Thanas wrote:Oh yeah, and the fact that such a massive war was brewing was probably the biggest precog failure to boot. But hey, how about this: How about you prove that precog actually works and is not just some massively wanked up ability? Because right now, I can just shout no limits fallacy until I get blue in the face.
The Jedi only failed to detect the creation of the Clone Army because of the Sith. Something Thrawn doesn't have. That was right in the movie. The Jedi were shocked to have not detected it, indicating that their power had weakened far more than even Yoda had suspected.
There are two factors that make Jedi precog most effective. The first is scale of events. The larger the effect on the galaxy, the larger the disturbance in the Force. The second factor is the danger to the individual Jedi or someone he or she cares about heavily. It similarly has a stronger impact on the Jedi, though in this case only to the individual.
Obviously it also has limits. The largest one being that the actions of fellow Force users negatively impact their ability to see. The second is that unplanned events are also much harder to see. If you shoot at a Jedi he will still usually see it, but events that don't directly affect him would be more likely to work. And finally it is possible for it to simply be overwhelmed*, possibly in combination with a lack of training or exhaustion. In my next post I will list a compilation of all the examples from the films(that I can remember) and my explanations as to why they fit within my characteristics.
* Though in that case it is partially due to an inability to move a lightsaber fast enough to parry every possible incoming shot.
If Precog would work like you describe it - aka making accurate strategic predictions - then the Emperor should have won everything. There was no force user to oppose him and he was strong enough to muddle the precog of every jedi while he was alive (which is also ridiculous unless he was a thousand times more accurate/powerful in his own precog, but amazingly consistent with the idea that precog does not exist in such detail). So given that, why the fuck do the rebels manage to score victory after victory throughout the Movies? Why does it take them several years to find the rebels on Hoth? Why does the Death Star fail? Why does the rebellion manage to grow throughout the movies?
The Rebellion is only really successful once Luke returns and begins using the Force. While they did steal the Death Star plans on their own, Vader was right on them and was in the process of dealing with them. It was only when Luke and Obi-Wan got involved that he was properly foiled. Similarly, above the Death Star, Vader easily recognized the problem involving the exhaust port. It's not like he did a detailed technical analysis. He simply knew there was danger.
As for finding the Rebels on Hoth, as soon as Vader has any indication of where to look, he immediately knows with certainty that Luke is there. As for the Emperor, he fell for victory disease. Unlike Yoda, who recognized the instability of his position of power, the Emperor was so confident in his ability to predict the future that he failed to ever consider that he would miss something. And that something he missed was that Luke, merely by existing, was in effect creating a shroud of the Light Side that clouded Palpatine in much the same fashion as the Dark Side had done against the Jedi. Notice that in AOTC the Jedi never realized the blindness until after an event occurred that they failed to foresee. Similarly this also occurred to the Emperor. It is no coincidence that Palpatine's plans start failing in ROTJ after he begins talking to Luke. This also occurred to Darth Vader over Yavin, he was so focused on his son, that he failed to be aware of the Falcon's appearance.
There is no answer to that. If Precog worked as you claimed, then the Rebellion should have not enjoyed any strategic success at all. EDIT: Yet as we see in the new EU, the Empire actually struggles enormously trying to hold on.
I never said that precog was an absolute power or that it always worked perfectly. Smaller incidents of unrest are much harder to see and deal with. Precog wouldn't work very well there. But a single event of galactic importance, like the increasingly complex plans of an Imperial Grand Admiral, it would be odd for a Jedi to not detect it at all.
Yes we do see exactly that. The Emperor is virtually unopposed by any Jedi. And yet, without the Jedi acting, he suddenly loses more and more control over the course of the movies. (Unless you want to claim that Yoda suddenly opposed him, which is nonsense, for Yoda was in hiding and utterly sucked at defeating Palpatine at precog either).
He was ultimately defeated by a combination of Luke and unplanned actions as I indicated above. Yoda or anyone else had nothing to do with it.
But nobody had a fucking clue. Not a single force user was privy to his plans. Neither the sith nor the Jedi.
This is true. But it is also non-canon now. My point was that it doesn't fit with what we see in higher canon. A Jedi
should be able to detect such plans. Unless Thrawn was himself weakly Force sensitive.
I would love to see Zahn write Thrawn against a realistically powerful Luke, who is fully capable of seeing the future. There would be two things Thrawn could do that would be effective. The first is small actions that have limited connections and the second is a lack of significant planning when directly facing Luke. It would be playing speed chess rather than a long game. That would be extremely interesting to see.
Galvatron wrote:Adam, obviously any new Thrawn story would have to be modified to fit the new continuity. If that means Luke doesn't get his love interest and Thrawn can't dangle the Solo twins in front of C'baoth as motivation, so be it. Zahn will just have to adapt. Does that make any sense?
Both of those things were fundamental to the story. Without Jaina and Jacen as targets, why would the Norghi target Leia? And without them going after Leia there would be no way for them to realize that she is Vader's daughter and work with her. And without that there is no bodyguard backstab and no way for Thrawn to die. Similarly with Mara, without a sense of attraction, the mixed emotions she felt with regard to Luke would be difficult to do well. Rewriting the stories to fit the current continuity would mean destroying almost the entire plot.