[ SECRET POST #2016 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2016 ⌋

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

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________



17.


__________________________________________________



18.


__________________________________________________



19.


__________________________________________________



20.


__________________________________________________








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #288.
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

[fscom]

01. http://i46.tinypic.com/2s16gee.png

[rmg]

i like how you used the death star as the image here since it makes it easy to bring up that one time the empire killed billions of innocent people theoretically under the empire's protection on alderaan because some rebel leaders were from there

[(Anonymous)]

The empire was fascist?!

[helishdreams]

Woo planet-wide destruction! Yeah that totally sounds like fun...

[(Anonymous)]

You don't sign up, they sign you up. Then when they're done they sign you out.

[wauwy]

But... blrhdd? huh? No personal freedom? Rat torture and the clocks all striking thirteen?

I mean what good is advanced technology if you're probably not allowed to fap to the porn you like because it's been deemed Plusungood? Or to submit secrets without a black 3-pixel stroke for aesthetic reasons? What would life even be anymore?

Hot

[trollometer]

Who doesn't love a good, old fashioned debate on the merits of fascism?

Say what you will about the Emperor, but at least the transports ran on time.

[stainless]

I like fictional Evil Empires for the same reasons.

This does not, however, mean that they would actually be good to live in.

[dragonimp]

Except for the whole ruling by fear and, oh I dunno, killing innocent people thing.

[angrymermaids]

The Empire in Star Wars is definitely a bad thing, jsyk

A lot of people sympathize with evil empires, I think, if the empire isn't fleshed-out enough. What exactly makes them bad? If we don't know, we don't care. The Empire in Eragon, for example, is an evil empire done wrong (I've only read the first two books, but the damage has been done). What do they do? Collect taxes? So what? Every effective government does that. And in contrast to the Star Wars empire, which was done right (despite the fact that Eragon is Star Wars in Middle Earth), we don't know what makes them so EEEEEVIL.

Other ineffective evil empires are ones that are just SO EVIL ALL THE TIME WITH TORTURE AND EVIL AND AWFUL EVIL that they aren't convincing. Mordor works like this, because it's supernatural. But if you have a more "mundane" evil empire this approach does not work.

I think the Fire Nation is a good example of how to make an evil empire that is both suitably evil and suitably humane. They've got technology, gender parity, and a lovely tropical climate, but they have also committed complete genocide, displaced millions of people, and systematically murdered innocents like SWT waterbenders. It's indefensible, but you would almost kind of want to live there anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Does the OP live in a first-world Western country? That would probably biases someone toward acceptance of these things. We ARE the Empire.

[kallanda_lee]

Sure, as long as you're cool with genocide everything is just peachy.

[b_dangerous]

Well, you know... Mass-murder and religious persecution isn't very cool?

[(Anonymous)]

...but I thought the cool cities and technology were there before the Empire took over.

[(Anonymous)]

A fascist nation/empire is only a cool thing if the leader(s) isn't(aren't) terrible to their people; but then, the people desperately raising to the power required to pull off a totalitarian regime aren't exactly good people, or at least not people that don't wind up killing people left and right to subdue opposition.

Really, if everyone was a-okay with the leader(s), and the leader(s) wasn't(weren't) doing a shitty job of taking care of the people, there wouldn't be any need for dissent; but people really like having freedom, so it's all a vicious cycle and that's why it doesn't work out in real life.

[childings.livejournal.com]

"Secret because FASCISM IS BAD."
Welp then you answered your own question didn't you

...

[opal_skies]

Sozin?

[ariakas]

I think it's because we realize, at least deep down, that our world and much of our privilege is as a result of real-life Evil Empires, and that the real world is much more nuanced than that. Thus, it's easy to imagine being part of the Empire than the Rebels.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess I'm totally biased on the opposite side since I'm from a developing nation, but big empires tend to do this "ohhh, shiny, I want it I have it NOW" that tends to screw people NOT living in the empire... :/

[loki]

Fascism can seem terribly attractive - all that nice promised social order, sexy uniforms, reassuring certainty, and images of glory. I mean, there's a reason humans keep falling into it.

Pity it doesn't work so well close up, especially if you're one of the unpopular ones standing in the way of glorious universal harmony.

But anyway, this is a silly secret. I'll take the super-advanced societies thanks, that sounds pretty cool, no limited resources on a polluted Earth, but I'd really quite like not to risk being obliterated in the process.

[miss_lydzi]

It probably has to do with the torture and killing.

[(Anonymous)]

The things you listed as attractive qualities are cool.
The reason people don't like evil empires is because they ... murder innocent people, oppress everyone indiscriminantly, control the media, execute the families of rebels/criminals, and have no higher powers to be accountable to (like the U.N. or an ethics committee.) Also there generally isn't any voting going on, so the people have no say in what's going on. The Evil Empire could indeed give you shiny new technology, or it could deny your grandma health care and kill your kids and force you to work 16-hour days in a windowless factory making bombs. And you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

[(Anonymous)]

...Well, for starters their regard for human life tends to be pretty low - and even lover for groups that don't fit *their* definition of a 'citizen'. They also tend to be pretty big on things like 'torture' and not big on things like 'civil rights'.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, because in Evil Empires culture is suppressed, the economy is only kind to those in privileged positions, people who live in those awesome cities are constantly monitored, and developing those super-advanced technologies comes with a high price (the price is usually the lives of millions of people).

That said, I fucking love Evil Empires (and Evil Organizations, and Evil Churches, and-and...). I always want to know more about them, how do they work; how long could they have survived if the heroes hadn't destroyed them; are they really that evil or are there shades of gray hidden there; how do most people relate to them; do they view the doings of their empire/organization/church/whatever as necessary evil; does most people really care about censorship and the lack of freedom of speech as long as they can live in relative safety; what are the origins of its ideologies; how dogmatic are its teachings and to what degree do said ideologies and teachings influence the everyday lives of people; after the empire collapsed, is the new, democratic government really that better than the previous one was or does the newfound democracy lead to even more corruption and even to anarchy?

[artemis10002000]

Star Wars is a canon which does a good job of showing that the Evil Empire is evil.

Many authors/shows/movies, however, don't. They simply tell you that the guys in the weird black leather costumes are the Evil Empire and that's it. Or don't even bother with that and resort to "they are the hero's opponents, thus they must be evil" reasoning. Too often, Evil Empires are simply a cop-out for a believable villain and then they don't come across as evil at all.

It's a sloppy writing problem, not a "fascism ain't so bad" problem in my opinion.

tl;dr: Star Wars was a bad choice for the picture, but in general anon has a point. Blame sloppy authors.