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Whos the bad guys?


Izutah

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The uhh, the Empire isn't quite the stereotypical image of "good" with all of the Cathar Genoicide, Xenophobia, and killing within ranks. Plus they all have British accents, and everybody knows that contributes to a faction's Evil factor.

 

They really need to add more regional accents to the Imperial staff. Maybe people would be more amiable to joining the Empire if they met someone from Devon?

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If anyone of these two is the bad guys, it's the Empire. Else, there are no bad guys.

 

You can philosophically argue that good and evil don't exist, then no one would be the bad guys.

 

You can argue that both sides have done some evil things and say they are equally bad.

 

Or you can look at what's good and what's bad in the Republic and in the Empire and come to the conclusion that overall, the Republic are the good guys with flaws and the Empire the bad guys with some positive aspects.

 

But you can't seriously argue for the Empire as the good guys, imho. (At least not in a way that I would believe you that it is your own opinion. You might be able to play a good Devil's Advocate.)

 

 

But in your story, your opponent will always be evil. That's something I really don't like. You can play good vs. evil and evil vs. evil, but you can't play evil vs. good (from the evil perspective).

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But in your story, your opponent will always be evil. That's something I really don't like. You can play good vs. evil and evil vs. evil, but you can't play evil vs. good (from the evil perspective).

I don't think this is always the case with SWTOR. For example, in the Sith Warrior storyline whenever I faced Jedi it was very clear to me that they were the good guys and I wasn't. When the Sith Warrior fights against rival Sith, yes, then the enemy is evil but even in this case it's evil vs evil.

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I don't think this is always the case with SWTOR. For example, in the Sith Warrior storyline whenever I faced Jedi it was very clear to me that they were the good guys and I wasn't. When the Sith Warrior fights against rival Sith, yes, then the enemy is evil but even in this case it's evil vs evil.

 

Thats not from my experience. The jedi you meet a self righteous douchebags with a few showing a whole lot of hypocrisy. Neither side are the good guys and neither sides are the bad guys.

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But the Republic tried to genocide the remaining Sith at the end of The Great Hyperspace War. war criminals should pay. Like they are now :)

The Empire is out for revenge against a genocidal monster that places themselves above all others in the galaxy.

Unfortunately the Empire is also a genocidal monster too, but a cooler one with reasons.

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I don't think this is always the case with SWTOR. For example, in the Sith Warrior storyline whenever I faced Jedi it was very clear to me that they were the good guys and I wasn't. When the Sith Warrior fights against rival Sith, yes, then the enemy is evil but even in this case it's evil vs evil.

 

I agree with Jaigen, they didn't seem like the good guys to me. Well, not all of them, but at least around half of them. Especially the one you meet near the end of Chapter one. There are some who seemed good to me, but they weren't the main focus. (You especially notice that when you play light side and they fight you nontheless.)

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The Sith Empire has always been a genocidal warmongering nation, even before the Great Hyperspace War (which they started). It's also worth noting that any possible Republic or Jedi war criminals from the Great Hyperspace War are long dead. While the Empire's leadership isn't, and any successors to Sith Lords back then have been carrying out identical genocidal, racist, imperialist policies as their predecessors always have. That's not exactly true with the Republic as a whole.

 

Frankly, I agree with alricka. The Sith Warrior was always the bad guy when confronting Jedi. Even a Lightside Warrior against the mentally unbalanced Jedi. The Jedi were still on the right side of the issue, even if they were angrier or more self righteous about it. I honestly feel whenever I quest on most Imperial Worlds that I'm doing bad things even on the neutral main quests of each planet. Balmorra, Tatooine and Taris for instance have quests about crushing local resistance to the Empire's domination.

 

Against the calm Jedi, (such as the Knight on Balmorra) a Lightside Sith Warrior's confrontations tended to go like this:

 

Jedi: Surrender.

 

Sith: No, you surrender.

 

Jedi: No.

 

Both: Then we fight!

 

 

Imagine, if Noman Karr had been more reasonable, how the confrontation would have gone.

 

"I mean you and your Padawan no harm."

 

"Really, then what do you want?"

 

"Uh I need to take her with me."

 

"What? No. That's out of the question."

 

They are still at an impasse and the Sith Warrior still needed to carry out Baras's orders.

 

Edited by OldVengeance
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The Sith Empire has always been a genocidal warmongering nation, even before the Great Hyperspace War (which they started). It's also worth noting that any possible Republic or Jedi war criminals from the Great Hyperspace War are long dead. While the Empire's leadership isn't, and any successors to Sith Lords back then have been carrying out identical genocidal, racist, imperialist policies as their predecessors always have. That's not exactly true with the Republic as a whole.

 

Frankly, I agree with alricka. The Sith Warrior was always the bad guy when confronting Jedi. Even a Lightside Warrior against the mentally unbalanced Jedi. The Jedi were still on the right side of the issue, even if they were angrier or more self righteous about it. I honestly feel whenever I quest on most Imperial Worlds that I'm doing bad things even on the neutral main quests of each planet. Balmorra, Tatooine and Taris for instance have quests about crushing local resistance to the Empire's domination.

 

 

Against the calm Jedi, (such as the Knight on Balmorra) a Lightside Sith Warrior's confrontations tended to go like this:

 

Jedi: Surrender.

 

Sith: No, you surrender.

 

Jedi: No.

 

Both: Then we fight!

 

Imagine, if Noman Karr had been more reasonable, how the confrontation would have gone.

 

"I mean you and your Padawan no harm."

 

"Really, then what do you want?"

 

"Uh I need to take her with me."

 

"What? No. That's out of the question."

 

They are still at an impasse and the Sith Warrior still needed to carry out Baras's orders.

 

Yeah, but it is presented in a way to make the Jedi look relatively evil. I think a nice option would have been if you could make a deal with him. Something like:

 

 

"I want to protect Jaesa, but Baras will just try to hunt her down again. The only way I can see her safe is if she joins me and pretend she is my apprentice. Then we could bring down Baras' network from within and help to make the Empire a better place."

 

(I wanted to write a fanfic once, where Nomen Karr and Jaesa are plotting her "fall" to the dark side to bring down Baras.)

 

 

And yes, the world quests were evil, and I especially hated Taris.

Edited by Maaruin
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Nice to see all these replies with different views on the subject. See i honestly havnt read much on the history etc but yea as some stated before the writer has made the sith come across as bad guys whilst republic as the good

 

I personally think that the world is full of religions in our case its sith empire and republic (i know its technically not a religion) and so forth theres going to be wars etc though if you stop for one moment and imagine the whole entire galaxy was rule by either just the empire or just the republic there will still be somthing to fight about.

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Nice to see all these replies with different views on the subject. See i honestly havnt read much on the history etc but yea as some stated before the writer has made the sith come across as bad guys whilst republic as the good

 

I personally think that the world is full of religions in our case its sith empire and republic (i know its technically not a religion) and so forth theres going to be wars etc though if you stop for one moment and imagine the whole entire galaxy was rule by either just the empire or just the republic there will still be somthing to fight about.

 

Yes, but the Republic has ways to deal with conflicts without violence, even if it doesn't work 100%. For Sith, there has to be violence, because that's the way of the Sith. They want war, and if they can't fight others, they fight themselves.

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They really need to add more regional accents to the Imperial staff. Maybe people would be more amiable to joining the Empire if they met someone from Devon?

 

In that case, I demand a SW npc with a Glaswegian accent, voiced by Ford Kiernan aka

from Chewin' the Fat.
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It's a method of discussing morality without the inherent emotional attachment people get when you use real life examples. It's a lot easier to discuss difficult concepts when using fictional and theoretical examples than it is to use actual. I personally find the comparisons between differing moral viewpoints to be quite interesting, particularly when both consider themselves to be universal truths.

 

When you create your character (NOTICE I SAID WHEN YOU CREATE YOUR CHARACTER), you are told The Empire and it's citizens seek and desire "power" above all else. It also tells you they subjugate other races (practice slavery). I think it even mentions them being racists too. They are pretty much the definition of evil, but since Bioware gives you the option to play your empire character as a good guy it creates confusion. Don't confuse star wars lore with Bioware's implementation of a morality system.

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When you create your character (NOTICE I SAID WHEN YOU CREATE YOUR CHARACTER), you are told The Empire and it's citizens seek and desire "power" above all else. It also tells you they subjugate other races (practice slavery). I think it even mentions them being racists too. They are pretty much the definition of evil, but since Bioware gives you the option to play your empire character as a good guy it creates confusion. Don't confuse star wars lore with Bioware's implementation of a morality system.

 

I'm not.

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Nice to see all these replies with different views on the subject. See i honestly havnt read much on the history etc but yea as some stated before the writer has made the sith come across as bad guys whilst republic as the good

 

I personally think that the world is full of religions in our case its sith empire and republic (i know its technically not a religion) and so forth theres going to be wars etc though if you stop for one moment and imagine the whole entire galaxy was rule by either just the empire or just the republic there will still be somthing to fight about.

 

Go watch the original trilogy and you will understand. Just to let you know the Empire uses to death star to blow up Alderaan and every living thing on it.

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Go watch the original trilogy and you will understand. Just to let you know the Empire uses to death star to blow up Alderaan and every living thing on it.

 

now go take a trip to the death star and ask people on it, do you think what your doing is wrong and evil, they will say no of course not the ones we are fighting are evil, its all perspective

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now go take a trip to the death star and ask people on it, do you think what your doing is wrong and evil, they will say no of course not the ones we are fighting are evil, its all perspective

 

Generally it comes down to the philosophical debate of "Is an evil act evil if the perpetrator believes it is good?"

 

The answer is yes. Yes it is. If you commit murder because someone looks at you wrong, and you think you were totally justified in doing so, you are crazy. Being crazy, you do not have the ability to make a rational judgement on morality. Therefore, your idea of what is "good" is incorrect.

 

The Empire is evil. If you think it isn't, you're insane, and therefore wrong.

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The Empire is evil. If you think it isn't, you're insane, and therefore wrong.

 

Why am I suddenly reminded of the moral parallels between Ozymandias and Rorschach? One takes a consequentialist/utilitarian approach and the other has a very strict deontological/fundamentalist code, both believing themselves absolutely right, both committing acts of evil and totally opposed of each other.

 

There's no denying that from our perspective the Empire is... well, I hesitate to call it evil, the people within it commit evil acts but I find it hard to believe that every single citizen is one button away from committing genocide. It's really just higher up on the scale of evil than some of the other organisations in the galaxy. I should really roll a Pub character and see where the Republic falls.

Edited by Tatile
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Why am I suddenly reminded of the moral parallels between Ozymandias and Rorschach? One takes a consequentialist/utilitarian approach and the other has a very strict deontological/fundamentalist code, both believing themselves absolutely right, both committing acts of evil and totally opposed of each other.

 

And they were both out of their damn minds, which was my point! xD

 

Naturally my statement does infer that you have the necessary information available to you (which we, as players, always do) to make an accurate judgement. If you don't know that the Empire makes a habit of exterminating people who are the wrong skin color, you can't judge them for it.

 

I find it hard to believe that every single citizen is one button away from committing genocide.

 

You have to judge the Empire as an institution separate from the individuals. Suffice to say the average Imperial citizen cares only for their own livelihood (Though Imperial citizens are shown to be more morally dubious and conniving and selfish than the average Republic citizen) and is only interested in staying within the confines of the Empire's established rules. Which are evil.

 

Even though you as a Sith player can be completley goody-two-shoes (I should know, my Assassin was Light III despite all of the people I shocked for the lulz), that's only because you are working against the system.

 

It's really just higher up on the scale of evil than some of the other organisations in the galaxy. I should really roll a Pub character and see where the Republic falls.

 

The Republic as a whole is mostly good, but it has its share of extremists and crazy people. As I said above though, you have to judge the institution, not the individuals.

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You have to judge the Empire as an institution separate from the individuals. Suffice to say the average Imperial citizen cares only for their own livelihood (Though Imperial citizens are shown to be more morally dubious and conniving and selfish than the average Republic citizen) and is only interested in staying within the confines of the Empire's established rules. Which are evil.

 

Are you trying to fault people for wanting to survive the society in which they live? It's not as if Imperial citizens can pack their bags and leave so easily. The Sith code marks the basis for the Empire's social Darwinism, you either learn to work by or you die - citizens are only 'morally dubious' by outside measures. It could be seen as a more extreme version of stealing food to feed a starving family. Perhaps you have an Imperial citizen who disagrees with the Empire's current way of running things, they'll still have to abide by the laws of the state to a certain extent. You can do no good if you're dead.

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I have 4 imp characters and 2 pub ones so I've had a good look at both sides. Like with any war both sides have their heroes both have people of virtues and both have their extremist nutjobs. The difference is that in the republic, the nutjobs are a minority that have to keep their views hidden from the public. In the empire, the nutjobs make the official policies and generally kill those who oppose them.
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