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To start a theory about force users we have to take a look at the force itself. So...how does it work
?
If force sensitivity is inherited (and most likely it is since Anakin’s children and grandchildren are all
force sensitive and we have seen families that spawned serveral force users - and almost every child of a Jedi having some
force potential - with Tigris being the only example in which this isn't the case) it must have to do something with the genes
of a force user. Now if we consider that force sensitivity is genetically inherited we must assume that those genes that make
people force sensitive come from somewhere since those things would simply "plop" up out of nowhere. Since Qui-Gon told us
in TPM that every single being in the Galaxy has medi-chlorians in his blood we have to assume that every single being in
the Galaxy has at least some force potential.
Now if this is right so far it's most likely save to assume that those "genes"
responsible for force potential would get stronger over time since (from an evolutionary point of view) having a better force
potential (and thereby stuff like telekinesis, augmented strength and speed, better reflexes) would make you stronger and
natural selection would favour those genes. As a proof we have entire species being able to use the force in order to survive
(Miraluka seeing through the force, the Koruun using it to survive on Haruun Kal - abilities developed out of necessity)
Since
civilisations outclassing the process of natural selection the question if people have a force attunement strong enough to
become Jedi Knights is pretty much a question of luck. If there is a force user having children the chance of having a force
potential high enough to become a Jedi Knight increases. But the average level of force potential would rise because being
favoured by natural selection. The Sith for example developed that "natural selection" (the strongest shall survive in this
case the strongest shall rule) only further and because of this it’s clear that the most powerful of them were around
in the last generation of the ancient Sith species (Ragnos, Kressh, Sadow) where the people those development started with
(Ajunta Pall) didn't seem to be very impressive.
Now that process is the same for the normal Galaxy but not going
on as fast as with the Sith (since they aided the process of natural selection with their society). So naturally the general
level of force potential would be higher in the PT times than it was in ancient time even if only by a small amount.
But
there are things contradicting that idea because the Sith and the Rakatan both grew weaker !
That is actually
not right. For the Sith we know that their species (basically the Sith Empire) had reached it's highest point under the rule
of Ragnos. The Sith (Nadd, Kun and so on) coming after them would naturally have a lesser force potential (since the Sith
species aided the natural selection while other species didn't) or maybe the same force potential but they had less
knowledge because their order was totally or nearly totally destroyed on multiple occasions (after the Great Hyperspace War,
after the Great Sith War, the Jedi Civil War and the Battle of Ruusan) with most of their knowledge being lost (because either
being destroyed / disappearing with individual force users, huge plundering actions – on Korriban, or the simple destruction
of knowledge bases like Malachor V). For example the descendants of Freedon Nadd could have had more force potential than
Nadd himself but they didn't even come close to have his knowledge.
The Rakatan reached their peak when the constructed
the Star Forge. From that point on they started to lose their ability to touch the force but not from generation to generation.
It simply disappeared. And that's a phenomenon that is not unique to their race. Vima Da-Boda started losing her ability to
use the force slowly after she had turned to the dark side and slew the person responsible for the death of her daughter in
anger. So the loss of the ability to touch the force might result from overusing the dark side. That might be aided through
two points: The Rakatan seem to have lost that ability nearly instantly (so their power didn't fade away in some generations)
and they developed the ability to touch the force again or are close to it in KotoR times (this is getting obvious when you
talk to the Rakatan scientist who examines that phenomenon and tells you "the One" is possibly close to be able to use the
force).
By the way Vima is an example for a PT Jedi having children who again became Jedi theirselves. Lucas himself
stated that he never thought of the PT Jedi being celibate. I'm just mentioning this fact because of the following point:
The PT Jedi Order was more centralised than the ancient one and they did train all people from infancy on. Thinking about
that it might simply raise the chances for Jedi having children with other Jedi. Or think about the force potential generated
on Coruscant with 1,000 generations of Jedi Knights "making love" with non-force-users on that planet and producing children.
So...three things can be suggested as being facts:
a) Force potential is genetically inherited
b) General
level of force potential is raising over time
c) The chance for a child being strong enough with the force is better if
one or both of their parents was / were Jedi / Sith.
Force powers
While the ancient force user have shown
us great examples of force use (lifting large objects, destroying planets) the abilities of the PT Jedi seem to be more refined
and they actually have more of them. Lets have a look at it:
a)
They can survive prolonged exposure to lethal substances
(seen when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon resisted the nerve gas in TPM) where Ulic Quel-Droma (considered one of the most powerful ancient
Jedi) was forced to give into the dark side to survive being poisoned by Satal Keto.
b)
They can survive long falls
(extensively shown by Anakin and Obi-Wan in AotC, shown by Mace Windu in AotC and Shatterpoint, by Yoda in ROTS and by Obi-Wan
in TPM) and violent physical shocks (grabbing on an airspeeder that flies by shown by Anakin in AotC) without being visibly
affected.
c)
They can take a vast amounts of hits before being killed. You can see Jedi taking multiple hits by
weapons that can destroy battledroids with a single hit in ROTS. And they can take hits from flamethrowers (Mace Windu AotC)
as well as survive rockets and ship lasers fired at them (Obi-Wan vs Jango in AotC). If you consider that Anakin survived
lying close to a stream of lava (and Anakin and Obi-Wan both can act in areas with very high temperatures) you might speculate
that they can absorb some high amounts of heat using the force without visibly focusing. (Having a look at the Clone War cartoons
Obi-Wan is able to block Durge's flame-thrower with his bare hands).
d)
They seem to have much more refined telekinetic
abilities than the ancient Jedi. Anoon Bondara tells his Padawan Darsha Assent that it’s much more difficult to lift
a single grain of sand than lifting a rock. Now we see Qui-Gon manipulating Watto's chance cube and all kinds of Jedi disabling
droids through the force (what seemed like a force push in the movies – the TPM novel states that they disable the droids
by destroying circuits and they are able to do this quite effortless - which would be more fitting since the droids aren't
damaged from the outside but never get up again "force pushed" once). That leads to the conclusion that their telekinetic
powers are more refined than the ones of the ancient Jedi.
Considering the Clone War cartoons they can use telekinetic
abilities to greater means (Mace destroying the droids on Dantooine, Yoda tear down the top of a mountain to destroy the droids
attacking him on Ilum / lifting those heavy rocks that crashed on Luminara and Bariss Offee – while both of them where
able to protect themselves from getting crushed).
e)
Greater force sense. Especially shown by Yoda when he senses
the death of the Jedi instantly over thousands of lightyears also shown by Obi-Wan in ANH when he senses the destruction of
Alderaan. Same amounts of lives lost and Jedi killed didn't seem to have much effect on the Jedi in the ancient times (destruction
of Malachor, destroying sunsystems and planets by the Sith - normally at least Bastilla should have had some terrible had
ache when she, Carth and Revan did escape from Taris while the Sith were glassing the planet).
Yoda and Mace where also
able to sense Anakin slaying the Tusken Raiders in AotC (so they can sense strong emotions by a single Jedi across the half
Galaxy) and Yoda was able to sense the intentions of the Clone Troopers who wanted to kill him.
Compare that to the average
Jedi in KotoR times who got killed in huge amount of numbers by "normal" people assassinating them where Obi-Wan is able to
sense coming attacks from his "backside" (seen in AotC against the female headhunter).
f)
Greater abilities of physical enchantments through the force. That includes force speed (used
by Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon in TPM), augmented strength (Yoda in AotC seems to be physically stronger than Anakin
and Obi-Wan together in ROTS considering the fact that Dooku could parry them both at once with a single hand where Yoda broke
a saberlock with him while he used both hands) and acrobatic movements (Yoda, Maul).
g)
Greater abilities when
it comes to blaster deflection and redirection. We saw Yoda in ROTS deflecting fire from 6 clone troopers simultaneously (same
can be seen from nearly all people in the CW cartoons). Redirection of blaster fire is used on multiple occasions by Obi-Wan
and Qui-Gon in TPM, by several Jedi on Geonosis (you can see Mace deflecting 6 blaster bolts from different directions in
about a second of time) and by Zett Jucassa and Ki-Adi-Mundi in ROTS. Most impressive example of that technique seems to be
Depa Billaba deflecting fire from two different directions using two lightsabers and redirecting seven blaster bolts into
a single hole on a moving target.
Vader in ESB (as well as Obi-Wan in the CW cartoons) is deflecting a blaster shot with
his hand.
That are things ancient Jedi could only dream off.
h)
Greater abilities of mind-affection. We can
see Darsha Assent (a Padawan) affecting the minds of an entire gang of bandits in Shadowhunter and this ability is also used
by Obi-Wan (AotC and TPM) to control or distract people.
Andur Sunrider either wasn't able to do something like that or
he didn't even think about it when getting attacked by some normal bandits.
And now we reach the first big mistake
- the legend of the Jedi losing knowledge and material.
We know that the PT Jedi had knowledge dating back to the ancient
times since Bodo Baas (who died during the Jedi Purge) had a holocron that was passed on through generations of Jedi Knights
from Vodo Siosk-Baas time on and later was one of the main sources for Luke Skywalker to learn from.
Going by Yaddle's
EU profile of starwars.com the Jedi temple had an "impressive collection of holocrons, scrolls and tomes." And if you have
a look at the information about the Jedi Temple given on starwars.com you can see the following points:
- the Jedi
temple is an ancient building and seeing that it still contains the same rooms as in KotoR times it's very unlikely that it
was destroyed.
- the middle tower of the five temple towers "was the most sacred section of the building. Inside were housed
the original manuscripts of the founding Jedi." So...they have 25,000 year old manuscripts lying around there and notice that
this middle tower being kilometer-meter high was filled with knowledge. So they have quite some stuff in there.
- some
people were speculating the temple was destroyed since the Council Room in KotoR 2 appears to be different from the one we
have seen in the PT. Basically each of the outer towers had its own Council Room since the Jedi had 4 different Councils:
The High Council, the Council of First Knowledge, the Council of Reconciliation, and the Reassignment Council and each of
them had its own Council Room. So the Council the Exile had faced in KotoR 2 must not be the High Council.
Feats
and abilities
First of all the Jedi in PT times seem to be respected or feared more than the Jedi in ancient times.
While we have examples of ancient Jedi simply being murdered or attacked by quite "normal" people (bandits) all people in
the PT movies confronted with Jedi immediately panic. The Neimodians in TPM panic when being confronted with TWO Jedi despite
the fact that they had an entire army of droids on their ship to stop them. Same can be seen in the Geonosian arena in AOTC
where the entire audience seems to panic and immediately flee when the Jedi in the arena ignite their lightsabers.
Just
compare the following situations: Andur Sunrider was killed by normal bandits. Mace Windu just had to put his hand on a lightsaber
to scare 14 bandits away. Darsha Assent being a Padawan was enough to make an entire street gang flee from her.
And
the Jedi in PT times can't get killed by "non-force-users" except in situations were they are horribly outnumbered or overwhelmed
with heavy weapons. We see that Jango Fett (called the "deadliest man in the Galaxy" by Mace in Shatterpoint) wasn't able
to kill Obi-Wan despite the fact that Boba gave him some assistance and later Mace simply killed him in a direct confrontation.
Both
ideas are supported by Lucas himself in the commentary of TPM. When Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight through the Trade Federation
ship at the beginning of the film Lucas tells us that he wanted the Jedi to be "invincible" and "unstoppable" and they should
be recognized like this by the other people appearing in the films. In fact we never saw a Jedi dying to a non-force-user
in a "fair" fight except Jango killing Coleman Trebor (this might only have happened because Trebor seemed to focus 100 %
on Dooku). The kills archived by other "non-force-users" seem to come from situations of outnumbering (AotC, ROTS), overwhelming
Jedi with firepower (AotC. ROTS) or "surprising them" (GG during the Clone Wars).
Also the Jedi seem to have developed
some very high infiltration ability since they were able to enter the Area on Geonosis with 200 people without Dooku or the
Geonosians having sensed them. The fight on Geonosis did show two things to us:
a) The Jedi are very good in terms
of individual skills
b) They are bad when it comes to teamwork.
The entire fight they seem to rely on their individual
skills (and considering how many of them survived there must be some very skilled individuals) while not developing any form
of teamwork. I think some change had occurred between ancient times and the PT times. In ancient times all "great" actions
of force use (on the Jedi’s side) where done by teams. They send hundreds or thousands of individuals to stop Kun or
Nadd (In case of defeating Kun they joined their forces to exterminate the entire life on Yavin 4). Some of them joined forces
to capture Ulic ("Shield of light"). The only individual action of a single ancient Jedi not reproduced by a single PT force
user was cutting somebodies connection to the force. This was done to Ulic by Nomi Sunrider but notice that Ulic was not focusing
on his defences but instead was shocked because having killed his own brothers.
In the PT groups of force users seem
to fail where individuals can prevail. We saw that 5 Jedi can't defeat Grievous where Mace and Obi-Wan both defeated him in
1vs1 situations. Also Obi-Wan seems to fight much better on his own than teamed up with somebody else (e.g. Anakin). It seems
that the PT Jedi have developed greater individual skills but sacrificed most of their abilities to work as teams compared
to the ancient time Jedi.
So in terms of versus threads: PT Jedi would maybe be better in "1vs1" or "1vsX" situations
where ancient time Jedi might be better in "XvsX" situations.
And just compare them in (quite) similar fights. Let's
have a look on the Battle of Deneba in ancient times. You have several thousands of Jedi vs several thousands of Krath War
Droids (some Grievous like things with 4 arms carrying 2 meleeweapons and a bow like blaster or blaster rifles) and the Jedi
pretty much got slaughtered and even powerful ones (such as Arca Jeth) died.
Now have a look at the Battle of Geonosis
(the arena fight). Same situation: 200 Jedi vs thousands droids. Now the droids are equipped with weapons that fire quite
fast (normal battle droids 3 bolts per second, Super Battle Droids around 6 bolts and the Droidekas fireing 4 weapons at once
with 8 or 12 bolts per second) and some of them even have shields (Droidekas) - and they are aided by Geonosians with some
heavy weapons.
Now if you have a look at the "background" action in the arena scenes you can see some Jedi getting outnumbered
5+ on 1 (being surrounded) and still winning quite easily against their opponents. In the entire Battle of Geonosis 192,000
clone troopers and 212 Jedi annihilated more than 1,1 mio Battle Droids.
Still thinking that the PT Jedi are weaker than
the ancient ones...ok...next point incoming.
Lightsaber fighting
Well...who would be better in terms of lightsaber combat ?
As
far as we have seen the PT Jedi are at least better than the ancient ones when it comes to blaster deflection and redirection.
Now let us just have a look on training. The PT Jedi (post Ruusan) are trained from infancy on with lightsabers were
the greatest people of ancient times weren't trained from infancy on. Who would be better in terms of fighting ? Somebody
who did practice some years with a weapon and used it in some battles or somebody who trained with that weapon for decades
and grew up using it ? I guess the latter one when you consider the fact that the styles didn’t change from KotoR times
to PT times on.
To add to that point of view. The ancient Jedi practice the very same forms that the PT Jedi do while
those forms were refined for more than 4,000 years. I have never seen a example of martial art / fighting style getting worse
over time. For natural talents with lightsaber combat we can have a look at Mace Windu: Juyo remained an unfinished art for
nearly 4,000 of years until Mace completed it with Vaapad. So...if the ancient Jedi (pre Ruusan) were better than the PT ones
why did nobody ever complete Juyo ?
Now people often think that the ancient Jedi had more battle experience and more
training against other force users (Sith) than the PT ones. Again wrong. For all we know the Jedi in ancient times nearly
had no major conflicts that did go on for several years. The Great Hyperspace War was over in less than one year (and we haven't
seen lightsaber action there), same with the Great Sith War.
The Jedi didn't participate in the Mandalorian Wars and
the Jedi Civil War (as it's descriped in KotoR 2) more seems like Jedi getting assassinated by Sith assassins / special forces
or they tried to convert them. I don't remember a single situation where somebody was talking about a real battle between
Jedi and Sith happening in the Jedi Civil War.
Now the PT Jedi did practice against each other (so against other force
users) and they did that quite often. The ROTS novel states that Anakin and Obi-Wan did practice lightsaber combat against
each other for more than 1,000 hours. We also know that Padawans did fight each other (Shadowhunter) and that even Masters
used to spare against each other (Dooku and Yoda did fight Mace before the events of TPM). If that amount of practice time
that Obi-Wan and Anakin had is "normal" then some Masters must have 10,000s of hours experience in lightsaber vs lightsaber
fights. How would ancient Jedi be able to compare to that ?
Now let's just have a look at the next prejudice or way
of thinking. Illustrious has written that there was a "gradual change from front-line soldiers to diplomatic Jedi throughout
the ages" which is simply wrong. The Jedi always were diplomats and peacekeepers - the entire order is designed to
keep harmony within the Galaxy which doesn't pretty much fit the picture of an army just designed for fighting. Or are we
back in the Roman Empire here and the Jedi Order is commanded by Julius Caesar ("in civis pace para bellum" - "if you want
peace you have to prepare for war") ? That does simply not fit the rules and philosophy of the Jedi Order and those - as far
as we know - were installed 5,000+ years BBY thereby counting for all ancient Jedi.
And now for the great "BUT..."
But
Yoda – being the strongest of the PT Jedi – couldn't defeat Sidious – the worst of all Sith Lords
True.
But let's simply have a look at some facts:
a)
All ancient Sith Lords had technology or some special things to aid
their force powers. Sadow had his ship which allowed him to destroy planets and some crystals that boosted his force powers.
Same things were later used by Kun (+ Aleema + Ulic). They had amulets, artifacts and so on. Sidious equipped with the same
stuff actually is pretty close to the Ancient Sith Lords (have a look at Sidious in Dark Empire having one crystal to boost
his force powers). So Sidious might be as strong or even stronger then the ancient Sith Lords in terms of raw power but inferior
when it comes to Sith knowledge (especially Alchemy) and things to boost his force powers.
b)
The ROTS novel states
that the reason Yoda can't defeat Sidious was that the Sith had changed while the Jedi didn't. In ancient times it was a fight
where the light did overcome the darkness. Now in the ROTS novel it is said that the more light you use against the new Sith
the deeper their shadow gets. They can't be overwhelmed using the light against them. If we consider the fact that the only
weapon the Jedi knew against the Sith was the light, the PT Jedi had less chances against Sidious than the ancient Jedi had
against ancient Sith. Now...if you think about this that can lead to some ideas about the PT and the OT:
1)
It can
explain why Mace did defeat Sidious after less than a minute of fighting where Yoda wasn't able to do that. It's because of
Vaapad. To quote the ROTS novel: "Immersion in Vaapad opens the gates that restrain one's inner darkness. To use Vaapad, a
Jedi must allow himself to enjoy the fight; he must give himself over to the thrill of battle. The rush of winning. Vaapad
is a path that leads through the penumbra of the dark side." So Mace was using the darkness (or let's say some feelings associated
with the "Dark Side") against Sidious and won where Yoda, using the light wasn't able to do so.
2)
Now think about
that: Why didn't Obi-Wan and Yoda train Luke and Leia from their childhood on ? I think Yoda noticed that the new Sith can
only be defeated by somebody that are not like Jedi (pure servants of the light - and have a look at the NJO they aren't "Jedi"
any longer) but people that can utilise their "darker feelings" but remain in control over themselves (not fall to the Dark
Side). And just have a look how the new Sith (Sidious and Vader) were defeated in the end. Luke had to use his anger to overcome
Vader in ROTJ and Vader this finally resulted in Vader killing the Emperor.
Could Luke have "defeated" them being a "regular"
Jedi ? Could he have done something with 2 decades of training what Yoda wasn't able to do after 9 centuries if Yoda would
have trained the same way all the PT Jedi were trained ? I doubt it.
He would have killed Vader (just because of the necessity)
and then the Emperor would have killed him. So leaving Luke "untrained" enough to keep his feelings in higher regard than
the (estimated) necessity of his actions was possibly the only way to "win" in the end.
Now...thinking about that points
the PT Jedi might have better chances against the ancient Sith Lords than some people give them credit for because they are
trained to fight Sith like that and have more training time and more refined abilities than the ancient Jedi.
Especially
Yoda would be a real threat for the ancient Sith Lords and not because I'm a Yoda fanboy but because his unique abilities.
We already know that he can absorb and deflect Sith Lightning from point blank range but he has another ability called
“Force Light”. Yoda once used that on Dagobah and the effect is that it removes Dark Side manifestations from
a nexus point. That means Yoda would be able to effectively destroy any artifact created with Sith magic by removing the Dark
Side "component".
Now try to imagine Sith Lords without their force power boosting artifacts trying to fight somebody
armed with lightsaber while wielding normal blades (Sith blades that no longer have Sith magic applied on them). Do you think
they can win ?
And to throw a last point in here: Lucas himself called the PT era the Golden Age of the Jedi. It's
their highest point. Now notice that most of the EU stuff about the ancient Jedi was approved (and sometimes even used) by
Lucas before he released the PT and still Lucas calls the PT era the "Golden Age of the Jedi". Since this is Lucas own point
of view this might also explain why the Clone War cartoons look exaggerated: Lucas wanted to show the Jedi's "real powers"
– something which he couldn't have done in the films and he personally approved episodes which the director thought
of being not acceptable (like Mace wasting the droids and the seismic tank on Dantooine).
So if you consider all the
points mentioned and consider the Clone War Cartoons as what they are (a piece of Lucas approved EU material) and have a look
on Lucas own statement about the PT era (being the Golden Age of the Jedi) - would you still say that the ancient Jedi are
superior to the PT Jedi ?
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