River Tam Vs Luke Skywalker by two

Well, technically Luke would have to know Force Choke or Force Lightning, which I don't think he does. He can do the telekinesis thing, to try to hit River with rocks or stuff, but she'll be able to anticipate that. Just like he'd be able to anticipate her in a lightsaber versus corosis weave reaver axe battle.

But she'd also be jumping around like Yoda, and throwing kicks, so it'd be pretty nuts.

Luke kinda actually sucks with his lightsaber, I think River would own him close quarters. Long distance, stalemate.

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Sunday, July 4, 2010 7:39 PM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Well, technically Luke would have to know Force Choke or Force Lightning, which I don't think he does.

Watch Return of the Jedi again (just for the hell of it). Luke uses Force Choke on Jabba's guards. Force Lightning is supposed to be a Palpatine/evil only thing; as in, he's so old, he mastered lightning.

Quote:
But she'd also be jumping around like Yoda, and throwing kicks, so it'd be pretty nuts.

Yoda was CGI. That's cheating. (You think that's air he's breathing?) How about Darth Maul?

Quote:
Luke kinda actually sucks with his lightsaber...

He beat Darth Vader didn't he? That used to be a big deal.

Different characters have different fighting stances.

-Darth Vader has a strong stance. It's slower, but he'll knock you down. Why deflect laser fire when your glove just absorbs it! Awesome.

-Luke is in the middle of the road. He can deflect laser fire, and still push back when sabers are locked, but not too much.

-River would use the fast stance. She can deflect a hell of a lot of laser fire, and strike weak spots fast. Can get knocked back easy, though.

I'm leaning slightly towards River, in that Luke has gotten the crap kicked out of him A LOT.

Let's see: Knocked out by Sand People; knocked out by Wampa creature (bacta bath and he's back!); blown out window and "landed" on the bridge thing (lucky he may be, that's still got to hurt); hand cut off (good luck finding THAT.); falls out Ewok net, and R2 lands on his head (I'd say, that's unconfirmed.

); and microwaved by the Emperor. Also, he had to set fire to the corpse of his dad just hours after "saving" him. Does emotional scarring count?

--------------------------------------------------
Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Sunday, July 4, 2010 7:52 PM

FRELLINGBLONDE

Mama Washy...*dies laughing*

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Sunday, July 4, 2010 11:12 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

I don't recall Jedi having precognition.
Although some deny it, River has shown precog or something imitating it, so she'd avoid the hits better.

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Monday, July 5, 2010 3:20 AM

GWEK

I agree that River has demonstrated precognition, but we've never seen that translate into attack avoidance (based on the way the majority of her abilities work, when she fights the Reavers, it seems that she's sensing INTENTION, not the future).

As for Luke sucking at the lightsaber... No, Luke Skywalker is an excellent lightsaber combatant. During the Original Trilogy, he happens to have been played by Mark Hamill, an actor who's not particularly good at it (then again, David Prowse's Vader doesn't look particularly skilled, despite that fact that Vader/Anakin is, like Luke, one of the best lightsaber combatants of his generation).

On Force Lightning: Luke flirts with the dark side more than once, so he does know how to do it. He just choses not to. He also uses a lame light side verion called Emerald Judgement or some crap like that. Lame!

Personally, I think that River would probably beat movie Luke (even RotJ Luke, when he's starting to fully come into his own as a Jedi), but EU Luke--a true Jedi master--would own her.

And even if she defeated movie-era Luke, it would be, at best, a draw. Artoo would stun her once her back was turned, and since he's a droid, he'd be a blank spot in her empathic abilities.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Monday, July 5, 2010 3:41 AM

Technically, Darth Vader/Anakin also appears to suck with a lightsaber. Thing is, when he's Anakin he's got a blue lightsaber, which in the old Jedi Order was the sign of a Jedi who chose the path of the Guardian: basically the not too bright bruisers who rely on brute strength and think in absolutes. But in addition, his method is rather inferior. I suspect both Luke and Anakin are showing the pitfalls of starting their training late.

Luke is a little better than Darth in lightsaber combat, even considering the age difference. He shows a lot of the manner of the Consular path of the Old Order, in that he often tries to talk his way out of trouble and make allies, and uses the Force to augment his combat abilities. And he uses the green lightsaber, which is kind of signature of the path.

Quote:
Yoda was CGI. That's cheating. (You think that's air he's breathing?) How about Darth Maul?

Yeah, but she would anyway, and she wouldn't even have to be CGI. You don't think she would? She totally would. She's all dancer gymnast, she could flip around all day at that.

EDIT: ah, GWEK, so it's a matter of the limitation of the medium. Okay, I can make an allowance for that. People have informed abilities in fiction all the time. :) And maybe he gets better over time...

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Monday, July 5, 2010 3:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I don't recall Jedi having precognition.
Although some deny it, River has shown precog or something imitating it, so she'd avoid the hits better.

Supposedly they do, but it's more in the form of really lame dreams that generally become self-fulfilling prophecies.

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Monday, July 5, 2010 4:24 AM

Jedi also have danger sense, which is related to the skill that lets them block blaster-fire, so yes, realtime precognition. Hell, that was one of Anakin's "selling points" to Qui-Gon; he could see (and react) to things before they happened.

Movies aside, a realistic Jedi battle would look more like River taking on the Reavers in Serenity; lots of dodging, tumbling, and acrobatic moves.

OTOH, even as a Jedi Grand Master, Luke isn't the Order's best duellist (that's actually Leia, perhaps surprisingly).

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 11:49 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Luke kinda actually sucks with his lightsaber, I think River would own him close quarters. Long distance, stalemate.

River wins, shooting Luke in the head (with a bit of dead tree that turns out to be a gun) while his lightsaber is still in mid vvvroooommmm...

Moral of the story: lightsabers are only effective against other lightsabers or stormtroopers who couldn't hit the side of a barn firing laser bolts that apparently travel at about 30mph max. Do not attempt to use lightsaber against crack-shot psychic girls.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 12:20 PM

River has no chance in hell against any jedi. It's not even close to a fair fight. The force user can simply hold her in a force grip and she's completely worthless offensively or defensively. I know people want River to win cause they like her, but it's not even close.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 12:26 PM

I dunno. Non-Force-Users are capable of killing Jedi, if they have good training, skill, and adaptability. Hell, the Mando'a have pretty much made a national sport out of it.

A big part of a Jedi's danger-sense is reading peoples' intentions. River's mind might just be too chaotic to get a reliable reading --and River herself might be doing the same kind of "read" on the Jedi.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 12:31 PM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
River has no chance in hell against any jedi. It's not even close to a fair fight. The force user can simply hold her in a force grip and she's completely worthless offensively or defensively. I know people want River to win cause they like her, but it's not even close.

River versus Vader or Palpatine, maybe - but Luke's a Good Guy who's been brought up not to Use The Force on girls (unless he's got all twisted after narrowly escaping dating his sister). He'll hesitate.

Anyway - River's a quick learner: dump her in a universe where the Force works and she'll figure it out in two shakes.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 1:03 PM

She has to have the MIDO-SILLY-NAME-IANS though!

Maybe she can manufacture them.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 1:31 PM

Quote:
The force user can simply hold her in a force grip and she's completely worthless offensively or defensively. I know people want River to win cause they like her, but it's not even close.

Yeah, except force users rarely ever do this.

I've pieced together a sense of why from some of the EU books.

1) The Force comes from living things, or at least midochlorian compatible living things.
2) A person can draw on their own force, but it's pretty weak, and for stronger effects people usually have to resort to drawing on the ambient force
3) The ambient force comes with some conditions. It, or the sources emitting it, kind of have to approve of what you're doing, or be unaware of it. Go against the "will" of the force, so to speak, and you pay a penalty.

The force "likes" healing things and helping living things, because it comes from living things. It "dislikes" being used to harm living things, but can make exceptions if the goal is merely to incapacitate or to rescue other living things in the process (some kind of net-zero thing). This is possibly why eating food in the Star Wars universe doesn't make someone pure evil, or why a Jedi isn't evil for saving themselves, and not saving the Gamorrean that gets eaten by a Rancor.

The force doesn't really care about the arguments Sith and Jedi have about emotions and affection, besides Jedi being dumb because they aren't creating enough new life because they're so stuffy and unemotive. It only cares if it's being misused, which not all Sith do (some were incredible healers), unfortunately their philosophy does lend itself to brute violence and taking what they want.

Anyway. Basic gist is, choking a living thing or holding some lifeform in place (possibly while you skewer them with a lightsaber) is in contradiction to what living things in general want, so technically it's a dark side power that damages the user. Luke does this once that I can remember to the Gamorrean in Jabba the Hutt's den, but it wasn't a particularly egregious example because 1) he only incapacitated the Gamorrean, and 2) he was trying to save Han. He probably got out of dark side points or self damage on that.

He might be able to hold River in place, but I doubt he would, Luke tends to work with the will of the force, not force his own will on it. And I suspect because of that, he's just not very good at dark side powers, meaning he's likely to fail if he tries to use them. Though I might be mistaken, there's some entries in the EU I've never really read, where Luke plays spy to a clone of Palpatine and appears to fall to the dark side. And appparently he can also use Force Lightning, possibly from during this time.

But I also imagine that the Force might have it's own plans in regards to a Luke and River showdown (since it can apparently originate its own prophecies), and the Force seems to try to protect Luke, so probably Luke wouldn't be able to hold River, but at the same time, River could not harm Luke.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 2:16 PM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
Luke's a Good Guy...unless he's got all twisted after narrowly escaping dating his sister.

The discussion is getting too high minded.

Luke/Leia. "That was so wrong."

- Princess Leia, Robot Chicken: Star Wars Special (2007)

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010 4:32 PM

I believe this one says it best:

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 3:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:
The force user can simply hold her in a force grip and she's completely worthless offensively or defensively. I know people want River to win cause they like her, but it's not even close.

Yeah, except force users rarely ever do this.

I've pieced together a sense of why from some of the EU books.

1) The Force comes from living things, or at least midochlorian compatible living things.
2) A person can draw on their own force, but it's pretty weak, and for stronger effects people usually have to resort to drawing on the ambient force
3) The ambient force comes with some conditions. It, or the sources emitting it, kind of have to approve of what you're doing, or be unaware of it. Go against the "will" of the force, so to speak, and you pay a penalty.

The force "likes" healing things and helping living things, because it comes from living things. It "dislikes" being used to harm living things, but can make exceptions if the goal is merely to incapacitate or to rescue other living things in the process (some kind of net-zero thing). This is possibly why eating food in the Star Wars universe doesn't make someone pure evil, or why a Jedi isn't evil for saving themselves, and not saving the Gamorrean that gets eaten by a Rancor.

The force doesn't really care about the arguments Sith and Jedi have about emotions and affection, besides Jedi being dumb because they aren't creating enough new life because they're so stuffy and unemotive. It only cares if it's being misused, which not all Sith do (some were incredible healers), unfortunately their philosophy does lend itself to brute violence and taking what they want.

Anyway. Basic gist is, choking a living thing or holding some lifeform in place (possibly while you skewer them with a lightsaber) is in contradiction to what living things in general want, so technically it's a dark side power that damages the user. Luke does this once that I can remember to the Gamorrean in Jabba the Hutt's den, but it wasn't a particularly egregious example because 1) he only incapacitated the Gamorrean, and 2) he was trying to save Han. He probably got out of dark side points or self damage on that.

He might be able to hold River in place, but I doubt he would, Luke tends to work with the will of the force, not force his own will on it. And I suspect because of that, he's just not very good at dark side powers, meaning he's likely to fail if he tries to use them.

I also imagine that the Force might have it's own plans in regards to a Luke and River showdown (since it can apparently originate its own prophecies), and the Force seems to try to protect Luke, so probably Luke wouldn't be able to hold River, but at the same time, River could not harm Luke.

Actually at the end of the New Jedi Order series they reveal that all the light side/dark side stuff was just Jedi dogma. There really is no such thing. The Jedi were just afraid of their emotions and what their powers were capable of.

So, while the force may have some will of its own, there isn't really any downside to the powers that are commonly referred to as "dark side" powers.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 5:16 AM

Yeah, the "reward/punishment" thing is just natural consequences.

The Light Side is about drawing on and strengthening natural processes, so light-siders tend to live longer, healthier lives. The Dark Side is about forcing more power out of the system (like overclocking a computer or pumping nitrus oxide into an engine), so dark-siders end up twisted, scarred, and "used up" by the power they wield. Opposite sides of the coin.

It's driven by behaviour, not so much by the particular Force skills being used. (Though, obviously, some skills lend themselves better to abuse than others.)

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 5:32 AM

Quote:
Actually at the end of the New Jedi Order series they reveal that all the light side/dark side stuff was just Jedi dogma. There really is no such thing. The Jedi were just afraid of their emotions and what their powers were capable of.

Dark side is not necessarily Sith, light side is not necessarily Jedi. This seems to be the same argument about Sith philosophy versus Jedi philosophy, about which you're right, the Jedi were severely limited by their dogma, and their taboo on love and marriage and other emotions brought about their downfall in numerous ways.

But there's also the Unifying Force philosophy, which is the aspect of the Force where some things are predetermined, and which says the Force is neither good or evil, it just is.

Emperor Palpatine was a believer in the Unifying Force, and said the only difference in the Sith and the Jedi was that the Sith saw the Force as a mean to an end (often benefitting themselves at the expense of others) while the Jedi saw the Force as an end in of itself. He's probably right, with conditions.

There's consequences to be found in using the Force beyond the body's capacity to sustain it, such as accelerated aging, scarring, physical damage, etc., and surprise surprise, some of the abilities requiring the most Force to sustain are the aggressive abilities, Force Lighting and forms of Telekinesis that include the Force Grip and Force Choke abilities, but Dominate Mind can take a lot of effort to keep up, as well, especially over a long period.

As such, I still say there are uses of the Force that constitute abuse, and that abuse seems to be related to mistreatment of living beings, and so while the Jedi and Sith philosophies are neither one correct and both correct at the same time, there are still very different aspects between force powers, and some can be called light, and some can be called dark, based on the differences and uses, as well as the intentions of the users.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 5:45 AM

Another important factor is River is at a severe disadvantage mentally. Her mind has been stripped of any defenses. If the Jedi can control the weak minded then River has to have one of the weakest defenses around. She can't block out thoughts and emotions for anyone around her. If Jedi are focused on putting something in her brain then it's going to be even more effective. They could convince her to off herself without batting an eye IMO.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 5:55 AM

I'm not sure River is weak minded. She seems to be able to reject some things; when Reavers are flooding her with the urge to rape and kill and eat, she doesn't succumb to those desires herself. It's likely in constantly having to sort outside influences, River is more aware of what her own genuine thoughts and feelings are. Unfortunately, her thoughts are very chaotic, which doesn't do her much good.

But I question that she'd be able to be dominated easily. Overwhelmed, possibly, but not convinced of anything or forced to do something against her own will.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 6:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
But I question that she'd be able to be dominated easily. Overwhelmed, possibly, but not convinced of anything or forced to do something against her own will.

She was specifically conditioned for just that purpose. Mere words trigger her to go into a rage or fall asleep. At the very least a jedi would be able to take advantage of those same triggers. However, I would guess that they would likely be able to do far more.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 6:05 AM

Ehhh, okay, the sleep thing. Luke would probably win, though that's still not a weakness to dominate mind. It doesn't work that way.

I can't imagine what advantage there would be in triggering her combat training. That'd be an insta pwn.

Fortunately, it seems that those triggers, for the combat training, are subliminal, which means that even another psychic (or a mind reading Jedi) might not be able to recreate them.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010 8:49 AM