Lit What if JJM wrote a book where the Lost Tribe founded the Imperial Knights?

Leia was an Imperial Senator and Han was an Imperial naval officer for a little while. And this would be a different Empire, not based on a Sith lord as emperor.

 

That's admittely the million dollar question, I suppose, as we only saw Abeloth glass the capital city, but I guess it's open for the authors to retcon that her shockwave slaughtered the rest of the planet too... so could be nobody, or could still be a whole continent's worth.

 

Leia was only an Imperial Senator for the purposes of overthrowing the Empire. She was pretty much raised as a Rebel from Day 1. Han also left the Navy because he was confronted with the reality of slavery. Even in a new Empire, it's still an authoritarian monarchy.

We also know it turns evil...AGAIN.

 

Actually, I'm more inclined to think the Kesh are fine but the Sith are all dead.

 

Spoiler for Lost Tribe Collected Stories, by JJM.
The Keshiri were uncountable (they didn't have a number big enough) just after Omen crashed - and that was just on the smaller of the two continents!

Numbers of Keshiri Sith are probably still about, they would have been too noticable on Coruscant.

 

The Moffs betray the Emperor Fel in Legacy. And the Emperor still is required to follow the light side or be deposed/killed by the Imperial Knights, which happened at the end of Legacy. So it was not the Empire that is evil, it is individuals that are evil. And these evil people can also take over the Republic like Jacen did.

 

I never liked assumptions to answer ambiguities. I don't see how Abiloth's shock wave could function like a smart bomb or genetically engineered smart-shock-wave that would only wipe out people with specific genetic markers like killing only Sith and leaving all of their poor subjects alone. Actually, the Sith would have had better chances to survive the attack than their subjects because they would have sensed it or saw it coming and could have sheilded themselves or fled as Gavar Kai did choosing to sleep on his ship instead of at home. Neither do I think the shockwave could have been an all consuming planet wide catastrophe. Grand Lord Val (sp?) survived and his after action report was that Tav had been destroyed but at least 2 attack waves survived to fight later and the overt statement was that many more than that were stilll on Kesh. The use of Abiloth there is more akin to an atomic blast and mythologically this comes from the Hindu Vedas where goddess-I-forget-her-name does the same thing and declares "now I am become the destroyer of worlds" referring of course to nuclear energy. Heroshima was only 1 square mile but the psychological fall-out lasts to this day. The destruction of Tav feels the same way to me.

 

Ya know , I got all these e-books on the Lost Tribe and I started reading them but got distracted after the Omen crashed and haven't gone back to them yet. I guess I should read these before I speculate further on the Lost Tribe. since it is one of my favorite factions now after all-next to Mandos. Think I'll go do that now.

 

You should enjoy them, I did! JJM's a very good author IMO.

 

I just assumed that the majority of the Sith lived in the capital while the Kesh out of it didn't.

 

Actually, we know the Moffs have most of the power, and the position of Emperor was created as a counterbalance to the Moffs. It's clear the Fel Emperors were never absolute rulers, and tried to include more alien species and women and the Jedi philosophy.

Also, it only "went evil" in the same way the Republic went evil. Perhaps even less, since the Empire never elected Krayt.

 

Quite true. The position of the Emperor as head of state and head of the Imperial Knights is little different from the Jedi rule of the Republic during the New Sith Wars. The only real difference is that there's less democracy inside the governmental system. And while that might bother us, it's less problematic to the Jedi Knights, whose ideology and values aren't that dependent on democracy. The Jedi Order isn't a democracy. They've got a leadership that's wise and in communion with the Force, and they hand orders down with total control of the Order.

Now, for most of galactic history, the Jedi have decided that it's best they avoid taking on secular power, because they don't want to trust themselves with total control of the galaxy for temptation reasons, and for PR reasons that having a record of not seeking power helps the public trust these super-powerful beings. But that's not the same as Jedi doctrine inherently dictating a strong support of political democracy. And that tradition has its exceptions -- Jedi have taken on secular power without terrible things happening. In fact, it generally was the cause of good things. They stopped the Pius Dea Crusades. They preserved the Republic through the New Sith Wars. Leia successfully led the New Republic. So it's not unreasonable that a group of Jedi would find it consistent with Jedi values to follow a Grand Master who also directs the state, with the caveat that if his rule should cease to be enlightened and benevolent -- if he should give in to the temptation of the dark side -- they remove him and install a new Grand Master, just as the Jedi would in the same situation.

 

Elected? Krayt took over, he wasn't elected!

 

Post appears to suggest Krayt was elected by the Republic! A Sith mix-up perhaps?

 

No, the post reads fine, and simply suggests that the fact Empire didn't elect Krayt the same way the Republic elected Palpatine means we might consider it less culpable for the excesses under their particular Sith dictator's regime.

Really, the worst thing you can say about the Felpire is that it allied with the Sith... and it only did so against the wishes of the Emperor and his knights. So, if anything, it's an argument for the Jedi*-Emperor having an even tighter hold on the reins during his reign. (HO HO!)



* And we should make no mistake, here, the Imperial Knights are Jedi. Albeit "Grey Jedi" in the sense that they don't acknowledge the authority of the Jedi Council.

 

Still seems an odd way to put it, as I wouldn't have linked the two ie. Krayt and the Empire, the latter was effectively duped. Should it have known better? Arguably yes but fool politicians invariably always think they can make nice with a shark known to attack many times, as it won't attack them!

 

That was my point.

Charlemagne said that the Empire "went evil" again.

I said it didn't. That it only "went evil" in the same way the Republic "went evil" when it elected Palpatine as Chancellor (hint: it didn't)... and that the Empire may even be less responsible than the Republic since Krayt wasn't even elected.

As for allying with Krayt in the first place... the One Sith could argue that Luke Skywalker directly allied with Krayt to defeat Abeloth.

Exactly.

And since the Empire isn't completely democratic, the Imperial Jedi don't have to worry about the "PR problem" as much. As we saw in the LEGACY comics, they solved the "temptation problem" too.

 

I said it didn't. That it only "went evil" in the same way the Republic "went evil" when it elected Palpatine as Chancellor (hint: it didn't)... and that the Empire may even be less responsible than the Republic since Krayt wasn't even elected.

...How ELSE does a government go evil other than evil men entering office or taking over?

 

As I understand it, the thrust of Summer Dreamer's contention concerns the morality of states rather than governments, and the implication of culpability.

The Republic's Senate made Palpatine emperor, albeit without having the slightest idea what they were in for, meaning it has some share of responsibility for what follows, and as, theoretically, a represenative democracy, one could argue the entire Republic also shares that responsibility.

Krayt, possibly with the aid of senior military personnel and public servants, executed a coup against the legitimate government. Neither the civil government nor the Empire as a whole could be reasonably held responsible for what came after, only Krayt and his co-conspirators.

Both then proceeded to impose 'evil' governments, presumably radically different from what came before. Neither the Republic nor the Second Empire 'went evil'; evil was thrust upon them.

 

Yes, I would just disagree. The evil of the Third (Fourth?) Sith Empire/Second Galactic Empire is that when Darth Krayt declared himself Emperor everyone more or less went along with him and his oppressive tyranny.

 

Unlike when Palpatine declared himself Emperor and everyone in the Republic more or less went along?

 

Ah. So putting to one side the fact of 'oppressive tyranny' - which, incidentally, is something else I'd quite to talk about - the Second Empire is evil because it took a whole seven years before either the entire entity, or at least a very large part of it, threw off the shackles of Sith dominion and went to war - open warfare, mind - against a galaxy-spanning Sith Empire.

Gosh. That is evil. That's nearly as evil as the Jedi Order, which joined the war actively several months later. That's up there with the Galactic Alliance, which was so evil it actually had to be liberated.

The mind boggles at just how evil people would have to be to wait seventeen or even nineteen years before setting themselves against an evil galactic government.

 

I am utterly and completely confused by the argument going on here.

But yes, a government that is overthrown is vulnerable, especially one where the leadership actively works towards the overthrow.

And yes, the Republic IS complicit in the Empire's evil.

 

I shall endeavour to walk you through.

You asserted that “We also know it [the Second Empire, colloquially termed the Felpire] turns evil…AGAIN.” Implicit in this, given the context, was that this future evilness was a strong argument for Jaina Solo’s involvement in the Second Empire being a Bad Thing (from a story perspective)

This was refuted first by LarryG, who argued that the Empire did not turn evil, but rather, evil people took over unlawfully, much as they might any government; he put forward Jacen Solo’s seizure of power over the Galactic Alliance as an example.

Summer Dreamer provided a similar counterpoint, noting that if the Second Empire was evil, then the Old Republic was at least as evil, if not eviler.

Both also emphasised that it was the moffs who were responsible for any Sith dealings, which were opposed by the Emperor Roan, and the eventual coup; the Fel Dynasty, and consequently Jaina Solo, are thus further disassociated from any eventual down-the-line evilness.

These arguments were then further explicated by Sinrebirth, Ulicus, Jedi Ben and, returning to the ring, Summer Dreamer.

In response to the Second Empire-to-Old Republic comparison, you then asked, one presumes rhetorically, “How ELSE does a government go evil than evil men entering office or taking over?” Which is no doubt a worthy question but, at least for me, came across as slightly disconnected from the discussion thus far.

In the belief that you and I might be operating on slightly different understandings of Summer Dreamer’s post, I put forward what I believe to have been an accurate summation of its content, emphasising that a state, which is what we had so far been discussing, and a government, brought up by your own good self, are not in fact the same thing.

Additionally, I indicated that in my view, neither of the aforementioned states ought to be regarded as culpable for the evil governments that were imposed upon them, in the (chronologically) first instance by deceit and in the second by a coup d’etat; in a logical progression from this point I concluded that neither should be considered evil.

You responded that you agreed with my interpretation of the post and explained precisely why you disagreed with it by setting forward your main argument: “when Darth Krayt declared himself Emperor everyone more or less went along with him and his oppressive tyranny.”

Now, at this juncture, I would like to clarify whether by the use of “the Third (Fourth?) Sith Empire/Second Galactic Empire” you wish to move away from discussing the Second Empire and instead consider solely the evilness of Darth Krayt’s Sith Empire.

Although they may or may not technically be the same political entity, the absorption of the entire Galactic Alliance, a presumably larger state, almost simultaneously with the execution of a coup against the civil government means that in practical terms, even ignoring the vast difference of Sith involvement, the two Empires are very different beasts. So, at least going by historical precent, are their governments; Republics and Empires come and go, one might say, but the Core goes on.

Consequently, I have operated under the assumption that your post is discussing the evilness of the Second Empire by the measure of its population’s and institutions’ involvement in establishing Sith rule and serving the Sith Empire, or as you say, going along with it, to wit, not actively resisting. I assume that this can then be measured against their role in opposing it, from which we can determine their net goodness or evilness.

Now - bearing in mind that the Empire-in-Exile faction swiftly (within a year) after its emergence held clear control of a sizable chunk of territory that largely corresponds to at least the heart of the Second Empire (what portion of it remains unclear); that these worlds all presumably supported their declaring for the Fels’ claim, that it was indisputably ruled by the Emperor Roan; that the succession of his daughter was, to the best of our knowledge, undisputed; and that its extensive military forces (as opposed to, say, a single fleet) were drawn from loyalists within the Second Empire’s military – it seemed thoroughly reasonable to consider the Empire-In-Exile as, for the purposes of our little experiment, representative of the Second Empire.

The substance of my prior post, then, was to take your standard and apply it to the Second Empire, its contemporaries, and select antecedents, so as to establish a measure of at least their relative evilness (absolute evilness being a hugely more difficult quality to precisely gauge). Which is to say, I spouted carefully reasoned nonsense (I can, if you wish, show you my working) to the end of reductioing your argument to absurdum and back.

Simply put, the standard by which you judge the Second Empire to be evil is unreasonably harsh. If the Second Empire is evil, then the Jedi Order of its time is about as evil, the Galactic Alliance far eviler, and the vast majority of the Imperial Era galactic population, including a number of very popular characters is eviler still.

That is the argument going on here.


As an addendum, now seems as good a time as any to discuss this “oppressive tyranny” business. Certain organs of the Second Imperial state may have been involved, under their new masters, in imposing oppressive tyranny, but they were themselves also oppressively tyrannised (or, to mix things up, tyrannically oppressed); the One Sith directly oversaw most of the military and intelligence operations we saw, and they weren’t shy in dealing with any personnel problems. And again, what is true of the Second Empire in these matters is presumably true of the Galactic Alliance.

Also, I’m a little foggy as to what an overthrown government is particularly vulnerable to.