Posted: 2007-07-26 01:07am
I could buy this explanation for the multitude of obscure, single-world species that the Empire enslaved or destroyed, but species like the Mon Calamari and the Wookiees were major parts of the Old Republic. Both had influential representatives in the Imperial senate up until at least the end of the Clone Wars. The Wookiees were renowned from one side of the galaxy to the other for their technical skill, and they played a pivotal role in galactic exploration. Mon Calamari shipwrights were revered, and their often explosive confrontations with their Quarren neighbors had been making galactic headlines for decades. There is absolutely no way that those groups could have been made a virtual slave class without word getting back to Coruscant. Palpatine and his advisors had to have allowed it. Hell, Grand Moff Tarkin openly owned a Mon Calamari slave before he was freed by the Alliance.TC Pilot wrote:Why not? Grand Moff Tarkin wielded enormous power in Oversector Outer and the territory he administered was absolutely vast. How many atrocities on Earth have gone completely unpunished and unrecognized? Now multiply that by near-infinity and you have the territory the Empire must administrate and pacify.
I was citing him as an example; still, he was an extremely important official in the Empire, high enough in status to exert authority over Lord Vader himself. Even if every member of Palpatine's Council were squeaky clean, and they were not, Tarkin's presence alone casts a dark shadow on his intentions.So Grand Moff Tarkin is the majority of the Imperial administrative apparatus?
Perhaps not in any official capacity, but the two had known each other since well before the Clone Wars. Palpatine approved the Tarkin Doctrine at his behest. They worked closely together on the Death Star project, as ROTS shows. You can judge a man by the friends he keeps, as they say.He was certainly not an advisor.
You're telling me that you believe that every single Wookiee on the face of the planet was aiding the "Jedi traitors"? And that they were unjustified in defending themselves when star destroyers began to burn their cities from orbit and disgorge stormtroopers onto Kashyyyk's surface virtually without warning? By your reasoning, the Jews of Poland deserved what they got because some resisted when Hitler's war machine smashed through their borders.And the Wookiees not only aided and abated known and wanted Jedi traitors, but actively resisted Imperial military forces.
Again, obey the law and life is good. Don't, and you get what you should expect.
My argument was that there were many lunatics in power, and you countered by saying that there were none. I demonstrated that such an assertion is patently ludicrous.That was not your argument initially.
See above. Even if the Mon Calamari and Wookiee homeworlds were completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy, their isolation in itself would have caught people's attention. Certainly, Palpatine's many agents would have picked up on it.Because of the power and influence wielded by those in charge of their respective territories. Things of this magnitude can be hidden easily. The Death Star's construction, in both cases, for example, or the burying of Lusankya on Coruscant.
And the Third Reich galvanized Germany's economy and revolutionized its infrastructure. Hell, they gave us the VW Bug. Does that make the Nazis any less reprehensible?I never said it did. The Empire was just as capable of doing good (which it did) as it was of doing evil. The Empire is not a monolithic extension of Emperor Palpatine's personal will, nor is it the baby-punching, puppy-killing, moustache-twirling Nazi extravaganza you portray it as.
I now that. But Palpatine's word was still law, and Pestage obeyed him absolutely. The Emperor must have known of the crimes being committed by his servants, and he did nothing to stop them unless his image was threatened.You completely misunderstand. Yes, the Emperor was both head of state and government, and held enormous constitutional power, but he did not run the Empire. As both Hoth, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage actually ran the day-to-day affairs of the Empire, with the Emperor a reclusive man probably more content to study the Dark Side.
Oddly enough, I don't recall any mention of the entire inner territories being engulfed by flame, even during the Yuuzhan Vong War. The worlds of which you speak were largely unaffected unless they were directly targeted by warlords or invaders; next to the suffering that already existed on the Outer Rim, the added chaos that the NR allowed is rather minimal.It is certainly better for the vast majority of sentient beings to be living in "luxury-liner" worlds, rather than no one under the New Republic. People were better off under the Empire.
Imperial citizens could be taken away to prison worlds or made to “vanish" if they spoke publically against the Empire. The free Galactic Holonet was either assimilated for government use or dismantled, and local media networks were brought under Imperial domination. The subjects of Palpatine only ad the rights he saw fit to give them. Would you like to live in a world where you were only allowed to live comfortably as long as you swallowed the party line and looked the other way as your friends and family, anyone who dared to speak out against the injustices just below the surface, disappeared? I certainly would not.And what makes you think citizens did not have those rights? Does it even matter if they do not have those rights if the people live in peace, security, and happiness?