The Emperor is an idiot

Don't get me wrong. I love SW. But, with the OT, I could never quite suspect disbelief. And the reason is the title of this post. The Empire is simply not believable.

The PT is a different matter. Palpatine's rise to power is absolutely realistic. But the nature of the Empire is not.

Here's the deal: even if a real Empire acted the way GL's creation does, it would never look the same. The Empire gave up on the propaganda war, ceding victory in it to the Rebels.

What little we know about Imperial propaganda from the EU (and nothing from the movies) suggests that it is clumsy. It simply wouldn't work. You can make all the movies you want that depict stormtroopers as heroes, but when you name your ships things like Avenger, Devastator, Tyrant, Executor, Iron Fist and the Death Star, these reels would be counter-productive.

This is clear when Luke comes back to his house on Tatooine in ANH and sees the bodies of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru burned to crisp. The imperials might as well have carved "we killed them" in stone. That's not how totalitarian states (both real, i.e. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and fictional. i.e. Ingsoc in 1984) work. In these places, people dissapear, and are never seen again-dead or alive.

The dissolution of the Senate is another example. Why? It was already a rubber-stamp body, just like the Reighstag under Hitler and the Congress of People's Deputies under Stalin. The dictators set these "parliaments" up to give themselves an illusion of legitimacy. The Senate could simply pass a resolution granting regional governors control-the result would be the same.

A real Empire would have used euphemisms, obfuscation, and uncertainty whenever possible.

P.S. Challenge: imagine you have a role in the Empire similar to that of Winston Smith in 1984. Your assignment: come up with a name for the Death Star in Newspeak.

 

You just wait till the Imperial Loyalists get here, you are in sooooo much trouble.

 

So you're saying part of the reason that the Empire failed was because they had silly, arrogant names for their ships? Sorry, I'm not seeing that one--it's a fictional world, and the names are made as such to give the audience a greater understanding of the nature of the Empire.

I do understand your point about the murder of Owen and Beru, but at the same time, they're in the middle of nowhere, not very important, and no one is really going to notice or care. The point was that the Empire killed them, not how it did so. The image of their charred remains was a visual storytelling device to show the audience that the Empire was cruel.

And, for the record, I've always seen the Empire as more closely related to the Roman Empire rather than Nazi Germany.

Edit:

Darth-Dispicable posted on 1/10/05 9:12am

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You just wait till the Imperial Loyalists get here, you are in sooooo much trouble. [face_tongue]
[hr][/blockquote] Very true. PoT and Jello, especially.

 

The Imperial public was led to believe the death star was a mining ship.

I really don't see how the Emperor is an idiot, maybe it's just you.

 

So you're saying part of the reason that the Empire failed was because they had silly, arrogant names for their ships?

No, what I'm saying is that the Empire failed, at least in part, because it made no attempts to disguise its nature, or appeal to any sort of higher ideal.

And, for the record, I've always seen the Empire as more closely related to the Roman Empire rather than Nazi Germany.

At the time of the Roman Empire, it took months to transfer information and years to move military units. In that situation, a rebellion would be crushed before it could grow big enough. Takeovers of government could only come from within the Imperial military. That's emphatically not what's happenning in SW. It's a real rebellion, not a military coup.

 

The Imperial public was led to believe the death star was a mining ship.

Maybe the name should have given somebody a clue.

 

Maybe they didn't tell the Imperial public the name. Only the Rebels and Imperial military knew it was called the Death Star.

 

In the A New Hope: Infinities comic, it is revealed that, had it survived long enough, the public name for the space station would have been the Justice Star.

We see so many of the Empire's atrocities that to us, their propaganda seems easy to see through. However, who says the public even knew all the ship names of the ships in the Empire? They probably barely knew any, considering that the fleet consisted of many millions of ships of varying types and sizes. There was a Star Destroyer called Adjudicator -- the public largely would not object to that name. Those kinds of names, PR stunt names, were the names released to the public, not the Executor. I can only readily identify a few ships in the U.S. Navy.

Consider also the Emperor himself. His health is failing due to his attachment to the dark side, but this can easily be spun by PR officers -- the Emperor appears to the public to be working so hard for them that he has health problems. The last days of the Republic were filled with corruption and chaos -- Palpatine promised something better than that, and so the public willingly accepted his rule.

The Emperor's propaganda is far more subtle than many might know.

Then again, the Empire produces TIE fighters and stormtrooper armor, and forgot to put guardrails on half the Death Star.

 

*Is the first Imperial Loyalist on the scene, although low-ranking mind-you*

"The Emperor is an idiot"?

You didn't just post that...

Well, time to do some preliminary mopping up, I suppose...

Ok.... well.... as for the names, who says they are negative names?

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Avenger = Serving out vengence against the unjust of the Old Republic

Devastator = Devastating the enemies of peace and order

Tyrant = A tyrant against injustice and corruption

Executor = As in, the person acting on the will of the Imperial Public

Iron Fist = The fist protecting the will and well-being of the people

Death Star = Death to the Enemies of Peace and Prosperity
[hr]

A good propaganda machine can twist anything.... and well, also, they did probably with-hold the names from the public, and replaced them with Mock-up names...

As for the charred bodies... yeah.... 1.) No one is going to find them in the wastes of Tatooine, and 2.) Its Tatooine for crying out loud.... nothing important could ever come out of such a backwater, primative world... I'm pretty sure the Empire would have handled it differently if it was on Coruscant.... or if crime wasn't rampant on Tatooine. "Hey the brave and valiant Stormtroopers didn't kill the Lars Family, it was the crazy swoop gang from Mos Espa..." Explained easy as pie... ;)

As for the Senate, it was demonstrated that it was a dangerous thing to keep around in ANH. Bail, Leia, and the various senators from Chandrilla and the rest were stirring up trouble and shattering the illusion of legitamacy of the Senate. The Emperor could not afford to keep them around....

And the Emperor's appealing to ideals? They were huge proponents of Order and Peace... that was largely what they were trying to achieve. Crush the insignificant rebellion, bring order and peace to the galaxy. And I think the Imperial Populace knew that...

I guess thats all the points brought up for now.... I agree with Alpha Red that Imperial Propaganda is extremely subtle, but very powerful. Thats why they were able to hold the worlds that they did during the Golden Age...

Anywhos...

*Runs off alert the gang and report to Jello and PoT*

 

Palpatine is a genius.

*Watches and waits for the Imperials to come in and set everything straight*

~Vassago

 

While the Emperor had to have been pretty smart in order to dupe everyone into following his orders, I do blame many of his underlings for being big fat morons. Take Tarkin for example, who blew up one of the most peaceful planets in the Galaxy. That one had to be hard to explain.

 

You're right, of course. We, looking more from the outside, see everything, while each individual would see only a small piece.

However, millions were involved in design and construction of the imperial military machine. Billions have served in the fleet. They would tell their friends and relatives.

For many individuals, the piece they did know would be enough. The Alliance only had trouble gathering adherents only because people thought it couldn't win.

In the Soviet Union under Stalin, there was a sentence called "10 years without correspondence." That's what it was called. That's what all the documents say. It was code name for a firing squad. If someone was given that sentence, all his friends would know he was dead, but no one could prove it.

Auschwitz was hidden. The attack on Poland was presented as a defensive war. The Empire doesn't even attempt to hide something.

A few questions for defenders of Palpatine:

alpha_red: Why couldn't all ship names be PR stunts?

Imperial_hammer: my point was that the Empire did not have a good propaganda machine, and those names prove it.

Let's see: peace and order? Even if the populace didn't know what was happenning, they would notice that every year, more and more people were drafted into the military. After a few years, it should have dawned that however the Empire was trying to make peace and order, IT WASN'T WORKING.

TypoCelchu: Why did they build the Death Star in the first place?

 

It was built to subjugate the galaxy, but the public was told it was to be used for asteroid, and uninhabitable world mining.

And I found an answer to my own question. The Empire quickly blamed the Death Star incident on the Rebels. The official word was that the Rebels took over the Death Star and used it against the loyal Imperial Citizens of Alderaan. The battle that insued over Yavin was said to be the Empires efforts to recover their lost Mining station, which they eventually destroyed when they realized that they could not recover it intact. Believe it or not, that was a pretty good cover up.

 

The Emperor might have been many things, but an "idiot" certainly was not one of them.

 

I agree. For someone to rise to the position of Chancellor, declare himself Emperor, rule the Galaxy with an iron fist for 20 years AND conceal the fact that he was really a Sith lord would take some serious brains and its clear from the PT that Palpatine isn't stupid.

 

So I'm standing alone? Damn.

OK, HERE WE GO: The title is an exaggeration. As I said, I was never really able to suspend disbelief, and it suddenly popped into my mind that the reason was that the Empire displayed its evil for all to see.

I don't really think the Emperor is an idiot, it just seemed a good title to attract attention. My idea was that if Imperial propaganda was better, they wouldn't have lost...

TypoCelchu: That's crazy...and plausible. Maybe I'll remember that next time I watch the movies.

Two questions:
1. Where did you get the idea?
2. If you came up with it yourself, do you mind if I write a fanfic out of it?

The real issue here is that while the Emperor is not an idiot, he makes mistakes that result in loss of power.

Your overconfidence is your weakness.-Luke

My idea is that this applies to much, much more than his dealings with the Skywalkers.

 

I thought I read it in one of the Rogue Squadron books. But I have been known to make things up and not even realize it.
How about I look it up before I give you a real answer.

 

Yeah I think remember reading that too. I can't remember where though. I know in Wedge's Gamble its revealed that the story about the death of Palpatine that was circulated was that he died trying to destroy a Rebel Death Star. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.

 

I think you're thinking of in the Rogue Squadron books, when they mention the Imperial explination for the Emporer's death.

It was something along the lines of Palps and Vader died destroying a Rebel Death Star over Endor. Many people believed it.

More from me later.

 

So my last post in other words.

 

Imperial March blares as the EUC Imperial troop enters

Heh.

As I said, I was never really able to suspend disbelief, and it suddenly popped into my mind that the reason was that the Empire displayed its evil for all to see.

*Cough*Rebel Propaganda*Cough, Cough*History is Written by the Victors*Cough*


The Original Trilogy and Post Endor Novels are all written from the Rebellion's POV. Of course they'll exaggerate the truth about certain events and make the Empire look worse than it really was.

 

The Empire is possible the most demilitarized state in existence.

There was an argument that the New Republic had even less than the Empire. I'm no Fleet Junkie, and I have no official source to base this on... would you enlighten me on this please?

 

Told you so.