A Question...

[lumine.stan]

So I was thinking... The Old Republic Sith and Jedi were just so much more powerful than the current Era... This is true but... I think the reason they were so much more powerful is that they were always in constant battle... Their Midiclorion count doesn't actually have to be super high to be a better combatant than the current Era where Yoda was Grandmaster... But there are very notable Sith and Jedi that were just as powerful as Yoda to almost as powerful as Anakin... I would say Darth Nox aka Kallig had the same power-level as Valkorion or slightly higher... The SIth Warrior would dominate Yoda... Darth Malgus is also extremely powerful... some members on the Dark Council and Jedi council were super powerful much more powerful than Yoda... Yet for some reason these anicent Sith and Jedi fall short when compared to Anakin... I do however think the Sith Warrior would be a better lightsaber duelist than Anakin but would still ultimately lose since Sith Warrior just doesn't have the same potential so he/she falls short too... Satele Shan is also more powerful than Yoda... So why is it that these Jedi and Sith from so long ago were just so much more powerful? Anakin is more powerful than them since he's the chosen one... But my question is... Why were the Old Republic Jedi and Sith so powerful compared to the current Era? I'm not a super star wars lore geek so I'm just asking since I really don't understand... Why the current Era falls so short compared to the Old Republic... If the Old republic Sith were still around they would curbstomp the Jedi Order much faster than Anakin could... They were just that much better when it comes to combat and so were the old republic Jedi... So what happened?

[Ironwu]

Dilution of the vital bodily fluids.

[maVRoyal]

For the sith part. the downfall came due to backstabbing and their power was because of unrestricted usage of power.
I recommend to check up on Darth Bane, in short he created a rule of 2 "One master and a apprentince" so that in order for sith order to survive, they had to act from hiding. What's more, using anything remotely as powerfull as what sith of the old republic era used in terms of force abilities would litterally alarm every single jedi in the galaxy about the upcoming "threat".
Rule of 2 had as well another detail. While being able to hide from jedi and the republic, it was still meant to improve the sith as a whole. Main idea was that apprentice sooner or later had to kill it's master and in doing so, apprentince would prove to be more and more powerfull than their master.
all in all, for sith, the power came from being unburdened by a need to hide.

And as for jedi, they had to constantly be on the watch. Hyperspace war, mandalorian crusades, sith empire, sith emperror... they all caused immense strain and only way for jedi to survice, was to adapt or overcome the challenges posed the dangers of a galaxy.

[Thander]

What do you mean by current era? Like the original trilogy? At that point Force users are pretty much all extinct by design. The Emperor only wanted himself and a handful of followers to have the Force. He had his followers actively killed any others found. Luke Skywalker barely got any training. Yoda is too old. Darth Vader's suit limited his power (another design of the Emperor to make it harder for Vader to overthrow him). Ben Kenobi is the only one I'd think would be more powerful, but I guess that's sort of explained in the TV series that he gave up the Jedi ways to hide himself.

Force users are still pretty much extinct in the sequel trilogy. The ones that exist pretty much have to teach themselves how to use it. It's like getting a PhD without any teachers, hard to do.

In the prequel trilogy, they seem quite strong to me. Old Republic was modeled after the prequel trilogy. Most of the Jedi powers in the game are in the prequel movies somewhere. The only difference is that in the movies Force users get tired a lot quicker. You can explain some of the differences by SWTOR being an MMO.

MMOs have a lot of combat. If Jedi got tired like they do in the movies, you'd spent more time resting than fighting. It would be very boring as a video game. Things always have to be stretched a little to make a fun game. Also, when the game came out, player characters were a lot weaker compared to the mobs. For example, you did need to rest a bit after fighting gold mobs, and most champion mobs could not be soloed unless you greatly overleveled them.

[lumine.stan]

Originally posted by Thander:

What do you mean by current era? Like the original trilogy? At that point Force users are pretty much all extinct by design. The Emperor only wanted himself and a handful of followers to have the Force. He had his followers actively killed any others found. Luke Skywalker barely got any training. Yoda is too old. Darth Vader's suit limited his power (another design of the Emperor to make it harder for Vader to overthrow him). Ben Kenobi is the only one I'd think would be more powerful, but I guess that's sort of explained in the TV series that he gave up the Jedi ways to hide himself.

Force users are still pretty much extinct in the sequel trilogy. The ones that exist pretty much have to teach themselves how to use it. It's like getting a PhD without any teachers, hard to do.

In the prequel trilogy, they seem quite strong to me. Old Republic was modeled after the prequel trilogy. Most of the Jedi powers in the game are in the prequel movies somewhere. The only difference is that in the movies Force users get tired a lot quicker. You can explain some of the differences by SWTOR being an MMO.

MMOs have a lot of combat. If Jedi got tired like they do in the movies, you'd spent more time resting than fighting. It would be very boring as a video game. Things always have to be stretched a little to make a fun game. Also, when the game came out, player characters were a lot weaker compared to the mobs. For example, you did need to rest a bit after fighting gold mobs, and most champion mobs could not be soloed unless you greatly overleveled them.

Ah right... But I meant before order 66 happened... And before god forbid when Disney got their grubby mitts on Star Wars... I should have been clearer. But yeah Players had to grow in power from a Padawan/ Acolyte to Darth/Master so yeah it's not like Sith and Jedi from the old republic could just bulldoze through everything the moment they were created...

[Fannidan13]

I think there's a common misconception about Anakin being what amounts to Force God because he is the Chosen One. To tack on to the explanation above of the Sith being technically weaker due to being in hiding, by the same logic the Chosen One only has to be strong enough to eradicate these "weaker" rule-of-two Sith in the movies to fulfill the prophecy.

It can stand plenty to reason that in the past the Jedi were more powerful. Partly due to the many conflicts and the fact that there seems many more force users in the past (prequel number estimates were about 1500 members in the order). The Jedi order has been weakened and rebuilt from near nil numerous times in Legends, often due to the same behaviors, mirroring the IRL cyclic trends of human history. (History repeats, as many misquote)

The order gets really arrogant in its teachings to the point of absolution, which neuters their power and clairvoyance (Dooku telling some to their face who the Sith Lord is and them denying his credibility), leading to their downfall in both the (KOT)Old Republic, and in the prequel movies.

[lumine.stan]

Originally posted by Fannidan13:

I think there's a common misconception about Anakin being what amounts to Force God because he is the Chosen One. To tack on to the explanation above of the Sith being technically weaker due to being in hiding, by the same logic the Chosen One only has to be strong enough to eradicate these "weaker" rule-of-two Sith in the movies to fulfill the prophecy.

It can stand plenty to reason that in the past the Jedi were more powerful. Partly due to the many conflicts and the fact that there seems many more force users in the past (prequel number estimates were about 1500 members in the order). The Jedi order has been weakened and rebuilt from near nil numerous times in Legends, often due to the same behaviors, mirroring the IRL cyclic trends of human history. (History repeats, as many misquote)

The order gets really arrogant in its teachings to the point of absolution, which neuters their power and clairvoyance (Dooku telling some to their face who the Sith Lord is and them denying his credibility), leading to their downfall in both the (KOT)Old Republic, and in the prequel movies.

There are also force techniques that the Jedi and Sith of pre-order 66 no longer had... What's up with that? It's like they lost so much knowledge... So many powerful techniques were lost making both sides much weaker... What happened?

[Xautos]

The more jedi and sith there are the easier it will be to spot outliers, special individuals with an exceptionally strong connection to the force. it's like casting a massive fishing net during the cold war era, you can catch many potential force users across the galaxy and sometimes you'll find something special in amongst the mundane. however post-darth bane's rule of two, the fishing nets cast by master and apprentice are insignificantly small to the point they are useless and have to rely on the jedi while watching from a distance in order to find that outlier, manipulate them and bring them over to the sith.

I must also point out that the rule of two wasn't entirely successful either once the emperor took over the republic and turned it into the empire, because there are former jedi who submitted to the empire and did their dirty work as an inquisitor hunting down other rogue jedi, but even these inquisitors need a master to train under to become better and stronger so they can hunt and holding back on training with the use of certain force powers will ultimately get the inquisitor killed, so they need all the training they can get.

as for knowledge of previous force techniques and powers? those can be lost over time and special force users could bring a unique power of their own, albeit the chances are very rare of it happening. of course jedi temples fall to ruin, computer databases cease to exist and so on, some knowledge that was common place is lost for all time.

[Hilgert Olben]

Regarding the Sith: They lost a lot of knowledge when they all wiped each other out at one point and then started the rule of two. There is only so much knowledge that two people can acquire. And then the deal is that one of them has to kill the other at some point - in most, if not all, cases before all of the master's knowledge was passed on. Thus their knowledge gets less and less over time.

Regarding the Jedi: By the time of the PT, they were under the impression that the Sith were extinct for a thousand years. Ever since they didn't have a "natural" opponent anymore. Thus they degressed in every way and became the lazy, decadent order they were when Palpatine rose to power. Why give 100%, if 15% is enough? For a thousand years. That's also why they eventually "lost" against one single Sith and his 15 minutes "old" apprentice.

[Fannidan13]

Originally posted by Hilgert Olben:

Regarding the Sith: They lost a lot of knowledge when they all wiped each other out at one point and then started the rule of two. There is only so much knowledge that two people can acquire. And then the deal is that one of them has to kill the other at some point - in most, if not all, cases before all of the master's knowledge was passed on. Thus their knowledge gets less and less over time.

Regarding the Jedi: By the time of the PT, they were under the impression that the Sith were extinct for a thousand years. Ever since they didn't have a "natural" opponent anymore. Thus they degressed in every way and became the lazy, decadent order they were when Palpatine rose to power. Why give 100%, if 15% is enough? For a thousand years. That's also why they eventually "lost" against one single Sith and his 15 minutes "old" apprentice.

THIS
It's hard to pass on technique when everyone is either dead or the usage requirement is no longer there. Jedi battle meditation made sense when they served as warriors for defense of the Old Republic and needed to sway whole sectors of conflict. But after Bane used the Thought Bomb and wiped the Sith out (and a significant amount of Jedi) and the Jedi thought them extinct, there was relative peace for the last 1000 yrs before the prequels so they had no need for warfare oriented force abilities. That and the council grew quite certain that those powers encouraged young Jedi to conflict where many would fall to the dark side. So, maybe think of some of them as locked in a holocron in what amounts to the Jedi archives version of the forbidden section of the Hogwarts library, if not outright lost to history or one of the many purges.

[Sunny]

for theorycrafting of stuff like this, the tabletop RPG books can be super helpful regarding what the old canon creators thought.

obv. all of this is all legends now anyway, but there's LOTS of info in the tabletop books about the eras before old republic, and a fair amount of stuff post old republic but still before "current" era.

is all there. fascinating stuff.