Lit Fascism in Star Wars

I think this comes down to a question which is at the heart of this thread and that's, "How SHOULD the Galactic Empire/First Order be portrayed?" This is a lot of thinking on my part so it's going to take two parts.

Part 1

Movies

I think it's fairly easy to say George Lucas did not intend any sort of sympathy for the antagonists in Star Wars. He dehumanized them with helmets and Nazi-esque uniforms, had them blow up a planet of pacifists, had them murder Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, had them murder the Jawas as well as blame Sand People (explicitly exploiting racial tensions). There's rarely any sign of the Empire being on screen and them NOT doing something awful. They are, in the opening crawl, described as the EVIL Galactic Empire.

The Prequels may have mistepped, though, because while the Empire is never portrayed as anything but horrific, the Republic is portrayed as a just barely functioning oligarchy. It was in dire need of reform and there's probably a good argument they SHOULD have increased the power of the Chancellorship given Vallorum could have resolved Naboo if he had the ability to deal with attacks against members. There's a long distance between Emperorship and a strong Presidency. We also found out they have no military and rely completely on the Jedi, which we see is a complete disaster and the games just assumed wouldn't be the case.

We only see the heyday of the Republic in KOTOR and TOR--and even then it's very flawed.

Legends

West End Games elaborated on these things with access to George Lucas' notes and we find out just how bad the Empire is. We find out the Empire has legalized slavery (as long as it's nonhumans), that the Galactic Empire routinely nationalizes businesses (the Radio Drama says this), and they have COMPNOR which functions as a totalitarian fusion of the NKVD and the SS.

I think people started walking back on the EVIL EMPIRE with The Thrawn Trilogy as Grand Admiral Thrawn was depicted as a deliberate contrast to Darth Vader as well as Palpatine. Pellaeon was constantly ruminating about how much he hated Vader while admiring Grand Admiral Thrawn's cool sense of leadership. There's times, at least for me, where I rooted for him despite the fact he was trying to conquer the universe.

Thrawn was very much a villain in TTT, though. Zahn mentions Thrawn committed genocide (later retconned to be General Grevious' homeworld and the Khaleesh he destroyed). Pellaeon is mentioned as being a former Wookiee slave catcher. Thrawn is implied to be behind the Noghri slavery where he keeps them on the Imperial teet for decontaminating their homeworld while polluting it in his own way. When he dies, it's the better for the galaxy.

The majority of the Legends Imperials are scumbags, though. The Truce at Bakura had a sadistic dentist, the endless number of warlords, Ysanne Isard who MELTS aliens, and other various psychopaths. The only "good" Imperials were Soontir Fel and Thrawn with Pellaeon gradually being redeemed. They don't mention the fact he used to enslave Wookiees for a reason. The Legacy Imperials are SUPPOSED to be different. They are all the "cool' of the Empire but none of the evil.

I'm not sure that's a good lesson, though. Some people suggested the Empire eventually reformed but there's no sign of elections with Pellaeon, the Moffs, or Jagged Fel (who is made "Head of State") while the Emperorship is clearly hereditary. The Grand Moff Council is also a collection of complete scumbags and that includes Calixte to a certain extent.

Daala

Daala deserves her own section as I think Kevin J. Anderson kind of hit on an extremely iffy point with her. I've talked with him a few times and she's meant to be a female Grand Moff Tarkin with all the horrible psychosis but brutal efficiency. She's not meant to be incompetent but a genius. She just has terrible luck because Kevin prefers a slightly more comedic Star Wars than other writers.

The thing is, Daala has been used and reused with lots of people either trying to make her someone redeemable or more competent. I have a theory that I'm hesitant about but plays into the reason why we need Grand Admiral Sloane and other characters like her in canon. People really wanted a female Imperial Admiral because it's a cool concept for those women fans who like to see themselves represented.

I feel iffy suggesting this but I think its true. It's WEIRD no one else created any major female Imperial characters other than Isard (who is basically Daala except Palpatine instead of Tarkin as well as competant), Tavira (who...is even worse), and Calixte (who ALSO slept with her superiors--wow, that is bad. We're four for four here). So there weren't a lot of characters to pick from unless you count Dark Jedi or redheaded female assassins who dated Luke Skywalker.

It's just....Daala is a terrible character. Not on KJA's side but she's not the person you'd want to write remotely sympathetically. However, if you want a female Imperial Admiral, she's the first name to come up and I wouldn't be surprised if Karen Traviss wanted her to be someone she wasn't written as before. Ignoring the history of warcrimes like destroying a Mon Calamari city, being part of the Death Star, and other actions.

Fate of the Jedi felt schizophrenic because Daala was portrayed as Pellaeon for half of the time--i.e. a respectable political opponent they were willing to give a chance and INSANELY EVIL the other time.

Next - The Empire in Canon/First Order isn't that different

 

I think that's a frankly excellent point - that the gap between a powerful, competent President and a true absolute Emperor is still enormous. Thus, there doesn't need to be a false dichotomy.

 

Honestly, what they needed was an increased power of the Supreme Chancellor and a military to supplement the Jedi so the East India Companies of the Republic couldn't literally bully its planets with their superior military power.

The Judicial Branch Navy exists but in the same way COMPNOR exists....irrelevant on screen.

That would have freed up the Jedi and maybe let them relax a bit to note things are not what they seem.

Leia was also able to do it just fine as was Mon Mothma. It's just the NJO had Borsk Feylya who I think was mischaracterized.

Borsk is genuinely EVIL but he's not going to ignore an invading army.

You need someone completely incompetent for that.

 

Part 2

THE FORCE AWAKENS

ALL REMAINING SYSTEMS WILL BOW BEFORE THE FIRST ORDER!
AND THEY WILL REMEMBER THIS
AS THE LAST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC!



I think General Hux's speech is what caused a lot of people to immediately believe the First Order was a fundamentally different sort of organization than the Empire. The Nazi imagery was overt and without apologia with JJ Abrams describing them as "Nazis who fled to Argentina and founded a Fourth Reich." Which is, notably, the original origin of HYDRA in the comics for those who want some Disney-Marvel-Star Wars crossover.



On the forums here, there was a lot of talk about how the First Order "dropped all pretense" or was a fundamentally different sort of organization than the Galactic Empire but I'm not actually sure there's a measurable difference. Yes, General Hux is far too young for his rank as 3rd in command of the 1st Order but that's a pretty strange place to draw the line. The First Order blows up planets (Hosnian Prime isn't a planet of pacifists but it's still inhabited), they massacre innocent villagers, they torture people, and they blow up Rebels' hidden fortresses.

The thing is, THE EMPIRE DID ALL OF THAT.

Indeed, the First Order seems LESS evil in some respects as their Supreme Leader is an alien and we've got no sign they engage in slavery or human centrism so far. Kylo Ren doesn't execute his subordinates for failure either. However, we instinctually believe the First Order to be worse because the Nazi imagery is much more overt.

The depiction of the Empire in REBELS and the literature so far has depicted the same basic Empire from Legends. There's evil cyborgs like Count Vidian, warlords, and so on but they're doing the same things they always did.

EVIL.

The big difference, though is, instead of decades of war--the Empire was wrapped up in a single year. There was also THE CONTINGENCY which is something that still needs to be filled out. However, the Empire attempted a mass destruction of the worlds most important to both the New Republic as well as Palpatine's own supporters.

Dark Empire replaced with Palpatine attempting to burn the galaxy.

What do people think of Operation: Cinder?

 

I wonder how different the series would've been had Lucas gone with his original idea for Palpatine, a sort of "Space Nixon" who while definitely an evil power-grabber was a completely normal person with no connection to the Force and by the time of the films was rapidly having his power siphoned off by Vader, Tarkin, and other high-level courtiers.

Would've been a much less interesting character IMO.

 

Preferred the original version where Operation Cinder's equivalent wasn't an explicit set of posthumous orders, but rather the natural consequence of how Palpatine designed the Empire, filled its top ranks, and encouraged internecine strife. He engineered a situation where people's own worse nature (their dark side, if you'll forgive my cheesiness) would turn large chunks of the galaxy into his funeral pyre as they tore themselves apart without him lifting a finger.

To me, Cinder feels resoundingly meh by comparison.

Even within what I believe were pre-Thrawn books, WEG presented a slightly more nuanced Empire than 'all evil all the time'. Stuff about how the average planet is still pretty nice and the average person's life isn't all that different from before. Stuff about victories against pirates and whatnot. The Empire was still presented as a bad thing overall—with an unambiguously evil leader (and leadership in general), powerful unambiguously evil internal factions, and a history of brutality and cruelty towards more than a few people who didn't deserve it—but it was also presented as an actual functioning government that could survive long term.

If anything I think several later EU books walked back on some of WEG's portrayal, making the Empire more repressive than they initially portrayed it.

If you're talking about when unironic Empire support in the fandom became truly popular though, you're probably correct that Thrawn is key.

I blame KJA and those EU writers who used certain aspects of his work. Pre-Daala there were tons of female Imperials of all ranks and positions floating about, and they definitely weren't seen as unusual. Then KJA had Daala claim to be special for making it despite being a woman. Instead of chalking it up to Daala overestimating her own competence and shifting blame for her problems to sexism (insulting all the pre-existing women in the Imperial military who were doing things like commanding fleets without sleeping with Tarkin) or a few specific officers at her academy having it out for her, Stackpole took Daala 100% seriously and doubled down by making anti-woman stuff official institutional policy. A choice several authors (thankfully, given how incompatible it was with things that had come before) ignored, but several more did not, leading to a limited number of new Imperial female characters and limited use of existing ones. A pity, in my opinion.

Admiral Oxtroe would've been the ideal choice for Daala's FOTJ role, aside from the whole 'assassinated in 7 ABY' thing. A female Imperial admiral who didn't come with all the Daala baggage and had already been shown as willing to play politics with former Rebels.

 

A lot of fans act like Operation: Cinder was ridiculous and no Imperial would follow it but I think it's basically just the Death Star in theory of how Imperials are supposed to do it. Alderaan was an Imperial world after all and not in open Rebellion. Destroying the worlds they did is meant to terrify the galaxy back into submission (or so Admiral Versio thinks).

They blast a bunch of planets with their storm satellites and then everyone knows the Empire can kill as many people as they need to in order to subdue the galaxy.
Only we, the fans, know Palpatine isn't playing his "rule through fear of force rather than force itself" game anymore. Satellite Weapons aren't like the Death Star. They're a lot easier to disable and take a longer time. They also require setting up.

As such, Palpatine knew the result of Operation: Cinder would just be more gross outrage and hatred at the Empire. Enough to tear down the Empire around its head. Besides, Admiral Versio is not the first Imperial to be ordered to destroy his homeworld. It's possible Palpatine would have ordered his Legends counterpart to do it like Hethrir.

Honestly, I'm inclined to think that in addition to Gallius Rax, that Operation: Cinder and the Contigency was put in the hands of people who weren't actually that intelligent but were driven by ideology as well as short-sighted thinking. Grand Moff Tarkin would have taken the time to consolidate his rule but Versio is so blindly loyal as well as removed from regular thinking that he carries out the Emperor's will like a dog.

I also think it's funny to imagine there's a droid waiting at Vader's Castle on Mustafar to tell him this is a "parting gift" for Darth Vader. Because I assume Palpatine thinks that if he dies then it will be at his apprentice's hand.

Which it was.

 

Would have been intersting to see if Vader could have stoped the Contingency or not.

Also I forget was the whole send loyality int the UR part of the contingency from the start or just Rax's added section as part of his own plans?

 

Aftermath implies that Gallius Rax is the architect of that and plans to do it as his "retirement bonus" as he plunges the Known Galaxy into an eternal civil war. The Last Jedi novelization has Snoke state it was part of the Contingency. I'm inclined to think it works better that Palpatine had no plans for the First Order unless he had somehow intended to bring himself back to life.

After all, it would require Palpatine to care about what happened once he was dead and assume the galaxy wouldn't be under the control of a fascist state.

 

That's right and unless my pipe dream for a PALPATINE spirit/ ressurection happens in 9 the only signs of that is just Rax playing to Advisors Tashu's fantasy a and not really planning on bringing the Emperor back.

 

Rax doesn't believe in the Force, which is kind of an irony there as he's pulling off all of this as the orders of a dead man.

Even when he could have made himself Emperor.

Edit:

One thing I was always iffy about was the retcon that Grand Admiral Thrawn was doing everything he was doing as part of a long-term plan to stop the Yuuzhan Vong. It's an interesting twist that shows a set up for dealing with them but I'm inclined to think it gives Thrawn way too much of an "out."

I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it but for some reason the Hand of Thrawn is a Checov's Gun which never fires in NJO. Jagged doesn't even work for the Hand of Thrawn but the Chiss and we don't get to see his 40 year build up of military assets ever deployed against the galactic invaders.

It makes the whole thing a big Shaggy Dog story twice over.

 

I wonder if Joss Whedon played West End Games because the depiction of the Empire there is eerily similar to what eventually got put into the Firefly RPG and setting.

The Empire in West End Games was very much regionally based with the Core Worlds portrayed as places which were more or less unchanged from the Old Republic (with the exception of Alderaan obviously) and the Empire ruling with an incredibly light hand. Aliens suddenly had to have licenses and papers please but they were mildly ruled. The further you got from the Core Worlds, the nastier the Empire got until you were in the Outer Rim territories where they were at their most repressive but also most difficult to rule. Mon Calamari and Wookiees were newly discovered species in this setting, so the Empire felt okay enslaving them.

West End Games also postulated the Empire's hold on the galaxy was comparatively light because it's easier to roleplay that way. Many planets in the galaxy had only a single Imperial garrison with about 2000 soldiers, which meant there was enough to deal with the player characters but that if they wanted, they could theoretically take out the Empire on the planet by blowing it up (as Boba Fett once did in a short story). The chief source of the Empire's power wasn't boots on the ground but the fleet that was constantly in motion, going to planets and pounding the hell out of problems before moving on.

The Empire simply wasn't big enough to actually rule the galaxy directly so they were constantly expanding the fleet and needing superweapons like the Death Star. But they were stretched very very thin.

 

Oh, I agree. Even if Palpatine was getting ready to fight them, he wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart but because they were infringing on his turf. And yes, I'd say the overall increased militarization of the Galaxy, which continued into the New Republic, helped defend against the Vong. The Ruusan Republic and the NuCanon New Republic wouldn't have stood a chance.

Yes, but the ERE lasted longer than the WRE. This can't really be disputed as its something that happened. As well as having a localized democracy doesn't discount the central government being authoritarian by our standards.

Honestly, a restored Imperial Senate with some limited power would've gone a long way to ensure Roan Fel's continued reign, and the Moffs being kept at bay.

She was horribly miscast in her role, and while I've come to accept her as a plausible CoS (Sinrebirth's made some good arguments that swayed me), I've always supported the notion that Daala should've just been a surviving Caedus. There was literally no point in taking out your dictatorial CoS villain to replace him with... another dictatorial CoS villain. Caedus should've won in LOTF and have had Daala's FOTJ role, I can't stress this enough. Plus imagine Caedus and Luke teaming up against Abeloth, the tension would've been great to read about.

On the other options that were considered, Tavira may well fit alright too. It's been several decades since we saw her, plenty of time for her to have grown as a character and maybe become a shrewd politician, while also continuing to be less identified as an Imperial. Maybe a 'Invid Republic' was set up somewhere as Ron Paul's paradise and it arrives to help the Jedi Coalition. Tavira had more of a blank slate and didn't really commit the atrocities Daala did. Plus her history with the Jensaarai and even Jedi in the past could give her some good credentials for running on an anti-Jedi ticket.

The problem with the FO is we really don't know much about them. We speculate on what they do from their overdone mustache-twirling-like attitude towards things, but we really haven't seen how their society functions or even how their government does. Is it really only Snoke, Hux and Kylo? Are there more people in the First Order's chain of command? Pretty much nothing substantial has been said about them, so we speculate. Are they North Korea? Are they the Russian Federation? Are they space-faring Mongols? We don't know.

I think it didn't make any sense. In Legends, Palpatine specifically designed the Empire to fall without him. This is an allusion to Nazi Germany, which seems to be well-received by some around here, and personally its one I think fits with Palpatine's personality. I just don't see Palpatine the type to expect to get killed so he sets up a contingency. Far more likely that he just intentionally made it so the Empire literally CAN'T function without him. When people say Palpatine's role as ultimate villain has been overshadowed by others, I don't think they realise one very important fact, and thats that with Palpatine's death came the effective end of a united galactic government, possibly permanently.

In New Canon, Cinder just limited the potential stories they could tell of NR vs Empire/Warlords. I'd have accepted it more if it was Rax's plan, and that the time had been stretched from a few months to a few years after Endor, where its mentioned he's eliminated the likes of Kaine, Isard, Pestage, Zsinj in his bid to 'purify' the Empire and turn it into the First Order.

Well, I legitimately don't think the Galaxy can really fit under one government as I've stated. Its really impossible to believe that a 'perfect' democratic Republic or a 'perfect' totalitarian state can just rule the entire Galaxy without there being some major issues. Hell, in the Old Republic, not every member world was a democracy. A lot of the Core Worlds, which is the bulk of the Republic's power, were aristocrats that just appointed themselves to power, or established "democratic" systems which they ended up dominating anyway. When we speak of democracy (at least in Legends, we don't know of the OR in NuCanon) its way more similar to Roman "democracy" or 19th Century and prior democracies, which were really just dominated by elites and were far from egalitarian.

 

From Thrawn to the Felpire I think you can draw a line that is about asking: If these regimes are so awful, how do they ever get off the ground?

The stories give various answers to this, but they tend be variations on: The individuals are inclined towards deferring to authority and wish to inflict it on others, the "order" motive.

What this hides is the individual freely surrendering their autonomy because they don't want the responsibility that comes with free will, which I'd see as the true appeal of the Empire in all its forms. "I had no choice", "my orders", that old classic "the greater good" - all of it is about getting an escape clause from doing something utterly awful.

One thing that continues to surprise me are the lengths people go to, in order to convince their self that either Thrawn or the Felpire really aren't that bad. Yes, they are, they always were, they were just better at fooling people as to their true nature. Like Dooku, Thrawn or Emperor Fel could, if you're not careful, talk you into backing them. It makes them excellent villains.

 

The Contingency/Operation: Cinder is the difference between Legends and Canon Empire: without Cinder in Legends, the post-Palpatine Empire was able to try to rebrand itself as a "kinder, gentler Empire," interested in nothing more than order with some "regrettable" collateral damage. In canon, Cinder doesn't give the Imperialist loyalists any chance to put together than propaganda, at least not to the extent their Legends counterparts were able to. As Joker in Dark Knight said, the Imperialists were shown for what they really are.

 

I basically agree with you, but it makes for fun what if discussions and its always good to have little bit of moral gray in a story. I think that's why Thrawn became so popular with fans, because he was an Imperial officer you could actually admire and imagine doing a good job if he was the Emperor. Especially in the old EU, where most of the NR politicians were scheming idiots and there was one crises after another.

With the nuCanon, Lucasfilm totally agrees with what you wrote and is really trying hard to tell us just how bad the Empire and FO are, so nobody would even think that maybe the Empire had the right idea. The anti-fascist/totalitarian message became much more obvious in the nuCanon compared to the old.

I always saw the FO more akin to something like ISIS on steroids. While the Empire was pretty much Nazi Germany.

Amidala was elected, but Leia wasn't. Alderaan is a hereditary monarchy, not elective. So even though Princess Leia is fighting against the Empire, she had absolutely no issues with the fact that nobody elected her parents or her. And from the way Alderaan is described in the Princess of Alderaan novel, it seems its an absolutist monarchy, as they don't even have some kind of parliament. The Empire had at least the Imperial Senate, even if it was mainly symbolic.

Alderaan in SW universe is pretty much a giant argument for an enlightenment monarchy, as its always portrayed as one of the best worlds in the galaxy to live on. So I guess Lucasfilm is trying to tell us that perhaps the Empire wouldn't be so bad if it was run by someone like Bria or Leia Organa?

I think the comparisons to the British Empire in the OT were very intentional. The conflict between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is basically the American Revolutionary War. Small band of rebels is fighting an oppressive monarchy, so they can establish a democratic republic.

And the Clone Wars are the American Civil War. On one side is Republic trying to prevent some of its member worlds from leaving and on the other is a Confederacy that is okay with slavery and is run by an elderly gentleman who would feel right at home running a plantation.

 

In fact, you are wrong in Legends, because Leia says Alderaan was a constitutional monarchy in The Courtship of Princess Leia. It's part of why she's disgusted with Hapes. Ironically, Luke is defending feudalism....which, not cool Luke. Even if you want to bang Isodor's mom.

Thank Claudia Gray for her take on it.

I think they've dealt with that in canon as well as we have the Great Houses, which INCLUDES Alderaan, explained to be constitutional monarchies. It's one of the themes of the novel that Leia thinks the whole thing is ridiculous and their titles are pointless save for opening shopping malls. This is probably a good decision as I think the conflict between feudalism and fascism isn't a very entertaining idea.

I think it fits Palpatine's personality because the introduction of the Rule of Two means that Palpatine now has a much bigger likelihood of being murdered by his apprentice. Also, this universe lacks a Transfer Force power that we've seen. As such, Palpatine knows death is always a possibility unless he succeeds in surpassing his old master.

Also, Operation: Cinder is also an allusion to Nazi Germany as it is a reference to both Hitler's orders to destroy Paris and Germany's industrial base. The irony is that we don't see any Albert Speer-esque characters refusing the order. Albeit, I think it'd be appropriate if Mas Ameda loses his power because he didn't set up the weather satellites over Coruscant.

"Is Coruscant burning?"

Well, Rax eliminated all of the other Warlords and united the Empire under his authority in a surprisingly short amount of time. So, what you're saying is canon. It's ironically this which allowed the Empire to be destroyed because it made the Empire one enormous target they were able to destroy.

I do think the elimination of the Warlord period is a good thing because we've already had those stories and it's not a great idea to repeat them over again.

The First Order is Sloane's baby, though, rather than Rax's even if she stole his modeling clay.

 

Regards the accents, in RTJ the Empires accents sound North American, I'm wondering if that was deliberate with the Ewoks being the Viet Cong ?

 

Out of Universe, it's just Lucas recruiting American actors versus making an artistic choice.

In-universe it's kind of interesting the Corellians are the Americans of the universe but theyre Core Worlders while Coruscant is the British pronunciation of accents. I always thought Jerjerrod was meant to be from the Outer Rim territories like Luke as a contrast to Grand Moff Tarkin but Jerjerrod is from the Core Worlds and Grand Moff Tarkin grew up in the Outer Rim.

The geographical bias of canon is no longer Firefly because Palpatine is a Midrimmer from Space Kansas City, Vader is from Tatooine, and Grand Moff Tarkin is from the Outer Rim too. Plus the Outer RIm is full of rich alien-ruled worlds like the Trade Federation's planets.

 

To be fair Eriadu and Naboo were pretty much Core outposts. Same with the entirety of the New Territories, minus Agamar I guess.

 

Like how Chicago is seen as part of the "coastal elite" despite being solidly in the Midwest.

 

Yeah, the whole ground battle on Endor is a reference to Vietnam. Lucas wanted to show that less technologically advanced people can defeat technologically superior opponent.

 

I mentioned a couple of times that LUCIFER'S STAR, my second best selling book was based around my years of Star Wars fandom and the question of "What happened to all the Imperials after ROTJ?" I confess, that is actually one of my biggest fandom regrets for the end of Legends because there were a bunch of characters on the side of the Empire we never got proper endings to the stories of.

* Jahan Cross
* Janek "Tank" Sunber
* Starkiller
* Tavira

We've had a bunch of Imperial defector stories over the years and those who stayed loyal regardless. I was curious if you guys would share which stories you think worked best and which didn't.

So far, I think the best was Ciena Ree and the worst so far is Iden Versio, which is a shame because she started really good in Inferno Squadron.

 

I disagree. I like racist, not just speciest Empire/FO.

I want there to be a clear and overt message that fascism is almost always connected to racism.

I want racists to see this message and feel uncomfortable and cry that Star Wars is an "SJW snow flake" video.

I don't want "cool" fascist toys.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing