Illuminatus Primus wrote:Broadly, I imagine something like this, but I do want to keep it not socialistic. I don't think Palpatine personally should be in role of stoking class warfare. He'd denounce robber barony and corruption, and building up a boogeyman in the clones and "traitors" - the Senators and elites who backed the breakup of the Republic - but a vague sense of scapegoating and enemies. He'd start off saying the Republic needs reform, maybe even renewal, when he's tackling the radical opposition to that status quo, along the way making reforms and gaining power. Then the reactionary opposition defies him and he denounces them as traitors and prosecutes the war and renewal against them, by which time his rhetoric shifts to "never again" and "building a stronger galaxy."
Not Socialistic to be precise, more like some kind of Rooseveltianism (Teddy) and vague populism, or at least that was how I viewed it. Not class warfare, but appeals to the people (the "middle Republican", poor but hard-working and loyal, an example to the nation in times of peace and war both?). I do think the discontent of the Rim is an area to be explored; perhaps he promised them economic reform before he came into power/during your posited time of reconstruction, then backpedalled in order to retain the support of the Core aristocracies? I do want to get economics in
somewhere.
Also, I'm pushing Ruusan into the background in my own concepts. I don't even know if it should be the ancestry of the Bane's Sith. We don't have to bother justifying Lucas' decision to change the Republic's age from 25,000 to 1,000 years anymore, so why bother kludging it?
Well, I am still an inclusionist at heart. I have a gut instinct geared towards preserving everything that is not terribly retarded.
And we need Ruusan, at least, to preserve the Dark Forces story (in the Bantam-era EU). We could set it back, with as much "empty" space as there is in the timeline, but throw it out? I do not know about that.
Agreed. This is unprecedented. They have had "nobles' wars" and regional conflicts in the Rim, and the occassional Jedi inquisition or crusade, but nothing like this, since the foundation of the Republic.
More particularly, one could emphasise the last couple of hundred years or so as a particularly peaceful period, even by Republic standards, which makes the outbreak of unprecedented, total war even more shocking.
It'd be like a modern day Genghis Khan. I have a vignette draft from Obi-Wan's perspective, set a few years before the end of the Clone Wars. I'll write up and you can tell me what you think.
Great. Looking forward to it.
I was thinking of some Roman and other early models; the clones are personally loyal to Senators and robber barons and corporations like the Marian legions to the generals of the Late Republic. I want to go for a civil war more like a struggle amongst the rarefied ruling class, where the common people are screwed. The wars are brought on by the very powerful or unusually warlike, limiting their popular support. Also, you could have agitation amongst the oppressed Rim as a parallel source of disorder or treachery; and of course the burst bubble of security would result in popular support in the Core (the feeling of "barbarians the gates").
And we could throw in a little "extragalactic" invasion stuff for good measure - e.g., Nagai pirates raiding the supply lines as vultures in the wake of war.
I find myself pretty much agreeing with your revised model; it does explain the relative lack of resentment, while it still allows for the kind of "brother against brother" struggle that adds true depth to a conflict.
Of course the Nazis were broadly appreciated for reigning in the Communists and cultural left and restoring national pride (something difficult to contrive in SW, unless you have Palpatine fighting off Rim-bound radicals aiming to shift the balance of power, and/or freeing them from embaressing reliance and submission to the outsourced hub of military power in the cloners). Also, the Nazis quickly became much less popular.
I do believe you missed my point; I spoke of how post-war reeducation might rapidly change the perceptions of a movement or polity, as a possible model in response to your question why there is no significant Separatist support remaining by the time of the OT, rather than of the Nazi rise to power as a model for Palpatine's.
As long as it isn't as worthless and ignoble as portrayed. The way it was made Obi-Wan look like more of a wishful-thinking liar or senile old broken man.
Agreed.
Right. I was going to have him remember the Republic of legend, suffering from rough times, but still noble, and then - though he was unsure exactly how it happened or had started - everything seemed to go wrong. Maybe have him throw around some of the historians' claims and speculation that there had been fissures growing - that the end result of built-up imbalances from hundreds of cyclical periods, the convergence of several cyclical downturns, freak disasters and transitions, freak combinations of particularly incompetent or corrupt leaders - just beneath the surface but he couldn't tell and he didn't know about all that. All he knew was things went wrong.
About what I would imagine. He might also idealise the period before the Wars/Dark Times (and, hence, before his birth) for the simple reason that everyone else in his time did, and for its very association with peace and stability. I believe this was touched upon earlier.
I agree. I think leaving ambiguity in the mind of the reader and the characters in-universe could work. I think its fair to say that Palpatine was an extremely rare and unique individual; probably no one else could have pulled it off as well and successfully as he did. I want to presage and foreshadow his behavior in the Empire era, and in the post-ROTJ era when he reconquers the galaxy. He should be building on lessons learned, and lets us draw parallels. Perhaps the way the Civil War shifted and changed can be an inspiration too (the Civil War should be important, but much less so after the exposure of the Clone Wars, and I do think the Clone Wars should still be somewhat worse, objectively).
Right. No problems there.
What's wrong with Augustus? I think its a fitting name, and there are other real names in canon. Besides, its based on official material, the tongue-in-cheek TPM Soundtrack track, "Augie's Great Municipal Band." Meh. I like it.
I just think that we should be wary of great changes of little intrinsic value. Adding a first name for Palpatine does not explain or rationalise anything, which was EUFic's (and PrequelFic's) original mandate. And the connection with ancient Rome is a bit too blatant, in my opinion, at least. SW should allude to, but not explicitly mention, real world history.
I think that's a good theme to work with too. Complacency and decadence. Ties into a great tradition of writing about the fall of great societies.
Classical stuff, yes. Most ultimately based on the Roman Empire, of course.
The clones are the catalyst, but also characterize the conflicts; clone warfare is a universal strategy. Perhaps (I'm very undecided on this as an option and how prevalent it might be should we choose to implement it) some of the clones go completely renegade, setting themselves up as a quasi-race of their own, attempting to liberate themselves from slavery and then maybe even to guarentee a slice of the spoils and a special class as the martial class. The use of clones should be horrifying and terrible to the galaxy (Thrawn's use of clone warfare was highly controversial around at least 30 years later).
I like that idea, both for its story potential and the explanation it provides for the clonophobia of later ages. It also works as another classical theme of sci-fi, the revolution of the robots/clones/whatever. I think one could take it even further. Say, have the actual civil war going on, with the Republic suddenly deploying a new weapon intended to turn the tide - the clones. However, the project backfires and the clones end up the major opposing force, outlasting the original noble/guild opposition that the Palpatinian Republic originally fought. Hell, they might even surrender and petition to rejoin the Republic because they themselves need help to contain the clones. Thus, the actual "Clone Wars" would be the final phase of the Civil War proper, where the galaxy is truly united in order to wipe out a threat to all life forever (melodramatic, I know, but it fits), and the longest-surviving hold-outs could remain with little or no popular support; I imagine the clones would be something utterly alien to the rest of the galaxy, akin to the Mongols you used as an analogue above.
Depending on preference, Palpatine might have sabotaged the clones in the first place as part of his master plan, or just turned their rebellion to his advantage as a way of reuniting the warring factions under his leadership.
I want there to be an era of reconstruction and Palpatine not giving up his supreme power, and actually moving to consolidate and control it. Some of his retributive policies should be highly controversial to the protagonists but highly popular to the masses. Therefore I'd like to put at least a few years between Ep III in 15 or 16 rS and the end of the Clone Wars. For the time of full intensity of the last round of conflicts, I'm thinking a few years. The overall era of crisis should be at least 15-20. Though I am attracted to yours and Raptors idea of the overall collapse of galactic society being instigated by the wars themselves, with many of the players going to war figuring it'll be a brushfire (heh, a Travisite war) or "clean" war, and it just escalating out of control.
How about having him acclaimed at the end of the second film, at the apex of the fighting - the Republic has just fought and won its greatest victory, and after that things wind down? Then, in the last film set a few years later, the war has settled down to "brushfire" and reconstruction again, with the effects that you mention - there might or might not be a general peace, but there would still be renegades and diehards running around, out in the Rim at least, and the Republic generally concentrating on rebuilding the destroyed worlds?
My only thing is that using the "Clone Wars" to refer to a generalized epoch of wars feels historiographical, not popular. Also, that way it doesn't feel like a discrete event you'd expect a veteran to say he fought in. For example, you wouldn't expect some old legionary officer veteran to say to a boy he was mentoring that he fought in the "Civil Wars"; he would say he fought against someone or for someone, he would say he fought in "Caesar's War" or "Caesar's War against Pompey" etc.
Well, I can certainly see where you are coming from, here. My best rationalisation would be that the Clone Wars were a relatively long time ago and something that Luke might not know all details of, so Ben was speaking in general terms to make sure he understood. (Generally, the standards for historical knowledge on Tatooine appear fairly low.)
I'm tending toward yours guys' opinion. There are some long discrete wars, like the Second Sino-Japanese War. I suppose a good 10-15 years of war wouldn't be wrong. The only thing is I'm starting to go for short and sweet as opposed to drawn-out and confused (more World War I and II than Thirty Years), but still not set-piece and neatly-two-sided like Lucas' Clone War Against Droids.
We could have the war in phases so there is room for both - to-and-fro civil war and general disorder over a longer period, resulting in the shortages, rationing, conscription and general drawn-out hopelessness that I wish to portray, with one or two particularly intense periods of full-blown, desperate fighting more akin to what you envision. On a galactic scale, I would not expect any entire front to be silent at every point at any one time. On the other hand, the massed offensives would be vast in scale and straining even the galaxy's highly developed industrial infrastructure.
Maybe the first part of the war starts in the Rim, and then moves into the Core? I want to keep Palpatine as semi-background before his election. I like that he was a universally-respected senator with almost no partisan background or affiliation. He was a scholar and historian and political scientist (and he'd been disseminating his doctrine through the backdoor by directly effecting the curriculum and theory throughout the galaxy), perhaps he foresaw the war and the impotence of the Republic broadly. Perhaps corrupt war profiteers or partisan factions hoped to use him one way or another. He emerges and takes control.
The original EU has him elected after the Clone Wars, which precipitate his rise to power. Of course Palpatine in the films was elected before the wars. And we seem to be striking a balance by having him elected during the war.
All in line with my general thoughts on the era.
I don't mean the government as an institution (hence soft versus hard power), rather its a kind of gentleman's agreement or gentlemen's honor - you ought to hold elections, but if you don't or they don't matter that much, you should be doing a good job at home. Of course part of this will be the fact that more democratic senators will not support or consider legitimate senators from illiberal states, where as aristocratic senators won't care. Some of this will be based on factionalism and preference, as opposed to a general political culture. Just an idea.
Right. The question would be how much liberal democracy is the norm among the member states.
I mean that's how the ruling classes initially formed. My point is that by now the average citizen is fully ensconced in a completely secure welfare state, and cares little for the power contests waged between the rarefied heights of galactic power. Remember even relative mobility and a lack of formal and legal constraints (what I'm getting at by dissociating this from our historical nobility) is that the middle class is so far away from the galactic ruling class that effective mobility and support and connections are very difficult to come by. The new men of the galactic ruling stratum should be extremely lucky or very very talented meritocrats, or some measure of both. Or they benefit from somesort of extreme other form of cultural selection.
Right, then I am with you.
His economic model was premises in large parts by the flawed concept that SW computer security is essentially nonexistent. I found it pretty uncompelling, and I'm partially in economics by education (I don't mean to wave around expertise though, I'm an undergraduate).
What, are we not keeping that? How will the EU be able to work if schoolkids cannot crack the Empire's top secret military codes?
On a more serious note, we should give careful thought to the economics. Are we sticking with the importance of bullion? The presence of various guilds and highly regulated interstellar trade? Letters patent? Since the galactic economy as posited is pretty much a zero-sum game, a standard free-market capitalist model will not function unproblematically.
That's good. Well you guys certainly are good at influencing me. I'm almost more confused now than before. I guess my reason for separating the "Dark Times" from the "Clone Wars" is so we can have a drawn-out period (15-30 years) of general crisis and repeated wars, before the discrete Gotterdamerung that is referred to as the Clone Wars. It lets us have our cake and eat it too. I guess as long as we can make it have verisimilitude, I'm happy. That's really what I'm about, consistency and making sure what needs to get done plot and theme wise is, and that it is done with verisimilitude. I suppose we could have a longer Clone Wars in two broad "phases" with Palpatine getting elected in the middle/lull/eye of the storm.
I would have Palpatine elected when it gets worse, as a result of it. Otherwise, I am with you here.
