I'm not the first person to bring up that force users in the era of the Old Republic are significantly stronger than anything we ever see in the prequels or the original trilogy. Darth Sideous was supposedly the strongest Sith Sorcerer to ever come about in that era, and the most impressive thing he does in canon is shoot lightning. If you count legends then his power is much more obvious and extraordinary, achieving feats that are close to what Sorcerers can do in TOR, however we never see him devouring planets like Valkorian or chaining Force Ghosts like the Sith Sorcerer. Vader was killed by lightning and Sideous was killed by falling down an elevator shaft, things that would have been easily survivable for the most powerful Sith in TOR.

And that's just on the Sith side of things.

Beyond special effects and powers, the Jedi and Sith of the previous era seem to just have a deeper understanding of the nature of the Force. Sith Sorcerer's have such a fundamental understanding of the Force that they're able to manipulate the very fabric of it through their rituals. Unlike in the prequels, texts and artifacts containing ancient knowledge are studied much more frequently, rather than just when they're needed. And on these planets where the Force is strong, you can certainly feel it, even those who aren't Force Sensitive can tell when they're in a place of high concentration.

Lots of people have pointed these things out, but a question I'm seeing a lot less of is why this has been happening.

Have the Jedi simply lost most of their knowledge of the Force? Admittedly, this was my first idea, and it made a bit of sense: After the fall of the Sith, the Jedi would be the only ones with any interest in the Force. And to be honest, while they are definitely more in tune with it, they don't know as much about is as the Sith do. The Sith are experimenters, they're the ones who manipulate the Force, dig deep, find out what makes it tick. Usually with horrific results, true, but with those horrific results comes with it a more scientific understanding of the Force, rather than the Jedi's mere spiritual understanding. Most in-depth knowledge of the Force comes as a result of their experiments. After their fall as a major religious faction, and as the Jedi became increasingly a branch of the Republic rather than a religion dedicated to study, it makes sense that they would let various things about the subject of their study be forgotten.

However, that doesn't account for the fact that places of Force power seem to be flat out missing. There's places like Dagobah, sure, but even those places require prior Force Sensitivity in order to feel its presence, whereas ages ago there were places with so much concentration that even those with no sensitivity could tell that there was definitely something powerful about it

Not to mention Force Ghosts, while before they came about whenever a powerful Force user died rather they were trying to or not, now they require special training. As if the Force is somehow harder to reach that it requires more effort.

Another piece of evidence is Darth Plagius, the guy who could probably be considered the Valkorian of his time. This was a guy who probably had a better understanding of the Force than even Sith Sorcerers of old, that's how deeply he studied it. It makes sense that he would have studied texts and techniques from the ages of the Old Republic, yet even with the knowledge available to him, he's still not able to achieve feats like devouring the Force itself and leaving planets completely dead. The best explanation for that would be that things that ordinarily would have worked back then can't work anymore, because it drawed on parts of the Force that no longer existed or were much harder to reach due to a diminished presence.

Then there's testimony from George Lucas himself. According to him, Darth Sideous was supposedly the most powerful and talented Sith Sorcerer to ever live. Him and the Skywalkers are supposed to live and breath the Force, yet again, in terms of destructive power or spiritual understanding, they're far from impressive. But what if George is telling the truth: they are more attuned to the Force than anyone before them, it's the Force that is weaker.

For perspective, compare two landmasses. Say one of them is the size of a planet, the other is a small island. Cut out 10% of the planet and it will still be larger than the entirety of that island, even though it's a lower percentage. In the same way, while the Skywalkers and Sideous have more access to the Force, there is less Force to draw from which would explain why they're comparatively weaker.

So what's this mean for Star Wars as a whole? Well, actually, it probably bodes pretty well. Look at how society has been taking it. Things have been mostly unchanged for the past 5000 years. If anything, technology is actually improving, to the point where people can use it to do things that even the Force has lost the ability to do. Destroying planets is no longer possible for the Force, but with enough lasers, anything is possible.

It looks like Kreia might actually get her wish. The Force is finally being taken out of our lives, and like the Exile, life is persevering and growing stronger as a result. By the twelfth or so movie, the Star Wars series will probably look more like Star Trek, with more focus on technology and culture rather than an uncaring energy made out of vagueness.

"The Force Awakens"? More like "The Force Taking One Last Yawn Before Finally Going To Sleep, Forever."

But hey, that's just a theory...A GAME THEORY!

No it does not sure Valkorian and Darth Nihilus could life drain entire planets but let me tell you what Sidious could do he could create a force storm so strong that it could destroy life on entire planets and could destroy entire fleets and teleport people from the other side of the galaxy to him with a force storm. Yes he could use a force storm up to the edges of the galaxy and he was is on the other end.

So yeah that is way more ******. Since this game is legends we must compare them to the legends Sidious and Luke.

Lule could create mini black holes so I rest my case.

No it does not sure Valkorian and Darth Nihilus could life drain entire planets but let me tell you what Sidious could do he could create a force storm so strong that it could destroy life on entire planets and could destroy entire fleets and teleport people from the other side of the galaxy to him with a force storm. Yes he could use a force storm up to the edges of the galaxy and he was is on the other end.

So yeah that is way more ******. Since this game is legends we must compare them to the legends Sidious and Luke.

Lule could create mini black holes so I rest my case.

I don't think the OP was comparing the upper echelon of both time periods, but the level of power demonstrated by the average, or average exceptional, Force Users. In this we see a pretty clear advantage in the TOR era Force Users.

Personally I blame the overblown imaginations of comic book writers for a lot of the Mary Sue creep we find with Sidious. I mean really, creating giant wormholes and force storms, yadda yadda yadda, is just stupid.

I also don't know of any cases of Luke creating black holes, you'll need to provide a source on that one. (he has shifted a dovin basal singularity, which is impressive, but not the same thing)

To explain Superluke and the unlimited Palpatine, we could look at the Force the other way round. If the Force has a limited capacity, a few individual force users could draw more power from that pool than they could when there were many others who did so, making them "lucky" to live in a time where they can reach their full potential, rather than being innately more powerful than anyone who came before.

It does not make sense that the Sidious era *knows* more about the force, though.

• The Rakata learned the ways of the force from the Kwa but kept and improved only upon the knowledge THEY deemed worth knowing.
   
  
• Force sensitive slaves learned from the Rakata but were taught only what THEY wanted them to know.
   
  
• The Jedi purged all knowledge THEY considered dark and unnatural, persecuted everyone who dared dabling in those dark arts, and cloistered potential rogue talents. Making sure their way is the only one.
   
  
• The Sith tried to reinvent the wheel the Rakata had perfected tens of millenia ago. Yet their philosophy led to contant infighting, which eventually destroyed them as a culture, leaving one Sith master teaching one apprentice the things HE considered important, and the apprentice "succeding" his master as soon as HE thought he had learned everything worth knowing.
  

So much knowledge must have been lost, that first needs to be re-discovered before it can be improved upon.

I see a real world analogy here: When they finally got rid of the Romans, people in Europe also lost their knowledge about architecture and sanitary instalations. It took over a millenium until people used cement again, had proper sewage systems in their cities, good streets connecting them, and water supply near or even in their homes.

A zealous religion, sanctioned by the state, emphasizing the "evilness" of those ancient inventors, made sure that warfare was the only area where old technology was improved or reinvented. It took over 1000 years, radical political and religious changes and an era of great minds sponsored and protected by rich, open-minded people, to finally break this stagnation.

Back in Star Wars, in EP4 we have two more or less senile hermits, a self-serving master of the dark arts, and a henchman who is too lost in his self-loathing to do anything but smash the things his master points at. And while Sidious is working on it, he hasn't yet lived the lifetimes it takes to reinvent everything that was withheld, censored or ignored by all the generations of force scholars that came before him. And even Sidious himself wasn't open-minded and patient enough to learn everything Plagueis knew.

Sidious and Superluke may have a wider knowledge the average individual of previous eras, but an era where many specialists dedicated themselves to the study of certain aspects of the Force, simply must have had vastly more knowledge as a whole. And then we have those whose lifespan, naturally or not, is measured in centuries rather than decades, to even hope to ever know as much as such a being, one's sole focus must be to prolong their own life.

It does not make sense that the Sidious era *knows* more about the force, though.

I could use that logic to say "It does not make sense that the Modern era *knows* more about science, though" (in comparison to say... the Romans)

Some groups in the Star Wars antiquity knew a lot, but most of it is unknown in the existing SW universe (and to fans), so to assume it is usable and worthwhile info is a massive and unfounded assumption. It could just be a vast library of a few million recipes you can cook with just the force. Who knows right?

I mean, knowledge and skills develop and change. While some knowledge is lost (and we still rediscover things that we didn't know people so far in the past knew) we still acknowledge that our understanding in the modern era is vastly superior to anything our ancient predecessors knew.

Also note: Jedi had dedicated, state-sanctioned, concentrated study of the force for over 1,000 generations (at least 1,000 years of which were uninterrupted peace) most of which survived in massive libraries easily accessible to Sidious and most Jedi. The Old Sith lost a lot of their efforts into militant development and had to recover that knowledge every few hundred years after they kept losing wars. Even so, the records of most of their most famous leaders and researchers survived till Sidious's time where he collected them and essentially had a reference book for all the most powerful Sith's abilities, powers, research etc... which he built upon, annotated, and rejected their mistakes (or corrected them) in his Book of Sith.

SWTOR is a game, intended to be played by you. Thats why you get powerful abilities for your character to make the playing experience interesting and rewarding. The game also has to provide powerful enemies so you get a sense of acomplishment when you defeat them. No one wants to play weak characters against weak bosses. Its not interesting. Key words: game mechanics.

Also, swtor is NOT Canon. So if you are going to compare swtor characters/bosses/enemies to the movies era characters, you have to compare their non canon versions, with their non canon feats and powers (which are inmense and far superior to TOR in the case of people like Luke, Sidious and Yoda, for example). Non canon compares to non canon. Because if you use a canon vs canon criteria to compare, then the characters in SWTOR doesnt even exist, as this game is NOT canon.

In summary:

1) Game mechanics give your playable character and your enemies/bosses inmense and exagerated powers so the playing experience is interesting and involving.

2) Comparing non canon SWTOR to non canon movie era: characters from the movies win.

3) Comparing canon SWTOR to canon movie era: Nothing is canon in SWTOR, so movie era wins by default.

You can not compare canon vs non canon.

I think part of the problem is, people don't want to accept what the creator of the Star Wars Universe has said on the matter.

It may not be helped, that even the creator has changed his mind on some things, or come up with some new ideas that make previous things seem wierd.

Luke and Leia being twins. Not originally planned. 18 years before "A New Hope" force users were running around everywhere enough, that while they may be no where near the numbers we see in TOR (and even in TOR force users are considered a small fraction of a percentage of non force users), they were seen enough that Han Solo not believing in them, when he lived almost half if not half his life while they were still active.

then Yoda says size doesn't matter and blah blah blah, but then later, we find out, yes there are limits to a force users abilities, regardless of what Yoda said. Some, no matter how dedicated they are, are not going to use the force as well as Yoda.

But it's not helped by others wanting to spin their own ideas into the lore, as well as fans just wanting to spin it other ways because "What? I don't think that's cool enough." or "What? I don't like that, so I think it's this way."

Now we have Disney throwing in their own ideas, which just means new writers doing the same thing. "Well, I think this will make us more money if we say or do this..."

Luke and Sidious being the most powerful Force Users ever? Not a bad idea. What needs to be thought of, is what are the actual limits of the force. Leaping? Flying? Force Storms? Black holes? Etc etc...

I think part of the problem is, people don't want to accept what the creator of the Star Wars Universe has said on the matter.

 

It may not be helped, that even the creator has changed his mind on some things, or come up with some new ideas that make previous things seem wierd.

 

Luke and Leia being twins. Not originally planned. 18 years before "A New Hope" force users were running around everywhere enough, that while they may be no where near the numbers we see in TOR (and even in TOR force users are considered a small fraction of a percentage of non force users), they were seen enough that Han Solo not believing in them, when he lived almost half if not half his life while they were still active.

 

then Yoda says size doesn't matter and blah blah blah, but then later, we find out, yes there are limits to a force users abilities, regardless of what Yoda said. Some, no matter how dedicated they are, are not going to use the force as well as Yoda.

 

But it's not helped by others wanting to spin their own ideas into the lore, as well as fans just wanting to spin it other ways because "What? I don't think that's cool enough." or "What? I don't like that, so I think it's this way."

 

Now we have Disney throwing in their own ideas, which just means new writers doing the same thing. "Well, I think this will make us more money if we say or do this..."

 

Luke and Sidious being the most powerful Force Users ever? Not a bad idea. What needs to be thought of, is what are the actual limits of the force. Leaping? Flying? Force Storms? Black holes? Etc etc...

Well limits and experience. I mean there's raw talent which is what Luke's case is. He has the potential, but he doesn't know what to do with it, or how to use is. Palpatine, probably knows much of the same stuff as say Valkorion(though some if it is likely lost to time). I mean in the comics Palpatine used force storms to obliterate places.

But you are right, we have no idea what the limits really are. To me at this point it's kind of like magic in D&D. You start out with something like Magic Missile, but then you start learning feats to maximize those spells, or you start learning spells that call freaking meteor storms.

But in Luke's case, you can have all this brimming potential, but if you don't know how to do the basics, that potential is meaningless.

No it does not sure Valkorian and Darth Nihilus could life drain entire planets but let me tell you what Sidious could do he could create a force storm so strong that it could destroy life on entire planets and could destroy entire fleets and teleport people from the other side of the galaxy to him with a force storm. Yes he could use a force storm up to the edges of the galaxy and he was is on the other end. So yeah that is way more ******.

Even if we disregard that this part(post ep6) of the EU is just bad, the force storm is not way more ****** than eating Ziost, as a ghost.

You can not compare canon vs non canon.

Why not? If you want to? Not existing in the same continuity is a lame reason. Even more so having in mind why the Old Republic( not the game) EU is no longer ''canon''.

SWTOR is a game, intended to be played by you. Thats why you get powerful abilities for your character to make the playing experience interesting and rewarding. The game also has to provide powerful enemies so you get a sense of acomplishment when you defeat them. No one wants to play weak characters against weak bosses. Its not interesting. Key words: game mechanics.

That's basically a statement devoid of meaning and substance. The same can be said about any game, movie or literature ever created in the history of mankind, including the first SW movie in 1977.

Are we to assume mass effect fields don't exist in the ME franchise, cus that's just a ploy to make the game more interesting?

It has nothing to do with the force being weaker or diminished or even with current force users being weaker than their ancestors.

The problem is a lack of creativity and an inability to correctly map millions of years of history; it is a writer's problem. The people who are writing these stories and screenplays are not the original authors of the starwars idea, and as such, they incorporate their own understanding of the force and the abilities that the characters in their stories can perform. Also, remember that they have terms of references for writing these stories, not to mention deadlines.

Then there is time.... time is everlasting but people are not; and people's interest in what they want to see, read and hear exits in a continuum, which changes with time. Look at the last SW movie... it had nothing to do with the force. Just a bunch of soldiers fighting each other, it could have been "Saving Private Ryan" or "Behind Enemy Lines" for God's sake; and i think they just tagged on that Vader scene as a little bone so that we hunger for episode 8.

The OP is right with one thing - Starwars will become like Star Trek. Even in this game, an imperial agent is more powerful than any Jedi or Sith.

Further evidence of the writers' problem theory can be found in the 5.0 expansion. Knights of the Eternal Throne is Somewhat disconnected from Knights of the Fallen Empire. Want examples?

The Scions - they were supposed to help in the fall of Arcann but they never showed up at all during the entire downfall of the Eternal empire.

Alliance recruits - Didn't play much part in the Voss incursion, of the Sacking of Odessen or the Invasion of Zakuul. They had nameless Sith lords and Jedi Masters running around killing invaders instead of using the alliance recruits like Vera Denz (or whatever her name is).

Then you had mandalorians charging Senya with swords... like seriously. This would have been a perfect time for them to kill of Shae Vizla. She is the new Mandalore and could hold her own against senya; and i'm pretty sure she wouldn't be using any damn sword.

But as i've said, terms or references or lack of creativity.

In my opinion, The Fortce is an entity, something of an "meta-being". It chooses people, it chooses to give people a bit of itself or not ("may the Force be with you" "may the Force serve you" - there is always this "may" in it).

10 years ago I believed that the Light Side of The Force was the opposite of Hate, because Hate was what the Sith used - so the Light Side of The Force had to be Love.

Things have changed drastically since then.

In my opinion, The Fortce is an entity, something of an "meta-being". It chooses people, it chooses to give people a bit of itself or not ("may the Force be with you" "may the Force serve you" - there is always this "may" in it).

 

 

 

10 years ago I believed that the Light Side of The Force was the opposite of Hate, because Hate was what the Sith used - so the Light Side of The Force had to be Love.

 

Things have changed drastically since then.

In These kind of discussions I can't help but think about the "Dawn of the Jedi" story arc. I'm actually quite surprised that that perspective rarely get mentioned in these kinda discussions:rak_02: