So, Who's Commited Genocide?

[Lord of the Farce]

On the scale of the galaxy, where in fact the fall of the Empire did lead to casualties exceeding those of Alderaan, it is not at all unreasonable to say that the Hiroshima argument applies in full. It's all well and good to say "it's not precisely identical", but that's not enough. You have to show that it is not analogous for the purposes of the argument.

Being generous (assuming a population of 10 million for Alderaan, ref StarWars.com, and Obi-Wan's statement), for every death as a result of Alderaan's destruction, there was at least 36,500,000 death as a result of New Republic incompetence (which was also a reflection of the Old Republic's) during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

So going by numbers and scale alone, adding up the estimated total deaths as a direct result of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Alderaan was roughly 100 times worse (probably much less).

EDIT: Actually, going by scale (based on what "could-have-been"), Hiroshima was in fact 365,000 times worse than Alderaan.

[Lord Pounder]

Grand Moff Tarkin is responsible for the genocide of Omwati. If memory serves he ordered a Victory class Star Destroyer to bombard the planet each tine one of their students answered a question wrong. Qwi Xux was the product of such schooling. I also nominate Qwi, although an unwitting pawn, she designed The Suncrusher, The World Devestators and worked on the design of the Death Star.

[Praxis]

Grand Moff Tarkin is responsible for the genocide of Omwati. If memory serves he ordered a Victory class Star Destroyer to bombard the planet each tine one of their students answered a question wrong. Qwi Xux was the product of such schooling. I also nominate Qwi, although an unwitting pawn, she designed The Suncrusher, The World Devestators and worked on the design of the Death Star.

Yeah, Tarkin wiped out a city every time a student got an answer wrong.

[Kurgan]

So some of these acts are more like pogroms or ethnic cleansing, not genocide, perhaps?

Massacres of a racial/ethnic/political group.

Ethnic cleansing is genocide, by definition. There is no distinction.

Fair enough. So if somebody decided to wipe out a Jewish neighborhood, that would also count, even if it was a small group. In other words, it need not be on a massive scale? Just checking.

What I don't get is, if Alderaan was this big munitions dump with all this military stuff, why didn't they send out a fleet to meet the Death Star? We don't see a single ship around the planet. One could say "oh well they knew it would be useless against the Death Star." Well if that's the case, then why did the put up the shield? If they knew a fleet was useless they would be able to figure out that the shield was useless, since the superlaser was kinda the main feature of the thing, ever since AOTC.

[Stofsk]

Fair enough. So if somebody decided to wipe out a Jewish neighborhood, that would also count, even if it was a small group. In other words, it need not be on a massive scale? Just checking.

My previous post on the subject, with a link to a good site.

Basically, 'whole or in part' is the operating term.

[Kurgan]

for the sake of argument, could the empire break the sheild without a deathstar? and, if alderraan was prepped for a war, then its little different then carpet bombing, neh?

It could have, with considerably more effort. We're talking an assload of ships and most likely some torpedo spheres. I don't think it's known if Alderaan had any other defenses besides the shield, but chances are they had some sort of defense force that could at least put up token resistance and make life hard for the Imperials.

Nevermind that, though. The destruction of Alderaan was a much an elimination of a Rebel cell as it was the Empire saying, "Don't fuck with us." It was most obviously genocide.

What about the massive turbolaser batteries (and missiles and ion cannons, if you take the novelisation) aboard the Death Star? Can those be used to bombard a planetary shield?

[Praxis]

for the sake of argument, could the empire break the sheild without a deathstar? and, if alderraan was prepped for a war, then its little different then carpet bombing, neh?

It could have, with considerably more effort. We're talking an assload of ships and most likely some torpedo spheres. I don't think it's known if Alderaan had any other defenses besides the shield, but chances are they had some sort of defense force that could at least put up token resistance and make life hard for the Imperials.

Nevermind that, though. The destruction of Alderaan was a much an elimination of a Rebel cell as it was the Empire saying, "Don't fuck with us." It was most obviously genocide.

What about the massive turbolaser batteries (and missiles and ion cannons, if you take the novelisation) aboard the Death Star? Can those be used to bombard a planetary shield?

Sure, though the planetary shield could hold for a bit against those. Not so the superlaser...

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

What about the massive turbolaser batteries (and missiles and ion cannons, if you take the novelisation) aboard the Death Star? Can those be used to bombard a planetary shield?

Sure, though I won't be holding my breath using mere turbolasers against a shield recorded to have 1E37J capacity.

[Kurgan]

But the Imperials do have the luxury of just sitting there blasting until the shield goes down right? Or are you saying they could never bring it down without destroying the entire planet?

Plus doesn't the Death Star have the ability to launch other ships (not just TIE Fighters)?

If a few ISD's can take down a planet's shield, surely the Death Star can do it. They'd have at least as much firepower as a single ISD, and most likely many many times that. This is in answer to the notion that they either have to use a full power SuperLaser shot, or do nothing.

Not using massive overkill doesn't make the Empire look as bloodthirsty, but that's not the point is it? If they really were interested in weeding out "terrorists" on Alderaan and not going for massive overkill and mass-killing for the sake of terror, then this should have been tried.

Demand surrender or they'll attack. Then commence bombardment of the shield if they get no cooperation.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

But the Imperials do have the luxury of just sitting there blasting until the shield goes down right? Or are you saying they could never bring it down without destroying the entire planet?

And that's going to uh ... take until when ...

Plus doesn't the Death Star have the ability to launch other ships (not just TIE Fighters)?

Doesn't matter - their contribution would be marginal.

If a few ISD's can take down a planet's shield, surely the Death Star can do it. They'd have at least as much firepower as a single ISD, and most likely many many times that. This is in answer to the notion that they either have to use a full power SuperLaser shot, or do nothing.

I don't know about what those shields can do. I do know I just saw Aldie's shield take 1E37J. Tell me the chances of a few ships with E24J level firepower ever able to break through that kind of defense. This is like destroyer guns against 100m thick composite armor plate.

[Kurgan]

But the Imperials do have the luxury of just sitting there blasting until the shield goes down right? Or are you saying they could never bring it down without destroying the entire planet?

And that's going to uh ... take until when ...

Oh gosh, we don't want to inconveince the Empire any! When the proposed alternative is killing every single man, woman and child and reducing the planet to a debris field, I'd say a little patience could be a virtue.

Doesn't matter - their contribution would be marginal.

Yeah, I don't expect TIE Fighters to destroy the planet, unless we took Han's statement "it would take a thousand ships..." literally, which I am not saying I do. ; )

I don't know about what those shields can do. I do know I just saw Aldie's shield take 1E37J. Tell me the chances of a few ships with E24J level firepower ever able to break through that kind of defense. This is like destroyer guns against 100m thick composite armor plate.

Given enough time and volleys, who's to say they can't weaken the shields to the point of collapse? Or drain so much power that Alderaan is forced to take the shields down, because they need the power for other things?

I'm thinking the Death Star's guns, plus any ships it's carrying if necessary for reinforcement, should be sufficient to take down the shield within a reasonable timeframe. Am I wrong? And if they have to call up a couple of ISD's to help, who's to say they can't do that quickly?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Oh gosh, we don't want to inconveince the Empire any! When the proposed alternative is killing every single man, woman and child and reducing the planet to a debris field, I'd say a little patience could be a virtue.

I'm implying this is looking to take longer than a realistic amount of time.

Given enough time and volleys, who's to say they can't weaken the shields to the point of collapse? Or drain so much power that Alderaan is forced to take the shields down, because they need the power for other things?

We are talking E24 to E37 here, over ten orders of magnitude difference. You might as well wonder how long would it take for me, with my pinky finger poking away a 100m steel wall to penetrate all the way through.

I'm thinking the Death Star's guns, plus any ships it's carrying if necessary for reinforcement, should be sufficient to take down the shield within a reasonable timeframe. Am I wrong? And if they have to call up a couple of ISD's to help, who's to say they can't do that quickly?

Unless you wish to argue that the DS' surface turbolasers pack in themselves the ability to blow apart a planet, they don't have a millionth of the power of the SL main armament, nor the ability to concentrate all of a day's charge into a single blast. Go ahead and try, but I'm not having any great stakes of optimism.

You seem to be having a little trouble comprehending 13 orders of magnitude of difference between the ISD's firepower and the monstrosity that's Alderaan's shield.

[Kurgan]

Oh gosh, we don't want to inconveince the Empire any! When the proposed alternative is killing every single man, woman and child and reducing the planet to a debris field, I'd say a little patience could be a virtue.

I'm implying this is looking to take longer than a realistic amount of time.

We are talking E24 to E37 here, over ten orders of magnitude difference. You might as well wonder how long would it take for me, with my pinky finger poking away a 100m steel wall to penetrate all the way through.

So you're saying it can't be done (unless it took centuries or something insane like that). There is no technological way to take down a planetary shield like Alderaan's without the SuperLaser. Correct?

Unless you wish to argue that the DS' surface turbolasers pack in themselves the ability to blow apart a planet, they don't have a millionth of the power of the SL main armament, nor the ability to concentrate all of a day's charge into a single blast. Go ahead and try, but I'm not having any great stakes of optimism.

I'd have to re-read sections of Mike's site to find his calcs on the Death Star, Alderaan & BDZ's (too tired as this moment), but are we saying the energy to collapse the Alderaan shield is more than it takes to blow the planet up?

I mean we know that the SuperLaser was enough to blast through the shield in fraction of a second and blow the planet to nothing in a flash. We don't need to blow up the planet. We don't need to BDZ it. All we need to do is collapse the shield. Before the DS was built, were planetary shields unstoppable?

They couldn't take a bunch of shields and surround the planet and pound it with turbolasers? Or broadside it with the Deathstar? (Granted all the weapons on the surface couldn't fire upon it at once)

You seem to be having a little trouble comprehending 13 orders of magnitude of difference between the ISD's firepower and the monstrosity that's Alderaan's shield.

So again, were planetary shields unstoppable before the Death Star? Alderaan's is supposed to be "as strong as any" in the Empire, but those planets that were BDZed must have been unshielded then, if a shield is unstoppable without a SuperLaser.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

So you're saying it can't be done (unless it took centuries or something insane like that). There is no technological way to take down a planetary shield like Alderaan's without the SuperLaser. Correct?

The division looks pretty darn obvious to me.

I'd have to re-read sections of Mike's site to find his calcs on the Death Star, Alderaan & BDZ's (too tired as this moment), but are we saying the energy to collapse the Alderaan shield is more than it takes to blow the planet up?

Based on observed performance, a lower limit of what was needed to just exceed the GPE is about 2E32J. The Death Star put in (based on velocity of fragments) about 1E38J, of which the shield apparently stopped it for about 2-3 frames (about 0.1 seconds).

All we need to do is collapse the shield. Before the DS was built, were planetary shields unstoppable?

Shields are made in various makes, I'm sure. But the math seems very clear on the Alderaan shield. So a truly first rate shield, according to G-canon should be impervious.

So again, were planetary shields unstoppable before the Death Star? Alderaan's is supposed to be "as strong as any" in the Empire, but those planets that were BDZed must have been unshielded then, if a shield is unstoppable without a SuperLaser.

Or maybe they just bought an inferior model. Remember that this is what the film canon (very highest order) clearly showed.

[Kurgan]

Okay, so if no ships or the Death Stars other weapons can break through, that does put a dent in my arguments. I assumed they could break through the shield eventually using conventional (non-planet destroying) weapons.

Other possibilities: there's still the low powered shot option, using Vader, or something else like a blockade, or holding Leia and her people for ransom.

I wonder if they have any energy draining technology that would work on the shields...

Would massive Ion cannon bombardment do anything?

[NRS Guardian]

If one disagrees with the morality of designating an entire planet or city as a target just because its government and population generally supports the other side in a war, that's fine ... as long as they're consistent about it and recognize that the Tokyo firebombings as well as the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also "genocide". You can't have your cake and eat it too, and all I ask for is a consistent approach.

PS. Saying that it prevented more deaths than it caused is not a rebuttal to the charge of genocide. Even if it's true, the fact would remain that one is trying to justify genocide, not proving that it was not genocide at all (not to mention the fact that fatalities in a galactic war would make Alderaan look like nothing, so if the destruction of Alderaan really had stopped the Rebellion and quelled unrest, the same mathematics would apply).

I don't agree with your analogy for 4 reasons.
1. This is the weakest in terms of proof so I'm doing this one first. There is evidence that Japan was developing biological weapons and were planning on using them against the western US coast via high altitude balloons, so the US wasn't doing to Japan anymore than what Japan was willing to do to the US. There is no evidence of such reciprocity however in the case of Alderaan.
2. Japan and the US were in a state of war and the Japanese people generally supported the government and Hirohito during the war. You can however argue that most Alderaanians didn't support the Rebellion.
3. The goal of Palpatines empire wasn't really order or protection against outside threats, those were just justifications and propaganda. Its goal was to be a stepping stone toward a Dark side theocracy with Palpy at its head and to provide him with a galaxy full of slaves to provide him with immortality. The goal of the bombings of Nagasaki, and Hiroshima were to end the most destructive war in history more quickly and with fewer losses and destruction on both sides, than if the US had invaded Japan.
4. The Empire blew away a planet full of their own citizens only a fraction of which were actually enemies of the state. So a better analogy would be if Lincoln had, had access to a nuke and had used it against Richmond during the American Civil War. The closest rl analogy would be Saddam gassing his own people, which most would agree was wrong. The primary job of the government is the defence of its citizens, not their murder (no matter what the justification), and the abrogation of this responsibility has been the source or at least a leading factor in the vast majority of insurrections and rebellions.

[brianeyci]

Killing a lot of people isn't genocide. That seems obvious, but I guess it isn't.

Genocide would be the deliberate extermination of a group of individuals (extended to include aliens in the SW universe) because of their religious, ethnicity, sexual orientation, so on and so on. Particularily, the United Nations Convention on Genocide comes to mind,

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

It seems that Genocide is a very narrow definition, as it should be -- the crime of hunting down a group to extinction and exterminating every member of that group should be distinguished from other war crimes.

For example, do you equate the suffering of the Jews to the destruction of a planet? To me, it is not merely a question of numbers or "a whole planet was destroyed", it is a question of motive. The Nazis were intent on eliminating every last Jew from their population, while Tarkin was intent on a terrorist tactic to make a statement. The Jews suffered far more than the Alderanians, who suffered for just a few seconds before they died. That to me is the important distinction in genocide -- the deliberate suffering and hunting down of every last member of the group.

Then, in SW, the only thing that would count as genocide to me would be Palpatine and his hunting down of light side force users. Destroying a whole planet might qualify as well, since you are killing all Alderaneans. But did Tarkin order the destruction of Alderan, or the destruction of a terrorist planet? Motives important. The destruction of a whole planet might be a despicable act, and the most horrendous of war crimes, but unless Tarkin orders the destruction of every single Alderanian in the Empire, and institutes "death camps" for Alderanians, I am loathe to put Alderan in the category of Genocide. Numbers don't matter in genocide -- a million soldiers in the battlefield compared to ten thousand Jedi being hunted down to the brink of extinction, and the Jedi situation is a genocide and not the million soldiers.

Killing of civilians, although despicable, is not genocide. It is a horrible war crime and a terrorist tactic of immense proportions, but it isn't exactly genocide. It may be a nitpick, but remember why the nitpick exists -- calling something genocide when it isn't does injustice to people who have actually experienced genocide.

<edit> It should be noted that something "not being genocide" should never be an excuse for inaction. To me, the killing of civilians whether or not it is caused by a government intent on killing every last person of the group should result in intervention. If you argue about semantics like that, then you get ridiculous situations like in Darfur where the U.N. refuses to act because of stupid semantics. The distinction between genocide and a war crime may be an academic one since a genocide is a war crime, but it is an important one to respect the dignity of those who have gone through genocide.</edit>

Brian

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

2. Japan and the US were in a state of war and the Japanese people generally supported the government and Hirohito during the war. You can however argue that most Alderaanians didn't support the Rebellion.

And Aldie's government is quite clearly saying it is in a State of War with the Empire, with its munitions dump and traitorous Senators. And judging from the near fanaticism of the soldiers (see the boarding action), and the simple fact it was a democracy that had only put up two generations of disloyal Senators... I don't know, if I were Tarkin, I'd be thinking that this Rebellion thing was pretty well supported.

I really doubt they (the Japanese) were that hot about the war by the time the Americans were burning up their cities - just a loyalty to country there and a sense that there is nothing else to do. On the other hand, Alderaanians should have their loyalty to the Imperial government.

And I really doubt the US would have ceased bombing even if it figured there was a bunch of people in Hiroshima and Tokyo that opposed the war. Instead, it would think "Our firebombing strategies are working! Let's get their morale even lower"! That's one of the purposes of indiscriminate strategic bombing - to lower the enemy's morale (and Tarkin was also thinking of that).

BTW, the difference between WMD and not WMD really blurs in the face of people who use the equivalent of nuclear missiles (high end ones) as air to air weapons (the concussion missile chasing Obi-Wan in AOTC had 190MT of yield). And there is no doubt Alderaan was a munitions dump for the Rebellion.

3. The goal of Palpatines empire wasn't really order or protection against outside threats, those were just justifications and propaganda. Its goal was to be a stepping stone toward a Dark side theocracy with Palpy at its head and to provide him with a galaxy full of slaves to provide him with immortality. The goal of the bombings of Nagasaki, and Hiroshima were to end the most destructive war in history more quickly and with fewer losses and destruction on both sides, than if the US had invaded Japan.

Perhaps, but the person who authorized the firing was Tarkin. I doubt anybody other than Palpy and a few Dark Side Adepts would be thrilled to hear this plan. Thus, the person responsible was looking to end the war ASAP.

The Emperor already got immortality with his Clone Bodies. He just wants to institute a Dark Side Theocracy so he can tap 10 million people at a time with his Drain Life Essence power (with a negligible negative effect to the guys being drawn, since Palpy is just sniffing up their waste "gas").

The primary job of the government is the defence of its citizens, not their murder (no matter what the justification), and the abrogation of this responsibility has been the source or at least a leading factor in the vast majority of insurrections and rebellions.

Yes, and when it seems impossible to defend all of them and maintain order at the same time (like when their government has decided to Rebel and put them all under this impenetrable energy shield), sometimes one is forced to settle for hoping to minimize the casualty rate.

ONe can compare the success rate of the Empire in this goal with the NR. The Empire ain't great, but the other side is only 300+ trillion casualties behind. Along with god knows how many who realized they had misused the word "slave" during their Imperial era when faced with the Vong.

I bet Saddam's own people were mostly relatively innocent compared to Aldies who only kept putting up Senators whose only purpose in there seems to be diverting funds to the Rebellion (Bail) and using their position to help steal vital data for the Rebellion (Leia).

And if Lincoln nuking Richmond scares the Confederates into dropping the war, he might have easily saved lives on the back end. It was the same logic as that used in Hiroshima, and that time, it worked too.

[Graeme Dice]

ONe can compare the success rate of the Empire in this goal with the NR. The Empire ain't great, but the other side is only 300+ trillion casualties behind. Along with god knows how many who realized they had misused the word "slave" during their Imperial era when faced with the Vong.

This, of course, is only the case if you're making up statistics out of your imagination for how many people would have died had the Empire stayed in power till the time that the Vong arrived.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

This, of course, is only the case if you're making up statistics out of your imagination for how many people would have died had the Empire stayed in power till the time that the Vong arrived.

You are clearly assuming that it'd be over 300 trillion.

[Graeme Dice]

You are clearly assuming that it'd be over 300 trillion.

I'm doing no such thing. You're the one who's decided that you prefer fan wanks about how the empire is somehow a good government to the actual evidence at hand. Even so, even if it were five hundred million trillion the NR would still be right, because they aren't deliberately killing their population.

[Lord of the Farce]

You're the one who's decided that you prefer fan wanks about how the empire is somehow a good government to the actual evidence at hand.

Will you quit beating that strawman? Or maybe you'll like to quote any of "us" so called "Imperial Apologists" claiming that the Empire was a "Good" government, before somebody gets it into their head to force-feed you a cup of STFU?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Will you quit beating that strawman? Or maybe you'll like to quote any of "us" so called "Imperial Apologists" claiming that the Empire was a "Good" government, before somebody gets it into their head to force-feed you a cup of STFU?

Don't try that. We might have missed ourselves once or twice and written something that if taken alone, could be used to say that position. However, I distinctly remember constantly writing things like "the NR having a low fence to beat", how if the NR government got a "shred of competence" there would be "fewer Imperial apologists", and just now how the Empire's "ain't great." The overall impression should definitely not be that we think the Empire is particularly good or anything.

Even so, even if it were five hundred million trillion the NR would still be right, because they aren't deliberately killing their population.

I see, so you would prefer the SW galaxy be exterminated (5E20 sentients is AFAIK more than the total number in the entire GFFA) by the incomptence of a nominally democratic government than to have several bil lost to an authoritarian government's Order-Keeping Efforts.

[Graeme Dice]

Will you quit beating that strawman? Or maybe you'll like to quote any of "us" so called "Imperial Apologists" claiming that the Empire was a "Good" government, before somebody gets it into their head to force-feed you a cup of STFU?

You are making the argument that the rebels should have let the Empire continue on its mass-murdering ways. This also means that you think they were a good government, or else you would not be making the argument that the rebels should have accepted their fate.

[Graeme Dice]

I see, so you would prefer the SW galaxy be exterminated (5E20 sentients is AFAIK more than the total number in the entire GFFA) by the incomptence of a nominally democratic government than to have several bil lost to an authoritarian government's Order-Keeping Efforts.

Yes. That's correct. It's also not an "authoritan" government, and they are _not_ "order-keeping efforts". It's a brutal, tyrannical totalitarian regime who repressed the population in an attempt to maintain control over them.

You've also still not provided any reasoning why your made up trillions number is fewer casualties than how many would have died when the VOng showed up under the Empire.