Lit Pro-Empire

I want to see a series of pro-Empire books. I want to see this because the Empire is fascinating and is endlessly undercut by the childish idea that it is "pure evil." While Lucas may have wanted to create a story of "good" and "evil," the series, and especially the EU, clearly is at its best when portraying a realistic, humanistic struggle to which we can relate. The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker's fall is moving to us because it tries to provide REASON WHY Anakin would fall to the Dark Side. Many of us do not look at Darth Vader and say "wow, what an awesome villain" but instead think "who is the man behind the mask, how can he justify doing these things, what's his story?" While many seem to think that the humanizing of Darth Vader is "bad" (thus they hate the prequels ((I love the prequels))), for me it enhances the series a thousand times.

But this kind of thing is not done for the Empire. Sure, if you type "the empire did nothing wrong" into Google you will come up with a lot of tongue-in-cheek apologetics for the Empire, but none of it is really compelling. The Empire did evil things. I want to see Empire citizens or soldiers who live under the Empire and SUPPORT it. Not just support it as evil villains, but support it as moral human beings who think that it is right.

"But they were brainwashed!"
"But moral Empire people defected!"
"But they didn't know!"

There's "millions" of people serving the empire at least. Surely MANY of them have to be realistic people who find a way to justify the Empire and who aren't lying to themselves in some way.

And this is what I want to see.

If this cannot be written, even though I think it so strongly NEEDS to be written, then the Empire is pure fantasy and really ruins the immersive value of Star Wars. If everyone who is a soldier or citizen of the Empire supports it because "they're all evil!", then this is just the juvenile and naive "struggle between good and evil" Lucas apparently wants it to be. But for people who are investing a lot of time and effort into this franchise and care about it from a standpoint of immersive realism, I would really like to see the pro-Empire side of things.

The shocking remarks of one of the recent Star Wars producers that the Empire is a "white supremacist organization" implies, once again, that the Empire is merely "pure evil." Yet I'm sure even "white supremacists" justify their worldview with something other than "evil." There has to be more substance here.

 

A Rae Slaeon ongoing would be nice.

 

Lost Stars by Claudia Gray was one of the better looks at the Empire and why people would support the Empire that I've seen. Quick, but good read.


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I can think of AGENT OF THE EMPIRE.

 

I mean, it is.. you know, a fascist government led by an objectively evil sorcerer-king.

 

Jason Fry's Servants of the Empire series, natch.

Yeah you've got Evil Grand Inquisitor, but you've also got Lieutenant Chiron who's a loyal Imperial but also a "good guy" trying to do right by the galaxy.

 

You have Legends with Thrawn and Palleaon.

I doubt Disney is interested in a sympathetic portrayal of the Empire.

 

Palleaon is actually pretty close to what I'm describing. There's a distinct moment in the Thrawn trilogy where Zahn has Palleaon thinking something that demonstrates his love for the Empire. Not just loyalty, but love and respect. I'm sure that few people could describe Palleaon as being "evil."

Thrawn doesn't strike me as pro-Empire as much as just being a kickass commander who would have been a kickass commander no matter whose armies he would be leading.

See here's what I'm getting at: even modern day terrorists have clear sympathizable motives and goals. We just hate the methods they use to achieve them. With the Empire, they have seemingly no motive or goal beyond "being evil." They don't START being evil with defeating the rebels, they're "just evil."

Let's say Palpatine is pure evil, okay. Let's just suspend that perhaps he has his own motivations.

But surely all the hundreds of admirals and generals, all the individual stormtroopers etc--surely a grand contingent of these people mus be like Palleaon and have a love and respect for the empire.

Even Mara Jade. There's moments in Thrawn where she recalls that Palpatine held glamorous balls wherein people dressed up resplendently etc. It sounds like a rich, bourgeois culture. Maybe there's a side to the Empire we're just not seeing?

I looked up some of the book recs you're all giving me and I appreciate it, but these don't really get to the heart of what I'm talking about.

And perhaps what I'm asking for is a taboo. If you were to humanize or make the Empire realistic, it would move Star Wars into a morally gray territory to which it has hitherto not belonged.

My contention is that if it enters that territory, it would become infinitely better.

 

The EU did have morally grey and that was a reason for it to be lauded. I wouldn't want Palpatine "humanized" he is Satan in Star Wars there is no other appropriate characterization.

What your asking though isn't going to happen because Disney doesn't like moral complexity and depth.

 

I'm okay with Palpatine being "Satan." That doesn't bother me too much. In fact, we are given a rather realistic portrayal of him in that he really just wants "power." Isn't it the nature of politicians to want the same? I think that one is pretty understandable.

But you're probably right. I don't view the Disneyverse as wanting to push the stakes as much as the EU did before. This is something I'd probably want to see done in a rebooted Legends timeline, especially now that it's no longer the official Star Wars story: I feel it could afford to be more experimental.

Wait a sec, what about SWTOR? You can play as the Empire there--granted, not the same Empire, but the "evil sith empire" all the same. What's that like?

 

The Sith empire in the old republic era was run by ancient Sith-who had very standard goals conquer the republic, destroy the Jedi, and rule forever. You have Sith like Malgus that have sympathetic portrayals during this era.

 

#Truth

 

Seriously the NuCanon is more experimental? Rogue One was an Empire vs Rebels, TFA was Empire vs Rebels, Bloodline was basically NR politics with Empire in the background.

God forbid I have to continually refute and respond to the rubbish.

 

I'd say Lost Stars is a good counter example to that. Also Sloane, while not a great person, adds complexity to the Empire. She's far different from what we see in Palpatine, Krennic, Tarkin, or Vader. Servants of the Empire adds a lot of complexity to the Empire and why people fight for it. Battlefront: Twilight Company adds moral complexity to the Rebellion by showing a darker side to it. Rogue One does the same thing to a lesser degree. So there's no need to say Disney doesn't want moral complexity and depth. In terms of the GCW, I'm seeing a lot more of it in canon than I did in Legends. Canon did so much more to develop the Empire and Legends never really showed a dark side to the Rebellion. I'm not trying to be negative about the EU, I loved the EU. I still read and recommend those stories. But I can't claim it was morally complex. There were attempts and there were grey characters, but it's not beyond canon which had done more to humanize both sides.

Also, we can't talk about what Disney wants because they're not the ones controling the story. The Lucas Story Group is and they for the most part the people who were in charge of the EU pre reboot. And beyond a new canon, I haven't seen much change in terms of complexity or depth. Star Wars books have never been a great example of literature or super complex or deep.

 

I got a idea, let people enjoy what they want to enjoy and judge something on the internal merits of the thing we are talking about and not some .... labeling aspect...I suppose we can call it.

 

Rogue One was alright. I don't see what makes it experimental, though. I can't really identify anything in the new canon that is particularly experimental to be honest. In fact, having an Empire comeback faction in TFA at a time in the EU when the storyline was in a totally different and unexpected place seems decisively less experimental. And that galactic threat you're talking about was a huge series of books that can hardly be considered "of the week."

 

About the books: Lost Stars is focused on people living and respecting the Empire. It may be young adult, but that doesn't mean it's not good. It's also a fairly good sized book. Servants of the Empire is young reader; it's still a mature look at the Empire and very well written. I think you'd find a lot of what you're looking for in those.

 

I've heard a lot of good about Claudia Gray's books. I'll check them out.

 

I hope you enjoy them! Let us know what you think!

You may also want to check out Twilight Company. It mostly adds complexity to the Rebellion, but it does add some depth to the Empire. It actually surprised me in terms of how good it was. I do still think Lost Stars is closer to what you're looking though.