The Rebel Faction

The Sith and Jedi held equal shares of Naboo, and when the Sith attacked us it was generally a mutually beneficial storyline... I believe it was tradition that the Sith blow up the Jedi Academy every time we battled. And of course, nobody cried when they destroyed Otah Gunga... :p

Vance:

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As for the NPCs; to whom are you refering to? Has there been a post I'm not aware of, where someone has used a Force bomb with an NPC?

Dolash was speaking hypothetically about having his NPC Force army run around blowing things up using Force bombs, I was responding to that idea on an equally hypothetical note.

Dolash:

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My minions die by the hundred yet their apprentices are all apparently teleporting ninja masters.

Vance:

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I've read in quite a few posts that a lot of Sith Apprentices have been dying in droves

These 'droves' of dispensable Force NPC armies you are killing off by the bunches in this single battle is ridiculous. If you keep it up at this rate the plausible population of skilled (and semi-skilled) Force users in the galaxy will soon be expended.

Dolash:

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Force fights are inherently indecisive because people enter them with the intent to be intractible and stubborn - no one ever admits to losing a lightsaber duel, or being out-powered, unless a clear rank discrepency exists and the fight is prolonged.

That is why a ranking system complete with Force Council exists. The members, purpose, and necessity of a Force Council was just discussed a couple months ago... the sentiment seemed to be that it would remain a permanent, active fixture. Opinions are of course, always welcome.

Which reminds me, the Force adept characters being used in the Crusade (such as Dacian) need to be identified and submitted to the active Force users list. They also need their rank equivalents discussed. The only character who has been properly reviewed and listed is Dioan Silk, thank you for your honest diligence Beff.


As Dolash said, nobody wants to be weak; the rank equivalents are an attempt to impose reality on those who would be godmoders. As for what goes when new Masters like Silk face off against established masters like Leia for instance, who knows...

Leia Organa Solo:

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These 'droves' of dispensable Force NPC armies you are killing off by the bunches in this single battle is ridiculous. If you keep it up at this rate the plausible population of skilled (and semi-skilled) Force users in the galaxy will soon be expended.

Don't tell anyone, but this is exactly my intent . I'll gladly accept heavy casualties so long as the enemy is also accepting them.

I had no interest in igniting an OOC discussion, but if you're seeking to explore a few offhand comments then I guess I should clarify what I said and what I mean.

Dacian has no Force rank recognized by the council to speak of, but that isn't a serious problem for me or the thread because he doesn't actually do much Forcey stuff - so far he hasn't thrown around storms or bolts of death from his hand, everything Dacian has done he's done through his minion army. Even when fighting Vicirus, who is undoubtedly the greater swordsman, Dacian uses an army of lesser fighters to bog him down. In the sense of killing thousands personally, as most Force users use their status, Dacian barely even registers.

As such, it does matter to me how this battle plays out, not as a character-to-character battle but as an organization-vs-organization battle. You might think the Crusade is winning because the current character death count is one-zero, but if Necros traded his life in order to kill half my army then the balance of the battle is now in fact in the Sith's favour.

So no, it is not ironic for me to balk at the use of the Force as exhibited by Vance and Kraken. This is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black - I have used my specialty, which is commanding an army of lesser warriors, and they have their own, which is a great deal of power split amongst only a few individuals. My tactics have played to this strength by engaging the Sith en mass, while theirs have not, yet they escape the majority of the reprecussions of this by using the Force as a catch all "Get out of situation free" card.

No matter what you think of the Force or the ranking system or wether this invasion is fair or not, declaring "I summon a black hole that eats half your army, then my friend self-destructs and takes out the other half of your army" is dumb. There's no strategy, no finess, nothing but expanding the capacity of the Force to fit whatever situation it is needed for. Necros can land a deadly Force attack that devestates my army, yet Silk cannot land a deadly Force attack to devestate the Sith forces? Double standard.

But anyways, this is simply what I think about the last few posts. I'm still enjoying the thread and I have no intent of trying to get anything changed through a big OOC fight. The Crusade will work with what has been posted, as it's intended, in order to promote a certain level of fair-mindedness when judging what people can or cannot do with the Force. I can only hope the Sith will be equally considerate when we unleash our own unstoppable death attack that kills everything in a kilometer radius.

Skygge's been pretty clever so far, using the Sith's natural home field advantage, stealth, cunning, and distractions. Skygge is kicking the butts of those sent to apprehend her and I am totally pleased with that because she's doing it so cleverly.

Well, since the battle's already underway, there's no harm in divulging at least some of the tactics the Crusade has tried to implement to level the field. Though I agree that it is characters who are protected, not NPCs, the Sith Order is more than simply the three or four actual Sith characters who make it up - there are dozens of apprentices, perhaps many more servants and functionaries, a temple, weapons, supplies, money, and the like.

They are also aligned with the Empire, and despite what the Sith Order may think, they are the lesser partner in this relationship. Were the Sith to become more of a burden than an asset to the Empire, it is likely this relationship would end.

Thus, the key to defeating the Sith Order was not for Dacian to use his Void Knights to best Vicirus in combat, but instead for the Crusade to hunt down his apprentices, his supporters, and his sources of power. If the temple is destroyed and all his NPCs are dead, over whom can he call himself "Lord of the Sith"? This is why I was glad when Vicirus summoned the Sith to one place within the temple to face the invaders, because massed combat is where the Crusade will have the advantage.

A single Force user character can more or less inflict infinite death on their enemies, unless countered by an equally ranked Force user. This is not the case with NPCs, however, who are constrained by things like the common sense rule. The Sith are excellent single-combat warriors, but history has proven Force Users are weak to strong, organized assaults. Thus, though Vance's NPCs would kill many more of mine than I would of his, these are losses I can afford - and he cannot. I am willing to bet I will be able to rebuild my army of semi-Force users faster than he can recruit a whole new Order of Sith, especially as the Sith Order's leaders are fractious and the Empire' support is tenuous.

I have tried to be as accepting as possible with regards to casualties thus far for this reason. Necros killed hundreds of vaguely defined enemies in a steady march to the temple (despite originally writing something about being on the other side of the planet), Vicirus blasted with ease through dozens of my best minions with but a careless wave of the Force, and the lesser Sith were written as hacking easily through wave after wave of attackers. This I have accepted, almost happily, because it encourages a give-and-take - they have killed many of mine, so now it is my turn to kill many of theirs.

So far that hasn't worked, as for the most part my heavy attacks - either from the Crusade's strategically superior massed ranks or a ranked Force User like Silk - have been intentionally downplayed and dodged in subsequent Sith posts. Likewise, the scale of the Sith's attacks have become exagerated and ridiculous, wiping out my forces very quickly and in vast numbers despite the fact that in aggregate our NPC forces are probably about equal in strength.

Nevertheless, I will continue the attack, because even if the Crusader forces are all but wiped out, so long as we inflict equal damage on the Sith Order it shall be victory. All that we lose, we recruited for the express purpose of dying in battle, while every loss by the Sith further undermines and weakens the survival of their Order. Kind of like the Jedi, in that once their highly entrenched and established position was uprooted, they floundered in being unable to rebuild.

More or less, that's my strategy, and that's why Dacian - despite being effectively rankless so far - can pose a threat without saying "I explode everyone takes 9999 damage".