2 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:

Of course not, we are talking about attractive ships.

Y-Wings are thicc!

10 hours ago, eMeM said:

One would have to be seriously damaged to believe every single person on a planet was involved in funding the rebellion, and the right course of action is to just murder everyone and not even stage a fake trial like states at least pretending to be legitimate.

2 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:

Unarmed? They were manufacturing weapons for the rebels! Their leadership was inciting violence against the government!

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not.

It'd be really easy to get to the bottom of this if there were some evidence..... you know, the kind that wasn't annihilated with a super laser.

@HolySorcerer , no evidence, no case. Innocent, Case dismissed!

3 hours ago, Sekac said:

Gotcha. Sooo... not extinction level genocide then?

Alderaan? Sure, every native species would be extinct, and the culture would be as well, but it was hardly the only (mostly) human populated world in an Empire with at least a million subject planets and countless smaller settlements. A poppulated world of a few billions is nothing next to the core worlds with trillions or even quadrillions of inhabitants.

However, this is still a war crime of the highest degree easily analogous to the genocidal atrocities on this world. Alderaan was used as an example of what happens when a few uppity people start fighting back. Luckily there was a farmboy with magic powers to help level the playing field and bring hope. Many, many peoples of Earth, past, present and future. must make do without space wizards and one-in-a-million shots heard round the galaxy. We’ve got to do things the old fashion way, blood sweat and tears.

3 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not.

It'd be really easy to get to the bottom of this if there were some evidence..... you know, the kind that wasn't annihilated with a super laser.

1 minute ago, GLEXOR said:

@HolySorcerer , no evidence, no case. Innocent, Case dismissed!

The senator from Alderan was captured immediately following her attack on a government military installation. They've been found to be smuggling cruisers to rebel terrorist cells. They also cheated on their tax forms. Alderan got what it deserved.

4 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

The senator from Alderan was captured immediately following her attack on a government military installation. They've been found to be smuggling cruisers to rebel terrorist cells. They also cheated on their tax forms. Alderan got what it deserved.

Serves them right for not electing their planetary monarch like Naboo. And of course the senate seat is probably an inherited position, so really if the people of Alderaan had just stood up to Organa and his daughter and demanded an end to their open treason and removed them in a coup, well then there would still be a people of Alderaan.

8 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

The senator from Alderan was captured immediately following her attack on a government military installation. They've been found to be smuggling cruisers to rebel terrorist cells. They also cheated on their tax forms. Alderan got what it deserved.

What government military installation?

Oh the "secret one" that now resembles a giant crater? I suppose she used Tantiv IV's turbolasers to erase that evidence too?

Just now, GrimmyV said:

Serves them right for not electing their planetary monarch like Naboo. And of course the senate seat is probably an inherited position, so really if the people of Alderaan had just stood up to Organa and his daughter and demanded an end to their open treason and removed them in a coup, well then there would still be a people of Alderaan.

It's not surprising considering how incestuous and corrupt the senate was. Giving power back to the local governors was a good decision.

Just now, HolySorcerer said:

The senator from Alderan was captured immediately following her attack on a government military installation. They've been found to be smuggling cruisers to rebel terrorist cells. They also cheated on their tax forms. Alderan got what it deserved.

Ok, Tax evasion, and aledged smuggling are punishable by death, but not just for the culprits, but for their next door neighbor, and that neighbor's cousin, and that cousin's dog's mate's sibling's owner's 13th cousin thrice removed? And everyone else on that planet?

1 minute ago, GLEXOR said:

Ok, Tax evasion, and aledged smuggling are punishable by death, but not just for the culprits, but for their next door neighbor, and that neighbor's cousin, and that cousin's dog's mate's sibling's owner's 13th cousin thrice removed? And everyone else on that planet?

Collateral damage is unavoidable, especially against a force that tries to hide among the civilian population. This is why that practice is considered a war crime.

Just now, HolySorcerer said:

Collateral damage is unavoidable, especially against a force that tries to hide among the civilian population. This is why that practice is considered a war crime.

Collateral damage is never totally unavoidable. And the destruction of Alderan was not about taxes or smuggling, it was about Tarkin the Murderer wanting to take his new instrument of death for a test drive, which cost the lives of a 99.9% innocent population! The fact that you choose to remain blind to the tyranny of the Empire only speaks to the blackness of your very soul!

Ok, that was a bit much. But still, you get the point.

4 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

Collateral damage is never totally unavoidable. And the destruction of Alderan was not about taxes or smuggling, it was about Tarkin the Murderer wanting to take his new instrument of death for a test drive, which cost the lives of a 99.9% innocent population! The fact that you choose to remain blind to the tyranny of the Empire only speaks to the blackness of your very soul!

Ok, that was a bit much. But still, you get the point.

Aldeeran was a rich skiing resort for the corrupt political elite of a decrepit government the galaxy chose to dispose of! Innocent people? Please, it was a fortress of festering insurgency, owned by the very people that caused our society to divide, which has lead to the clone wars.

Good riddance, I say.

18 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

Collateral damage is never totally unavoidable. And the destruction of Alderan was not about taxes or smuggling, it was about Tarkin the Murderer wanting to take his new instrument of death for a test drive, which cost the lives of a 99.9% innocent population! The fact that you choose to remain blind to the tyranny of the Empire only speaks to the blackness of your very soul!

Ok, that was a bit much. But still, you get the point.

Tarkin had it on good authority that Jar Jar Binks was vacationing on Alderaan at the time. Thus, he was fully justified in the course of action he took.

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Aldeeran was a rich skiing resort for the corrupt political elite of a decrepit government the galaxy chose to dispose of! Innocent people? Please, it was a fortress of festering insurgency, owned by the very people that caused our society to divide, which has lead to the clone wars.

Good riddance, I say.

You think Canto Bight was bad? Alderaan was the real scum. Cheating idealistic kids and tricking old fools into buying 20+ year old starfighters, all the while openly claiming they have no weapons.

of course there may have been an old mistress of Tarkin’s on Alderaan that perhaps he had broken up with and wanted to tie up any loose ends before Lady Tarkin found out.

Oh. My. God.

Please tell me that the destruction of Alderaan was a plot device of an afternoon soap opera!

Is it too much to dream that the new jon Favreau show is a space soap opera?!

Yes it is.

But imagine the plot twists of emperor palpatine leaning his left forearm on the mantle of the fireplace and twisting 180 dramatically to tell us that Luke had been French kissing his twin sister the whole time. And what's worse? He knew it!

2 hours ago, GLEXOR said:

Collateral damage is never totally unavoidable. And the destruction of Alderan was not about taxes or smuggling, it was about Tarkin the Murderer wanting to take his new instrument of death for a test drive, which cost the lives of a 99.9% innocent population! The fact that you choose to remain blind to the tyranny of the Empire only speaks to the blackness of your very soul!

Ok, that was a bit much. But still, you get the point.

Not really. As noted before, you can lay a lot of the blacker deeds of the empire directly at Tarkin's door - from the various brands of oppression required to build the death star, to the destruction of the Jedha holy city, to the damage done to Scarif, to the death of everyone on Alderaan (where, let's be honest, an inhabited planet was basically destroyed as an interrogation tactic that didn't even work ).

Sidious was responsible for a lot of things that were just as bad, but at least he had the sense to mostly do that sort of thing secretly without people knowing, to the point that the average citizen of the core worlds thought he was essentially a pretty decent leader

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Not really. As noted before, you can lay a lot of the blacker deeds of the empire directly at Tarkin's door - from the various brands of oppression required to build the death star, to the destruction of the Jedha holy city, to the damage done to Scarif, to the death of everyone on Alderaan (where, let's be honest, an inhabited planet was basically destroyed as an interrogation tactic that didn't even work ).

Sidious was responsible for a lot of things that were just as bad, but at least he had the sense to mostly do that sort of thing secretly without people knowing, to the point that the average citizen of the core worlds thought he was essentially a pretty decent leader

Tarkin was about as 'evil' as a guy in power could be, but because of his bridge-burning political choices he really didn't have much scope for galactic-scale oppression. He blew destroyed the population of two planets and ruined the economy of one system (Alderaan had a sister planet), but other than that his cruelty was much more narrowly focused.

Ol' Sheev went further, and it could be argued that his reign of terror was pretty evil and disruptive. But then again the majority of the population of the galaxy had it god under him. Vader has the same deal going on - occasional (frequent?) personal oppression, but other than that was more of a symbol. Thrawn was downright benign in comparison to either of them, and ironically had a more devastating effect.

Now, someone like Prince Xizor (head of black sun, drug lord, etc) has a far larger effect on the personal, economic, planetary and even galactic scale. His drug distribution network alone would have crippled trillions, maybe quadrillions of people and families. Add in smuggling operations destabilising local economies, pirate fleets crippling trade and a bounty/contract network that keeps everyone who stands up to them in perpetual fear and you've got a very powerful individual.

Off the top of my head, I can;t think of anybody with further reaching and influential ties than Black Sun's leader. I guess you could argue that collectively all the in-fighting between Imperial splinters was worse, maybe.