Starfleet Jedi

For the longest time I've been meaning to restart an old project of mine, to analyze and quantify the various Starwars novels out there. You may recall I did Vector Prime once and that turned out quite interesting in the end.

The reason I'm interested in doing this is because the Starwars universe is quite a nice one for debating purposes. It's big and if you take the expanded universe into account, there's a ton of information out there. Sadly the novels, as far as I know, have been only briefly looked at and for the most part the expanded universe these days come down to just the ICS in most peoples minds.

So, in the hopes of perhaps remedying that, I've decided to pick up another novel and start analyzing it. Interesting quotes will be posted here, of course, along with a few thoughts of my own. Any and all comments are welcomed.

Oh, and I'll be doing the novels chronologically. I honestly have no idea what novels are good and what novels are bad, so this seems as good a way as any to start off.

The novel I'll be dealing with in this thread is called Jedi Apprentice #01 - The Rising Force and it's written by Dave Wolverton. It takes place before the prequel movies and mostly deals with Qui-Gon and Obi-wan.

So, without further delay, let's get things started:


Chapter 1

The blade of the lightsaber hissed through the air. Obi-Wan Kenobi could not see its red gleam through the blindfold pressing on his eyes. He used the Force to know precisely when to duck.

A random jumble of blocks on the floor added another element to the exercise. He had to use the Force the sense those, too. With such uneven ground, it was easy to lose his footing.

The vision energized him, helped him let go of his fears. In seconds, his every muscle was tuned to the Force. It moved through him, giving him the agility and speed that he needed.

Obi-Wan swung his blade up to block the next blow. The attacker’s lightsaber hummed and whirled down. Obi-Wan leaped high, somersaulting over his attacker’s head, and thrust his lightsaber down where the Togorian’s heart would be.

“Aargh!” the other student howled in surprised rage as Obi-Wan’s hot blade struck his neck. If Obi-Wan had been using a Jedi Knight’s lightsaber, it would have been a killing blow. But apprentices in the Jedi Temple used training sabers set to low power. The touch of the blade only gave a searing kiss, one that the healers might need to tend.

The novel starts out with a fight between Obi-wan and another student at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. I decided to bring it up because Jedi turn up in quite a few debates, and as such it'd be nice to get a little more information on them. How they fight, what tricks they have, etc would all be interesting to know.

In this fight, we're dealing with two younglings though. They're not even Padawans yet and only 12 years old, so they should be thought of as such and not full-blown Jedi.

The two have been blindfolded and told to fight each other with training lightsabers. The most interesting thing, as always, with Jedi, is of course their use of the force when fighting. And as such I'll list the used powers in this battle.

1. Force precognition. Obi-wan uses the force to know when to duck blows from his opponent. Of course, actually quantifying this is hard, since pitting one force user against another usually has the effect of at least partially canceling out this ability.

2. Using the force to sense the surroundings, or at least the floor and the jumbling rocks beneath them.

3. Increased agility and speed, though again, getting a bead on just how much of an increase would prove more then difficult. Obi-wan is even said to somersault over the opponent's head, which definitely required the use of the force.

Sweat began to drench Obi-Wan’s clothes. His muscles burned. He could hardly breathe fast enough to get the air needed. But as long as he did not attack in anger, the Force remained strong with him. He tried not to think about the fight. He lost himself in the dance, and soon he felt so weary, he did not think at all.

Bruck fought slower and slower. Soon, Obi-Wan did not even need to leap away from Bruck’s weary attacks. He merely blocked them, until finally Bruck gave up.

This happens some time after the first fight. Basically the other student wants another shot at fighting Obi-wan. The relevant part in the above is that the two seem very tired. The force doesn't seem to make you immune to fatigue. How long they fought is somewhat unknown though, they could’ve been fighting ever before the novel starts out describing the duel. All in all, I doubt we’re talking about something superhuman like days, or even hours.

Obi-Wan’s hopes rose. Qui-Gon Jinn was a powerful Knight, one of the best. He had been to the Temple before to look at apprentices. Each time, he’d left without taking a new Padawan.

This could be used for future reference, as Qui-Gon is said to be one of the best Jedi Knights. Thus you could use his abilities and skills as an upper limit to judge what normal Jedi are capable of. Keep in mind though that powers and abilities no doubt vary from Jedi to Jedi.

And that's all for today. Yeah, I know, a pretty measly start, just one chapter. But more is on the way, be certain of that.

Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you ought to take a little bit of time to clean up some of the quotes, there are very obvious spelling and grammer errors that make it a little bit difficult to understand them.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you ought to take a little bit of time to clean up some of the quotes, there are very obvious spelling and grammer errors that make it a little bit difficult to understand them.

Tell that to the author, I just copy/pasted from the novel which I have in ebook format. :P

Apparently the conversion wasn't perfect.

Time for another update. So far the novel has been very sparse on anything of interest. But, there were a few things that might be worth quoting and posting, I suppose. Hopefully the interesting stuff will pick up as I get further into the novel.


Chapter 3

With the help of Jedi healing techniques and the Temple’s marvelous ointments, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s burns and bruises were healed by morning. But the pain in his heart had not eased. He slept briefly, then rose well before dawn.

A few tidbits on the medical... stuff. I'd like to say medical technology but in this case it seems the healing was done by force powers and ointments. Obi-wan's injuries were not extensive, indeed they were little more then scrapes and bruises, but he seems to have been healed rather quickly.


Chapter 4

Bruck’s red lightsaber cracked and hissed as Obi-Wan desperately tried to parry with his own. For the fourth time in less than a day the two boys were locked in combat, grunting and struggling.

So, the two younglings fight again. Only this time neither displays any obvious force powers. Also something quantifiable when it comes to a timeframe on how long the individual fights took. Hours at the most.


Chapter 6

Using all his strength, Obi-wan managed to pry the Hutt’s fingers from his throat long enough to gasp a breath. He stared into the cruel, blank eyes of the Hutt, trying to summon his Force powers.

“Leave me alone,” Obi-Wan gasped, struggling to breathe. He let the Force carry the command to the Hutt, to batter his will, change his mind. This was not like fighting another student. He sensed a cruelty without conscience. There were no rules here, no Yoda to call off the fight.

“Leave you alone? Why?” the Hutt roared with cruel amusement.

Obi-wan tries the same "you don't need to see his identification" trick he did in the movies, only with a little less luck this time.


Chapter 7

“Offworld is one of the oldest and richest mining companies in the galaxy,” Clat’Ha told him. “And they didn’t get that way by letting others compete with them. Miners who get in their way tend to die.”

This could prove to be a very interesting quote when considering industrial capacity. There's nothing quantifiable about this organization just yet, but no doubt there will be in the future.

l33telboi wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you ought to take a little bit of time to clean up some of the quotes, there are very obvious spelling and grammer errors that make it a little bit difficult to understand them.

Tell that to the author, I just copy/pasted from the novel which I have in ebook format. :P

Apparently the conversion wasn't perfect.

I recommend maybe just going in and cleaning up the quotes anyway. Unfortunately someone got sloppy and it hurts any effort to try and glean any useful information from these quotes.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:I recommend maybe just going in and cleaning up the quotes anyway. Unfortunately someone got sloppy and it hurts any effort to try and glean any useful information from these quotes.
-Mike

Too be honest, the only problem I see in the first batch of quotes is that "his every muscle was tunes to the Force" should probably be "his every muscle was tuned to the Force".

I'm afraid I wouldn't know what else to change. Maybe my english is just that bad. But I honestly don't see any major problems with the quoted bits. Neither does the spell checker see any problems. If you want, I can include more text so that you can get a better sense of context, but that's about it.

EDIT: Oh, and then there's one "no" that should be "not", too.

All your base are belong to us. :)

My god.

l33telboi wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:I recommend maybe just going in and cleaning up the quotes anyway. Unfortunately someone got sloppy and it hurts any effort to try and glean any useful information from these quotes.
-Mike

Too be honest, the only problem I see in the first batch of quotes is that "his every muscle was tunes to the Force" should probably be "his every muscle was tuned to the Force".

I'm afraid I wouldn't know what else to change. Maybe my english is just that bad. But I honestly don't see any major problems with the quoted bits. Neither does the spell checker see any problems. If you want, I can include more text so that you can get a better sense of context, but that's about it.

EDIT: Oh, and then there's one "no" that should be "not", too.

Much better now! :-)

-Mike

It occurs to me that these updates are mostly uninteresting, and perhaps I'm quoting a bit too much. But then again, I do want to be thorough. So, for those of you who don't want to read through stuff and find that there's nothing really interesting to be found, just check the first few paragraphs of the post, before I start quoting. I'll point out if there's something extra interesting you should look up here.

And having said that - there's nothing interesting in this update.

Still, a few bits I felt worthy of mention:


Chapter 8

He woke in sickbay, with tubes in his arms and an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming – Qui-Gon Jinn was standing over him. Then the Jedi’s large, cool hand rested on Obi-Wan’s forehead, and Obi-Wan realized he was awake.

“H-how?” Obi-Wan whispered.

Qui-Gon’s hand dropped, and he took a step back. “Don’t try to speak,” he said gently. “You’ve had a bad fever, but I’ve taken care of it. Your wounds turned out to be worse than what the medics could handle.”

Alright, first thing to note is that apparently they didn't have sufficient medical capabilities on this vessel to treat Obi-Wan. The extent of his injuries isn't really said and all we saw was a Hutt throwing him against a wall and then choking him unconscious.

The second item of interest is Qui-Gon's force healing ability. Nothing really quantifiable there either, suffice to note that it exists.


Chapter 9

But not all the workers for Arcona Mineral Harvest were Arconan. Some were short, silver-haired Meerians returning to Bandomeer, some Human. Obi-Wan had to treat these carefully. More than once he found himself using the Force to convince some burly miner to let him search.

Obi-wan is capable of force persuasion, though apparently not on 'strong willed' characters, like the Hutt mentioned earlier. Still, he seems to use it rather regularly in this instance, and apparently there aren’t many ‘strong willed’ characters around either.


Chapter 11

Qui-Gon swung his legs over his sleep-couch. He felt his heart pound in his chest, every muscle on alert. But why?

He had been resting when he sensed it. It felt as though danger was near, but Qui-Gon was not in danger . . .

Suddenly, he recognized the feeling. He had experienced it before. Jedi sometimes sense when another Jedi, close to them, is in trouble. At times, they can even see a vague picture of what that trouble might be. Qui-Gon searched his mind, but did not see anything clear. Only haze.

“Obi-Wan,” he murmured. It had to be the boy. Qui-Gon fought against the feeling. It was ridiculous, absurd. The boy was not his Padawan. Why would there be such a strong connection between them?

Pretty self-explanatory. A force bond usually develops between master and padawan. This bond then allows them to sense when the other is in danger.

“Blast him,” he said offhandedly to the Whiphid guards.

Obi-Wan had counted on the slow reaction time of the Whiphids. They stared at him, their mouths open underneath their tusks.

Obi-Wan sprang forward, slashing at the heavy table. The lightsaber cut through the thick legs easily. With a crash, the table thudded down on the Whiphids. The flimsy stools they had been sitting on collapsed under the weight, pinning them to the floor. They howled in surprise and pain.

[…]

As the Hutt moved toward Obi-Wan, his enormous fist raised, Obi-Wan ducked and rolled in a classic Jedi defense maneuver. As he passed, he delivered a lightsaber blow to the Hutt’s flank. He heard the flesh sizzle.

Grelb roared in fury as he staggered back. His enormous bulk made him clumsy, and he fell onto the table, crushing the Whiphids legs even more. They howled in pain and beat against him with their fists.

Another fight involving Jedi, but this time it’s against mere mortals. And as far as I can see, no real force-powers were displayed or used. Obi-wan handily defeat a few thugs and an unarmed Hutt though.

Alright, time for more interesting stuff. First off, we get to see space-combat and a very interesting weapon used in it - a hyperspace lane mine. Then there's also a Jedi vs. Non-Jedi fight that ends up with the Jedi almost losing. In any case, stuff worth reading.


Chapter 12

But Obi-Wan knew that if they’d collided with another ship, or an asteroid, in hyperspace, it would have torn the ship apart. Distantly, Obi-Wan heard the whunk whunk whunk of the ship’s guns firing.

Qui-Gon strode to the window. His hand rested on his lightsaber. “Pirates,” he announced.

This is something that's been known a long time already, but hyperspace collisions are deadly. The more interesting question is – how exactly do they work?


Chapter 13

He thought he knew what had happened. Pirates sometimes mined the shipping lanes. When the ship hit a mine, the hyperdrive blew, and the ship would drop back out of hyperspace.

As it did, the pirates would open fire, destroying the ship’s weapons and engines so swiftly that unwary travelers seldom had time to react.

Then the pirates would send boarding parties out to strip anything they could from their victims.

Apparently an at least somewhat common tactic used by pirates. And it's worth noting that the attack unfolded exactly as described in the above.

One questions occurs to me though, how exactly can a mine affect a ship that’s traveling at faster then light. Basically, if it blew, the vessel in question should pass by the mine before the effects reach it. Or perhaps there was some form of proximity fuse on the mine, having it explode before the vessel ran over it?

Still there's a larger question here, how exactly does normal space interact with stuff in hyperspace? There's clearly some form of interact, but it's doubtful it's anything like that of a normal collision, given that one of the objects travel above lightspeed.

Another interesting thing can be deduced from this. Hyperspace lanes are extremely narrow for pirates to be able to strike this quickly and accurately. They apparently knew exactly where the vessel would pop out of hyperspace.

The floor shuddered under the impact of another explosion. As the ship twisted to its side, Qui-Gon rounded a corner. Ahead was a transparisteel view port. Through it, he could see five Togorian warships, all shaped like red birds of prey. Two screamed past his port. Green bolts of blaster fire erupted from the warships, slamming into the Monument. Metal shrieked in protest. The corridors filled with greasy smoke.

The Monument’s guns had gone silent. Now, Qui-Gon could see why – the gun turrets had been blown away. Buts of burning slag lit up like glowing stars where the turrets had once stood.

Alright, so there are at least five Togorian warships attacking, though no indication of what mass-class these vessels are in. They could basically be anything from fighters to larger capital ships.

Oh, and the fight takes place at visual range, seeing as how Qui-Gon can see the vessels from the view-ports. Might be strange for me to bring that up, but considering I'm at this moment arguing against someone claiming that fighting at near lightspeed and firing lightspeed weapons is the norm in Starwars, I feel perfectly justified. :P

He rounded a corner. A huge Togorian pirate stood directly in his path, his eyes flashing like green embers in the dark fur of his face. The Togorian reached out with his enormous claws to rake Qui-Gon.

But Qui-Gon was a Jedi Master. The Force had already warned him. He twisted under the pirate’s arms, anticipating the move, and grasped the lightsaber attached to his belt. The blade came up cleanly, slicing the Togorian at the knees. The Togorian roared in pain.

Another demonstration of force precognition.

All of the Togorians returned fire with their own blasters. Qui-Gon dodged two bolts, then used his lightsaber to deflect three more.

And another demonstration of being able to fight off multiple enemies firing blasters, via both deflection and dodging.

The door to the bridge was sealed shut, and burning hot. Obi-Wan could feel heat radiating from it as he tried to open it. A fire raged on the other side. Ignoring the pain, he tried to wedge his fingers in the crack and pull it open.

This immediately brought Qui-Gon's feat in TPM to mind. You know the incident where he melts a blastdoor yet doesn't seem to be in any pain due to proximity.

Carefully, Obi-Wan struggled to calm himself, to use the Force. He could sense the latching mechanism, and it would take only a little effort to move it.

But then what? If he opened it, he could get pulled into space. Or toxic smoke could roil into the corridor and suffocate him, or the fire might spread into the halls.

He didn’t have a choice. He focused his attention and the door slid open.

Obi-wan uses telekinesis to manipulate a nearby object that's not in his line of sight. Overall, a rather impressive use of telekinesis.

Togorian warships surrounded the Monument. A heavy cruiser that had been refitted as a gun ship edged nearer. Its shields had to be down for it to be so close.

Alright, so there's at least one refitted heavy cruiser among the attacking vessels. I'm not sure about warship designations in Starwars, but Cruisers are generally rather large vessels, is this the case here as well?

A red light blinked insistently on Obi-Wan’s console. In a daze he realized that the forward proton torpedo tubes were loaded and armed. They were standard defensive gear for transports traveling in such a region. His targeting computer was down, but he aimed for the bridge of the gun ship without it.

Proton torpedoes are standard armament for at least larger civilian transports traveling in dangerous regions.

A Togorian pirate captain lunged down the corridor, bursting through the screen of smoke. He was huge, nearly twice as tall as a man. His black body armor was scarred and pitted from a thousand fights. A Human skull dangled from a chain around his neck. His fur was dark as night, and his green eyes gleamed wickedly.

He carried a huge vibro-ax in one hand, an energy shield in the other. The pirates pointed ears were drawn back flat against his skull. He stepped forward to meet it.

This is the alien that Qui-Gon is about to fight. A rather large critter, 'nearly twice as tall as a man' would imply a height as high as 3.5 meters. He's wielding a vibro-ax and an energy shield.

Clat’Ha rushed forward and fired her blaster. The Togorian raised his shield against it, deflecting it easily. Then he raised his deadly vibro-ax. With only the slightest touch, the weapon could sever a man’s head. Qui-Gon moved forward in one flowing movement, his lightsaber held high.

Some details on the shield and the axe. The axe appears to work much like the shields the Gungans used in TPM, harmlessly deflecting blaster weaponry. And the axe is nasty enough to easily sever a man's head from his shoulders.

A blinding flash as bright as a solar flare lit space as the proton torpedoes struck the Togorian gun ship.

Obi-Wan shielded his eyes from the intense light. Si Treemba cried out.

Half of the gun ship disintegrated, hurtling debris into space. A second blast followed the first, as the gun ship’s arsenal exploded.

Bits of metal riddled the Monument. A huge section of the blown gun ship hurtled into a second Togorian warship.

So the proton torpedoes seem rather overkill against an unshielded target, even if it is cruiser sized.

The floor lurched under Qui-Gon’s feet as he met the pirate captain. The huge Togorian weighed four times as much as a man.

Even under normal circumstances, it would have been all the Qui-Gon could do to fend off the pirate. He tried to catch his footing as he blocked the monster’s blow.

The pirate almost fell, but recovered in time to raise the vibro-ax. The blade bit deep into Qui-Gon’s right shoulder, driving him to the floor.

Qui-Gon gasped from the searing pain. His shoulder burned as if it were on fire. He tried to lift his arm, but it was useless.

The Togorian is said to weigh four times as much as a man, probably meaning something around 300kg. It's clear that Qui-Gon’s up against a strong foe here, with a size and mass like the one stated. But the Togorian is not a force user. I mainly mention this because there are those who say that no force user could ever lose against a non-force user, because of battle precognition. And quite clearly in this case, Qui-Gon is losing.

Heavy blaster fire ripped through the hull of the Monument. To Togorian warship had taken aim at the bridge, but with the sudden thrust of the huge ship, the blaster bolts had struck the ship behind their mark.

Obi-Wan pushed away the thought of who might have died in the attack. He reversed thrusters.

The warship’s next salvo fell short, blasting harmlessly into space. Obi-Wan took half a moment to aim his proton torpedoes, the launched them down the warship’s gullet.

The aiming on the Togorian warships seem rather lacking, since they can't accurately hit the transport, even at this close range.

As he was sucked toward the space vacuum, Qui-Gon called his lightsaber to his left hand. He aimed a blow at the pirate captain’s feet. The Togorian grabbed a handhold and leaped high, evading the cut, then landed directly on Qui-Gon’s left arm with his booted feet.

Fighting the pain, Qui-Gon tried to bring up his lightsaber, but the huge Togorian had him pinned. Qui-Gon twisted desperately, but he couldn’t get away. With his left arm pinned and his right arm badly wounded Qui-Gon could do little to fight the monster.

The pirate captain roared madly in triumph, and the wind seemed to roar with him. It tore down the corridors like a tornado. Qui-Gon could hardly breathe.

Suddenly the pirate’s head disappeared. The huge Togorian hurtled backward, grabbed by the fury of the wind.

Qui-Gon looked up the hall. Clat’Ha crouched on the floor, desperately clinging to the handle of a locker door with one hand, her heavy blaster in the other.

So Qui-Gon ultimately gets lucky and wins the fight. The interesting bit here is in regards to the heavy blaster Clat'Ha uses against the Togorian. It's said to make the head of the pirate 'dissapear', indicating quite a substantial firepower. Now the specifics would of course depend on exactly how the weapon deals it's damage. Does it deal a concussive blast to the target? Or is it pure thermal radiation?

But, in general, you could assume that a 'heavy blaster' could blow body-parts to bits.

Without specifics, "disappear" could mean the weapon does any number of things to the target. In this case, the guy's head could merely been shot right off; it could also have been aerosoled into fine mist; or Trek style disintegration; or even like in TNG's "Conspiracy" where the head was blown apart due to rapid thermal expansion.
-Mike

L33telboi wrote:One questions occurs to me though, how exactly can a mine affect a ship that’s traveling at faster then light. Basically, if it blew, the vessel in question should pass by the mine before the effects reach it. Or perhaps there was some form of proximity fuse on the mine, having it explode before the vessel ran over it?

Still there's a larger question here, how exactly does normal space interact with stuff in hyperspace? There's clearly some form of interact, but it's doubtful it's anything like that of a normal collision, given that one of the objects travel above lightspeed.

Another interesting thing can be deduced from this. Hyperspace lanes are extremely narrow for pirates to be able to strike this quickly and accurately. They apparently knew exactly where the vessel would pop out of hyperspace.

I have always been under the impression (that was greatly reinforced by the Novel "Death Star) that Hyperspace was a separate "realm" from realspace, a little bit like SlipStream Drive in ST, or the Borg Transwarp conduits.

And the Pirates probably knew where to attack because they knew where they put the Hyperspace mine...

and the fight takes place at visual range, seeing as how Qui-Gon can see the vessels from the view-ports. Might be strange for me to bring that up, but considering I'm at this moment arguing against someone claiming that fighting at near lightspeed and firing lightspeed weapons is the norm in Starwars, I feel perfectly justified. :P

Check the movies again:
All fights are at visual range, even moreso then in ST. ;)

I mainly mention this because there are those who say that no force user could ever lose against a non-force user, because of battle precognition. And quite clearly in this case, Qui-Gon is losing.

Like the Jedi Master that was shot by Jango Fett?
Ooops, another Jedi killed by a non-Force user... :)

So Qui-Gon ultimately gets lucky and wins the fight.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that "Qui-Gonn gets lucky and survives because Clat'Ha killed his opponent"... ;)

Mike DiCenso wrote:Without specifics, "disappear" could mean the weapon does any number of things to the target. In this case, the guy's head could merely been shot right off; it could also have been aerosoled into fine mist; or Trek style disintegration; or even like in TNG's "Conspiracy" where the head was blown apart due to rapid thermal expansion.
-Mike

I'm aware of that, which is what I meant when I said the specific energy and damage potential would depend heavily on A) what exactly happened to the head and B) how exactly the weapon works.

That's why I opted for a less specific answer and just said the head was blown to bits, because that much we could at least assume is true. Also, from what I've seen of blasters, this does appear to be how they deal damage, the bolts explode upon contact, as if they were basically some from of highly pressurized gas.

Praeothmin wrote:And the Pirates probably knew where to attack because they knew where they put the Hyperspace mine...

Well yes, but how did they know where to place the mine, unless hyperspace lanes are extremely narrow? That was basically the point.

Like the Jedi Master that was shot by Jango Fett?
Ooops, another Jedi killed by a non-Force user... :)

Oh yes, but that argument is mainly countered by saying that all the Jedi everywhere were under the influence of the Dark Side and thus didn’t have access to their full powers. During this time-period, the Dark Side influence wouldn’t exist yet. That’s why I found the fight interesting.

Weird. I got a general error when trying to post and then it shows up after all. Sorry for the double post.

L33telboi wrote:Well yes, but how did they know where to place the mine, unless hyperspace lanes are extremely narrow? That was basically the point.

Well, all the sources I saw pretty much state that Hyperspace Lanes pass through specific places.
Who knows, they might have simply put a few mines in a specific lane, and wait until a ship is unlucky enough to pass by the few places their mines are set...

but that argument is mainly countered by saying that all the Jedi everywhere were under the influence of the Dark Side and thus didn’t have access to their full powers.

Which is idiotic to say the least, because pretty much all the Jedi seen before or after in the prequels never had any problems using their Force powers to block and deflect Blaster bolts, TK droids, Super-Jump very high, etc...

In fact, the only power we explicitely hear is being affected (as I recall), is Force "Foresight".
I have never heard any other powers as being described "weaker" because of the Dark Side.
And also, how weak is the Light Side, how naturally weak are the Jedi if only two Siths can affect the Force powers of all the Jedi in the galaxy... :)