An interesting comparison...

Some posts on the "most powerful person in the galaxy" thread and some speculative discussion with friends via instant messaging has led me to compare Darth Sidious to Darth Nihilus. To the casual observer, they seem entirely different. But further research in the Expanded Universe reveals that the Galactic Emperor and his predecessor share a great deal in common. For example, as alluded to in the Dark Side Sourcebook, Dark Empire Sourcebook, and the Mandalorian Armor, Emperor Palpatine's ultimate goal was apoethesis: to become a true omniscient, omnipotent entity that would consume all life within his own consciousness (hence his experiments with his Dark Side elite) and travel from galaxy to galaxy until he blunted out all life within the universe.

Some say that Nihilus is a "force of nature" in that regard. He already consumes life. But he does so for hunger; he cannot help himself. Palpatine is seemingly compelled by not an actual hunger, but ambition and narcissism. But his goal isn't just to drain the Force from people, but to consume them entirely, absorbing them into his being.

Moreover, the omniscient narrator of Revenge of the Sith and other sources identify Palpatine as "the imbalance in the Force", "the shadow" that blunted the Jedi's sensitivity, "a black hole of the Force", "darkness beyond darkness", "an event horizon." It is painfully evident that Darth Sidious was the greater threat in terms of his effect on the Force -- the Chosen One was born to stop him, not Nihilus.

My question is thus: who is worse? If Palpatine is a man and Nihilus is a force of nature, a presence, why was he not the pinnacle of the dark side? Or is Palpatine, driven by something other than hunger, worse? Is he even a man at all?

I find their similarities interesting and I am looking for theories.

 

Palpatine is infinitely worse, IMO. Nihilus, as you said, does what he does because it's just..what he does. It's like calling the T-Rex from Jurassic Park evil; he's just eating to survive.

Palpatine is not eating to survive. He's eating to prolong his existence to an unnatural extent for no reason beyond personal gain.

 

I like them both equally to be honest.

They're two literary parallels. Nihilus embodies the kind of "pure Evil" villain, the dark god, the Sauron character, etc. Palpatine embodies the "all Evil comes from Man" theme.

On the whole I find it hard to choose between the two as to which was "worse". They both exemplify extreme evil, but in different ways. What I will say is that I wish more Star Wars villains were Evil with a capital E the way Nihilus and Palpatine were. Star Wars needs fallen heroes like Darth Caedus or Darth Krayt as well, its had them from the start with Darth Vader. However, Star Wars also had the pure Evil character of Palpatine from the start too, so in my eyes behind every Vader should be a Palpatine.

While I fully support the "dark side" as an insidious force in itself, its always better when its personified in someone like Palpatine. Its one of the reasons the recent revelation with Haazen was so satisfying, since while it has been good to see Lucien and the Covenant as misguided, its even better to see the dark side personified in Haazen as the corrupting force.

 

You misunderstand me. This isn't to ascertain which of the two is more evil, since Palpatine is acting thoroughly without morals -- he exists to aggrandize his own ambitions. Nihilus feeds because he has to, in order to survive. There can be no question that Palpatine is the greater evil. My question is to justify why the Force was imbalanced by Palpatine and not Nihilus.

 

The obvious example would be that Nihilus was already balanced by the Exile.

 

Plus Nihilus was just feeding to survive; that's not unnatural. Gathering power to yourself for no end beyond gathering more power to yourself is.

And given that the balance of the Force was slipping already around 200 years before The Phantom Menace, Palpatine was clearly not the sole cause. He provided the final, almost-irrevocable push that brought the Dark Side to ascendancy, but the conditions were being created well before he was around.

 

You know, Nihilus may have hungered, but there were a few lines about his beliefs in the game which are expanded upon in the KotOR campaign guide. Basically,he and Kreia both understood the nature of reality. They knew everything was connected through the Force, even though most beings acted as if nothing connected them and the universe was just random and chaotic. Kreia was appalled by the fact that the Force exerted so much control over beings and wanted to destroy it.

Nihilus on the other hand, can be inferred from the dialogue in the game to have been disgusted by sentient beings, and apparently wished for all life in the galaxy to be snuffed out so that there would finally be peace and order. Slightly different from Palpatine. Palpatine wanted everyone to walk around like a living battery, and support his eternal life. Nihilus just wanted to eat everything, and bring peace through the absence of life.

See, no matter how you look at it, he didn't just have an unnatural hunger from the get go. A hunger like his has to come from something in the beginning. He lost everything in the Mandalorian Wars and was driven insane by the revelation of the madness of the galaxy. There is a void in his soul from these deep spiritual wounds. He feeds. Feeding on dsomeone's soul apparently stops the hunger temporarily, but increases it many times when it wears off. At this point he gets caught in a vicious cycle, and the hunger becomes a force of nature.

However, one cannot not consider one of the original causes of his hunger. He really decided based upon his own judgement that nothing in the galaxy was worth saving, and passed a death sentence on it. The arrogance of the man to judge the galaxy by his own standards is similar in some repects to Palpatine, who judges people by his own according to Cloak of Deception, but is many degrees more looney. Palpatine decides that everyone's life energy will go into helping him become Palpatine the Undying. Nihilus is just happy with killing everything, even if ultimately it means the death of himself, since there would be nothing left to satisfy his hunger.

 

Something I hadn't considered. But would that be why, in the Force's "eyes", Palpatine was the more malignant evil?

Actually, yes, he was. That 200-year-figure came from Labyrinth of Evil. Additional information makes it clear that Palpatine is the shadow that was blunting Jedi sensitivity, he is identified numerous times within Revenge of the Sith as the dark side personified. Based on all of the evidence, the dark side was growing in strength in preparation for Sidious. Not just sheer coincidence.

 

The implication was that it was growing due to the efforts of the Sith up to that point. I don't think it was growing in "preparation" for Sidious. LOE talked about the errors of the Republic and the Jedi in this context.

But how does one "destroy the Force" without destroying all life?

 

I didn't mean to create the impression that Sidious was a coincidence; my apologies.

I think the Force decided Sidious was more malignant because of the actions he undertook. There's no stories about the Sith Lords between Bane and Sidious, beyond his Master, and even that one's pretty minimal and might not be true, but I'm assuming subverting the entire Jedi order and Republic to serve them, hatching galaxy-rending wars, and causing the deaths of who knows how many people generally weren't part of the game plan. Encouraging small wars and offing Jedi, yes. Sidious-level actions, no.

Before Sidious, it was a general slide to the Dark Side. When Sidious began his plan, it was a plunge off the high dive.

Again, Nihilus was simply feeding to survive. In that aspect, he's no more evil than a shark attacking a sea lion. Unpleasant yes, evil no. Sidious was feeding to unnaturally prolong his life and with one goal in mind: Power. Nihilus was just trying to stay alive.

 

Very convincing reasoning. Bravo, sir.

 

Thanks.

Sidious is just beyond any Sith Lord before him. They all caused massive levels of destruction, but he won.

Well, temporarily anyway.

 

about time they do a story on nihilus...