PT How Did Sidious Become So Powerful?

Anyone know how Sidious (perhaps someone who has read up on his backstory) became skilled and powerful enough to kill three Jedi in seconds (even though that scene was poorly done) and battle Yoda to at least a draw?

I am curious because...

1. He's old and unathletic. Surely he has to use the Force to enhance his physical limitations to a greater extent than other Jedi/Sith like Maul, Skywalker, Windu, etc. I would think this would take away from his concentration a bit. Yoda falls in this category too because of his size, but 800-900 years of Force experience should help that. Sidious is old at, what, 70?

2. It would seem to me that the Jedi would have more experience with the Force and in combat due to starting at a young age and all the trials and missions that are required to move up the ladder.

 

Interesting assumptions.

 

I think it's a interesting question, and I don't know if I have any good answers.

For now, I'm fine with "he just is", even though that doesn't really cut it.

I'll have to come back later (distracted by the holidays) when I can put some thought into it. Looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

 

"The dark side is a path to many abilities some would consider unnatural"

 

One would think so. That's also what the Jedi thought, but...

While the Jedi having been training since birth the Sith have been preparing for this war for the last 1,000 years. They watched and studied the Jedi, their training, philosophy, etc, etc. Sidious and previous Sith learned how to undermine them, which they did. Also, the Sith changed. They weren't the same Sith the Jedi fought all those years ago. Leaving the Jedi off guard and unprepared, because they had been training for last war 1,000 years ago.

 

I would also assume his midi count is pretty good.

 

Sid's plan for exterminating the Jedi and gaining complete control of the galaxy was brilliant. We see that unfold pretty much from start to finish. I think the broad strokes of Sid's plan (minus his obsession with Skywalker, who he didn't really need, and their awkward exchange after the demise of Windu) is one of the better points of the PT. But that has little to do with his actual combat abilities. That is more of a political strength. It still doesn't explain how he was able to stand toe to toe with the best of the Jedi Order in a combat scenario.

I would imagine so, but is this verified anywhere?

Here's what I just don't get (and this assuming I'm right on all this): The Jedi number somewhere around 10,000. They recruit all across the galaxy and take in their prospects as infants or small children. They are trained rigorously until they are full-fledged Jedi. And at that point, they go on dangerous missions all the time that surely make them better. They are all pretty much as well-trained and seasoned as you can possibly be.

And then you have Sidious. He's one person. The odds are strongly against one random person being more naturally gifted at something than a pool of 10,000 people, especially when those 10K are specially selected for the skill in question. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. And then in the 10+ years that Sidious was Chancellor, what was he doing to refine his skills? What did he do to develop his skills as a beginner? What's his training and combat background compared to a Jedi Master?

Just based on my knowledge, there are only two sensible answers:

1) Sid has a higher midi count than everyone else.

2) The Dark Side is stronger and that gives him an edge.

No other answer I can think of really makes sense in explaining how he could be as powerful as the best of the Jedi Order.

 

Practice.

 

The Jedi aren't the only ones looking for recruits, so are the Sith. Considering the Jedi don't even know about the existence of the Sith for a thousand years, that gives them quite a bit of room to maneuver. And obviously the Sith would be looking for the most proficient Force users they can find, much like how Palpatine wanted Anakin and Luke as apprentices, Plagueis probably sought out Palpatine the same way.

 

Yes, but the Jedi have a much larger net to cast. Assuming I am correct, the only Sith lord around when Sidious joined up was Plagueis. So Plagueis selects one student and that student turns out to be better than all of the 10,000 the Jedi bring in and train? Not likely. Not impossible, but it's unrealistic without Sid having some sort of edge. It's like the NFL draft. The more picks you have, the more likely you are to find impact players. If you have just one pick and the other team has ten thousand picks, it's highly unlikely that you are getting the best player.

So? Aside from force lightning, which Yoda was able to handle on two occassions and Kenobi and Windu were able to deal with using a lightsaber, what combat techniques did Sid use that would throw off the Jedi? Outside of the FL, it looked like the same fighting style to me.

And the Jedi do the same but with more people looking for gifted force users and more people to train the ones they select. Advantage: Jedi.

 

I would think it'd be more like Plagueis looking through many potential apprentices rather than simply picking one and simply having that one magically become extremely proficient in Force ability. I guess what I meant by the Sith having "more room to maneuver" is that they have all the time in the galaxy to prepare because the Jedi don't know they're out there. I guess you have a point that there's more Jedi out there who can find Force-sensitives to recruit, but then I think the fact that the Sith are only picking the very best probably means that each Sith Lord also know what to look for in an apprentice.

Also, as for how Sidious slaughtered all those Jedi Masters in seconds...I would also point out that sheer Force ability isn't the only criteria for one becoming a Jedi Master, seeing as how Anakin himself was denied the rank. Rather it seems to be more about seniority and experience, and maybe that's why they came up short against Palpatine.

 

Yeah, but what is it that the Sith bring to the table that should catch the Jedi by surprise? Other than force lightning, it's basically the same powers and styles.

I would think the Jedi are out to find the very best too.

No, I wouldn't think sheer skill is the only criteria for being a Jedi Master, but it's certainly a component. I would think a long "career" of successful missions would be a requirement for being a Master. And Sidious took out three of them within five seconds.

 

Jedi take on those who have a good connection to the force, it doesn't have to be a particularly great one. Everyone with a certain amount of potential can prove to be useful. They aren't out there to find the best of the best, rejecting anyone who doesn't meet the criteria, they are out there to find possible Jedi who can serve a purpose, whatever purpose that may be. The Jedi are not on the hunt to find the most powerful person ever, they merely take in force users if they stumble upon them.
The Sith, on the other hand, look for the right one. The master will find various talented force-users and can reject anyone he doesn't deem powerful enough. Their entire search depends on finding the very best possible apprentice, ignoring anyone else. This is a completely different approach, one side goes actively looking for the best possible candidate (the Sith), the other will bring in whoever they found along the way of their normal duties (Jedi). The Jedi have lots of things to do, they can't just send their own around the galaxy on a hunt for the best talent. Their numbers alone mean that they will find many possible Jedi, including many highly talented ones, but their focus is something entirely different, namely being the guardians of the Republic.

Search for talent doesn't depend on having the most people look out for it, or spending the most amount of money on it. Just look at sport, the best talents aren't necessarily found by the big teams, usually it's the smaller ones that succeed in finding gems that no one else has heard of. And if you want to use the NFL, or any of the big sports leagues, as an example, the chances of getting the best player is the greatest if you pick first overall, which is very much what the Sith are doing, spending all their effort on finding the right apprentice. It's not like the Jedi don't find "highly talented" people. Yoda is Sidious' equal, Mace is pretty much as well. Anakin could have topped anyone. That doesn't change the fact, that a person whose entire purpose at this point is to find the right apprentice, will far more likely succeed in finding a great one than those who have other things to do. A Sith master has both the time to wait for the right one and the time to go out and look for him as his primary job, he has no other purpose than to find his apprentice.

Who says that the Sith need any kind of special "surprises" to take out Jedi?
Palpatine was an extremely powerful Sith, probably as powerful as a Sith can get without being created by the force itself. His master had all the time in the world to train him to be the best possible weapon against the Jedi. Apart from their long-standing plan to take over the galaxy, they do have nothing else to do beyond remaining hidden and training for the day they will face the Jedi. The Jedi can't do that. They spend most of their time doing what they are supposed to do, guard the Republic, in every way possible. They do train to fight, but they can't spend their entire existance on preparing for their arch-nemesis. There is no reason to assume that Sidious doesn't have the perfect combat training, as this is the very thing he was shaped for. Unlike the Jedi, who weren't trained to fight the Sith, as those weren't supposed to be around anymore.

In movie terms, the other masters had to be gone to show that a) Sidious is very powerful, and b) to not get in the way of the duel with Mace. If they hadn't been there, then Palpatine would have looked weak, as he would more or less lose against Mace. You cannot really do that to your villain who ends up winning in the movie. I don't think the way it was shot ended up looking particularly good though, they just stood there and let themselves get killed without even preparing for any attack, even though Palpatine just pulled out a lightsabre. I think it would have worked better if he had used the force to take out the other three Jedi at the same time, and then would have fought Mace with a lightsabre.

 

Yeah, but the best player to emerge from an NFL draft class is rarely the #1 pick - even if we consider Sidious to be such based on talent. It's usually someone else out of the 200+ players selected each year. Every year there are several first round busts and late round diamonds in the rough. And that's the point. The Jedi cast a much larger net out into the galaxy and are more likely to bring in not only the most talented force users but the ones who are better than they should be because of their intangibles - like Obi-Wan.

1) If this were so important, how come two of Sid's three apprentices came from the Jedi ranks?

2) Sid probably spent more time individually training Maul than anyone else, and he lost to a padawan who did not seem overwhelmed at all by an unexpected H2H lightsaber duel. Both he and QGJ seemed very well prepared to battle another lightsaber wielder in TPM. I just don't see how the Sith training was any better than the Jedi training in this case. At the end of the day, every Sith lord in the PT lost to a Jedi H2H.

To me, there's no doubt that...

A) Sidious needed to show the audience some display of force/combat power.

B) The way in which Sid took out three Masters was poorly done.

Agree 100% that A needed to be done and B was poorly done. But it still leaves some questions behind that I am asking here. Unless Sid has a higher midi count than every Jedi or has an edge because the DS is stronger, it's hard to believe he could become powerful enough to take on the best of the Jedi Order the way he did.

 

You might want to read the novelization of Revenge Of The Sith if you have not already. mes530 put it best right out fo the novel; the Jedi have not evolved, the Sith had to evolve and on a one on one basis they tend to be top of the line. You only get two at a time with recruits on the side. The Jedi can afford to take on less powerful beings, like that dude that got shot off the Balcony by Jango.

It is also there in the film. At first the Darkside clouded everything, then by the third film Windu states their ability to use the Force is diminished. It's there in Palpatine's Darth name...Sidious...insidious. There is a doctor's slang for a back injury that you don't know you have where you find you cannot life something so easy, then it hurts over a wider area, then you have a problem breathing. It's called an insidious onset. This is basically what Palpatine did.

 

Sidious was born powerful. Just as Yoda said, my ally is the force and a powerful ally it is! That also applies to the Sith as much as the Jedi. Because both parties use the force. Just different aspects of it. Sidious was obviously powerful in the force just like Yoda, Mace and Anakin as well as others. But in the SW universe there will always be people that will be able to tap into and manipulate the force more easily than other force users. Sidious was also able to be the first Sith to take charge of a galaxy wide government and change it to his own government. He is a skilled force user and intelligent manipulator. His only downfall was his overconfidence, which Luke stated and is shown throughout the films. His overconfidence trickled down to the imperial forces from top to bottom. The imperial military seemed overconfident many times and that led to their downfall as well. But overall Sidious was a very strong Sith lord.

 

He's old and unathletic
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eh?
younger than Dooku. And in his confrontation with Mace did a couple of flips that would make Olympians blush...not to mention his agilty fighting from pod to pod.

 

It's not a coincidence that the Sith's grand plan came to fruition with Sidious. While we don't get a character or scene coming out and saying that Sidous was the most powerful Sith ever, or at least in a very long time, it can be reasonably assumed he was.

Sidious was the result of a millennium of planning, teaching, maneuvering by Sith before him. The rule of two not only ensures that the Sith survive by making sure that the order doesn't self destruct with multiple factions killing each other off, but, it also ensures (for the most part) that only a stronger apprentice is able to leapfrog his master. It's the survival of the fittest mentality. Only the stronger Sith move on.

More than likely Palpatine was trained from birth, just as he trained Maul from birth. I may be wrong by that, as I haven't read all of the official "new" canon, but, that was always my assumption.

Also you have to remember how powerful he was, he could sit across from the Jedi and they had no clue who he was, what he was, nothing. He was able to hide himself from them, even though they were just feet away...

 

What does it mean that the Jedi had not evolved....? Not evolved in what way? By no means were they ill-prepared to battle the Sith in a combat role. Sidious won through manipulation and having clones engineered to take his orders without question turn on and take out the vast majority of the Jedi.

He was able to do those things through the Force, of course. His natural body is nowhere near as fit as Windu and Skywalker. When your body is a liability and you have to use the Force just to be able to execute common moves, surely it takes something away from your ability to fight. I'm sure that helped Windu beat Sidious.

Yes, but the Jedi also benefit from multiple teachers and teaching methods. They can learn from many different Jedi Masters and being exposed to a variety of skilled and educated people is a good thing. When you go to college, you don't have one teacher teaching you everything. You learn from many different specialists. I'm sure this was the way things were to some degree in the Jedi Order. You also have more competition within the Order to work against as you mature. You're able to compete against kids your own age and strive to be better than them. Even future NBA stars learned a lot competing against their peers at the YMCA when they were 10 years old. It wouldn't do a 10 year old much good if his only competition is an adult. Kids who want to get better at something need peers. A young Sith apprentice would have no peers.

Well, okay. Maul was trained from birth in the Sith ways and lost to a Jedi padawan. Sid's next two apprentices were seasoned Jedi.

I still don't get the whole "plotting and planning" part outside of Sid's political manuevering. I just don't see how that helps throw off the Jedi when their fighting styles are virtually identical.

If you watch college football at all - I love it - you might be familiar with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and their option offense that's much different than just about every offense in the sport. They catch a lot of more talented teams off guard because they just aren't used to that kind of style. It changes everything. GT's results exceed their talent because the uniqueness of what they do gives them an edge that a more conventional offense (the kind college defenses see every week) wouldn't. If there were something about the Sith fighting style that threw the Jedi for a loop, I could understand this point a little bit better. But except for force lightning (which three Jedi easily countered in the PT) there is no difference in what they do.

Sometimes it's easier to hide in plain sight.

 

He was able to do those things through the Force, of course. His natural body is nowhere near as fit as Windu and Skywalker. When your body is a liability and you have to use the Force just to be able to execute common moves, surely it takes something away from your ability to fight. I'm sure that helped Windu beat Sidious
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then you might as well ask, "how did Yoda become so powerful?" with that train of thought.

 

You are comparing an institution (the Jedi) that takes in the weak as well as the powerful. They haven't been filtered like the Sith have been for over a millennium. The Jedi don't turn away the weak, where as the Sith only pick the strong, and then those Sith are tested against the strength of their master to see if they will move on to become the master themselves. There is no such life and death training in the Jedi hierarchy You asked how did Palpatine become so powerful, but, you try to compare his power to that of the Jedi. Palpatine's level of power has nothing to do with, or is comparable too the Jedi and how they obtain their power.

His power first of all would start with how powerful he was, as an individual, with the Force (Midichlorian Count), which we can't quantify because the movies never tell us. We aren't shown an actual numerical value of his power, but we are given examples that show how powerful he was. He is able to use the force to hide himself from the Jedi. Force users are able to detect other force users presence, especially when they are within feet of one another, furthermore they detect disturbances in the force caused by the actions of other force users. For 12+ years the Jedi cannot detect anything off the Chancellor even though they sit right across from him. This points to how powerful Palpatine is with the force to be able to mask himself from them.

He is, just like Yoda, able to perform hi levels of acrobatics and athleticism for someone that on the outside would not seem to be able to. This is a common theme among the Jedi and Sith in the movies. They use the force to enhance their physical abilities to a super-human levels. Obviously the more powerful you are in the Force, the more powerful moves you will be able to perform physically.

Yoda is the most powerful with the Force, so he is able to do things that we can't conceive of a two foot "frog" doing. Palpatine is able to jump, spin horizontally in the air, do flips and back flip off objects, etc. These are all examples of how powerful he is. It's no coincidence that the movie shows Palpatine performing this seemingly super-human feats, it's meant to convey a sense of his power.

So the biggest factor is Palpatine's own natural ability with the force, he is naturally powerful.

Then the training comes into play. Here is where the millennium of Sith teachings comes into play. Where the millennium of only the strong move on to teach the next apprentice, who will absorb the knowledge of the previous masters, and prove to be stronger than his master to move on, thus repeats the cycle until they find the one Sith that is so powerful that the Sith are ready to make their move on the Galaxy, which is why I said it was no coincidence that it was Palpatine, which again is an example of just how powerful he was. He was the Sith that after a millennium of Sith hiding, finally brought them out into the open.

Learning from multiple teachers isn't a strength necessarily, unless you look at it from a philosophical standpoint. The Sith aren't interested in well rounded and full educations. They are interested in what works best to get them into a position of power. Furthermore that knowledge they do covet is passed down through the ages by the master, instead of using multiple teachers. The end result is the same, knowledge is passed down, minus individual influences of how the teaching is done. So what you perceive as a strength, would be viewed as a weakness to the Sith. They aren't interested in individual opinion and personalities influencing students. They are only interested in the single most direct path to power, the straight line from point a to point b.

I disagree with you on the peer example. Many times when a superstar athlete shows that they are more advanced then their peers they are moved up to the next level where they compete against kids that are older and more advanced then they are. In the Sith world the apprentice is continuously forced to compete against his master. Again what you perceive as a weakness, the Sith would see as a strength. If the apprentice is not able to show improvement in keeping up with the master, than he would be discarded in favor of one that could. This is what we see Sidious do. Maul shows he isn't as powerful as Sidious thought he would be, so Sidious quickly moves on to Dooku. Dooku shows promise and does his masters bidding well, however, he is only a placeholder for another apprentice that Sidious covets, and believes is more powerful than even himself. The apprentice is only a tool for the master to use and discard until the one apprentice is found that will surpass the master and become master himself. Sidious saw that in Anakin. Anakin was to be Sidious's legacy, until Anakin was badly hurt on Mustafar. It was only until years later when the thought of Luke surpassing his father entered Sidious's mind, and thus Luke became Sidious's new legacy. Luke was to be more than a placeholder, or a tool, Luke was to be the next apprentice that would surpass his master and continue the Sith Order.

So picture that kind of hierarchy repeating itself for a millennium. Eventually one Sith would stand out amongst the others as far as raw power, and with the hundreds of years of teachings being passed down would make his move on the galaxy.

My point wasn't that he was hiding in plain sight, it was that he could sit in plain sight without being detected by even Yoda.

Once again, individual power in the force comes into play in fighting. You are missing that point entirely. I don't think anyone on any college football team has the advantage of the force.

Darth Sidious doesn't proclaim to Yoda that Darth Vader will become more powerful than either himself or Yoda because Darth Vader was such a great lightsaber combatant. It was Vader's natural ability with the Force that lead Sidious to that conclusion.

I think what you are looking for from the movies is some quantitative value that tells us just how powerful Sdiious was. We don't get that, what we get are examples of how powerful he is that would lead us to the conclusion that he would have to be pretty damned powerful to pull off what he did.

 

I don't think the Jedi take in anyone weak. 10,000 Jedi out of an entire galaxy of sentient beings of many different species is a small, small number.

Yes, there is. The Jedi go on missions all the time where they can be killed. Kenobi was just a padawan when he was in numerous life/death situations in TPM.

"The Dark Side surrounds the Chancellor" -- Mace Windu
"The Council is asking you to keep an eye on the Chancellor's dealings." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi

The Jedi had their suspicions. They just failed to act on them in time and Skywalker betrayed Windu when the Jedi did act.

But Sidious got to a position of power primarily because Anakin betrayed Mace Windu (who had Sidious on the ropes) and he developed an army of completely obedient clones that wiped out the majority of the Jedi. I consider Sid's rise to be political manipulation, not power.

Yes, but the next level is not from Pop Warner to the NFL. No 12 year-old football player (no matter how talented) is ready to line up in the NFL. Very, very, very few at that age are even ready for small high school ball. The maturity just isn't there. In the Jedi Order, a padawan has an opportunity to develop by competing against his peers and rising from there. A good 15-year-old basketball player is going to get better competing other good 15-year-old (give or take a few years) basketball players. Put him out there on an NBA court with Lebron James and he is going to be so overmatched that it will be of no value to his development. But that's all a Sith apprentice would have to against: his master. He wouldn't have any peers to compete against as he develops.

Hang on here. He showed Sidious he wasn't particularly powerful because he lost a Jedi padawan. And then he moves on to Dooku, who grew up in the Jedi Order. And then he had an obsession with Skywalker who (again) grew up in the Jedi Order.

So if Palps is the culmination of a thousand years of Sith training and the Sith training techniques are superior to the Jedi, why did...

1) Maul lose to a Padawan?
2) Sidious then select a Jedi as his next apprentice, who (as a Sith apprentice) lost to a Jedi?
3) Then Sidious takes another Sith apprenictice, who (as a Sith apprentice) lost to a Jedi?
4) And all of this after Mace Windu disarmed Sidious and had him cornered?

Instead of this one-at-time thing, imagine being able to evaluate and train thousands of prospects at a time like the Jedi? If a Sith Master finds an apprentice and he doesn't pan out, he's wasted a lot of time. How much time did Sid waste on Maul? Years. Perhaps as many as 20+. It doesn't work that way with the Jedi. They have their eggs in many different baskets at the same time and many prospects will pan out to become extremely powerful in the force. If it weren't for plucking prospects that had already been trained by the Jedi, Sidious would have been SOL after Maul was sliced in half by, yeah, a Jedi.

 

i always wondered how he found time to train and stay sharp with the demands of being Chancellor, making secret hologram calls to the trade fed, Dooku, Grievous etc. maybe he have some secret hideout/training facilities maybe he and Dooku spar and practice doing flips, shooting force lightning or whatever occasionally to keep their skills up. it's not really addressed in the movies so it's left up to one's imagination for the most part.

 

I pretty much agree with what you're saying, Rachel. For me, it doesn't really make a lot of sense for Palpatine to be so powerful, or at least, it's highly unlike for him to be so uniquely powerful. The Plagueis novel and ROTS novel both talk about how the Sith have had 1000 years preparing their revenge, but it seems to me that both of those books meant that the Sith had decided to gain power not by using direct attacks but by manipulating things behind the scenes. They didn't really develop any new fighting tactics.

It does seem highly unlikely that Plagueis would stumble on one of the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy, but it seems like that's what he did. Palpatine killed his whole family using the Force when he was a teenager before he had any training at all. All Luke could do at the point was block 2 blasts from a remote.

I guess you could argue that Sith training makes Siths tougher than Jedi. Palpatine's training was brutal. I imagine Jedi padawan training is a lot more like what you get at your local karate dojo. I doubt it's the type of stuff that can break your will. I also think that age doesn't work against you when it comes to the Force. Palpatine seems more powerful in ROTJ than in ROTS, and he must be like 90 by then, and Yoda's age doesn't seem to limit him until he's near death. I also don't think it's like boxing or MMA. I don't think Mace and Yoda are tough because they spend tons of time sparring and working out in the gym. At that point in their Force training, all their training probably occurs within their minds.

Another guess: Palpatine might have gained more power because the Force became out of balance towards the dark side.

Apart from that, it just seems that GL fell into the convention of making the top guys the most powerful -- like Magneto and Professor X are the most powerful in the X-men. In some ways, I think it would've been cooler if Palpatine wasn't uber-powerful, but instead just very clever. In fact, I think it would've been cool if Vader became more powerful than Palpatine in terms of his ability to use the Force, but Palpatine could still keep him in check because he could fry Vader's cybernetic suit. In that way, Palpatine would be weaker than Vader but easily able to exploit Vader's one weakness. I like the clever bad guy matched with the tough guy henchman combo. But I guess GL was sort of locked into this scenario ever since ROTJ when he chose to make Palpatine so powerful that Luke was really left with only 2 choices: joining the Emperor or rejecting the Emperor even though that meant Palpatine was sure to kill him as Luke was so much weaker he was helpless to prevent it. Luke and Vader are clearly not on Palpatine's level in ROTJ, and both of them are supposed to be uniquely powerful in the Force, so before the PT even began, I think most people assumed that Palpatine has always been an incredibly powerful Force user. And really, it was fun to see Palpatine go nuts in his battle against Yoda.

 

I dunno. The Jedi aren't training these guys for a slumber party pillow fight. They experience a lot of intense and dangerous situations in their "careers," and they all seem remarkably cool under pressure. Sometimes they even have a sense a humor in situations where they could easily be killed at any moment. Clearly they are used to having their lives on the line all the time, and I imagine the Jedi trained them accordingly to prepare them for it.

All Palpatine did in ROTJ was zap Luke with force lightning. He didn't have to bounce off the walls. As for Yoda, who knows? He might have been more powerful at 200 than he was at 800. I'm not saying physical advantages trump everything, of course, but it has to help when your body naturally gives you more range, leverage, stamina and power. If Yoda were a 6'0'' 180 lb. human and didn't have to flip around everywhere, maybe he would be even better. That's just a possible factor.