Historical influence over the New Jedi Order

I will provide one example, and I'm sure other members can find a few other historical situations which probably influenced NJO.

This is not 100% but here is on example, I think parts of it had an influence on the NJO.

This is taken from a website
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
THE GOTHS
"Little is known about the early history of the Goths before they came into contact with the Romans. What little evidence we have indicates that they probably came from Scandinavia. In the first millennium B. C., they crossed the Baltic Sea and migrated into Northeastern Europe in the area occupied by Poland today. Later, they moved again and made their home in the area north of the Black Sea. Nobody knows for sure what caused these migrations but they became known as the Wanderings of the Peoples. Anthropologists speculate that changes in climate caused the land to produce less food and forage for animals during this period and the excess population had to look for new homes.
The Roman historian Tacitus describes the Germans, of whom the Goths are a group, as a people with nomadic lifestyle and a love for warfare. They looked down on farming as a way of life and actually considered the hardworking farmer lazy because he was not willing to make a living by warfare and plunder. According to Tacitus, the Germans considered laziness to be "acquiring by honest toil that which you might procure by the shedding of blood". It is interesting to note that racism was just as much a part of the human experience 1900 years ago as it is today. In this case, it was a short, olive skinned people who were the dominant culture and the tall blond and redheaded people were considered brutish, ugly and oversized, lacking in intelligence, difficult to civilize, and overly fond of warfare, murder, and pillaging. In spite of his comments, Tacitus does show admiration for the energetic and freedom - loving German people.

The Germans against whom Julius Caesar and the early emperors of Rome fought were different tribes who had been living in the lands across the Rhine frontier before the Goths made their impact on European history. These tribes include the Alemanni and Helvetii we read about in the writings of Caesar and Tacitus. This also holds true for the Germans about whom Tacitus wrote. The Goths were not known to the Romans until over a hundred years after the time of Tacitus. The hunter - gatherer society of the Goths and their aversion to a settled agricultural lifestyle was something they held in common with the Germans about whom Tacitus writes, however. The German tribes against which Marcus Aurelius spent much of his reign defending the empire, living in an army camp and on campaign with his troops may have included some of the first Goths the Romans were to see.

The Goths were well known to the Romans by the middle of the Third Century. The Roman emperor Trajan Decius and his son Herennius Etruscus were killed in battle against the Goths in A. D. 251. Later, a Roman Emperor earned the title "Gothicus" for the way he repeatedly hammered the Goths relentlessly between 268 and 270. This emperor, Claudius II Gothicus, was also killed by the Goths indirectly. The Goths had brought a new epidemic of plague with them, and the stalwart emperor died along with millions of his subjects from the horrible disease. Following the reigns of Aurelian and Probus, The Roman Empire enjoyed a period of security, prosperity, and peace under Diocletian and the family of Constantine. Though there was sporadic fighting with the Goths on the borders of the empire, the Goths did not pose a serious threat to the Roman Empire until 378.

Sometime during the period in which they occupied land north of the Black Sea, the Goths divided themselves into Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Both groups of these German people would travel a different road throughout history and would dominate much of Europe for two hundred fifty years.

The migrations of another people, the Huns, brought pressure upon both Ostrogoths and Visigoths to seek a new home. The Huns were a fierc

 

anyone?
anyone want to discuss history which influenced NJO?

 

not really my specialist subject as it were, but a very interesting piece you've written. I'm going to keep an eye on this, see how it develops.

 

Thanks,
Note: As said in my first post in this thread, I did not write the history of the Goths as seen here. It was actually from another website that I found.

Another historical info is NJO is a bit like the Crusades.

The Vong are like the European they come in for religious reasons to purify the land and convert people to their faith, in the end they fail.

Or it could be like the Spanish Empire in the New World. The Spanish tried to convert the natives and they spread diseases to them.

-Seldon

 

You should start with the spreading of Islam over arabia, nothern africa and spain during the 7th and 8th century.

You will find a lot of parallels to the Vong-Invasion (religious motivation, political, military and religious power in one hand).

 

I seem to remember the editors of the NJO saying that the Aztec culture influenced the Vong culture.

 

Interesting post, Seldon. The Romans:Goths::New Republic:Vong analogy is a good one. Sometimes though I think the temptation to construct historical analogies can be taken too far and are ultimately too rigid to account fully for how art and literature work. I'm not so sure that the creators of the NJO had precisely this historical episode in mind. What I think they DID have in mind, though, were the historical FORCES that were at play during the Goth invasions of Rome and Rome's eventual fall, i.e. the nature of empire, the difficulty in sustaining empire, national unity and division, cultural encounters with the "other," the inadequacies of cultural translation, the political ramifications of defining the "other," and the very nature of good and evil and what might possibly lie in between. When you look at the historical forces defining the NJO, this pulpy sci-fi/fantasy series becomes rather relevent, not just for helping us analyse how history works, but also how events around us are playing out right now. Even escapist literature can matter.

 

>>"I seem to remember the editors of the NJO saying that the Aztec culture influenced the Vong culture."<<

I can definatley see the link in the rampant sacrifice to please the Gods aspect of Vong culture.

 

When they divided Purusha, in how many different portions did they arrange him? What became of his mouth, what of his two arms? What were his two thighs and his two feet called?

His mouth became the brahman; his two arms were made into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaishyas; from his two feet the shudra was born.

The moon was born from the mind, from the eye the sun was born; from the mouth Indra and Agni, from the breath the wind was born.

From the navel was the atmosphere created, from the head the heaven issued forth; from the two feet was born the earth and the quarters [the cardinal directions] from the ear. Thus did they fashion the worlds.

Seven were the enclosing sticks in this sacrifice, thrice seven were the fire-sticks made, when the gods, performing the sacrifice, bound down Purusha, the sacrificial victim.

With this sacrificial oblation did the gods offer the sacrifice. These were the first norms [dharma] of sacrifice. These greatnesses reached to the sky wherein live the ancient Sadhyas and gods.

This is the Hindu creation myth. You'll notice that Purusha is very similar to Yun-Yuuzhan. Also, the braman, rajanya, vaishyas and shudras are classes in the Indian caste system. The shudras or untouchables are very much like the Shamed Ones.

The interview with the editors at the end of the Vector prime e-book on the CD that was included with TUF, did specifically reference the Aztecs. I don't think they referenced this myth though.

 

The way that the vong call anyone who is not like them an "infidel" is taken directly from the beliefs of radical Islamic terrorist such as Al Qaida. This series started before 9/11 but contains many parralells to the current state of American Politics. The pro-war/anti-war fighting and the politicizing of defense and how some politicians will sell out just to keep power and how people try to blame bush or clinton for 9/11 instead of Bin Laden. The 9/11 comission reminds me of Viqi Shesh and Borsk Feylya- mindless stupid politics.

 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,
Have dealth upon the seven-hilled city's pride;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night!

Yep, they were thinking of it...

However, this is probably too close to my rl interests for me to feel comfortable commenting - all I'll say for now is that to my mind, the threat to the Empire from "Goths" in particular and "barbarians" in general was mostly created by an Imperial policy of exclusion...

This "them and us" attitude is visible in the actions of individual officers and governors in the run-up to Adrianople insulting, harrassing and starving the Goths, and became official East Roman policy in the 390s onwards - expressed by Synesius, opposed by Stilicho and the Senate...

Between 390 and 590, section after section of society came to be defined as non-Roman in the eyes of the regime, and the Empire was ultimately reduced to a monolithic central government, a palace-city, and the defending armies...

Byzantium and the themes? Bastion and the Imperial military? Or the Galactic Alliance and the Five Fleets?

The YV, however, feel rather like a constructed threat to me... they're a distraction...

IMHO, the real barbarians in SW are the 'fringe' (though if we consider people like the Empire of the Hand and Garm Bel Iblis, this also cuts towards the C17th French Fronde - again, those who an ideology-driven government cannot accomodate)... and if we think in terms of the "barbarian" as warrior, we should think of people like Han and Chewie - a combination of former soldiers and excluded outsiders, fast-moving, heavily armed and nomadic, out for their own interests, but basically good-hearted - dislocated and excluded by the desire of the central government for "order"...

That's a problem that runs through the NJO - and whereas at the start of the NJO, people like Cal Omas and Jacen are merely thinking about the deceptive certainties of abstract order, and talking about what a wonderful world it would be if everyone "behaved", by the end of the series, they're in power, and those who could and did try to accomodate the barbarians are either dead or out of office...

The more they tighten their grip, the more worlds will slip through their fingers. They will pay the price for their lack of vision...

And either way, that's a tragedy.

[Blows up Alderaan to the tune of Brazil]

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Darth Seldon,

I was looking for something else when I came across this....

You will notice that not only the movies,
but the novels reflect events in our world
history....