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

Lit Anti-Alien bias, as an EU invention was it a good or bad idea ?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by fett 4, Jan 21, 2013.

  1. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
  2. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    I wish I could like this a thousand times. Thank you Jello. I was flabbergasted by that other guy's post.
     
  3. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Jello - you're right about Leia - I'm not excusing her; at this moment, she is every bit the Imperial dignitary she'd been the bulk of her life. Not until ESB do we see a Leia who's actually been integrated into Rebel "society". You're right about Kenobi and Panaka, too, for that matter - which is evidence of bias endemic to Republic culture. Which becomes Imperial culture.

    "Thing" guy, who I'm sure has a name but screw it, isn't just anyone; he's a white human male serving in a position of (relative) authority on board the White Human Male Star alongside what can be assumed is the cream of the Empire's crop. His comment is casual, unforced, and met with nary a flinch from a room full of subordinates--including, as far as he's aware, two stormtroopers who are totally outside of his command and could easily pursue disciplinary action against him if they took offense. Which of course he has no reason to think they will.

    As far as the Rebel demographics are concerned, I'm not going to rehash the same points I've made in Diversity that I know you've seen already, but I do think Thing Guy is sufficient evidence of authorial intent--whether or not it's entirely consistent throughout the OT. Do you think Lucas intended that guy to just be a random bigot?

    Point being, I don't think Thing Guy is a narrative accident, anymore than I think the all-alien Sep Council is. But neither of those are to say the Rebellion (which, in ANH and ESB, is largely ex-Imperials) was all sunshine and rainbows.
     
  4. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    Ironically, I think the character of Jello is dead on here. Not that Palps is innocent and all that. But that speciesism wasn't his thing. He didn't care, whatever and whoever is useful is his motto. The CIS is was largely non-human, so Palps has no problem figuring out who in the former Republic would be most readily willing to go along with him. Tarkin and the other High Human Culture troglodytes will follow the Emperor 100% especially if he lets them do their thing.

    On that point, if GL had intended the Empire to be more inclusive of non-humans he wouldn't have shown them only bothering with them in the form of hiring low life bounty hunter scum... he would have also put aliens in the Imperial Fleet at Endor since the budget clearly allowed for the Rebels to have more diversity. Both fleets are, extraordinarily male though.
     
  5. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I think it was The Thrawn Trilogy that first attributed speciesism to Palpatine personally.
     
  6. GrandAdmiralJello

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

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Heh, I like those random old clippings. They're always an interesting insight on the way things stood circa ANH.

    You'll note that the article stated that both the Empire and Rebellion are primarily human affairs. The distinction it drew was between "inner" worlds and "frontier" worlds, the latter of which humans and aliens intermingled as equals.
     
  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Yup- RoTJ retconned the Rebellion a bit- but it made no effort to retcon the Empire.
     
  8. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 28, 2003
    You should save this post so that you can pull it up when people accuse you of blind loyalty to the Empire. Very will put my friend! =D=

    --Adm. Nick
     
  9. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

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    Jan 2, 2000

    There's lots parallels. Endor was a comparison with Vietnam. There's loads but the whole Anit-alien bias only really became explicit in the EU. I remember reading the story Side Trip from Tales of the Empire, with Vader musing whether to have Thrawn deal with Xizor because of having 1 alien fight another alien!

    What I was asking though was whether it was a good or necessary idea. I mean the Empire is bad, People know this right from the start, With terms like "Dark Side" and ships called "Star Destroyers" it's kind of obvious. Do they need to go the whole hog though, I mean if so, why not also have Nazi salutes or have Stormtroopers at a KKK rally as they dress in white too.
     
  10. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

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    Jul 8, 1999
    Somewhere, a fleet junkie just had an aneurysm.
     
  11. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
  12. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 9, 2005
    Remember, those star destroyers saved the GFFA from the evil Yuuzhan Vong.
    People might want to be a bit more grateful.
     
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  13. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    In one of the later Bantam books- I think Starfighters of Adumar- we see Wedge relating Luke's hypothesis that the Emperor gave horrible names to his Star Destroyers (Agonizer etc) on purpose- it was a way of making sure his officers knew, at least on some level, how corrupt their job was- and that he found this knowing descent into corruption delicious.
     
  14. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    I don't really see a problem with the term Star Destroyers, every navy right now has destroyers as a ship class, for a starship to be called Star Destroyer isn't that much a jump.
     
  15. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    "destroyer" was a shortening of "torpedo boat destroyer" historically though.
     
  16. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

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    Jul 8, 1999
    A lot of people, myself included for many years, fail to connect the dots between "star destroyer" and "destroyer" as a classification. It comes across as generically evil-sounding, analogous to "star annihilator" rather than "star cruiser" or "star frigate".
     
  17. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    The Star Munchkin spoof D20 game did call its biggest ships "starobliterators" and "starannihilators" possibly as a nod to this.
     
  18. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    If anything Coop, I'd say the aesthetic design pretty much overshadowed the unease over the name - yeah, it's the bad guys' ship.... but damn, it looks cool!
     
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  19. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 28, 2003
    Well Coop, there is no indication or evidence that George Lucas intended the name "Star Destroyer" to be the space equivilent of a real world naval destroyer. It was, like "Death Star", a ominous name. More to the point, they are only referred to as "Imperial cruisers" in ANH.

    Of course, even now, the debate between the minimalist and maximalist viewpoints on the scale of galactic navies can be boiled down, on a basis level, to the idea of whether a Star Destroyer is the Empire's main capital ship or whether it is merely a fast picket ship that escorts larger warships. :-B

    My advice? When someone starts that particular debate, run as far away from it as possible. They never end well. :p

    --Adm. Nick
     
  20. The Loyal Imperial

    The Loyal Imperial Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 19, 2007
    Don't forget the third side of the debate: that they're both!

    (And the fourth, neither.)
     
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  21. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 28, 2003
    I prefer the fifth side. Each reader or viewer can decide for themselves, provided that they realize they cannot convince others to change their own viewpoint. :p

    --Adm. Nick
     
  22. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I wonder- are some people maximalist in one respect but minimalist in another?

    Like feeling that the SD is a fast picket ship- but there's only about 25000 Imperial-class ones?

    Or that it's the primary line of battle ship- but there are several million?

    Going back to alien mistreatment- didn't Brian Daley's Han Solo Adventures trilogy establish that there was an element of this in the Corporate Sector, way back in the 70s?
     
  23. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Feb 2, 2010
    To get back to the thrust of the OP - the EU dealt with this specific issue by introducing a mechanism of widespread defection among the Imperial military that led to the Rebellion's demographics largely mirroring that of the Empire's, especially at the early ANH stage when the movement was still dominated by a small group of Core Worlds senators who had turned agaisnt the Empire over matters of political ideology.

    I find this to be a rather elegant solution that dovetails nicely with what surely happened out-of-universe: Lucas recruited Rebel and Imperial roles from amongst the same general pool of character actors and extras.
     
  24. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

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    Aug 10, 2005
    About scary names: I would like to point out that in the real world plenty of military units and tools have scary names.

    I think I am: One the one hand I like large scale battles and try to take into the account the size and age of the galaxy when examining things. On the other hand, I think fighters are portrayed as useful weapons and that is a good thing, and I think many of the massive battleships that maxamalists favor are rather silly (especailly in the Star Wars modding community - sorry, we can't make any Clone Wars ships, we are too busy making 8 billion ugly star destroyer variants until we run out of latin names)
     
  25. Parnesius

    Parnesius Jedi Knight star 1

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    Sep 8, 2012
    My own assumption, until I read, I think, the Star Wars Encyclopedia, was that Childsen's derison was not because Chewbacca was an alien, but because he was a particulary primitive-looking hairy chap possessing neither speech nor trousers, hailing from a world Childsen (and, I presumed, most people) were not familiar with.
     
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