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

[Arch Dornan]

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

In other words, just about every pre-modern major power in RL history.

Pretty much.

Though admittedly by then the lingering shadow of the Sith Holocaust, plus the Jedi and the Republic still clearly wanting to exterminate the Sith - again, the Infinite Army was fully sanctioned by both the High Council and the Supreme Chancellor* - means it's unlikely it could have lasted long. The Sith Empire's very existence was anathema to both.

*That's Twi'lek bitch from Taris, Saris or whatever her name was. Executing her in one of the expansions was without a doubt one of the best moments of the game.

That was Saresh. Though I don't believe she was Chancellor at the time of the Infinite Army. I think that was carried out by Chancellor Dorian Janarus.

 

[Zachowon]

Pretty much.


That was Saresh. Though I don't believe she was Chancellor at the time of the Infinite Army. I think that was carried out by Chancellor Dorian Janarus.

She had to have been chancellor if it is during the time of that, as it was an Expansion, and she is the Chancaller during all expansions. Unless you kill her later on, which I did not. I know horrible, but my Jedi does not kill unless he absolutly had too

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

She had to have been chancellor if it is during the time of that, as it was an Expansion, and she is the Chancaller during all expansions. Unless you kill her later on, which I did not. I know horrible, but my Jedi does not kill unless he absolutly had too

I thought the Infinite Army plot was a flashpoint. One that you get access to earlier in the story before Saresh becomes Chancellor.

 

[Zachowon]

I thought the Infinite Army plot was a flashpoint. One that you get access to earlier in the story before Saresh becomes Chancellor.

You kill the docotr for it After, that may be why

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Which, to be fair, is implied to actually be how the Force is supposed to be used in the EU. Or rather, that's what it means by balancing the Force. Not by dedicating yourself to the Light or falling to the Dark, but acting in harmony with both. Ultimately, Jedi and Sith are both as wrong as each other.

SWTOR's Light Side Sith are probably the closest to the original Je'daii as they once were (Dark Side Jedi, in contrast, are just plain fallen).

I always thought darkside vs lightside was more about choice. It's quick and easy to be a narsatic jerk, it's much harder to be disciplined. It's easy to crush those beneath your feet, it's harder to know when to stay your hand. It goes back to deliberate choice. It's part of the reason why the whole anti attachment thing makes no sense to me. stocism and celebcy is genetic suicide, and so is ravenous self-destruction. the concept of force sensativity as presented in the prequels seems fundamentally antagonistic to life. there is a reason why budasim is a nitche religion. it's genetically unsustainable.

 

[UltimatePaladin]

Which, to be fair, is implied to actually be how the Force is supposed to be used in the EU. Or rather, that's what it means by balancing the Force. Not by dedicating yourself to the Light or falling to the Dark, but acting in harmony with both. Ultimately, Jedi and Sith are both as wrong as each other.

Depends on your interpretation.

Out of universe, the old EU really pushed that idea. However, the original movies were meant to take the perspective that the “Light Side” is the Force, and the Dark Side is simply corruption, IIRC.

It does add an interesting twist on Anakin’s fate, however. As either way you interpret the Force, Anakin did bring balance to it - either by killing Palpatine (removing the biggest influence of the Dark Side,) or by killing the Jedi, then Palpatine (leveling the playing field.)

 

[Skallagrim]

My own favourite view of the Force is that what is called "the Light Side" is the Force in its natural state, and the Dark Side is a corruption. But not some external corruption, in a quasi-Manichaean way, but rather one produced by us. All objects bathed in light cast a shadow, and all sapient beings immersed in the Force likewise cast a shadow. It's the manifestation of their negative impulses in the Force, and this creates the darkness. To reject those evil impulses is to choose the Light; to embrace them is to choose the Dark.

Just as in real life, choices tend to be self-reinforcing. As Aristotle points out: virtue is a habit, because our character is formed by what we repeatedly commit to doing. In this same way, evil is also a habit. Of course, few people are fully evil or fully good. We all have redeeming qualities; and we all have flaws. There is some darkness in even the brightest, and some brightness in evel the darkest of souls. This is what the Taijitu (Yin-Yang symbol) represents in Taoism: the notion that to be one thing, we have to accept that the opposite exists within us as well. That leads to inner harmony.

(We may note that Anakin never grasps this, and never faces his inner darkness, during the prequel trilogy. His only way to deal with it is to deny it. It ends up consuming him.)

But my point is: "balance" is inner harmony. It's not "mingling black and white to get grey". That's chaos. That's the opposite of harmony. This is why I'm not a fan of the "balance is equal Light and Dark" idea, and certainly not of "both Jedi and Sith are wrong, there's some grey balance in between" meme.

Since our choices are self-reinforcing, the idea of using Dark for the purposes of Light simply won't end well. We aren't defined by our intentions, but by what we actually do. Do evil things with good intent, and you're still doing evil things. See; Revan, Darth. (The game mechanics lead to an illusion of achievable balance, but the actual story shows us where that leads.)

The true balance of the Force is to embrace the Light, while recognising the Dark that exists within you. By facing it, you prevent it from controlling you. It's not that you can destroy the Dark. It's that you find harmony and thereby gain self-mastery. Then, the Dark has no more power over you.

In reverse, someone in the throes of the Dark can face the Light that still exists, even within himself. Facing it allows you to overcome the Dark, because even the smallest flame can drive out any darkness. Stover makes this explicit in his novelisation of RotS. (Note that Stover is into Taoism and knows what he's talking about.) This is what ultimately happens at the conclusion of RotJ: Luke's hope, compassion and foregiveness are enough to bring Anakin to find that little spark of Light within himself, and it saves him.

That's the restoration of the balance. And because microcosm and macrocosm reflect one another; to save one life is to save the world entire. Anakin's redemption also brings about the defeat of the evil Palpatine, thus restoring balance to the galaxy at large. But at its core, it's not about the Force-as-an-external-power. The restoration of balance is Anakin making a choice.

Salvation is personal. In that, Star Wars reveals itself as actually being profoundly Christian. That should surprise no-one, because it's a poduct of Western culture, and the West is always a Christian society at the root (even if not explicitly so). This also suggests that metaphisically, Christian salvation and Taoist harmony (and Aristotelian eudaimonia, for that matter) are all telling us the same thing. And Star Wars is reiterating it, in its own way:

You bring balance to the Force by bringing balance to yourself.

 

[AspblastUSA]

That is an excellently formalized way of describing how I also tend to view the Force. The only addition I would make is that acknowledgment of the Light within a fallen individual can also be as part of a twisted inverse of finding balance.

It is not an equivalent state nor a good place to be mind you; as it is closer to leashing and weaponizing the tattered remains of your own conscience and compassion, but there have been Sith who were absolutely capable of such a thing. From SWTOR for instance, Darth Zash seemed to genuinely like the inquisitor and even care for them after a fashion, even as she was planning to steal their body and effectively kill them.

 

[BlackDragon98]

The Force is like the Yin-Yang symbol.
Light and dark in equal parts.
And there is light in darkness and darkness in light.
Only when one masters both darkness and light can they become whole.

 

[Doomsought]

We see what a society that thrives on the Dark side looks like in the Red Sith of Korriban. They were basically space aztecs as far as cultrue goes. Thier society only functioned because they litterally do not need to eat, and like many other life forms on Korriban could sustain themselves purely off the dark side of the force.

The Red Sith's insight into the force was part of the old Yin-Yang view of the force adopted in by the early jedi, but because many people where driven insane by over use of the darkside, the yin-yang view was eventually rejected in a violent Jedi civil war. Interestingly, it was not the Tythan Sith population that lived around the old Jedi that brought Jedi force knowledge to the Sith population that remained on Korreban, but rather exiled human dark Jedi several thousand years later.

They could have survived and just didn't leave the core, but it is entirely possible that the Tythan Sith were exterminated by the early Jedi.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

EDIT: So I dug around a bit, apparently the reason why next to none OT or PT aliens appear in the ST, is because the First Order carried out several devastating strikes against alien populations, with many being considered endangered. Of course, the out-of-universe reason is that Disney doesn't want to use Lukas' creations, so they make something up and put their own shitty aliens in. It didn't help that the lead-designer wanted to make his own version of the Bothans. Doesn't matter tho. The ST aliens look all the same.

 

[Navarro]

Not to mention the alien that's an armless slug, who apparently is a mechanic.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

What? They treat the main characters of the OT like shit, and you are surprised?

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

What? They treat the main characters of the OT like shit, and you are surprised?

I'm surprised they would resort to genocide, attempted or successful, to put their own creations in the spotlight.

 

[AspblastUSA]

I mean why not? They need to try and make the FO look intimidating somehow, since they’re a bunch of fucking clowns on screen.

 

[Navarro]

I mean why not? They need to try and make the FO look intimidating somehow, since they’re a bunch of fucking clowns on screen.

I remember being told by the usual suspects that having intimidating villains was a bad thing because kids would think they were cool.

 

[Skallagrim]

I remember being told by the usual suspects that having intimidating villains was a bad thing because kids would think they were cool.

Yup. And the problem with that is simple: adventure films like these require an impressive opponent. A weak villain hurts the story. It kills the stakes. It eliminates the audience's respect for both the villain and the hero. If the villains are unimpressive, then how can they ever be a credible threat? And if we're told they're a threat anyway, then how come the heroes haven't dealt with them yet? Surely, if the villains are as useless as they are shown to be, defeating them cannot be so hard? And yet, the heroes struggle and incur major losses. The implication becomes that the good guys must be even worse losers than the villains. Otherwise, they'd have won by now.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

I remember being told by the usual suspects that having intimidating villains was a bad thing because kids would think they were cool.

Is that why Darth Vader isn't in Galaxy Land or whatever that supposedly Star Wars-themed Disneyland is called? Because Lord Vader is the poster boy of evil is cool?

Well, in a way, they do have a point. AFAIK, there are more Imperial players than there are Republic players in SWTOR. That said, apart from cooler powers (LIGHTNING sorcerer/PYROTECH bounty hunter FTW), sexily evil British accents, it doesn't help that the Republic storyline and class stories are just plain dull. That, and the Republic tends to screw their characters over (you even get to call them out for this in an expansion), and the Republic Trooper coming off as especially hypocritical i.e. fighting for liberty and justice but using the same dirty and underhanded methods of the Empire. That last has a tendency to turn people off, as while Imperial characters can get nasty, they don't pretend to be the good guys.

In contrast, the Imperial storyline and class stories are much more fun, and while there's plenty of infighting going on, Imperial NPCs in general tend to respect the PCs. The Sith Empire also explicitly rewards good service, unlike the Republic which has a tendency to go "their deeds will go unrecognized, and but not unforgotten".

Thankfully, given how SWTOR makes money for Disney, there's nothing Lucasfilm can do about it for now.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

The Force is like the Yin-Yang symbol.
Light and dark in equal parts.
And there is light in darkness and darkness in light.
Only when one masters both darkness and light can they become whole.

This is the canon viewpoint of the Expanded Universe and should be the default for anyone who rejects the SkavenWars heresy. But personally I prefer the view that the 'light side' and the 'dark side' are entirely subjective phenomenology, that is to say, 'point of view'. What has substance, what exists objectively is only and simply the Force, undivided. That is, the light and dark -ness of the act come from Adept in the use of the Force. In the end, the Force, which is to say the realm of the Forms or Mind, is a tool and the 'colour' of the act, comes from the mind of the Adept himself. 'Light' and 'Dark' are not any sort of morality but more a question of technique: of Surrendering the Will to the impersonal Force versus Imposing the Adept's Will on the Force.