Of course! That's the reason why it's so compelling! The same reason people believe their actions are good to openly attack a garrison of troops in full blown public or a parade to attack the government forces. Or he'll, even commit treason and attempt to assassinate a leader in a coup. That's why Star Wars is so great!


I suppose you could argue that the Moon-sized battle station also had everyday workers like maintenance and cooks aboard. In Lost Stars, an Imperial protagonist believed Aldeeran was an unfortunate necessity to prevent a full blown war escalating. Fans can be crazy people.

And Alderaan and Yavin 4 didn't?

And that completely ignores the planet-destroying superweapon given into the control of a man willing to destroy a planet of defenceless people simply for a demonstration.



And like I said, I can see why characters in the Star Wars universe would support the Empire.

Oh trust me it is a terrible thing! A station made for that sole purpose. War is indeed horrific, It even reflects the nuclear might of the super-powers in our own universe. Weapons made for such wanton malevolence.

I'm not sure if you're taking the piss, or just don't have an actual argument.

If you want to make a case for the Empire, then go ahead and make it. If not, then what are you even doing?

Nope, but if you have a PS2 or Xbox, definitely go get the classic Battlefront 1 and 2. Freaking amazeballs with a side dish of banana-pancakes-awesome, those games.

What are am trying to do is just make a point without getting into a heated argument.

And I made my case: the heroes are who we perceive them to be. Some people see the Empire as good. Others don't. That goes for the Rebels.

Except the point you're trying to make is the wrong one. The whole concept of one man's hero being another man's terrorist isn't the issue, because that's not exactly a complicated notion, it's the thinking behind your perspective that's missing.

I mean, do you just have a major authoritarian streak and a belief that because anarchy is inherently bad, order is inherently good? Because if it's something like that, then I could get where you're coming from. But just saying points of view again doesn't actually do anything.

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: Apr 17 2017, 02:47 PM

Khajiit thinks that perhaps he's saying that the Empire wouldn't have felt like they needed to do all of the dastardly world destroying if everybody just toed the line and there was no rebellion. Like the planet Alderran brought it it upon themselves because they were pro-rebellion. The problem is everything we see in the movies shows that the Empire is almost universally loathed. At the end of RotJ, we see millions upon millions of people celebrating in the streets at the news of the Death Star II's destruction. That said, this one can't imagine that life for an average civilian in a place like Coruscant is much different under the rule of the Empire as compared to the Old Republic. It's in the places like the Outer Rim where we see the Empire really turning the screws on the populace. This is probably because they are used to a more free-wheeling, independent way of life which goes directly against the ideal of order that the Empire is trying to bring to the galaxy. Again, they brought it upon themselves, or so the idea could go.

The Outer Rim worlds were most hard hit by the Empire. They were sort of like The East of Nazi Germany. It was far away from the "civilized" core of the galaxy, where the Empire could do its worst without anyone back home realizing the true horrors of what they were up to. This is compounded by a sense of superiority that many, if not most Core-Worlders appear to possess over the backwood hicks from the Outer Rim. If a world in the Outer Rim had something the Empire wanted - like the metals used to construct Star Destroyers - then it populace was enslaved, and used to extract that resource. The planet would be strip mined, and everything on it destroyed to get whatever the Empire wanted. Once the resource was gone, the Empire would abandon the place and move on to the next world to exploit.

The Outer Rim worlds were also the core of the Separatist movement. While we know that the CIS was just a farce created by Palpatine so he could engineer the Clone Wars, the aftermath of said war still went hardest on former CIS worlds because they were still considered the enemy. The Antar Atrocity is an example. In spite of the fact that many of the population fought in a pro-Republic resistance movement against the CIS, Tarkin ordered mass executions and massacred huge swaths of the people, and he didn't care if they were CIS or Republic supporters. The Empire simply did not care who was on their side or not. It crushed everyone in its path.

But life on the Core Worlds was not a picnic either. As all tyrannys, the Empire restricted basic freedoms. Everyone would have to have papers to prove their identities, and thusly be cataloged in the Empire's databases. Travel was restricted. Everyone was under electronic surveillance. Companies could force people to work for 60 - 80+ a week. Anyone could rat you out to the ISB for anything, at any moment. Unless you were rich and above it all (as the rich always are), life was simply miserable.

This is all from reading both older Legends material and the new cannon books. The Antar Atrocity is in Tarkin. A New Dawn goes into a lot of the economics. Lost Stars has an Imperial officer whose mother was framed for embezzlement by another Imperial, and even though it was plainly a fraud, she was sentenced to hard labor in prison. It also shows how the Empire not only enslaves some worlds outright, but also simply crushes the people lucky enough not to be under the direct lash and guns. The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy goes on and on about how The Emperor crushes and devours the wills of everyone around him, as if he was a black hole annihilating the galaxy. Even ruthless bastards like Boba Fett acknowledge that the Empire is horrific (but of course he just did not give a crap).

For some people this was of course a great opportunity. Someone ruthless and/or corrupt could use the Imperial system to advance, either in the military, or as a business person, or a politician. Contracts can be bought from Imperial officials. Not that it would be too hard anyway, with an ever-growing war machine that needed everything from Star Destroyers to boots. Rivals can be disposed of with accusations of treason that don't need even a shred of proof. And in a galaxy constantly at war, there are always opportunities for officers to move up the chain of command at a fast pace.

Plus of course we have to consider that the Empire was around for 20 years. That is long enough for a new generation of humans to grow up knowing nothing but the history that Palpatine wanted them to be taught. It is easy to mold people's minds when you can start indoctrinating from childhood. Doubtlessly that is where the vast majority of Stormtroopers came from.

So most regular people would have been happy to hear the Emperor was dead. But some would be crushed that their happy time was over.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 18 2017, 02:40 AM

I should also add that members of the Imperial military were discouraged from taking leave and going home. Ciena Ree is a prime example. She did not take her first leave home until 5 years after joining the Academy and going straight from it into the Navy. Needless to say, things had changed a great deal while she was gone, and none of it for the better. So the Imperial army and navy were isolated from civilian life. They could not see what the Empire they were serving was doing to their own families.

From the material in the newer books, Imperial officers also tend to lie to themselves in order to keep serving. Ciena Ree for example stopped believing in the Empire about halfway through Lost Stars. But while her best friend defected to the Rebellion, she remained in the Imperial Navy, clinging to her oath, as if that would salve her guilty conscience for the tyranny she perpetuated. In the end, she was just going though the motions, and did not hesitate to try to kill herself.

Admiral Rae Sloane spends about half of the new Empires End trilogy telling herself "This is not my Empire" every time she sees Imperial atrocities. By the end she cannot escape the truth. What she imagined the Empire to be was a lie all along. A beautiful lie of law and order that she had created to hide the reality of the Empire's tyranny. In the end however, she embraces the cruelty for all that it is worth, and creates the First Order, even giving it its name (which seemed like kind of a plot hole to me. She says she is going to make a new Empire the way she wants it to be. But she starts with a band of feral, homicidal children. So, not really...)

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 18 2017, 02:37 AM

It took this one almost all day to read through all that, ugggh! Very eye opening though Subbie, Khajiit only knew what the movies showed of the Empire, and they never showed anything like what you described. Thank you for posting that!

On a side note, this one wonders just how involved Palpatine was in the day to day running of the Empire. Did he make or approve policies? Did he ever sit behind his desk and just do paperwork? Probably left that to the bureaucrats hunh?

More interested in the esoteric than the domestic, I'd say; researching stuff about the DS and all that

*Palpatine sits in front of a stack of papers*
Palpatine: "Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational fountain pen!"

The Empire had plenty of other Important People to do the work - regional governors, planetary governors, military folks etc. We see in the films that Darth Vader and Wilhuff Tarkin are sometimes sent out to check up on extra important stuff like the Death Star.

I assume the Emperor just stays at home and watches Netflix or practices his supervillain laugh in front of a mirror.

Tarkin: You may sign when ready.

The older Legends books did not seem to go into much of the day to day lives of people in the Empire. Like the films, they seem to have mainly focused on telling an adventure story in space. We knew the Empire was evil because George Lucas and the EU writers said so, with every mustache twirl and princess tied to the train tracks. Plus that whole thing about blowing up Alderaan... But the new canon books take the time to show us why the Empire is evil, with all the things I listed above. Almost all of that was written Post-Disney. I have been reading tons of Star Wars novels over the last year, so it is all fresh in my mind.




Like hazmick said, Palpatine had an inner circle of advisors, people like Yupe Tashu from the Empire's End books. He and others were part of a Ruling Council - basically a bunch of Yes Men who handled all the paperwork, so Palpatine had plenty of time to brood upon his throne of skulls.




This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 18 2017, 11:32 PM

Wrong? You mean from your . . . point of view?

Yeah if you can call it an authoritarian streak, so be it. And yes, I'd be inclined to believe so. I really didn't want to flat out say it, but I know we're among friends here so I don't expect anyone to jump at my throat when I say I don't believe the Empire is "evil" because of moral relativism. Perhaps that should've been my first words as to avoid this entire, uh, lenghty discussion.

But yeah, that's about it. I do realize EU and canon material do paint a picture of what the Empire represents; oppression, fear, tyranny, hunger for power, etc. That's what the Empire is when people are being victim by its power.

That's as far as that goes. But I hope you at least understand where I'm coming from.

Lol they released Vader and Luke's initial concept arts as characters in this game I'm playing. It's weird to see Vader with blue saber and shooting at people with a Mauser looking blasted pistol, but damn if it ain't cool as hell!

Wasn't Han's blaster based on the Mauser pistol?

Also, what game are you playing?

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: May 5 2017, 04:12 AM