Lit The Morality of Empire in Legends

Those who know me on these boards know that my allegiance is to democracy. And my disgust for the Canon Empire knows no bounds. They were oppressive, destructive and tyrannical.

But the Legends Empire, while starting out rotten, slowly began to find it’s way toward reform. Towards a more democratic style of governance. Towards tolerance, equality, and diversity.

Thanks in no small part to three very influential beings.

Natasi Daala, Gilad Pelleaon, and Jagged Fel

Yes, Natasi Daala belongs up there with Jagged and Gilad. She was the one who eliminated the squabbling warlords and unified the Empire. She was the one to allow women and aliens into the Imperial Military. Her brutal attacks notwithstanding, Daala was the one who started the Empire on the path to reformation and change.

But the most honourable, honest and decent Imperial in history was Gilad Pelleaon.

He ended the brutal oppression of aliens in the Empire. He brought about a lasting peace between the Republic and Empire. He helped save the Galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong, the Killik and finally, Darth Caedus. Pelleaon defended order throughout his entire life, and it was only thanks to him that the Empire managed to find it’s way out of the darkness and into the light.

 

@Sinrebirth

Gonna give my two cents and say out of the universe I think a lot of it starts with Tim Zahn and the Thrawn Trilogy unintentionally setting precedent with characters like Thrawn and Pellaon who why bad guys aren't the same kind of bad guys as our (Chaotic evil) Emperor or even a Tarkin or a Vader so they kinda give the impression you can write the Empire softer so long as you don't have wackos running the place. Which then evolves into things like Fel Empire or something or what not.

Why Canon going with First Order and the ANH style stuck with the more traditional good vs evil motif.

I mean i'm all for morally ambigious factions in Star Wars to pop up, but it always felt weird it was the Galactic Empire that became that.

This is where my "The worst of legends is just another sci-fi series with a Star Wars aesthetic" theory comes into play

 

I'd say most Imperials in canon aren't mustache-twirling evil. Thrawn, Eli Vanto, pretty much every Imperial character in Lost Stars, Iden Versio, Del Meeko, Rae Sloane, Shadow Wing. I think, morally, politically, the "banality of evil" is a much more useful and realistic presentation of the Empire than over-the-top comic book villain evil. The straight-up jerks in the Empire always end up being the people that none of the other Imperials like or respect either. Prelate Verge is a great example of this. But it's all the "just following orders" people that end up supporting the whole system and without whom the entire system would collapse.

 

And yet every character you mentioned is an obscure novel character except for Thrawn, who is shown to be rather evil in his mainstream Rebels appearances (that massacre at Batonn was fully intended to show how evil Thrawn was until Zahn retconned it in the novels). I know some appeared in games too but the more recent SW games don't have quite the profile among the mainstream gaming crowd the way, say, Kyle Katarn had in the 90s.

When Imperials are shown in Canon in film/tv, they are very clearly Bad Guys (TM). Director Krennic, General Pryde, and Moff Gideon for example.

At least Admiral Screed was sort of bungling and toned down compared to those guys.

 

Star Wars at it's core is built on mustache twirling villains.

Also even in Lucasarts games...Most of the bad guys minus like...Kreia were mustache twirling villains...and even Kreia was still...she was still pretty bad.

 

I mean, if you want to ignore the books I’m not sure what kind of discussion we’re supposed to be having... Rebels vs Droids? Screed is the epitome of a cartoon villain. Yularen’s characterization in Rebels is very similar to the way Zahn writes him, a nice guy who just happens to work for the Empire. They even had Kallus, who led the genocide against Zeb’s people, turn into a good guy by the end.


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I count Yularen among the worst as he was clearly on the Death Star Council in ANH, which later destroyed Alderaan. I admit I forgot about Kallus' defection though.

 

I don't find a problem with it, and I don't get how its apologism for fascism when no jews are being carted off into death camps to be murdered en masse. It could be considered apologism for Bonapartism (as in, strong leaders in charge of strong governments, more often than not authoritarian if not full on totalitarian), but I don't find too much of an issue with this. The First French Empire gave us the Napoleonic Code which is what influenced countries around the world to defeudalize, including parts of Latin America. The Soviet Union (Keeping in mind that the USSR of Brezhnev and Khrushchev is VERY different from the USSR of Stalin, similar as to how the Fel Empire and the Palpatine Empire are very different) gave us untold amount of technological advances, and their ideology is what forced much of the world to accept better standards for workers.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a dictatorship, but I can accept that some governments are like that, and not all of them are necessarily mustache-twirling bad guys. Because that's how the real world works. Hell the recent neocon villain Assad modernized his country and introduced the Internet, gave equal rights to women and people of all religions. At the same time, he's a dictator, there's no denying this. Similarly, the Empire ended centuries-wide wars and prepared the Galaxy for the Yuuzhan Vong, however selfish Palpatine's goals may have been for doing so. The Empire inspired the NR to stay militarized, which allowed them to thwart the Vong, who would've walked all over the NuCanon Galaxy.

Which is the main reason why I love the EU. It feels much more like a real, 'lived-in' world than just trying to copy the success of the Original Trilogy.

We get some moderate Sith, some overzealous Jedi. This is all good, and gives much more of a wider scope of the world, WITHOUT ignoring the fact that the majority of Jedi are good, and majority of Sith are evil.

 

I agree completely. It’s a true tragedy that Yularen, who once fought honourably alongside the Jedi, serves on the battle station that kills 2 billion innocents.

 

One question that needs to be posed is what basis of morality are we using? Some sort of consequentialism? Or more of a deontological system?

Or comparative ethics?

I would prefer the empire in the first twenty years of its existence to living under Yuuzhan Vong rule.

 

They do a pretty good job a number of species.

The Soviets were well behind the west in terms of tech and the standard of living were WELL behind the west.

The Empire didn't help the galaxy, it was just a distraction (like the USSR was before WW2). It wasn't the fleet the NR built to 'fight' them that won, it was the industry of the galaxy and the NR getting it's act together.

The Empire are just a pack of racist millitary people, who fail constantly and commit war crimes.


Thank you @Sinrebirth

The Empire is pure evil in both. The issue is that at the books were written by millitary fiction authors, particularly Zahn and Stackpole, who have the view politicians = Bad (which Zahn mixes with his racism to say aliens are all politicians and all bad), and millitary = good. Good soldiers follow orders. The idea that being loyal to your government even after it publicly commits MASSIVE warcrimes, is something to be proud of and is a reason to respect these people rather than seem them as monsters. "I was just following orders" is not a defence to war crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#"Nuremberg_defense"

And yet these people who fight for and support these regimes are shown as good people, this is most clearly seen in Legacy 42, where the Imperials who are fighting for the regime that is murdering the Mon Cal people are treated as morally superior to ones fighting against them.

Remember Pelleaeon stayed loyal to the Empire even AFTER Dark Empire, when Palpatine blew up planets publicly. He also served in the defence of the second death star. In new canon this makes him a monster of the highest order.

Even before that he worked as a slave catcher for the Empire, so he had first hand knowledge of what they were doing and he went along with it.

While Daala attacked civilians she, did later fight agsint the Empire and she reformed the Empire, allowing woman and non-humans to join. So while I don't think she should have run the galaxy she could have gotten a lighter sentence, maybe like 20 years and then she gets to write her memoirs.

Thrawn was ALL about racism and racial profiling and happily used abused and exploited non-humans. So him being white-washed into some great nobel hero who 'just wanted to save people' rings hollow, when he fought for the Empire when it was losing. AND he targeted civilians directly with cloaked asteroids. Thrawn is not and never was 'good', not a good imperial and not a good person.

The Hand of Thrawn books do a massive disservice to Star Wars, by saying 'the Empire committed this horrible war crime, and some Bothans helped. Let's go kill the Bothans!', it says the NR is made of stupid racist short sighted people, to bring in a real world comparison, and why this feels hollow for me, is 9/11. The highjackers were from Saudi Arabia, because the organisation that did it wanted America to attack Saudi and create new enemies. While some people wanted this attack, the government went after the nation where they trained and the leadership was. So we have the NR react MUCH more violently on much LESS justification, one document. So the NR falls apart over nothing and systems VOTE to join the Empire. This says that the Empire is better than the NR and planets want to join it. Also I didn't like Pellaeon in those books, he just seemed old and given up, he didn't regret the Empire or the crimes he just wanted to keep his power.

 

Probably a reason why the NuCanon is very different in feel, a lot of the prominent authors are YA Fantasy Authors.

 

I think also it's very different world and world experiences of the authors.

Since a lot of the legends stuff came from the 90's (or 90's views like Legacy) where as Canon is much more from a 2010's view. There isn't the same view of the millitary and other types of 'harsh' government. Also the myths about the Nazis and USSR aren't a part of the culture anymore, so there is less idea of 'dictators are harsh but get things done' and more 'dictatorships are harsh and badly run'.

 

Also agree.

You also just sorta see it I think in the way the new wave of hero's and main characters are written and portrayed in newer Star Wars things.

There is less soldier = good, goverment =bad

More or less the hero's aren't part of any institution and are mostly individuals with unique skills that come together and form a found family. Sorta like ANH in a way, heck even with things like Rebels Hera is the Leia in that they are the only one's who are part of the institution (Of Rebellion) at the time. But most of the time it's not really the soldiers are hero's and more about rugged rebels.

 

Yes

There is still some of the, government = bad, look at Rouge One, but it isn't as bad as before, they aren't corrupt or evil they flawed and the Empire are evil, that is kept front and centre.

 

The irony of Episode 7 reverting to Empire vs Rebels Status quo is that I feel it helped keep the moral center of Star Wars more or less intact for NuCanon

 

I would have liked to see the NR build and grow as a good government. To SHOW how this is better than the Empire.

Also to those who say 'The Empire was to fight the Vong'. The Empire are the WORSET choice to fight the Vong. Since the galaxy HATES them, the NR wasn't perfect but it had a lot more buy in from the galaxy than the Empire did.

If the Vong attacked the Empire, the galaxy would join the Vong.

 

You mean like this guy?

 

Yes! And my statement still holds because until Empire strikes back Vader was pretty much nothing more then a glorified henchman

 

Tim Zahn right about now:

 

Democratic governance has its limitations, both in theory and practice.

Empires have ruled, with a fair degree of stability for most of human history. The experiment in mass democracy is no older than the 19th century, if not the 18th and the enlightenment.

Bonapartism or strong man rule is in its modern context, an enlightenment product, as is modern fascism.

The Empire combines various aspects of real world practice, but is foremost a magocracy. A governmental type that has never existed in RL.

The Galactic Republic is a mix of oligarchy, corporatocracy, and aristocratic republicanism. Not democracy as is idealized in the west today.

If it came down to a choice between the Vong and Empire-most people if they got a taste of what Vong rule is really like, would choose the Empire. The empire doesn't engage in the targeted savagery, and righteous wrath the Vong do as a matter of religious devotion. And the Vong themselves are generally terrible at getting local allies. Any local support they get will melt away once it becomes clear collaborator forces are being used as slave labor and having their worlds vongformed anyway.