@slayne:
It's certainly possible to argue that TPM Sidious is capable of beating Valkorion, but this is going a bit too far, lol.
Shitting on Failkorion never goes too far.
The line was more likely an inexact, hyperbolic measure Sidious used to highlight his wild growth rather than him confirming that he was, literally, ten times more powerful as a whatever-he-was-year-old than he was as a 17-year-old.
I don't know why you're interpreting that literally, at any rate.
Wait, so if the musings are hyperbole, then Sidious grew less than times more powerful over the decades, which means that the gap between 17-year-old Sheev and TPM Sidious is even smaller. You just argued against your own case, son.
The text doesn't say that he was able to inform every living being of his existence; it states that he set out to do so, and failed because the Force disobeyed his command. You could make the argument that the Force disobeyed him because it recognized his ability to impact the galaxy in such a manner, but that's implausible because he'd already performed a multitude of actions which would draw the Force's ire by that point such as unbalancing it artificially and manipulating the midichlorians. This attempt was probably the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to the Force's tolerance of Plagueis' antics.
The text even compounds this when it states that "many of the animals in his laboratory succumbed to horrifying diseases" - if the Force had only wanted to stop him from reaching out, why would it also kill the animals in his laboratory? Again, such a response was most likely prompted by the Force's recognition of the danger his quest for power posed; he was becoming too ambitious, and so the Force shut him down.
Or maybe what Plagueis was attempting was even more sacrilegious than suffusing the galaxy with the dark side or manipulating midi-chlorians, which happens to be exactly what the text states:
Still in safekeeping on Aborah were texts and holocrons that recounted the deeds and abilities of Sith Masters who, so it was said and written, had been able to summon wind or rain or fracture the skies with conjured lightning. In their own words or those of their disciples, a few Dark Lords claimed to have had the ability to fly, become invisible, or transport themselves through space and time. But Plagueis had never succeeded in duplicating any of those phenomena.
From the start Tenebrous had told him that he lacked the talent for Sith sorcery, even though the inability hadn't owed to a deficiency of midi-chlorians. It's an innate gift, the Bith would say when pressed, and one that he had lacked, as well. Sorcery paled in comparison with Bith science, regardless. But Plagueis now understood that Tenebrous had been wrong about sorcery, as he had been wrong about so many things. Yes, the gift was strongest in those who, with scant effort, could allow themselves to be subsumed by the currents of the Force and become conduits for the powers of the dark side. But there was an alternative path to those abilities, and it led from a place where the circle closed on itself and sheer will substituted for selflessness. Plagueis understood, too, that there were no powers beyond his reach; none he couldn't master through an effort of will. If a Sith of equal power had preceded him, then that one had taken his or her secrets to the grave, or had locked them away in holocrons that had been destroyed or had yet to surface.
The question of whether he and Sidious had discovered something new or rediscovered something ancient was beside the point. All that mattered was that, almost a decade earlier, they had succeeded in willing the Force to shift and tip irrevocably to the dark side. Not a mere paradigm shift, but a tangible alteration that could be felt by anyone strong in the Force, and whether or not trained in the Sith or Jedi arts.
The shift had been the outcome of months of intense meditation, during which Plagueis and Sidious had sought to challenge the Force for sovereignty and suffuse the galaxy with the power of the dark side. Brazen and shameless, and at their own mortal peril, they had waged etheric war, anticipating that their own midi-chlorians, the Force's proxy army, might marshal to boil their blood or stop the beating of their hearts. Risen out of themselves, discorporate and as a single entity, they had brought the power of their will to bear, asserting their sovereignty over the Force. No counterforce had risen against them. In what amounted to a state of rapture they knew that the Force had yielded, as if some deity had been tipped from its throne. On the fulcrum they had fashioned, the light side had dipped and the dark side had ascended.
On the same day they had allowed Venamis to die.
Then, by manipulating the Bith's midi-chlorians, which should have been inert and unresponsive, Plagueis had resurrected him. The enormity of the event had stunned Sidious into silence and overwhelmed and addled 11-4D's processors, but Plagueis had carried on without assistance, again and again allowing Venamis to die and be returned to life, until the Bith's organs had given out and Plagueis had finally granted him everlasting death.
But having gained the power to keep another alive hadn't been enough for him. And so after Sidious had returned to Coruscant, he had devoted himself to internalizing that ability, by manipulating the midi-chlorians that animated him. For several months he made no progress, but ultimately he began to perceive a measured change. The scars that had grown over his wounds had abruptly begun to soften and fade, and he had begun to breathe more freely than he had in twenty years. He began to sense that not only were his damaged tissues healing, but his entire body was rejuvinating itself. Beneath the transpirator, areas of his skin were smooth and youthful, and he knew that eventually he would cease to age altogether.
Drunk on newfound power, then, he had attempted an even more unthinkable act: to bring into being a creation of his own. Not merely the impregnation of some hapless, mindless creature, but the birth of a Forceful being. The ability to dominate death had been a step in the right direction, but it wasn't equivalent to pure creation. And so he had stretched out-indeed, as if invisible, transubstantiated-to inform every being of his existence, and impact all of them: Muunoid or insectoid, secure or dispossessed, free or enslaved. A warrior waving a banner in triumph on a battlefield. A ghost infiltrating a dream.
But ultimately to no end.
The Force grew silent, as if in flight from him, and many of the animals in his laboratory succumbed to horrifying diseases.
Regardless, eight long years later, Plagueis remained convinced that he was on the verge of absolute success. The evidence was in his own increased midi-chlorian count; and in the power he sensed in Sidious when he had finally returned to Sojourn. The dark side of the Force was theirs to command, and in partnership they would someday be able to keep each other alive, and to rule the galaxy for as long as they saw fit.
--Darth Plagueis
Just tell me that isn't the wankiest excerpt in Star Wars literature.
It isn't just a telepathy feat; Plagueis attempted to manipulate the midi-chlorians of every single living organism in the galaxy to bring about "the birth of a Forceful being." That is why the Force stopped him and killed all his lab animals, but it never intervened with his midi-chlorian manipulation again. So rather than being "the straw that broke the camel's back" or whatever, it was simply a feat that scared the Force itself shitless, so it decided to put a end to it. And indeed, if the Force was required to take such drastic action against him, that kind of in itself confirms Plagueis would have succeeded otherwise.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the level of power Darth Plagueis the Wise operates on. It's a level of power that allows him to outwill and frighten the Force itself; it's a level of power that allows him to achieve Force corruption, telepathy, and midi-chlorian manipulation feats of galactic proportions; and most importantly, it's a level of power that allows him (and TPM Sidious) to one-shot Failkorion tens of times over.
If 17-year-old Sheev is even one-tenth (or even more than one-tenth, as Slayne has ironically argued) of that, it's safe to say he's beyond Failkorion's paygrade too. After all, we have seen Force prodigies like Darth Zannah and Vitiate himself being far above fully trained Force users while they were mere children, and the likes of Darth Cognus rivalling peak Darth Bane without any training in the Force whatsoever, so it doesn't shouldn't be too outlandish to claim that someone with infinitely greater Force potential than any aforementioned characters would be more powerful than Failkorion as a teenager (for a quick comparison of Palpatine and Failkorion's Force potential, the latter was almost 1500 years old at his peak with numerous rituals and artificially gained power elevating him to his current position, and the former as of Dark Empire was… 96. That's younger than pre-Nathema Vitiate, for the record).
So if we round that to the closest of the poll options, zygote Sheev gets my vote.
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