Darth Wong wrote:However, the NR bias of the official literature is incredibly blatant, and Biggs claimed in the ANH novelization that the Empire was a glorious thing in its heyday. Clearly, people WELCOMED the Empire; it was seen as an improvement, and stayed that way for a while.
One cannot simply discount the Empire's crimes--the ones I cited are objectively noted...not the claims of characters--WEG and the novel storylines clearly outline mercantilist, abusive, corrupt, and negligent policies persued and encouraged at the highest levels within the Empire.
Darth Wong wrote:The question is just how bad it was before, and how much distortion the NR-slanted official literature introduced (for example, every single X-wing story has a character who is loyal to the Empire but discovers that the Empire actually horribly betrayed him, so he switches sides at a crucial turning point; how plausible is this?).
I recall Tycho doing this--and it wasn't at a key moment. The Empire blew up his planet--who's suprised he defected?
As for Baron Fel, I'm not quite sure on the circumstances--but he did jump ship to Thrawn's fanatics as well.
As for Kasan Moor, she is also Alderaanian. None of the Alderaanians suprise me at all. And her capture was no swinging plot device--she provided some general intel--nothing war turning in nature.
X-Wing Alliance featured an Imperial defector--but he was tracked down by Rebel intel and rescued.
In fact, how many Rebels beyond the financiers and such who politically have something to gain, who do we expect to have become Rebels for any reason other than the Empire fucked them over? This doesn't suprise me. And not every Rebel had a story like this.
Fey'lya joined the Rebel Alliance for political purposes. He knew he'd never climb into power in the framework of "High Human Culture" so he worked through the Rebels--if they won he assured himself a position of importance.
Darth Wong wrote:Since we don't know what the state of Imperial law and order was except for historical documents written by those who hated them, that is difficult to say, isn't it?
The only sources which can be said to be tainted by Rebel perspective are sources which state themselves to be:
I, Jedi is a first-person narrative of Corran Horn; the
Essential Chronology is said to be a document published by the New Republic Historical Council. The only bias beyond that is merely to note that almost all official materials chronicle the Rebel conflict.
The Dark Horse
Empire series outlines the political instability of the Empire that is also reinforced by
TIE Fighter, both Rebel-free perspective stories.
Darth Wong wrote:All of that anti-alien crap in the official literature seems pretty suspect in light of Palpatine's heavy reliance upon aliens.
I don't know. The absence of any aliens except with the Rebels or in the crime-infested (Tattooine) and low-class work (Ugnaughts on Bespin) seems pretty telling. There were no female Imperials either. The Empire was devoid of anything except male British-accented WASPs in the OT.
Palpatine only used two aliens within his military to my knowledge. Ska'ar and Thrawn, the blue-skinned and red-eyed
(Grand?) General and Grand Admiral respectively.
Dark Empire explains the existance of Maul quite clearly. Palpatine used whomever was useful, and his only true bias was he believed that non-Force Users were weaklings.
Dark Empire, the
Dark Empire Sourcebook (WEG), and the
Dark Side Sourcebook (WoTC) clearly outline that Palpatine planned to replace all the Moffs, Grand Moffs and Admirals with his Dark Side Adepts that'd rule as his proxies much like feudal lords. The populace was to be reduced to a basic peon class to Dark Side overlords. The eventual wish was to rule without any need for weapons--just the Dark Side. Byss is a good paradigm for what he planned for the rest of the galaxy--and he and his Adepts sat about draining the life of everything on the planet there.
