Lit Imperial Distinctions-the legends and Canon empires

They realized the truth. That fixing the Empire isn't possible and they defected to the right side. When your ruler is the Dark Lord of the Sith and exercises absolute power over his Empire, there is no fixing it. The only way to make things better is to defect and join the heroes that are trying to bring an end to the evil.

In canon, there was no way to fix the Empire. The decent officers, pilots and soldiers figured that out and left.

Thane Kyrell, Alexsandr Kallus, Iden Versio, Del Meeko, Kendy Idele.

All good people who saw the Empire for what it was. And left.

Sometimes there's no fixing the system. Sometimes it's so corrupt and evil that just it can't be saved.

The Empire couldn't be saved because it was evil from the day Palpatine created it. It was founded on a fabricated galactic war and the blood of innocent younglings.

I always find it interesting that proponents of the Empire like to skirt around Palpatine's evil and how his wishes governed the Empire. There was no reforming the Empire so long as Darth Sidious lived. And as soon as he died, the Contingency was there to wipe the board clean and burn the Empire to the ground.

Going back to the original question of this thread, an interesting distinction between Legends and Canon is the survival of the Empire proper after Endor.

It's actually quite ironic. Legends Thrawn had no intention of reforming the Empire that we see. But the Empire does survive Endor long enough for him to try.

Canon Thrawn wanted to reform the Empire after Palpatine died, but never could (mainly because he was carried off to the great beyond by space whales). The Contingency burned the whole thing to the ground upon Palpatine's death.

 

"You Rebels are trying to tear down order and stability. Everything we've worked to build since the Clone Wars."
"We have no problem with order and stability. We just want to tear down the parts that are bad."
"Why can't those problems be fixed from the inside?"
"Because the people running things don't want them fixed."

Given how much of a reputation he has as an Empire fanboy, I thought it was interesting that Zahn nevertheless offered one of the simplest and best summaries in Old-EU-canon of why the Rebellion had to happen. What makes it really good in-universe is that it's coming not from a Rebel/Jedi idealist like Luke or Leia, but from Han, a professional cynic who's also a former Imperial, thus giving it that much more weight.

 

I'm personally glad even from a Doylist perspective that the empire evolved out of a nazi analogue. The world now needs nuanced understanding of things like ideology, governments and their evolution, the course of history, etc...

Making the FO a Nazi analogue works well as a morality tale-after all no one supports the Nazis or argues that their cause was desirable or understandable as do many say for the communists of the 21st century-but historically speaking and in terms of the cultural discussion of such-I'm more interested in whether or not the Bolshevik Revolution was destined for Stalin, whether the decolonization process could have been handled better, whether Qing China corrupt mess that it was, could have reformed, how ideologues mellow out over time.

That's a more complex discussion though than the "the empire is a Nazi analogue, the Nazis were irrefutably evil thus the empire must be portrayed in 2018 as a Nazi analogue"-that's a perspective I strongly disagree with.

In legends the empire evolves as an institution with some continuity and much change-the moffs remain the sort of figures they always were, but I'd say the admirals, soldiers, and the emperor changes in their character and their virtues.

 

Abrams and co. didn't have to go with the Nazi analogue for the FO, but, well, they did, so those are the punches we're rolling with. We're not the ones deciding that they're the worst of the bad guys --- the Sequel Trilogy is doing that, and we're just kind of nodding our heads and saying "Why yes, Nazis are bad."

Seriously, that's it. The films are presenting a Nazi analogue government as being sickeningly evil, and we're agreeing. I honestly can't figure out why that's causing so much controversy in this thread. Like... nobody here thinks that Hux is the good guy from a certain point of view, do they? Please, please let it be that nobody here thinks that way. Please.

 

The point is that the empire changed in legends, it became an even more apparent Nazi analogue in canon.

 

Double Post error on my part

 

Jeff - Excellent point, and no, nobody here is saying the FO is somehow "good." They're raving mass murderers, like the Nazis they're based on.

Nazis are inarguably evil. Unequivocally, yes, authoritarian regimes need to be resisted, and fought. We're all agreed on that.

I had a few - rather vitriolic, frankly - responses that I was going to post, but your clarifying your position helped correct some of my misperceptions. Thank you for your post.

Also, there's a very serious, very real difference between wanting a bit of nuance in antagonists and somehow supporting authoritarianism.

Back on topic - Finn is celebrated in canon because, as other posters have pointed out, he realized what he was doing was wrong, and as an adult capable of making up his own mind, chose to leave behind an evil system and fight against it.

But outside of Finn ... who do we have for examples of Imperials in canon who chose to turn their lives around? A handful, but not many.

The biggest distinction between Legends and canon, as Darth Invictus just noted, is that the Legends Empire attempted, over time, to move away from the authoritarian fascism of the Palpatinist bureaucrats toward a (somewhat) more inclusive (but still authoritarian) system ... it just never got as far as the New Republic, and slid back horribly under Krayt's Sith (and, arguably, even before Krayt's coup, with the corrupt Moffs).

The FO would execute anyone attempting to reform it, much as Darth Azard was wont to do under Krayt's Sith Empire.

To conclude - I, personally, don't like the FO both because they are inarguably evil ... and because there's no grey there.

Characters like Gilad Pellaeon, while still not people whom I'd want to be ruled by in RL, at least have nuance and reasons for their actions.

It doesn't mean I support them or what they're doing; it does elevate them beyond the typical Moff's polished "spoiled rich bro" mentality.

 

I point out that JJ Abrams is a geek who absolutely would be familiar with the single most familiar case of the Argentina Nazis reconstituting and then becoming a threat to the galaxy again.

It's....unsurprisingly, comic book Hydra.

Which the First Order repeatedly behaves like.

 

That's why I've generally come to dislike the arc of Legends' Empire because it's not nuanced really. It crosses over into apologia, IMHO, and becomes a story which warps the fabric of the storyline and overlooks a lot.

One of the things I hate in history is the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth which basically was created in the 1960s like we got hinted at in Bloodlines that the Nazis were this separate group from the German military that did all of the evils. It was all on the SS basically. It ignores the vast majority of atrocities on the Eastern Front were carried out by the regular German military and the full collaboration of the regular armed forces with the worst of Hitler's actions.

Gilead Pellaeon never actually redeems himself. He surrenders to the New Republic but he never apologizes for his war crimes, the Empire's war crimes, or the atrocities carried out in his name. We never actually get an explanation why Gilead Pellaeon favors the conquest of a galaxy that clearly LOATHES the Empire but somehow justifies his takeover. We never remotely hear why he thinks the Empire which is an undemocratic human supremecist organization that committed vast numbers of atrocities, is somehow superior to democracy.

Like Admiral Daala, the narrative just expects us to IGNORE Pellaeon is a war criminal and the millions of people he killed. When these forums were carrying out attacks on Kyp Durron getting away with blowing up planets of baddies, Pellaeon was defended as a heroic defender of the galaxy. Why? Because he's a popular character. It's what happened to Spike and many a supervillain when they're on their brief redemption arcs.

Also, the Empire never redeems itself. It's just SAID to redeem itself and we accept it despite:

* Repeatedly underwriting Imperial Remnant terrorist groups in the YJA
* Staying out of the war until it personally threatened them despite the trillions of deaths (The Hand of Thrawn does nothing to help the galaxy against the Vong despite that being its purpose)
* Taking every planet they take back from the Yuuzhan Vong and keeping them like the Soviets did World War 2
* Their working with Jacen Solo to help take over the galaxy again
* Trying to work Admiral Daala in taking over the Galactic Alliance again
* The Empire siding with the Sith against the Galactic Alliance
* The Moff Council siding with Darth Krayt against the Emperor
* The Empire siding with Darth Krayt as Emperor

It's why I like the First Order because it is absolutely nuanced. It's the failed attempt by Admiral Sloane to try to do the Empire "right" and I want to read more about that. However, the narrative never forgets the evils of the Empire or Sloane herself. I feel like the First Order is more mature because we see that Sloane is a deeply damaged person and that damage is sprad to her followers. The First Order is a bunch of broken brainwashed souls and yes, they use a bit more Nazi iconography than the Empire but NOTHING is done that the Empire didn't do first.

Hell, Hosnian Prime is a military target.

I *LIKE* nuanced Imperials but the irony is that everyone basically is ignoring that we HAVE nuanced First Order candidates. We have Rae Sloane and Cardinal. Hux, Phasma, and Snoke are pure evil but nothing indicates the FO aren't made of the same three dimensions as the Empire.

Which blew up planets, tortured people, and behaved exactly like the FO.

 

@Jeff_Ferguson and @GrandAdmiralJello - I assume the fact that I'm not defending nazism is obvious to you both, and you're just confused by what I mean.

What I am saying is that I disagree with you that this simplistic Space Nazi stuff is useful in the current political discourse.

Who are you aiming this message at, exactly? I'll let you answer and elaborate on that yourselves, but to try to explain my own position a bit better...

My concern is that by framing everything in terms of a battle between space liberals and space nazis, you basically exclude a great many people who aren't self-consciously progressive, or who find agit-prop messaging false and unconvincing. They may be flawed, they may be inarticulate, and you may not understand why they think and react the way they do; but if your messaging seems fake and hostile to them, you're excluding them from your idea of legitimate political action (and from your story), and that is the point I'm stressing.

This reflects a wider political paradigm in which the decisions of the establishment have alienated their electorate (that's establishment in the broadest sense - this does not break across party lines or national frontiers, and of course, as even Nazi Germany managed to contain some heroes, there's no question that the establishment as a whole contains a lot of sincere, well-intentioned people; and this same rejection of the establishment can also lead to New York electing Ocasio-Cortez, which at the very least, shows that this is not just a movement in one direction). But rather than blaming the rise of alternative politics on some incomprehensible "Nazism", I see this as a failure of our own politics (in the broadest sense, again), and perceive a need to reflect on how we can respond to and win back the alienated people without going down the path of intolerance (or more mildly, if you support liberal causes, will Ocasio-Cortez play in Peoria?). Simplistic narratives about punching Space Nazis simply don't help with that, in my opinion.

Does that make some more sense? Complex narratives about punching Space Nazis are fine, incidentally. That's what the OT is.

@GrandAdmiralJello - with regard to 'ships, the point I'm making is that the Sequel fanbase seems to be doing things with the First Order that basically ignore the "They're Irrideemable Space Nazis" paradigm completely. That surprises (and amuses) me.

With regard to Hux, I actually find that quite troubling, but with regard to Ren, I'm more open to turning the character around - but regardless of what I think, I would emphasise is that these fans are clearly not alt-right, and the conclusion I would draw is that the messaging is failing in interesting and unexpected ways.

@Vialco - turn this the other way up; the Empire that was destroyed at Jakku was "betrayed and murdered" by Rax and Bren Hux, and not even in the metaphorical internal-conflict sense that the good man that was Anakin Skywalker was supposed to have been destroyed by Darth Vader. The stormtroopers and the Star Destroyer captains and even the unreconstructable Moffs are victims here, deliberately executed by a tiny group of deranged manipulators...

This is genocide. That is not the comfortable narrative we think.

Only the Empire wasn't destroyed at Jakku - Grand Moff Randd and a sizeable part of the fleet, including people like Ciena's friend Nash and Thane's brother Dalven, bugged out to a different part of the Outer Rim.

Will that plotline ever be picked up on? Are we supposed to imagine they were duped into the FO later? I don't know... but as things stand, that seems like a different narrative than the one we're supposed to be getting... and me being me, I think that's a good thing.

@Ackbar's Fishsticks - Good point. I think the point that some people miss is that "defending" the Empire isn't about being anti-Rebel. We're just pluralist peaceniks, really. Which is sort of a Rebel thing to be.

And we think that you get a better story by navigating the dangers of relatable and worthy antagonists and the potential for extremism in ourselves, which I'd say is a very STAR WARS thing to be.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I don't know if you've read The Last Jedi novelization, but in it, Snoke reflects on the past and it's implied that is what happened to some of the old time Imperials.

 

Imperial Star Destroyers and Stormtroopers are not the victims. They're the victimizers. Their victims were these people.



And these poor souls.

Alderaan was genocide. An entire planet of innocents. Wiped out at the whim of a madman.



What happens at Jakku is simply justice. A just fate for the villains you call victims and justice long overdue for the real victims.

 

What happened was terrible-but Tarkin and all of the other imperials who committed atrocities were dead, in retirement, or executed by the time of the gavrisom-Pellaeon treaty.

The ship of Theseus had gotten new planks by the time of the Fel Empire.

 

This is the Fel Empire, I remind you, whose military is headed by the glorious hero and honorable soldier Morlish Veed?



It's kind of the issue I had with DEATH STAR the novel and how the Empire keeps portraying the soldiers who died on that as a great atrocity. Every person who signs up for the Death Star knows that it is a planetary destroying weapon the same way that every person who works at a nuclear launch facility knows the possibility exists they're going to drop the bombs.

I hate to self-advertise but this is something I talked about in Lucifer's Star that the protagonist gets repeatedly confronted by people who ask, "How could you not have known about the atrocities being committed by your government?" The Archduchy of Crius being pretty much the Empire in a lot of ways is something that repeatedly insisted that the bad guys were a small group of people or the leadership--and didn't we ALL suffer in the end?

Eventually, the book came around to the point of "You know, I had to be WILLFULLY ignorant tohave missed all of these signs."

 

Morlish Veed wasn't the head of the glorious Fel empire. He was a traitor and a self serving careerist. Same with Morrigan Corde/Nyna Calixte

 

Short answer: I see all the atrocities as part of the same pattern. That should be obvious. Do you really think some of them are okay?

The bad guys - Palpatine, Tarkin, Rax, the Huxes, and yes, little Rae Sloane in her fancy-dress costume - are doing bad things to people, and ultimately what they do at Jakku is a part of that. Just like the corruption of "the good man who was Anakin Skywalker" is a part of that.

Let's look at who the Imperials at Jakku are - Moff Randd, a narrow, rigid man whose limitations mean he can't see when he's being used, but at the same time allow him to be sincere in his opinions. Old Man Borrum, a soldier since who-knows-when who knows no other way to be and whose promotion has been held back by his political outspokenness. Ciena Ree, who while she's increasingly disillusioned, is still in Imperial uniform, trying her best in the position she's in. Nash, who admittedly is a bit of a headcase, but not a bad person. Probably a lot of conscript, too. Even Garrik Versio, who became an undoubted war criminal, manages to pull a redemption-and-forgiveness narrative out of his own suicide-by-Rebellion.

Are you saying that you support what Rax did to them, just because of the uniform they're wearing?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Your loyalty to the disgusting and pathetic inbred spoon bender shows your lack of Imperial spirit. Morlish Veed was the true Emperor of the Galaxy! He embodied the Imperial virtues we all know and love:

A BOOT IN THE FACE OF ALIENS FOREVER!

 

I think Nash is insane and needs to be committed, not treated as a "good" person. I think, of course, Ciena Ree is a lot less sympathetic than the book probably meant her to be. She's repulsed and horrified by Nash's words...except she does the exact same thing in justifying Imperial atrocities and the fact she DOES come to believe it's evil yet doesn't defect arguably makes her worse.

Nash reached out to her and she moved away from disgust....when she had no real room to judge him.

Also, seriously, what world has her miss Thane is shooting at them?

 

Taking your points one at a time.

There was no atrocity at Jakku. There was an attempted one, but the planet was saved. As for the atrocities that the Empire perpetrated, I don't believe I've said anything that could lead anyone to believe that I'm okay with any of them.

But, in case it's not clear, I'm not.

Your analogy about Anakin falls short because there's nothing good about the Empire.

The first four Imperials you mention don't seem overly bad people. But they're still on the wrong side. Garrick Versio attempted to wipe out his homeworld and his last act is to go down with his ship. He doesn't save anyone's life and fails to achieve redemption of any kind. His end is just and fitting for a man that killed billions.

I don't support what Rax tried to do. But the end result of his machinations at Jakku were beneficial for the Galaxy, because they ended the Empire forever.

I do support the end of the Empire. Because it's an evil regime that killed billions of people.

The fall of the Empire was a good thing because it meant they couldn't hurt anyone again. I'm not sure why some fans don't accept that.

There's a reason the entire Galaxy is celebrating at the end of ROTJ.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

My loyalty is to empress Marasiah Fel the first, our benovolent, compassionate, wise empress-who has led us through the bad days of Krayt's usurpation, whose selfless sacrifice and love for her people was above her own wants, all hail her!

 

She showed promise when she was prepared to murder her cousin. Not before.

 

@Charlemagne19 I didn't say Nash was stereotypically "good" - just that he's not a bad person, and to be honest, command responsibility in an Empire run by Randd rather than Palpatine or Rax or the Huxes might be his path to redemption. I see nothing outrageous or implausible in that idea.

And Nash's arc and Ciena's run in parallel, yes - but the conclusion I tend to draw is that expecting everyone to easily switch around and become good (if second-rate) Rebels is unconvincing, even in the reboot version of the Empire; understanding and tolerance are key virtues in solving this sort of situation, and really they have no need to become boilerplate members of the Alliance - all that they need is the opportunity to do good.

Now, possibly this reflects a difference in our POV of the Alliance; to my way of thinking, yes, the Rebellion is the right side, but the Rebellion is also imperfect and insufficiently inclusive, or they wouldn't be having to rebel in the first place. Going to start another thread on this topic...

But from my POV, there's nothing to stop Imperials changing sides while staying Imperials.

You appear to be arguing that what's done at Jakku is okay because you define that as "not an atrocity" - that is, I'd suggest, a matter of semantics.

How does the fact that Rax's plan is only partially successful make a difference to your definition?

Rax deliberately killed a staggering number of moderates and conscripts, and he did so for the simple reason that they would not willingly serve the concealed extremist ideology he inherited from Palpatine - their existence was a threat to the creation of the First Order. Take away the uniforms, look at the people. Look at the choice of people. This isn't about Empire versus New Republic - this is about the bad guys versus the people who they feel threatened by. Just like all the other atrocities.

Palpatine has been thrown down a great big hole. Rax and Bren Hux want to run away and hide. All that's left at that point is that agglomeration of people who are, by and large, not "overly bad people", as you seem to have conceded. They're only on the "wrong side" at this point because they're being duped by Rax, and are written as being unable to see through his scheme.

And the reason Rax is duping them is precisely because, once he runs away, all that's left is an Empire of those ordinary people. The paradigm is broken, and that would be a good thing.

Garrik Versio admitted he was wrong, apologized to his daughter, and received her forgiveness. The good man who he'd been was able to reach out at the end. That's pretty powerful considering what he'd done, and speaks to the existence of an underlying humanity, twisted by the machinations of a manipulative leadership and his own rationalisations and selfjustifications. And Iden and Del go on to use what they had learned from him in the service of the New Republic.

Because - as Iden and Del remind us more directly - all of us make these compromises, to some degree, with the governments and systems responsible for things we disapprove of (I won't be political and single anything out, but you'll know what I mean, from your own POV; we don't rebel), so we can recognize his flaws. Because they are our own.




STAR WARS.

In terms of specifics, you're ignoring the simple fact that Jakku didn't "end" the bad guys at all - Jakku was a scam by those very bad guys, designed to fool the NR into thinking they'd been destroyed (because the reboot!NR apparently can't grasp the difference between conscripts in Imperial uniforms and Palpatinists), and in the process to murder a lot of people who were a threat to them (because they wore the Imperial uniform but didn't really support the bad-guy agenda)... how can that in any way be good?

More broadly, I think you're making a fudge between the people who misled the Empire - Palpatine, Tarkin, and in the reboot version Rax - and the people who comprised the Empire as a civilization. The first lot are the bad guys. The second lot are a very wide category, and there's no clear line between the ones in uniform and the ones in the Rebellion (especially as Rebel violence and incompetence actually helps the bad guys - which is the whole point of Luke's hand, again, and the subtext of Han's cynicism, too)...

Search your feelings. You know this to be true.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I'm not sure a remnant led by Randd will be good for Nash. Randd was part of Rax's inner circle. He was the leader of the fleet at Jakku. He's just as bad as the rest of those Rax chose to command. He'd have to be a fanatic. And by Jakku, Nash is pretty far gone. He was loyal before Alderaan but that atrocity broke him. He became a hard core Imperial fanatic and he became progressively worse throughout the war. He's pushed further when he finds out Than is a Rebel and cheers the second Death Star and believes additional planets shiush be destroyed. He serves through Operation Cinder and while we don't see that part of the war, he's at a place where he'd definitely support it. Then he's at Jakku. Empire's End shows us how the forces stationed their are extremely radicalized. Nash wkube incredibly susceptible to that. So the Nash who survives the war is as true a believer as anyone ever was. To survive the trauma of losolo his homeworld he had to embrace the Imperial ideology and he progressively dived deeper into it.

Jakku wasn't meant to fool the NR. It was intended to destroy both militaries completely. Rax modified it by sneaking ships into the unknown regions, but it seems he was planning on destroying all forces in the know galaxy and then returning with a fleet to conquer a defenseless galaxy. I think the rebuilding in the unknown regions was a result of the New Republic surviving the battle.

 

I don't think Rax wanted to conquer the galaxy. He just wanted his own severance package like Pestage and the Hegemony.