The Empire and the SS

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2005-04-01 10:00am

Gorefiend wrote:Ep 4: An Imperial officier calls chewie "a thing".

One officer doesn't mean a fleet.

As for no non-humans serving in the Imperial fleet, there really is no good reason why they should not, aside from plane racism. Humans might be the most common and versatile race in the Empire, but by no means best at everything. There are a lot of races out there with natural piloting, fighting and tactical skills that are beyond the skills humans have

Even in the NR military, people are predominantly human. For example, Wraith Squadron as of Solo Command had 7/11 pilots human. Rogue Squadron is 7/12. I think that some have noticed relatively few Rebels in the movies are non-humans. And these are high visibility units!

Considering the Rebels are probably where all the poor enslaved species supposedly run to, if other species have decisive advantages in one field, they would have taken over completely in a field.

Sure it is nice to be able to standardize uniforms/equipment to human use, but most humanoid races can use equipment designed for humans just as well. It would in fact be far more illogical for the Empire not to use the natural advantages other races have offer humans in it’s fighting forces.

In the films, all you saw were a couple of Imperial bridges. In the film, there is no evidence other species would have a murderous advantage in that position.

In the EU Species do have relative strong points, but many are not decisive. Many species seem to occupy only one or a few worlds, making up only a tiny minority. The Rebels have a disproportionate amount of them.

In the EU, they do allow other species into positions. Hell, they let a droid become Grand Moff, a move as yet unmatched in the NR. Species like Sullustans are even allowed into the Academy (probably because of their navigational advantage). An example is Huoba Neva.

The DESB tried to make it sound like a racism story. But there are many reasons why she never got the command she wanted, even if perhaps on a piece of paper her scores were better. Her actual political reliability is best described as horrible (she defected, after all, and it wasn't even like her family was killed by the Imps or something). And Sullustans supposedly have uninspiring monotones (Star by Star) to the humans they command. Do you really want an uninspiring commander leading your ships? Isn't that enough to neutralize any slight advantage? And for all the hype, when she got into the NR, it wasn't like she got anything great. She got an ... Escort Frigate. Hmm...

darthnidankendo · Post by **darthnidankendo** » 2005-04-01 11:40am

Stark wrote:The OP mentions the use of the term 'stormtroopers' and similar motivations, citing the hatred of other races. In my opinion, none of these are true.
The race thing is more dubious (I don't buy it myself: Palpy can be personally racist without the Empire as a whole being institutionally racist) but I think there is a difference between ie Jews/Slavs vs Aryans and humans vs tentacle beasts or bear creatures or toadmen or guys with hammerheads. There is a world of difference between discriminating between two different philosophies or ethnicities with no notable physical differences and two totally separate species.

So can you explain why in the movies there are no non-human senior officers? The lone exceptions being in the EU: Grand Admiral Thrawn(solely for his superb ability), and after the death of the emperor in Crimson empire Carnor Jax installed thatolligarchic group which included some aliens.
Let's not forget that the empire enslaved numerous alien races across the galaxy. The most notable example being the slave labor force of wookies that built the death star. Let us also not forget that Han was kicked out of the empire for saving Chewbacca. Why is it only in the republic that a senior Military officer is an alien (admiral Ackbar).

If this is not blatant racism and a direct example of Nazi ethnocentrism and ideals of racial superior ideals I'm not sure what is.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-04-01 12:32pm

Please don't make such a generalization.

For one thing, throughout all the OT films, we only see a small portion of the Empire: notably, stormtroopers (who could be anything more or less humanoid under the armour), TIE pilots (ditto), officers (few of them), and higher officers (also few). We saw the Death Star, the Executor's bridge, a few ISD bridges.

Now, the Empire is easily HUGE. Enormous. Massive. Remember the calcs saying that they were able to churn out most of the DSII in six months? And that they could've created several hundred thousand, if not a million Star Destroyers, in the same time with that amount of materials?

Is it so surprising that what we saw was but a small portion of the Empire, that just happened to be mostly human?

darth kendo apprentice · Post by **darth kendo apprentice** » 2005-04-01 01:37pm

Now I do agree with elheru that we only saw a small porttion of the empire. But the stormtroopers are humanoid becouse they were all clones. and in eps2 they did show some non humanoid that were helping the soon to be. In eps1 they have one that's a sith never the less.

darth kendo apprentice · Post by **darth kendo apprentice** » 2005-04-01 01:41pm

sorry for any bad spelling I kind suck at that. lol that's why I did't name the ones I was talking about. I'll get back to you when I get it right. lol

Imperator Galacticus · Post by **Imperator Galacticus** » 2005-04-01 06:58pm

On the whole issue of the specism thing, I think it only fair that the EU be used to weed out a clear conclusion. The movies alone can't do anything besides pinpoint mere speculation to support the fact, so whatever. Thus from what I've gathered in the EU the Empire does indeed harbor anti-alien prejudices, but only to an extent.

It isn't De Jure so far as except whom the Emperor has stated may or may not become a member of the armed forces. It isn't even De Facto law amongst the common human citizen, as far as from what can be told.

It simply seems to be a by-product from the men that the Emperor has choosen to accompany him in the day to day affairs of Empire, men such as Grand Admirals Pitta and Tigellinus, who take delight in their spare time to commit genocide against alien worlds for the mere highs of power, or the leaders of Compnor and his very own Imperial council who hate the air itself which a non-humanoid has inhabited. Faced with keeping many of his supporters happy, how could the Emperor not oblige to their demands?

Plus in addition to that, the dominant species in the Republic evidently is humanity, a group that the Emperor just happened to fall into by fate, and since we all know how bigoted humans can be, why not be a model politician and satisfy the majority's darkest hungers, as well as that of the human ruling elite that power has already corrupted? Those are just my base thoughts at the moment though, so I might have let something escape me.

General Veers · Post by **General Veers** » 2005-04-03 10:57am

I seem to recall reading or hearing the reason for the color sceme of the Imperials. Lucas wanted the "Bad Guys" to be colorless-i.e. Grey, Black and White. The fact that the grey of the Imperial Officers uniforms on screen looks close to the "FeldGrau" certainly invokes the uniforms of the Third Reich. -but the similarity gets pretty subjective after that.

Does anyone know if John Mollo is related to Andrew Mollo, the author on many military uniform books?[/img]

Ronaldo · Post by **Ronaldo** » 2005-04-03 04:01pm

Gorefiend wrote:
The whole "Empire hates aliens" thing is almost completely an invention of the EU. In the movies there is little or no indication that aliens are being oppressed by the Empire.
At the same time it's pretty logical why the Empire doesn't recruit aliens into it's ranks.
Ep 4: An Imperial officier calls chewie "a thing".

As for no non-humans serving in the Imperial fleet, there really is no good reason why they should not, aside from plane racism. Humans might be the most common and versatile race in the Empire, but by no means best at everything. There are a lot of races out there with natural piloting, fighting and tactical skills that are beyond the skills humans have.

Sure it is nice to be able to standardize uniforms/equipment to human use, but most humanoid races can use equipment designed for humans just as well. It would in fact be far more illogical for the Empire not to use the natural advantages other races have offer humans in it’s fighting forces.

First of all, Princess Leia called Chewbacca a "walking carpet" in Ep 4 as well. That wasn't very pc of her and indicates a certain level of racism in the rebellion's ranks. Also, the "thing" comment needs to be looked at in context. The officer obviously felt disdain for the wookie because he was under arrest. It must have been something serious for him to have been on the Death Star. Calling him a "thing" is a lot nicer than what people call some criminals today for certain types of offenses.

Ok, continuing on. The issue of using non-humans mixed with humans. There are many logical reasons why the Empire would not want to mix species in military units. Think of all of the possible problems that you might have and misunderstandings between species. Heck, everyone would be in classes all day for sensitivity training if you had to work with multiple species. The advantages that one species might have over another could easily be removed with technology. It would be more trouble than it is worth to integrate the military when there are plenty of humans that can do work without having to make special accomodations and deal with interspecies problems. Basically, for the military standardizing equipment is ideal. In fact, if the Empire were racist you probably would have seen a lot of aliens being used as cannon fodder in engagements. The Empire didn't do that, so it would seem as if the ease of standardization of equipment was the deciding factor and not due to racism.