ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

September 23rd 2019, 11:57 am

ROTJ Palpatine has been ambushed taking a leisurely stroll to the bathroom! Does he prevail?

- Darth Vader (ROTJ)
- Luke Skywalker (rage mode) (ROTJ)
- Starkiller (TFU 2)
- Dark Apprentice (TFU 2)
- Lumiya (ROTJ)

September 23rd 2019, 12:05 pm

That's probably too many for ROTJ Sheev.

September 23rd 2019, 12:32 pm

ROTJ Palpatine has been ambushed taking a leisurely stroll to the bathroom! Does he prevail?

God doesn't need a bathroom.

Anyway, Lumiya is fodder and gets one-shotted right off the bat. The other 4 can take Sheev, though.

September 23rd 2019, 12:48 pm

Lumiya is fodder, Vader is within his ragdoll rage and Luke probably is as well. Starkiller and the DA are too far off him to stop him from one-shotting the other members of the team. Palpatine wins every time.

September 23rd 2019, 12:53 pm Message reputation : 100% (1 vote)

The only thing that can kill Palpatine in this matchup is a heart stroke caused by too much laughing. He'll have the fun of his life.

September 23rd 2019, 12:54 pm

Team gets slaughtered.

September 23rd 2019, 4:14 pm

I just don't get why people treat RotJ Sidious as though he's unstoppable, and is supremely top dog in almost all match-ups. What does he actually have to his name that proves RotJ Vader is within "ragdoll range" for him? I don't recall him ever actually ragdolling RotJ Vader, or any foes that I'd consider to be on Vader's level. Throw enough capable opponents at Sidious, and he's bound to drop.

RotJ Vader is ~80% as powerful as Palpatine. RotJ Luke is stated to be equal to Vader. Lumiya might be below Luke at this point, but her unorthodox and unique weapon does give her a considerable advantage in combat against foes who have never experienced its like, letting her fight on the same level as Luke. To the best of my knowledge, Sidious has never dealt with such a unique lightwhip before. Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice are both at least in the same ballpark as Vader and Luke, if not above the father-son duo. That's five roughly RotJ Vader-level combatants all attacking a surprised Sidious in this scenario. For as powerful as Sidious is, he was still weak enough to die from being picked up by a one-armed man and tossed down a hole. He gets destroyed in this set up.

September 23rd 2019, 4:20 pm

DC77 (Reborn) wrote:Team gets slaughtered.

September 23rd 2019, 4:20 pm

HellfireUnit wrote:The only thing that can kill Palpatine in this matchup is a heart stroke caused by too much laughing. He'll have the fun of his life.

September 23rd 2019, 4:23 pm

Underachiever599 wrote:I just don't get why people treat RotJ Sidious as though he's unstoppable, and is supremely top dog in almost all match-ups. What does he actually have to his name that proves RotJ Vader is within "ragdoll range" for him? I don't recall him ever actually ragdolling RotJ Vader, or any foes that I'd consider to be on Vader's level. Throw enough capable opponents at Sidious, and he's bound to drop.

RotJ Vader is ~80% as powerful as Palpatine. RotJ Luke is stated to be equal to Vader. Lumiya might be below Luke at this point, but her unorthodox and unique weapon does give her a considerable advantage in combat against foes who have never experienced its like, letting her fight on the same level as Luke. To the best of my knowledge, Sidious has never dealt with such a unique lightwhip before. Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice are both at least in the same ballpark as Vader and Luke, if not above the father-son duo. That's five roughly RotJ Vader-level combatants all attacking a surprised Sidious in this scenario. For as powerful as Sidious is, he was still weak enough to die from being picked up by a one-armed man and tossed down a hole. He gets destroyed in this set up.

Besides a statement that says Sidious could basically one shot Luke? Well there's his weaker incarnation RotS Sidious being much more powerful than Dooku who could dominate RotS Obi Wan(Vader's peer) via the force

September 23rd 2019, 4:36 pm

KingofBlades wrote:

Underachiever599 wrote:I just don't get why people treat RotJ Sidious as though he's unstoppable, and is supremely top dog in almost all match-ups. What does he actually have to his name that proves RotJ Vader is within "ragdoll range" for him? I don't recall him ever actually ragdolling RotJ Vader, or any foes that I'd consider to be on Vader's level. Throw enough capable opponents at Sidious, and he's bound to drop.

RotJ Vader is ~80% as powerful as Palpatine. RotJ Luke is stated to be equal to Vader. Lumiya might be below Luke at this point, but her unorthodox and unique weapon does give her a considerable advantage in combat against foes who have never experienced its like, letting her fight on the same level as Luke. To the best of my knowledge, Sidious has never dealt with such a unique lightwhip before. Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice are both at least in the same ballpark as Vader and Luke, if not above the father-son duo. That's five roughly RotJ Vader-level combatants all attacking a surprised Sidious in this scenario. For as powerful as Sidious is, he was still weak enough to die from being picked up by a one-armed man and tossed down a hole. He gets destroyed in this set up.

Besides a statement that says Sidious could basically one shot Luke? Well there's his weaker incarnation RotS Sidious being much more powerful than Dooku who could dominate RotS Obi Wan(Vader's peer) via the force

What is the statement, btw? I see it being mentioned everywhere but no idea what it is.

September 23rd 2019, 4:46 pm

@BreakofDawn
The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader wrote:Still lying against the bridge railing beside the elevator shaft, Vader watched the Emperor extend his gnarled fingers and unleash blinding bolts of blue lightning from his fingertips. The lightning struck Luke, who tried to deflect the crackling bands of energy, but was so overwhelmed that his body crumpled to the floor.

The Official Fact Files 120 wrote:Infuriated by Luke’s resilience against the dark side, the Emperor unleashed a deadly torrent of dark side lightning. Skywalker was powerless to resist the onslaught, and his life was fast draining away.

[size=12]Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi script wrote:Blinding bolts of energy, evil lightning, shoot from the Emperor's hands at Luke. Even in his surprise, the young Jedi tries to use the Force to deflect them. At first he is half successful, but after a moment the bolts of energy are coming with such speed and power the young Jedi shrinks before them, his knees buckling . . . Although it would not have seemed possible, the outpouring of bolts from the Emperor's fingers actually increases in intensity, the sound screaming through the room. Luke's body writhes in pain.
[/size]

Basically Luke gets near instantly overwhelmed by only a portion of Sheev's power.

September 23rd 2019, 4:48 pm

He craps himself and the shit’s Force presence kills them for him

September 23rd 2019, 5:00 pm

@KingofBlades Thanks, but I meant the quote from Lucas.

September 23rd 2019, 5:09 pm

BreakofDawn wrote:@KingofBlades Thanks, but I meant the quote from Lucas.

I'm not sure if one exists.

September 23rd 2019, 5:20 pm

KingofBlades wrote:

BreakofDawn wrote:@KingofBlades Thanks, but I meant the quote from Lucas.

I'm not sure if one exists.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks anyway. Still, not really sure Luke's Force power can be scaled off of Vader's in that respect, only his lightsaber skills.

September 23rd 2019, 5:46 pm

BreakofDawn wrote:

KingofBlades wrote:

Underachiever599 wrote:I just don't get why people treat RotJ Sidious as though he's unstoppable, and is supremely top dog in almost all match-ups. What does he actually have to his name that proves RotJ Vader is within "ragdoll range" for him? I don't recall him ever actually ragdolling RotJ Vader, or any foes that I'd consider to be on Vader's level. Throw enough capable opponents at Sidious, and he's bound to drop.

RotJ Vader is ~80% as powerful as Palpatine. RotJ Luke is stated to be equal to Vader. Lumiya might be below Luke at this point, but her unorthodox and unique weapon does give her a considerable advantage in combat against foes who have never experienced its like, letting her fight on the same level as Luke. To the best of my knowledge, Sidious has never dealt with such a unique lightwhip before. Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice are both at least in the same ballpark as Vader and Luke, if not above the father-son duo. That's five roughly RotJ Vader-level combatants all attacking a surprised Sidious in this scenario. For as powerful as Sidious is, he was still weak enough to die from being picked up by a one-armed man and tossed down a hole. He gets destroyed in this set up.

Besides a statement that says Sidious could basically one shot Luke? Well there's his weaker incarnation RotS Sidious being much more powerful than Dooku who could dominate RotS Obi Wan(Vader's peer) via the force

What is the statement, btw? I see it being mentioned everywhere but no idea what it is.

"Vader also knows that the Emperor is toying with Luke. He has been told by the Emperor, ‘When he starts to strike me, you’re going to have to take him out.’ If Vader doesn’t block Luke’s lazer sword, the Emperor could just raise his hand and that would be the end of it. Then Vader would be in trouble: "Lord Vader, what happened to you? Did you not get your cue?"" (George Lucas, The Making of Return of the Jedi)

September 23rd 2019, 5:53 pm

KingofBlades wrote:@BreakofDawn
The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader wrote:Still lying against the bridge railing beside the elevator shaft, Vader watched the Emperor extend his gnarled fingers and unleash blinding bolts of blue lightning from his fingertips. The lightning struck Luke, who tried to deflect the crackling bands of energy, but was so overwhelmed that his body crumpled to the floor.

The Official Fact Files 120 wrote:Infuriated by Luke’s resilience against the dark side, the Emperor unleashed a deadly torrent of dark side lightning. Skywalker was powerless to resist the onslaught, and his life was fast draining away.

[size=12]Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi script wrote:Blinding bolts of energy, evil lightning, shoot from the Emperor's hands at Luke. Even in his surprise, the young Jedi tries to use the Force to deflect them. At first he is half successful, but after a moment the bolts of energy are coming with such speed and power the young Jedi shrinks before them, his knees buckling . . . Although it would not have seemed possible, the outpouring of bolts from the Emperor's fingers actually increases in intensity, the sound screaming through the room. Luke's body writhes in pain.
[/size]

Basically Luke gets near instantly overwhelmed by only a portion of Sheev's power.

Per the novelization, Luke in RotJ had no idea what Force lightning was and just improvised a defense, which worked really briefly. He had not to my knowledge been trained in tutanimus. That's not to say that he was powerful enough to contend with Sidious at that point in any way, of course.

September 23rd 2019, 6:32 pm

I'm honestly not sure how Luke scales off of Vader in power beyond Vader noting that he's more powerful than before and could best him in a duel.

September 23rd 2019, 6:34 pm

Vader and Luke are noted to be "equally powerful in the force" emotional factors aside IIRC.

September 23rd 2019, 7:45 pm

Sidious

September 23rd 2019, 7:56 pm

Those quotes really don't mean much. It's obvious to everyone who has ever watched RotJ that Sidious dropped Luke with Force Lightning. But character a taking character b down with Force Lightning=/=character b being in ragdoll range for character a. For example, Dooku has often taken Anakin down with Force lightning, but Dooku can't just throw Anakin around with TK the way he does Kenobi in RotS.

It's also worth noting, Luke at that time had no former knowledge of Force lightning or tutaminus. He also didn't have his lightsaber to try and block the bolts as Mace did.

If the combatants were all armed with sabers and ready for Sidious to defend himself, the team takes it. We know Galen/Starkiller/The Dark Apprentice can use tutaminus to stop Palpatine's lightning. We've seen Vader walking through RotJ Palpatine's most intense lightning in RotJ. Luke should be able to at least somewhat defend himself with a lightsaber. Lumiya won't pull her weight much, granted, but she could pose a problem from a distance with her whip.

September 23rd 2019, 8:22 pm Message reputation : 100% (2 votes)

I'm not sure how the team would hope to damage him. The Emperor in The Force Unleashed already no-sold full potential Galen's kamikaze attack to the face without issue, and that's a powerhouse leagues greater than anyone on this team. And as a reminder, TFU takes place six years before RotJ - that's the same amount of time as between RotJ and DE, during which the Emperor's power increased "significantly." In fact, it's even less, since a year of that time was spent travelling to Byss and an additional two years were spent convalescing and being restored to his former level. So in actuality, temporally speaking, the gap between the Emperor's TFU and RotJ iterations is twice that of the gap between his RotJ and DE iterations. So again, I don't see any way for the team to actually wound, much less kill, him.

Offensively, the Emperor's mere hologram recording from prior to Return of the Jedi almost froze Luke in place at the beginning of Dark Empire and he had to exert significant effort to break free - as with FP Galen, DE Luke is arguably a more powerful Force user than anyone here, and the Emperor's concentrated power in person would obviously be much, much greater. On top of that, he's brought Luke low with an infinitesimal fraction of his power via lightning, and Lucas stated he could kill Luke on the spot with a simple wave of his hand. Based on that, I'm not convinced Vader would fare much better, and the Emperor has shown the ability to incapacitate and mortally wound him with a relatively casual exertion of lightning anyway. As for Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice, I'm of the opinion they aren't any stronger than Vader, but even if you disagree with that premise (I know many here do), the original Galen was still "no match" for Palpatine in the lightning lock as echoed across multiple sources, and Starkiller in TFU II was utterly dumbfounded by Yoda's power - a Yoda who is weaker than in Revenge of the Sith, for the record. And Lumiya's a sub-Vader combatant per Luke himself, so she's nothing to worry about either.

All in all, I don't see how the strength of numbers helps the team here. You'd first have to convince me they have a way of hurting Palpatine for me to consider the idea they'd win. Then you'd have to convince me a coordinated assault can shield them from the Emperor's vastly, vastly greater magnitude when he has shown he can discard practically all his foes individually with the flick of a wrist.

September 24th 2019, 1:36 am

Yeah, Sidious is just spurting out lighting and all of them fall to the floor in agonising pain.

September 24th 2019, 2:06 am

Vorpal Blade wrote:Yeah, Sidious is just spurting out lighting and all of them fall to the floor in agonising pain.

We literally see Vader, who had just been beaten to the point of exhaustion and disarmed, walk through Palpatine's maximum intensity lightning in order to throw Palpatine down the shaft one-handed in RotJ. We've also seen Galen Marek successfully stopping Palpatine's lightning with tutaminus in TFU. I'm not aware of any quotes putting RotJ Palpatine massively above TFU Palpatine, so both Starkiller and The Dark Apprentice should likely be able to replicate this feat, especially since Sidious will have to divide his attention between five targets.

So that's at least three combatants that can resist Palpatine's Force lightning to one extent or another. Lumiya might be dropped by Force lightning, but that's assuming Palpatine focuses his attack on her, when he has far more threatening targets (Vader, Starkiller, The Dark Apprentice) moving in for the kill. For Luke, we know he was initially successful at stopping the Force lightning with just a generic Force barrier. If he had his lightsaber, and Sidious could only focus a fifth of his attention and power on Luke, there's no telling whether or not he'd be able to defend against the Force lightning.

So, three out of five characters can deal with the lightning, one may or may not be able to, and only one would almost certainly be taken out by it. Everyone here seems to worship the ground that Palpatine walked on, but we literally see him die in the first movie where he showed up in the flesh. He's not unbeatable, folks. The team takes him down.

ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

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Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team

Re: ROTJ Palpatine vs ROTJ Vader's strike team