Lit Pellaeon and the Imperial Remnant (split from Thrawn thread)

The fact the war reversed almost immediately after Ackbar took over makes me think that Feylya's handling was less than ideal. Then again, it is difficult to deal with an unknown threat and judge total war as the only response.

 

The OT has rebels overthrowing the government? Why not simply petition the emperor to resign and for the empire to apologize for Wookiee slavery?

A disdain for politics and an implicit approval of violence as a tool to change things for the better is embedded in the DNA of SW.

 

The Moffs were a pack of wild dogs. The greatest failure of the Remnant was not keeping them under control. This alone caused the whole clusterkriff that happened in Legacy. The sector governance system should have been kept but the Moffs needed to know their place.

 

At the end of the day, I don't think Pelly himself would have seen the empires return in legacy as a great thing. Destinies Way Pelly and prior would have, but DN and LotF Pelly, that seemed amicable to folding the remnant into the GA, served the GA as grand admiral and came to respect the Jedi greatly, and who chose to die defiant for the GA rather than bend the knee to the sith, would have been horrified seeing his empire turned into sith puppets.

 

Well, it is STAR WARS not STAR PEACE.

Albeit, STAR WARS ON TRIAL (great book) is still nerfshavit about a lot of its criticisms.

 

Palleon I don't think would have opposed or disliked the Felpire though and he would have loved the imperial Mission

 

A disdain for democracy is unilaterally a theme in the EU. Leia, Corran, and Bwua'tu outright threaten a coup in the second NJO book if the civilian government didn't obey their commands in the second NJO book.

 

Luke has a bunch of gangsters and Lando ensure Rodan doesn't win in Destiny's Way

The Jedi bust Tahiri out of prison.

At one point during the new sith wars only Jedi could be chancellor.

SW is inherently aristocratic-Force users and their hangers on have so much power innate or potential they could chose to rule competently without competition and forever. Any Jedi if they dispensed with their illusions in democracy could rule a world(or worlds of their choice). Inferior beings like children apparently need a strong hand.

Heck I'm directly taking arguments from Palpatine's writings now.

 

Whoops. I sorta mentally consider them the same character, like Nick Locarno and Tom Paris. But between that and the Jedi so eagerly inviting an Imperial survivalist cult into the fold, I'd be worried about the future of the Republic too, if I was in that position. Especially if I was non-human.

 

The Alliance was founded and led by aristocrats and oligarchs bitter about losing power under the Empire. Their attempts to vilify COMPNOR are especially telling, no doubt a result of the fact that COMPNOR SAGroup's unprecedented galaxy-wide educational programs allowed genuine social mobility for young people of merit, loyalty, and ideological commitment.

Given that, is it no surprise that Princess Organa's definition of democracy is something along the lines of "The galaxy does whatever my small cabal of hereditary elites and personal friends decides is The Right Thing™" Especially dangerous, since those elites and personal friends remained in control of most of the military.

(While the Empire had its own aristocracy problem, true New Order supporters helped keep them in check. It wouldn't do to allow the same people who ran the Republic into the ground to dominate the Empire's upper ranks, after all.)

 

The Galaxy needs a force using aristocracy-a group of beings and their select allies to impose order and lead the Galaxy forward. Only those who are connected the power at the heart of the universe should be fit to rule. Non-force sensitives must be controlled and disciplined, the apparatus of the state and armed forces should be placed under the control of force users.

Only then can their be peace

 

Do they? As I recall, they just threaten to quit. (Which would take most of the military with them, but the idea is to leave Fey'lya high and dry, not actually overthrow him).

Which isn't to say that so-called "good guys" have never plotted coups in Star Wars. I direct your attention to Mace Windu...

 

My view on Pellaeon is that he had the distinct view of "My Country, Right or Wrong" taken to extremes. Pellaeon never betrayed the Empire because he was a loyal soldier of it, hell or high water. As a career Naval officer, it wasn't his job to question orders and it was his job to continue fighting until he was ordered to surrender. The irony is that Pellaeon joined the Navy so early in life that it became his home so he never had a wife or family or homeworld he had a particular fondness of.

It's only after Admiral Daala put him in charge of the Empire that he began shaping policy rather than following it, even after serving individuals like Thrawn, Palpatine, Carnor Jax, and even scum like Harrsk. My view on Pellaeon is that he preferred military rule and was more comfortable with it than democracy even as he preferred a softer authoritarianism than his fellows. His greatest triumph, ironically, was not keeping the Empire intact but realizing other people preferred being in a dictatorship too.

He turned the New Republic's own desire to let the people choose their own government against them and attracted all manner of people who preferred to be told what to do rather than exercise their own free will.

Which is a disturbing thing in itself.

 

Honestly? Kill Vader, Tarkin and Palpatine. Force Mas Amedda to take the throne and force him to restore the Republic. Goodbye Empire, hello New Republic.

The problem is getting rid of all three of those major figures. As long as even one of them is around, the Empire will endure.

 

I've been too busy to follow up on various discussions...

Just wanted to commented on this:

The thing of it is...which is more disturbing? An individual like Pellaeon who believes in a dictatorship or a group of individuals who believe in democracy who believe in democracy so badly that they are willing to destabilize other nations in order to deliver the miracle of democracy? Which, if a culture is unprepared and the majority did not initiate the steps to take democracy for themselves, can have disastrous, often bloody results.

I've been in philosophy of government classes in which democracy was treated as a religious experience. Like far left and right wing wackos who believe that civilization will just magically collapse into utopia given a state of anarchy, super "STARFISH REALLY LOVES YOU" type pro democracy individuals and groups tend t have crazy tweak in their eye and magic thinking about what democracy can do. They advocate spreading the fire of war just to deliver freedom.

I would say that is not better than Pellaeon.

 

I like it, but it sounds like C'boath.

 

@ Moffs

Sure, keep them, but limit their power by restoring the Imperial Senate. The Imperial Senators would handle the day-to-day legal operations. This new Imperial Senate would be limited in power respectively by the Fel Emperor, not allowing corruption to get as widespread as the Old Republic. Letting the Moffs have FULL local legislative, military and executive power is a really, really bad idea. Sure they were loyal to Palpatine, but you aren't going to get a second Palpatine.

@ Authoritarian GA/Rebellion

Well, like I said the bulk of the former GA followed the likes of Krayt and his tattooed ilk without issue. There were no mass rebellions even though the One Sith didn't really have the manpower to genocide them all like they did on Dac. I'll agree with Jello here and say the problem isn't aristocracy, rather I think the problem is bureaucracy. There's the likes of the Sector Rangers and BoSS that had unreasonable amount of power that no one ever curbed simply because they didn't want to deal with it. Now these BoSS officials and Sector Rangers just obey whoever controls Coruscant as long as they can keep a monopoly over their respective spheres of influence. Now obeying Coruscant isn't bad per say but it pretty much means they can justify accepting the likes of Krayt even though he has zero legitimacy to rule.

I even theorize that as bad as Pius Dea were, the BoSS didn't go against them because of that but rather because the Pius Dea administrations attempted to replace BoSS with a set of religious fanatics as they tried with everything else. BoSS didn't like their power being curbed so they aligned with a coalition that would leave their power untouched. The First Empire, the New Republic, both canon and legends, hell even the First Order should really try to curb the power of these guys, because I doubt it's just BoSS. There's a giant unseen bureaucracy that just accepts and works for whoever runs Coruscant or would leave their power untouched. Most governments reform the bureaucracy every few years. The galactic government hasn't done it in... ever.

 

Honestly, I do question the New Republic's desire to just let the Empire be and let be because that action had its own horrible repercussions. The Pentastar Alignment was only in an Adventure Journal ('oh, oh, the places we'll go' with Jello) but it really did give an interesting Post-Endor campaign premise. The New Republic didn't want to go to war with the Pentastar Alignment because they wanted peace and negotiations with them despite the fact they were, essentially, a mini-Empire.

Effectively abandoning their allies and those Rebels from the chunk of the Outer Rim territories formerly ruled by Tarkin.

While it's Legends not canon, I wonder if the hypothetical Legends Lothal would be inside the PA.

 

Nah, Lothal is Eastern Outer Rim, fairly close to Dac. Pentastar territory is mostly in the West, what would later become the Imperial Remnant/Fel Empire core.

 

RE: the EUs general disdain for democracy.

The low point to me, even worse than the things mentioned, or the Skysolos appointing Dalla COS without an election, was in FOTJ when the Jedi verbally eviscerate their legitimately appointed acting grand master for several books, and then murder him, all because he had the gall to prefer going through legitimate channels to get things done, (the horror), and nobody, not even Luke apparently had an issue with it. That was to me the "This is how democracy dies, to thunderous applause." moment of the EU.

 

This is why I miss Kevin J. Anderson.

Yes, I have issues with his Dune books and can't say his SW books were the greatest.

However, HE of all people would be the one to say, "You give me crap for letting Kyp Durron off with a slap on the wrist and make MY psychopathic villain your Prime Minister?"

Also, I loved the Essential Chronology.