So how are there non-believers in STAR WARS?

[name_here]

It's important to note that there were roughly ten thousand Jedi prior to the clone wars, while the core worlds all have populations on the order of trillions. The average man on the street probably only saw Jedi if he decided to go down to the Jedi temple. Add to that that they were all dead a couple decades prior to the original trilogy, and skepticism is understandable.

I mean, how often do you see the Pope in person? The entire Jedi order is a much smaller percentage of the population.

[hyzmarca]

Such that there is a finite amount of evil mojo for the Sith, and the more Sith there are, the more spread out it becomes; making there only be two be such that those two are monstrously powerful.

But Maul and Dooku went down to like two guys and Palpatine was able to be taken down by Mace Windu. There are thousands of Jedi. Just how lopsided is this conflict?

Well yes, until you get into the EU where Palpatine is literally vaporizing entire enemy fleets all by himself with his massive force powers.

The thing is, there's a huge disconnect between the movies and the EU. In the movies, you've got absurdly small armies using tactics that went out of style in World War I and the Jedi are just guys with laser swords and a few neat tricks.

In the EU, high-end force users juggle black holes, annihilate fleets with waves of their hands, eat entire planets full of people (their life-force, anyway), travel time, raise the dead, and do other super-crazy shit.

The conservation of ninjutsu idea comes from the EU.

In the real world, possessing power doesn't (always) make you a psychopathic, sociopathic individual incapable of any positive feelings, the way the dark side does. It's far removed from anything that happens in the real world.

There are some morally decent Sith out there if you go by the EU, not many, but some.

If you go by the novelization Palpatine allowed himself to look beat so that Anakin would freak out and kill Windu. At any given time he probably could have crushed Windu. As far as raw power of the force, Yoda and Palpatine both threw everything that they had at each other and Palpatine was just slightly stronger in the force.

There's a reason why Mace sat in the big chair despite Yoda having several centuries of seniority. Mace was better than Yoda by a wide margin.

Worth noting, however, that this philosophy was completely wrong. Since the instating of the Rule of Two, the only Sith to ever threaten the Jedi Order as a whole was Sidious, who broke the rule right in half by training dozens of different people in some part of the Sith arts and allowing Darth Vader and others to do the same. By ignoring the Rule of Two but still limiting the number of full Sith Lords, he actually successfully defeated the Republic.

Palps successfully defeated the republic by running for office. Jiggering around with the rule of two had less to do with it than briliant political maneuvering did.

[fbmf]

It's important to note that there were roughly ten thousand Jedi prior to the clone wars, while the core worlds all have populations on the order of trillions. The average man on the street probably only saw Jedi if he decided to go down to the Jedi temple. Add to that that they were all dead a couple decades prior to the original trilogy, and skepticism is understandable.

I mean, how often do you see the Pope in person? The entire Jedi order is a much smaller percentage of the population.

You don't imagine Core Worlds have CNN?

Game On,
fbmf

[hyzmarca]

It's important to note that there were roughly ten thousand Jedi prior to the clone wars, while the core worlds all have populations on the order of trillions. The average man on the street probably only saw Jedi if he decided to go down to the Jedi temple. Add to that that they were all dead a couple decades prior to the original trilogy, and skepticism is understandable.

I mean, how often do you see the Pope in person? The entire Jedi order is a much smaller percentage of the population.

You don't imagine Core Worlds have CNN?

Game On,
fbmf

I don't imagine that they do.

Star Wars is constructed on pulp schitzo-tech and is heavily inspired by both 1930s republic serials and Kurosawa's samurai films. Television likely doesn't exist in any form. It just isn't something that belongs in 1930s pulp or in samurai movies.

[fbmf]

I stopped reading more than a decade ago, but EU made reference to HoloNet News.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/HoloNet_News

Game On,
fbmf

[name_here]

People don't believe things that are perfectly plausible and seen on the real CNN at times, why should the people in Star Wars be any different?

[infected slut princess]

Mainstream media like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox are so full of shit that when they "report" something you can pretty much safely assume it is untrue. I figure Holonet News would be similar.

[hyzmarca]

I stopped reading more than a decade ago, but EU made reference to HoloNet News.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/HoloNet_News

Game On,
fbmf

Well yes, the EU makes reference to a lot of things. But I didn't see Palpatine blow up the rebel fleet with his awesome Force powers in Return of the Jedi. The EU and the movies are two very different beasts.

[TheFlatline]

I stopped reading more than a decade ago, but EU made reference to HoloNet News.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/HoloNet_News

Game On,
fbmf

Well yes, the EU makes reference to a lot of things. But I didn't see Palpatine blow up the rebel fleet with his awesome Force powers in Return of the Jedi. The EU and the movies are two very different beasts.

HoloNet dates back to the very beginnings of the EU however. I can't remember specifically, but I believe it was even mentioned either in the BBC Star Wars or the novelizations.

I know it dates back at least as far as WEG Star Wars RPG.

[fectin]

Jedi are basically levitating gurus: they have a wonky hippy philosophy that you dont hate, but also don't care about. A generation ago, people said they have crazy localized powers, but now all the news says that they're frauds. Also, they've gone from about as common as Buddhist monks (you can find them if you really want to) to completely gone.

Skepticism is an entirely rational response, and apathy even more so.

[Kaelik]

I want to know where you think the EU has Palpatine blowing up fleets without using Turbolasers.

Seems kind of silly to go through all the trouble of building the Eclipse if you can just do that with your mind, and that was the only time he was alive at all in the EU.

[hyzmarca]

I want to know where you think the EU has Palpatine blowing up fleets without using Turbolasers.

Seems kind of silly to go through all the trouble of building the Eclipse if you can just do that with your mind, and that was the only time he was alive at all in the EU.

It's in Dark Empire.

To quote the Wiki

After Palpatine was defeated by Skywalker in a duel, he poured his rage into the creation of another Force storm, one far more powerful than the one he used to capture Skywalker from Coruscant. The storm headed toward Pinnacle Base and began obliterating the New Republic fleet, destroying twelve ships within moments.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_storm_(wormhole)

[Aharon]

@hyzmarca
Could you name a few morally decent Sith? I've read a bit of the EU and didn't yet stumble upon any.

[Kaelik]

It's in Dark Empire.

To quote the Wiki

After Palpatine was defeated by Skywalker in a duel, he poured his rage into the creation of another Force storm, one far more powerful than the one he used to capture Skywalker from Coruscant. The storm headed toward Pinnacle Base and began obliterating the New Republic fleet, destroying twelve ships within moments.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_storm_(wormhole)

Oh, you mean the uncontrollable thing that destroys your own fleets and planets and sometimes just kills you instead.

Yeah, I see nothing in the movies incompatible with the idea that Palpatine could have risked his own death to destroy a rebel fleet he knew the location of but also risk destroying whatever planet he was standing on or his own fleet instead.

Generally speaking when you have more Star Destroyers than the other side has Capital Ships, you probably shouldn't flip a coin where Tails is "You die."

[hyzmarca]

It's in Dark Empire.

To quote the Wiki

After Palpatine was defeated by Skywalker in a duel, he poured his rage into the creation of another Force storm, one far more powerful than the one he used to capture Skywalker from Coruscant. The storm headed toward Pinnacle Base and began obliterating the New Republic fleet, destroying twelve ships within moments.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_storm_(wormhole)

Oh, you mean the uncontrollable thing that destroys your own fleets and planets and sometimes just kills you instead.

Yeah, I see nothing in the movies incompatible with the idea that Palpatine could have risked his own death to destroy a rebel fleet he knew the location of but also risk destroying whatever planet he was standing on or his own fleet instead.

Generally speaking when you have more Star Destroyers than the other side has Capital Ships, you probably shouldn't flip a coin where Tails is "You die."

He controlled it just fine until Luke did his anti-darkside thingy. Hell, he was precise enough to hit a specific person on a planet a thousand lightyears away.

@hyzmarca
Could you name a few morally decent Sith? I've read a bit of the EU and didn't yet stumble upon any.

Darth Traya for one. She was willing to sacrifice herself to save the galaxy from the tyranny of the Force.

And, of course, there's the light-side Sith from The Old Republic.

And Darth Vectivus, who was canonically a really nice guy with high ethical standards, even after becoming a Sith.

[Aharon]

Thanks.

@Vectivus
Well, real nice guy is pushing it, seeing how destroying force phantoms kills totally unrelated life...
But your general point stands - not all Sith are EVIL, some are just morally ambigous.

[Kaelik]

He controlled it just fine until Luke did his anti-darkside thingy. Hell, he was precise enough to hit a specific person on a planet a thousand lightyears away.

He specifically said he wasn't using it because he couldn't control it. Then after he died a couple times, and went insane he decided he could totally control it, and then he died because he lost control.

I'm going to go ahead an say that the time he captured Luke he flipped a heads.

[Midnight_v]

Echoing a few sentiments above, I think the... time, distance, availibility of information, all add up to a scenario where there are total non believers. (not to mention the absurdity of magic bacteria god).
Realistically, it'd be like people who don't believe in myths after a certain amount of time. Even if there was a guy who turned water into wine, or did the 12 labors of heracles, or flipped out and turned his legs, reverse joint while hulking out. No ones gonn abelieve that shit who hadn't actually seen it. Grandfathers say lots of crazy shit we don't believe, and combat is a stressful and confusing situation sometimes.
The reason that they don't believe is because in some ways "seeing is believing" and sometimes not even then (post-rationalization after stressfull events happens).
Lastly, for some of them its the vodoo thing, "I don't believe so it can't harm me thing" in this case for some people its pretty much true.

[Longes]

Then the Sith are retarded, because rulers in the real world have figured out how to be reasonably safe with one person holding absolute power alongside side their similarly empowered peers since the dawn of human civilization. Even if said rulers are total evil bastards and have total evil bastard underlings. I mean, military coups and aristocrat-to-royalty assassinations/rebellions still happen, but not frequently enough that monarch reigning for several decades is unusual.

It's necro o'clock!

As of Darth Bane trilogy, the Rule of Two is more philosophical in nature, than related to the conservation of Sithjutsu. Here's the deal.
3000 years after the events of KotOR, the Sith united into Brotherhood of Darkness under the leadership of Dark Lord Kaan. Kaan used diplomacy and Force to convince the Sith to work together and form an army to crush the jedi. The Sith army conquered half a galaxy, until getting into a deadlock with the jedi army on a planet no one cares about. At that time Bane became an apprentice in the Sith academy on Korriban. Bane noticed a big contradiction between what they were being taught of the Dark Side, and the demands of the Brotherhood of Darkness. The Dark Side teaches that strong dominate the weak, equality is a lie, and might makes right. Brotherhood of Darkness demanded that all Sith are equal and that apprentices should be nice to each other. So Bane flipped his shit, took the title Darth, said that the Brotherhood perverts the Dark Side and left to find Revan's holocrone. In his travels Bane decided to reform the Sith order, and set two goals:
1. Destroy the jedi.
2. Return the Sith to the pure philosophy of the Dark Side.
He then went back to the Sith Army, gathered them in one place, and convinced them to blow themself up with a Spirit Bomb. He then made a Rule of Two and got an apprentice.

The Rule of Two is more philosophical than practical in nature. It exists to maintain the Dark Side philosophy (as understood by Darth Bane) pure, while keeping the Sith focused on destroying the jedi order. Mind you, when Bane destroyed the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Sith were totally winning and were a few steps away from conquering the galaxy and killing all jedi.

[Shady314]

I could not be happier the EU is officially non-canon.

[hyzmarca]

Anybody alive in the Core Worlds during the Rise of the Empire presumably saw Jedi (via Holovids if nothing else) doing a bunch of crazy Jedi shit, but in Ep IV Admiral Motti and Han Solo express disbelief in the Force.

How is that reasonable?

Game On,
fbmf

Most of the magic bullshit that jedi can do can by replicated by off-the-shelf tech and a lot of skill. The stuff that can't can be faked with off-the-shelf tech and a lot of skill.

I've seen video of David Copperfield making the statue of Liberty disappear. I still don't believe in wizards.

[Wiseman]

Not all of it is bad, though I do thing splitting the continuities was a pretty good idea.

[Kaelik]

I could not be happier the EU is officially non-canon.

Since the Force planet that is the origin of force bacteria is officially still cannon, I don't know why you think that.

[Wiseman]

Why did they even think Midi-clhlorians was even a good idea in the first place?

Also about the force planet, it's really not a bad series of episodes, ad I don't think midi-chlorians were really brought up if at all.

[Shady314]

Since the Force planet that is the origin of force bacteria is officially still cannon, I don't know why you think that.

Nice fallacy. Just because they didn't get rid of a specific piece of shit I hadn't even heard of before now doesn't mean I can't be happy they got rid of a lot of shit that I was aware of before. Even the originals have the Ewoks and I am aware most of the new stuff will just end up being shit too.

Why did they even think Midi-clhlorians was even a good idea in the first place?

What is this they? George Lucas is 100% responsible for that shit.