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Right now, I'm trying to rack up all of the SW characters with a mega-death crime or better on their conscience. I'm going to say that only those who ordered or specifically committed such an act are liable, and leave issues of incompetence for another list. So far I have:

Grand Moff Tarkin-Ordered destruction of Alderaan, and probably some prison planet
Darth Vader-Bombardment of the Fallen capital city
Ysanne Isaard- Executor tearing though fifty km^2 or more of Coruscant, release of Krytos virus
Luke Skywalker-destruction of DS1
R2D2-destruction of Eclipse 2, Galaxy Gun, and Byss
Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles- Destruction of DS2,
Emperor Palpatine- presumed to have ordered destruction of Caamas, Pinnacle Moon
Thrackan Sal-Solo-Fired Centerpoint though Hapan fleet
Various YV assholes-Ithor, Sernpidal, Coruscant, Yevetha, among others
Kyp Durron-destruction of Carida
Whoever was commanding DS prototype- Destruction of Kessel's moon, leading to probable 'Kessel Holocaust'
Grand Admiral Thrawn-Destroyed some world or another
Darth Malak-Ordered bombardment of Taris
Exar Kun-used up the Massassi on Yavin 4

How many have I missed so far?

I know I remember it saying somewhere that the prison world that the first DS was built at was obliterated in the first test firing of the superlaser - think that's probably another one for Tarkin.

consequences wrote:Darth Malak-Ordered bombardment of Tanis

It was Taris and Malak also ordered the bombarment of Telos and Darth Revan didn't stop it he's at least partly responsible.

Elscol Loro (ref: Bacta War): While her personal body count - and that of the professional liberation force which she leads - from various acts of terrorism targetted at both military and civilian targets would probably only be in the thousands at most, they (as most of these acts of terror would have been attributed to the Empire, no doubt) resulted in open revolt (and probably rioting on a scale we can only imagine) on dozens of worlds far more more populous than Earth would probably ever be.

The Kessel incident shouldn't count, because it wasn't that stable of a planet to begin with, and there weren't many people there (and most probably evaced anyway).

The test firing of the DS1 was on Despyr, where it was built.

And don't forget about the firing of Centerpoint into several stars, causing their novaing.

And if you count the complete destruction of a SD as genocide (25,000 crew IIRC), Han flew the Suncrusher through the bridge of the Manticore of Dalaa's fleet, causing it to go down a black hole with all hands.

BTW why would destruction of the Death Stars would count as genocide, after all we don't concider sinking of (modern-day earth) Super carrier (about 5000 crewmembers) with all hands lost genocide. To me genocide would mean destroying defenceless (probaly civilian) target or killing a lot defenceless civilians and/or prisoners. I wouldn't concider destruction of defended military target or destruction of military ship during combat (even with all hands lost) genocide. To me main reason for definening something as genocide is that the target(s) can't defend itself(/themselves).

gen·o·cide ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jn-sd)
n.
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.


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[Greek genos, race; see gen- in Indo-European Roots + -cide.]
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geno·cidal (-sdl) adj.
geno·cidal·ly adv.

Of the quote things the only two people who have REALY committed Genocide are the Vong(Who's state goal is genocide) and Ysanne Isaard(Who order the release of a genocide virus of sorts)

GM Tarkin might be if his state goal was kill everyone rather than just destroy a "thing"
Like a space station... giant gun or a plauge riddled city city

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Side note the "Kessel Holocaust" is rather hard to achive consiedering the fact that Kessel was a semi-airless world and the spice mining operations were still up and running a few months later

IIRC Luke is also responsible for the destruction of Byss.

I can't remember the guys name, but the dark jedi (one of Luke's former students) in that horrible book "The New Rebellion", what was his name? K-something? AH, Kueller.

He wiped out a couple planets.

consequences wrote: Some A-wing pilot- crashed, leading to destuction of Executor

I'd take issue with ones like this, as it was a military engagement and the target was a warship. "Crime" isn't really a good description. Same goes for the DS1.

I'm going with casualties of a million plus for purposes of this. Since all of the pro-rebellion types like to claim that Alderaan was an instance of Genocide, I'm just turning it around on them. To be 100% accurate, the thread should be titled "Who's got a million plus bodycount".

Sharp-Kun, If you disregard the DS1, then you really should also disregard Alderaan:

Both had leadership unwilling to give up.
Both could only be eliminated as an all or nothing proposition.
Both undoubtedly had large populations that had no idea what the kriff was going on, unless you think every chicken-soup machine repair-man on the DS was given a strategic mission briefing.
Both were vitally important strategic targets for their opponents.
Neither was a unique reservoir of species that could not be replaced if they were destroyed.

consequences wrote:Sharp-Kun, If you disregard the DS1, then you really should also disregard Alderaan:

Both had leadership unwilling to give up.

Yes

Both could only be eliminated as an all or nothing proposition.

Perhaps

Both undoubtedly had large populations that had no idea what the kriff was going on, unless you think every chicken-soup machine repair-man on the DS was given a strategic mission briefing.

The crew must know that the Deathstar is a planetkiller. They could/should refuse to do their duty.

Both were vitally important strategic targets for their opponents.

Alderaan posed no threat to the Deathstar while the Deathstar posed a threat to the Rebel Alliance and Yavin 4.

consequences wrote:I'm going with casualties of a million plus for purposes of this. Since all of the pro-rebellion types like to claim that Alderaan was an instance of Genocide, I'm just turning it around on them. To be 100% accurate, the thread should be titled "Who's got a million plus bodycount".

Sharp-Kun, If you disregard the DS1, then you really should also disregard Alderaan:

Both had leadership unwilling to give up.
Both could only be eliminated as an all or nothing proposition.
Both undoubtedly had large populations that had no idea what the kriff was going on, unless you think every chicken-soup machine repair-man on the DS was given a strategic mission briefing.
Both were vitally important strategic targets for their opponents.
Neither was a unique reservoir of species that could not be replaced if they were destroyed.

To use an analogy destroying Alderaan is like shooting an unarmed POW. Destroying a DS is like shooting a fully armed trooper who's about to shoot you.

Perhaps every crewmember in DS1 or DS2 knew details of staions operation, but they knew for what it build for.

consequences wrote: Sharp-Kun, If you disregard the DS1, then you really should also disregard Alderaan:

Alderaan was a purely civilian target. The same cannot be said about a planet killing battlestation, you cannot argue that the DS was not a legitimate military target. The two are not really comparable other than the destruction of each involved a large amount of deaths.

consequences wrote:I'm going with casualties of a million plus for purposes of this. Since all of the pro-rebellion types like to claim that Alderaan was an instance of Genocide, I'm just turning it around on them. To be 100% accurate, the thread should be titled "Who's got a million plus bodycount".

Whether or not the destruction of Alderaan was genocide is debateable, but it was definitely a war crime, whereas the destruction of the Death Stars and other military vessels are not.

Both had leadership unwilling to give up.

Leadership not willing to give up does not give one carte blanche to use as much force as one wants so as to wantonly kill civilians. Alderaan was not such an insurmountable threat to the Empire that its complete annihilation was warrented, any more than Iraq was to the U.S..

Both could only be eliminated as an all or nothing proposition.

Completely false. Torpedo spheres, less powerful superlaser shot to deplete the shield were both perfectly workable courses of action. Tarkin wanted to instill fear into everybody else though.

Both undoubtedly had large populations that had no idea what the kriff was going on, unless you think every chicken-soup machine repair-man on the DS was given a strategic mission briefing.

The difference being the citizens of Alderaan were civilians, whereas the noncombat personnel on the DS were still military. The people who have chosen to be on board a known military vessel are legitimate targets, whether or not they know the exact mission details of the ship they are on.

Neither was a unique reservoir of species that could not be replaced if they were destroyed.

That would be the one thing that would make Alderaan being a genocide debateable.

consequences wrote:I'm going with casualties of a million plus for purposes of this. Since all of the pro-rebellion types like to claim that Alderaan was an instance of Genocide, I'm just turning it around on them. To be 100% accurate, the thread should be titled "Who's got a million plus bodycount".

Sharp-Kun, If you disregard the DS1, then you really should also disregard Alderaan:

Both had leadership unwilling to give up.
Both could only be eliminated as an all or nothing proposition.
Both undoubtedly had large populations that had no idea what the kriff was going on, unless you think every chicken-soup machine repair-man on the DS was given a strategic mission briefing.
Both were vitally important strategic targets for their opponents.
Neither was a unique reservoir of species that could not be replaced if they were destroyed.

Alderaan was an inhabited, unarmed planet with innocent civilians.
The Death Star was crewed 100% by military officers, and was a weapon of war.

It was a MILITARY WEAPON. Unless you're going to claim the Federation commited genocide when they wiped out a Dominion fleet?

The Prime Necromancer wrote:

Neither was a unique reservoir of species that could not be replaced if they were destroyed.

That would be the one thing that would make Alderaan being a genocide debateable.

Alderaan also had a large number of native species (not intelligent like Gungans, mind you, I'm talking about plant and animal life) that were extinct-ified. Furthermore, we know that people on Alderaan had difference accents and slightly different looks than other humans (such as the difference between someone of chinese descent and someone of english descent- I'm not being racist, just using it as an example).

Dictionary.com states on Genocide:
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

Technically, Alderaan is a national group, a racial group, a political group, and an ethnic group.

So technically, the destruction of the entire planet IS genocide in every sense of the word.

If someone somehow wiped out the entire continent of Asia, would it not be considered Genocide? How about Europe? Africa? North America? See my point?

Praxis wrote:Alderaan also had a large number of native species (not intelligent like Gungans, mind you, I'm talking about plant and animal life) that were extinct-ified. Furthermore, we know that people on Alderaan had difference accents and slightly different looks than other humans (such as the difference between someone of chinese descent and someone of english descent- I'm not being racist, just using it as an example).

Dictionary.com states on Genocide:
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

Technically, Alderaan is a national group, a racial group, a political group, and an ethnic group.

So technically, the destruction of the entire planet IS genocide in every sense of the word.

Good point, at least in the case of the Alderaanian people. Although I think that we probably wouldn't consider the extinction of non-sentient species genocide.

Weren't some of the Bothans involved in the Caamasi massacre, or was that misinformation? (I haven't read the relevant texts in some time).

The quoted definition above (from Google, i think; it's the same as the definition I saw when I looked it up), says destruction of a national group conts. A planetary population would, I think, be analogous to a national grouping in SW terms.

The Dark wrote:Weren't some of the Bothans involved in the Caamasi massacre, or was that misinformation? (I haven't read the relevant texts in some time).

Yes, some were, but we don't know their names.

consequences wrote: Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles- Destruction of DS2, probable destruction of Endor

Are we counting incompetence, or are you saying that Lando & Wedge purposely destroyed Endor?

Emperor Palpatine- presumed to have ordered destruction of Caamas, Pinnacle Moon
Some A-wing pilot- crashed, leading to destuction of Executor

Was it a suicide attack or did he just crash? Otherwise chalk it up to incompetence. And how many does the Executor crew? I didn't think it was a million... an ISD is "only" 40,000 right?

If we're not just counting mega-kills, then we should add the slaughter of the Jedi to Palpatine/Vader.


Btw, how many planned deaths of a racial/political/ethnic group need to be committed to qualify?


Was Anakin's wiping out the Tusken tribe an act of genocide? Or just "ethnic cleansing" (see cases on earth in the last decade)?

I'm inclined to think it was a crime of passion, but maybe only the first couple of kills. After that they were supposedly running away and he killed every last one of them, including women & children.

Lord Pounder wrote:IIRC Luke is also responsible for the destruction of Byss.

Wasnt that R2 D2? I seem to recall him messing with the hyperdrive on the Eclipse 2 and forcing it to come out of hyperspace right beside the Galaxy Gun and when it crashed into it, it caused the missile to fire at Byss.

Mr Bean wrote:

gen·o·cide ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jn-sd)
n.
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Greek genos, race; see gen- in Indo-European Roots + -cide.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
geno·cidal (-sdl) adj.
geno·cidal·ly adv.

Of the quote things the only two people who have REALY committed Genocide are the Vong(Who's state goal is genocide) and Ysanne Isaard(Who order the release of a genocide virus of sorts)

GM Tarkin might be if his state goal was kill everyone rather than just destroy a "thing"
Like a space station... giant gun or a plauge riddled city city

______________________________________-

Side note the "Kessel Holocaust" is rather hard to achive consiedering the fact that Kessel was a semi-airless world and the spice mining operations were still up and running a few months later

Let's not forget to add Anakin skywalker by the criteria described above. Sure, he didn't wipe out all the Sand People, but if they were all in one place, he would have tried to...before they shoved several hundred gaffi sticks where the sun don't shine.

Then there's the Stormtroopers wiping out those Jawas (not sure how many were in the Sandcrawler, but it looks like they killed them all)...