Re: ★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda

January 11th 2020, 10:01 pm

i change my vote to unuthul from the time being

January 12th 2020, 4:13 am

@Quorian Debatist Can you provide more details for UnuThul supposedly pressuring Luke? What mindset was Luke in? We know that Luke can just pin UnuThul to a wall and completely negate his telekinesis - that sort of Force disparity seen in an actual fight is extremely rare and denotes a gap like Yoda vs. S1 Ventress or Sheev vs. Sedriss. I don't doubt DN Luke is more powerful than Yoda, even vastly more powerful, but I'd need more convincing he can completely fodderize Yoda in two seconds with just telekinesis. Not even Sidious could outright tear through Maul's Force barriers in Shadow Conspiracy.

January 12th 2020, 7:15 am

Azronger wrote:Not even Sidious could outright tear through Maul's Force barriers in Shadow Conspiracy.

Wat? Sidious literally breaks through his barriers 3 times

January 12th 2020, 8:09 am

Proof? The novelization has him engineering gaps in Maul's defense, not outright tearing through his Force wall.

January 12th 2020, 9:56 am

due to all reasons listed above i vote darth revan... he has amazing feats only rivaled by darth vitiate

January 12th 2020, 10:10 am

Azronger wrote:Can you provide more details for UnuThul supposedly pressuring Luke? What mindset was Luke in? We know that Luke can just pin UnuThul to a wall and completely negate his telekinesis

I don’t think Luke can pin Unu like nothing, and there are several indications the supposed “ragdoll” has much more to do with Unu surrendering and not with Luke being able to do that at will. Granted, I’m not questioning Luke’s superiority, simply presenting evidence for Unu being closer to him than it might actually appear. The opening sequence of their duel has Luke taking down Unu’s guards in a very unusual and brutal way, at least for him, which is then immediately followed by the text noting both were summoning all the might and speed they could:

Dark nest 3 wrote:Luke killed the last of Raynar's bodyguards by Force-slamming them into the wall so hard their thoraxes burst,
then the two Jedi were on one another, their lightsabers flashing toward each other's heads with all the speed and might they could summon.

I don’t think in this specific case there is any indication Luke was actually jobbing, especially when we have a quote suggesting otherwise. Furthermore, before you bring up the possibility of the two being peer only in sabers, it is important to note that Raynar Thul’s lightsaber skills were those of an average jedi knight, definitely not on par with Luke, adding credence to the idea that it’s his power , in this augmentation, that threatened Luke rather than his skill.
As for the aforementioned ragdoll, Luke was able to do it only after Raynar stopped attempting to blast him back with his TK, and that was the result of a Telepathic communication between the two in which Luke actually able to convince him to leave together, albeit momentarily. The text also makes no note at Raynar attempting to free from the grip:

Dark nest 3 wrote:
Luke deactivated his lightsaber and picked Raynar up by the collar and slammed him against the wall. He used the Force to pin him there, waiting for an answer to his question, watching as the expression in his captive's pained eyes turned from astonishment to anger to calculation.

All he does is attempt to take his lightsaber, not free from Luke’s grasp. If you want further evidence, the complete encyclopedia notes Luke won by convincing him of the colony’s unusual growth, with no mention of a forced surrender:

★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda - Page 5 WghNelsCdL8MPE6eW5XNzGdD9-TOrPevgng9SymQ-GkKEfITEZtr_HGmToUdLZT7Y_PbKRiwrxWHKRHAF4gZERTiRTuNgNG1DhkbdowKiyWmT4dcuq51pzc85h8SQfkcneyu_mNU

★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda - Page 5 WghNelsCdL8MPE6eW5XNzGdD9-TOrPevgng9SymQ-GkKEfITEZtr_HGmToUdLZT7Y_PbKRiwrxWHKRHAF4gZERTiRTuNgNG1DhkbdowKiyWmT4dcuq51pzc85h8SQfkcneyu_mNU

Add this to the fact that Unu is noted as Luke’s ultimate test, that will force him to use the force “as never before”, adding credence to the idea of him posing an actual threat:

★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda - Page 5 TzSXF4Bv16-p-XckGEjipMeE542dXuz7igggKODDDH6YtmL0rL73FTY7QhrrnRSW60TJmNvN_J0tASEtG-ssxrv70GTmyzXjVBz04pw8ixkvyjjwQs3EgfWXjpK1vHMw7BVXdsvs

★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda - Page 5 TzSXF4Bv16-p-XckGEjipMeE542dXuz7igggKODDDH6YtmL0rL73FTY7QhrrnRSW60TJmNvN_J0tASEtG-ssxrv70GTmyzXjVBz04pw8ixkvyjjwQs3EgfWXjpK1vHMw7BVXdsvs

January 12th 2020, 10:44 am

watching as the expression in his captive's pained eyes turned from astonishment to anger to calculation.

It seems like it's after Raynar is pinned that he surrenders mentally, not before. He is astonished with Luke's power, angry that he can't break free, and then calculates his situation - which leads him to surrendering.

January 12th 2020, 10:51 am

ILS wrote:It seems like it's after Raynar is pinned that he surrenders mentally, not before. He is astonished with Luke's power, angry that he can't break free, and then calculates his situation - which leads him to surrendering.

I agree sequence is heavily up for interpretation, and I myself am unsure on what to think, which is why I made this post in he first place, essentially to see the results. However, what I was referring to was the prior “mental” duel, where Luke is momentarily able to convince him:

Spoiler:

I think this might have had an impact later in the fight, especially when sources claim Luke convinced him to surrender. Ragdoll or not, it doesn’t change that Luke has to put a lot of effort to defeat Raynar, hence the novel saying both were summoning their full might.

January 12th 2020, 10:58 am

Right. He momentarily reduces his resolve, but then Again, Raynar withdrew, this time so violently that Luke had no chance to prevent it. UnuThul was coming—not to Luke, but after him. The Master would have to fight.

Granted, Luke would kick Yoda's ass just as convincingly.

January 12th 2020, 11:07 am

Fair enough. My attempt was made mainly to reconcile the pinning with the other statement I brought up earlier about both summoning their full might. So while I still think Unu can present a challenge purely in a contest of speed and force augmentation (I’m honestly not sure the same can be said of Yoda), a case can be made either ways for the “ragdoll” since the text is a bit unclear on it. After all, there are case of characters being comparable in speed but not in TK.

January 12th 2020, 11:09 am

I think the text is fairly clear. Luke was fighting seriously, kicked his ass, then convinced him to surrender thereafter.

January 12th 2020, 2:00 pm

Per the stipulations of the thread, it depends on which character forces Malgus to receive a greater amp in order to win. From what I gather, Unuthul is kind of a Force autist whose only tactic is raw power. When he fought Luke he just spammed TK to no avail. Luke then proceeded to choke slam him.

Malgus would need a Force amp big enough to get in his augmentation range and cut him down, and enough to resist his TK spam.

With Unuthul drawing on "the potential of trillions" and bending turbolasers, I'm quite sure he's more powerful than Yoda, but in terms of skill he is a padawan in comparison. Where he would spam TK wastefully against a blocking enemy, Yoda would pick apart openings in between lightsaber sequences. Malgus would need a massive amp in order to bolster his battle precog, so he can defend from Yoda making openings in his defence.

Malgus only needs to be slightly more powerful than Yoda to plausibly defeat him, and he could probably afford to be less powerful than Unuthul just to resist his TK and cut him in half. I'll reserve judgement until we have a better idea of the differences.

January 12th 2020, 2:02 pm

ILS wrote:I think the text is fairly clear. Luke was fighting seriously, kicked his ass, then convinced him to surrender thereafter.

Hey man, miss you on Discord. You should hang out with me and Skillz sometime when you're free.

January 12th 2020, 2:51 pm

@ILS: As Bran pointed out to me, Raynar just "swinging his remaining hand up," immediately after engaging Luke in a duel and being disarmed, instantly ripped out enough power that a nothing-held-back Luke had to both "place his own hand in front of Raynar and root himself in the heart of the Force" to resist it. Malgus definitely needs a Yoda+ amp to defeat Yoda, but he may need something at least approaching DN Luke-level to handle Raynar's TK, even if he needs a lot less to win in sabers.

But Raynar was a Jedi, and all Jedi were quick. He caught himself in the Force, levitating himself just long enough to bring his golden blade sweeping in at Luke's shoulder.

Luke had no choice but to block with his blade, and no place to block but the forearm. Raynar's lightsaber went spinning off, still securely in the grasp of his three-fingered hand, and caught one of Luke's bugcrunchers squarely in the back. The weapon sliced through six centimeters of laminanium armor before the severed forearm flew free. The blade deactivated, and the hilt disappeared into the tangle of death and destruction at the droid's feet.

The pain of losing an arm might have forced a common Jedi to stop fighting, but Raynar was no common Jedi. He had the Force potential of the Colony to draw on, and he did that now, swinging his remaining hand up to hurl Luke down the corridor as he had done before.

But this time, Luke was ready. He placed his own hand in front of Raynar's and rooted himself in the heart of the Force, and when he did that, he became the very essence of the immovable object. Nothing could dislodge him-not one of Lando's asteroid tuggers, not the Megador's sixteen ion engines, not the black hole at the center of the galaxy itself.

January 12th 2020, 3:04 pm

I don't think you need to be equal to someone in power to block their TK. See Kenobi blocking Vader in the latter half of the Mustafar duel. Even Dooku can presumably block Yoda's direct TK, or Maul and Sheev.

January 12th 2020, 3:09 pm

I agree. I'm saying, though, that Luke's not just conventionally blocking the TK but also needing root himself to an unprecedented manner.

I'm even toying with the idea that the Colony might legitimately make Raynar even more powerful than Luke, which is consistent with an earlier comment about Lomi that we've written off as just being about mentally distraught Luke: "She could still draw on her nest to enhance her Force potential, and as strong as Luke was, he was not strong enough to overpower an entire nest of Killiks."

January 12th 2020, 3:13 pm

I can see the validity in that, actually. He has all the raw power but no finesse. Anything that makes Luke choose to root himself in place has to be utterly devastating.

January 12th 2020, 3:18 pm

★ Top Fifteen Tournament #7 - Yoda - Page 5 1289255181

And it's an attack Raynar can dish out in a moment's notice.

January 12th 2020, 3:22 pm

wait, wouldnt that make unu stronger than a few people that are already in this list?

January 12th 2020, 3:24 pm

I mean, Luke as of DN1 , most likely in his “jobbing” state, was no match for Raynar’s telepathy and needed Leia and Saba’s help to withstand it. While I admit I conceded on my previous interpretation the pinning feat, which was based on the most part on a misinterpretation of some parts of the text on my part, that does not change that it takes an all out Luke to block his TK.

January 12th 2020, 3:24 pm

Yes Lorenzo, yes it would. Raynar should be far above them.

January 12th 2020, 3:25 pm

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:wait, wouldnt that make unu stronger than a few people that are already in this list?

In terms of raw power, nearly all of them.

January 12th 2020, 3:26 pm

i knew it. we gotta revote now hahahaha well fuck.

January 12th 2020, 3:27 pm

good. i still dont know why we have valk that high. gonna try to change yall's mind on that, if i can lol

January 12th 2020, 3:27 pm

After round ten and round fifteen, we will have voting to potentially reorganize the list. More details for how that will work will come once we get there.