Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
You don't even need to dig into obscure side materials to get a feeling that the Republic isn't very good.
  • Naboo was a member of the Galactic Republic, and yet the Republic refused to protect one of its own members. This probably wouldn't have been a problem if Naboo was a part of a smaller federation/alliance.

The nature of the "trade dispute" between Naboo and the Trade Federation was never really detailed, and the Trade Federation is *also* a member of the Galactic Republic. It's at least strongly implied that the Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo is *completely lawful*, and it's quite clearly indicated that Trade Federation only overstepped under Sidious' direct orders to kill the Jedi and outright invade Naboo.

  • In Attack of the Clones, we see just that: we find out that the Republic has been neglecting so many other planets/star systems/members like Naboo, that there is an entire group that wants to secede from the Republic. Unlike the Confederacy, we don't see any ethically dubious stuff going on that could justify the Republic going to war against the Separatists... and yet the Republic apparently wants to conquer the Separatists and force them to be a part of the Republic. The CIS didn't even shoot first.

Because a charming fellow by the name of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was responsible for the diplomatic negotiations.

It's rather confusing why the CIS are depicted as the antagonists. Seems like the only thing did was try to execute foreign spies/infiltrators in Attack of the Clones... which is standard policy for pretty much every country both IRL and in the Star Wars universe, right?

That's how it's supposed to be. The Republic is corrupt and *becoming the Evil Empire* throughout the prequel trilogy; it's not just that Palpatine got up one day and decided to be evil now.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Mind you how blockading a planet is lawful unless it's the Federal Government doing so beats me

The Old Republic appears to be more of a loose confederacy than a centralized federal republic. Up until the Clone Wars, there wasn't even a federal military; individual systems and/or alliances of systems maintained their own independent navies.
 

LindyAF

Well-known member
That's how it's supposed to be. The Republic is corrupt and *becoming the Evil Empire* throughout the prequel trilogy; it's not just that Palpatine got up one day and decided to be evil now.

Yeah, but I think this message was somewhat lost in that there's never really any CIS-Republic conflicts in which the Republic is taking the wrong side. The Trade Federation / CIS is pretty much always presented as being up to some pretty evil stuff, which someone has to stop.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
Say what you like about Rebels, it is *vastly* better than Legends era "kiddie Star Wars" material. Glove of Darth Vader, anyone?
Nope. At least Legends was clear on what was kiddie material.

both Rebels and TCW "tried" to put deep messages and that stuff inside the episodes, but it just came off badly due to the usually comical nature of the show.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Nope. At least Legends was clear on what was kiddie material.

Rebels was *far more* clearly identified as kiddie material; for goodness sake, it was a Disney XD show!

Conversely, the Glove of Darth Vader series was *never* actually distinguished from other Legends material in any way; indeed, Glove of Darth Vader was one of the very first publications in the original EU alongside Heir to the Empire.
 

LindyAF

Well-known member
Say what you like about Rebels, it is *vastly* better than Legends era "kiddie Star Wars" material. Glove of Darth Vader, anyone?

Haven't seen Rebels, so I can't really say, but that seems pretty believable to me. That's not a high bar though, a lot of Legends is quite frankly bad.

I'm pretty sure Glove of Darth Vader specifically was my first experience with the EU as a teenager and probably why I have such a bad overall impression of it, tbh.
 

LindyAF

Well-known member
Wait
Ken, the main protagonist, is a brave but callow youth, whose behavior resembles that of Luke Skywalker before his Jedi training. Raised in the Lost City of the Jedi for the first twelve years of his life, Ken eventually joins the Rebel Alliance, where Luke discovers him. Ken is the son of the mutant Triclops and, therefore, Emperor Palpatine's grandson.
Is that the inspiration for Rey?
 

LindyAF

Well-known member
So I was thinking a bit about how lightsiders, particularly ones who act like the fanon-OJO, would actually make pretty decent underlings for a Sith or other darksider. Unlike darksider underlings, lightsiders are less driven to trying to kill their superiors in order to take their place, so the Sith Lord is at less risk, and they’re less prone to infighting so they self-sabotage less, and you can field more of them. They’re less morally aligned, but a dedication to lack of emotion isn’t irreconcilable with doing evil deeds. And whenever the Sith wants a new real apprentice, he’s got a bunch of already mostly-trained Force sensitives to choose from.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
What motivation would fanon-OJO have for obeying a Sith though? The reason they are dedicated to lack of emotion is to avoid the darkside, following and obeying a darksider would be contra-indicated.
 

LindyAF

Well-known member
My first thought was an alternate origin for the Sith and Jedi. Canon has the Jedi (or Jedi like groups) come first, but this doesn’t really make much sense given the mechanics of the force in Star Wars. If someone was self-teaching themselves how to use the force, and they ever used the force when angry or desperate, they'd find that using those emotions was both stronger and far easier than the emotion-less method, if they'd ever even stumbled on the emotionless method in the first place, which would be unlikely. From there, they've got a method which seems stronger and easier (ie. more "correct"), and unknown to them it's addictive. 99%+ of self-taught force users should end up dark side, it's a much more stable equilibrium for force use. In contrast, the emotionless method is a constant tightrope that if you ever fall off you end up darkside and don't come back from, it basically requires a formal order and training.

So in alternate origin, dark side proto-Sith warlords arise first. These warlords begin training other force sensitives in order to use as weapons against each other, which is successful enough that it becomes necessary, but they also keep getting too powerful and murdering the Warlord to take his place. Thus, the origins of Sith understanding of Master and Apprentice.

In order to avoid this, a Sith Warlord starts teaching his force-sensitive warriors to use the force wrong, teaching them an intentionally crippled version of the force, and killing any that use the full-strength force calling this the “dark side of the force." This turns out to be massively more successful than the Sith Warlord anticipated - his new breed of force sensitive warriors, the Ur-Jedi, were slightly weaker than the dark side acolytes used by other Sith, but their more pro-social nature meant that much larger armies of them could be fielded. Other Sith Warlords either rapidly followed suit, went into hiding, or were killed.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Hmm, I like that idea but want to develop it more.

The first Sith were lightsiders. Sith Knights used their emotions to fuel their powers and self-discipline along with mental health and maintaining a happy lifestyle to keep themselves away from the Darkside. Jedi came about from a heretical sect that preached escape from all emotions instead.

The dark lords of the Sith are the sad results of the Jedi philosophy. Sith Knights can have a bad day and be touched by the Darkside but this is expected, and much like a normal person can lose their temper and then cool down. They expect rage and sorrow and happiness and elation and they have coping mechanisms in place like normal people.

But Jedi with their excessive focus on their own thinking and inward devotion tend to fall hard and go full-evil-maniac when they do, and don't have coping mechanisms in place because they believe in never falling in the first place. It's like a lapsed super-strict Christian who goes full-throttle MAXIMUM SIN as a teenager because they never developed the normal restraint and moderate exposure to sinful things most people do.
 

TyrantTriumphant

Well-known member
The writers for Star Wars in both Legends and Canon have never really been consistent on what the dark side is or how it works. On one hand you have things like the Sith holocaust, the Jedi sometimes being dogmatic arrogant jerks, and the golden age of the Sith being a pretty stable government, and on the other hand you have some writers saying that the dark side is always bad and anyone who uses it can only be a mustache twirling villain.

This is the problem with setting with a bunch of different writers. They tend to have different ideas what should be in it and without someone with a consistent vision riding herd on them the setting doesn't make sense anymore.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
The writers for Star Wars in both Legends and Canon have never really been consistent on what the dark side is or how it works. On one hand you have things like the Sith holocaust, the Jedi sometimes being dogmatic arrogant jerks, and the golden age of the Sith being a pretty stable government, and on the other hand you have some writers saying that the dark side is always bad and anyone who uses it can only be a mustache twirling villain.

This is the problem with setting with a bunch of different writers. They tend to have different ideas what should be in it and without someone with a consistent vision riding herd on them the setting doesn't make sense anymore.
That goes with all big franchises that have over 30 years of history.

Marvel and DC characters (especially the older ones) have wildly varying powers depending on the era and the writer's preference for that character.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
There's also a distinction between Dark Siders, Dark Jedi, and Sith, although these categories of course overlap -- Darth Vader was all three at once, Palpatine was a Dark Sider and a Sith but not a Dark Jedi, and members of other factions like the Nightsisters would be Dark Siders without any connections to the Jedi/Sith rivalry.

A related thought: the Jedi seem to define *any* use of a emotional focus to channel the Force as Dark, but I'd argue that it's likely that other Force religions don't necessarily agree with this rather hardline definition and define Darkness as the use of *negative* emotions as a focus.

Edit: A further related thought. It was canonical in Legends and remains at least partially canonical in Disney that the Jedi are entirely intolerant of other Force religions, due to the belief that any Force user who wasn't strictly following orthodox Jedi teachings would inevitably fall to the Dark Side. Differing definitions of Darkness would, of course, tie into this belief that every non-Jedi was either a Dark Sider or doomed to fall.

When you add out-of-character perspective, this becomes very interesting because of the way George Lucas distilled Eastern martial arts philosophies to produce the basic concepts of the Jedi and the Force. The Jedi have a very simplistic and absolutist view of the Force, which makes it downright hilarious when they absolutely declare that only the evil Sith deal in absolutes.
 
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Bassoe

Well-known member
I like to imagine there are actually dozens to hundreds of Sith across the galaxy. Now and then a force-sensitive shmuck comes across a Sith Holocron and gets some training, then establishes his/her own Sith line in secret. Lots of them eat a lightsaber when they get cocky and think a few simple tricks make them a match for a Jedi. Others establish themselves as crime lords and see a lot of success as underworld kingpins. For the failures, the holocron most often winds up in some pawnshop sold as a paperweight or executive toy, as most of the galaxy has no idea what a Sith holocron looks like. It may go a hundred years before it passes through the hands of another force-sensitive and starts over. For the successes the holocron may go on to establish a line of apprentices and groom them according to that particular Sith's own manias. Many of the shmucks never make it to an apprentice but once in a while one does and establishes a new line of Sith lords hiding out in some corner of the galaxy, passing on their secrets and taking their heresies in interestingly weird directions over time.

It makes the galaxy a more varied place with room for adventures outside the normal channels.
You know what would be hilarious? If Plagueis and Sidious weren't even from the actual line of Bane, someone just picked up one of the actual Banite Sith's holocrons and the details got obscured over time. Now I'm picturing the actual Heir of Bane thinking "yes, yesssss, I have infiltrated the republic undetected and been elected to the Senate, the Grand Plan in proceeding apace. Alright, it's my first senate session, and an emergency session at that! I wonder what the Chancellor called the session for..."

"In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized..."

"... shit"
Pictured, the republic senate.
Ct1l9GbWcAAcutD.jpg
 

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