As powerful as Master Windu

In the ATOC Anakin says that Obi Wan Kenobi is as strong as Master Windu. Obviously Kenobi isn?t at Maces level in ATOC or ROTS, however this doesn?t mean that Anakin was lying, what if Anakin was talking about raw potential (midis). In other words had Obi Wan reached 52 (Maces age ROTS) without letting his skills waste away in a desert he would have been as strong as Mace. The Star Wars RPG has always suggested that with age comes greater power (I know there game mechanics but they do hold some weight as far as cannon goes). This also shows the raw power of Anakin Skywalker when he was 22 (with just 13 years of Jedi EXP under his belt) he was as strong if not stronger then a 38 year old Obi Wan Kenobi. Thoughts?

 

I think Anakin meant Obi-Wan is in his way as strong as Master Windu. Anakin even pointed out that Obi-Wan is as wise as Master Yoda which most certainly is not the case.
He wanted to tell and make clear to Padmé that he's very proud to be his padawan.

I would consider Obi-Wan to be the one who combines Mace's and Yoda's strength. Like an ALLROUND Jedi. Yoda is incredibly wise, Windu incredibly strong, Obi-Wan is both.

 

Yep.

Mace: Powerhouse
Yoda: Sage.
Obi-Wan: Nice blend of both, plus he is the ultimate defender.

It makes me sad that Anakin never reached his potential; at 30 not even Mace/Yoda/Palpatine would have stood a chance against him.

 

My thought is that I like the line for the credence it gives to the fact that by fighting Obi-Wan to a standstill, Jango proves himself capable of taking on nearly any Jedi and walking away from the fight (errors in judgment in the arena notwithstanding).

 

...and he can best a great many less powerful Jedi. Don't forget the reason he stuck in Dooku's mind is that, in the Battle of Galidraan, he killed something like eight Jedi singlehandedly, a great many hand to hand.

 

What would be really interesting would be to take away Jango's armor and gadgets (blasphemy? Bear with me a moment ) - and take away Obi-Wan's/Mace's lightsaber. Then pit them hand-to-hand. I honestly think that even though Mandalorians seem to have a bunch of "extras," a lightsaber is more or less the Jedi's equivalent "crutch," if you will. It can "cancel out" blasters, and then some. In the right hands it could find weak points in Mandalorian armor. Nothing against either party, but I think having them stripped down to bare knuckles would be a fun experiment.

 

Jango and Obi-Wan fought hand to hand for a great deal of the fight, and, again, Jango beat a few lesser Jedi hand-to hand on Galidraan.

 

Oh, I know; I'm just saying, a one-on-one fight to the finish - no one gets to escape - unarmed and unarmored would be interesting to see.

And to get on topic (sorry about that), I think Mace and Obi-Wan do have about the same potential; since this is the Lit board, I figure Mace has a pretty big edge over a lot of Jedi in his inherent ability to see shatterpoints. His journal entry at the beginning of Shatterpoint mentions that even fully trained Knights have difficulty sensing critical moments and weak spots that he was able to take in easily as a child. I think that having said advantage made it easier for Mace to be an aggressive guy in his pursuit of personal improvement, and ultimately contributed to his intense personality - if you could see the quickest and most effective solution to a problem almost instantaneously, I think you'd end up the same way, and appear very driven, very focused, very direct. You'd even seem almost rash sometimes, as some have accused Mace of being in his decision to bring the Jedi to Geonosis, and to go after Sidious the way he did. And don't forget - Mace likes the visceral thrills of physical challenge and combat; Obi-Wan is even at heart the quintessential Jedi. He's not inherently aggressive. If he were, he'd probably be even more high-profile.

Finally, in the ROTS novelization Mace points out that even a style like Vaapad is an answer to his weaknesses as a Jedi (the aforementioned aggression and the inner darkness that helped him create Vaapad in the first place); Mace might be amazingly powerful and talented, but he has flaws. What flaws does Obi-Wan have, he wonders? And Obi-Wan is "forced to admit he'd never thought about it that way".

Not to bash Mace, of course. I love that guy, thanks to Stover.

 

The idea that Jango fought Obi-Wan to a standstill is not quite accurate. Jango was looking for a kill; Obi-Wan was looking for an arrest. Take Obi-Wan's shackles off during that fight and see what happens to Jango.

KW

 

Yep. If Obi Wan had orders to eliminate Jango, it would probably be a relatively short fight.

 

^^^ I doubt Obi-Wan would have just force choked or electrocuted Jango when he was ordered to eliminate.

 

No one said anything about force choking, or electrocuting.

 

Neg that. Jango's intentions were merely to get away.

 

Exactly. Not that Jango was showing mercy, it's just that escaping was more important than killing Obi-Wan. Better to knock him down and run.

If only Boba had been allowed to get his revenge...

 

Anyone else seen the ROTS concept art labeled "The Death of Mace Windu"? I think it was in the same issue of Insider as Karen's "Two-Edged Sword" short. Mace leaping high in the air as clone troopers shoot at him and miss - but Boba, in Dad's armor, lying down and mostly protected by cover, snaps a shot through Mace's chest? The Art Department note says that the reason they can't use the scene is that Lucas said Boba would be 16, and thus too young. A shame. Again, I love Mace, but that would've been a cool scene. (The numbers we have tell us that Boba would only be 13, actually, but then, I'm not surprised Lucas slipped. I don't think the finer details are as important to him as the main story points and themes, which is fine - but I think 16 would have been old enough!)

 

Sixteen would have been plenty old enough, especially considering that the EU has him as a badass bounty hunter since almost immediately post AotC.

I'm not surprised Lucas said 16. He's been known to slide the years around a bit, so there's a good chance he made Boba older in AotC at some point while toying with RotS, or moved RotS ahead a little. After he cut Boba, though, we stay with the numbers we've got.

 

Here's the link.

Especially as RC:TZ tells us that Mandos are old enough to go into battles with their fathers when they're eight.

 

I'm awfully skeptical about all the Mandalorian association that Karen Traviss has her clonetroops involved in. They don't need to speak anything but Basic, and any cultural association other than "army of the Republic" would probably be discouraged.

 

I'm sure she'd tell you otherwise.

In and of itself, "Army of the Republic" is not much of a "cultural association" to speak of.

 

No crap she'd tell me otherwise. She wrote the books.

Also, what you said about cultural association is exactly what I mean. They're supposed to be clonetroopers, not Mandalorians. Give them Mando culture and you give them Mando history, Mando customs, Mando beliefs, Mando values. They are the army of the Republic. Everything else is extraneous. Jango's training had a lot to do with what the Mando's were like, but I don't see that the Republic would encourage cultural association with an ancient culture that oftentimes stood opposed to the Republic, and also doesn't have the same culture of unquestioning loyalty to a greater cause that the Republic seemed to be seeking with the GAR.

 

I meant a coherent explanation citing real-life examples.

Well, in the first place, Mando customs, beliefs and values are all directed towards producing exceptional, trained-from-birth soldiers, secondly, the Republic doesn't actually have a culture, per se, and I'm fairly certain that having a society of some sort to feel themselves part of would be essential to the troopers well-being.

 

I know, I meant that kind of tongue-in-cheek.

Hence being trained by Jango. Combat training is fine. Learning the language, wearing the battle-skirts, etc. is extraneous.

Again, you misunderstand what I meant. The Clonetroopers, ideally, would have no associations beyond that of the GAR. I doubt wellbeing has much to do with the Republic's considerations. They are a part of the GAR. They serve the Republic. That is their purpose, their driving force. The troopers in Cestus Deception are a good example of what I mean. Associating with Mandalorians would seem to be the sort of thing the Republic higher-ups would try to quash.

 

I don't think the Kaminoans would have been too fond of it either, but the Cuy'val Dar would've had their own agenda with the commandos, and Jango trained the ARCs personally, and he would have been a stickler about getting things done his way. I can definitely see where you're coming from with "regular" clonetroopers, but Jango and his sergeants are the type not to back down if the Kaminoans tried to say otherwise with the RCs and ARCs. Besides, for those ten years that the commandos and ARCs were being trained by Mandalorians, the Republic at large had no idea that the army existed, so by the time it was unveiled, I doubt they would've been able to do anything about it if even they'd wanted to.

And here's a bit from Dune concerning the Sardaukar super-soldiers that I feel shares a theme with the Mando association with the GAR (emphasis added):

?But every report on Salusa Secundus says S.S. is a hell world!?
?Undoubtedly. But if you were going to raise tough, strong, ferocious men, what environmental conditions would you impose on them??
?How could you win the loyalty of such men??
?There are proven ways: play on the certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the esprit of shared suffering. It can be done. It has been done on many worlds in many times.?

Especially after Galidraan, the Cuy'val Dar's pride in their culture would have likely prompted them to put an emphasis on those italicized things in relation to their culture, given the Mandalorians' reputation as warriors.


Hence being trained by Jango. Combat training is fine. Learning the language, wearing the battle-skirts, etc. is extraneous.

The training alone could theoretically be done by anyone; but the physical training isn't all that made the Mandalorians what they were. Cultures are shaped in part by their languages, for example. There would be martial "undertones" and the like inherent in Mando'a, I would imagine. I'm not an expert on language by any means, but Karen's running commentary on her development of Mando'a suggests to me that she tailored it to a nomadic warrior culture.


(Besides, transmissions in Basic could be intercepted by Separatist Intel. Commands shouted in Basic could be understood by the droids, or the mercs, and even if not by the droids, I'd think that there's some audio feed from them to some central command. Mando'a, I imagine, would be useful on the battlefield for that reason.)


Just because you can outfight a Mandalorian doesn't make you a Mandalorian. Otherwise we could call Mace one. But even Mace said Jedi aren't soldiers, and I think there's more to that than just the Order's numbers. The Mandalorians would have a very different life philosophy than the Jedi, for example, that might make them better-suited to being warriors and soldiers.

As for battle-skirts, we've been told that they're apparently "a functional piece of kit," if I'm quoting Karen correctly. A long time ago Ryan Kaufman made that post reasoning out the background and usefulness of the kama; don't remember if it was on this thread or not.

As for loyalty to greater causes, I would assume that the rest of their indoctrination (i.e. outside of the instruction of the Cuy'val Dar and Jango), along with their genetically-ingrained docility, would take care of that. And also, from Black Hawk Down:

"They wouldn't understand. They wouldn't understand that it's about the men beside you. That's it. That's all it is."

Yeah, they're ordered into a battle by political superiors and all that. But once the fighting starts, for individual troopers to do anything against the agenda they've been given is to risk the lives of their comrades, not to mention their own lives. And since they're inherently docile, there probably wouldn't be any massed decision to turn against the Republic, especially while Seppie droids aren't going to stop shooting at you even if you do.


I doubt wellbeing has much to do with

 

The Sardaukar and the Black Hawk Down reference speak to military culture strictly within the context of that military, and that's a good thing. The Mandalorians did great things with their military, and should by all means be imitated, but the idea that the language is necessary, that knowledge of Mandalorian history and customs is necessary seems awfully suspect. They were designed to be single minded. They should not be Mandalorians. They should be the GAR. Once again, the Cestes Deception does a good job of showing the brotherhood and culture developed within the GAR. The soldiers know they're awesome, not because of any Mandalorian history, but because they are the finest army in the galaxy. Slang, inside jokes, aspirations, war stories, personalities, bonds, identities...all these things evolve naturally. Ideally, the fact that they came from Mandalorian stock should mean little to them. Giving them identities outside of their purpose seems extremely out of step with their design and reasons for being created.

The Republic at large wouldn't have had much of a say, even if they did know. It's a moot point because they were designed for the Republic by the true powers that be. I'm not talking about senators, I'm talking about Palpatine working for the benefit of the Republic military.

Then again, maybe you're right about the ARCs and RC's needing a little bit more, given their more open minds. Hell, it may not have been widely known outside. But your average CT needn't be a Mandalorian to be an effective Republic soldier.

 

I do share some of your reservations about the CTs, yeah.

I think even Palpatine realizes that he doesn't know all there is to know about training a superb military, though - and I imagine he'd see some amusing irony in having a man with a major grudge against the Jedi supervise the training of a force that will ultimately betray them.

And I still have to wonder about a clone possessing the knowledge that the rest of the Republic just doesn't value his life the way they'd value a non-clone's life.