Books The Official Darth Plagueis Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

So what? Plagueis is dead and a load of ashes from a cremated corpse can't object.

 

I was disappointed at the book, going by the description I expected to see a Sith god, the ultimate Dark Side champion to the point that Palpatine taking over wasn't as bad compared to this. Instead we got someone who as far as we know could be defeated by Dooku. Palpatine without a doubt was more powerful than him.

His midichlorians manipulation wasn't even so great considered the midichlorians indeed resisted him. I honestly expected some god that could even at will impose on himself the ammount of midichlorians he choose or some ****.

Even Luceno makes it sound this way "Possessing power is all he desires. Losing it is the only thing he fears" and going by how Palpatine describes him in the movie, I indeed expected a Sith Lord so powerful that really all that was left was to live with what he had attained infinitely. **** Abeloth, Plagues should had been the DS god.

 

Then you set yourself up for that disappointment. Thinking Palpatine was ever the "lesser of two evils" was folly to begin with.

 

Lesser no? But I did expected Plagueis to be more powerful than Palpatine, even if the lesser of two evils. Unless you are among those who think Palpatine should always be the most powerful Darksider ever (something that has already been thrown out by The Son and Abeloth).

**** look at Mother Talzin's powers, more or less this is what I expected from Plagues, materialization of things out of nowhere, etc. He isn't even second to Palpatine, actually quite a few Sith Lords can come to my mind that could defeat him as well.

The only true remarkable power I remember of him was a technique that would allow him essentialy to wish someone to die, a technique that was basically an "I win button" but it took effort and time, making it ineffective in battle.

Aside from that I don't remember any truly remarkable ability to set him aside from other Sith Lords (Midichlorian manipulation was neat, but he did not even master it completely with Midichlorians resisting him). Well I guess you could say that being able to turn the entirety of The Force out of balance in in favor of the Dark Side through a meditation is remarkable, but even then he needed Palpatine's help to do so and it is not like it would help him in a battle.

At least I would had liked to see some potential in him that would had us saying "If Palpatine had not killed this guy in time, he would had became the greatest Dark Side threat ever at least powerwise."

 

Palpatine's basically the Most Powerful Sith Lord in history. (The Son and Abeloth aren't Sith and therefore having nothing to do with them, and they're also Eldritch Abominations in a different class than anyone else.) That was made clear years before the novel, and what's more the fact that we already knew he'd killed his Master (Albeit in his sleep) made it pretty clear his Master wasn't all-powerful. Moreso, the way the Rule of Two works should lead to you logically thinking and expecting Palpatine at his strongest, Dark Empire, to be superior in power and ability to his Master. I agree, you set yourself up for disappointment.

Beyond that, I agree with Sable_Hart on the novel. Whether or not you think Palpatine was diminished has everything to do with how you view his speech at the end, about him having manipulated his Master the entire time, and yada yada yada. Having just recently finished the novel, and having gone in knowing about Palpatine's speech at the end, i'm inclined to think he was mostly lying and being his usual arrogant self. So the novel does take a little away from him, but he's really just so good at manipulating others and he still executed so many plans flawlessly that it really doesn't matter to me.

 

I was dissapointed, not because Palpy beats Plagueis - that's very much to be expected. But how it came about- Plagueis getting drunk and poisoned was extremely anti-climatic. But then again I appreciate that when compared to Palpatine's death, where he was suddenly tossed.

 

It was not necessarily for Plagueis to be outright stronger than Palpatine, but at least have the POTENTIAL to do so. At least give the man trademark abilities, he only had half-assed Midichlorian manipulation. This wouldn't be the first time, there has been Sith Lords in the past with potential dangerous abilities that if the Sith Lord had been allowed to live longest, he could have potentially became the greatest Sith ever, for instance Dark Malgus becoming One With The Force (this thing has untold potential). Plagueis was solidly weaker not just than Palps but than other Siths as well.

It would be more reasonable if he was after Palpatine the strongest Sith Lord, but I can still think of some Siths that could defeat him.

 

Nah. I just put that there in case Plagueis is in the ST.

 

He had Cheat Death and Unbalance Force, that's pretty full-assed.

 

Cheat Death? He cheated age and that's it. Transer Essence is cheating death way more than this, all he did was to be unable to die of old age, diseases and make himself hard to kill. This is like someone re-writting his/her DNA to become ageless, diseaseless and accelerate his/her healing factors and durability. While impressive it is far from cheating death.

Unblancing The Force.......... now this is something that was truly impressive, no joke this may be the only recording case in SW history where THE ENTIRETY OF THE FORCE was directly affected by an individual, unfortunately this isn't something he could do alone and needed Sidious's help.

I guess Plagueis's weak point is that he was too esoteric and materialistic. I think if he had not disregarded the soul completely, he would had been able to attain true immortality, and then who knows, perhaps he would had been eventually capable of truly bending the Midichlorians.

 

Have you forgotten Venamis?

 

Apparently he's also forgotten that Plagueis knew about both Essence Transfer and the Force Ghost ability, and deemed them to be not to his liking.

 

Indeed. The line "taught his apprentice everything he knew" seems to be forgotten alot.

 

Plagueis didn't know about Force Ghost AFAIK.

 

Didn't Plageuis knew the THEORY of Transfer Essence and how to perform it, but he didn't do it because he did not believed in an existence beyond the physical?

Otherwise he would had been capable of surviving Darth Sidious killing him just like Sidious survived Vader.

 

He didn't know the technique; the book explained how it had been lost earlier in the Banite line.

For a Sith, I guess it wouldn't be; it's apparently a higher-order light side skill. But where would he have even heard of it?

 

And he then created a completely new ability that would keep him primarily in the physical world, as Essence Transfer and the art of using clones was pointless to him. It'd still be staving off the inevitable decline of the body, and Sith need bodies. No point in the spirit surviving without a vessel. I think Dark Empire showed us the many flaws with Essence Transfer (Still a cool ability that i'd like to have of course.)

 

Gravid didn't teach his apprentice how to essence transfer, hence it wasn't passed on to Plagueis. Plagueis didn't try to rediscover it because he didn't think living without one's original body was worthwhile.

 

I think this pragraph pretty much sums Plagueis's greatest mistake:

"Darth Plagueis sought to understand the Force in a purely scientific context, doing away with the trappings of mysticism he believed the Jedi had corseted it with. He accepted the classification of the Force's aspects into three categories: the aperion (equivalent to the Unifying Force), the anima (equivalent to the Living Force), and the pneuma (conscious thought as expressed in the Force). His focus was midi-chlorians, which he believed benefited from a uniquely strong connection to all three aspects and could be used to master life and death. Apart from the extension and creation of life through midi-chlorians, Plagueis sought to explore such extreme and unusual applications as the direct manipulation of space-time and continuity of consciousness after death (going as far as to discuss the essence transference technique). He traveled to the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban, seeking contact with long-dead Sith, but found none in the tomb of Hakagram Graush or on the throne of Sorzus Syn. As he boarded his ship to leave the planet, however, he had a vision of the admonishing spirit of Marka Ragnos. The long-dead Dark Lord challenged Plagueis' claim to the title, and railed against his plan to dismantle the traditions of Korriban, but offered no answers to any of the Muun's questions and inquiries. After this experience, Plagueis remained unconvinced about the reality of life after death of the body."

He knew the theory of performing all these feats, but disregarding them as non existant, never applied them.

 

Why not combine BOTH? That way he would had been truly immortal (unless someone pulls an Emptaojayos on him). Such a wasted potential. Had he pressed on to learn how to directly manipulate time-space and Transfer Essence, he would had been extremelly broken.

Considering he could (with enough time and effort) wish someone to die, Sidious would had been gone for good had he survived the encounter. Or actually become the Power Behind the Throne in the Empire, with Transfer Essence Sidious would had been unable to kill him and Plagueis could just basically go like "If you don't do as I say traitor, your Midichlorians are returning to the Force."

Is it possible to posses a dead body? Becuase if so a good combo would be Wish Emperor Sidious dead + Transfer Essence to Sidious's body.

 

Because he wasn't created to be all powerful, ergo better than Palpatine. The ability to revive the dead and the rest of his midichlorian manipulation's broken enough as it is. Palpatine's entire character would be ruined if his Master was overall superior to him.

 

Wow. A Sith lord's shortsightedness and arrogance led to his own demise. Who could've ever foreseen such an outcome!?

 

Such an outcome has never happened before or since.