@wollfmyth209: Whoops, my notifications still failing, with today receiving 99 (with wrong users attached... nevermind, might have been my fault for messing with the account).
Dueling skill part
While I would agree that Plagueis could adjust to Sidious and combat him, despite Sidious's superior skill, but that doesn't change Sidious's edge over Plagueis in raw skill and the fact that Sidious himself could adjust to battle fairly well and that Sidious is familiar with his master weaknesses and strengths aswell
There is one specific difference. As I mentioned, Plagueis was fighting someone who trained from the same source as him, but with inclusion of how Plagueis was trained from that source. So while they both know each other here, obviously very well, that's the surface of the fight where it is Plagueis who takes advantage. His ability to work around that aforementioned problem of facing pretty much an excellently designed tool against him speaks volumes about him. It is simply impossible to find a worse "tactic clashing" when you fight someone whose skills derive from the exact same source, but are also designed from the same source to hinder you. And as both Venamis and Plagueis demonstrated similiar physical traits during the fight, Plagueis's victory derived only from that adaptation. You can't get anything worse to outplay in a duel, when you're fighting a physical equal.
So, basically, Plagueis actually derived his victory there from his extremely negative position in terms of their knowledge on each other and preparation. Yet he still properly adapted, and against Sidious he is in a position almost as good as Venamis. This time Plagueis is the "source" I've been describing. Of course Sidious might have had his own training, his other sources, but there is a very slim possibility for that. In Rule of Two:
- You train directly from your Master and his own sources.
- All your sources of knowledge are what your lineage have gathered and extended.
- Even when the student is training somewhere else, he is usually sent there by his Master.
- You pretty much don't have any external knowledge sources.
And Plagueis, first of all, was a scholar. He was studying everything, treasured knowledge, and his knowledge about the Force was immense. There is little to support that he wouldn't lay a hand on anything he and Sidious discovered, or on any of the prievous sources gathered by Banite lineage.
Plagueis has perhaps the most notable ability to actually capitalize on all those training "relationships" of all known Sith - I haven't seen anything similiar to his duel against Venamis in this regard. What I mean here is that Plagueis isn't more skillful than Sidious, and I would never suggest that, but he used terrible knowledge-combat style-preparation setup possible, and used it to prevail. In case against Sidious, this setup is the best he can get.
master weaknesses and strengths aswell, namely his breath mask.
I actually disagree with how often those elements are considered weaknesses. I would agree if they only required insignificant cuts to provide debilitating damage, and they sometimes do, but usually, like here - they don't. Breath mask, Vader's suit's panel - they're all installed in vital points of the body. If you suffer a hit around your throat, or around your jaw (just not the jaw itself) you're usually dead, mask or not. Even around the jaw there are so many veins and crucial parts of the skull's interior, deep cuts around there can be as deadly as if you're hit somewhere along your breath mechanisms. Basically, head and upper parts of the chest are the most protected areas in sword-fighting, and pretty much every art of fighting. If you can get hit around mask's cables on the throat, I don't see why you can't have your throat itself cut.
Additionally, the case can be made for someone's body being able to sustain heavier blunt damage than such mechanical parts, but here we're talking about lightsabers and Lightning mostly. And the mask Plagueis had was actually protected by armored parts.
Speed/Strength part
I honestly don't see why Plagueis and Sidious are not equal in speed and strength. For one thing, Sidious and Plagueis have been shown in the exact same situation where they showed equal, or near equal, speed to each other.
I never said that, I even put this: "So actually, while their speed is without a doubt comparable (with Sidious surpassing Maul so much, he certainly matches Plagueis’s speed displayed throughout the novel)". They are exactly equal, with their individual feats obviously displaying a similiar level, and often they are within the same situations as basically equals in terms of movement speed. I see the difference only in terms of their strength/endurance mix.
While it is true that dismembering armored torso of highly skilled assassins rather than it is to crush your families bones and tear up the limbs of two bodyguards. But the Palpatine family was respected family and they should've had atleast semi-capable bodyguards.
Maladians were elite warriors of high enough calliber to challenge Jedi Master and prevent him from saving senator's life - namely Ronhar Kim. So they're entirely different story, but that's only loosely supporting my argument.
He wasn't even trained and he didn't even master his skills and yet he did so much to them.
He doesn't need to. In fact, his best strength feat overall would be stalling Maul and Savage in physical lock, and in fact it was the only time he was strained in their contest. It is that impressive because of Maul and Savage's personal capabilities, but that is also RotS Palpatine, who should be stronger in the Force (and by extension, in such an augmentation), and that barely compares to Plagueis being able to smash armors and skulls in the state he woke up. Plagueis suffered damage that would left any normal being unable to fight at any cost - pretty much any body would be rendered useless in that state. We don't know how much is a "great deal of blood", but any heart damage together with that would make even extremely healthy people succumb to unconsciousness. We're taking about inhumanely powerful Sith of course, but that means he had to rely on the Force extremely to just sustain his body, and while focused on simply enabling his body to work, where it obviously shouldn't, he performed such enormous feats of strength as destroying armors and skulls. That enormous amplification allowing him to simply use his body was joined together with enabling it to perform such feats simultaneously, so with divided attention, what works for the Force channeling terribly, as it relies on sheer willpower and focus (where both are divided). When you tie it together - that is something Sidious never replicated. Even crushing doors can't compare here, if you include the magnitude of Force support needed for Plagueis to just use his body.
Just for the clarity, I will put the quote here, but it seems unnecessary as we both know it.
Having run himself through a similar test, Plagueis knew that he had lost a great deal of blood, and that one of his subsidiary hearts was in fibrillation. Sith techniques had helped him perform chemical cardioversions on his other two hearts, but one of them was working so hard to compensate that it, too, was in danger of becoming arrhythmic.
The wait lasted only until Plagueis attempted to unleash lightning. His second subsidiary heart failed, paralyzing him with pain and nearly plunging him into unconsciousness. The assassins wasted not a moment, throwing themselves at him in groups, though in a vain attempt to penetrate the Force shield he raised. Again he rallied, this time with a ragged sound dredged from deep inside that erupted from him like a sonic weapon, shattering the eardrums of those within ten meters and compelling the rest to bring their hands to their ears.
In blinding motion his hands and feet smashed skulls and windpipes. He stopped once to conjure a Force wave that all but atomized the bodies of six Maladians. He spun through a turn, dragging the wave halfway around the room to kill half a dozen more.
Force Powers part
Here is where I actually believe Plagueis to be superior. Plagueis has been stated to "atomize" Maladians, and while I personally believe it to be rather hyperbolic (although it seems I'm in minority actually), the damage he has done to them would obviously need to be insane. And, as before, he has done that when huge reserves of Force were needed to sustain his body, which was also utilized to its maximum. If what Sidious himself said was correct, he could easily collapse a restaurant if he wanted to, but that doesn't match shattering force of destroying human's armored body, as destroying a building actually requires more of precision and targeting proper spots. Sidious never replicated any similiar telekinetical feats by this time. Plagueis should be superior here.
Of course Force power comes into play variously. As we know by now, to even think about actually fighting with the Force alone and having it directly affect the fight you need to be enormously powerful, as even small 1% margin of Jedi simply can't direct such a power to make it viable within physical contest. Basically, two options. First - both combatants have to be on such an insanely high level to exert power on that scale throughout the regular fight. Suffice to say, both individuals' can be so powerful that they can use the Force regularly within their contest. There can be a slim advantage of one over another, but it's still viable. Second option - just you have to possess such a huge advantage that your powers can affect your opponent to large enough extent. Of course, Plagueis and Sidious belong to the first "category" (like Yoda vs. Sidious).
What pretty much seals it is the fact that Plagueis has also displayed enough mastery to use the Force during regular lightsaber combat. He mixes the two frequently, while Sidious actually resorted to primarily lightsaber dueling against all of his opponents, unless eventually separated (and, implied by the script, disarmed) from Yoda. Plagueis, on the other hand, utilized lightsaber throw, destroyed a tree with the Force in mid of his heated duel against Venamis.
Spying Blir’ and Semasalli, the Muun hurled the lightsaber in a spinning arc that took off the Balosar’s antenepalps and scalp and most of the wrinkled Dresselian’s left shoulder, misting the already agitated air with teal-colored blood. As alarms continued to wail and foam continued to gush, Blir’ folded and fell face-first to the slickened deck, while Semasalli, screeching in pain, collapsed to one side, reaching futilely for his severed arm with the other.
At one point he leapt onto an overhanging greel branch and, when Plagueis severed it with a Force blow, hung suspended in the air—no mean feat in itself—and continued the fight, as if from high ground.
He also brought down the ceiling so fast that Tenebrous (whose speed we both know, too) couldn't react - that's somewhat worth mentioning.
A few meters away Plagueis, hurled face-first to the ground by the intensity of the vaporizing blast, lifted his head in time to see the underside of the domed ceiling begin to shed enormous slabs of rock. Directly below the plummeting slabs sat their starship.
“Master!” he said, scrambling to his feet with arms lifted in an attempt to hold the rocks in midair.
His own arms still raised in a Force-summoning posture, Tenebrous swung around to bolster Plagueis’s intent. Behind him, the fireball’s final flames surged from the mouth of the tunnel to lick his back and drive him deeper into the grotto.
The cave continued to spasm underfoot, sending shock waves through the crazed ceiling. Cracks spread like a web from the oculus, triggering collapses throughout the grotto. Plagueis heard a rending sound overhead and watched a fissure zigzag its way across the ceiling, sloughing layer after layer of stone as it followed the grotto’s curved wall. Now, though, it was Tenebrous who was positioned beneath the fall.
And in that instant Plagueis perceived the danger Tenebrous had foreseen earlier: his death.
His death at Plagueis’s hands.
While Tenebrous was preoccupied holding aloft the slabs that threatened to crush the ship, Plagueis quickly reoriented himself, aiming his raised hands at the plummeting slabs above his Master and, with a downward motion of both arms, brought them down so quickly and with so much momentum that Tenebrous was buried almost before he understood what had hit him.
So, to sum it up. Plagueis doesn't stand a chance in a strict lightsaber duel - but his perfect ability to adapt, to utilize his knowledge, and to use "knowledge-combat style-preparation" combination to his advantage even in the worst situation, when faced against Sidious, provides him with large chances. He can't win via sheer lightsaber dueling, of course, but their knowledge on each other, and Plagueis's capability to actually use his opponent's knowledge and preparation against him closes the gap, and allows Plagueis to use his superior telekinetic powers. He also manages his energy channeling better, has seemingly better reserves for physical augmentation, and actually the energy management was what he used against Venamis in his way of adapting to his superior knowledge/preparation/tactical setting. Here, he also seems to be better in that physical area, which has proven crucial in similar situation before. And he is on the setting almost as good as Venamis was in the relation between two combatants - or at least in between, and he could use that relation when it was the worst possible. That's why I support Plagueis for 6/10.
And there are things Sidious could achieve that Plagueis wouldn't, or would fare worse in. But here, that physical edge, that relation, and Plagueis's adaptivity are what puts him on top. He is just better suited against Sidious, not necessarily better overall. You could say the same about Savage Opress - he isn't far behind Obi-Wan, but their skillsets and traits connect terribly against Savage, for instance. It's a similiar instance here.
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