Ethics in Star Wars

[Shrieking Banshee]

Congratulations! Im a douche incapable of engaging in decent online conversation without slinging insults.

Ah. Tldr: I think the PTs can't decide if they want fairytale logic or want to be complex political stories.

[Shrieking Banshee]

On the other hand, it's not like they're trained to be "unfeeling soldiers". Young children are often put into martial arts programs, and sunday schools. Jedi are taught to love. They are also taught to resist attachment.

Taken into isolation, that would be the default actions done for an evil bad guy organization. It's not a school for children to decide their path. If you are inducted as a child into an organization that will call you a failure if you have any sort of attachment except to what they decree (IE political institutions only), then that is fucked up.
Attachment is the reason we do anything at all. Detachment and the inability to make meaningful connections to others are one of the core aspects of psychopaths/sociopaths. You can't "love" generally.

[Valatar]

Consider the position the Jedi Order's in.  If they don't snatch a kid and teach them young to be carefully controlled, there's at least 50-50 odds the kid grows up to be a crazed psychopath with telekinesis and mind control.  They learned from rough experience like Anakin's that you take a young guy/girl, let them fall in love, then next thing you know the other person's cheated or ditched them and now you've got a new dark side problem on your hands.  So they come up with their whole 'no attachments' rule.

[Grognard GM]

Any criticism of C-3PO is homophobia, and I for one support his beautiful gay relationship with R2-D2. Love is love, and sometimes an exit port can be an entry port.

[Shrieking Banshee]

If they don't snatch a kid and teach them young to be carefully controlled, there's at least 50-50 odds the kid grows up to be a crazed psychopath with telekinesis and mind control.

Which is another stupid writing error. The Force isn't supposed to be the warp or extra universal corruption from the demon realm. If it was, I would be trumpeting the necessity of teaching dem kids about detachment. It would probably be the most humane and kindest thing to do instead of just culling them in childhood.

But its supposed to be a benevolent representation of universal life. A benevolent force shouldn't need you to not function normally in life. Unless the force was actually made for reptiles and the stupid mammals coming into existence was an error on its part.

From the horse's mouth (George). I'm pretty sure he based it on Buddism from when he was feeling depressed about a divorce and so did a "ALL MARRIAGE AND LOVE IS BAD! DO THE SIGMA GRINDSET".
Now that in theory what the Jedi are supposed to be. They I think are supposed to be more or less benevolent (outside some arrogance).
The PT makes a coherent story about how trying to be detached just makes you into a sociopath that only cares about politics until you die at the hand of the monster you made. But it does that by accident.

[Brad]

So I ended up watching Empire and Jedi back-to-back last night with my kids while getting heavily inebriated. They went to bed before Jedi, so it was just my cousin and I basically ranting about Lucas fucking up the entire lore of SW with his remakes and prequels. He's a writer and has done a bunch of novels, short stories, working on several movie scripts right now actually, so a really good sounding board for story development. I brought up this thread specifically, and his comment pretty much verbatim was, "Have they actually watched the movies?"

[Grognard GM]

So I ended up watching Empire and Jedi back-to-back last night with my kids while getting heavily inebriated. They went to bed before Jedi, so it was just my cousin and I basically ranting about Lucas fucking up the entire lore of SW with his remakes and prequels. He's a writer and has done a bunch of novels, short stories, working on several movie scripts right now actually, so a really good sounding board for story development. I brought up this thread specifically, and his comment pretty much verbatim was, "Have they actually watched the movies?"

My biggest beef with the prequels is they made zero effort to match the original trilogy, in theme, lore, or power level. Giving the Force a scientific explanation, and limitations, completely flies in the face of the OT. They also cranked up the power levels of Jedi to the point where Luke and Vader in the OT look pathetic in comparison.

Then every movie and piece of lore since has sought to make the OT fit the prequels, instead of the other way round.

[Ratman_tf]

From the horse's mouth (George). I'm pretty sure he based it on Buddism from when he was feeling depressed about a divorce and so did a "ALL MARRIAGE AND LOVE IS BAD! DO THE SIGMA GRINDSET".
Now that in theory what the Jedi are supposed to be. They I think are supposed to be more or less benevolent (outside some arrogance).
The PT makes a coherent story about how trying to be detached just makes you into a sociopath that only cares about politics until you die at the hand of the monster you made. But it does that by accident.

That's the thing. I can't see Lucas thinking that all love is bad. Maybe I'm being too generous, and if he does/did think that, and meant that message in the prequels, then I'd agree it's crazy. But then, part of the story is how the Jedi weren't infalliable, and that's part of what led to the fall of the Republic. I'm on the fence on the 'deeper meanings' behind the Jedi as portrayed in the PT.

[Fheredin]

So I ended up watching Empire and Jedi back-to-back last night with my kids while getting heavily inebriated. They went to bed before Jedi, so it was just my cousin and I basically ranting about Lucas fucking up the entire lore of SW with his remakes and prequels. He's a writer and has done a bunch of novels, short stories, working on several movie scripts right now actually, so a really good sounding board for story development. I brought up this thread specifically, and his comment pretty much verbatim was, "Have they actually watched the movies?"

Lucas was good at worldbuilding and bigger strokes writing. I think Sidious's plan to destroy the Jedi in the Prequels is one of the best villain schemes ever written because he exploits the hypocrisy of the Jedi, a nuanced bit of genius which I don't think Lucas himself appreciates. But Lucas is also terrible at characters, character development, and dialogue. This also explains how the Prequels sank; Lucas chose to do a romance as a plot-essential story, and romances require character development and dialogue, Lucas's very worst points as a writer.

You have to watch The Clone Wars to see Filoni back-fill and explain Padme, Anakin, and Sidious's plots. Because Filoni is a talented character and dialogue writer who can fill in the talent gaps in Lucas's writing.

...Or at least was. Rumor from Overlord DVD is that Filoni has sided with Kennedy against Favreau, which probably means that Filoni will never be able to write a good story again thanks to SJW plot interference and Star Wars is basically a sunk boat.

[Slipshot762]

Oh god, this topic can be a mine field. Take Luke Skywalker at the battle of Yavin, w/o grabbing the DS technical companion I think the deathstar had 24 zones each with like 250k people staffing it something like that, and while there are certainly stone cold killers and tramplers of rights in the bunch the bulk of them had to be otherwise normal people who thought they had won a ticket to one of the most exclusive and luxurious postings in the galaxy...and Luke killed them. (I think lucas screwed up here, the deathstar superlaser should have been attacked and crippled and the DS itself rendered a slow mobile fortress with the emperor inside under perpetual mobile siege for another few movies)

Like scruffy the janitor on detention level never hurt anyone, sure he downloaded a pirated copy of wookies gone wild once but he wasn't force choking toddlers. Luke still killed him. For great justice even...or whatever. I don't know how many rebels were on yavin but all were insurrectionists and they were fewer than the soul count aboard the deathstar...so paladin, do you kill 250k times 24 mundane tax paying people to save far fewer known and wanted criminals?

Shit at this rate it would be acceptable for the rebels to use wmd's on Coruscant if it hastens the fall of the imperial regime yes? I can't even.

[Slipshot762]

Not to derail but is star wars related; you ever take stock of all the ways star wars is different than say star trek or BSG? As someone said earlier its fantasy not sci-fi, its a different galaxy some of the laws of physics could even work differently, i do know many comics and novels have mention of a difference between hard vacuum and normal for example, the later sometimes called aether and being partially breathable and low pressure and survivable by a human for a short span of 15-30 minutes. You don't see a universal translator like in trek, because the galaxy spanning gov/civ is more than 100k years old and has standardized language math commerce and production to a degree that interchangability is absurd if you think about; a hyper drive motivator is pretty much the same no matter what planet its made on. Globablization is a prerequisite for the star wars galaxy, perhaps Galaxification would be a better term. Klingon plasma conduits might not be interchangeable on Federation vessels w/o adaptors and kits, but in star wars walmart sells the same shit regardless of locale.

[GeekyBugle]

Oh god, this topic can be a mine field. Take Luke Skywalker at the battle of Yavin, w/o grabbing the DS technical companion I think the deathstar had 24 zones each with like 250k people staffing it something like that, and while there are certainly stone cold killers and tramplers of rights in the bunch the bulk of them had to be otherwise normal people who thought they had won a ticket to one of the most exclusive and luxurious postings in the galaxy...and Luke killed them. (I think lucas screwed up here, the deathstar superlaser should have been attacked and crippled and the DS itself rendered a slow mobile fortress with the emperor inside under perpetual mobile siege for another few movies)

Like scruffy the janitor on detention level never hurt anyone, sure he downloaded a pirated copy of wookies gone wild once but he wasn't force choking toddlers. Luke still killed him. For great justice even...or whatever. I don't know how many rebels were on yavin but all were insurrectionists and they were fewer than the soul count aboard the deathstar...so paladin, do you kill 250k times 24 mundane tax paying people to save far fewer known and wanted criminals?

Shit at this rate it would be acceptable for the rebels to use wmd's on Coruscant if it hastens the fall of the imperial regime yes? I can't even.

So it's your contention that the Nazi machinist inside an U-Boat getting killed by an allied torpedo with the rest of the crew makes the allies the villains?

Nobody joined the Imperial Army thinking they were going on vacation to Bimini dude.

[Slipshot762]

Not my contention no but I have seen this sort of devils advocacy pop up at the table before and it always slows the game down. You know players, they will go whichever way suits them at the moment. Character alignment can vary but players are always chaotic stupid.

eta
"dude you can't genocide the genosians from orbit.."
"i can too it's what luke skywalker would do..."
"we should have played poker instead"

[GeekyBugle]

Not my contention no but I have seen this sort of devils advocacy pop up at the table before and it always slows the game down. You know players, they will go whichever way suits them at the moment. Character alignment can vary but players are always chaotic stupid.

eta
"dude you can't genocide the genosians from orbit.."
"i can too it's what luke skywalker would do..."
"we should have played poker instead"

You need better players.

[Slipshot762]

Not my contention no but I have seen this sort of devils advocacy pop up at the table before and it always slows the game down. You know players, they will go whichever way suits them at the moment. Character alignment can vary but players are always chaotic stupid.

eta
"dude you can't genocide the genosians from orbit.."
"i can too it's what luke skywalker would do..."
"we should have played poker instead"

You need better players.

Agreed! lol, I tell them so often. As far as GM's go they are lucky to have me, most just run what they want to run and you can play or not, I try to tailor and cater and engage and make it collaborative and more often than not pain is my only reward.

Still, I find particularly with star wars you have got to keep it moving and don't let players think about these things. You also have to be aware of this and anticipate it, try to never let that guy be in a position to bring orbital bombardment down on droid factories to start with and you won't have to worry about his inner murder hobo coming out. You must be prepared to dodge these things or to accept and develop changes to canon that occur as a result of player shennanigans. We don't have time for ethics, if you don't get that rear deflector shield back online in the next couple rounds we are walking back to nal hutta.