St Culture Survival

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-24 11:45pm

Re: The Dominion

The Dominion culture would survive, but the Founders and their servants would not tolerate them becoming Imperial underlings. Most likely, the entire Founder/Vorta/JH system of dictatorship over the various systems in the Dominion would simply be exterminated and replaced by an Imperial Moff.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-25 12:03am

Darth Wong wrote:Re: The Dominion

The Dominion culture would survive, but the Founders and their servants would not tolerate them becoming Imperial underlings. Most likely, the entire Founder/Vorta/JH system of dictatorship over the various systems in the Dominion would simply be exterminated and replaced by an Imperial Moff.

Most of the Vorta would probably commit mass suicide at the thought of serving anyone but their 'gods'

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-02-25 01:39am

Darth Servo wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Re: The Dominion

The Dominion culture would survive, but the Founders and their servants would not tolerate them becoming Imperial underlings. Most likely, the entire Founder/Vorta/JH system of dictatorship over the various systems in the Dominion would simply be exterminated and replaced by an Imperial Moff.
Most of the Vorta would probably commit mass suicide at the thought of serving anyone but their 'gods'

But see? That's the point. The Vorta that survived would simply replace Force users, or perhaps even high-ranking Imperials, as their Gods, and would move on from their. Their culture would not be devastated by the change in control, unless you consider their ONLY cultural mark the fact that they worship the Founders.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-25 01:47am

Master of Ossus wrote:But see? That's the point. The Vorta that survived would simply replace Force users, or perhaps even high-ranking Imperials, as their Gods, and would move on from their.

If they're capable of doing so. This whole Founder thing seems to be hardwired into their makeup somehow.

Their culture would not be devastated by the change in control, unless you consider their ONLY cultural mark the fact that they worship the Founders.

I'd say that's the only cultural mark of the Vorta. The Dominion at large would continue under a Moff. But the JH and Vorta would be useless; honestly, the Vorta are of little use already, and would probably be removed in favour of Imperial regional governers, sub-bureaucrats, etc. And the JH are far too flaky and unreliable (hell, they're drug-addled morons prone to random violence and withdrawal symptoms; I'd replace them with Imperial forces immediately).

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-02-25 02:22am

The masses never had power since the corruption of the Republic until the New Republic was founded.

The Imperial Senate was a sham at best, and really nothing more than the same elitest engine as before to keep the local aristocrats feeling important and getting state-paid dinners and getting to pontificate and such.

Palpatine executed, imprisioned, and discredited any Senators that said anything critical of him.

Moreover, the corruption did not end. Palpatine's personal corruption led to the exile of the Rendar family and confiscation of all their property. The regional governors' corruption allowed everything from the spice and slavery trade to blowing up Alderaan to occur without consequences. Palpatine himself consorted with criminals like Xizor, bounty hunters, and all forms of scum. Hutt Space was ruled by Moffs, but business continued, even more unabated as before.

Outside the Core Worlds, things hardly changed at all. The Inner Rim and Colonies worlds often were reduced to little more than resource, food, and conscription sources for the Imperial machine. The Outer Rim had slavery continue and on a greater scale. Even the Empire engaged in slavery, esp. on alien populations. If a member of a family was suspected of having Rebel sympathies, the entire family would be apprehended and their property confiscated and often sold off to criminals or mercenaries or smugglers. Or that individual's home town would be leveled by concussion missiles.

Throughout the galaxy, the ISB and Inquistorious violated civil rights and imprisioned and tortured people to serve the Emperor's need. Imperial citizens had to undergo "ideology testing" and indoctrination conducted by Palpatine's mind police, the Commission to Preserve the New Order (COMPNOR). The New Order's fascist policies took root everywhere. Large corporations were nationalised or encorperated into the power structure where they were more or less part of the authority. KDY, SFS, and XTS are good examples.

Citizenship was limited to humans and non-humans were made victims of institutionalized specieism/racism. Under the direction of such advisors of Sate Pestage, anti-alien rhetoric became an important cornerstone to New Order ideology. Slavery, murder, exploitation, and disenfranchisement for starters. Sectors and systems of non-humans were represented by Imperial-appointed human masters, not their own people.

Moreover, in the Deep Core Palpatine was making more plans. The construction of his Dark Empire was a stage-by-stage process.

First the Sith had aggrivated the corruption and stagnation within the Republic to create a breeding ground for dissent and violence.

Second, Palpatine engineered himself to become Supreme Chancellor and controlled many corporations and government functions through blackmail and private connections.

Thirdly, he established a virtual dictatorship during the contrived Clone Wars. Justification for massive military build-up and centralization of government powers.

Fourthly, he established a constitutional monarchy in words that was in fact an absolute rule by him. Justifies a massive military build-up. Justifies the mass purge of the Jedi and anyone else ideologically or otherwise a threat to him. The pacifist Caamasi are all but wiped out.

Fifthly, he used a comparitively insignificant rebellion as an excuse to do what he'd wanted for a long time: disband the Senate. Palpatine gives the local appointees direct control, and the Empire becomes in effect a corrupt fuedal/Persian style (credit to Marina for the parallel) absolute monarchy.

Sixthly, superweapons are developed and any dissenters are crushed. "Rule by fear" becomes a literal point of policy, and the insignificant rebellion is again used as an excuse to double the size of the military and turn it into a virtual occupation force.

Seventhly, Dark Side Adepts trained on Byss slowly replace Moffs and Admirals throughout the Empire. The Inquistorious' power is expanded. More superweapons developed. Voting rights and independent governments abolished. Appointed rulers administrate the Empire for its Emperor.

Eightly, except for use against external threats, technology is phased out as the source of true power in favor of the Dark Side of the Force. Palpatine looks to a day where the Dark Side will rule without any need for weapons. Dark Side Adepts and Palpatine's "Dark Jedi" supplant the entire power structure and rule the Empire directly for Palpatine. Non-Force Users are now mere subjects. Laborers. Tools.

Ninthly, Palpatine establishes a modern virtual reincarnation of the Sith Empire galaxy-wide. Technology serves its purpose in allowing Palpatine to conquer other galaxies, but the Dark Side rules at home. Non-Force Users become a low class of laborers and slaves for the ruling elite of strongmen and the virtual nobility of Dark Side Adepts.

That said, its easy to overlook things that don't happen to you and to respect being part of a greater authority when things have looked so far gone and choatic and corrupted before. And the Emperor had extremely good propoganda.

smokemare · Post by **smokemare** » 2003-02-25 10:20am

going back to the original topic, I don't think the Klingons would ever surrender, I thikn they'd fight to the death. At least for a very brief period of time. Charging into battle swinging battleths and howling like rabid dogs would probably do their honor soe good though - just before they got mown down by blaster fire....

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-25 10:40am

smokemare wrote:going back to the original topic, I don't think the Klingons would ever surrender, I thikn they'd fight to the death. At least for a very brief period of time. Charging into battle swinging battleths and howling like rabid dogs would probably do their honor soe good though - just before they got mown down by blaster fire....

Three words: Star Trek 6. That disaster made most of the Klingons rethink their entire outlook on the Federation. A Death Star hovering over Quonos would probably convince the vast majority of them that surrender is the wiser course.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-02-26 12:38am

Unlike the Vorta, JH conditioning appears to be psychological as well as purely physical. Some JH WERE able to resist their Founder leaders for some time when they formed their rebellion, but were foiled by the lack of Ketracel White. In fact, the existence of KW shows that they have no genetic predisposition towards the Founders or the Vorta, but in fact are "merely" loyal to whoever has the drug.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-26 02:33pm

Master of Ossus wrote:Unlike the Vorta, JH conditioning appears to be psychological as well as purely physical. Some JH WERE able to resist their Founder leaders for some time when they formed their rebellion, but were foiled by the lack of Ketracel White. In fact, the existence of KW shows that they have no genetic predisposition towards the Founders or the Vorta, but in fact are "merely" loyal to whoever has the drug.

I think there has to be a bit more to it than that, otherwise, the Federation alliance should have started producing their own KW. The drug is most likely the primary means of the Founders controlling the JH, but probably not the only method.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-02-26 02:55pm

I figure the Orions & the Ferengi, they will just bribe some local govenor, and carry one with their black market activities without interference.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-26 03:35pm

The ferengi would be out of thier depth dealing with the Hutt Cartels and Black Sun but they would at least know the general rules of the game....

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-02-26 05:54pm

Hell, In DS9 the Ferengi are out of their depth against the Orions....

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-26 07:13pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Hell, In DS9 the Ferengi are out of their depth against the Orions....

To be honest they always seem out thier depth....but at least they'd still be doing the same old stuff....

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-02-26 07:28pm

Yeah, the Orions would probably last the best, the Empire takes over, they can now trade in slaves legally, no problem, then the Black Sun & The Hutts show up, ok that's just someone they have to cut in to stay in business. Figure the Orion "Mafia" is a very hard to kill culture, hell they have survived over a century of forced PC under the Feds...

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-26 10:42pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Yeah, the Orions would probably last the best, the Empire takes over, they can now trade in slaves legally, no problem, then the Black Sun & The Hutts show up, ok that's just someone they have to cut in to stay in business. Figure the Orion "Mafia" is a very hard to kill culture, hell they have survived over a century of forced PC under the Feds...

Could the Orions afford the payoffs that the SW scale crime organizations would demand?

Setesh · Post by **Setesh** » 2003-02-27 12:51am

they'd take a percentage most likely. That way they don't have to build up a network in the ST galaxy, just skim profits off whats already there. Compared to home it may be small time but it will grow as the ST guys are 'brought up to speed'. This point of view is why the Hutts are so dangerous,1000yr life spans tend to make one take a 'long view'.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2003-02-27 02:56am

Master of Ossus wrote:Unlike the Vorta, JH conditioning appears to be psychological as well as purely physical. Some JH WERE able to resist their Founder leaders for some time when they formed their rebellion, but were foiled by the lack of Ketracel White. In fact, the existence of KW shows that they have no genetic predisposition towards the Founders or the Vorta, but in fact are "merely" loyal to whoever has the drug.

JH conditioning is definitely genetic. The DS9 incident in which Odo tries to reform a JH born from a cloning chamber brought onto DS9 as scrap, a JH that had no previous contact with other JH or Dominion representatives, shows the genetic predisposition toward worship of the Founders. The JH, as soon as it realizes what Odo is, immediately abases itself and regards Odo as its rightful lord and master. Of course, the JH's even more overpowering genetic predisposition toward close combat as a release for tension does eventually drive the JH to seek to join Dominion forces and take its proper place as a soldier of the Dominion.

That the cloning processes used by the Dominion are not perfect, leading to deviant behavior, is also canon. The Weyoun line of Vorta had a mentally defective clone that actually developed a personal sense of morality and ethics, and many JH (though an insignificant number in relation to the overall numbers of JH) have broken their loyalty conditioning.

The intense contempt the Vora and JH hold each other in, on the other hand, could well be a deliberate cultural construct, though genetic programming seems just as likely. Neither the Vorta nor the JH could, by themselves, threaten the Founders even if they managed to overcome their loyalty/worship programming. The Vorta have no useful combat abilities beyond those of acting as unit commanders, and a unit commander without a unit to command is pretty useless. The JH obviously have no significant abilities outside of the realm of active combat and the strongarming of subject populations, and they rely on the Ketracel White and cloning facilities that the Vorta control.