Jacen Solo's actions justified?

So, after all Jacen Solo has done to bring peace to the galaxy, were his actions justified? Torturing terrorist and Killing Mara are among these actions. But in doing so, he brought peace to the galaxy, and as far a we know, there wasn't a major galaxy-wide war until 127 ABY with the Sith-Imperial War. So were his actions justified? Did he do what was necessary? Also, why did Jacen think that he needed to go to the dark side to bring peace? He could have done it by staying in the light side.

 

up to book 4, no doubt. after killing aunts and burning wookies, everything got a little out of hand. did he deserve death, na.

 

I wonder if he realized that keeping the peace was harder to do than winning the war. And from the looks of things at the beginning, the GA was losing the peace it won after the Vong War. Or rather it had been losing it since the Dark Nest Crisis. But I also think he lost all trust in everyone's ability to save the peace, and that included his family and the Jedi. He could have done things much differently and re-establish the bonds with his family and the others. That could have helped restore trust, and he wouldn't have fallen to the dark side.

At the same time, though, he was too full of himself. Part of that was justified, as his methods helped win the Vong War. But something else must have happened during his five-year sojourn that caused a drastic swing in his views. And that, I believe, should be the subject of a future novel in which we see the planting of the seeds that allowed Lumiya to sway Jacen to her side.

 

Jacen personally instigated & forced the very war he fought to end. The Galaxy was a peaceful place until Jacen & Lumiya started that war to bring peace to the galaxy. Its just like Palpetine all over again, the republic was at peace, stable & had order until the sith destroyed it to bring peace & order to the galaxy. Why? Because the order of the old republic is not the kind of order a darksider can stomach. A sith's concept of peace & order is very very different from what you and I would consider peace & order.

The tragedy of Jacen Solo is that his journey to the dark side caused all of the events he went dark to prevent. There were many chances for a peaceful settlement until Sacrifice and each and every time Jacen & Lumiya worked successfully to prevent a negotiated & peaceful end to the impending conflict. And to top it off Cal Omas sidelined Luke politically & listened only to Jacen cause I think he wanted that war just as much as Lumiya did. No, Jacen's actions were not justified. Cold blooded mass murder is always wrong. All the time. No exceptions. And unnesesary violence rarely does anything other then cause more problems.

The thing here is that Jacen became an evil darksider during the Dark Nest trilogy. When he mind whiped Tenel Ka's grandmother & stated the Killik War for no real reason he turned hismelf over forever to the darkside of the force and as a result cut hismelf off from the light so Jacen after DNT is not capable of seeing anything nice & kind & pure and instead can only view the galaxy through a lense of darkness, and hate which is why whenever he views the future all he see's is war & darkness. And is also why whenever he acts all he does is cause more problems because he can only solve problems with violence & fear, which can never bring about peace of any kind. He's so tainted by darkness in Betreyal he can't see the future's that lead to peace because the darkside of the force never leads to peace & order. Atleast that's my interpretation of things.

 

Not with his methods, which began with murdering Nelani and culminated in the killing of Isolder and his crew.

You mentioned killing Mara and Ailyn Vel, but I think such murders are more relevant. So bearing in mind that Jacen's actions included killing innocent people:

If Mao had succeeded in creating a glorious workers' paradise, would he have been justified in murdering tens of millions of Chinese in the Great Leap Forward - not to mention his cultural cleansings?

If Stalin had succeeded in creating a Communist utopia, would that justify all his murders and betrayals, the show trials, gulags, conquest and oppression of weaker countries?

If Hitler had succeeded in advancing the human race on the evolutionary ladder, would his purge of the "unfits" have been justified?

If the Communists had created utopia, would their massacre of the Russian royal family be justified?

Do you have to actually succeed in attaining such noble goals, or is merely pursuing them justification for taking others' lives? And if you can kill some people to benefit whole societies - is there a limit as to how many people you can kill? Are you fine as long as you kill only x, but wrong if you kill x + 1? Who says? Does the limit vary based on the goal? I mean, for evolutionary progress you can kill x, for economic progress you can kill y, for peace and order you can kill z, for utopia you can kill h?

Does the method of killing matter? Is it wrong to kill people by creating famines, but okay if you kill them by the comparatively merciful method of poisonous gases? Is your limit higher if your method is more humane? 100 if by starvation, 200 if by mustard gas, 400 if by guillotine?

And again I ask: Who says?

For, if murdering people as a means is justified if peace is your end, we must consider all these questions very carefully. Someone might go too far.

 

Depends on what you mean by his actions. All of them, or just his more horrible ones, like attacking Kashyyyk? Honestly, Jacen did try to help save the galaxy, in his own crazed way, but he was doing more damage (literally) than helping by Sacrifice at least. Although its also mainly Lumiya's fault that the situation deterioated as badly as it did, but Jacen wasn't helping either, with how he always went for the extreme, blow them up solution, not to mention he just wasn't that bright either. Then he deposed Omas simply because he wants to take over (although Omas was possibly planning to get rid of Jacen and Niathal, but at least he was trying to broker a peace), and in the same book, Jacen had Gejjen assassinated, which did... absolutely nothing that I can tell, considering that another greedy ambitious crazy Corellian replaced him pretty quickly. Jacen fell into the Confederation trap at the end of Exile pretty easily, Jacen managed to save Tenel Ka in Tempest in large part thanks to his parents risking a lot to send vital information, and in return Jacen jumped to conclusions and tried to blow up their ship, even while his personal warship was heading into battle.

And in the end, Caedus was the last major obstacle to peace apparently. Five seconds after he's dead, poof, there's peace, not that I'd care to live during that particular era considering who's in charge of the GA now.

So no, I'd say it wasn't justifed, as while he might have contributed, despite Jaina's thoughts at the end of Invincible, I think she was completely wrong. Jacen couldn't even unite the galaxy against him because he had the GA under his control and apparently no one in the GA had enough backbone to stand up to him or defect. Well, some did, but they all left by Fury. While that might've been the viewpoint of one character, I look at the events, and how after he's dead, the war ends very, very quickly. So obviously, it was mainly Caedus that was prolonging the war. Maybe Caedus could've conquered the galaxy, but its not like that would've been a solution, as I'd hope that there would be some resistance fighters and the Jedi at least would keep going.

And while the galaxy wasn't completely peaceful before the GA-Confederation War started, it was nowhere near complete war, not till Lumiya tricked the Commenorians and others into joining the Corellians. And the Corellians were the bad guys, what with them arming Centerpoint again, so no, they weren't just freedom fighters. There could've been a negotiated settlement, but then Lumiya killed one of the few sane Corellians. And no, Han and Leia didn't support Corellia arming Centerpoint, and Wedge didn't either I think, but they were all trying to end the war before it got too insane. They all failed, but at least they tried.

 

He has significant justifications for many of his acts. However, that does not in and of itself make them justified. Looking at the price paid by the galaxy, and the fact that he certainly did not bring a lasting peace or significantly greater stability, I find it hard to argue that his acts of evil were justified by any outcome therefrom.

 

There was another war in 127 ABY right? So Jacen FAILED. Jacen's attempt did not bring a sustained peace. If it had lasted 1000 years like the Old Republic, then I would say yes, he did a good job.

 

He started with murder and moved along to creating concentration camps for Corellians, Bothans (iirc) and such. The ends whatever they may be do not justify the means for me. Taking his silly Force visions so seriously was a sign of a deranged individual.

 

But in the century of 60 BBY through 40 ABY there were 4 major Galaxy-wide wars: The Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War, Yuuzhan Vong War, and the Second Galactic Civil War. In the years of 40 ABY and 127 ABY there was no Galaxy-wide war at all. That is 87 years of peace. Pretty good considering the wars of the previous century.

 

We don't actually know how many wars there might be in that time period, so far its mostly a blank space. Obviously, the novels give no real clue to how the future will go, and the comics are vague, so as to give the novels leeway to do whatever ridiculous thing they want to do next. We do know that by 130 ABY (give or take a few decades), there's a Treaty of Anaxes, a sorta mutual-defense pact between the GA and the revived Empire, but who knows how long that Treaty was around. Otherwise, there might be room for another two or three galaxy-wide wars in that time period. Look at how fast the GA-Confederation War was. It would seem stupid for Rebellion veterans to be involved in yet another galaxy-wide war, but then again, LotF was pretty stupid, so there's not really any limit to how far they'll go.

In another decade or so, Corellia will get uppity again, they'll have rebuilt their fleets, they'll complain, then they'll invade someone. Heck, we already have the Millenium Falcon novel coming up, and its already speaking about a huge-ish threat. Probably not a galaxy-wide war, but there'll always be trouble. And whenever the next novel series hit, there'll probably be another war too.

Worse yet, the galaxy was already mostly at peace before Jacen got significant political power. Corellia and Fondor and others were chafing at economic limits, but most weren't mad enough to enter open war with the GA. Corellia was crazy enough, but Corellia's always been crazy, and it had Centerpoint too, which no other system has. The galaxy's mostly united at the end of LotF, but that is nothing new. After NJO, the galaxy was already united, thanks to the Yuuzhan Vong invading. So nothing improved. Caedus' reign was just a minor blip on galactic history. Actually, I feel things have degenerated, gotten worse after LotF, considering the new ruler. Jacen had lots of Bothans on Coruscant assassinated, so that was enough to push Bothawui closer to war, though Jacen was working on the assumption that Bothans had killed the World Brain, which was wrong anyway.

The Sith-Imperial War isn't a failure on Jacen's part, as the last year or so of his life was just a big failure anyway. Its probably a somewhat ongoing arguement that the dark times of the Legacy era are a failure of Luke's generation, but I think that time period is removed enough from Luke's lifetime that its not Luke's fault, or anyone from his life (Leia, Han, etc.) that the galaxy fell apart again.

And anyway, Jacen's actions are too outragegous, too evil, to ever be really justified. Especially as Ben so succintly put it in Inferno, Jacen's actions haven't helped improve the galaxy, he's only making things worse. Caedus just can't understand that, due to his huge ego. The fact that just about everyone else in the extended Skywalker-Solo family extended family and friends condemned Jacen should be enough to show that pretty much everything Jacen did was wrong. Perhaps if we had seen Luke's reactions to the end of the war maybe, but we barely got some of Jaina's thoughts on the end of the war, then that was superseded by introducing "Amelia" and we didn't really get any real, serious extended thoughts on the end of the war from Luke, Han or Leia, much less any other character.

 

I don't think you can really say that for sure.

 

Wow. 87 years. Seriously, there are periods of thousands of years of peace on the books. For all we know it was Jacen's destabilisation of the galaxy that made the later Sith-Imperial War possible. For example, acting as a smokescreen for the New Sith Order, whom otherwise might have been rooted out and destroyed. Or forcing new military action which caused the Galactic Empire and ex-Imperial leaders, i.e. Daala, to remain in mainstream politics. Or by helping to create dissatisfaction with the Galactic Alliance through his harsh means that the Empire could later play up, particularly as Jacen did nothing to address the root causes of the Corellian separatist movement.

I have a different suggestion. If Jacen had stuck to the light and earnestly worked for peace - if he had attempted to follow the long road to peace, and not the shortcut of the dark side - then perhaps galactic war could have been avoided for more than 87 years. Perhaps it could have been avoided for centuries.

 

Uh...the Galaxy was at peace before the Galactic Alliance decided to try and dictate trade to the Corellians. There was no war until Jacen escalated that disagreement to violence.

Was Jacen Solo justified in starting a war to end a war? *Snort* Yeah...ok. I'm going to throw up now so I can eat some more.

 

The GA did not dictate Corellia. Corellia wanted the full benefits of GA membership but broke alliance laws. Corellia built a secret invasion fleet to attack the Alliance. Above all, they reactivated Centerpoint Station. The GA had every right to go to war with Corellia. The Galaxy needed to be unified. The Galaxy was nearly crushed by the Vong because the Galaxy was not unified.

 

Yet they GA allowed the Hapans and the Imperial Remnant to maintain what ever fleets they wanted to. Or perhaps simply because they didn't have the strength to force those member nations to comply, they decided to pick on Corellia.

Early on I thought Gilad Pellaeon dropped his post not only because of Jacen Solo but because he was concerned the GA would eventually try to force the Empire into the same position Corellia was being put in.

Another sign of Jacen's true intentions was when he manipulted the Moff's to gain control of the Imperial Fleets to further wage his war, with those from the GA beginning to leave him.

 

The Neither the Imperial Remnant nor the Hapes Consortium were part of the GA. It was not up to the GA to decide weather or not to let the Remnant of the Consortium keep their fleets. They were not a threat. Corellia, on the other hand, created an invasion fleet to attack the GA. The GA was right in this war, not Corellia.

 

The Imperiala and Hapans ARE part of the GA. They're just given special staus because they were independent before the GA was formed, and not just more leftovers from the New Republic. They're like semi-independent, from what I understand.

 

I don't remember exactly how the GA worked, but I think having your own fleets was fine, if you contributed part of those fleets to the GA as well, or something like that. The Remnant and Hapes still being semi-independent probably contributed also to their autonomy. Didn't Tenel Ka say at one point that Hapes was providing nearly 20% of the GA's fleets or something? So while they were members, they were also paying their membership fees too, I think. Either that, or the two states still being semi-independent meant they weren't getting as many GA benefits as member systems were, like the Corellian system was getting.

Corellia, on the other hand, was getting all the benefits, but not paying any fees or following the membership rules at all. Instead they were building a secret invasion fleet (probably meant to be aimed at Duros eventually, when Thracken Sal-Solo was still in charge), lying about it, got benefits from the GA, until the Corellian Insurrection peaked, and were rearming Centerpoint, which is very, very bad. So the GA had the right to intervene. And Pellaeon and Saxan were in negotiations to settle the whole GA-Corellia dispute, until Saxan was killed, then Thracken took over, and he's just greedy, and even after Thracken's killed, its just a long line of more greedy Corellians, until Corellia and most of the Confederation are just written out of the series.

So while there were tensions, like Fondor was angry at economic limits, most of those problems could've eventually been worked out through negotiation, but Lumiya intentionally sabotaged things, and Jacen was just too egostitical to settle for anything less than absolute victory over his enemy, negotiation was not an option. So no, his actions weren't justifiable, as there were other options, Jacen was just too big of a jerk to consider them. Also, more peaceful options wouldn't help catapult himself to ruler of the galaxy either. Sure, supposedly according to him, Jacen as ruler of the galaxy means its for the galaxy's sake, but that's only according to Jacen. Although Omas was perhaps a bit heavy-handed as well, but he still probably wouldn't have gone as far as Jacen did.

 

Nelani's murder alone justifies sending him to the Ninth Circle of hell. Everything past that is just gravy.

 

Actually, that's not true. The Corellians were ticked off already over the fact that they had to pay taxes. Thrackan was already building an assault fleet in secret. Clearly, there was preexisting discontent that allowed Corellia to build the Confederation. There was already a shooting war on Tralus without Jacen's intervention. It was the Corellian decision to shoot their way out of the GA blockade. Jacen helped aggravate the preexisting conditions and made the war far worse than it was (though there are some indications he made the peace easier too, by being so widely hated). However, he did not make the war. Lumiya had a large hand in aggravating it, but even there she only pushed players who were already angry and unstable over the brink. The galaxy was hardly a place of peace and hugs and no future problems before Jacen arrived on the scene.

 

Jacen's actions lost justification after killing an innocent girl and hiding a wanted terrorist.

 

Hell no. There had to be a better way to achieve it.

 

Who here agrees that torturing terrorists was justifiable?

 

*waves hand* I do! I do! His other actions though, nup, don't buy they had to be done.