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I was reading about the Force in Star Wars.

Since the Force is tied to all living things, wouldn't wars reduce the Force’s overall power depending on the users alignment, or just generally if there are lots of births will the Force grow in overall power?

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  • Planets with large amounts of biomass are known to be heavily force-endowed (part of the reason why Yoda chooses Dagobah) and when a planet of sentients is destroyed, Ben senses "a great disturbance" followed by a silence; starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wound_in_the_Force
    – Valorum
    Jan 16, 2015 at 11:02
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    On a galaxy wide basis the snuffing of a few, or a few hundred, planets would be barely a blip on the radar.. Jan 16, 2015 at 11:06
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    Depends on your POV, Darth Bane begs to differ.. "The Force is not fire. It cannot be passed from one user’s lit torch to another’s and another’s […] When all carry a flame, no matter how dim or guttering it may be, they soon conclude they are the brightest stars, around which all others must orbit.[…] No, the Force is venom. If it is poured into many cups, it loses its potency until it becomes so diluted it is merely an irritant. Yet pour those cups back into a single vessel and you will have the power to stop a Krayt dragon’s heart."
    – Dagon313
    Jan 16, 2015 at 11:51
  • Yes. And that's the reason there're no Jedis yet. Once we colonize the galaxy and expand throughout we'll have enough force base. I only have to wait for 1000 more years and i'll finally be able to become a sith... Jun 3, 2015 at 17:44

2 Answers 2

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The now-canon description of the Force structures it into two components: The Living Force, which is fed by the life energies of all living beings, and the Cosmic Force, which is fed by the Living Force and surrounds and binds all things that exist, be it tangible or intangible, physical or spiritual.

This suggests that the strength of the Force does indeed depend on the overall strength of all life that feeds energy to it and keep it in existence. So in theory, the power of a Force user's abilities does depend on the strength of the Force itself. However, the sheer amount of life in the galaxy feeding the Force suggests that any significant fluctuation in the power of the Force would be beyond your average Force-user's ability to experience. Probably, even if some galactic plague or famine etc. strikes and halves the amount of life in the galaxy, most Jedi and Sith aren't so outrageously strong to the point that they would experience a "performance hit". Not even Anakin or Sidious. Unless you are powerful enough to, say, blow up a star with your mind, perhaps.

The description by Darth Bane is becoming obsolete as Canon and Legends become separated. The "venom cup" analogy is valid under the version of the Force where the strength of the practitioners of the light and dark side are dependent upon the concentration of their respective side's power in each practitioner - too many Jedi dilutes the light, while minimal Sith concentrates darkness beyond imagining. This analogy I've only heard a couple times years ago - these days Darth Bane appears to establish the Rule of Two in both Canon and Legends for different reasons, but somewhat similar reasoning. While Legends Bane established the rule in opposition to the ways of the Brotherhood of Darkness, Canon Bane established the rule to address the previous Sith Order's flaws of greed and in-fighting. Both versions seeked to address the same issues, though: Minimise/remove the Sith Order's presence and visibility in the galactic public eye, and ensure that each successive master is more powerful than the last. Modern reasoning for the Rule of Two have nothing directly to do with the nature of the Force, or the source of its power.

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  • I'm not sure if you meant non-canon, now canon, or now non-canon in that first sentence
    – The Fallen
    May 4, 2015 at 16:48
  • Now canon. Just that. What is now canon ever since everything else became legends May 5, 2015 at 2:25
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I disagree with Bane. Kenobi said that life generates the Force. Not just sentient life but life itself.

Force users in the other hand are a different matter. Maybe the venom cup analogy applies to whatever relationship midichlorians have with force sensitivity. But given that the force is generated by life, death would weaken it. Birth strengthens it. With the uncountable number of living beings in that galaxy far far away, a few billion deaths would barely register to any but the most sensitive.

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    This answer seems very opinion-based. Can you offer any more information or evidence to back up what you're saying?
    – Valorum
    Feb 15, 2015 at 16:46

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