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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Pellaeon and the Imperial Remnant (split from Thrawn thread)

Discussion in 'Literature' started by comradepitrovsky, Apr 20, 2017.

  1. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    Pfft. Being better then Pelly isn't a high bar.
     
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  2. Noash_Retrac

    Noash_Retrac Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 14, 2006

    comradepitrovsky meet GrandAdmiralJello
     
  3. Nehru_Amidala

    Nehru_Amidala Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2016
    Emergency crew is now on alert.
     
  4. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 5, 2017
    While I wouldn't quite want to compare myself to the esteemed Grand Admiral, I think that he and I dislike Pelly for very different reasons. (Other then his generic incompetency.)
     
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  5. Nehru_Amidala

    Nehru_Amidala Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2016
    Really? I always read Pellaeon as a competent officer.
     
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  6. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    He rides the coattails of more skilled officers, falling back again and again whenever he would have to take a risk. His big victories are either with the help of real strategists (Kre'fey) or so 'off-screen' that no real analysis can be done (Orinda). Otherwise, he got his post by being the last Imperial of any note standing, and by being the POV character in a Zahn book.

    (Also, he's basically the figurehead of a wave of apologia for the Empire and a general approval of the facist thuggery that was the last couple decades of the EU.)
     
  7. DarthKuriboh

    DarthKuriboh Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2007


    You couldn't be further from incorrect if you tried. Gil was the only reason the Empire didn't devolve into just warring factions, since the moffs can't be bothered to be satisfied with the holdings and forces they have. Gil was the iron hand that held the Empire together post Warlords and post Thrawn. Plus, he learned from Thrawn decades before Eli was a wet dream
     
  8. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    That's actually not too dissimilar to what Jello would say.
     
  9. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    A) That implies the Remnant falling apart would be a bad thing.
    B) Considering Daala could unify the warlords, I doubt it. Warfare names other options -- Kaine, I'd imagine Grant, whatever. Pellaeon threatens them into compliance. He has neither real political nor military skills.
    Huh. I thought he was very pro-Empire?
     
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  10. Zohar

    Zohar Jedi Knight star 1

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    Jan 22, 2017
    I always thought Pelli was a competent leader. Even in Thrawn trilogy he recognizes his limitations on the last battle and retreats for the good of the empire (Thrawn himself was having a bad time in that). Another captain would go full retard and lose all the ships.

    Now if you want a thrash imperial you can't find a worst one than Daala. THAT was a **** leader! I always had the conviction that Daala stole the thunder from Pelli in many ocasions.
     
  11. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 5, 2017
    Pellaeon just never wins anything. "Run away at the slightest opportunity" does not a hero make. (And he's a unreconstructed speciest and war criminal who got the rep of lovable grandpa in the EU fandom...)
     
  12. EmperorHorus

    EmperorHorus Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 3, 2016
    A lot of that is due to bizarre characterisation later in the series' from the authors though. Similar to people all of a sudden considering Daala a viable choice for leader of the Galactic Alliance, which given her actions in older EU books is utterly insane.
     
  13. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    What Empire? Do you mean the fumbling collection of warlord realms that was stitched together by Daala and handed to Pelly on a platter? That steadily shrinking realm he couldn't hold together but whose resources he expended on adventures against the NR without any success?

    Pelly is the apotheosis of excuse and apology.

    Correct.
    I am. Pelly destroyed the Empire through his cowardice and replaced it with a sniveling crypto-fascist state that survived on faded glories and military parades. It's the DPRK of Star Wars, which was inexplicably considered efficient and admirable in the late EU. The totalitarianism was swept under the rug or was made into a virtue.

    The Imperial Remnant had nothing on the Galactic Empire, which was a parliamentary monarchy of laws and culture and which represented millennia of just Galactic government. It had a Senate and a civil service, and a court and administrators. It represented the traditions of the Core Worlds and civilized space. The Remnant? A thug state that was as barbarous as the region of space it hailed from.

    He became the NR's pet dictator, and they ignored his participation in campaigns if slavery and genocide. He gave the Organa Solo family a discourse in eugenics and they thought it was cute. Despicable.



    Missa ab iPhona mea est.
     
  14. mnjedi

    mnjedi JCC Arena Game Host star 5 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2012
    But the Pelpires legislative body was the moffrence, that's got to score him some points. No state with a moffrence can be all bad.
     
  15. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    The mofference is a pale imitation of the Imperial Court (executive) and the Imperial Senate (legislative).

    On that note, I think this book had the best use of the Imperial Senate we've ever seen.

    Missa ab iPhona mea est.
     
  16. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 5, 2017
    I'll freely admit that most of the reason I hate Pelly is meta, anyway.
    Pfft. Given that none of the Imperial Senate had three glorious eyes, they were clearly inferior to the original Mofference.
     
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  17. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    I don't think they ever referred to it as "cute":


    "Every ruler should have a garden," Pellaeon said. "It's always useful to draw lessons from nature."
    "True." Leia cupped a vast pink blossom and lifted it to her face, inhaled its scent.
    "From a garden one learns to cull the weak and unfit," Pellaeon continued, "and to encourage the strong and vigorous." He held up his thumb and forefinger. "An inferior bud soon feels the strength of my pinch!"
    Leia sighed and straightened, letting the blossom fall from her fingers. She supposed it was too much to hope for that she could stay for long on Bastion without being reminded what the Empire was really about.
    Han gave Pellaeon's pinching hand an appraising look. "And you make your plants grow in rows," he said.
    "Each receives its proper allotment of space and sunlight and no more," Pellaeon said. "That's fair, don't you think?"
    "But plants don't naturally grow in rows," Han pointed out. "This is only possible -" He gave a deliberate glance at the glass arboretum overhead. "- in a highly artificial environment."
    Bravo! Leia thought at her husband. I swear I'll make a diplomat of you yet!
    Pellaeon gave a judicious smile. "You prefer the state of nature then? I think you will find that in a state of nature, the weak are culled in a far more merciless state than you find here."
    Leia took her husband's arm. "Let's say that I prefer a balance," she said. "There should be enough nature so that the plants can thrive by following their natures, if you see what I mean."


    Even in the context of the Imperial Remnant, it may have less to do with eugenics, and more to do with eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy, and not "weak individuals".

    I'd suggest that Pellaeon being seen as "efficient and admirable" isn't that inexplicable.

    From the perspective of the average TV Troper:


    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/StarWarsNewJediOrderAndLegacyErasImperialRemnant

    • Anti-Villain: Even the Imperials have Nice Guys. Pellaeon fights for them out of patriotism and professionalism, not evil.
    • Token Good Teammate: While some Imperials are shown to have complex motivations and morals, he's the only truly good person to achieve high rank in the Empire.
     
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  18. Biel Ductavis

    Biel Ductavis Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 17, 2015
    I remember from the NJO, that slavery and speciescism weren't part of the culture of the remnant anymore. Was it just a lie, propagated from Pelly and his favorite Moff (and son)?
     
  19. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    It appears before that in Vision of the Future. Both Pellaeon, and "False Thrawn" (Flim) play on the removal of speciesism as a justification for the Empire not being "The Enemy" anymore - Pellaeon does so to convince Leia, Flim does so to convince various alien worlds to join the Empire.

    Before that, Daala and Pellaeon had a conversation about it in Darksaber - and when Kyp and Dorsk 81 visit the Empire, they see a whole lot of aliens in Imperial uniforms.
     
  20. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 5, 2017
    Considering we have a grand total of 0 named alien Remnant characters, I'd take that with a grain of salt.
     
  21. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    The Crimson Empire (immediate precursor to Daala's coalition as "most unified" Imperial faction) - had some named aliens on its Ruling Council:

    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Interim_Ruling_Council#The_.22Council_of_Blood.22
     
  22. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 5, 2017
    It had a single Whipid, who was not a moff, but kept his old position as 'Spearmaster.' And give he was executed and his whole faction killed or exiled in CEII...
     
  23. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
  24. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Works for me. Daala's reforms might have made a difference - but that was "at the bottom" (increasing the number of aliens in the lower ranks of the military) - with the people at the top still using terms like "subhumans" (Moffs, in Specter of the Past).
     
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  25. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    But the Gran have more than three eyes. So....

    Not in so many words, no. But he was still their pet Imperial, the one whose fascism they seemed to enjoy joking about.



    I don't see that reading -- is the Remnant libertarian?



    I'd suggest that Pellaeon being seen as "efficient and admirable" isn't that inexplicable.

    Pelly never rose past the rank of captain in the Empire (or possibly vice admiral). He was a middling officer at best.

    Teshik, Rogriss, and many others were good people who genuinely achieved higher rank than that overrated geriatric flotsam.

    Daala opened the floodgates it would seem and Pelly half-heartedly kept it up, but it's telling that we still rarely ever saw aliens in the Remnant.



    Missa ab iPhona mea est.