Lit Poll: the First Order, or the Fel Dynasty with Imperial Knights?

Based on my old thread, now with the poll options.



https://boards.theforce.net/threads...or-the-fel-dynasty-imperial-knights.50042843/

 

I go Fel because at this rate a jedi empire may have been the best thing in the EU and it may be in the cards for the new cannon depending on how the story go's in IX.

 

1. Which of these two paths seems to legitimately be the most likely future for the Galactic Empire, post-Endor: the First Order (NU Canon) or the Fel Dynasty and Imperial Knights (Legends)?
(I know that it's arguable if either is technically a direct and legitimate continuation of Palpatine's Empire, but let's overlook that for now)

For me the First Order is. Fel requires all kinda of knowledge and history with the remnant and specific circumstances leading to the Galactic Alliance and the like. It is likely for Legends, but in terms of what is directly the most legitimate path for the Empire, I do think the First Order with its focus on seeming to be harmless and playing the political corruption game to make the NR impotent and thus unable to act and inspire less fervor from its worlds.

2. Which do you personally prefer for storytelling purposes for the future of the Empire and Galaxy: the First Order or the Fel Empire?

First Order again; I have said my piece on why I think the FO has been misused a bit and how the actual definition of what the heck they even are is something just now becoming consistent. However for us right now a story about neo-fascists who people hand wave as "just playing dress-up" and being harmless punks is way more fascinating and provides a lot of opportunities for a rule reversal, with the villains now being the rebellion. Yes that has been pretty much changed with TLJ, but that general idea is still there, and TLJ still has the FO invading. They are able to make us fear not for overt power like Fel, but through their ability to function unmolested and strike from anywhere with even a small but skillful number of troops.

3. Which is the greater threat to the heroes: the First Order or the Fel Empire?

Fel overtly, but are given a devil's advocate defense far more than I like. The FO morally and psychologically are a bigger threat. They are used in a way that emphasizes how easily radicalization can spread and how fascist propaganda is still working decades after the regime is gone. Fel is an enemy that while given that same ability to be about how people are willing to turn a blind eye and except authoritarianism, it is not used as effectively and used as a negative as much as it should.

4. Which is the more interesting and thought-provoking enemy: the First Order or the Fel Empire?

First Order all the way, this is where the real world stuff comes back in. A fascist grassroots movement rising up and accumulating support from arms manufacturers, opportunists, remaining Imperials, and those who are privileged and begin to fetishize fascism; is so much more relevant and scary to us. I don't need a new empire that uses the same symbols but is given a pass or honestly pulls the "but we are good authoritarians" with the series not fully condemning such a thought as firmly as it should. I love Ostrander and I know his ideology, but with the Felpire I feel that he made a misstep and/or did not convey his commentary as best he could.

Resistance is honestly doing an amazing job really dealing with the privileges of humans, and the compromises even those who know the evils of fascism are willing to make when they are not the ones who as directly faced their evil. The First Order and its supporters are not white-washed or given a devil's advocate, or even the chance to be used by fans to fetishize imperialism; they are through and through fascists. The FO sympathizers in the Poe comic and the way they dress drives home something more thought provoking and intense than the Felpire ever did for me.

5. Which would you rather take over the galaxy, and you personally live under their rule: the First Order or the Fel Empire?

Felpire would be nicer to me for sure, but I would actually rather live under the FO cause instead of being given a bunch of outs and seemingly legit playing the "we are different kinds of fascists" card, the FO is much more akin to the world we live in and thus their control would more readily result in uprising. The Felpire will misuse its powers as was shown in Legacy, but the FO will do so earlier and show the true colors, which means fighting back and resisting would be more feasible earlier. I would die fighting rather than live peacefully under the flag or authoritarian military states.

6. Overall, which one are you a bigger fan of?

FO

 

Well I don't really have to post, @vncredleader got it in one.

 

The Fel empire is more nuanced and morally complex. Not to mention the IKs are cool. I voted for the Felpire.

 

I don't know what's "morally complex" about the cognitive dissonance required to say "No, we're really good, honest, we just use the bad guys' costumes/symbols/government and military structure cuz they're cool! No honestly, I just really like this death's head on my hat and the swastika on my arm, it doesn't have to meeeeeean anything."

 

Eh, governments change and their personnel change, even if some of the iconography remains the same.

The Roman Empire of 0 AD is not the same creature as the Byzantine empire of 550 AD.

The difference between the Felpire and Palpatine's empire is similar in that while you can trace continuity, the personnel and character of the government has changed.

 

My comments in blue.

 

removing cause arguing this with Invictus again is seriously so stressful and not worth derailing things. already still had him blocked, and should have not opened ignored content. Though nice to know JP agrees with me on my response

 

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but:
1. The Emperor in the Fel Empire is actually a powerless figurehead who can't even decide matters of peace and war. The Emperor only gained real power while in exile. We are talking about pre-war Fel Empire.
2. It was not expansionist until the Sith-Imperial War, in which the Moffs overruled the Emperor
3. It wasn't solely a military government, or aristocracy, and I'm not sure what ethnic cleansing or POW execution you're talking about. We are talking about the Fel Empire before the war in which it was overthrown and replaced by Krayt's Empire.

As for symbolism... most of the symbolism of the Empire was the symbolism of the Republic much longer.

 

Pre-war Felpire is still authoritarian in nature and is....well and empire it comes with the territory. The shift to Krayt is pretty easy when the only difference is acting on powers the government already had. It reminds me of Germany.....not the Germany you think I am gonna use, Bismark was an amazingly intense leader and made an empire that worked pretty much just cause of his sheer iron will, however said empire was so easily and readily able to become a sham the moment he lost power. A government in which the institutions of power are inherently authoritarian. Keep in mind the council of moffs was already in control of the security bureau and the like. Here is what the wook says

The moffs had the power to declare war on the vong as well as control individually pretty much all the systems of power in the government. That is so abundantly fascist and military controlled. Sure for a long time they did not do so, and let the emperor rule, but for starters it is still an aristocracy if the emperor gets to make those decisions, and even beyond that they still have the power over all these things. They are military leaders and members of high society, not elected by the people, nor with any sign of a separation of power.

This is the Felpire as it was meant to run. They declared war before being the Krayt controlled empire, all the power structures he used were not even changed really. The council of Moffs now all had the role of head moff, but that was it, they all still controlled their vast amounts of power unmolested. But the big thing is the declaring war and going after the Vong, they stroked prejudice and fear-mongering for the sake of power and sparked many more systems, some not under their direct control, to get revenge. You telling me they had no intention or were not ok with the prospect of their war leading to the extermination of the Vong?

Also what the exiled Felpire did still counts and matters, Roan being willing to use omega red, yes he is stopped by the frankly flawed fail safe of the Imperial knights but hey at least he was stopped. But still it shows how flawed an emperor is as a leader, which leads to the bigger thing, the thing that was totally approved by the knights.

The execution of the crew of the Dauntless is the POWs being executed I mentioned. He told them to leave to the planet for "debriefing" and then executed all of them. That kind of action, particularly being carried out and not prevented shows so much about them. It does not matter if this was the exiled Felpire, the knights did not respond by stabbing Fel then, and that tells us a lot.

As for that final point, yeah and the swastika was a universally peaceful symbol before it was corrupted and given a new meaning by the Reich. The term stormtrooper predated the Nazis, but it has a very different implication now, the sieg heil salute was thought to be a Roman thing for a while, but now that has a very very very different meaning to the world.

I honestly wish I had not posted cause already thought I chose and died on this hill with several prior threads. Even deleted a response that was gonna be in the Invictus response.

 

Haha, I enjoy, but also get very confused when people call me "JP" here: I start looking around for the poster with the Jurassic Park screenname.

 

I'm going to go with the First Order for all categories. The Fel Empire always bothered me. The whole still fascist but now they're the good side is disturbing. And that is definitely what they were. The comics didn't look at how evil can be seductive by pretending to be good. Rather the Fel Empire was pretty much just standard heroes while still being fascist. That's not a good course for the story. Fel was shown as evil in the end, but the rest of the empire is still largely portrayed as good. Considering the story of Star Wars, this is especially out of place. It's made worse through the suggestion that Jaina Solo becomes empress and forms the Imperial Knights. This is a betrayal of everything the main characters fought against for years and a horrible future for the galaxy. Literally everything the heroes accomplish is undone. By the end, the Empire still has the most power in the galaxy and the Imperial Knights have essentially replaced the Jedi. And the story presents this as either good or neutral. But when we hear Pelleon talk, look at the Empire's pre Sith-Imperial War territorial grabs, see its alliance with the Sith, or Fel's actions it's clearly still bad. It's evil, just occasionally trying to put on a nice face while still being openly bad at times. Such a situation isn't good or neutral; it's awful and horrific. The story misses this and that never sat well with me.

The FO, on the other hand, feels like a logical extension of the Empire. It's what I imagine being created after Endor. It's the Empire stripped of all attempts to appear good. They lost; now the hardliners in control don't need to pretend anymore. They're openly evil and seek to undermine the New Republic and gain power. They have an incredible amount of fanaticism which makes them even more terrifying. This makes them a bigger threat than the Empire or Fel's Empire. The FO doesn't need to to rule and keep people in line. They're conquerors who believe it is their right to do so and they'll destroy everything that gets in their way. All of this makes them far more interesting to me. They're also a more appropriate version of the Empire considering the themes of Star Wars.

I have to disagree that evil, but good is moral complexity. A character can be clearly evil and still be morally complex. Presenting dictators as heroes isn't complex. It's more trying to defend the indefensible.

 

I like the Felpire, its the logical end point of the Skysolo Cabal continually interfering in every level of galactic governance, makes sense that one day they finally just outright come out and say "Screw it, lets just make the grand master the ruler of everything.", and so what follows is a dictatorship run in theory by "the good guys.", and it initially and superficially seems pretty great. But we slowly come to the realization that no, its still awful.

 

And yet, I don't have you on ignore. Who then between us handles the debate more maturely?

Also its rather rude, to announce you have someone on ignore.

Maybe, you find debating me so stressful because you can't refute my arguments?

Just a thought


In any case the Felpire is more compelling as an antagonist, more complex a protagonist, and more nuanced and "grey" than the FO. The FO is unambiguously bad, and no one can say anything reasonable about them. The Felpire though-it cares or at least it acts like it does, the Imperial Mission, the victory without war program, the inclusion of women and aliens into the ranks of the stormtroopers, the qualities of the IKs and its leadership.

 

I disagree with the notion the Felpire is fascist, because it isn't. The Felpire is at worst an aristocratic military junta, with elements of absolutis and oligarchy in it as well. Does the Felpire share the symbols of the old empire, yes, becuase it's a successor state. Or rather a continuation thereof.

 

I didn't like the Fel Empire very much, it felt a bit bland, but the First Order is even worse.

 

Neither the Fel Empire nor the First Order can be confirmed as fascist. Fascism is an actual thing, its not a buzz word for 'something I really don't like'. A very loosely defined thing, that changed depending on what Mussolini or Hitler wanted, but it was still an ideology. The First Order definitely could be, and it shows signs of it, but we still know hardly anything about how its managed. Does it have citizens? How do they live like? What's their economy like? They seemed to be all about private interests according to TLJ, which breaks from the statist nature of the Legends Galactic Empire.

We know more on the Fel Empire. Judging by the Imperial Mission, it seemed to be a welfare state. It definitely still has problems of a militarist deep-state, very akin to Turkey throughout the 20th Century, which has a tendency to just do what they want. We don't know whether the Imperial Senate is back, but it doesn't seem like it is, so that's another apparent flaw that it has, which is putting too much power into the hands of one clique. Which makes sense as a flaw, considering the Felpire is descendant from the Moff-ran Imperial Remnant.

The Fel Empire generally seems similar to the 2nd Reich. It has the welfare, which Bismarck introduced, it has an absolute monarch who is stunted by an out-of-control military (the Moffs/General Staff) and said monarch himself has his own flaws. It's definitely not some sort of moralistic utopia, its a flawed government, as any institution realistically would be, because nothing is perfect. Its not a cartoon evil entity like the First Order, which again, could be different from everything for all we know. But we STILL hardly know anything about it other than that it has Stormtroopers, Resurgent Star Destroyers, recolored TIE/LNs, Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren, Hux and Snoke.

Now I'm not saying the First Order doesn't (or rather, didn't) have the potential to be more interesting than the Felpire, even as villains, but we haven't seen any of it. Its absolutely no different from how the Galactic Empire is in NuCanon, even its competency hasn't improved. Its been half a decade since they were introduced, yet we still know absolutely nothing on what the First Order actually is. May as well just call them 'The Bad Guys' in the next installment and drop any pretense of an enticing backstory and plot.

 

I always saw the Felpire as more Byzantine I guess, maybe it's just the purple robes. But Bismarck's Germany is a good analogy as well.

The Felpire is basically a revived empire but sleeker, bigger, and more bombastic.

They even abandoned the "Nazi base in Argentina" concept the FO was supposedly inspired by in TLJ.

 

I´ve allways seen the Fellpire as the german Kaiserreich.

 

Elements of feudalism, too.

As I understand it, a lot of the power rests with the Council of Moffs, and the Moffs don't represent particular interest groups or bureaucracies (the way Politburo members might represent the Army or the KGB) but their own home worlds/sectors. Unless they're elected (doubtful), that makes them pretty much an old school aristocracy. With the Emperor being the monarch in charge of keeping the entire nation safe, and a few other national bodies like the Imperial Mission.

The whole thing comes off as very Ancien Regime. Something from before the days of modern ideologies like fascism and communism and liberalism and nationalism and socialism and all that stuff.

 

While Moffs originally governed sectors, the Moffs of the Legacy era seem to be more akin to really, really powerful Council of Ministers, in which each Moff runs a specific department.

 

That was the impression I got as well, hence the oligarchic feel.

At the same time however-it does appear the moffs power is mostly legal and procedural-they can overrule the emperor but they don't appear to have their own power bases, they don't possess sector fleets or anything that would allow them to challenge the emperor.

The imperial army and navy seem to me to be loyal to the imperial throne-not the man(or woman) sitting on it. At least that appears to be the principle. Though the 501st sided with Roan Fel, much to the consternation of lieutenant kiefer.

 

By that logic, Joe the Plumber would be able to sit on the throne and everyone would have to acknowledge him. It's just the rhetoric Krayt-loyalist Moffs and officers used to justify what was literal treason in an attempt to advance in rank.