3 hours ago, eMeM said:

Rule by fear aka rule of terror. Later in the movie they carry out a terrorist attack - blow up a civilian target, murdering billions of non-combatants to further their political goal. Textbook terrorism.

Really that's more of a war crime than terrorism. Completely different...

11 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Well, given how well the new republic panned out I pretty much have zero admiration for The Rebellion itself. But their starfighters are still cooler.

We might disagree just a bit....

9 minutes ago, __underscore__ said:

Really that's more of a war crime than terrorism. Completely different...

Not really a war crime as there is no war with Alderaan, they are nuking their own population.

17 minutes ago, eMeM said:

Not really a war crime as there is no war with Alderaan, they are nuking their own population.

Sure, but their goal is to destroy whateverthe**** for military gain, right? They aren't just killing civilians for its own end, they're just collateral.

Terrorism is necessarily anti establishment. A government by definition, can't be a terrorist organization.

Terrorism uses fear to achieve control.

The empire uses terror to maintain it.

48 minutes ago, __underscore__ said:

Sure, but their goal is to destroy whateverthe**** for military gain, right? They aren't just killing civilians for its own end, they're just collateral.

There was nothing collateral about Alderaan, the planet with all the citizens were the target.

The military gain, by which I assume you mean stopping the Royal family pumping money into the Alliance, could be achieved by just putting people responsible to trial.

The intention wasn't a military gain, though, the intention was to spread terror.

1 minute ago, Commander Kaine said:

Terrorism is necessarily anti establishment. A government by definition, can't be a terrorist organization.

Terrorism uses fear to achieve control.

The empire uses terror to maintain it.

Definitions of terrorism vary. Some of them include state terrorism, some don't.

9 hours ago, Ambigatos said:

The lives lost on the Death Star pale in comparison to the genocide of entire planets and species along with slavery and oppressive taxation. I guess it depends on the individual's perception of what the greater evil is.

So the solution is to bring back a government that used massive slave armies?

6 minutes ago, Icelom said:

So the solution is to bring back a government that used massive slave armies?

Don’t forget the theocratic Jedi who attempted a bloody coup only to thankfully be brought to justice by proper contingency plans. Always be prepared.

2 hours ago, eMeM said:

Definitions of terrorism vary. Some of them include state terrorism, some don't.

State SPONSORED terrorism. Of which even democratic republics on this planet have been known to dabble

12 hours ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

I think that Cobra are just terrorists.

but Cobra is a sovereign nation with representation in the UN and an embassy in NYC! Surely they aren’t the bad guys. It was the USA that took advantage of the crisis of leadership during the Cobra Civil War to set up a Monarchy, which ended in disaster for the US. Sounds familiar.

4 hours ago, eMeM said:

Not really a war crime as there is no war with Alderaan, they are nuking their own population.

They were funding terrorism and fermenting rebelion, sounds like a legitimate target to me.

53 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

State SPONSORED terrorism. Of which even democratic republics on this planet have been known to dabble

I'm talking about state terrorism not state sponsored terrorism.

Like when you openly kill your own citizens to spread terror.

3 minutes ago, Hobojebus said:

They were funding terrorism and fermenting rebelion, sounds like a legitimate target to me.

They were funding terrorism by paying imperial taxes, yes.

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.

3 minutes ago, eMeM said:

They were funding terrorism by paying imperial taxes, yes.

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.

Sadly the corruption of the republic lingered even after decades of prosperity under our beloved emperor, placing peace keeping forces on every world is not feasible nor is mounting operations to root out specific cells.

Surely the loss of one traitorous world is a fair price to pay so that the empire can turn its attentions towards helping the people suffering under the hutts tyrannical rule.

51 minutes ago, eMeM said:

I'm talking about state terrorism not state sponsored terrorism.

Like when you openly kill your own citizens to spread terror.

Oh. That’s Despotism. Fascism. Nationalism. Basically business as usual for 99% of human civilization.

3 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.

That does sound like Tarkin...

In every interesting story about them, the Old Republic, the Galactic Empire, the New Republic, and the First Order are always incapable, incompetent, corrupt, or outright evil. Furthermore, it's all due to the same root cause: they're fictional governments in stories where the government is (at least partially) the matter at hand. Conflict is required by narrative logic.

15 hours ago, eMeM said:

Only hesistant if the deaths aren't family friendly. They had no problem killing tens of thousands in explosions.

Well how else are you going to handle explosions?I did say hesitant. Not "OH NO WE CAN'T NUHHH". ?

12 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

We might disagree just a bit....

Those aren't Y-Wings..!

29 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Those aren't Y-Wings..!

Of course not, we are talking about attractive ships.

7 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

Oh. That’s Despotism. Fascism. Nationalism. Basically business as usual for 99% of human civilization.

Well, no. No government has ever wiped out billions of their own people. There's been a lot of terrible, awful governments and yet none have ever approached the destructive capability and willy-nilly use of it as the Empire.

The Stalins and Hitlers of the world look like saints in comparison (not that they wouldn't use a death star if they had it).

So it's a lot more like business as usual for.... approximately 0% of human civilization...

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Well, no. No government has ever wiped out billions of their own people. There's been a lot of terrible, awful governments and yet none have ever approached the destructive capability and willy-nilly use of it as the Empire.

The Stalins and Hitlers of the world look like saints in comparison (not that they wouldn't use a death star if they had it).

So it's a lot more like business as usual for.... approximately 0% of human civilization...

You've got to look at percentages of the total population. Nobody cares about the actual count, they care about the percentage of the whole. Alderan was a drop in the bucket.

3 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

You've got to look at percentages of the total population. Nobody cares about the actual count, they care about the percentage of the whole. Alderan was a drop in the bucket.

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

5 minutes ago, Sekac said:

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

No more than any other military strike against rebel insurgents. It's not like it's the only planet in the galaxy.

How many billions died in the clone wars? How important is it to prevent another war of that scale?

24 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

No more than any other military strike against rebel insurgents. It's not like it's the only planet in the galaxy.

How many billions died in the clone wars? How important is it to prevent another war of that scale?

To prevent a war, eradicate an unarmed planet and call it a military strike against insurgents.

Act shocked when it instead starts a war.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though, it was a "long time ago" so they might not have as robust a military history of dip-**** moves to draw on as we do.

But, yeah, that's one of them.

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

To prevent a war, eradicate an unarmed planet and call it a military strike against insurgents.

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