Why Darish Vol vs Krayt Comparisons Only Favour Krayt

This is prerequisite/additional reading for this thread: https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t1536-an-impromptu-tangent-on-midichlorians-spirits-and-eldritch-monstrosities#29126

1. Why Darish Vol vs Krayt Comparisons Only Favour Krayt

When Abeloth fought Vol, after he attacked her mind, her only goal was to escape, she wasn't trying to kill him anymore. Her defensive blast of pain at the end which broke their connection along with Vol putting everything into his last attack nearly killed him. Now in contrast, Abeloth was fighting to kill the entire time vs Luke and Krayt, and by the time she wanted to retreat, it was too late: her wounds were mortal so she kamikaze attacked Luke and Krayt with the rest of her power with zero regard for her safety. Do we think "exploding in pain" in a psychic battle is more lethal than "ripping apart" Krayts insides with tentacles "deeper than any lightsaber", considering the contexts of 1. Trying to escape vs. 2. Trying to kill with no regard for her own life?

[...]

The two main feats raised for Vol are:

1. Viun Gaalan dueling Luke... a Luke who wasn't really taking him seriously at the time. Luke also compared him to Kyp and Kyle, two duelists Luke can verifiably stomp in combat - partly because IIRC Kyp participated in a spar where him and several other Jedi ganged up on Luke, and Luke outmaneuvered them all while holding back massively. And also because a roughed-up Caedus was stalemating Kyle and three other Jedi who were working as a synchronised team, meanwhile, Caedus was very decisively beaten (first in spirit before he TK-grabbed a curtain, and second actually defeated) by a Luke who was emotionally compromised and later in the fight had old injuries flare up, and was also fighting with huge volumes of Vong poison in his system (this poison would also go into Caedus, but only later in the fight).

Luke (hindered) >> Caedus > stalemates Kyle and three others while hindered > Viun Gaalan alone

Workaan even with him being above Viun does not scale even up to Caedus’ level. This is not even close to proving Vol is equal to Krayt, let alone superior to him - based on this very loose scaling (Vol is better than someone who is better than someone who is hilariously below Luke), Vol could be around Caedus’ level or slightly above or below. It’s not concrete.

2. Nobody denies that Vol having "much the power of Luke" is impressive, because it means that Vol has to at least be pretty close to Luke - Abeloth is described as having a dozen times Luke's power, even though it wouldn't literally take 12 Luke's to defeat her, much closer to 2 or 3. So for her to describe Vol that way suggests that maybe 2 at most 3 Vol's would be more than enough to defeat Luke. Thing is, the same could clearly be said of Krayt based on Apocalypse alone, so that's not definitive enough for me to give Vol the W.

Next is Vol's actual fight with Abeloth. The two most important parts are:

1. He held on to her when she tried to blast him away
2. He caused her huge psychological damage through corrupted Mnemotherapy.

1. I don't really see as being beyond Krayt - Krayt fought Abeloth and resisted her blasts/throws several times, rooting himself against them

2. Vol only did it briefly enough to launch a mental attack on Abeloth - it would have only taken a moment or two

3. As is noted in earlier books, even if you were using Mnemotherapy for therapeutic purposes, if you weren't painstakingly careful with how you extracted someone's memories, you could cause irreparable damage to their mind.

”Fate of the Jedi: Conviction” wrote:"Very good, Master Skywalker. Now, ever so gently, we pull."

They did, together.

Luke had trained in many combat styles, against masters of many arts, and one thing he had learned early on was that the holodramas vastly exaggerated the ease with which a simple blade could be drawn from a body into which it had been thrust. Organic tissues tended to close over simple metal surfaces, preventing easy withdrawal. This was why primitive blades were often engineered with fullers, inaccurately referred to as blood grooves-they made that withdrawal a bit easier. This was why lightsabers and vibroblades were far superior to simple blades. Their very nature made them easy to withdraw instantaneously.

Pulling the toxic memories from Thei was like drawing out a simple blade. Despite her conscious wishes, her unconscious mind resisted their extraction. The very nature of memory resisted. The effort took a consistent application of Force by Luke and Taru, a slow, measured, implacable pull. Thought by thought, memory by memory, Luke and Taru persisted, and the set of horrifying images slowly released its hold on the young woman.

Luke could sense that it would be possible to apply more strength, less control, and wrench those memories free. He could not imagine the damage such an act would cause to Thei's psyche.

Luke used a corrupted version of it to, likened to wielding a psychic ax to amputate a limb, to separate Callista from being Abeloth's thrall.

”Fate of the Jedi: Conviction” wrote:He wrapped himself more fully around her, in body and in the Force. "I will. I will save you."

And he tore at her.

It was an act of brutality, a perversion of the mnemotheraphy technique. It was like performing a surgical amputation with a dull stone ax weighing ten kilos. With all the strength he possessed in the Force, he yanked her away from her body, away from Abeloth.

He could not have done it to a living being. But Callista did not belong where she was. The body she now inhabited, the broad life force that was Abeloth-they were not her true home. She had no true home. And Luke tore her free of the things that anchored her to the physical world.

It was a physical effort, too. Luke staggered free of Callista's body and fell to his knees, drained in an instant of all his strength.

”Fate of the Jedi: Conviction” wrote: Luke could feel Abeloth within the craft. The pain she was experiencing was like heat radiating from her in the Force. The loss of Callista, the loss of Nenn, the unexpected blow of the tsil's death, all in close proximity, had hurt her badly.

And then when Vol used it, he plundered directly into Abeloth's deep subconscious and attacked her weakest psychological insecurities and vulnerabilities, which Abeloth described as being even more reckless with the technique than Luke had been.

”Fate of the Jedi: Ascension” wrote:But he had tricked her, had used a technique that his antithesis had used on her not so long before. He had learned the uprooting technique of the Theran Listeners, as had the despised Skywalker, and used it with even less care than that Jedi had.

So Vol was using a technique which, by it's very nature, can destroy a mind even if you are using it benevolently - and he used it with reckless violent abandon. So the damage he caused Abeloth is not really indicative of how any of his other abilities would damage her, as this one is disproportionately violent, and Abeloth made the mistake of opening her mind to him. This is a fundamental problem

The next problem with the Vol arguments presented is the idea that Abeloth unleashed city-busting power on him or something, when really, what happened was she tried to blast him once, he held on, he attacked her mind, then finally she blasted him even harder and threw him out of her mind (at which point Vol was near-death and exhausted) and then, after progressively getting angrier, Abeloth destroyed the city. She wasn't operating at city-melting anger at the start, she built up to it and it was caused by the damage Vol had done, and expressed afterthefact. She entered a mindless bloodlust which she was not in while fighting Vol. This is shown after their fight was done:

”Fate of the Jedi: Ascension” wrote:Abeloth had been wandering the City of Glass when she had attacked Vol. She had been enjoying the calmness and prettiness of the place illuminated by the fireglobes, and had been idly thinking about what she might do with it once it came under her control. Should she make this her base, from which to rule the galaxy? It was quaint and charming. Or should she give it to those who had served her well, as a reward?

Too, the attack on Grand Lord Vol had been in her mind the moment Ship had begun to head for Kesh. She had wanted to strike here on this world, from the center of this place of which he was so proud; to show Vol and the others that nothing they held as precious was safe from her. She knew he was a powerful Force-user and strong with the dark side. And that, she could have handled.

But he had tricked her, had used a technique that his antithesis had used on her not so long before. He had learned the uprooting technique of the Theran Listeners, as had the despised Skywalker, and used it with even less care than that Jedi had.

He had-

Abeloth screamed from a mouth that slashed her face in two. Unable to retain her form, unable even to notice that she had not retained her form, she thrashed and howled as tentacles erupted from her torso and her face shifted like melting wax. Her anguish used the Force as a weapon, as she had so often before, but this time she was barely aware that she was releasing nearly inconceivable amounts of Force energy upon a city that was completely unprepared for it.

[...]

The entire city was attacked by a wind filled with glass shards, each a shikkar driven by a single purpose-to hurt anyone, anything, living inside the City of Glass. They were the Lost Tribe-they would suffer, all of them, as their leader had made her suffer.

[...]

None of it harmed Abeloth, though she would not have noticed if it had. She barely noticed when she was lifted from the street where she lay convulsing up into the night air, and a large shape that looked like nothing so much as an angry orange eye sped toward her.

Moreover, Krayt's Force Drain caused far more real damage to Abeloth - whereas with Vol she had enough power to melt a city after, with this Drain, all of her other avatars went from defeating their opponents (Ben and Vestara, Saba and her soldiers, and several others) to being swiftly beaten by them. In Saba's case, Abeloth had sent out ghouls which were very fast and hard to kill, and they were basically reduced to slow, pathetic vestiges of what they had been moments ago because Krayt's Drain had taken so much out of Abeloth.

”Fate of the Jedi:Apocalypse” wrote:The red glow in the eyes of the shadow-ghouls faded suddenly to pink, and openings began to appear in their staggered-gauntlet formation. Saba sprang into the first gap, holding her ignited lightsaber between her and the nearest ghoul, trying to reach the body to which it was attached by a long writhing tail. The thing kept trying to slip around the blade's purple-white glow to slash at a head or shoulder or hip.  Saba advanced behind a whirling shield of blocks and slashes, cutting through a shadowy arm here, a leg there, even a neck or body. The pieces dropped away, withering into nothingness before they hit the floor, and the ghoul instantly grew a replacement. Still, the constant hacking was enough to keep the thing from touching Saba, and at last she reached the body itself.  

[...]  

Once Olazon had finished, his voice came over the reception bud in Saba's ear. "You're getting quicker," he said. "And only one hit that time. You okay?"  

Saba put her weight on her aching leg and, when the muscle merely clinched with cold agony and did not collapse, nodded.  "Yesss, but this one is not growing quicker," she said. "They are growing slower. Keep going."  

Now, Abeloth has Force reserves that are so extreme she can take damage that would have killed even Luke several times over before her reserves run dry - so for Krayt to have damaged her so much, his Drain basically did the equivalent of killing a high tier Force user. Drain is extremely powerful but also hard to use in combat, which is why he needed Luke to hold Abeloth in place to do this, but nonetheless, Krayt still needs the Force power to cause this damage to Abeloth in the first place - and what people forget is that Krayt was actually being damaged, not healed, by Draining Abeloth, because her Force essence is naturally corrupt, and Krayt screamed in pain when her essence poured into his, and there was even steam coming off of him.

While comparing a Mnemotherapy attack to a Force drain attack isn't a perfect comparison, since they are different techniques, there is nothing about what Vol did that tells me he is better than Krayt - comparing their feats is like comparing apples to oranges. So if anyone wants to compare Vol and Krayt, we can say that Krayt’s Force Drain caused more tangible damage to Abeloth than Vol’s corrupted Mnemotherapy technique which can even accidentally destroy someone’s mind, and he used it like a psychic axe on the festering wound of Abeloth’s psyche - note, also, that Abeloth was not worried about Vol at all (“that she could handle”), but “he had tricked her” - there is an element of deception, not just raw power, which allowed Vol to escape from Abeloth, and it took all he had just to do that. Escape.

So really... Vol just has "much the power of Luke" and can hold on briefly from being blasted by Abeloth. Both of these can easily be attributed to Apoc Krayt, maybe even Caedus (and Troy Denning per his recent tweets would agree with me).

@ILS while I like this post, the workan scaling still put Vol far above DE Sidious as a duelist...