Ender wrote:As long as it is not radioactive particulate matter, so what? If that's your criteria then a coal burning powerplant is a WMD.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/co ... 02,00.html
Morally, absolutly. But they are still dead either way. It's a numbers game. And for the scale, the numbers make it the same.
Public relations isn't necessarily about numbers. It's about spin. As evidenced by the very fact that the Rebellion exists, at least some people are aware of the Empire's transgressions. The more that you do that you have to spin and cover up, the greater your chances of a mistake being made or something like this leaking out. Why risk damaging yourself unnecessarily when a cheaper and less risky method is available?
Why? That's how things are always judged. In revolutionary times, 5 people dying was a massacre. Now its just how many die after the Pistons win the championship.
Things like this aren't judged relative to the global population. They're judged relative to the situation. 5 people is just how many die after the Pistons win the championship because 5 people is how many die. If I showed up in suburban ohio and executed a household of 5 people with a pistol, no sensational mutilations or anything, just five murders in one place that isn't the inner city, it would make the national news, even though five people is a drop in the bucket relative to the global, or even national population.
Which is pretty much the Empire's MO. The Death Star blew up to basically get at one person, Bail Organa. They could have blown up a moon in an uninhabited system or at the edge of the Coruscant system as a demonstration and had Imperial intellegence assassinate him instead.
The destruction of Alderaan was a demonstration, nothing more and nothing less. Destroying Alderaan proved 1. That the Empire had the power not just to wipe out a planet (ala BDZ) but to annihilate it. 2. And that the Empire was willing to use it on a populated target. Tarkin stated that the Death Star would keep the local systems in line through fear, rather than conquest. When you rule through fear, you walk a fine line. You have to ensure that the populace has more to fear from opposing you than it has to gain. When Tarkin blows up Alderaan, yes he's saying that we have this and we're willing to use it, but he's also saying that if you toe the line, we won't blow you up. When you start randomly murdering the populace you're trying to subjugate your rule through fear backfires. They reach a point where they're more afraid of what will happen to them if you remain in power than they are of the risks of revolution. And then... Well, 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei,' even to a Sith Lord.
I agree. But it is not the Empire's MO.
I don't think the Empire's MO is to massively overreact and randomly BDZ their own planets, or else there wouldn't be an Empire. I think Palpatine understands subtlety as well as anyone in his Galactic Empire.
To take and hold territory. THere is a difference in slaughter and conquest.
But by your reasoning there's no need. There's always more land, right? And always more people? So we may as well go with scorched earth whenever anyone opposes us. Then all of our enemies will be dead, and we'll still have millions of planets and trillions of citizens without ever having to land an infantry-man. Unfortunately things don't work that way.
It seems that we've reached an impasse. We're arguing opinion. I don't think the Galactic Empire would so cavalierly use turbolasers on its own citizenry and would thus pursue slightly less destructive solutions. You think the realities of the situation dictate otherwise. So assume we have found a Jedi on Coruscant. And assume Lord Vader is on the rim somewhere doing something important. I, as Palpatine, am not going to fight him myself, correct? So, why not shotguns?
