[ SECRET POST #3147 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3147 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #450.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with a lot of the thought process here - it is probably more thematically interesting than the Rebellion stuff.

But I don't see any reason to think that they were good men, either in the way they're described in the SW fiction, or in our understanding of society and morality IRL. They were not evil in the same way as Palpatine, certainly, but that's not the same as being good.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought Needa taking responsibility and apologizing to Vader in person was pretty brave and showed that he cared about the people under his command. Especially since they were losing whole ships going after the Millennium Falcon.

[(Anonymous)]

That's fair, and right, but still, in the same vein: having good qualities does not mean that you are a good person either.

[(Anonymous)]

True, but I still wonder...they grew up under the Republic, where there was massive bureaucratic inefficiency and a huge Civil War broke out. I wonder how many of them believe in the Empire or believe it to be a Force for good in the galaxy?

[(Anonymous)]

But the question surely isn't whether they believe that; the question is whether or not it is compatible with their being good for them to believe that. And of course it varies from person to person. But I strongly suspect that most of them should be able to come to the conclusion that the Empire is massively a force for evil, and I don't give them a whole lot of credit for complacency or poor reasoning.

[(Anonymous)]

da

Historically, fundamentally decent people haven't come to the conclusion that their society is a serious force for evil despite the evidence being obvious to outside observers, particularly if that society rose out of a period of serious unrest or corruption. 'Stable' is the same as 'good' for a hell of a lot of the human population.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess my answer to that would be that I think the Empire is a force for evil in a way that is outside the norm for human societies. It is more evil than it has to be.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, yes, but it also exists in a universe that has an incredibly binary system of magic that counts mind control as good. Normal human experience is only so applicable.

[(Anonymous)]

They blew up fucking Alderaan. I mean, maybe they're convinced they themselves are good, but only inasmuch as a lot of bad people think they're actually good. It doesn't make them good people.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah but...even Vader didn't seem that keen on that.

I can easily see it being dismissed as Tarkin's fault and that the Death Star was just meant to be a deterrent except in war (like nuclear weapons are).

I do think good people could believe that even if it's not true.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe good people could believe it, I just don't think good people generally rise to the top of oppressive military dictatorships.

I suppose they can get a "not as bad as you could have been" star, but not more.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I think there are lots of reasons people support military dictatorships, not the least of which is because dictators give stability or can protect minorities.

Just as an example, I know some Syrian Christians who supported Assad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/27/bashar-al-assad-posts-a-letter-of-support-from-a-virginia-state-senator/

It's not always so black and white unfortunately.

[(Anonymous)]

Star Wars is a little more black and white than the real world, though.

[(Anonymous)]

True, but I suppose my perspective is shaped a lot by how much I see shades of grey in conflicts. Even things like the Nazis...while they're probably the most obvious example of pure evil in history what the Red Army did to a lot of them is still completely unacceptable to me. And, even then, I think the Red Army had taken such abuse that none of us would probably have behaved much better.

I'm not very good at leaving black and white conflict be unfortunately, even though I know that's how it's intended to come across. And I think, given that the films want us to believe in Darth Vader's redemption, it's not so egregious to believe in the humanity of the Imperial officers in that case.

[(Anonymous)]

I just don't think good people generally rise to the top of oppressive military dictatorships.

Oh my god, THIS. Anyone who thinks otherwise is embarrassingly naive.

[(Anonymous)]

Counterpoint: we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I was waiting for somebody to bring it up. There are a lot of differences between the nukes and Aldaraan, though.

1. it was a state of all-out war (Aldaraan wasn't at war with anybody)
2. at least they pretended to be bombing military facilities, and there were actual military facilities
3. if you really think about it, not sure nukes are "worse" than the firebombing of Tokyo or the general city-flattening that was going on in Europe, on both sides.
4. at the time, they did not quite yet know how bad the fallout would be from it. if you want to talk about worse, consider that there were talks of nuking North Korea during the Korean war.
5. you're assuming the US is as "good" as the rebel alliance, which is isn't. in part because the US is a real country and the rebel alliance isn't, and the narrative makes them unequivocably good.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah those are fair points. But regardless of that, I do think it demonstrates that you can look at things that are prima facie awful and find justifications for them.

[(Anonymous)]

also forgot to mention that Japan was the supreme monarch of shittiness on the asian front, whereas no sign of Aldaraan doing any of that.

[(Anonymous)]

re: 5, I think it's more likely that they were assuming the US is as evil as the Empire.

Or at least that its populace is by and large willing to handwave away atrocities and continue to support the people who commit them.

[(Anonymous)]

3) radiation

[(Anonymous)]

afaik they didn't know how bad the radiation fallout would be at the time, though.
even with radiation, though, the people who died in the fire bombing... absolutely horriffic.

[(Anonymous)]

Look at all the places in Middle East we've blown the motherfucking shit out of, yet we haven't overthrown congress, taken down the marines, and stopped the soul crushing poverty in the heartland.

Yet somehow most Americans still think we're the good guys, because its different when we are doing it. We're the good guys because America is the good guys, and so we must be the good guys.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeeeessss.

[(Anonymous)]

*sarcasm*

Sarcasm....