SS- Luminara Unduli (Cilghal) vs Warb Null (Cheth)

Both characters are at their respective peaks: ROTS for Luminara Unduli and TOTJ for Warb Null.


This thread follows all default stipulations listed in the "Guidelines" thread. Additional rules are as follows:

- Feats take precedent over directly and indisputably contradicted statements.
- Quotes are binding and have no expiration date unless directly or subtextually contradicted. For the latter, such a case must be made within the debate itself.
- All letter or number statistics ascribed to characters from C-Canon sources, including role-playing games and trading cards, are banned.

Good luck have fun Cilghal! Can't wait for your starter!

TAEP

cool something different, i like it.

Already know that in Round 2 of the tourney ill get accused of copying Cheth's post in here, just watch, calling it before it happens

Vaelias wrote:Already know that in Round 2 of the tourney ill get accused of copying Cheth's post in here, just watch, calling it before it happens

Your post is likely to be up before mine since I've yet to write anything

1)Ulic Qel Droma

During the Nadd uprising, a young Ulic faces and defeats Warb Null, despite Null’s aura of uneasiness weakening him and Ulic being pretty much a neophyte at the time.The fight takes about 3 panels, in which Ulic doesn’t seem to have a problem at meeting Null’s blows, indicating that Ulic is, overall, significantly above Null, even accounting for his greater agility.

Fighting past a wall of dark force, Ulic manages to destroy Warb Null.

Tales of the Jedi Companion

Ulic then goes on to grow significantly in power, upon becoming a sith and disappearing for years, along with Exar Kun.




Furthermore, comparing them at their respective peaks, it’s evident that Kun is the more powerful of the two, seeing as TCSWE calls him “the most powerful of the Sith Lords”.

Once the most powerful and dangerous of the Dark Lords of the Sith, he was responsible for the deaths of millions four millennia before the Rise of the Empire.
the complete SW encyclopedia

2) Darth Maul

Millennia later, the sith once again reveal themselves to the Jedi through Darth Maul. As the quotes below can attest, Maul is proof that the sith are more powerful than ever. Even including the infamous “shedding limitations” argument, Kun is undoubtedly included, as his comic book series featuring him  was published a few years before these guides. As such, Maul is at the very least slightly above Kun as a combatant.







3) TPM Kenobi

During the events of TPM, Kenobi proves a worthy opponent for Maul, given his proximity to his master Jinn, who himself is noted to challenge Maul in both of their duels, with some sources even going as far as to say that Kenobi was an even more challenging opponent for Maul than Jinn. All in all, it’s clear that Kenobi is not far-off from Maul, and his subsequent growth in power ensures that by AOTC, he’s certainly reached Maul.

Regardless, Qui-Gon had quieted his mind and brought his imposing might to bear against Maul’s agility. He had matched Maul’s furious strokes with a disciplined intensity all his own. In the midst of their no-quarter contest the Jedi had even managed to order the slave boy to flee for the safety of the waiting ship, where Maul had nearly forgotten all about him.
Endgame

But I must confess that this Jedi is a challenge. If I leap, he is with me. If I turn, he follows me. He meets my ferocity with his own. His lightsaber swirls and hums, and several times comes closer than I like.
Maul journal

So it was with extra confidence that Darth Maul confronted the Jedi again on Naboo, now wielding his deadly double-bladed weapon. The Jedi Master fought valiantly, but it was the young Padawan that challenged Maul the most.

Star Wars Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns: Darth Maul Databank

4)  Luminara Unduli

And now we finally get to Luminara. In 22 BBY, right before the events of AOTC, she’s sent along with her padawan, as well as Kenobi and Skywalker to a diplomatic mission to Ansion. During said mission, she performs a feat of speed that Kenobi muses he would not be able to replicate.

Lying on his overstuffed sleeping pad, Obi-Wan contemplated Luminara's already softly sleeping form in light of what she had accomplished earlier that evening. He did not think he could have done it. His particular talents lay elsewhere. The sight of her vaulting from the back of one surepp to another, never lingering long enough for her presence to unduly alarm a single beast, knowing that a single slip might mean certain death despite anything Jedi training could do, had aroused in him the kind of admiration one normally reserved for the actions of those on the Jedi Council. He wanted very much to ask her exactly how she had managed certain seemingly impossible moves.
The Approaching Storm

(Also yes, I know Kenobi says his talents lay elsewhere, but I think we can agree speed is one of the deciding factors of a duel, and Obi-Wan might not be referring to combat-related talents)

Now, one may question whether Kenobi’s judgment is accurate or not, as he has shown a tendency to underestimate his abilities, but in this case I believe it is. To prove it, let’s turn our attention to Kit Fisto. During the events of The Cestus Deception, he and Kenobi engage in a spar, where Kenobi is shown to be Fisto’s clear inferior, he’s quickly overwhelmed and, for the two to compete on even ground, Fisto even needs to give himself some disadvantages. Later in that novel, Fisto faces Ventress, and is defeated in the time it takes Kenobi to face an X’Ting, so likely less than 30 seconds.

Obi-Wan and Kit had been engaged for an hour now, each seeking holes in the other’s defense. Obi-Wan swiftly discovered that Kit was the better swordfighter, astonishingly aggressive and intuitive in comparison with Obi-Wan’s more measured style. But the Nautolan gave himself deliberate disadvantages, hampered himself in terms of balance, limited his speed, emphasized his nondominant side to force himself to full attention, the kind of full attention that can be best accessed only when life itself is at risk. To relax and feel the flow of the Force under such stress was the true road to mastery.
The Cestus Deception

Your pleasure,” Kit hissed, and went at her. He was like fire, Ventress like smoke. The dance had substance but not form, a blur of light that seemed impossibly fast, unbelievably deadly. The two leapt and swerved, collided and bounced away. Single against double lightblades. Hands, knees, feet, all in a mind-numbing blur.
Obi-Wan would have given his right hand to join. Or even to watch such a display. But he had his own worries, his own battle to fight.
He struggled with the urge to simply draw his lightsaber and slaughter the X’Ting. His enemies came on and on, struck quickly but clumsily, got in each other’s way. Obi-Wan was direct in attack, and as elusive as a breeze.
He’d missed the engagement, but suddenly—Kit was down!
The Cestus Deception

By contrast, Luminara is able to hold her own against Ventress for an extended time. In fact, the episode guide implies a degree of intensity to their duel, not to not to mention that the two were evenly matched in their force powers, sometimes the runners of the show likely used to showcase their closeness as fighters. Of course, I am not suggesting Luminara is Ventress’ equal by any means, other quotes can confirm it’s not the case, but based on a comparison of the descriptions we have she did perform better than that iteration of Fisto, which is all my argument needs to work.

“Ahsoka leaves her station to help Master Luminara.
The duel between Jedi Master and dark assassin intensifies, moving from the relatively safe upper platforms into the thick of the reactor chamber fires. Ventress cuts through some heavy machinery, sending it crashing down at Luminara. Luminara uses the Force to keep the debris from crushing her, but is nonetheless pinned by a heavy pipe. Ventress closes in for the kill.”
Cloak of Darkness episode guide

While both Fisto and Kenobi caught up and surpassed her by the end of the war, there is strong indication that Luminara too grew in power. For once, we know jedi can evolve and grow through challenges, and the Clone Wars certainly offered many. Secondly, luminara defeated Ventress later in the war, albeit with Aayla Secura’s help. Although her presence cannot be entirely disregarded, she has shown to be vastly below people who are factually weaker than Ventress, namely Quinlan Vos. And even then, Ventress’ own significant growth in power would likely make up for Aayla’s help.

“It makes our task of finding her that much more challenging,” Luke said. “But challenges are what make one grow.”
FOTJ: Allies

So what we’re left with is: ROTS Luminara>>AOTC Luminara>CD Fisto>>AOTC Kenobi>>TPM Kenobi Exar Kun>Sith Ulic>>Jedi Ulic>>Warb Null.
As you can see Null is completely out of his depth here, but that’s not all.

5) Further advantage

To make things worse for him, Luminara has one last major advantage in her corner that would further cement her already assured victory: her agility, an advantage most opponents would enjoy against Null, in Luminara’s case to an even greater extent as her agility and flexibility are noted to be greater than those of humans, thanks in part to her training, allowing her to perform incredible moves.





Luminara wins.
But I look forward to your response @Nute_Chethray

Good post

POWER of the SITH

Null vs Maul

Your entire argument hinges on a single point; Maul > Kun. The quotes that you use are lackluster to say the least.



The second quote (starting with second since that is the simplest), is easily explained away by the fact that DK Readers also claims that the sith order was founded 2000 years ago, when in fact just Warb Null died in 3999 bby, so almost a millennia further back, and Ajunta Pall founded it sometime around 6900 bby. It's a movies’ only book, and doesn’t include Kun, Ulic or Null:



The first quote does not have such a self-debunking nature, but it's very evidently also about the movies alone, as it is supposed to be purely about the TPM movie, and is meant for movie fans and young children, not for novel/comic readers. If the good faith acknowledgement of its nature is not enough for you to dismiss it, then I’ll have to refer to the scans which contradict it:

Jedi Apprentice Special Edition: The Followers wrote:"Of course Anakin had not seen the power of the dark side the way that Obi-Wan had. He had not witnessed his Master being cut down by a Sith Lord. He had not been nearly killed himself.

After such a close experience Obi-Wan was well aware of the threat the Sith posed if they regained all of their ancient power. And recapturing the knowledge contained in a Sith Holocron would be a large step in that direction. It could be devastating for the entire galaxy"

Obi-Wan Kenobi explicitly thinks that after having sensed the power of Adas’ holocron (from afar, he's never seen the full power from holding/looking directly at it) and having fought Maul, Maul has yet to “regain” the power of the ancient sith. Note that while holistically the statement would likely be meant to cover all ancient sith, it also directly includes Warb Null, as the power of Adas’s holocron would be the passive power of his knowledge.

And as we know Null has all of Adas’s knowledge, meaning that even excluding his own power, that alone would put him above Maul. Yet Shas Dovos (Null’s original name) was already adept at using sith magic, and in addition to the knowledge of Adas he also had that of Nadd. Meaning he should be vastly superior to the holocron that's already > Maul.

Hammer wrote:"Telloti knew the weapon in his hands. Somehow, he knew it. He had fashioned it. millennia ago. Or rather, the man in his vision, Shas Dovos, the man who became Warb Null, had, inspired by the dark teachings of Freedon Nadd and dread King Adas before him. He knew these things. He had their memories, their wisdom, the cunning of the Sith."

So we get something like this: Null >> Adas’ Holocron’s full power > The power Kenobi felt from a distance > Maul

Sith vs Ventress

You try to scale Ventress over Maul, but that too is a false point.

First of you have Dooku explicitly saying that the dark jedi are nothing compared to the power of the sith, which would necessarily include that Maul (and Null for that matter) > Ventress, who is a dark jedi at the time. And as you confirmed, Luminara is below Ventress.



But if you want them to show it, its as simple as S4-early S5 Maul being noticeably superior to Savage Opress, being capable of oneshotting him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUevM0XLJLQ

Despite Savage being capable of holding his own and even overwhelming mid-war Anakin, mid-war Kenobi (who is far above his AOTC level), and Ventress herself repeatedly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izHmAPQ0qPY

Savage even forces Dooku and Ventress to combine their power to beat him because he's too powerful for either alone, despite both being more skillful and masterful than him, and Dooku than her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s3x8ox2ToE&t=1s

Star Wars Fact File 31 wrote:He turned on both Ventress and Dooku, who were force to work together to defeat the powerful Savage.

S4-S5 Maul is noted to have regained his former power, meaning he’s still at TPM Maul’s level, not above.



Therefore we get Null >> Adas’ Holocron’s full power > The power Kenobi felt from a distance > Maul > Savage > Dooku > Ventress

Luminara vs Darkness

You already noted that AOTC Luminara is inferior to S1 Ventress so I don’t need to address that, but I will disagree on her second fight with Ventress. First off, you say that Aayla is vastly below Quinlan, yet nothing supports this. Their duel was long, lasting long enough that Gree could be knocked out at the beginning of the fight, wake up again, and still watch the fight for a few panels before it was over. And note that Aayla didn’t want to hurt Quinlan, while Quinlan was immersed in the darkside and fully willing to hurt her. He also could not beat her in a pure duel, having to resort to a telekinetic attack.





You also argue that Luminara must have been the deciding factor against Ventress because Aayla previously was inferior to Quinlan. But last we saw Luminara dueling anyone of significance (her first fight with Ventress), she too was inferior to Ventress by your own words. And Aayla would also have the war growth. So why would we cap Aayla at previous levels, and then argue that Luminara must have grown past hers. Especially since Aayla is a knight, and has far more room to grow than someone who already is a member of the council.

Even if we assume that Luminara and Aayla grew equally much, this still wouldn’t bring Luminara > or even = Ventress, as neither of them have to be even comparable to Ventress to beat her as a duo, especially since the duel ended with them dropping the ceiling of a cave on top of her.

I also want to note something about Kit vs Luminara, and that is that you stated that Kit’s duel against Ventress likely lasted less than 30 seconds. But cutting pauses where Ventress and Luminara don’t fight but talk, their fight also only lasted 28 seconds. So if anything, Luminara and Fisto seem evenly matched.

So we get Null >> Adas’ Holocron’s full power > The power Kenobi felt from a distance > Maul > Savage > Ventress > Luminara

Combat
Neophytes

Cilghal wrote:Ulic being pretty much a neophyte at the time.

While its not really an important point, you refer to Ulic as a neophyte to dismiss Null for losing to him (there’s also a scaling chain but I’ll get to that), yet that is not only a false assessment of his skill and ability, it also is ironic, considering the characters you scale Luminara to.

During Null’s fight with Ulic, Ulic already had spent years in training, and was so intense and dedicated to his studies that his mother (a notable jedi in her own right) was concerned by it:



He also was specifically noted to already have “awesome proficiency with the lightsaber”, to master all of the techniques in lightsaber combat taught by Arca at a quicker pace than other jedi, and to have perfected his saber skills.





Further, Ulic was more focused and fierce than ever since Arca was in danger, much like Anakin’s moments of focus when Kenobi and others he cared about were in danger, meaning that Ulic was performing at higher levels than usual.



So in other words, what you call a neophyte is infact a master duelist who performed at way higher levels than usual.

However there is an actual neophyte here. Ventress. Aka the one who beat Luminara. And we need not look any further than Luminara’s own assessment of Ventress’ skill to show that:

Luminara wrote:“Your version is unrefined, amateurish, sloppy.”

So Null was beaten by a master of lightsaber combat who achieved perfection, and Luminara lost to a woman who per her own words was an amateur. It seems that if Luminara struggles against an amateur, Null would be too much for her even if we were to discard his superior power.

Physicals
You argue that anyone with agility would hold an advantage against Null. But how so? Nothing suggests this. The fact that he got beaten by an acrobatic maneuver does not mean he’s particularly vulnerable to it, unless you would also argue that TPM Maul is weak against agile opponents. Sure I won’t say that Null would be one to jump around like Luminara, but he’s still more than capable of blocking attacks from multiple angles and from agile opponents. Null blocked attacks from three different jedi at once, one being the remarkably agile Ulic himself, and they’re both unable to prevent him from retreating and even to hurt him:




Three people striking Null from different directions all at once, one being Ulic, yet none can land a single hit. I see no reason for him to be unable to keep up with Luminara’s attacks. The bigger question is if she can keep up with someone possessing Null’s size, strength and skill when she’s unable to keep up with Ventress.

Esoterics

Another advantage Null has is his many tricks and abilities. He has a concealed second blade that he can activate mid-duel, which means not only can he do so in the middle of one of Luminara’s agile moves (which for reference is also how Ventress found the opening to kick her off the platform), it also allows him to have a double-bladed lightsaber to more easily cover multiple angles:

Hammer wrote:Telloti triggered it and sidestepped.

The extra-long green blade of the ancient lightsaber retracted into the hilt. In the same instant, the butt sprang open like the maw of a sarlacc, revealing a hidden, secondary emitter. A blade of red energy erupted from it, the ingenious mechanism within realigning and refocusing the power in a nanosecond.

Without the resistance of the green blade,

Ryelli stumbled forward, dangerously off balance. Telloti shifted his grip and flipped the new red blade over, slicing neatly through the nape of Ryelli's neck. The Jedi Master tumbled to the floor.

The next trick is one you already mentioned, and that is his ability to lessen her strength and will with the darkside, something he already has shown to be able to use mid-duel. So even if we were to ignore both his superior power, strength, and dueling skills, he could still just stall until she is too weak to fight him any further.

Conclusion

Null scales vastly over Ventress in power due to his superiority to Adas’ holocron and Maul per the following chain;

Null >> Adas’ Holocron’s full power > The power Kenobi felt from a distance > Maul > Savage > Dooku (in power) > Ventress

In dueling Null lost to an Ulic far above his base level who already in base had perfected his form, while Luminara lost to Ventress who per her own words was an amateur. Null also has esoterics and tricks to overwhelm or surprise Luminara.

In other words, Null crushes in every category

Phenomenal post good sir 

AAYLA RESPECT

Great post, Cheth.

Good evening Mahir.

Because Cilghal has quit debating we've decided to close this debate