As usual implicitly anti-Empire…

By Darthvegeta800, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta

Posted at

Psion said:

Allow me to weigh in my two cents:

Star Wars is (or at least was, some folks would argue that Lucas seems bent on killing off his own franchise) a grand and timeless sci-fi retelling of classic fantasy troupes like the Hero's Journey and Good and Evil. The problem is that George's purely binary morality system (Light and Dark Sides of the Force) is actually as much of a handicap as it is a storytelling aid. The good are GOOD, the evil are EVUL, and everyone else gets no screentime. If Star Wars has one flaw, it's that the **** thing is set up to automatically choke any attempt to break out of the setting's simplistic morality.

That's why I like his original take on the Force. It's pretty non-traditional. The Jedi, the "good guys" of the setting are just, but cold and distant, focusing on suppressing their emotions. While the dark side, the bad guys, are all about being being emotional and embracing their humanity (or whatever species they are).

Star Wars (at least before the majority of EU and prequels) was an interesting blend of traditional fantasy tropes, and still-unique twists. At least that's how I've always seen it.

Posted at

Psion said:

Allow me to weigh in my two cents:

Star Wars is (or at least was, some folks would argue that Lucas seems bent on killing off his own franchise) a grand and timeless sci-fi retelling of classic fantasy troupes like the Hero's Journey and Good and Evil. The problem is that George's purely binary morality system (Light and Dark Sides of the Force) is actually as much of a handicap as it is a storytelling aid. The good are GOOD, the evil are EVUL, and everyone else gets no screentime. If Star Wars has one flaw, it's that the **** thing is set up to automatically choke any attempt to break out of the setting's simplistic morality.

To be fair, this really only applies to the force. Much like the Bible, either you sin, or you don't, there really is not in between. Kinda sinning is still sinning.

If you have not been keeping up, or given up… recent properties, like the Clone Wars cartoon series (much better then the last movies, IMO), are alot more tolerant of the "inbetweeners", the do whole segments on clones and bounty hunters, and Anakin tows the line between light and dark sides.
Add to that the video games "Force Unleashed" and the upcoming 1313 (you play a bounty hunter and its rated mature), we are starting to see alot more to the SW universe then the good/evil balance. (All of which I think is great).

I think we see way too many humans, personally. Of all the species out there, and all the properties ( books, shows, games, etc….), there really isn't too many that center on a non-human "main guy". I know one of the comics did, from dark horse, but not much else.

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http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/8672/article/ghost-recon-or-fighting-terror-with-terror

Here is an article that touches on the kinds of things I was trying to get at:-

+++++In the US public school system, the British empire is more often than not considered the antagonist throughout. We learn of their subjugation of the Indies and Africa, of the Caribbean and the Americas. In our school system, the lesson is often that imperialism is wrong, but I can’t help but feel that the lesson I was supposed to learn was much more pointed -- that British imperialism is wrong, but that our American exceptionalism is completely different. Colonialism, we like to believe, is a completely different ballgame from "nation building," that barely opaque euphemism often used for propagating the US's latest puppet-government. Where one is carried out by red-clad nannies in powdered wigs and bad teeth, Americans do it out of the graciousness of our hearts. We are there to help the disenfranchised, to free people from the ruthless rule of tyrants and murderers (the same that we usually have a hand in putting in power in the first place, mind). If you buy into what I am calling the “Clancy Doctrine,” the USA is like the equivalent to some sort of cybernetic Robin Hood, a paragon of democracy and of Being Badass. Having long abandoned Roosevelt’s doctrine of walking softly and carrying a large stick, we now strut around with a stick in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Videogames seek to emulate this -- affirming American exceptionalism by glorifying the breaking Geneva Conventions and international law.

In Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, I romp through sovereign lands, invisible in a billion dollar uniform, apparently sowing seeds of justice and democracy, but all my actions really seem to make me into exactly the thing I am supposed to stop. In Ghost Recon, I am the invisible terrorist -- the impetus behind that crush of humanity running around me, trying to avoid the barrel of my gun.
Perhaps this is what living in a post-9/11 world is for Americans. Perhaps modern military tactics have become so clandestine as to have become impossible to discern from the very thing we are fighting against. These are our military heroes in videogames: men who break international law with the same flippancy that you might jaywalk or loiter. Flash to E3 and watch as Sam Fisher rips information out of people before slamming his blade into their necks. Go back to Modern Warfare 2 and listen as the general tells you that “You will lose a bit of yourself, but you will save countless lives.” What we’re talking about here is brutality in the name of the nebulous demigod of democracy, beset by evilness all over the world. We’re inundated constantly with the message that anti-terrorism is fought by terrorism and torture.
I don’t mean to reduce this into some sort of “first-person shooters make you violent” white horse that some people enjoy riding into the battlefield of morality. Instead, I bring this up to point out the way in which we enjoy this constant deluge of images of western imperialism, pushing back the natives with superior technology and our undying belief that what we’re doing is the Right Thing. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is not the first game to feature this sort of battlefield of binary morality, nor will it be the last -- if anything, E3 is a perfect example of this genre of preponderantly propagandized shooters is becoming more popular than ever.
Couched in the porn of bullet physics, blood spatter, and destructible environments lies the central message, differentiating Us and Them.
The question I’m left with is this: Where does terrorism end? In seeking to define the boundaries of the term, I’m left thinking that it’s all about what flag you recognize yourself under. This, of course, leads to a deeply unsettling feeling that what I’m witnessing isn’t so much entertainment as it is propaganda. Couched in the porn of bullet physics, blood spatter, and destructible environments lies the central message, differentiating Us and Them.
But Clancy and Co. don’t want you to think this way -- in fact, they’ll do whatever they can so that you never feel as if you are doing anything that could be considered technically “bad.” So, they give you an evil warlord as a target. When the mission starts, you stop a woman from being assaulted. You are one of the good guys! Why they don’t just put an shimmering AR halo over your head and put devil horns on all your targets, I don’t quite understand. But then again, the grizzled general did say the suits were early builds, so maybe that piece of the augmented reality had yet to be implemented.+++++
Or, the Empire have the High Tech toys, the professional training at Military Academies and all the money and support of a powerful Star Nation to back them up (and represent the Status Quo). The Rebellion are farmers with little or no formal training and only hardware they can scrounge (and desire to change the Status Quo).
Which side do Sam Fisher and the Ghost Recon guys work for?
Posted at

^ As the saying goes, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.

It is much like a cat, as a person you look at it one way (perhaps as a pet), but as a mouse you look at it entirely differently.

I don't know how much the history lesson was to apply to the star wars game, but the Empire is shown to be implicitly evil. They blew up an entire planet (a peaceful one at that). That is akin to Hitler tactics. Unless you're human, the Empire is not your friend. Even the species that do work with them, know it is only going to be a matter of time before they (the Imps), turn on them.

Posted at

$hamrock said:

They blew up an entire planet (a peaceful one at that).

That was just a Shock and Awe operation intended to disrupt the will and ability of the insurgents to interfere with Imperial Society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe

+++++Although Ullman and Wade claim that the need to "Minimize civilian casualties, loss of life, and collateral damage" is a "political sensitivity [which needs] to be understood up front", their doctrine of rapid dominance requires the capability to disrupt "means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure", [6] and, in practice, "the appropriate balance of Shock and Awe must cause … the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless short of complete physical destruction." [7]

Using as an example a theoretical invasion of Iraq 20 years after Operation Desert Storm , the authors claimed, "Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese." [8]

Reiterating the example in an interview with CBS News several months before Operation Iraqi Freedom , Ullman stated, "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted." [9] +++++

+++++Ullman and Wade argue that there have been military applications that fall within some of the concepts of shock and awe. They enumerate nine examples:

  • Overwhelming force : The "application of massive or overwhelming force" to "disarm, incapacitate, or render the enemy militarily impotent with as few casualties to ourselves and to noncombatants as possible."
  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki : The establishment of shock and awe through "instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large, meaning its leadership and public, rather than targeting directly against military or strategic objectives even with relatively few numbers or systems."+++++

:-)

Posted at

AluminiumWolf said:

That was just a Shock and Awe operation intended to disrupt the will and ability of the insurgents to interfere with Imperial Society.

Tell that to the people that lost friends and family there.

Genghis Khan used to skin the kids of the villages he attacked, he would then fly them around like banners when he went to the next village. The subsequent villages often would give up without a fight. (Tactically sound, but "EVIL" none the less). There really isn't a whole lot of room for "we did it to scare people, or they are just misunderstood.
I like where your brain is coming from though, you're a pretty intense cat, however, I can't say i would wish to play a character that supported such actions. Kinda takes the hero out of the equation, and I like me some heroes.

Edit: By heroes I am referring to The Punisher, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (80s comic) types… not so much Capt. America.