Kyp was right to attack Carida. Discuss

Kyp's action was no different from Luke's in SW: ANH, and not only was it correct, it was a good move.

Cardia was an Imperial planet, through and through. Everyone on the planet was an enemy of the New Republic. In a time of war, every military force of the enemy is a target. How could Kyp pass up the chance to take out an entire planet of these enemies? Why shouldn't he have done it? I haven't yet heard any decent argument. Please, do tell me.

--DarthParth

 

Did you read a word of what I said Darthparth? ?

Like I said before, attacking Carida is both an excellent and wise strategic choice. Being the center of most officer training in the Empire, defeating it and/or occupying it would eliminate a vast training facility and uncountable numbers of recruits to the Empire. However, destroying the entire planet is not a military attack, nor is it a wise decision. On the contrary, it is genocide.

It's easy for us to sit here and say "It was right of Kyp to destroy Carida", because a) the SW Universe is fiction and therefore not real, and b) because the billions who died are fictional and not real. But this argument eventually boils down to respecting civilians in a time of war. Never, in any nation or war, has the entire civilian populace supported it's ruling government. To give a real-world example, many Germans opposed Hitler and his regime. In fact, MOST Germans opposed his regime towards the end of WWII, but did not speak because of fear of the consequences. It is entirely possible that on Carida there were many innocents who did not like the Empire. Remember, Carida may be the Imperial Training world, but it still has billions of local inhabitants.

Now, for Kyp to blatantly come along and slaughter, not attack or assault, but SLAUGHTER everone on Carida, regardless of the influence of Exar Kun, is sickening and murderous. The billions of innocents on that planet died as a result of Kyps disrespect for human life, as well as his temper. They were not fighting directly against the NR, they weren't engaged in military action. No, they were living out their simple lives, some more elaborately than others, when Kyp comes along and kills them all. That is not an acceptable act of war, like merely assaulting the training facilities would be, it is murder. Genocide.

Oh yeah, please see my other posts as well.

 

It should be noted by all participants that I singled out Kyp's attack on Carida because it remains the singluar act of his that isn't of the dark side.

Yes, as has been said, by Dev?, he did act out of a desire for veangeance and anger, but a dark side act is more than acting out of anger: It involves taking that anger, that desire for veangeance and using it to draw power from the dark side of the Force. Simply acting while angry, even a Jedi, does not draw on the Force's dark half. Kyp's anger was therefore the common or garden variety in regard to his destruction of Carida; not the anger that he used to access the dark side in other acts, specified in my initial post, in the manner of Palpatine, Vader and CBoath.

One Q that has yet to be addressed is the status Kyp has in this act: Is he soldier or criminal? KK would assert the latter I think and s/he may well be correct to do so.

This is tricky terrain to walk throgh but we need to be able to do so.

In regard to Koonie's Germany WW2 comparison: The German people's adulation of Hitler did not die until 1944-45, at which point the state became desperately repressive in the wake of the 1944 bomb plot. How much of this repression and how much of a resistance movement there was, effectively defeated after July, may have been known to the Allies but it didn't prevent the firestorm destructions of Dresden and Hamburg. Two of the most controversial acts of the Western War.

It is interesting to note that General Bel Iblis appears to support Durron's action; this is the same Bel Iblis who is willing to shoot through human shields in SBS. Could it be that Bel Iblis comprehends the darkness of war, an aspect often pushed under the rug in SW by military idealism, that war is a lesser evil to prevent a greater?

One last point: I did not find it easy to construct the argument that absolves Kyp of Carida's destruction. Nor am I unaware of world history. You state no civilian population has ever supported its govt 100%, true; but it's never stopped them being bombed and being killed by the enemy either. In both world wars civilian bombing was a deliberate strategy to break the enemy spirit; since then we've formed the view that that strategy is morally wrong. But sometimes a morally opton is all that's left, because the line between civilian and military targets is not absolute: How do you classify a power station that spplies both civilian and military installations? Is it right for NATO to bomb said station as we did in the Kosovo conflict in 1999-2000?

Could it be that Kyp's action was a lesser evil to the greater evil of allowing Carida to exist? To further support and uphold the Empire? In the manner of Luke deciding it was a lesser evil to go over to the dark side to stop Palpatine's World Devastators, compared to the greater evil of letting them run amok unopposed or rather, futily opposed militarily, as was the case.

There are no easy or simple answers here, but that is not to say there are no answers to be found.

Jedi Ben

 

I will point out, yet again, that Kyp had no authority to attack Carida. He was a private citizen who had no part in the military. He used a weapon of mass destruction on a planet.

Was Carida a military target? Yes. Did that give Kyp authority to attack it? No.

If, during the Gulf War, I, as a private citizen, had acquired a nuclear weapon and set it off in Iraq, would I be right to do so? Even if I wiped out Saddam Hussein's ability to attack anyone and saved innumerable US lives, would that make me right? No. I would still face international condemnation for my actions. Most likely, I would be tried for war crimes and various crimes against humanity.

How would that situation be any different than what Kyp did?

Kimball Kinnison

 

And I'll remind people that that argument has been acknowlegded in my post(s) to be accurate and good, unless someone can prove Kyp was a soldier and not a criminal. It's one of the critical axes of the discussion, something I totally overlooked in my original post in fact and thus unaccounted for.

No, I don't have an answer for you KK, it's a bloody good argument.

I do seem to have achieved my covert intent of getting a healthy spirited debate underway though, for the most part anyway.

Jedi Ben

 

Jedi Ben,

My comments were not directed at you. It took me about a half-hour to type them because I kept getting called away to deal with other crises.

I was addressing the other comments about whether destroying the planet as opposed to attacking the Imperial Academy would be appropriate. My answer is neither, because he had no authority to do so.

Kimball Kinnison

 

KK, your views are good, but I have a question. IIRC, Luke wasn't anything in the NR either, he resigned his commission. Doesn't that place him in a similar position?

 

IIRC? I'm not familiar with that acronym.

Luke's situation is a bit different than Kyp's. If you notice, in TTT, a special point is made about Luke's lack of authority (Wedge offering him his X-Wing). Throughout the EU, most of the actions that Luke undertakes, that involve combat of some form, are at the request of the New Republic. In a way, he becomes a government contractor .

In the JAT, the NR specifically gives him the authority to decide Kyp's fate (Ackbar's decision). That made Luke a representative of the NR.

Later, in the NJO, Luke has made a definite effort to separate the Jedi from the NR. He does not act as any form of representative of the NR, but as an ally.

Kyp did not have that kind of relationship or authority (at the time of his attack on Carida).

Kimball Kinnison

 

IIRC = If I Recall Correctly. Basically, I think I'm correct, but I dont know


The only real occasion elsewise I could think of was in Courtship of Princess Leia, with the attack on the Imperials. However, I suppose being with General Solo negates this.

Just out of curiosity this, checking you were clear there

 

A few points - oh, btw, there's another Brit here now!

1) Kyp's actions are very much of the Dark Side. In the battle with TIEs he's there laughing as people accidentally shoot each other.

2) However, we must realise there seems little evidence of civilians. Even in the evacuation, Furgan has it on basis of ranks! Certainly the Ambassador didn't have any family!

3) Someone asked, Does anyone understand what it means to destroy a world?
The simple answer is, no. None of us do. How many people are actually able to imagine a million people anyway, let alone the deaths of a billion people?

4) Carida wasn't the only world Kyp destroyed. Han and Lando find him AFTER he's blown one other system, with planets orbitting a red-dwarf. These planets were uninhabitable, BUT sheltered a starship-construction yard. Note that these people WOULD inevitably have had families, and although some escaped, there is no evidence everybody did. Even if no innocents were killed on Carida, it is quite likely families and workmen were blasted to bits there!

On the other hand, he did have Exar Kun influencing his actions - I personally do not, however, believe Kun could actually control over that distance. For crying out loud, if his power was as impressive as that, nobody could have stopped him!

 

Since we have planet-wide cities in the SW-Universe and to consider the greater scale of the SW-Civilisation a destroyed planet equals a destroyed city on earth.

Second, Carida can´t be the only planet in a galaxy-wide empire to train Stormtroopers and Officers, so the advantages of its destruction are questionable.

It doesn´t matter if he used the darkside or technical means, since his INTENTIONS were of the dark side.

Kyps action to destroy Carida was a crime and massmurder.

The sole purpose of a government is the protection of the wellbeing and the represantation of the interests of its citiens and for that task they are equipted with executive power and the forces, that embody those power (military, police and so on).

No councillor, no president told Kyp it would be in peoples best interest to destroy Carida and asked him, if he would destroy the planet for them.

Kyp didn´t act on orders from those authorities, nor did he commit his crimes for some greater good (like Vader for law and order), he simply wanted revange.

The very fact that he wasn´t punished for his crimes shows the hypocrisy of the New Republic, those people started a rebellion against their own government for similiar autrocies commited, but Kyp is able to walk free away.

If Carida supported the empire with officers and its destruction was justified and Alderaan supported the rebellion with material, money and supplies, the empire had every right to take them out of the picture.

Last thing about support of evil:

Nobody can tell me, that in an empire with quintillions of citicens every single one from the highest admiral to the lowest technican is evil, just because he lives where he lives and has to work for a living. And you also can´t tell me, that the empire would have lasted that long if the majority of its citicens would have viewed it as evil.

The condition of the galaxy, caused by the succesful rebellion is far worse.

 

Go post, FTeik! Enjoyed it a lot.

The condition of the galaxy, caused by the succesful rebellion is far worse.

Agreed. But if the choice came down between the Empire and the New Republic- I'd choose neither. Both have done lousy jobs governing the galaxy.

 

OK, one problem: Kyp's (supposed to be) a Jedi. Whether the NR military or populace support his attack or not, the Jedi hold life abova all else. Just like before and later, Jedi are intended to resort to violence as a last resort. Kyp wasn't even provoked. Now, if I were in a normal ship and was attacked by TIEs, I'd fight back. But the Sun Crusher was invincible, and he COULD have use these little things called LASERS to attack ONLY the people who intended to kill him. I agree with KK that there were probably innocent people and families there, but even if there weren't, what kind of coward blows up a planet that's defenseless against him just to get rid of the stormtroopers? Kyp was in the wrong, and if executing him weren't dark side, I'd be mad at Luke for not tearing him apart.