What makes the Empire in Star Wars evil?

[Woodsey]

Empire.

"Democratic republic." Umm....

 

[gwilym101]

The empire wasn't democratic. The senate gets disbanded.

THEY BLOW UP A PLANET THAT DIDN'T HAVE ANY REBELS ON IT!! One rebel came from there and they blew it up (yes I know other rebels came from there, but they blew it up because Leia came from there). Everyone knew that the rebel base wasn't there, but they blew it up anyway. That is what people call a disproportionate response.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well considering the fact (I read on Star Wars Wiki) instead to admitting to blowing up Alderaan, they blame it on the Rebel (which the people didn't bought). Since when a good guy/ group have to lied something like that?

Also at the end of the Return of the Jedi new scenes, there shown few planet full of people were celebrating over the demise of the Empire/ Vader which would mean they were opress under their rules unless you're telling me those people are in fact the bad guys?

 

[Davey Woo]

If you were to put it in real life terms, it'd be like the U.S. nuking the entirety of Iraq or Afghanistan because there happens to be anti-western militants somewhere in those countries.

Correction, it would be like the U.S re-locating to another planet and then blowing up the entire Earth because there happened to be Anti-Western militants on it.

Democracy or not, blowing up planets is just not cool. Also the red lightsabres, I mean, red lightsabres are a big give-away.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Rofl what?

-Disbanded the senate to complete their total control.
-Were actively racist/specist you see any aliens in the Imperial Navy?
-Blew up a planet with millions of people just to intimidate dissenters.
-Actively engage in torture(first to try and find the rebel base from Leia, and secondly just because torturing Han is a way to get Lukes attention, and thirdly to break Luke's will.)
-Choked the captain of a diplomatic vessel to death.
-Murdered two people and destroyed their farm because they happened to buy two droids that the imperials wanted(Droids which weren't even at said farm when the imperials showed up.)
-Showed up at a freely owned mining facility and threatened to murder everyone if the administrator didn't help them set a trap.
-Clearly tried multiple times to goad Luke into fighting, mostly with threats to go after his sister. Which is more the school yard bully territory of evil.
-Murder their own officers for the slightest mistakes.
-Vader is clearly superior with a light saber(2nd movie) and spends the bulk of the time toying with Luke. Ergo he basically chopped off Luke's hand just to prove a point, it wasn't a spur of the moment clutch fight, it was a cold calculated decision. Which is a pretty fucking evil thing to do to your own kid especially considering how unnecessary it was.
-They hire a guy who literally has to be told not to disintegrate people to death.
-Sell a character to what is basically the Star Wars version of the Mafia.
-Send pilots into an asteroid field basically knowing they are going to die.

 

[smartalec]

im more curious about what good the empire actually did.. seriously i cant think of anything

They did enforce peace in a lot of sectors of space. But they did it the Roman Empire way, by brutally crushing anyone who dared make a move.

 

[Apollo45]

But Alderaan didn't have any gathering enemies...they blew it up just to show how big their space-dicks were and anger Princess Leia.

Yeah it was a World War II reference.

OT: In the original trilogy there's every indication that the Empire wasn't really evil. Vader's (before "Darth" became a title) reference to "there'll be no escape for you this time" clearly meant that he was being pushed and was stretching the law, which meant there were laws and processes protecting civil liberties. There's also an interesting theory about how the Stormtroopers had trouble shooting civilians because they weren't trained to do that. They seemed to shoot just fine when it was against people in uniform. Then again there's also the mention that blowing up the first Death Star was killing Imperial soldiers who understood the risks of their jobs. Blowing up the second Death Star included a lot of innocent contractors with families. Yeah the Rebels were terrorists and by succeeding in taking down the Empire they just caused a lot of chaos and killed a lot of innocent people.

But clerks also points out that any contractors on the second death star wouldn't have known what they were getting into. they would have taken the job full well knowing the risks.

So they would AND wouldn't have known what they were getting into? Okay, I agree and disagree with that. It's irrelevant though because while a contractor may know that there are risks associated with their jobs (I'm sure the guy installing the toilets was pretty guilt-free), it still doesn't make it okay to murder them. Besides there is no indication, none whatsoever, that the galaxy would have been worse off if the rebellion had died over Endor. For all we know once the bad people were gone, the Emperor may have reinstated the Senate and thrown a big party for all the good citizens. We'll never know now will we.

You're ignoring huge parts of the Empire's political policies. They regularly torture people. They enslave entire species, and alienate others. Notice how there are zero aliens in high-positions in the Empire? It's because they're not allowed to be. The only one able to get that high was Grand Admiral Thrawn, and except for the blue skin and red eyes he was essentially human.

Throw that on top of building a Death Star not because they couldn't already destroy a planet (they could; three Star Destroyers can glass a planet without much of an issue) but because they were bored and had a bunch of extra materials lying around, and then destroyed a planet with it - a peaceful one that was threatening no one (hell, according to Leia they didn't even have weapons) and you've got yourself a military dictatorship that is, by definition, evil.

Technically, if you want to get into extended universe stuff, the galaxy would have been better off in the long run if the Empire had continued to exist. Not long afterwards the galaxy is invaded by an extra-galactic race and the New Republic is very nearly wiped out. They partially accomplished this by infiltrating the Senate and screwing things up. If the Empire had remained in control not only would they have not been able to influence anything, since Palpatine was the only one in control, but they also would have come up against a united galaxy with a military force capable of decimating entire planets without batting an eyelash. The invaders would've been boned, to put it lightly. Instead they came upon a fractured, weak New Republic and were able to very nearly dominate the galaxy. All of that, however, doesn't stop the Empire from being evil. It just means that sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

 

[Warachia]

In the movies, the Imperials/Dark Side are a democratic republic, they kept the galaxy in peace, they only blew up Alderaan because the enemy was gathering there and they allowed freedom to express emotion while the light side of the force achieved none of this.

*Note that I am excluding the latest movies because they were just garbage.

You seem to remember the movie very differently, the enemy was never gathering at Alderan, they just wanted something to test their weapons on, they didn't keep the peace, essentially everything was under martial law 24/7 (also they'd kill you if they thought you had something on them without any proof, see Luke's family) and "freedom to express emotion"? No idea what you mean by this.

 

[Playful Pony]

I don't really agree with excluding the newer movies...

But The Empire is obviously a heavily restrictive totalitarian regime, ruled by Palpatine and his henchmen. Those of the highest rank show absolutely no regard for civilian life, and they use fear to keep the various systems populations in line. Just consider the Death Star, a giant space station built around that very idea that fear subdues entire nations. It's a bit like expecting Hitler turning out to being a good guy after all, just having killed all those innocent people and invaded all those planets because reasons. Remember, if we exclude the 3 prequels, what do we actually KNOW about the time before the Empire? Nothing! There are no reasons why the Empire is around as the first movie starts. It's an obviously evil regime led by cruel and ruthless induviduals, and we know nothing of the events that led to it's founding. We have an officer, the Emperors right hand no less, going about killing his own officers and slaugthering populations in search of a few lone rebels.

If you consider the 3 first movies and parts of the expanded universe, I may be able to see some sort of justification for Palpatines actions. A vast alien force is comming, their only chance to resist is a heavily militarized and united galaxy, with a huge standing army and navy. If we don't have the information around the events of movive 4,5 and 6 we have no reason to think the Empire is anything other than the purest of evil!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I mean hell, how many planet-busting super weapons do they have? Like 6? What good empire has a legitimate reason to own 6+ planet busting super weapons?

Death Star 1: Superlaser Battlestation, could fire once a day due to the low recharge rate on the Superlaser Array

Death Star 2: Roughly 10 times the size of DS1, could fire Superlaser shots every three minutes

Death Star Prototype: The test model for the previous two, skeleton structure built around superlaser, destroyed Kessel's Moon

Sun Crusher (Starfighter sized superweapon that caused Stars to go supernova)

MCPL Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter (one shot caused structural collapse throughout a target, wiping out ships with single blasts)

Orbital Nightcloak: Freeze a planet by blocking out the sun with satellite arrays

World Devastators: Mobile factory ships that swallowed up planetary resources, strip mining worlds and building millions of drone fighters and other warships with the materiel

Tarkin Station: Superlaser Ion Cannon

ISD Conqueror: Star Destroyer built around one of the Death Star's smaller superlasers

Torpedo Sphere: Mini death Stars used for planetary bombardment with radioactive missiles

Planet Cracker: Missiles used to crack planetary cores and cause worldwide chaos

Eye of Palpatine: Asteroid shaped Dreadnought housing millions of troops. A mobile gun platform variant of the Death Star

Galaxy Gun: Massive space cannon capable of firing planet destroying shots through hyperspace

Eclipse and sovereign Super Star Destroyers: Massive warships built around Superlaser arrays.

Fifteen separate Superweapons, and these are only the ones we know about.

 

[KingHodor]

Both the Empire and the Republic were very ambiguous entities. The Republic started a war by invading Geonosis after their agents were caught spying on an independent system's leadership. Then, the CIS broke away and instead of trying to resolve things diplomatically or establish peaceful co-existance - they start a galaxy-wide war to keep control over worlds that no longer wanted to be ruled by them.

Even before the war, the Trade Federation occupied Naboo with an army of droids just for their financial gain and tried to assassinate two Jedi Knights and a Republic senator. The other factions in the CIS similarly occupied and enslaved both neutral and Republic-loyal worlds during the Clone Wars.

That was the problem, not that they were just trying to secede.

Now, the use of an army of brainwashed soldiers deprived of a childhood - that, on the other hand, casts a strange light on the moral standards of the Old Republic.

 

[Warachia]

Just because the contractors knew that their job might be dangerous doesn't give anyone the right to murder them. And besides, they were building an instrument for galactic peace. That's what trying to own everything is, the quest for peace.
Besides there was every indication in the original trilogy that the Rebellion itself pushed the Emperor and Lord Vader into using more extreme methods to stop them. For all we know if the Empire had succeeded in trapping and destroying the Rebels at Endor, he may have reinstated the senate and let everyone relax. There may even have been a tax rebate since the Imperial military would have been able to scale back Palpatine bucks for everybody! (Which is way better than palpating bucks for everyone, they feel disgusting)

Come on, I know you don't really believe this bullshit, "they were building an instrument for galactic peace" is so laughably wrong I'm having trouble focusing on the rest of your argument, they knew exactly what it was for, they never said they were building it to "keep the peace", they were building it to blow up the rebels and stop any other resistance before it starts, by blowing up Alderan (a utopia) as a demonstration of their power. I actually missed when you said "That's what trying to own everything is, the quest for peace" because I couldn't get over the earlier statement, owning everything is absolutely NOT the quest for peace, it's the quest for owning and ruling everything, Palpatine did it because he's greedy, hates the previous system, and wants to see his ideals spread throughout the galaxy (ideals that encourage slavery, selling out friends and murder).

"Besides there was every indication in the original trilogy that the Rebellion itself pushed the Emperor and Lord Vader into using more extreme methods to stop them." No there isn't, the empire were building the death star regardless of whether the rebels showed up and never once took them seriously as a threat (until they stole the death star plans which might have been the thing that put them on the empire's radar), though the worst statement is "There may even have been a tax rebate since the Imperial military would have been able to scale back " Of course there wouldn't, he'd use it as an excuse to create more star destroyers, death stars, and might even enforce mandatory military service.

Also, even in the original trilogy they mention Palpatine destroyed the senate when he rose to power, and has been in power for some time before the rebels appeared on their radar, I have no idea why you'd even think he'd reinstate the senate, especially after you see how he encourages backstabbing as a way of rising through ranks, and sees killing people as a way to inspire others.

Captcha: that's what she said (for some reason written in Olde style font)

 

[KingHodor]

I mean hell, how many planet-busting super weapons do they have? Like 6? What good empire has a legitimate reason to own 6+ planet busting super weapons?

Death Star 1: Superlaser Battlestation, could fire once a day due to the low recharge rate on the Superlaser Array

Death Star 2: Roughly 10 times the size of DS1, could fire Superlaser shots every three minutes

Death Star Prototype: The test model for the previous two, skeleton structure built around superlaser, destroyed Kessel's Moon

Sun Crusher (Starfighter sized superweapon that caused Stars to go supernova)

MCPL Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter (one shot caused structural collapse throughout a target, wiping out ships with single blasts)

Orbital Nightcloak: Freeze a planet by blocking out the sun with satellite arrays

World Devastators: Mobile factory ships that swallowed up planetary resources, strip mining worlds and building millions of drone fighters and other warships with the materiel

Tarkin Station: Superlaser Ion Cannon

ISD Conqueror: Star Destroyer built around one of the Death Star's smaller superlasers

Torpedo Sphere: Mini death Stars used for planetary bombardment with radioactive missiles

Planet Cracker: Missiles used to crack planetary cores and cause worldwide chaos

Eye of Palpatine: Asteroid shaped Dreadnought housing millions of troops. A mobile gun platform variant of the Death Star

Galaxy Gun: Massive space cannon capable of firing planet destroying shots through hyperspace

Eclipse and sovereign Super Star Destroyers: Massive warships built around Superlaser arrays.

Fifteen separate Superweapons, and these are only the ones we know about.

And don't forget that a single Imperial-class Star Destroyer is supposed to be capable of executing a Base-Delta-Zero order, i.e. an orbital bombardment capable of wiping out intelligent life on a planet.

 

[viranimus]

The empire is not evil.

The only evil in the empire is that of perception of people living in a world governed by political correct ideology and hypocritical faux enlightenment.

Actually if you look at most works of narrative fiction, the "good" guys are the ones who are typically more "evil"

 

[viranimus]

Alderaan was not destroyed because the Rebels were hiding there. It was merely a demonstration to keep the other systems in line. That would be like the US blowing up all of France, just to intimidate Somalia.

No, I think a more accurate example would be the US dropping two atomic bombs killing roughly 200 thousand people in short order as a demonstration of ungodly power in order to intimidate Japan into surrendering instead of a prolonged conventional campaign that would have drug on for years and likely resulted in deaths that would number closer to the millions.

 

[RedFeather1975]

The death star helped an entire planet's population to ascend with the most merciful of expediency.
The princess, the smuggler and the princely moisture farmer didn't think that was a profitable course of action.
Yeah, Luke was a ****ing moisture farmer! How lame and desperate of an existence is that?!

edit: Oh yeah, I forgot that the anal-retentive robot and his little potty-mouthed friend didn't like that death star saving billions either. Those two are just as lame as Luke. Moisture farmer... lmao.

http://deathstarpr.blogspot.ca/2011/10/is-luke-skywalker-really-99.html

 

[viranimus]

Dude...

The Empire has a super weapon that can freeze planets solid. They've already established that they've got a weapon capable of blowing up planets, now they're just screwing around with new and different ways to commit genocide.

While the whole ideology argument might work for other stories, when you start inventing new ways to commit mass-murder on a global scale, you've officially crossed into the 'evil' side of things.

And seriously, after you blow up a planet as an example to the rest of the governments who think you're a bit of a wanker that you shouldn't be fucked with, you're not exactly presenting yourself as a good, positive Empire now, are you?

That argument falls pretty flat.

A group within the government is not satisfied about the actions of a duly elected representative government at the urging of Jedi whispering in their ears form the Rebel alliance, and begin the process of forced rebellion and secession from the government,(Wow, kinda prophetic) turning former friends and allies in a 2500 year old system of government into enemies with the rebels fixated on impeding the will of the republic to suit their own ends. This results in after waging perhaps the largest war in its history having to immediately turn around and begin defending itself against its own people.

Then years later that government struggles to put the peices of itself back together with constant failed attempts at reunification. Being large and widespread makes its actions sluggish and ineffectual to defend against the incessant guerrilla terrorist war being waged by the Rebel alliance. Knowing this prolonged siege campaign is failing, a conscious effort is made to make a demonstration of power and bring unity and peace back within reach. So Billions are sacrificed in order to save thousands of systems and billions upon trillions of lives. (Just like the aforementioned US Atomic strike strategy)

See... the reason the argument that the empire is evil ... cause genocide.... falls flat. History is written by the victor, and honestly there are really no "good" or "bad" guys with everything being colored in grey. Where are the tales of all the death and destruction caused on innocents at the hands of the Rebels in all this? How many loyalists did they destroy along the way in their fight that they justified as simply "part of the problem"

So with the Rebels winning when it is all said and done we are told their story, and their victory. However one countries victorious fight is anothers campaign of terror. Look at the facts that didnt get covered up. Most the planets in the empire were not subjugated or oppressed. And what did happen usually occurred in the pursuit of the greater goal of reunifying the galaxy. Those who retained loyalty were rewarded and given opportunity to remain as valued allies. Ewoks seemed to be doing pretty OK as did the wookies and little changed for the Hutts. But of the former everything was going good until silver tongued rebels started making promises, manipulated the simple ewoks and tricked them into betrayal.


The story is clearly biased in that respect because the victors painted history to show them to be the valiant crusaders, and that divine right was on their side. See... its all simply a matter of perspective. As I said, history is written by the victor. As this is a story from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, of course the historical recount of the story would portray its paragons as the Virtuous Paladin, The honorable rogue cowboy, The noble savage and the stalwart princess

As I said Good is rarely good. Evil is rarely evil. Its all a matter of perspective.

LOL, damn yer hide for making me talk about Star Wars on this deep of a level... I loathe Star Wars.

 

[Vivi22]

In the movies, the Imperials/Dark Side are a democratic republic,

Not really. They mention the senate in the first one I believe being dissolved, and the reality is that by that point the Emperor basically had full control and any democratic arm of government was fairly neutered (hence being able to simply get rid of the senate). And given the Empires tendency to stomp out any opposition under the boot heels of stormtroopers, it's unlikely there were any checks and balances in place to keep the Emperor and the Empire serving the people and not the other way around. Also, we need to keep in mind that the Empire is lead by a guy who started a galactic war, manipulated both factions involved heavily, and utilized a totally subservient clone army to seize control, and wipe out the Jedi. This is not a nice guy in charge at all.

they kept the galaxy in peace,

Enforcing peace with the business end of a blaster isn't really peace. At least, not any peace I'd want to live under.

they only blew up Alderaan because the enemy was gathering there

So, blowing up a planet which almost certainly had a population in the millions, and probably billions, because its government or some of its people support a fairly small group of rebels isn't evil? Is that a joke? Hell, they didn't even actually care if there was a substantial rebel presence there at all. They just blew it up to make a statement because it was a prominent world who's government supported the Rebels. But considering their were people from Alderaan serving in the Empire's military when it happened, it's hard to argue that everyone there supported the Rebels before it was blown up.

and they allowed freedom to express emotion while the light side of the force achieved none of this.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. The Jedi may have held a tighter reign on their emotions than the Sith, but it's not like they forced people to do that.

All in all, the people running the Empire were pretty evil if only for the fact that they had a nasty habit of building weapons that could destroy planets, and using them simply to tell people they weren't to be fucked with. Nothing says back the hell off like genocide after all.

 

[Fappy]

They are also incredibly racist and consider all non-humans second class citizens at best or slave races at worst.

 

[zumbledum]

In the movies, the Imperials/Dark Side are a democratic republic, they kept the galaxy in peace, they only blew up Alderaan because the enemy was gathering there and they allowed freedom to express emotion while the light side of the force achieved none of this.

*Note that I am excluding the latest movies because they were just garbage.

Think your getting a bit confused. the Imperials are an Empire they are ruled by a single Emperor. The republic was a democratic or actually thats wrong it was a republic which isnt a democracy , America isnt actually democratic its a republic to.

The Emperor being a powerful Sith lord is "Evil" as are all Sith , but the majority of imperial citizens do not differ from republic ones so its not really right to say either the Empire and the republic are good or evil as a whole.

Also the line between Sith and Jedi isnt really one of Good vs Evil either way. Its closer to say the Sith are selfish and wish to shape the universe according to their will. and the jedi seek to allow it unfold as it will.

The sith use their emotions to feed their strength , anger and hate are the easiest so most common but they will use love regret anything that they have to work with. Jedi seek to go the other way and avoid all emotion operate from a position of pure peace and logic,

A sith might torture and murder for fun and sport, but a jedi would let a meteor crash into his old families home without lifting a finger to help them.