Full Series Anti-non-human speciesism in the Empire in SW:R

I think that's more about having the Empire look homogenized then it's meant to indicate in-universe speciesism. After all, nothing's ever suggested the Empire was racist even though all of the Imperials we see are white.

 

We see only humans in the Imperial military, but I would think that the Imperial Senate still had many aliens (though according to the Star Wars Wiki, many alien senators were removed and replaced with human representatives). Then we also have this alien Inquisitor. And on top of that we have Garindan serving as a spy for the Empire and the Empire not at all disinclined to employ alien bounty hunters like Bossk and Zuckuss. I'm not sure aliens would want to work for the entity that's likely to stiff them on their paycheck or treat them like sub-sentient garbage. The Empire seemed like it maintained amicable enough relationships with at least certain species.

Jabba for instance was allowed a lot of tolerance on Tatooine. I mean it's no secret that he deals in illicit goods; goods that we know the Empire disapproves of (hence Han dumps his cargo). And the Empire knows where to find Jabba and has the firepower to easily eliminate him. Yet they leave him alone.

But the Republic military was also entirely human in TCW (excluding the Jedi, which seem semi-autonomous from the Republic military proper). And so, if you're going to cry "speciesism," I think you have to go back to TCW, but even then, none of the Jedi or alien senators seemed at all concerned that all the admirals and troopers were human.

It seemed like a non-issue.

 

I think people will find the Disney era much easier to deal with if they come to terms with the Empire being the baddies.

 

I have no problem with the Empire being the baddies. I've just always been annoyed at the way this was invented pretty much out of thin air, and I think the Nazis - which is how it frequently got played - are terribly overused as a basis for sci-fi villains.

 

Good point, but that's bothering out-of-universe reason to me. Maybe there is just something in Empire that attracts white human males - many rebels are also ex-imperials...

 

From Vanessa Marshall voice actress who plays Hera in Rebels "...I don’t think there’s a focus on her alien nature so much, not only because all the characters are equally antagonized by the Empire regardless of their race, but also because the Ghost crew really creates a cohesive family – one that truly transcends any and all racial distinctions. I think race becomes irrelevant. So while it will elucidate some things, it will also equalize others, and unite us all in the fight against the Empire!"

 

I think this issue was entirely manufactured in the EU and should not be present in Rebels. Though, I won't be surprised if it is to a degree simply to make the Empire seem more 'evil'.

 

That sentence tells only about the crew of the Ghost but it appears that they are not going into speciesism at least during the first seasons of the show. It may be better, but I cannot say yet.

 

Swashbucklingjedi is exactly right, if you look at the quote in context it's not at all about the Empire's overall policies, it's just about whether Hera's species makes her a different kind of character than the rest of the main cast.

 

still the main bad guy is a non human and we now have a quote that says race is irrelevant to the main characters as they are all equally antagonized which does speak to the greater overall policy.

I think the type of racism we will see by the empire will be more about intelligence level not appearance or race, but like those that are called "savages" like in the TCW episode Trespass, they will be exploited, but not because of real racism but more because of opportunism, races not represented in the senate or able to interact in galactic society will have a harder time defending themselves and will be enslaved or eradicated much easier but more out of convenience than hatred or racism.

 

Everyone knows that Twi'lek's are one of the more commonly enslaved species, but a dark twist they ought to show is a Twi'lek slave trader, unscrupulously selling slaves who in some cases are his own species.

In real life several coastal kingdoms in west Africa, including the Ashanti of modern day Ghana, became quite rich on raiding the hinterland tribes and selling fellow africans into slavery to European/American slavers.

It would add a touch of grim dark realism.

 

Yeaaaaaahhh....

Except that wouldn't be a twist at all, it would be business as usual for the Twi'leks.

The Twi'lek men have always sold their women (and sometimes boys too, if you get my meaning), it's their currency, their main source of sustenance.

 

supposing evolution is true and works similar in the SW Galaxy, would it be safe to assume that there would likely be even more races of humans than what we see on Earth, would aliens like Zeltrons, Chiss, and even Zabrak,s possibly be considered human, considering they are 99% the same, maybe humans went to some planet and developed skull horns?

Then look at Sandpeople, you can kill a whole tribe including the women and children and the most anti war bleeding heart in the whole senate barely bats an eye...

"The Hutts are all Gangsters" is maybe a racist stereotype?

So certain races of course will be so different that they will be easy targets, so if the Empire wants the resources of the planet they live on,they could use racism to sway public opinion against this race so they don't start a full galactic revolt all at once

So I think the empire will use racism as a tool when it can but doesn't see it as a goal of the Empire to create a pure all human society or to dominate all non humans, nor does being human give you any type of benefit or protection, as Owen and Beru and the whole of Alderaan were not spared because of there humanness.

 

If you wanted to ascribe real world biology to a GFFA, "aliens" like Chiss would likely qualify as human, though maybe a subspecies of human. Pretty much anything considered "near human" would fall into the hominidae family. Chimpanzees and Humans are 99% similar as far as genetics, yet are so different. Something like a Chiss compared to a human would be all but identical genetically.

But there's also nothing to say that evolution exists in a GFFA. It's a fantasy tale, and iirc, Twi'leks were an engineered species according to a codex entry and/or dialogue in TOR (I only recall hearing about it, not seeing it first hand).

So there's also the possibility of whatever races pre-dated the Rakata essentially engineered the rest of life, and evolution does not occur in a GFFA like it does IRL

I would just rather not think about it. Trying to apply something like evolution to a fictional world Lucas just made up isn't going to work out so well. Evolution cannot happen without reproductive isolation, so something would have had to have ferried an ancestral population of humanoids around to various planets before the advent of hyperdrive to have these humanoids evolve in isolation for thousands of years.

 

There is something to say about evolution in the GFFA, the many cases of evolution in the EU, like the Neimoidians from the Duros.

 

The old West End Game galaxy guides described certain species as "having evolved from" certain types of life or in certain environments and pretty much just states it as fact.

I didnt mean to even go there in terms of creationism vs evolution, but just meant that if the classification of biology and origin of species (whatever the means) is similar, what would pass for human in a society with such diversity might be broader socially (and maybe also genetically but that was less important to the question)

also whichever species/races could cross breed with humans might mean that they are human, as far as Dathomir Witches and Zabracks I was trying to figure out that situation for a while

 

The biologic species concept (that if two organisms can breed, then they are the same species) doesn't hold in many cases, and is completely worthless in regard to the fossil record. False Killer Whales can provide viable offspring with Bottlenose Dolphins, but they remain not only separate species, but are in separate genera.

And even species concepts based on morphology are prone to error due to convergent evolution. For instance, it was once thought that Red Pandas and Giant Pandas were closely related due to wrist bone morphology, but genetics shows that they are much more distantly related than once thought.

Genetic analysis tends to be the most used method today. For instance, we are 99% genetically the same as Chimps, and so they are considered our closest living relative, but based on morphology, there was a study done that showed that we have more in common physically with Orangutans than Chimps. Though for most of the scientific community, genetics trumps morphology. And morphology seems to largely trump the biologic species concept, because even though False Killer Whales and Bottlenose Dolphins can breed and produce viable offspring, there is still clearly enough genetic isolation to maintain that they don't interbreed very often, or else we wouldn't have two distinct populations that look hardly alike.

Again, I'm not going to try to make BS assumptions about how genetically similar a Zabrak is to a Dathomirian, or whether they shared a recent common ancestor, or if plot device magic allows two not closely related species to breed anyhow.

I mean, I have a hard enough time wrapping my head around why Imperial Class Star Destroyers have their shield generators elevated and exposed as targets, while the Venator Class Star Destroyers had a smarter design of embedding the shield generators into the hull.

 

but the false killer whale and bottlenose are both dolphins, the red and giant are both pandas and are bears, see what I mean?

 

Where was that established?

 

The Amazing Cross sections, or whatever they are called that show the schematics of vehicles and ships.

The Executor and Imperial class Star Destroyers have their shield generators in a very exposed and idiotic location that took a couple A-wings all of 2 seconds to take out. While the Venator has a series of local shield generators embedded in the hull.

 

No it does not. The main characters are equally antagonized by the Empire because they're all rebels. The question was about Hera being unique among the main cast.

 

I would think the question to ask - which of course is not going to be answered until the show airs - is what are each characters' grievances with the Empire. I figure Kanan's is self explanatory; and Pablo kind of touched upon what Lothal's issues are, which possibly gives hints as to what we can expect there in regards to Ezra; but Sabine, Hera and Zeb are all kind of TBD. And Hera may very well face discrimination or risk being enslaved on her homeworld for all we know. Everyone is coming from a different background and it's entirely possible that she is faced with discrimination by the Empire, but among the crew of the Ghost she is an equal, since they are all united in being victims of the Empire and being hunted down.

I mentioned something in the Hera thread regarding her name and a similarity to Wonder Woman, which thinking about it now is just silly. All of the characters, except for Chopper and maybe Zeb have names of some kind of historical or mythological significance.

Hera = wife of Zeus

Sabine = An Italian tribe that was conquered by the Romans

Kanaan (=Canaan) = Ancient name for the land that encompasses modern day Palestine and Israel. May be a nod to Kanaan as being a member of a persecuted religion just as the Jews were.

Zeb? - I have no idea if his name is derived from anything.

Ezra = Returned to Jerusalem from Babylon and reintroduced the Torah.

Which all may give hints at the roles they are going to play.

Sabine's people may have been militarily conquered by the Empire and her people subjugated. Kanaan is persecuted for his religion. Ezra might be something of a precursor to Luke that ultimately signifies the return of the Jedi/Torah to the Galaxy (though we ultimately know that Luke has to be the last one in ROTJ).

I don't know enough about Hera to theorize any symbolism there, and again Zeb isn't a name that rings any bells that I can think of. I don't know if there's anything there that could be used to mirror any kind of sexism/racism/speciesism.

 

whatever, if you want to think that the bad guy who is not a human will be enforcing a human only policy I guess I cant convince you otherwise

 

I'm simply saying the quote from the interview in question does not state that.

 

In canon, do we see much of it?

CIS is made up of humanoids (humans too)
CIS military is made up of humanoids and some exotic species
Republic is made up of humanoids
Republic military appears to be solely human (apart from some Jedi)
Empire military appears to be solely human
Empire should follow the Republic in that it's made up of humanoids; the CIS is folded back into it too, so humanoids again.
Local militaries are made up of their own species (Ryloth and Umbara for two sides of one conflict)
When that clone hooked up with the Twi'Lek farm girl, no one pointed out that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary based purely on species (and they could even have mixed offspring).

The amount of humanoids we see on Coruscant alone that aren't human is staggering; good luck trying to be racist against that when the majority of the planet isn't "human".

I don't see it from the movies and TCW alone. Which you know, makes sense, being as the galactic government of the day has probably been around for thousands of years.