Lit The Morality of Empire in Legends

I wonder if this is true in canon as well, in which case it possibly puts Mon Mothma's actions in Rogue One in an entirely new light, and not necessarily a good one.

Mon Mothma could have authorized the Scarif mission but didn't, even though she obviously believed Jyn. Maybe she refused because she didn't want to lose power, knowing all the other Rebel senators would then vote to remove her.

Also, it seemed unbelievable to the audience that Mothma's intention was for her to publicly order Galen's extraction, yet Davits Draven override her immediately afterwards and say his words as Mothma's true orders. I didn't believe they were Mothma's true orders, but Cassian did.

However, if canon Mothma is devious enough to only publicly order actions that keep her in power or make her look good, and has an arrangement with Draven to do what she really wants, and this has happened many times before Rogue One, Cassian following Draven suddenly makes a lot more sense, and Mothma would be a corrupt liar who stays in power by fooling her Alliance voters, and has set up Draven and other generals to be the fall guys in case one of her more crooked schemes falls apart.

 

The novelization of Rogue One made it crystal clear that Draven had made the decision to assassinate Galen entirely on his own.

It also showcases that Cassian is aware of the difference between Mon Mothma's orders and Draven's orders, and puts it down to Mon Mothma being overly idealistic, not to her passing orders through Draven.

 

I haven't read the RO novelization. I do know it contradicts the Jyn Rebel Rising novel. If Cassian knows Draven's orders contradict Mothma and are not what she really wants, his whole rant about disobeying orders makes no sense as he would know full well the orders from Draven were treasonous. If anything, someone loyal to the alliance like Cassian would report Draven to Mothma and then follow Mothma's orders. Higher ranking officers' orders always override lower ranking officers' orders.

At least in the Empire, there wouldn't be ANY confusion over who to obey, Vader or Admiral Ozzel. Or Vader vs the Emperor. The chain of command is perfectly clear.

 

The contradiction between it and Rebel Rising was pretty minimal as I recall.

The RO novel scenes in question:


He thought back to his conversation with General Draven in the hangar. The assurances of trust, of confidence in Cassian's judgment, were swiftly being pulled into the amorphous eddies of his memory, but Draven's orders were etched in steel:
Galen Erso is vital to the Empire's weapons program. There will be no "extraction."
You find him, you kill him. Then and there.
Draven wasn't wrong to want Galen Erso dead. It would be a righteous killing as well as a practical one, the execution of a man surely responsible for the deaths of countless civilians. Erso's years inside the Imperial war machine could have no innocent outcome. If killing Erso saved a single life, then that was cause to celebrate - but if not, his assassination was no less justified.
Nor did the contradiction between Mon Mothma's orders and those of General Draven trouble Cassian. The notion of bringing Galen Erso to a Senate hearing - of exposing the Empire's planet killer, of creating such an uproar inside the civilian government that the Senate would move openly against the Galactic Emperor - was absurd on the face of it.
Mothma desired a leveraged detente - a political solution made possible through rebel military action - that was, to Draven and Cassian, self-evidently impossible. The Imperial military was loyal to its commanders, and its commanders believed that they, rather than the Senate, already effected complete control over the Empire. They were right. No peaceful transfer of power could occur.
Yet Mothma was an idealist. Cassian suspected she wanted a Senate hearing not because she thought it would work, but because she felt obligated to try.
Cassian admired Mothma. Galen Erso's assassination would free her from the obligation of a doomed peace effort.


And later:


"You should have told me," Mon Mothma said. But there was no venom in it.
She stood at her office window: a broad aperture in the ziggurat overlooking the endless jungle, its antiquity refuted by the hung plastic tarp Mothma used as a shade during rainstorms. General Draven watched her from his seat at her desk, periodically glancing at the clock on her console.
"None of it would have made a difference," he said. His voice was bitter, but the bitterness wasn't directed at Mothma. "We didn't hear about Jedha until too late. As for Galen Erso, once we lost Captain Andor - once we thought we'd lost Captain Andor - I had to make the call on the spot. Assassination instead of extraction."
That was a lie, but Mothma didn't need to know assassination had been the plan all along. Draven wasn't afraid of defending his choices, yet there were larger issues at play, and it was best not to muddy the waters.
"You don't know what would have made a difference." Mothma spun, brow crinkled in dismay. "You have no idea what I've been doing these past days, General. Since we first heard rumors of the planet killer, I've been straining to organize our allies in the Senate so they might push through a vote: a declaration of intent for the Empire's demilitarization and a reconciliation with the Rebel Alliance."
Draven hadn't known that, though such a vote had always been part of Mothma's long-term plan. He should have known, certainly. It was a humbling, unwanted reminder of Alliance Intelligence's blind spots.
Mothma wasn't finished. "I could make do with uncertainty. The possibility, the rumors of a planet killer months or years from completion could have driven votes our way. Galen's testimony regarding its power and purpose might have been even better. But this..." She sighed and sat on the windowsill, smoothing the folds in her white robe. "A fully operating planet killer, ready to deploy, and the Alliance has next to nothing? If I revealed that, half the senators wouldn't believe us, and the others would panic. I can't control panic."
Draven digested the statements, filed parts away for later investigation, and did his best to separate what was aimed at him from what was simply a cry of frustration.
"Does that mean," he asked, careful to show no judgment, "that you're giving up on a political solution?"
"Never," Mothma said quietly. "But peace may be deferred a little longer."

 

The novelization cements that Cassian was committing treason with Draven. The movie leaves the possibility that only Draven was committing treason, and Cassian was duped into believing Draven's words were really Mothma's unspoken words. Either way, Mothma should have had Draven thrown out immediately.

The Empire, Legends or Canon, wouldn't stand for that kind of nonsense. In Legends, Han was quickly shown the door the moment he freed Chewie, and they were merciful. Vader could have easily shown up in person and choked Han to death. (In fact, has Legends explained why Han was not simply executed?)

 

Well Star Wars is famous for it's realistic depiction of military hierarchy isn't it

 

Yup. Not the "overthrow her" kind of treason - but the "reinterpret politician's orders to make more military sense" kind.

She never found out about his instructions to Cassian at the start of the mission.

 

Also if we wanna add "Realism" into it because why not...Draven has a certain skill set the Rebellion needs and can't afford to just waist individual assets like that. Rebellions aren't known for having unlimited manpower and a large pool of talent.

 

Getting back to the morality of the Empire, I think I suggested in another thread that Palpatine provided the illusion of morality before enslaving species, ironically enough. I had specifically mentioned that Palpatine may have tried to invoke a planetary life debt for saving Kashyyyk from the Separatists in Revenge of the Sith, and when the Wookiees refused he enslaved them for disobedience. Either way, he wins.

Edit: Found the thread at https://boards.theforce.net/threads...hem-from-cis-instead-of-enslavement.50053295/

 

I always find it interesting though how in fiction most of the time Empire is bad...It's the scale of fictional government settings even when a show isn't that big on the politics.

Empire is mostly bad

Monarchies/Kingdoms are 50-50, sometimes they are on the hero's side, sometimes their bad, really depends if there is a empire to fight

and I've never read a story were a functioning Democracy is considered a good thing.


Like examples are Final Fantasy 12, where the Empire is the bad guy and the good guys are trying help restore a Princesses Kingdom (FF 12 is the Star Wars of FF)

and then even She-Ra, the good guys are called the PRINCESS Alliance because they are all princesses with their own Kingdoms fighting the Horde Empire.

Spoiler: Season 5 spoiler

Then in Season 5 you find out the Horde is way worse because the Etheria Horde is nothing compared to the True Galactic Horde of Horde Prime which is a full on religious cult and Hordak is nothing more then a brainwashed automaton who has been the clutches of his "Older Brother" and Horde Prime has implemented of Empire essentially trying to rid everyone of free will...Ugh, Poor Hordak...I love him so much, and Entprata

 

None of those are specifically inherent to fascism. Monarchs of various levels of tyranny have done all of those. Even the secret police wasn't an invention of any fascist, but rather, the earliest example of a secret police was one made by the Ming Dynasty. Austria and Prussia also had their secret police. The Gestapo, after all, evolved out of the Prussian Police, which was an absolute monarchist, and prior to that, feudal regime.

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But to get back to the topic on hand, yes, I did enjoy the works of Stackpole, Luceno, and especially Zahn. Its what has kept me invested in Star Wars for all these years. I enjoyed the grimdark of Legacy, and of the Batman trilogy, and its what I want in my Star Wars. I'm not very secretive about this. With that said, Star Wars is not mine or anyone else's, its for everyone to enjoy. Some might like the old canon, some the new. I will ALWAYS hold preference that Legends is better, and when it comes to Star Wars, will base my opinion around it, but I do hope NuCanon goes in a different direction. I don't mind it.

The Empire of Legends and the Empire of NuCanon are inherently different. NuCanon Empire is a bit more of a generic Saturday cartoon morning bad guy, while at the same time being every caricature of the Nazis possible. If its what they've aimed to go for, then they've succeeded. The Empire in Legends is more of a status quo continuation of the militaristic elements of the Old Republic. The sexism found in militarist cultures is present. Now, people often decry this as bringing down feminism, but I'm not sure how this can be the case, considering every sexist Imperial (rightfully) isn't portrayed as a moral individual. Its things like that which give the Empire of Legends more character. It defines the kind of people that Palpatine rallied to be his mass support for his regime. And its not the Republic of Gilead-type caricature sexism, its more 19th Century Britain, or the kind of thing you'd see in James Bond movies. And its fictional, its entertainment. At the same time, it presents a lived-in world where you have things you oppose and like about it, which makes for a better story.

The military sci-fi authors of the early EU, in my eyes, did better in their work because they sold and told interesting STORIES and settings. They didn't try to go fighting imaginary Nazis because the current lame-duck POTUS said some stupid things (which doesn't mean he could take away women's suffrage even if he wanted to, there is legitimately no reason to scaremonger about this). They didn't try to push anything. They told stories, and presented a very real and living universe while doing it. The NuCanon universe, on the other hand, feels incredibly small. And no, you don't need political thrillers and political scenes to world-build. The OT did it fine with a few scenes showing how the Empire works. The NuCanon universe missed several opportunities to expand on the Galaxy in-between Episodes 6 and 7, and it got so bad that they had to admit their mistake and just go branch off in a whole other part of the Star Wars timeline.

You got me to the point where I have to defend Del Ray again, but I like Crucible as the ending (over RoS anyway), with Legacy as a second continuation series, which itself ends open-ended before Legacy-War, allowing people to interpret how the timeline goes in post-Crucible and post-Legacy. Legends as an official story ended where it should. I wouldn't want it continued under current authors not because I claim they're all bad, far from it. I just don't think they 'get' Legends to truly continue it. If you got the old band back together, perhaps, but it might not be the direction development wants Star Wars in. Which is also fine.

 

Are we talking about the same early EU where there were superweapons every work and repeated attempts to kidnap the Solo kids? Even Zahn's Thrawn was petty enough to needlessly execute a man who failed to properly tractor beam Luke Skywalker (and Thrawn immediately assumed that Pieterson would not ever have any worth in his fleet just because he couldn't think up solutions that one time). And we got people like Zsinj who were also basically cardboard villains (before X-Wing series fleshed him out a bit later).

I love EU far more than New Canon but I don't think their Imperial portrayals were any less cartoonish really.

 

Different doesn't mean better or worse, just different and applying to certain peoples taste more than others.

 

I assumed that the primary reason was his "I was never properly trained for this" excuse - attempting to pass the buck.

 

Better in my eyes is what I said. I edited my post to define this better in a last paragraph. Everyone's got their own taste, and there's no problem with that. You can like the way Old Canon did things, and you can like things where New Canon does it.

Thrawn's a multi-faceted character. He's still a classic Imperial, but one with more noble intentions. He's trying to conquer the Galaxy for the Empire, but he has motives for that, which define his loyalty to the Empire. I come from a time when you could actually enjoy Gul Dukat from Deep Space Nine as a character (despite him also being a Space WW1-WW2 German analogue race), without having to say that he is literally in every possible and conceivable way, Hitler, or comparing him to Blonard Crumpb.

 

Except that's not what happened. He really wasn't trained for it, and genuinely believed (wrongly or not) that it wasn't his fault. He also didn't call in his superior to take the fall--Thrawn was the one who brought the superior into this. If Thrawn disagreed with Pieterson's assessment he should have said so, not falsely justify his execution (without even a court martial) by saying he tried to get someone else killed which isn't remotely in the dialogue below:

"Cris Pieterson, sir," the young man seated at the console answered, his eyes wary.

"You were in charge of the tractor beam during our engagement with the starfighter." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, sir-but what happened wasn't my fault."

Thrawn's eyebrows arched, just a bit. "Explain."

Pieterson started to gesture to the side, changed his mind in midmotion. "The target did something with his acceleration compensator that killed his velocity vector-"

"I'm aware of the facts," Thrawn cut in. "I'm waiting to hear why his escape wasn't your fault."

"I was never properly trained for such an occurrence, sir," Pieterson said, a flicker of defiance touching his eyes. "The computer lost the lock, but seemed to pick it up again right away. There was no way for me to know it had really picked up something else until-"

"Until the proton torpedoes detonated against the projector?"

Pieterson held his gaze evenly. "Yes, sir."

For a long moment Thrawn studied him. "Who is your officer?" he asked at last.

Pieterson's eyes shifted to the right. "Ensign Colclazure, sir."

Slowly, deliberately, Thrawn turned to the tall man standing rigidly at attention with his back to the walkway. "You are in charge of this man?"

Colclazure swallowed visibly. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Was his training also your responsibility?"

"Yes, sir," Colclazure said again.

"Did you, during that training, run through any scenarios similar to what just happened?"

"I . . . don't remember, sir," the ensign admitted.

 

Thrawn doesn't accuse him of trying to get Colclazure killed. Lack of flexibility is the reason he gives to Pellaeon.

"The Empire is at war, Captain. We cannot afford the luxury of men whose minds are so limited they cannot adapt to unexpected situations."

My conjecture that the blaming lack of training upset Thrawn by it's nature of refusing responsibility and passing buck, is just that - conjecture. But it gels well, to me, with Thrawn's treatment of people who don't make excuses.

 

"Evil" is a very subjective word. One man's Utopia is another's Hell. The Empire from the OT up to Dark Empire is clearly designated as villains, but from the NJO and onwards, its up to reader interpretation.

I agree, I went off on a tangent and stepped out of line. I can edit that whole part out if need be, so it isn't a cause for derailment of the topic at hand.

 

It's interesting how, in 2 scenarios of the Legends Empire, we have one scenario in which someone willingly and knowingly disobeys Imperial Orders (Han freeing Chewie) and is only kicked out and not killed, while in another scenario, Cris Pieterson and his tractor beam mistake (where he feels it isn't his fault, and more importantly was not knowingly and willingly disobeying Imperial orders) is just plain killed.

Which just highlights Thrawn's hypocrisy as he's number one on the people who make excuses (I don't think we need to be reminded of all his enslavement--including forcible conscripture of Pieterson, and supporting the Empire's atrocities, including kidnapping Leia's children, and enslaving the Noghri, is supposedly excused because he's "doing it for my people" or some other nonsense excuse).

If Thrawn really despised people for making excuses, he'd turn himself over to a war crime tribunal. (And Luke did as much for himself after the Battle of Mindor).

 

Thrawn's reaction when people don't make excuses:


"Have you anything to add to this report, General Drost?" he asked, his voice quiet.
Far too quiet, in Pellaeon's opinion. Certainly quieter than Pellaeon's voice would have been had he been in command here. Looking out at the Chimaera's viewport at the blackened wreckage that had once been a nearly completed and highly valuable Imperial Star Destroyer, it was all he could do to stand quietly beside the Grand Admiral and not take Drost's head off. It was no more than the man deserved.
And Drost knew it. "No, sir," he said, his voice sounding strained.
Thrawn held his eyes a moment longer, then turned his gaze out the viewport. "Can you offer me any reason why you should not be relieved of command?"
The faintest of sighs escaped Drost's lips. "No, sir," he said again.
For a long moment the only sound was the muted background murmur of the Chimaera's bridge. Pellaeon glowered at Drost's carved-stone face, wondering what his punishment would be. At the very least, a fiasco like this ought to earn him a summary court-martial and dismissal on charges of gross negligence. At the very most ... well, there was always Lord Vader's traditional response to incompetence.
And Rukh was already standing close at hand behind Thrawn's command chair.
"Return to your headquarters, General," Thrawn said. "The Chimaera will be leaving here in approximately thirty hours. You have until then to design and implement a new security system for the shipyards. At that point I'll make my decision about your future."
Drost glanced at Pellaeon, looked back at Thrawn. "Understood, sir," he said. "I won't fail you again, Admiral."
"I trust not," Thrawn said, the barest hint of veiled threat in his voice. "Dismissed."
Drost nodded and turned away, a freshly awakened determination in his step.
"You disapprove, Captain."
Pellaeon forced himself to meet those glowing red eyes. "I would have thought a more punitive response was called for."
"Drost is a good enough man in his way," Thrawn said evenly. "His chief weakness is a tendency to become complacent. For the immediate future, at least, he should be cured of that."
Pellaeon looked back at the wreckage outside the Chimaera's viewport. "A rather expensive lesson," he said sourly.
"Yes," Thrawn agreed. "And it demonstrates precisely why I didn't want Karrde's smuggler associates stirred up."

 

I don't think any of that changes the fact that Thrawn is selective on who he punishes for making excuses etc. This reeks of Thrawn posturing "I can't be speciest, etc. becaue I helped out that alien all those times." Yeah, but he didn't in the times we were talking about (i.e. all the excuses for Imperial atrocities Thrawn goes with).

Also note that after several losses we don't know if Thrawn turned himself over to the Imperial Ruling Council or kept himself in check in any way. Palpatine himself didn't trust telling Thrawn about his return, which is very telling. Thrawn was already losing the battle at the end of Heir thanks to Lando's mole miners, and we see Thrawn making the same excuses "we only lost the battle not the war" that he'd have executed someone else for.

 

Thrawn himself doesn't usually make those excuses - his allies, in-universe, do.