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The Empire are the good guys?


TyeJ

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  • 2 weeks later...

This good/bad guys dichotomy is very american. And it comes from their politics and their history.

 

I won't go into details but in general ,in Europe politics in the past has always been viewed as national interest vs national interest. Morality very rarely came into the picture. And when it did it was almost always secondary. Loyalty to the state has been seen as ones duty, instead to abstract ideals.

 

When the US started intervening in world politics in the 20th century, they always did it from a position of overwhelming moral superiority in their view. So this thing today is very ingrained in all kinds of settings.

Ofc there is more to it than that but i think it's worth noting.

 

So no i don't view the Empire as inherently evil, especially the non-force user part of it.

Edited by Kaedusz
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This good/bad guys dichotomy is very american. And it comes from their politics and their history.

 

I won't go into details but in general ,in Europe politics in the past has always been viewed as national interest vs national interest. Morality very rarely came into the picture. And when it did it was almost always secondary. Loyalty to the state has been seen as ones duty, instead to abstract ideals.

 

When the US starting intervening in world politics in the 20th century, they always did it from a position of overwhelming moral superiority in their view. So this thing today is very ingrained in all kinds of settings.

Ofc there is more to it than that but i think it's worth noting.

 

So no i don't view the Empire as inherently evil, especially the non-force user part of it.

 

Uhuh.

Sooo… slavery isn't inherently evil, then? :rolleyes:

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Uhuh.

Sooo… slavery isn't inherently evil, then? :rolleyes:

 

The question is if one faction practices slavery or whatever else, that another faction deems bad according to its standards, does that justify hostile action, by the latter.

 

The Republic doesn't require the slavery justification to be hostile towards the Empire. The less ''noble'' reason of self defence is sufficient enough, among others.

Edited by Kaedusz
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The question is if one faction practices slavery or whatever else, that another faction deems bad according to its standards, does that justify hostile action, by the latter.

 

The Republic doesn't require the slavery justification to be hostile towards the Empire. The less ''noble'' reason of self defence is sufficient enough, among others.

 

That's not the question. The question is "Are the Empire the good guys?" To argue that the Empire is in any way the 'good guys' is to condone its practices.

 

This is Star Wars, not 20th century geo-politics - It's really not that complicated. :rolleyes:

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That's not the question. The question is "Are the Empire the good guys?" To argue that the Empire is in any way the 'good guys' is to condone its practices.

You are the one that insists on calling them good or bad and hence condone or condemn, not me. ;)

Why the need to do that in the first place?

If you say the Republic are the good guys, do you also condone its many many ''questionable'' practices and actions we see in this game alone? Not to mention things from the general lore.

Edited by Kaedusz
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Not every Imperial condones slavery. Some pubs & their allies either condone (at least one notable Senator) or actually practice (Hutts, gangsters, megacorporations) slavery. The idea that it's confined to one side is misguided. If the Republic were some benevolent regime, the Empire wouldn't be able to fill its ranks with the "dregs" of its rimward systems.

 

The first Bane novel goes into this, as well. Many on the Imperial side fully recognize the Sith as generally evil, but as a necessary evil to counter the Jedi. Of course, the Sith have their own ideas for the direction of the Empire, which the "average citizens" tend to get dragged into...but the Empire itself could be seen as a malleable alternative to the Republic (heck, even self-declared anarchists work with them just to undermine the Republic's authority).

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It's not a remotely comparable situation, though. Slavery is practiced extensively in the Empire, while in the Republic it is not practiced at all. Even owning the technology used in slave collars is illegal.

 

It's like comparing the USA in 1819 to the USA in 2019. Not every American approved of slavery back in the 18th and 19th century, and even in the present day the US has allies with unsavory human rights records, but that doesn't mean the situations are even the slightest bit equivalent.

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I’d say at this point, the biggest differences between how the republic and the empire operate is whether the abuses/corruption/etc occur openly or are hidden behind closed doors...

 

Which is why my consular wants to keep her alliance, and hopefully convince the Jedi as a whole to switch to it :D

 

This I one hundred percent agree with. I don't like the empire, my operative in fact hates the empire. But I don't like the republic either . I hope at some point the alliance I built can persuade one side or the other to join the Alliance. I don't like the double agent option with OSSUS. it was not difficult for my operative but was very hard for my counselor. They said out choices would matter. Other than the choice between Vette and Torian I don't see that our choices matter at all.

 

t

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It's not a remotely comparable situation, though. Slavery is practiced extensively in the Empire, while in the Republic it is not practiced at all. Even owning the technology used in slave collars is illegal.

 

It's like comparing the USA in 1819 to the USA in 2019. Not every American approved of slavery back in the 18th and 19th century, and even in the present day the US has allies with unsavory human rights records, but that doesn't mean the situations are even the slightest bit equivalent.

 

Agreed. The Empire is built on slave-labor.

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BUT Y THO?

 

Droiiiiidz.

 

I would postulate that the Sith Code has something to do with it. Through strength I gain power; through power I gain victory. Slavery strips one of their strength and power, but stripping one of their strength and power demonstrates your own power over another.

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Droid also aren't real, so we don't really know for sure how practical they would be as a labor force. The Eternal Empire used mostly droid labor, and the recent state of galaxy updates suggests that the Zakuulans' cushy droid powered lifestyle was maintained by the Empire using up many resources that the average citizen was blissfully unaware of.
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  • 4 months later...

Because as everyone knows, the good guys are people who keep slaves, torture, kill others, and are encouraged to engage in completely immoral activities.

 

Just because you call yourself good doesn't make you good. If your actions are those of an evil person then you are evil regardless of what you call yourself.

 

It's one thing to be a poor Imperial farmer just struggling to make end's meet and another to be a member of the Dark Council. I won't begrudge the former from bending the knee to an evil government but I will certainly for the latter.

Edited by Ellisande
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The funny thing is, if you're LS V on the imperial side, you're not actually a good guy. You're making the empire smarter and more efficient, which allows its oppressive systems to continue to exist, and actually reinforces them. If you really wanted to be the good guy, you'd pick the maniacal DS options because those are the ones most likely to result in the empire being forced to change.

 

Well, the truth of the matter is that the current code is a mangled form of the original, which went "Emotion, yet peace; ignorance, yet knowledge," etc. Why they did that, I truly don't know.

 

You're referring to the jeedai code. I would hesitate to call it the original given they invented it after the Jedi and Sith codes irl.

 

This is a separate topic altogether, but the idea that this version of the jedi was better than what we ended up with doesn't make a lot of sense. Their philosophy fell apart and they went darkside the moment they were invaded by a different force-using group [the Rakata]. It worked as long as they were in isolation from the rest of the galaxy, but it didn't work that well, given that they had to build alignment prisons for people who went too far in any direction. They still had galactic domination lunatics among the jeedai, but galactic domination just meant 'a few planets in one star system.' Their code didn't suppress them like the Jedi or encourage their baser instincts like the Sith, instead it was paradoxical, so the one time they needed guidance when affected by circumstances outside their experience, it went off the rails.

Edited by Ardrossan
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  • 3 weeks later...
Uhuh.

Sooo… slavery isn't inherently evil, then? :rolleyes:

 

A bit late, but the Sith and Empire wholeheartedly believe in self determination. They just believe you need the strength to grasp it for yourself.

 

"Through victory, my chains are broken."

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A bit late, but the Sith and Empire wholeheartedly believe in self determination. They just believe you need the strength to grasp it for yourself.

 

"Through victory, my chains are broken."

 

Except in the Empire you can be born into slavery with no possibility of self-determination.

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You could. This has since been changed, with the ban on manumission being lifted and slavery as a whole being heavily deemphasized.

 

I don't think it was ever "banned" before, given that there were some examples of slaves being possibly freed, even at the start of the game, but I also don't think there's any evidence that slavery is being deemphasized, much less heavily deemphasized, in the Empire.

Edited by OldVengeance
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I don't think it was ever "banned" before, given that there were some examples of slaves being possibly freed, even at the start of the game, but I also don't think there's any evidence that slavery is being deemphasized, much less heavily deemphasized, in the Empire.

One of the codex entries mentioned that the Emperor had banned ever freeing any slave, until after the Great Galactic War, at which point that ban was lifted for Force-sensitives to add more Sith to the ranks.

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