Discussions Unpopular Expanded Universe Opinions

Believe me, my interest in SW has waned precipitously since the ST, and the EU's decanonization.

That said, I have been a "fan" ever since my parents showed me DVDs of the OT back in I want to say...2004? When I was but a small child. So I do care, at least as one cares for anything that was apart of one's life and imagination for so long.

 

Well then ...Enjoy what you love is all i can say and just focus on that.

They aren't making new She-Ra anymore (Since the show is over) but i'm probably gonna be obsessing over that series till i die.

 

Just like Pellaeon, really, at least until he joins the GA later on maybe, he's still there just out of necessity but he is fighting for a democratic goverment.

Canon does the same for Thrawn and Eli, it's not excuses, it's motivation, they are not the same, Pellaeon can have the justification he wants, he still explained to Leia how people are "weeds" to cut down when necessary, Sloane doesn't have anything as fundamentally fascist in her mindset, in fact she has far more excuses by the token that she was raised in the Empire, meanwhile Pellaeon chose the Empire, as he is old enough to be alive in the Republic (and we see this), he was always militaristic by his own accord, no brainwashing like Sloane.

I think it's more of a Zahn problem like @AusStig mentions, he over time potrayed Thrawn in a more favorable light, but in Canon is when that is in an all-time high, so if you want to say Zahn's potrayal of Thrawn's motivations was too much that it broke the core of Star Wars in the old EU, i think it is hypocritical to not do the same for Canon, as you are taking one author to discredit the entirety of the EU, but ignoring the same problems when they are in Canon.

It's okay if you don't i just want to make explicit why i disagree with that view of disqualifying stuff as "real Star Wars" for arbitrary reasons.

I get what you say about Zahn, but i never saw Stackpole doing the same, at most it was in Dark Tide when the NR military chose to side with Pellaeon to fight the Vong instead of listening to Fey'lya, but i always saw that as out of necessity, Pellaeon is always in that position, of moral enemy turned practical ally, the NR forces were chosing to be practical other than listen to the corrupted Fey'lya, as he didin't serve the people anymore at that point, he was just being abusive with his power to abandon people to die in order to preserve political power, in every instance Stackpole potrayed the Empire as an ineffectual cannibalistic goverment that had some serious racial issues, and his books advocated for tolerance of diversity and for democracy to be better, not fall in the moral pitfalls of dictatorship, he was never pro-Empire, he was pro-people, critical of ineffectual democracies yes, but to send the message that we should always do better as democratic goverments than what came before, not that dictatorship is a better option, because that was always the standard democracies had to prevent from becoming.

If you look at the times in which his books were published (the height of Neoliberalism in democratic countries) you can tell he was criticizing where they went wrong in his eyes, i always looked at Stackpole's writing as fundamentally progressive and nowhere near Pro-Empire.

Idk, in every Legends story that focuses on loyal imperials, it remarks on the inherent corruption of it's system, we see a bigger proportion of corrupt and evil people in the Empire than good people, and it's fundamentals are almost never held by good people, there's far too many Imperial desertion stories to count, i don't see how Legends potrays the Empire as anything but an ineffectual tyranic goverment with some good people trying to make it work and lying to themselves on how it is better than the previous corrupt Republic (which was basically the Empire anyway by that point btw).

Yes, i know he is a military admiral, but narratively they put him in a good light compared to Sia, solely because he is from the GA, and thus from a position of establishing a democratic goverment, unlike Sia, who defends totalitarism, so regardless of Stazi's role as a leader being democratic or not, his ideology is democratic, so he's potrayed as "good" and the ones that aren't for democracy are "not as good" or obstacles (like Sia).

 

@Irredeemable Fanboy
Well i think your wrong and i think Legends has way more these problems than canon.

So will have to agree to disagree since i think you're wrong.

and you don't have to make it explicit ...Cuz i don't really read a lot of the long paragraphs responses anyway.

 

Thrawn always had a motivation. He is a racist die hard fascist. Saying "oh he was doing it to prevent some greater evil" is an excuse, something to make him be less evil. And yeah it is a lot worse in canon.

Which I HATE there is NOTHING moral about Pellaeon. He is scum, self centred at best and evil at worst. I never brought this idea of him being a good person. But to treat him as better then someone who FOUGHT THE EMPIRE. Is disgusting.

But he chooses to portray him that way. In all other NJO books, Fey'lya is decent to ok, only under Stackpole is the military threatening a coup and preferring the Empire (since it is lead by a military officer and thus good). Even in Dark Tide 2 Fey'lya gets a moment when he takes part in the battle to be not so bad.

He is mostly decent, but Dark Tide 2 is a real stain on his work.

We get some of that, though sometimes it's odd. In Hutt Gambit, we get a pov of Fel and how he doesn't really want to kill billions, but he will follow orders and my reaction was "and that makes it ok?" he feels bad about killing innocent people so that makes it ok?

I mean one thing I really hate about HoT was the planet voting to join the Empire, and how the heroes treat it's survival as a good thing in and of itself. HoT shows the Empire as having vaule. It of course gets worse in NJO and after where the Empire is treated as good and Pellaeon like some kind of saintly uncle.

Yeah, I hate it. I don't like Stazi, I hated him from his first appearance and I hate even more that he took plot away from Sia. Stazi is a pirate and a military dictator without any remorse or legal authority. Sai understood where her father had failed and was seeking correct it. I would rather have seen her create a constitutional Monarchy with democracy, rather than a dictator who SAYS he is for democracy.

 

Stazi is kind of interesting if you read him as someone who has just said "you know what, democracy really doesn't work, I'm going to run things, because I have ships and the hardheaded derring-do to get stuff done, when elected leaders have continued to fail".

That passage in warfare-where Stazi flat out admits, "war is eternal" and decides to live with that, comes to mind.

He's a dictator, but he's one that was forged in yet another sith conquest, and yet another demonstration of the GA failing to meet the challenge. Its a realistic character arc.

The empire after the NJO kept to itself, remained peaceful and even integrated with the GA at some level. Its not the same entity as Palpatine's empire, everyone understands this. Also Pellaeon is, indeed a virtuous man. Whatever you may say about the government he served, he's a man of integrity, foresight, firm spoken but polite honesty, and endurance. He is in essence, a patrician, a man of virtue, honor, and nobility, who has outlasted many colleagues that did not share these traits.

Its not the same majesty Roan Fel has, but there is an understated aurora of discipline, forthrightness, and stoic resolve in Pellaeon. And that makes him intriguing to me as a a character.

Its what makes his death tragic, he's not just a helpless old man, but he was good, honorable and upright, slain on the orders of a man who rejected such things.

 

A dictator is a dictator. That thinks only he can 'do what needs to be done' means he is the same as every other dictator. The GA didn't fail, they lost the war. Maybe the reason the galaxy had no issues with the Sith and Empire ruling again was because they also thought like him.

NO. Just no. Pellaeon was scum. He served the Empire for decades, he kept serving them even after the crimes had come to light and it's power was broken. If he were a virtuous man, then he would have surrendered after endor, or Dark Empire. Or after his war of aggression agains the New Rpublic failed.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_Skirmishes

Instead he made peace. He wanted to prserve the Empire. To keep the regime alive. He was a slave catcher and he lead the war against democracy and freedom, he got a lot of people killed in that war, people who could have lived if he had laid down his arms.

After he got peace he did very little. After Ithor he was neutral against the Vong until attacked. This doesn't make him good, it makes him someone who will stand by while billions are butchered.

After NJO he joins the GA and plans to kidnap Corellian leadership. Then he resigns from the GA and leads the IR to do nothing until Jacen makes him an offer while the war ravages the galaxy. He does nothing to stop it, until it benefits him.

He is not a good person in any way. He is at best neutral. He has no honour or virtue. He is at best an enabler of evil and at worst an advocate for it.

His death was justice long denied, administered by a member of an order he tried to destroy. The tragedy of him is all the death he cause and his action allowed.

 

Losing the war means it did fail. The Sith took over the galaxy a third time in 200 years. From his perspective, it makes sense to just throw the baby out with the bathwater-the galaxy needs a "hard man making hard calls".

 

No it means they lost. You might say they failed to convice the galaxy that they were correct about the Vong. But the galaxy had no issues with the Empire and Sith ruling them again.

Still a dictator. Still someone who values the lives of people fighting to preserve a regime openly committing genocide, over his own allies.

 

Star Wars has been military science fiction from the very beginning, it's just that it was a lot of other things too.

 

@AusStig The thing is Stazi doesn't really qualify for a dictator, as he has no political power, really, he's just the leader of the military forces, an Admiral, he says he's for democracy because he wants to establish the GA, the Triunvirate was the closest to it they could arrange at that time given the circumstances, and he's still without political power at that point, all he really has is a fleet of ships, nothing more, it's clear the one with real political territory in the Triunvirate is Sia, while Stazi has some military power and the Jedi bring in some legitimacy, with Stazi and the Jedi serving to keep checks on the Empress' power, i don't understand why he should get "legal authorities" when all of them died or are part of Krayt's Sith Empire or Roan's Empire, with that logic Garm Bel Iblis is also a dictator because he had his own power base as well, and in fact he even had planets unlike Gar, for perspective, had Ackbar been the last remnant of the Alliance and kept fighting against the Empire on his own, would that make him a dictator?

I thinkj Stazi's actions in Legacy, while sometimes morally questionable in his tactics, are admirable because of his perseverence of not letting the Galaxy completely fall in Imperial control, keeping the good fight the Rebel Alliance started a hundred years ago, he knows he's a military man, and he does the best he can do in that situation, he's the last bastion of the Republic, i don't agree with the notion that he is looking something different from the GA goverment or that he thinks democracy doesn't work, if that were true he would have given up on the GA, but he didin't.

He also respects and supports the Jedi, when the GA goverment turned their backs on them before because of the Ossus Project, so he corrected some of the mistakes of the GA.

I would classify Stazi as a man of good political values in spite of his flaws, while Pellaeon lacks the political virtues, he has some good traits, but he only cares about the Empire and it's preservation, hence why i will never call him an outright "good guy", what i meant with "moral enemy" is not that he is an enemy that has good morals, but that his morals are opposed to the New Republic's, he is the Rebels' ideological opposite, so they are enemies in that sense, but they work together out of necessity, which speaks to him being a reasonable man.

He is a moral enemy (because he is Imperial at heart, has opposite morals to the heroes) but a practical ally sometimes (because he's also reasonable and knows survival is more important).

Fey'lya was mostly self-serving in NJO, purposefully blaming the Jedi and downplaying the Vong's threat because it distracted from his political campaign, they only threatened him because he was going too far, abandoning an entire planet due to disinterest in helping, that's wrong no matter how one looks at it, he was becoming just as bad as the Empire.

He does redeem himself a little bit in SbS when he stood up for the Jedi after he realize he's been manipulated by Viqi, but by that point it was for survival because it was a breaking point, he also sold the Jedi, who did nothing against him prior to this, to the Yuuzhan Vong for survival, so how right or wrong Fey'lya's actions are matter not to how they relate to how he can preserve 1. his image, 2. himself and 3.the NR itself on a fundamental level, the Vong invasion was close to threatening 3 and 2, so he flip-flopped as it was convenient for preservation, and by the end he only sacrificed himself to protect 1, his image, make himself look good while dying a "martyr".

DT II is definetly not his worst showing, it is not plot-induced stupidity to make him look bad at that point, he displays the same attitude the whole series, and his state in NJO is merely the escalation of his traits in earlier books, now that he finally has power, and has been on the political game for so long.

I don't think it's meant to show that such a thing is moral, but to show us how Fel lies to himself about the morality of what he's doing, to build up to his desertion in X-wing, where he mentions how "the Empire he believed him perhaps never really existed", that said Soontir's story is really complicated to grasp on where his morality lies, because we are left without a story that shows how he ended up in the Empire of the Hand, which is a shame, we don't really know what his thought process was.

 

I think the Prequel Trilogy can be considered as part of the Expanded Universe, as it expanded the universe of the original 3 films. I mean, the Prequel Trilogy is part of the main film Saga, but at the same time it can be considered as part of the Expanded Universe too, since indeed It expanded the universe.

 

He is the leader of a fleet, sets himself up as a major power. That is political power. Then on the leadership of the galaxy. That is major political power. They all seem to have equal power, so the Jedi are also ruling the galaxy. Stazi was a pirate, like Jessie James in space.

Yes Garm Bel Iblis was a dictator (which I assumed was the point, he had become what he thought/projected mon mothma to be). Yes, if Ackbar's only claim to authority was that he was a military leader.

He is a pirate who cloaks himself in self-righteousness. He tires to murder an unarmed ambassador in his first appearance. He is no bastion of anything over than his own ego. He never seeks to rebuild the GA only his fleet, everything he does about HIS fight. That isn't good, that isn't moral. He is a dictator.

Actually most of the GA establishment supported the Jedi, while most of the galaxy opposed them. Which might be the biggest failure of the GA.

He purports to representing good political values and he fights against the Sith, but that doesn't change him being a dictator. There are never elections under him, he might, might, fight for freedom, he does not represent it.

Oh I see. You see him as someone who represents the morals of the Empire. I agree, somewhat. I think he represents some of the less bad morals, order and such. But I think he is neutral more than moral. He is someone who wants to keep what he has, which is evidently his position in the Empire. He has no morals other than his own survival and comfort.

And a military coup would also make them like the Empire.

Fey'lya authorises a trap for the Vong next books and then is mostly trying to keep the NR some what aligned against the Vong.

When did he sell the jedi? The galaxy does hand over jedi after balance point and Fey'lya isn't able to stop it.

I disagree with your reading, in DT2 he is made out to be the LEAD cause of the inaction while later on his more trying to manage things that are causing inaction.

I also don't like how him and all Bothans are portrayed in Zahns books (if the answer to "Why is he an@$$hole is 'it's his race'" I take issue with it), heck early Stackpole books everytime a Bothan turns up they are a bad and he even mocks the Bothans who died to get the plans. I read shadows of the Empire I KNOW how they died, don't demean them. Though Stackpole does get better once a good Bothan is introduced.

Eh maybe. But it did not give me sympathy for him. As to why he joined EoH? Might have just been the easiest option, like how after ww2 a bunch of germans went to other dictatorships.

 

Bel Iblis never ruled a planet (or even a city) - he led a group. He is no more a dictator than Saw Gerrara was.

 

Ok warlord then, or dictator in the making. He is still ruling people through military 'authority'. That isn't good.

 

Look at it from a broader IU historical perspective. The Galactic alliance failed-twice in a single century, more if we include FOTJ, and the arguable failure of the NR during the Vong war.

Stazi witnessed the government he was sworn too collapse in three years, that was after it had entirely discredited itself with defending the Vong after the Ossus debacle.

You can't expect him to have faith that the Galactic alliance, and the form of government it claimed to model was just going to keep on losing?

That said he did take the fight to the Sith and was a member of the post Krayt triumvirate after the war.

 

The “ghost” of Darth Bane in TCW is an illusion created by the Priestesses. Yoda calls it out as such and the Priestesses say so, but fans don’t want to hear it.

 

The GA didn't fail during LotF, unless you count Lukes assassination of the Head of State. In FotJ it is the Jedi who overthrew the government, again. Why wouldn't Stazi hate the jedi? Since they seem to be at fault for the GA's failures.

So then just give up? Abandon democracy and embrace dictatorship? How is that different from the Felpire or the Sith? At least the Sith have a faith to base themselves in, what would this GA dictatorship have?

And is still a dictator. No different from the Empire in practice.

 

IMO he only becomes a dictator when he accepts a seat on the Triumvirate, representing the Galactic Alliance worlds, without anyone ever having elected him as their representative. And I figure that's intended to be very temporary until the GA can get back on its feet, so to speak.

Before that, he's never claiming to represent worlds, so is not a dictator, but a leader of a rebel force.

 

Ok.

I don't make that distinction. He is a leader of people based on military rank only, with no higher authority, so to me that is a dictator.

 

Dictators rule states, not "military organizations" alone. A "Head of the Army" cannot be a dictator unless they are also claiming to be "Head of the country" (Or, in the case of a completely nomadic people "Head of the People").

Stazi never claims to be "Head of the people of the Galactic Alliance" .

A good example of a "completely nomadic people" in the newcanon, with an unelected dictator, ruling "the culture" purely through "military force" would be the Nihil, with their leader, the Eye, being the dictator of the people.

Without a people, a culture - that the dictator claims rulership over, all we have is a pirate, or a crimelord. Maul was a crimelord, but not a dictator. Tavira was a pirate, but not a dictator, in the strictest sense.

In the same way, Stazi was not "dictator of the GA" for most of the Legacy era - only, arguably, at the end after the Sith are defeated does he claim the leadership role.

 

TCW is an illusion as a whole. Its just a holodrama created In the New Republic.

 

Marashia Fel? The same woman who told the Imperial Knights to blindly follow the Force? I think the trillions who died because of a certain manchild Anakin Skywalker did exactly that say thanks...

 

I somehow doubt the Triumvirate's "transitional" nature would have remained so...transitional.

The possibility of another war breaking out, if it had been dissolved would have been very high. So, it would have remained, a de facto galactic dictatorship, perhaps indefinitely. Until either there was some sort of political unification of the three factions, or something else disrupted the enforced unity.

Unpopular Opinion: Wredd killing off most of the One Sith is stupid, especially since Nihl ordered them into hiding. I refuse to believe Nihl, Maladi, Talon, Wyyrlok IV, and Havok died, as they were together quite a powerful quintet, and also not stupid themselves.

TLDR: The core leadership of the one Sith survived, and the whole Wredd eliminating them plot was nonsensical and ridiculous from both an OOU and IU perspective.

 

@Iron_lord

He says he is the head of the GA. That is how he holds himself out. He is the dictator of the GA "loyalists". That is his culture, since they have significant influence in several parts of the galaxy. I consider that enough. If you don't ok. We don't need to keep this going.

You mean like JEDI do? If you don't follow the force as a force user you are closer to Sith.

Anakin followed his own desires.

I mean it only happened because the series got canceled and they needed an ending.