOTC arena, there is no way any of those Jedi should have survived that battle at all, even given precog, unless they were able to move their arms really fast in a lot of situations which were simply not shown onscreen.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Which is why Obi-Wan got his ass kicked in a fistfight with Jango Fett.

Whenever you're talking about people, variability enters into the equation. If you don't understand that, I can't help you.

Frankly, this mirrors my opinion on Jedi Pre-cog:
A blaster bolt does not change direction, but a human arm can react in mid-flight/strike, making it relatively a lot harder to predict than a fast moving yet predictable object moving in a straight line.

LordShaithis wrote:
That said, we've never seen Jedi moving their arms "faster than a nerve impulse" as mentioned above

Not faster than the nerve impulse itself, but faster than a human arm could possibly move when controlled by nerve impulses, which is what I interpreted him to be saying.

Sorry if I was unclear, I meant a nerve impulse itself, a speed that many characters can overcome (Superman for example), a Jedi having super speed/reflexes is unquestioned.

[LordShaithis]

Not faster than the nerve impulse itself, but faster than a human arm could possibly move when controlled by nerve impulses, which is what I interpreted him to be saying.

It's a strange bit of wording.

I seriously doubt the fact that Jedi can move their arms as fast as human nerve impulses.

Reading that as "I seriously doubt the fact that Jedi can move their arms as fast as human nerve impulses [can move an arm]" would mean he thinks Jedi are slower than normal humans.

Because of George Lucas' apparent reluctance to use slow-mo (an unusual trait in this era of John Woo, Wachowski, and Peter Jackson),

I, for one, am certainly glad we didn't see any "bullet time" in Star Wars. It was novel in The Matrix, quit being cool even in the Matrix sequels, and was intolerable in every other movie trying to rip them off.

it would be unlikely to see Jedi using very high speed except in special situations, but it could easily be argued that it must have occurred offscreen in many situations. To take just one example, if you look at the very high ROF on the superbattledroid gun in the AOTC arena, there is no way any of those Jedi should have survived that battle at all, even given precog, unless they were able to move their arms really fast in a lot of situations which were simply not shown onscreen.

It's not an illogical inference, but from the SOD standpoint one has to wonder why we never witness it directly. In any event, my main interest in this thread (and it's Jedi/Flash twin on the Fantasy board) is in such things as HDS posted above, which I see this way:

Imagine telling someone with perfect precognition that you're about to hold up a certain number of fingers, and asking him to tell you how many it will be. Imagine that for whatever reason, you're hell-bent on making him wrong. What happens?

Either he gives a non-answer, or he loses when he says one thing and you do another. By the same token, the Culture drone is essentially asking the Jedi "Where do I plan to shoot you?" to more or less the same effect.

[LordShaithis]

Ghetto edit: I hit reply, walked away, then came back and filled the box in. Thus I missed DEATH's clarification of his wording.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I seriously doubt the fact that Jedi can move their arms as fast as human nerve impulses.

I meant the time it takes for a instruction from your brain to move an arm takes to reach the musck\les of your arm, the time between determining to do an action and having the muscles of your body begin the impulses to move.
I'll bring a better definition if anyone is still confused at my poor choice of words

[NecronLord]

Though Jedi Outcast was nice for slowing everyone else down when you use force speed, something you've got to remember, when talking about precognition, when you get into these endless loops, is this.

Jedi can get confused. They're not perfect precogs. They can be killed by Jango fucking Fett shooting them in just the right way with a pistol (though Dooku might have been partly responsible for that). If they see a multitude of possible strikes, then their precognition is useless, because they won't know which one to counter, will they?

[Darth Wong]

Though Jedi Outcast was nice for slowing everyone else down when you use force speed, something you've got to remember, when talking about precognition, when you get into these endless loops, is this.

Jedi can get confused. They're not perfect precogs. They can be killed by Jango fucking Fett shooting them in just the right way with a pistol (though Dooku might have been partly responsible for that). If they see a multitude of possible strikes, then their precognition is useless, because they won't know which one to counter, will they?

I explained this before, and the ROTS novelization explained it for me. They don't have to see the strikes and think about which one to counter; if they are well-attuned to the Force, it chooses for them, and guides their actions. They don't have to think at all. Hell, they don't have to see anything, which is why Luke could block shots with a blast shield over his face (and if you look, he is clearly reacting to those shots well before the remote fires them).

Of course, not all Jedi are equally well-attuned to the Force, especially with that whole "Shroud of the Dark Side" going on.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I think a good example of the Dark Side inhibiting the Jedi is where Windu and Co. goes to confront Palpatine. Look at Palpatine's first stab/kill. That move was so long for a fight any viewer would already have the words "block it!!" in their mind while seeing it. Yet that Jedi was still killed basically doing nothing.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Forgot to add: Which is why I think Obi-Wan vs. Jango had such an outcome.

[NecronLord]

I explained this before, and the ROTS novelization explained it for me. They don't have to see the strikes and think about which one to counter; if they are well-attuned to the Force, it chooses for them, and guides their actions. They don't have to think at all. Hell, they don't have to see anything, which is why Luke could block shots with a blast shield over his face (and if you look, he is clearly reacting to those shots well before the remote fires them).

Of course, not all Jedi are equally well-attuned to the Force, especially with that whole "Shroud of the Dark Side" going on.

This is the same description which presents Magnaguards having 'near-lightspeed reflexes' and Obi-Wan's lightsaber moving so fast it seems to become a deflector shield. What's more, this is also the description that gives a quantification of the number of saber-strikes per-second required to overcome super-uber-killy-doom Obi-Wan's defences.

Grievous, snarling fury, ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attacks-sixteen per secon, eighteen, until finally, at twenty strikes per second, he overloaded Obi-Wan's defense.
So Obi-Wan used his defense to attack.

Even though the force guides his actions, (as we've known since ANH) it doesn't guide them fast enough to defeat a 'sufficiently uber-reactioned' opponent. Say, one that can attack thirty times per second.

I liked the RotS novel, but in certain scenes, Stover must have given himself sores from jerking off about the Obi-Wan on Utapau sequence. Every battle droid in the command centre - a number previously given as ten thousand - opens up on him at once? And the entire area isn't turned into a smoking crater? Heh heh heh.

[Darth Wong]

This is the same description which presents Magnaguards having 'near-lightspeed reflexes' and Obi-Wan's lightsaber moving so fast it seems to become a deflector shield. What's more, this is also the description that gives a quantification of the number of saber-strikes per-second required to overcome super-uber-killy-doom Obi-Wan's defences.

So? It's well-established that you can contradict the novel with the film, but any parts of the novel which are not directly and irrefutably contradicted by the film are canon. If you don't like it, that's not my problem.

I liked the RotS novel, but in certain scenes, Stover must have given himself sores from jerking off about the Obi-Wan on Utapau sequence. Every battle droid in the command centre - a number previously given as ten thousand - opens up on him at once? And the entire area isn't turned into a smoking crater? Heh heh heh.

That sentence is obviously hyperbole; the droids do not all have line of sight to him.

[NecronLord]

I don't like sillyness about 'the force guides a jedi's actions, thus a jedi has reflexes that are undefeatable' espesically when the passage used to justify that wanking includes an explicit quantification of how a very fast opponent can overload a jedi's defences.

[Darth Wong]

I don't like sillyness about 'the force guides a jedi's actions, thus a jedi has reflexes that are undefeatable' espesically when the passage used to justify that wanking includes an explicit quantification of how a very fast opponent can overload a jedi's defences.

Since I never denied that a sufficiently high rate of attacks could overload a Jedi's defenses, I don't see what this is supposed to prove. And quite frankly, if you "don't like" canon, that's your fucking problem.

[Connor MacLeod]

This is the same description which presents Magnaguards having 'near-lightspeed reflexes' and Obi-Wan's lightsaber moving so fast it seems to become a deflector shield. What's more, this is also the description that gives a quantification of the number of saber-strikes per-second required to overcome super-uber-killy-doom Obi-Wan's defences.

Having "near-c reflexes" doesn't automatically translate into an ability for the droid to move its BODY at near-c. From what I recall of those statements in the novelization, the implication is more like the "information processing" of the droid brains operates at near-c, but the actual execution of actions is limited by the phyiscal limits of the body (which, is much less impressive.)

Even though the force guides his actions, (as we've known since ANH) it doesn't guide them fast enough to defeat a 'sufficiently uber-reactioned' opponent. Say, one that can attack thirty times per second.

The novel specifies that Grevious was also varying the velocity, direction, and pattern of his attacks, and attacking with four-lightsabers as opposed to Obi-Wan's single blade. The potential acceleration each arm would have to make to execute even 5 strikes per arm per second is not-inconsiderable for a droid.

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't like sillyness about 'the force guides a jedi's actions, thus a jedi has reflexes that are undefeatable' espesically when the passage used to justify that wanking includes an explicit quantification of how a very fast opponent can overload a jedi's defences.

As Mike said, their skill with precognition and blocking is related to their attunement with the Force. Given a sufficent "attunement" even a poorly-trained Jedi (Luke against Guri in SOTE, or Darsha Assant against Darth Maul in "Shadow Hunter") can perform to superhuman levels (in the latter example against Maul, a single Padawan was able to, temporarily, match Maul's impressive skills simply due to her extreme attuenment with the Forcec, although this was only a temporary "equalizer' - her strrength/skill inevitably failed.)

There's also an inverse relationship between "Force attunement" as Mike puts it (call it the "Depth" to which one submerges themselves in the Force.) and one's free will. If one completely surrenders to the Force, the person effectively becomes a marionette - but at the same time, they lose their ability to make their own independent thought/actions (in some situations, this can be bad.

If one is so submerged so as to be blocking blster fire, one might not be able to make the decision or lack the control to escape, for example.) Concentration or "attunement" can be disrupted as well (Luke had it happen to him in sOTE), and there can be definite physical tolls related to full-scale attuenment/submergence (putting a strain on the physical body, for example - such effects are not just limited to the Dark Side.)

Basically, no its NOT perfect, and its fallacious to say so. But its equally fallacious to say "Its not 100% perfect so the Jedi loses!"

[Star-Blighter]

Though Jedi Outcast was nice for slowing everyone else down when you use force speed, something you've got to remember, when talking about precognition, when you get into these endless loops, is this.

Jedi can get confused. They're not perfect precogs. They can be killed by Jango fucking Fett shooting them in just the right way with a pistol (though Dooku might have been partly responsible for that). If they see a multitude of possible strikes, then their precognition is useless, because they won't know which one to counter, will they?

I explained this before, and the ROTS novelization explained it for me. They don't have to see the strikes and think about which one to counter; if they are well-attuned to the Force, it chooses for them, and guides their actions. They don't have to think at all. Hell, they don't have to see anything, which is why Luke could block shots with a blast shield over his face (and if you look, he is clearly reacting to those shots well before the remote fires them).

Of course, not all Jedi are equally well-attuned to the Force, especially with that whole "Shroud of the Dark Side" going on.

Luke: "So it controls your actions?"

Obi: "Yes, but it also obeys your commands."

It seems that force precog is a two way street. You can choose to simply let the force control you and that probably works well the majority of the time, or you can fight the flow and command the force more directly, but I consider it silly that the force can be reduced to some bloody "auto-pilot" that removes the need to do anything but "attenuate" with the force.

The force does control actions and it may even do so without permission, but that isn't the end all or be all of force usage or why else would Ben even mention that the force "obeys your command" at-all?

[Alan Bolte]

So, using the Obi-wan vs Vader scenario from earlier, if Vader lacked precog but had super-speed, and Obi-wan was sunk arbitrarily deep into the Force, the Force would essentially give Obi-wan just enough arm speed to block any strike Vader made? Or is Obi-wan limited by his human body? The latter would allow for even a first-strike kill. The former would make rate of fire from a single source moot, and require a volume of fire that can't be dodged, or blocked by lightsaber.

Note that the above scenario wouldn't even be approached by the most powerful Jedi of all time, it's just hypothetical.

[NecronLord]

Since I never denied that a sufficiently high rate of attacks could overload a Jedi's defenses, I don't see what this is supposed to prove.

It proves that there's no point in bringing it up as a rebuttal to this:

Jedi can get confused. They're not perfect precogs. They can be killed by Jango fucking Fett shooting them in just the right way with a pistol (though Dooku might have been partly responsible for that). If they see a multitude of possible strikes, then their precognition is useless, because they won't know which one to counter, will they?

Because frankly, it doesn't matter whether its their own meatbrain in charge, or some mystical energy field, or a big cloud of pixies. They are still not perfect, and can still not block a sufficiently mutlitudinous multitude of enemy attacks.

[Darth Wong]

Since I never denied that a sufficiently high rate of attacks could overload a Jedi's defenses, I don't see what this is supposed to prove.

It proves that there's no point in bringing it up as a rebuttal to this:

Jedi can get confused. They're not perfect precogs. They can be killed by Jango fucking Fett shooting them in just the right way with a pistol (though Dooku might have been partly responsible for that). If they see a multitude of possible strikes, then their precognition is useless, because they won't know which one to counter, will they?

Because frankly, it doesn't matter whether its their own meatbrain in charge, or some mystical energy field, or a big cloud of pixies. They are still not perfect, and can still not block a sufficiently mutlitudinous multitude of enemy attacks.

Don't be a fucking dumbshit. I was not arguing that they were perfect; I was correcting a misconception in your description of their limitations.

[NecronLord]

Don't be a fucking dumbshit. I was not arguing that they were perfect; I was correcting a misconception in your description of their limitations.

Not a misconception, an omission. I've known about the 'surrender yourself to the force' thing for years. The fact that it's not actually the jedi's brain that's in charge in all cases doesn't change the argument, or require any special argument to dismiss it, so I left it out.

[NecronLord]

Just as an aside (and related to the Jedi Outcast comment before), there is at least one jedi who can control his reactions in a different and potentially more effective way. In Star Wars: Dark Forces - Soldier for the Empire Kyle Katarn (without training, no less) seems to be able to speed himself up (page 120 of the hardback) relative to stormtroopers, making himself able to take out four in a single second or so.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Because frankly, it doesn't matter whether its their own meatbrain in charge, or some mystical energy field, or a big cloud of pixies. They are still not perfect, and can still not block a sufficiently mutlitudinous multitude of enemy attacks.

If you ask me, it is probably their soul (which we know exists). I don't like the full autopilot thing either. It is a religious thought pattern aimed at worshippin a God.

Give yourself over to the Force/God. If things go well, thank the Force/God, not yourself. You did nothing, nor did anybody that trained you... etc. Force/God did what had to be done through you. If it didn't work, it is not the Force/God's fault. It is your fault. You are not in tune with the Force/God. Or maybe the Force/God intended for you to die for some reason that you'd never understand, but you can't hate the Force/God. That would be going to the Dark Side/Satan.

Never mind the arrogance of even thinking the Force/God would bother picking up your controller. But why are there so many forms? Each Form signifies an generalized approach to the whole fighting problem. But if some near omniniscent Force is really going to command-guide you all the way through your fight anyway, why are there forms? Each attack or set of attacks has a geometrically optimum counter. You hardly need forms - the Force is going to take control and put your blade and body in the optimum position each time (or at least as close to it as your "attunement" would allow).

As an example, according to the ROTS novelization. Soresu-style moves is the supposed optimal counter to Grievous. Yet when Windu fought Grievous in LoE, he used Vaapad. Why? He's a top level Jedi Master (if something of a tactical turd) so he should have no trouble letting the Force guide his blade. Yet if the Force is command-guiding him, the movement should have automatically turned into Soresu, not Vaapad, since Soresu is more effective in the scenario. IN fact, if the Force is really in Command Guidance, it should be neither Vaapad nor Soresu, but optimized individual solutions to individual problems until Windu wins.

I think, therefore, what really happens when a Jedi "attunes" himself is that he's really increasing linking to his soul's direction. The soul's control is Astralogical and thus Tachyonic (Obi-Wan feeling Alderaan), so it'd be faster than the normal electro-chemical based nervous net. The soul will also be influenced by what you practiced most, since the soul is a part of you and reflects you. If the soul is directing, familiar Vaapad moves might indeed be superior to unfamiliar Soresu moves since the Vaapad moves are more hardwired and faster to access - just as it would be on meat-brain guidance. If the Force is in control, it is hard to imagine that would be the case. And since the soul is composed of the Force, it explains their feeling that they are surrendering to the Force - they are, just not quite in the nice religious way they hope to be. It also explains why they can screw up, and screw up more when in an unfamiliar situation (see Jango vs Obi-Wan).

Just my two cents based on an admittedly limited library.

[Eframepilot]

Imagine telling someone with perfect precognition that you're about to hold up a certain number of fingers, and asking him to tell you how many it will be. Imagine that for whatever reason, you're hell-bent on making him wrong. What happens?

Either he gives a non-answer, or he loses when he says one thing and you do another. By the same token, the Culture drone is essentially asking the Jedi "Where do I plan to shoot you?" to more or less the same effect.

This important scenario seems to have been overlooked by the discussion, so I wanted to restate it in a more rigorous way.

9-year-old Anakin is being examined by the Jedi Council. Yoda doesn't want him to be trained and has set up the following situation to guarantee his failure. Yoda will ask Annie, "Which shape will I hold up?" and, after receiving an answer, hold up either a circle or a square. If the shape Anakin named matches the shape Yoda holds up, i.e. if Anakin correctly predicted the shape, he will pass and be trained. But if Anakin names the wrong shape or otherwise does not predict the shape held up correctly, he will fail and not be trained. Yoda is determined that Anakin will fail and so he will hold up the opposite shape that Anakin names.

Assume that Anakin is fully in tune with the Force, thus having maximally accurate precognition. Disregard Yoda's own connection with the Force, as he is thoroughly trying to thwart its will. What does Anakin's precognition tell him (or what does the Force have him say as its puppet), what does he say and how does Yoda respond? Is Anakin successful after all via his precognition, or does Yoda succeed and fail Anakin? Or does the galaxy implode?

My resolution of the paradox: The precognition will essentially fail, at least as far as helping Anakin pass. Anakin will receive two visions of equal validity, one in which he says, "Circle," and Yoda holds up the square, and one in which Anakin says, "Square," and Yoda holds up the circle. Anakin will fail either way. There is no way to correctly predict which shape Yoda holds up, because Yoda can choose the shape to be the opposite of whatever Anakin names.

In the same way, a Culture drone with a one-shot blaster should always be able to kill a defending Jedi. The Culture drone's vastly superior speed ensures that it can always avoid targeting the lightsaber, as it can choose to shoot where the lightsaber isn't. The Culture drone gets to change its aim faster than the Jedi (or the Force acting through the Jedi) can respond, just as Yoda can change his answer to whatever Anakin didn't choose. The Jedi's precognition will either fail to work entirely or show visions of his inevitable death.

Are there any flaws in the above argument? One possible alternative is that the Force will compel Yoda to hold up the same shape that Anakin named (and compel the Culture drone to shoot exactly at the lightsaber anyway) in line with its perfect forecasting, but that seems unlikely as there is no logical reason for Yoda to make such a choice.

[LaCroix]

Nope.. Anakin would get the precognition of

"whatever I choose, you will hold up the other one."

Thats why the jedi dont use such trial.