No matter if you are a casual Star Wars fan who occasionally watches one of the movies, or a die-hard hard-core maniac who read every comic book from the Expanded Universe (Legends), you must be familiar with at least a few Force powers from Star Wars. However, I bet most of you haven’t heard of very rare, unique and very potent Force abilities that only a few individuals can control.
In this article I will talk about five Force powers that are rarely mentioned, yet exist (at least in Star Wars). Most of these abilities are very rare and usually only a few individuals in a generation are born with the ability to control them.
So, without further ado, let’s start with a devastating one.
(Note: I will mention a few examples from several books, but nothing too specific as to spoil anything).
1) Force Storm
A Force Storm can be created by practitioners that are skilled in Force Lightning. The difference between the lightning and the storm is that the Force Storm is channeled in a different way, by rising the hands upwards and creating circling explosions of lightning around the user in a certain radius. Usually, the more powerful the user, the greater the radius. This devastating variation can take out dozens of enemies within the storm’s vicinity.
The more powerful variant can be achieved by the combination of Force Lightning and Force Whirlwind abilities along with natural atmospheric elements. The result is a creation of a vicious artificial storm that would last a few standard hours and could potentially destroy a very large area.
One of the most gut-wrenching variant was created by Emperor Vitiate, a very powerful Sith who through rare esoteric rites of the dark side permanently damaged the atmosphere of the planet Dromund Kaas and encompassed it in a perpetual lightning storm. It is said that the never-ending storm is feeding off the dark side of the Force, in which the planet is thoroughly soaked.
2) Battle Meditation
Battle Meditation is a very rare Force ability that allows the user to channel the Force through intense focus in a deep meditative trance to boost morale, endurance and stamina of soldiers and warriors on the battlefield, while simultaneously demoralizing enemies. The user would have to be immersed in the Force to such a degree that he or she would be effectively ignorant to their physical surroundings.
Effective use of Battle Meditation can massively influence the outcome of any battle. The power is considered extremely difficult to learn and is usually utilized only by users who can access its secrets naturally.
A notable Jedi user was Bastila Shan, who won several battles for the Old Republic utilizing the very ability. A few thousand years later a powerful Sith Lord Kaan possessed the talent as well and scored numerous victories for his Brotherhood of Darkness.
3) Sith Sorcery
Also known as the Sith Magic, it is somewhat a very specific school of magic arts of the dark side of the Force. It focuses on esoteric spells, incantations, mind-probing, talisman enchanting and other uncommon Force techniques.
Very few individuals are capable of reaching their potential as Sith sorcerers, simply because most practitioners are unable to reach such in-depth level of knowledge and lack the mental strength to invoke these rare techniques.
One of the most powerful spells from the Sith sorcery arsenal is the ability to probe minds of victims – which we can call a second level Mind trick. This variation allows the users to play around in victim’s mind, accessing their subconscious and conjuring their worst nightmares right before their eyes. This technique was very effectively demonstrated on several occasions by Darth Zannah, a Sith Lord and sorceress of the Old Republic era.
4) Flow-Walking
Also known as Force Time-walk, it’s a very rare ability, mostly used by a group of Force-sensitive individuals known as Aing-Tii monks, but they weren’t neither Sith nor Jedi, but were willing to teach others their Force techniques.
The technique allows the user to flow in time with his or her mind, thus experiencing past and present of a specific object, location or individual. It allows the user to see what happens in the past or in the future – or several futures, mainly the most probable ones.
The technique is very difficult and taxing on an average mind, even the mind of a Force user and thus, only a handful of individuals can master it.
One of the successful users was Jacen Solo, who used Flow-Walking on numerous occasions, during one of which discovered what happened to a particular crashed ship in the past. The same man was able to flow-walk into the future and see himself dying at a specific location, thus allowing himself to avoid certain death.
5) Fighting-Sight
This particular Force power is an advanced level of the Jedi Precognition ability. An individual very strong in intuition can immerse into a deep mental state during a physical fight and recognize the most probable strike/move against him/her and react appropriately.
How is this different from a classic precognition? Well, Force Precognition is like a sixth sense, you know something is about to happen and you react accordingly, instinctively. With the Fighting-Sight, however, you can be immersed in such intuitive state for longer periods of time and thus react to multiple dangers indefinitely – that is as long as your mind can handle it.
Masters of this ability can be practically invincible during a lightsaber duel, although the technique is very taxing on one’s mind, so best to end your opponent before you run out of juice.
Conclusion
So, these are my top favorite rare Force abilities that were introduced to us in the written form. If you are interested in one (or more) of these and want to know more, feel free to send me a message and I can recommend a few very good books from the Expanded Universe that cover these powers.
May the Force be with you.