What if: SF Malak > Darth Sidious?

I obviously don't buy this, but let's try it out:

The reasoning here is that Malak could be plausibly exempted from the Sidious supremacy quotes because he's harnessing an external power amp that might not factor into his overall power. You might say that Vitiate applies, but given OOU statements (IIRC) that Vitiate stopped being a sith when he took over Valkorion, and the fact that he didn't really care about or follow the Sith ideology, combined with plausible meta-arguments that OOU chronology should limit supremacy quotes*, that isn't impossible to work around: most people don't think Exar Kun > Vitiate because of his "most powerful of all sith lords" quote. This also means we don't have to:

• Rationalize why 19 BBY Vader thought he could defeat Palpatine with Karness Muur's spirit.
  
• Try to handwave Exar Kun's showings in JA and IU sources that seem to make him comparable to Palpatine, especially given his implied superiority to a Luke that beat Palpatine.
  
• Come to the conclusion that TPM Obi Wan can oneshot 10 Jedi masters.
  
• Explain why Palpatine was seeking the Ancient Sith spirits for help in DE.
  

Seeing as how the Star Forge is a legendary dark side superweapon that can manufacture entire fleets of ships said to rival OT-era imperial star destroyers in size, it doesn't necessarily fail the gut-check (if the Star Forge were in the PT-era, it would definitely not be portrayed as a trivial power source).

Let's line up a plausible scaling chain with SF Malak ~ DE Sidious:

SF Malak -- DE Sidious
RotS Sidious
Exar Kun
Freedon Nadd -- Darth Plagueis
Naga Sadow -- Dooku

Is Naga Sadow ~ Dooku that implausible? Pre-TOR and Vitiate downscaling, a very large fraction would probably take Sadow.

Or:

Novel Revan
SF Malak -- DE Sidious
RotS Sidious
Exar Kun
Freedon Nadd -- Darth Plagueis
Naga Sadow -- Dooku -- Darth Nyriss
Meetra -- Obi Wan
Traya -- Ventress
Three Jedi Council Members -- TPM Obi Wan

Is it that implausible that novel Revan would not be able to oneshot Freedon Nadd, and you'd have to move Nyriss as low as Naga Sadow? Actually, many would doubt whether Revan could oneshot Sadow, so it's actually possible to shift this even lower. In either case, we get to TPM Obi Wan being comparable to three high level Jedi Council members together, which might actually be generous.

* Given that the narrator of a sourcebook doesn't have more information than the OOU author, so pretending they do seems weird - it leads to all sorts of convoluted answers like Exar Kun > Vitiate and Sidious > The Son. Sourcebooks are like commentaries on the characters and events, but taking advantage of gaps in the authors' information seems like an exploit, and indeed you can very clearly tell that this can result in awkward and clumsy conclusions.

Again, I clearly don't buy this for various reasons that I might go into later, but what are your thoughts?

I don’t buy this either tbh

As cool as it sounds, yeah.... no.

MasterCilghal wrote:I don’t buy this either tbh

IdrisianGraecus wrote:As cool as it sounds, yeah.... no.

R E A S O N S ?

IdrisianGraecus wrote:As cool as it sounds

You seem opposed to His Imperial Majesty's glory. What begat this unearned hate?

I genuinely wonder if we could even grant the premise. Since SF!Malak is simply a contextually-specific, radically empowered regular Malak... could he be exempt from the Emperor's supremacy quotes? If Malak, a Sith Lord, was at any point more powerful than Sidious, wouldn't Sidious by default not be the most powerful Sith Lord in history?   

It’s not that I dislike Sidious @Azronger: It’s that I like Malak, Revan, etc more.

IdrisianGraecus wrote:It’s not that I dislike Sidious @Azronger: It’s that I like Malak, Revan, etc more.

Liking Malak is fine; he's an underrated SW villain who's not nearly as stupid as G0t0 and some elements of the fanbase like to pretend. He's just... linear. 

Liking Revan, on the other hand, continues to perplex me after all these years. Now, I understand having some attachment to Revan-the-player in KOTOR. After all, he allows the player - most of whom are insecure, virginal neckbeards to experience 40+ hours of ceaseless praise, flattery, and wank directed at them. That's completely logical.

But Revan the character? Yuck. His titular book is almost universally despised, and rightly so. His appearances in SWTOR aren't exactly known for their stellar storytelling value. What exactly do you like about Revan the character?

The whole idea, Jedi to Sith to Jedi again is interesting, and the way Kreia portrays him in KOTOR 2 is something I enjoyed a lot. I liked the games, and he’s just interesting, don’t ask me why, it’s just one of those things you like for no reason. I can’t articulate it, at least.

No offense but we really need to start enforcing the “provide reasons” rule lol

The Ellimist wrote:No offense but we really need to start enforcing the “provide reasons” rule lol

I agree. Take my draconian approach and just start deleting posts that don't provide reasons.

The Jocaszronger Nu approach

Gideon/Tempest wrote:

IdrisianGraecus wrote:It’s not that I dislike Sidious @Azronger: It’s that I like Malak, Revan, etc more.

Liking Malak is fine; he's an underrated SW villain who's not nearly as stupid as G0t0 and some elements of the fanbase like to pretend. He's just... linear. 

Liking Revan, on the other hand, continues to perplex me after all these years. Now, I understand having some attachment to Revan-the-player in KOTOR. After all, he allows the player - most of whom are insecure, virginal neckbeards to experience 40+ hours of ceaseless praise, flattery, and wank directed at them. That's completely logical.

But Revan the character? Yuck. His titular book is almost universally despised, and rightly so. His appearances in SWTOR aren't exactly known for their stellar storytelling value. What exactly do you like about Revan the character?

Agreed on Malak. He's a great villain who serves his role in the story well and has a cool design and excellent soundtrack.

Partially agreed on Revan. I think what TOR did with him was a travesty. Prior to that though, he was intriguing because he had no clear and established character. I was never drawn to the player avatar in KotOR due to the reasons you describe - it was the surrounding lore that interested me. Everyone could interpret him the way they chose. Was he a Machiavellian genius, the good guy pretending to be the bad guy to unify the galaxy against an outside force (the inverse of Sheev/Thrawn vs. the Vong)? Or was he merely a power-hungry megalomaniac hellbent on dominating the galaxy for personal gain (Exar Kun/Malak)? Did he find redemption, or did he go back to his old ways - and if the latter, out of vice or out of necessity? Deep down, was he truly good or evil in his core? With Revan, less was more.

CuckedCurry wrote:The Jocaszronger Nu approach

See the best debaters thread.

The Ellimist wrote:R E A S O N S ?

I haven't proffered an opinion on the thread topic so I don't need to give reasons.

Azronger wrote:I haven't proffered an opinion on the thread topic so I don't need to give reasons.

I wasn't referring to you, though if we were strict we could label a lot of this conversation off-topic.

Also, I'm moving this thread to the Legends discussion page since it's hardly a blog.

Gideon/Tempest wrote:I genuinely wonder if we could even grant the premise. Since SF!Malak is simply a contextually-specific, radically empowered regular Malak... could he be exempt from the Emperor's supremacy quotes? If Malak, a Sith Lord, was at any point more powerful than Sidious, wouldn't Sidious by default not be the most powerful Sith Lord in history?   

That depends on whether you label the Star Forge an external amp that doesn't count as a part of Malak's personal power. You wouldn't say that Sidious commanding the Death Star automatically makes him the most powerful Sith Lord in history, though the Star Forge amp would be a much more grey area.

Even if we were to presume Malak is exempt from Sheev's supremacy quotes (Which I'm not sure I buy anyway due to Gideon's logic) he'd still cap out beneath him because his superiors aren't:

ROTS Sheev>>Yoda>>Revan Reborn>>KOTOR Revan>>SF Malak.

The Ellimist wrote:

Gideon/Tempest wrote:I genuinely wonder if we could even grant the premise. Since SF!Malak is simply a contextually-specific, radically empowered regular Malak... could he be exempt from the Emperor's supremacy quotes? If Malak, a Sith Lord, was at any point more powerful than Sidious, wouldn't Sidious by default not be the most powerful Sith Lord in history?   

That depends on whether you label the Star Forge an external amp that doesn't count as a part of Malak's personal power. You wouldn't say that Sidious commanding the Death Star automatically makes him the most powerful Sith Lord in history, though the Star Forge amp would be a much more grey area.

Indeed I wouldn't, but the Death Star doesn't magnify the Emperor's Force power. Meanwhile, the language of the Wizards article does tightly associate Malak's borrowed power with powers Malak possesses:



Based on the wording, I'm thinking less and less we could even grant the premise, but I'll accept it for the purposes of this discussion.

Gideon/Tempest wrote:

The Ellimist wrote:

Gideon/Tempest wrote:I genuinely wonder if we could even grant the premise. Since SF!Malak is simply a contextually-specific, radically empowered regular Malak... could he be exempt from the Emperor's supremacy quotes? If Malak, a Sith Lord, was at any point more powerful than Sidious, wouldn't Sidious by default not be the most powerful Sith Lord in history?   

That depends on whether you label the Star Forge an external amp that doesn't count as a part of Malak's personal power. You wouldn't say that Sidious commanding the Death Star automatically makes him the most powerful Sith Lord in history, though the Star Forge amp would be a much more grey area.

Indeed I wouldn't, but the Death Star doesn't magnify the Emperor's Force power. Meanwhile, the language of the Wizards article does tightly associate Malak's borrowed power with powers Malak possesses:



Based on the wording, I'm thinking less and less we could even grant the premise, but I'll accept it for the purposes of this discussion.

Would you apply that to a character on a nexus as well? What about when Luke is on Mortis in Crucible?

The Ellimist wrote:

Gideon/Tempest wrote:

The Ellimist wrote:

Gideon/Tempest wrote:I genuinely wonder if we could even grant the premise. Since SF!Malak is simply a contextually-specific, radically empowered regular Malak... could he be exempt from the Emperor's supremacy quotes? If Malak, a Sith Lord, was at any point more powerful than Sidious, wouldn't Sidious by default not be the most powerful Sith Lord in history?   

That depends on whether you label the Star Forge an external amp that doesn't count as a part of Malak's personal power. You wouldn't say that Sidious commanding the Death Star automatically makes him the most powerful Sith Lord in history, though the Star Forge amp would be a much more grey area.

Indeed I wouldn't, but the Death Star doesn't magnify the Emperor's Force power. Meanwhile, the language of the Wizards article does tightly associate Malak's borrowed power with powers Malak possesses:



Based on the wording, I'm thinking less and less we could even grant the premise, but I'll accept it for the purposes of this discussion.

Would you apply that to a character on a nexus as well? What about when Luke is on Mortis in Crucible?

Well, the Star Forge is a nexus and Malak's standard powers are simply enhanced by it. Regarding your question, I'm not sure how to answer it. Do I think Luke is on a nexus when he's on Mortis in Crucible?

Gideon/Tempest wrote:Well, the Star Forge is a nexus and Malak's standard powers are simply enhanced by it. Regarding your question, I'm not sure how to answer it. Do I think Luke is on a nexus when he's on Mortis in Crucible?

You could plausibly imagine both a source factoring and not factoring in an external amp to one's power in such a statement.