Legacy #47: The Fate of Dac

I'm AdmiralNick22, and I approve this message.

John, I couldn't of said it any better myself!

--Adm. Nick

 

I was a little surprised by Stazi's decision, but dammit people, blaming him for the genocide is beyond stupid.

It's not like it was totally OOC for him either. He's always been a little wacko, and his emotions tend to drive his decision-making process. He seems to take his personal grudges seriously.

 

Also, I'm betting 90% of the Quarren evacuated in time.

 

He had to leave people to certain death or risk the lives of everyone he was rescuing. Did he pull the trigger killing the Mon Cal's he couldn't take as well?

The bottomline is that the Quarren controlled the planet, having been given control by the Sith as mentioned in the Legacy Era Campaign Guide, this makes them an enemy of Stazi. Are they all bad? I doubt it, but Stazi simply doesn't have the time to pick and choose.

And yet even while being Stazi's enemy, he still allows some of the Quarren to evacuate. Did anyone besides Stazi save a single Quarren life?

Krayt's decision to genocide the Mon Cals was a military one, as well as a genocide. War is not nice, sorry 'bout that. You can view it on some idealistic level, suggesting that its unfair that little Johnny gets two cookies with liitle Tommy only gets one, but that ignores the realities of the situation - be they political or military.

Is the entire Mon Cal genocide Stazi's fault? I'm sure some think it is, because if the Mon Cal were not lending support to Stazi, if they were being good little Sith citizens in the first place, the benevolent Lord Krayt wouldn't have had to make an example of them for the benefit of the rest of the galaxy.

I just don't know how Stazi sleeps at night.

 

Again (and I respond to this because it's the most recent, but it's a reply to all similar quotes), he wasn't merely unable to save all Quarren. He deliberately chose to leave them behind to die. It's not like not he just loaded up the ships with whoever was there and it happened that a lesser fraction of Quarren made it out; he, with full intent and knowledge of what he was doing, declared that no more Quarren than he would personally accept would be allowed off the world, and any more who tried to escape a certain death would be killed.

Stazi and the Sith are villains. It's not either-or.

Do you agree that Krayt was correct to eliminate the Mon Cals for the same reason, then?

Oh, I agree it's not OOC at all. Stazi's always been a scumbag. I'm not criticizing the writing, I think it's fantastic. I just find the character, on a personal level, deeply horrible (and to clarify, I like that).

 

So the evil you accuse Stazi of is equal to the evil of the One Sith?

 

Great issue. I really enjoyed it. However there is something that has been bothering me lately. Lord Wyyrlok. Earlier in the story he acted a little bit as a voice of reason. When Krayt first decided to butcher Mon Cals, he seemed to think it a little extreme.

"If we kill all of the Calamari we will lose the shipyards here, my Lord" - Wyyrlok
"Naw, it is better this way. The galaxy will take notice. That and you know my condition and how much better insane murderous rampages make me feel." - Krayt (Uhm, with some additions by me.)
"Dude, Krayt. Are the Vong seeds messing with your mind as well? This is karking insane. Perhaps some time in the stasis chamber...." - Wyyrlok, again....with additions by me.

Also, when Krayt was poised to cut down Nihl....

"He is your servant my Lord, as are we all. If by his death he serves you best then you should kill him. Unless there are better ways he may serve you alive." - Wyyrlok

Suddenly, Krayt is out of the picture and instead of being a bit more cautious about random killing.....he actually acts crazier! Sterilizing a planet. Pushing the "One Galaxy, One Sith" idea. What happened here? Why did Wyyrlok seem to be somewhat reasonable in the past only to become a foaming at the mouth madman when he became the one to make the decisions? Did the taste of power get to him? Is Krayt indeed alive, subtly influencing Wyyrlok to act crazy?

 

I think its simply an OOU answer. Wyyrlok is the central villian now and needs to be the one pushing the evil side of the plots forward.

 

He initially did not fear Krayt. Krayt's disappearance implies that Krayt knew more than Wyyrlok thought or somone else decided to challenge him among the sith either somone unknown or somone that scares him.

I'm not sure who among the Sith would scare him after all if Krayt is alive in Stasis and leaves without his armor it's a bit off but not as difficult as convincing them that somone who is dead is alive.

Darth Maladi could have removed the body as sending Nihl in to a situation where she could be wrong would be a waste.

Perhaps the person that scares him is his own daughter. Chagrian can live to be 76. Over 100 years their is 1 Krayt and 3 Wyryrlok. I think she's too young but I could be wrong. The punch the Wyyrlok's pack and the way thier line runs almost makes them look like a Rule of 2 family that just happens to be in another Sith Order.

I'm not sure who else could be a threat to scare him

 

I didn't say it was equal (or otherwise). Would it being unequal remove Stazi of culpability? It's not like there's only so much bad-guy-ness to go around.

I would say a generalization of an entire race is racism, regardless of the foundation. If a member of an ethnic group mugs me, and I decide that all members of that group are worthless, that's no less racist because I have some basis in fact behind it.

The Peace Brigade is also an organization which people voluntarily join; the Quarren species isn't. That's the thing, we're not simply talking about a political faction here. It's an entire accident of birth that Stazi condemns people for. The Vichy government collaborated, so all Frenchmen deserve to die?

 

the Quarren have always tried to put themselves before the other species on Dac (though this is a charge the other species frequently laid at the Mon Cals)

now fair enough they are (or were) 60% of the population and (in their minds at least) were opressed by the Mon Cals(the whole taking Quarren Children for re-education doesn't help)

of course they'd collaborate to help the SIth exterminate the Mon Cals, they helped the CIS and the Empire conquer Dac in the past.

and for that, the Bulk of their population has died on Dac, their colonies will presumably be stripped from them to house the Mon Cal, Moappa, Whaladon, Ampi-Hydris and Knowledge Bank refugees whom they had a hand in making homeless and endangered.

they will be Homeless Pariahs in the galaxy, possibly looked down on even more than the Vagaari and Valha, and they will deserve it.

they were lucky Stazi ordered 1/10 of his fleet to evacuate them, 'cause i don't see many GA/Felpire or Private rescuers willingly coming to the aid of Quislings responsible(by association)for the deaths of billions

 

I don't think Stazi did anything evil, jut misguided, but how can anyone say The Quarren "deserve" anything?

They aren't a hivemind. It was their leaders that collaborated with the Sith. Many innocent Quarren had no say in it. And what abot all the Quarren born after the poisoning?

They are a group of individuals, just like Humans. Do all Humans in the GFFA "deserve" a lower status, because of the actions of Palpatine and his Empire?

 

my bad, more like the GA politicians who'll do the banishing will say it. and due to the coverage of the Genocide, few in known space will be sympathetic to the Quarren victims of the Sith

and you do remember the support Diversity Alliance had, right?

the Quarren have to pay the price for their Leaders blind hatred of the Mon Clas over the centuries. and they'll be paying it for genarations, like the Vahla must pay for their past and present evils by perpetually searching for their homeworld, or the Rakata must pay for their ancestor's crimes with the gaping spiritual hole of their force-blindness

 

Excellent Point...It sways me, somewhat.

But as the comments go on about Stazi's imperfections or his grudges or his "darkside"...let me offer this thought.

This is not the final battle of this war...and perhaps that knowledge and the "objective" decisions of an overall strategy are at least "as much" at play as Stazi's heartfelt convictions.

Mon Cals are not just brethren of resistance for Stazi...they are an essential resource of the war...Not only do you want to save as many warriors, builders, captains, etc. as you can...but you also need to show legitimate effort to save their kin, even at the cost of not being "fair" to the Quarren, who have their own issues.

Stazi needs Mon Cals down the line...and if they feel abandoned or worse, feel their loyalty hasn't garnered them more favor then the conspiring Quarren...Stazi loses an essential ally he wishes to save.

Perhaps holding Quarren back at gunpoint is as much for Mon Cal favor, as it is Stazi's.

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All this said...it's not justification...merely speculative explanation...should the Mon Cal feel entitled to more spots leaving? Should they have protested on behalf of Quarren?

Somebody can write a short story down the road of a brave Mon Cal who put an innocent Quarren girl in his seat...

It's a mess, and it's suppose to be...it's war.

 

Concerning Admiral Stazi, we have to remember that the Genocide of Dac is very much a propaganda campaign. The Sith specifically target the Mon Calamari as a means to teach a lesson to the rest of the galaxy; ergo, the onus is on Admiral Stazi to show the galaxy that the Galactic Alliance will protect the Sith's declared enemies from reprisal. Since the Mon Calamari have done far more to aid the Galactic Alliance than the Quarren, this means Admiral Stazi has a military (and political) obligation to aid the Mon Calamari, who are statistically more likely to support the GA, over the Quarren. Instead of fearing reprisal, the Sith's enemies would be more likely to openly rebel with the understanding that they won't be left to be totally destroyed (as what happened so many times during the early years of the Galactic Civil War). Sure it's regrettable that the Quarren get shafted, but war is filled with tough choices.

In addition, there's always the possibility that the civilians who volunteered to help evacuate Dac's citizens did so with the assumption that they'd be saving Mon Calamari. If Stazi forced more than every tenth ship to evacuate Quarren, that could have potentially caused discord among the captains of the evac ships. Further disruptions could have been caused by Mon Calamari who might have reacted violently if they heard more than every tenth ship would be saving Quarren, and any disruptions would have resulted in lost time and less lives saved. Finally, there's the not insignificant factor that it's easier to evacuate Mon Calamari by virtue of them not living in the depths of the oceans like the Quarren; mandating more evac ships to ship out Quarren would have resulted in time lost waiting for Quarren to make it to the surface, while more lives overall can be saved by focusing on Mon Calamari. Again, tough choices are present.

 

in hindsight, the Quarren might not be as screwed as one might think.

if they form the bulk of Dac's population, it stand to reason that their colonies would be fairly heavily populated (probably why the accidental destruction of Pammant was a PR disaster for the republic) and since the Mon Cal colonies have presumably been subjected to the same genocide as Dac, the Squids still probably outnumber the fishes.

not to mention that Azard might of let the Quarren know that they Should RUN!! and millions, possibly billions could have already fled.....

.....which actually makes it look much, much worse for the Quarren if they left the Mon Cals etc. to die

 

Basic facts review.

1) The Sith poisoned Dac, not Stazi.
2) The GA could NOT get everyone off the planet.
3) Every Quarren that Stazi saved means that one more Mon Cal died.
4) Stazi owed NOTHING to the Quarren. He owed a lot to the Mon Cal.
5) The Sith Imperials did not hinder the Quarren from leaving but they did not help them, either. They did not help their "allies". Stazi did help his allies AND saved some of his enemy's collaborators. If he saved NONE of the Quarren, then maybe you'd have a point, Hydronium. You don't like him for some reason? Fine. But equating his actions with the Sith's actions just doesn't make sense to me.

Nuff said.

-- John O

 

But It is Stazis fault in the first place. He attacked the Sith he humiliated them. He simply was ready to accept the consequences of his actions.

Also the Quarren's weren't asking to be taken over Mon Cal's they were asking to be taken over the Whaladons. For every one Whaladon, what 10, 50, Quarren's and Mon Cal's died. It's like Churchill said at Dunkirck "Leave the men in stretches. Fit men take less room" It's a numbers game, cold hard numbers.

You TELL us the Quarren's were working with the sith. But you never show it. In fact the only Quarren reaction to the genocide was the councilor in issue 22, saying "please they don't deserve this". Also Wyyrlok even says that "their help as been worthless(useless). For these actions we could conclude that the Quarrens were working to help the Mon Cal.

I think he owed them the basic dignity that comes with life.

What did the Sith actualy do just stand there and say "go stay we don't care", could the Quarren's leave the planet in public transports or did they have to find their own way/

For the record if i were in Stazi's position, I would favor the Mon Cal, but not so explicitly. He needs allies after all. As much as I loth the Duros I can see his reasoning. He would make a good sith.

There is actually a thread were we can discuss his actions. If you would like we could continue this in more depth there.

 

I love Stazi. He's been my favorite part of Legacy (sadly not enough IK ). Can we just have a Stazi novel after this all said and done with?

 

I picked this up and read it today.

GREAT issue.

I think the debate going on here about whether Stazi's actions were moral or not shows the depth this comic has; a good story should spark debate like this and not leave any easy answers.

And as has been pointed out, it was great to see the Moappa and Whaladons get mentioned. I'm glad their species will make it.

Man, this has me really stoked for the homestretch and the kick-off of our final arc!


...One thing that did surprise me is that there was no letters column this issue. What was up with that?

 

The thing that still gets me is the inability of some to tell the difference between those who caused the genocide and someone who showed up and risked everything they had to save what amounts to billions of sentient beings.

It's not that I even think Stazi is a benevolent angel, I find him tough and a little ruthless. Yet even through that he does something here that is worthy of admiration. He clearly holds a bias against the Quarren, views them as enemies for their acceptance of the Sith, and yet he shows them some mercy as well.

This is assuming that Gar Stazi's knowledge and statements are incorrect. I've seen nothing to make me think that Stazi is dishonest. Thats where your being told about the Quarren. If you don't believe Stazi thats one thing but the information was passed along on the page through Stazi.

We also know that they accepted control of the world from the Sith, if they felt strong armed about the situation or not.

To be frank I believe that if Stazi had the time and resources he would have saved everyone on Dac. He didn't have that luxury.

 

I have no argument with your first two points, John. But since everyone seems to be wondering why I'm not acknowledging the Sith doing a bad thing, it's because I figured that went without saying. Yes, the Sith committed an act of genocide on the population of Mon Calamari. But the existence of other bad people doesn't absolve Stazi. It just means there's more bad people out there. As for the rest:

Here's where I really differ, on a few accounts. One, the Whaladons and Moappa. Stazi readily helps them without protest, despite their not being allies, and despite every ship they take up also meaning fewer Mon Cals. So, even Stazi's own words aside, it's clearly more an act of aggression against the Quarren than something meant for the Mon Cals (which I think would be pretty prejudiced in itself).

But two, the biggie, is the idea that Stazi owes nothing to people who are victims of the plague just because of what species they belong to. I'll agree that he feels he doesn't; that just goes towards my idea that he's an awful being. But the plague affects everyone; any Quarren left behind is just as dead as any Mon Cal. If Stazi doesn't think he owes a species suffering genocide help?if he in fact goes out of his way to deny them that help?he's everything I've been saying he is.

He's also a hypocrite, because his first appearance is being enraged that "every living thing on the planet Dac will die", which is clearly not his concern if he's so blithely willing to throw away 60% of that life. Stazi talks a big game of compassion for saving lives, but he ignores that if said life isn't of the race he favors.

I don't really find the fact that he let a handful live to be a particularly mitigating factor when he let the rest of them die because of what species they were. Yes, what he did was better than total genocide. But that's a very low bar to meet.

 

Saying this is Stazi's fault is a bit far. Yes, this still sorta counts as retaliation for Stazi stealing the Imperious, but if no one ever fought against the Empire because the Empire might BDZ their home planet, then, well, Palpatine might still be in charge, which goes against the whole point of the Galactic Civil War.

Still a bit surprised at all the outrage over Stazi, but oh well, guess that shows how deep of a story it was, to lead to so many different opinions. Although in a way this operation wasn't just an evacuation, but an attempt to preserve species from being completely wiped out. After the genocide, all Mon Calamari in the galaxy were either on the run as refugees (on Dac and elsewhere), slowly being worked to death in camps, or part of the resistance movement. Whaladons and moappa were just minding their own business on Dac, but if anything happens to Dac, they're in trouble. Quarren, on the other hand, were still part of the Galactic Empire's government, and still had members high-ranked enough that they can get to Grand Admiral Veed's office, the Imperial Regent, and howl about their people dying.

So the Quarrens are collaborators, at least from Stazi's point of view, and were better off to evacuate on their own. They don't deserve to be left behind, of course, but moappa and whaladons were neutral and confined to Dac itself, with no interstellar civilization, so when Dac dies, that's it for them, while Quarren and Mon Calamari have spread out somewhat across the galaxy. Its even worse for the moappa since they're a group mind, so if only a few survive, it might not be enough for their sentience. And Mon Calamari colonies have probably already been emptied by the Imperials, while if there are any Quarren colonies out there, its not over for them.

If Stazi hadn't bothered with the moappa and whaladons, then people would probably be even more angry at Stazi. But still, Mon Cals are allies, moappa and whaladons are neutral, and Quarren were Sith Imperial-allied, so they're lowest on the priority list, but Stazi still gave them some help. That and them demanding precedence over whaladons and moappa didn't help their chances either. If Quarren had been helping out with the resistance more, maybe, but they chose to just follow the Sith, unlike the Mon Calamari who kept up their quiet resistance since the Sith-Imperial War, so letting supporters die to make room for collaborators seems unfair to the Mon Cals.

Its still a bit extreme to say he let them die. Stazi also "let" the majority of the Mon Calamari population die on Dac too, as there's simply no way he could've gotten them all off-planet, especially in the limited time. Stazi probably would've evacuated everyone, but there was no time. And a Sith wouldn't bother saving anyone, not unless for PR purposes or something, so condemning him this badly seems like an overreaction. Although that was probably also because this was one of the most serious Star Wars comics ever.

 

But, Rob, if I show up and risk everything I have to save, let's say, thousands of people from Hurricane Katrina, but my process in doing so is to say, "I'm here to evacuate. Some blacks are getting pushy, so they only get ten percent of the buses," is that really still an admirable thing?

Now, that's not a perfect analogy. But it gets at the core issue here, which is that Stazi is letting a bunch of people die because of what they were born as. And Stazi can't dodge responsibility for this just because the Sith poisoned the planet. He's the one deciding who gets on the ships. The Sith are responsible for anyone dying at all, but once Stazi shows up with ships and starts decreeing who gets what spots, Stazi is still responsible for choosing which particular persons are going to die and which are going to escape. If there were no responsibility for your actions so long as someone even more evil was involved, then Stazi could have sat there saying, "Hey, I only evacuate paying customers" and been perfectly morally fine. He's not responsible for the Sith's actions, but he's still got to be responsible for his own.

And so Stazi's got a decision to make. He can't save everyone. He could do first-come, first-served. He could decide no Whaladons, because for every Whaladon saved that's fifty to a hundred Mon Calamari or Quarren dying. He could say only people under the age of fifty; the old have lived their lives. He could do a lottery system. He could only save people who take a loyalty oath to the GA. He could only take people who are in fighting shape and agree to enlist. He could go by proportion of population. There are all kinds of choices, and they're all bad, and they all carry a moral calculus.

But because the Quarren leadership collaborated with the Sith, and because a group of Quarren got pushy, Stazi makes a knee-jerk emotional reaction and forces the Quarren down to a proportion of the evacuation well below their proportion of the population. He punishes an entire species because of the acts of some of its members and because of the political affiliations of a group of its elites -- which is exactly what Krayt did to begin the whole thing.

The whole problem boils down to treating "the Quarren" as one monolithic bloc suffering from collective guilt for . . . what? A couple jackasses who got pushy during an evacuation? Not being the subjects of a death warrant from the Sith? Does every Mon Cal who was happy to live under the collaborationist government up until they got hit with a death sentence deserve to be left behind, too? I did some rough calculations, and giving the Quarren the same population distribution as Germany (which is generous; Germany has a very low proportion of youth), about one-fifth of the Quarren population would have been under age twenty (or the Quarren equivalent). That's three and a quarter billion Quarren kids, going by the previous figures for the Quarren population. Now, what did those three and a quarter billion kids (minimum) do wrong?

Answer: be Quarren. That, in the end, is all it comes down to. And that's the problem. His decision is defensible on political grounds, and even on emotional grounds. But it's on very, very shaky moral ground. Of all the choices to make, he came down to one that's fundamentally racist (it depends on tarring an entire species as uniformly at fault). I've looked. And I've tried. And I cannot find a single moral justification for this decision. A political justification, yes. But moral . . . no.

Look at it this way: what would Luke Skywalker do (if he weren't being written by Denning)? Would he punish a species by shouting, "Fine, you only get ten percent!" or would he tell the group who were protesting about the Whaladons, "Your lives are neither more nor less valuable than anyone else's. I could be punishing you for collaboration, but instead I'm treating the Quarren the same as everyone else. I think you ought to be grateful for that, but if you don't like it, you're free to stay." You can't get away from the fact that Sta