Cyrano de Bergerac vs Count Dooku

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:48 pm

Cyrano de Bergerac - the early French science fiction dabbler, dramatist, and master duelist - engages Count Dooku. Due to an innocuous looking Ysalamir-esque belt buckle, a spherical Force-negative bubble with a roughly meter one radius protects him from direct assault by Dooku's force powers.

Cyrano is armed with a phrik rapier (with phrik guard), along with a finely crafted phrik-armored glove extending halfway to his elbow. Dooku has his lightsaber. The scene? A deserted alleyway in Mos Eisley.

Can Star Wars' greatest fencer best the too-clever Frenchman?

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:23 pm

If it's the Cyrano De Bergerac from the plays or the movie, Dooku doesn't stand a chance.

In the play and the movie, Cyrano, without Force powers, without a Lightsabre, has defeated near to 100 men that were waiting in ambush of his friend.
The result?
Barely a scratch on his left hand...

Now, if we're talking about the real Cyrano De Bergerac, I truly don't know, as I have never seen him fight... :)

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:33 pm

The real Cyrano de Bergerac was indeed famous as a swordsman. The play and movies, while loosely based on the real man, are liable to dramatic exaggeration. A hundred ambushers? Perhaps if only one or two at a time could get to him, but even the most phenomenally skilled swordsman seems unlikely to be able to handle a hundred man ambush with only a scratch. A dozen men I might believe.

It is sometimes suggested that he may well have been the best swordsman of his day and age (and a contender for all time for talent with a blade), and Clarke gives him credit for being the first to conceive of the ramjet engine, as well as (IIRC) credit for being the first science fiction author on the intellectual side of things. Do not doubt that he is at least more clever than Dooku.

The theatrical Cyrano's romantic and shy nature - in courting Roxanne through proxy - is the element that has the least foundation in fact. Far from being lonely and bereft of companionship, Cyrano was reputedly a virile and able lover, and may have died from syphilis, far from the monogamous heterosexual ideal of the Victorian rendering of the play.

He did have a large nose.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:47 am

Does phrik change the mass of what a rapier would have normally been otherwise?

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:01 am

We should assume that the phrik rapier handles just like a steel one. (Cyrano should in any case have had ample opportunity to practice with it.). Phrik doesn't seem particularly dense, simply curiously tough and resistant to lightsabers.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:32 pm

As I stated in my first post, I knew nothing of the real Cyrano, only of the movie one.

But in the movie, he did indeed conquer 100 opponents, sometimes facing 2 or 3 at a time, and defeated them all.
Which, to me, is as believable as a man shooting lightning from his fingers.

So, once more, movie Cyrano vs Dooku, Dooku gets owned, hard...
Real Cyrano vs Dooku, well it depends:
If we go by what the movie shows us, if indeed "real" Cyrano was the best swordsman, then once again Dooku gets owned hard.
We must not forget that Dooku is the best swordsman in a group using the Force to enhance their swordplay.
Cyrano may be the best swordsman in human history, a race that has no ability to use the Force to enhance anything... :)

Final verdict:
Without the force, and the ability of his lightsabre to cut through Cyrano's blade, Dooku loses to both Cyrano...

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 1:22 pm

Dooku rips out a piece of a nearby building wall with the Force and hurls it onto Cyrano. Splat.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:20 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:Dooku rips out a piece of a nearby building wall with the Force and hurls it onto Cyrano. Splat.

Indeed, the shitty slimo doesn't stop kinetic energy. How long did it take for the Jedi in the NJO to realize that kinetic energy was a good thing again?

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:43 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:Dooku rips out a piece of a nearby building wall with the Force and hurls it onto Cyrano. Splat.
Indeed, the shitty slimo doesn't stop kinetic energy. How long did it take for the Jedi in the NJO to realize that kinetic energy was a good thing again?

Entirely too long. Dooku may be bright enough to figure exactly what's going on during the span of the duel, and may even be humble enough to realize that Cyrano with a phrik rapier could pose a danger to him if he fences normally. You may recall that Dooku has great confidence in his bladework.

Granted, Dooku is not as given to telekinetic displays as some, and he may not be terribly accurate. Ripping a chunk out of a wall may prove to be a little difficult to do on the fly, but Mos Eisley is home to plenty of potential projectiles for throwing with. He can also use the force freely upon himself, when Cyrano isn't in close with locked blades, which may prove helpful.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:23 pm

Granted, if Dooku knows Cyrano and knows how good Cyrano is, it may happen as Kane said, but if it is their first encounter, the moment Dooku stops to fully concentrate on Cyrano and tries to rip something of with the Force is the moment he gets impaled by a Phrik blade...

JaceCady · Post by **JaceCady** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:36 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Granted, Dooku is not as given to telekinetic displays as some, and he may not be terribly accurate. Ripping a chunk out of a wall may prove to be a little difficult to do on the fly, but Mos Eisley is home to plenty of potential projectiles for throwing with. He can also use the force freely upon himself, when Cyrano isn't in close with locked blades, which may prove helpful.

Dooku uses telekinetic powers in his duel with Yoda, and again in the final battle against Anakin and Obi-Wan. Indeed, he uses TK to disable Obi-Wan during the duel with the two Jedi, not just as a pre-duel warmup as he does with Yoda.

Quite simply, Dooku can end the fight before it starts using telekinesis, and since Cyrano is not a Jedi or Sith it seems extremely dubious that Dooku would condescend to go blade-to-blade when he doesn't actually need to. Dooku has great confidence in his bladework, true, but he is also an elitist who would consider any non-Force user to be beneath his contempt.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:57 am

Cyrano has wit and... the nose.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:40 am

Of course CGI Dooku from SW: The Clone Wars has a pretty freakish looking proboscis as well. ;-)
-Mike