Lit Fascism in Star Wars

That's a really good point and that's were definitly taste come in because I prefer the Empire to be more akin to the more Nazi-esq aesthetic akin to Aftermath and the films...(Plus I'm a big WW 2 buff) compared more to the British Empire or American attempts of Empire (Or some early concepts of the Empire being ruled by benevolent Emperors)...I mean at the end of the day all Empire is bad IMOP so...yeah.

Though I will say I remember Dark Horse comics being better about it...I mean in Dark Empire the Empire is a theocracy of darkness.

I would like to see the Star Wars equivalent of Communism/Socalism and all the rest that we consider "Lefist" ideology.

 

That the political life of the Confederacy is sadly underdeveloped is something I will gladly talk about forever before winding my way to the point that nucanon needs more stories about Bail Organa apologizing to former Separatists and begging them to come on board.

 

Communism in Star Wars

Ironically, the First Order may end up being that in a somewhat unfortunately offensive way (given the Soviet devastation inflicted by the Third Reich) as they are a totalitarian society that has eliminated all differences between its members, has a completely state-ruled economy, and is built around the idea of fixing the galaxy by imposing the First Order's ideology on the entire universe.

They feel more like Space Communists to me than Space Nazis, Hux's speeches aside.

Which I think is why they are fundamentally different from the Empire. The First Order is intensely ideological and conformist but not racial.

Honestly, I'm really the guy who believes they should have gone with the CIS being at its most enjoyable when they were mustache twirling villains. Palpatine needed a bunch of people to scare the hell out of Republic citizens in order to get them to give up their freedoms.

I enjoyed General Loathesome and testing weapons on lemurs and Blue Shadow viruses more than nonexistent moral equivalence.

After all, we've never seen a reason for the CIS to exist on moral grounds--especially in the movies.

 

Anarchism =/= terrorism. When i mention anarchist formations specifically i'm not talking about random bombings or assassination plots, i'm talking about the fighters who resisted Franco and those Catalans that set up anarchist organized communities.

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Sorry, my bad.

How would you see that in Star Wars?

 

You are the second I met today who said the FO was like communist.

I mean the FO is basically in my mind sorta a paramilitary cult also as well.

 

I agree, except that "there are heroes on both sides," and we know from TPM that there are lots of worlds with actual grievances against the Republic, and that the CIS preyed upon those worlds for membership. As such I'd love to see the Rebel ranks full of Koorivar and Skakos.

 

I think its been noted the FO take cues from North Korea and the Russian Federation.

So communist cues are obvious.

Also, Hydra with JJ Abrams literally describing Hydra's comic book origins ("Nazis who fled to Argentina and reformed themselves as a new government.")

 

Reason I brought that up is because I did another discussion about Kylo and the FO which I guess I'll put here because...RELEAVANT



I do like the HYDRA analogy too....Part of me will always a kinda wish the FO rose in a HYDRA way aka Winter Soldier....I mean it kinda does but I mean like there wasn't a state like the FO but it was being built parallel to the New Republic.

 

BLOODLINE is basically STAR WARS: THE WINTER SOLDIER.

 

More or less and why I probably really like that book.

 

You make a good point- a lot of the EU was very Sci-Fi heavy because at the end of the day a lot of the old EU authors came from that field of Sci-Fi

Also in terms of the newer/younger writers, I feel like a lot of them come from the fantasy oriented side of the world prose....and sometimes Romance novelist as well...There are still Science fiction background authors for sure too but I've noticed more fantasy in terms of the pull

 

Quite a few of the modern science fiction writers actually come from....fans of Star Wars' EU actually.

I mean, Star Wars was an influence since A New Hope and a massive one but I mean the people who lived, breathed, and ate it are now writers.

James S.A Corey (two writers under a pen name) created their EXPANSE universe from a tabletop game which was influenced by a combination of Firefly (itself a Star Wars pastiche), their past sci-fi role-playing games that included Star Wars, and other material.

Star Wars: Rebels was inspired by West End Games RPG in the context that they literally included a couple of the archetypes as characters. Ezra being based on the Kid archetype that was in the original sourcebook.

It's kind of a statement of how just ubiquitous that Star Wars EU fans are that in no less than FIFTEEN of my reviews, I actually got people to mention how elements of Lucifer's Star reminded them of Michael A. Stackpole's X-wing (which was explicitly a major influence).

I expect newer and newer writers will be the people who were fans of the stuff growing up. Which is why the older EU will never die.

Its fans will be the people who write the next Star Wars novels.

 

Or they just didn't agree that the Empire were or had to be explicit Nazis In Space. They had somewhat similar uniforms (albeit nowhere near the extent of say Verhoeven's Starship Troopers), but aside from that you could compare them to any autocratic group really.

Personally I find a copy-paste of the Third Reich with added laser guns less compelling than what we got from groups like WEG: An Empire which was a mashup of the British Empire, the USSR, the Third Reich, Rome, Louis XIVs court in Versailles, any number of other imperialist and autocratic regimes, and a Satanic cult. With internal factions representing each of these 'types' vying against eachother while dancing on the puppet strings held by the monster at the top.

I can't say much about how the Empire's portrayed in the new canon, since my consumption of Star Wars media has been a lot more limited in the past 10 years than pre-08, but if it's become solely a Nazi analogue I do think that's a loss.

Does it mean the Empire of Legends overall couldn't really be accurately characterized as 'fascist' except under the most meaningless and colloquial of definitions? Yeah, sure. But something being not-fascist sure as hell doesn't make it good, especially when the guy who has complete control of the system and is the glue holding its disparate parts together is a darkness-worshipping evil wizard.

Sadly I've yet to see anyone but myself push the "we have never actually seen democracy in the Star Wars universe" angle. I'd argue that in Legends the average being probably didn't see much difference in political power and lifestyle under Empire vs under Republic, partly because there was so much institutional overlap but also because the Republic was already undemocratic in every meaningful way. The only people who saw a change were those on planets which attracted serious and unpleasant Imperial attention, and people who used to be in a segment of the oligarchy running the Republic which lost power under the New Order. Which explains why the leadership we see are mostly former Senators and aristocrats, the footsoldiers we see are mostly people with a personal (rather than ideological) grievance against the Empire, and overall popular support was relatively sparse even among those who weren't fans of the Empire.

The real heroes of democracy would be NeoSeparatists rejecting the entire idea of a centralized policymaking galactic government with its own military, in favor of regional polities small enough to share common interests and for 'representative democracy' to at least approach being representative and democratic. Whether or not to keep a standardized galactic currency and a neutered Senate (think UN-level power at most) for diplomatic communication and conflict resolution purposes would of course be the topic of hot internal debate.

TL;DR: Down with Coruscant.
(Pls Jello, do not ban)

 

I mean that's bound to happen eventually with any franchise and not just novels....Movies too....Jon Kasdan was apparently a big EU fan and that's why we have a lot of references from the EU in Solo.

And isn't that the beauty now the fans will take over and they'll have there baggage and interpretations of things ...Some you'll like and some you don't.

 

Karen Traviss' attitude grew increasingly worrying over time, and I am glad the guys on this podcast mentioned it. I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I agree with their overall point. I have my issues with the new films, but they've done a great job of bringing the fascism back to the Empire, which is what Lucas wanted. I understand the drive to characterize the Imperials, but I think the old EU definitely goes too far, at times. At the time, it probably seemed harmless. Now, as we see a rise in fascism again, it's a lot more worrying.

Anyway, sounds like some smart analysis from these guys.

 

I think they were unfair to her actually as while Karen Traviss is all about the Mandalorians, she depicted the Imperials as pretty awful people I thought.

 

That is true, yes. But I found her politics around the Mandalorians to be disconcerting, to say the least...

 

Weirdly, they kind of came off as Right Wing Militia Fanatics to me.

Guns, Tradition, Family.

 

Oh, 100%. She also hated the Jedi, which could've been interesting (I think the prequel films heavily critique the Jedi), but the angle she came at it was odd.

 

I understood why because she was all about the Jedi Knights making use of slave soldier being unforgivable and evil.

Which it absolutely was a problem.

However, there seemed to be the missing piece that the Republic was the group hiding behind them and blaming the Jedi for it was weird. Travis created the Altisian Jedi as a nice counterpoint.

 

Apologies if we were...To be fair to her I haven't really read any of her novels so I wouldn't know personally so perhaps I was a bit to hasty in that regards.

 

The bulk of the One Sith Empire was surrendered GA forces in Stormtrooper armor.

Yes, yes and yes. This is pretty much what I keep saying, the Legends Empire has nuance and is an entity that has its bad and good sides. It DOES have fascist elements, but they don't really seem to dominate. It's like the British Empire having the British Union of Fascists and the German one having the Alldeutcher Verband (proto-Nazis, pretty much). Sure they EXISTED, but they didn't really have a lot of influence in terms of government.

Meanwhile in New Canon, the Empire is a full-on mustache twirling evil without even trying to hide or disguise itself.

I see Legends Palpatine as a sort of a Stalin-esque or even Napoleonic figure. Yeah he wasn't a very good guy, but he left behind a legacy that can be somewhat defensible. In NuCanon he's literally Hitler. The Legends Hitler I'd say would be more of Darth Krayt than Darth Sidious. Or maybe even Darth Tyranus.

Also agree with you on this. The CIS were pretty much -designed- to be an enemy for the Republic's citizens to fear and give up more and more of their power. They were formed by a bunch of companies that had detestable business practices yet were very powerful and likely would've caused issues for Palpatine's regime, so he united them into one entity that could easily be hated by the masses and then destroyed by him, appearing as a hero to the Galaxy.

That's Corellians, I'd argue. Mandalorians are more of Proud Warrior Race Guys, like Star Wars' own Klingons, or Vikings, Spartans or Mongols, to use a real world example.

 

For one, there could be cells of the rebellion that arent interested in restoring the Republic or even an independent planetary government, but organizing along anarchist principles via direct democracy and common ownership of the means of production. They dont want to switch one ruler for another, because they got a pretty bad deal under both. I'd accept Saw Gerrera being anarchist.

Could do same with cells of the Resistance.

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