Lit Does loyalty justify serving an evil regime?

It's either the eunuchs or the mother's side of the family for the later Ming Emperors Military for the Tang Emperors. Don't think any civil servants can do much to control Emperors. As far as I know there is no democracy at all during the Imperial times. For check and balances are you talking about the Eunuchs or the Emperor's mother's side of the family?

 

There is an ancient Chinese saying "the mountains are high and the Emperor is far away." China is a big place and Imperial Writ especially in an era of horse and foot is difficult to enforce.

 

aye. 山高皇帝远 hehe

明·黄溥《闲中今古录》：“山高皇帝远，民少相公多。一日三遍打，不反待如何。”据明代黄溥《闲中今古录》记载，这首《树旗谣》是元末方国珍在浙江起义时的口号。方国珍起义的时候是元至正九年，当时在位的皇帝是元顺帝妥欢帖睦尔。

It's from a poem. So it says came from the Ming Dynasty. Someone called Huang wrote his "Contemporary ancient record while bored" The Mountain is high and the Emperor Is far away, The Power in the hand of Ministers and Dukes is too much. (Literally The People is Less, Ministers and Dukes are more) Beaten three time daily, What are we waiting for (to revolt)? The Raise the Flag Song from the record is about someone called Fang Guozhen who was from the end period of Yuan his motto for revolt at Zhejiang province. The time of revolt was the ninth year of Yuan's Zhizheng era (1349 AD). The Emperor was Yuan Shundi (Yuan Shun Emperor) Toghon Timur.

 

Somehow that makes sense.

I have a bit of a related inquiry-how would the Fel empire ideologues viewed the Palpatine empire? What would Roan Fel's court historians have thought of it? Would they have admired it? Despised it? Loved the institutions and despised the man?

 

In Visions of the Future, Pellaeon didn't correct an officer who called Palpatine a crazy monster.

 

Specter of the Past actually.

The scene:


“I understand there’s been some recent unrest among segments of the Yagai population,” Pellaeon said.

“Completely negligible,” Hestiv said, waving a hand in dismissal. “Actually, since the overwhelming majority of the populace is completely loyal, they mostly take care of the handful of dissenters themselves. The only time we normally have to lift a finger is to protect the dissidents from overzealous loyalists.”

“Allowing you to take the moral high ground.”

“Exactly,” Hestiv said. “It makes for a refreshing change from our usual image among aliens.”

“Yes,” Pellaeon murmured, sipping his drink. “A pity the Emperor didn’t work harder at that kind of public relations himself twenty years ago.”

“A pity someone who wasn’t so insanely blind with power didn’t overthrow him while there was still time,” Hestiv countered, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “There must have been hundreds of competent administrators or Fleet officers who could have kept the Empire alive.”

Pellaeon felt a catch in his throat. “There was one, at least,” he said quietly.

In the Essential Guide To Warfare - we see an extract from an Imperial historian's book, written a few decades after FOTJ but before Legacy - that attempts to rehabilitate Palpatine's reputation (focusing on the Vong, Thrawn, and Palpatine's support of Thrawn).
I'm not sure that the mainstream of the Fel Empire would have subscribed to its ideas though.

 

That's realistic but historians are constantly trying to rehabilitate the image of tyrants. Aside from Hitler, there's no one who doesn't have some fanboy that pretends to academic credibility.

 

David Irving.

He forfeited credibility pretty fast though.

 

Now I'm totally thinking the writer of the Palpatine article is A'vid-Vingir of Naboo.

 

Lenang O'Pali.

I'm not sure if that can be made into an anagram or a modified pronunciation of anything related to fake history - but it would be an interesting shout-out if it turned out it was.

 

Have you read Adrian Goldsworthys book on the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its very interesting ?.

I say Western as it was split in too two Empires and the Eastern Empire survived until 1453 and even then the Ottoman Empire copied or kept much of that Empires laws etc in place.

Indeed what's not well known is that for a time after it's end, the Eastern Empire actually reconquered Rome after the fall but then gave it up as they didn't feel it was financially viable or worth there time to keep.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mitth'raw'nuruodo_Reconsidered:_A_Patriot's_Perspective

Well... there was this, which I assume had plenty to do with getting the Fel Empire's image back up. I wouldn't be surprised if by 138 ABY, Palpatine is considered more of a Stalinesque or even Napoleonic figure rather than Hitleresque, considering that we have had Krayt, the Vong and even Vitiate in the past all of who exceed Palpatine's evil. Keep in mind, most people wouldn't know of any secret plans he had against the Galaxy. I doubt many would have seen him as a dark evil wizard, hell I imagine even a number of NR supporters would've went 'well, he was a dictator oppressing liberty, but some kind of a dark wizard? Tone it down a notch guys' Especially since he wasn't very overt with his Sithiness, unlike Krayt and his One Sith. Even in Dark Empire we don't see any evidence of him enforcing the dark side

Also in my own defense of Palpatine, much like in HP with Voldemort, I firmly believe that whatever was brought back in Palpatine's clone bodies wasn't 100% pure Sheev. Certainly had his memories and plans, but I believe it was half some sort of dark side entity. After all, resurrecting yourself via using ancient Sith magic doesn't come without consequences. So whatever that was, it had none of Sheev's finesse, planning and stealth. Not to say that Sheev wasn't dark, he obviously was, but he wasn't -insane- or chaotic like DE Sheev was.

 

Well, Sate Pestage created the Church of the Dark Side and I imagine that blew the whistle on the whole "Palpatine was a Sith" thing. People who don't BELIEVE in the Force aren't going to believe in the Sith. Obviously. But a lot of people DO and will trust Luke Skywalker when he says Palpatine was the galactic equivalent of a Satanist Sauron. As for Sheev's lack of sanity in Dark Empire, he was perfectly fine in Dark Empire I and utterly insane in II, which we can attribute to his approaching death as well as Carnor Jax poisoning his clones and forcing him into one which was half-done.

I'm inclined to think Palpatine was suffering the same clone madness as Joruus C'boath at that point. The symptoms are very similar.

Mind you, I'm inclined to think someone eventually figured out his involvement in the Clone Wars too. My personal theory being Mas Amedda's Legends counterpart did it.

 

Kol Skywalker's account in The Essential Guide To Warfare includes a reference to Palpatine running both sides.

And I think the Palpatine-written sections of Book of Sith actually mention that Dooku was his ally and henchman, discarded in favour of Anakin.

So, once Luke read that copy of the Book of Sith, the secret was out.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying literally no one will believe it. I'm just saying that if done properly, a lot of people could refuse to believe it, which with that book as well along with the Imperial Mission could lead to a rehabilitation of the Imperial ideology, much like you will see modern Russia rehabilitating the image of both the old USSR as well as Tsarist Russia.

Also yeah I think that's possible. As he keeps coming back every time, he loses more and more sanity. I don't remember exactly since it's been awhile since I've read it, but I believe he came back in more than simply two successive clone bodies, and most of them weren't grown naturally but had accelerated aging, which we know was also a problem with the Starkiller clones.

With that, I don't think Sheev's original vision had him swallowing up the Galaxy. I think that came with his DE mindset. The way I see Sheev is someone who simply wants to rule for ruling's sake. He very much enjoys being in power and what that brings to him. He doesn't have some overaching ideology like a Sith Empire. In Book of Sith, we know he pretty much threw away the Rule of Two for his own Rule of One. I believe it was written that he personally thought the Rule of Two had done its purpose by placing him into power, which is another reason why I think he's more of a Stalin or Napoleon than a Hitler. Hitler liked power but at the end of it he also had a vision for what he wanted, so I reckon a SW Hitler would be someone like Hux, or Tarkin or Krayt or hell even Caedus. Stalin and Napoleon meanwhile, while obviously completely different in ruling styles, personality, etc, were at the end of the day pragmatists. They were at the right place, at the right time and would thrive in any ideological environment.

I think Vitiate's also pretty similar. He built up the Eternal Empire to replace the Sith Empire because in the Eternal Empire he was 100% safe in his position. There was no trouble with Sith ideology nor chaotic underlings (well, if you exclude his children... but compare three people to an entire empire full of Arcanns and Vaylins) which is also why Sheev didn't really care to prop up the Sith ideals once he was in power. A good fictional equivalent I suppose could be Roose Bolton.

 

He did say that his transfer in ROTJ was not his first, in Dark Empire. However, this was retconned as being a lie.

It's left a little unclear if the clone who turns up in Dark Empire II is the same clone that Palpatine's spirit fled to after his death in Dark Empire, or if there have been several transfers between the end of Dark Empire and his greeting Sedriss in Dark Empire II.

I also don't know for sure if there were any transfers between his transference from Droga into a Byss clone, and Luke meeting the elderly-looking Byss clone in Dark Empire.

 

One shouldn't underestimate the bureaucracy. 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline does a pretty good job of demonstrating the power of the civil service over the Emperor, both formally and informally - Emperor Wenli spent decades fighting over even getting his choice of heir approved, for example, ultimately losing the battle and then dedicating the rest of his reign to ruling in the most passive aggressive way possible. The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy is, despite the title, another good source on how the Chinese Civil Service, largely aristocratic at this point in time as the book covers why it changed to a more open system after the Tang, maintained both legal and cultural power. Overall, technically the Emperor was all powerful...but if an official criticized an emperor, it carried a lot of weight, and an emperor who ignored or reacted overly harshly to such critisims was in danger of being overthrown as a tyrant.

As for checks and balances...well, maybe not the best term, but overall a fair amount of the government was dedicated to watching other parts of the government for signs of corruption and abuse, with harsh punishments for officials who harmed those under their jurisdiction. For example, if someone was convicted of a crime and then was later proven innocent, the official who gave the sentence would receive the same punishment that the falsely convicted would have received (or did receive). As for the Emperor - I do find it notable that the Mandate of Heaven ideology justified the overthrowing of a bad emperor, as opposed to a lot of ideologies which made the monarch unquestionable.

As for democracy - not in imperial China itself, but some Chinese founded countries outside of China proper took this route, with the primary example being the Lanfang Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic and some of the other Kongsi Federations.

Very true - plus, with the Imperial Remanent still around there is a strong political incentive to rehabilitate the image of Palpatine and the Empire to justify their own existence and why they decided to stick with their regime for so long.

The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy
The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy

 

Palpatine's final endgame would probably be debated-in DE he wanted to conquer and consume the galaxy's life essence into his own and then expand from there(automated war fleets and world devastators conquering other galaxies).

This endgame would probably only be believed by Luke Skywalker and his immediate associates. I don't think many imperials would believe Palpatine wanted to rule as the Dark God of the universe. They'd probably call it Jedi or alliance propaganda.

 

He wasn't the only Darksider with Big Plans - Jerec had a similar plan for what to do after absorbing the power of the Valley, in the Jedi Knight novels.

 

Krayt had big plans, Vitiate, Plagueis, Caedus, and Sadow had big plans.

But that's something not many other than the Jedi would appreciate.

 

Well their plans differed completely, which goes to show how diverse Sith can be. Krayt's One Sith wanted to Sithify the Galaxy, literally complete and total Sith domination on not only a political but also cultural level. Vitiate and Plagueis just wanted power like Sheev, though I'd argue Plagueis would have been a lot less overt. Chancellor-for-(eternal)life? Definitely. Emperor? Too flashy. He might've even sought to destroy Anakin for being the Force defying him, rather than converting him to his side. Caedus wanted law and order. Like Roan Fel, I often compare him to Stannis. He didn't give a damn about Sith ideology, he just wanted to use the Sith powers to advance his goals. IMO he shouldn't have even put on a Darth title.

 

I was thinking along the lines of big in geographic scale - possibly like DE Palpatine, Jerec wants to expand out of the galaxy and invade the whole universe.

 

Caedus may have not been that enthusiastic about sith doctrine and traditional ends but he still wanted in the end to rule as emperor even if it would have been a very different empire than Palpatine.

Here is a good fanfic where a Caedus empire is dealt with somewhat https://m.fanfiction.net/s/3975597/1/Only-Right.

Vitiate was basically an ancient Palpatine, Plagueis he wasn't into the whole suck everybody's souls into myself and conquer the universe.

Krayt-I don't know he would have done it but he wanted to induct all beings all hundred quadrillion of them into the Sith order-that's pretty darn ambitious.

 

It's well-written, but I just can't imagine him taking on the mantle of Emperor with an Empire. Most of the Alliance elite are ex-Rebels still. It would be like Octavian proclaiming a new Roman Kingdom. I just don't see it. A Chief of State with unlimited terms? Perhaps permanent state of emergency? I could see it. Directly calling yourself 'Emperor' among people who have just torn one down? Just don't see it.