What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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The Romulan Republic
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What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by The Romulan Republic »

I know it was discussed a bit in the old EU, but I'm wondering if its come up at all in current canon.

I mean... there were only three witnesses to what happened in the Death Star Throne Room, and two of them are dead. From everyone else's view point, all they'd likely know is that Luke walked into a room with Vader and Palpatine, and only Luke walked out.

Does the average citizen, or even the average Rebel/Imperial/Resistance/First Order soldier or politician, know what actually happened? Or do most people just assume that Luke was such a bad ass that he dueled and killed Vader and Palpatine single-handedly? Or, alternatively, since most people may not know/believe that Palpatine was a Sith, they think he went in there, dueled Vader, and then killed a helpless old man.

That could go a long way towards explaining why Luke coming out of retirement is such a big deal in the ST, why he's a living legend (beyond being the Last Jedi, obviously), and why the First Order is so worried about him. If as far as most people know, he just flat-out killed two Sith Lords in a duel, solo.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Kingmaker »

We don't know. For all we know, the public belief is that Palpatine and Darth Vader were killed when Rebel fighters destroyed the Death Star II.

edit: so far as I've read, but my reading of the new material is less than comprehensive.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Q99 »

Luke did recover Vader's body, so.. if before the funeral pyre, a medic looked it over, they could confirm fresh electric burns.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

I wonder how many of the Imperials who witnessed Luke lugging Vader all the way down to the Death Star's shuttle hangar managed to survive the Battle of Endor.

I also wonder where the Imperial Guards were when Luke and Vader emerged from the throne room. Did they abandon their posts or did they just let Luke and Vader pass without a fight?
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-07 03:21pm I wonder how many of the Imperials who witnessed Luke lugging Vader all the way down to the Death Star's shuttle hangar managed to survive the Battle of Endor.

I also wonder where the Imperial Guards were when Luke and Vader emerged from the throne room. Did they abandon their posts or did they just let Luke and Vader pass without a fight?
You know, it occurs to me that the Star Wars galaxy is probably full of Death Star Throne Room conspiracy theories. :)
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

Probably, but I still can't help but wonder how many surviving eyewitnesses were able to tell their stories about Luke Skywalker carrying the Dark Lord of the Sith as if they weren't mortal enemies.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

In the old canon at least, there was a depiction of this. In one of the X-Wing books, Wedge and Co are infiltrating Coruscant and he visits the Museum of History (or something like that) and sees the exhibit on Endor and the death of the Emperor, which explains how the Death Star was a Planetary Ore Extractor that the Rebels hijacked to use on inhabited planets, that Palpatine went aboard alone to plead with the evil Rebel leaders, sacrificing himself to blow it up. Outside, the outnumbered but outgunned Imperial fleet cut through the less-trained and less-disciplined Rebel ships.

Wedge thought it was a very convincing "history" display, even though he was at that battle. Combine that with a galaxy-wide year of mourning. Oh, and those celebrations on Corusucant at the end of the special edition? Broken up by Stormtroopers firing on the crowds.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by jollyreaper »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-02-07 02:11pm I know it was discussed a bit in the old EU, but I'm wondering if its come up at all in current canon.

I mean... there were only three witnesses to what happened in the Death Star Throne Room, and two of them are dead. From everyone else's view point, all they'd likely know is that Luke walked into a room with Vader and Palpatine, and only Luke walked out.

Does the average citizen, or even the average Rebel/Imperial/Resistance/First Order soldier or politician, know what actually happened? Or do most people just assume that Luke was such a bad ass that he dueled and killed Vader and Palpatine single-handedly? Or, alternatively, since most people may not know/believe that Palpatine was a Sith, they think he went in there, dueled Vader, and then killed a helpless old man.

That could go a long way towards explaining why Luke coming out of retirement is such a big deal in the ST, why he's a living legend (beyond being the Last Jedi, obviously), and why the First Order is so worried about him. If as far as most people know, he just flat-out killed two Sith Lords in a duel, solo.
I have no idea how new canon is going to cover it. My general assumption is that nobody really knew the Emperor was a Sith because it would raise questions about the whole wiping out the Jedi thing. "So the Jedi are bad but you're also a Jedi?" Vader could be explained as a Jedi still loyal to the Republic and is now helping the Empire hunt down the traitors. I always imagined that Palpatine was the face you never saw, the Emperor to be sure but not one to hang portraits of himself in public squares, making speeches for broadcast, etc. I always imagined him as reclusive, only seen by his closest advisers, the unseen spider in the center of a vast web. I would think this is part of his threatening aura, that Imperials served the Emperor but never knew what he looked like, that if you were summoned into his presence you had no idea what you were facing. The unknown is always more terrifying than the known and he would leverage that mystery to greatest effect. It also meant that he could use subtle force powers like mind reading and persuasion on his guests without them even suspecting it was coming or even recognizing it happened. Good intel services along with force visions would help make him appear omniscient. Not knowing he's Sith and this is an ability of his makes it more mysterious since you have no idea how he came by the information.

Given that the confrontation between Luke, Vader and Palpy took place in private, as you said, and is also occurring at the same time as a massive attack on the battle-station, and given that the successful attack blew the whole thing up, I would assume public knowledge is Palpatine and Vader were killed in the attack and Luke had a part in the overall attack. As to how accurately the information is relayed, that's up for debate. I could easily see public knowledge being that he made trench runs against both Death Stars because the public usually remembers things incorrectly. Evidently the novels made Leia's parentage a surprise issue and saw her disgraced so the information came out relatively late. No word on whether the public knew Luke and Leia were sibs and whether the Vader fallout impacted Luke.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

I always wondered if the Empire made any effort at revising galactic history and claiming that the Sith were unjustly vilified by the Jedi. If Palpatine wanted to be perceived as a good guy by the masses, it's strange that he'd choose to associate himself so closely with a man who represented evil incarnate.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by TheFeniX »

Weren't the Sith pretty much unheard of for hundreds of years before TPM? I don't see a lot of reason for the Emperor to out himself after finishing off 99% of the Jedi. That would have them specifically in the myths and legends area of galactic history versus the Jedi romping around up until ~20 years ago. The movies just don't mention a whole lot about the Sith backstory.

And was the average person aware of how evil Vader was? Hell, did they even know he was Anakin Skywalker? Either way, Vader could just restrain himself when dealing with people outside either his direct command or those in the upper echelons of the Imperial Military. And it would be hard to downplay the role of Darth Tryranus in the Clone Wars though how many people knew him as that versus Count Dooku?

Besides, after wiping out Alderaan, "nice guy" is a hard sell. But it's also possible Palpy tossed Tarkin under the buss as a madman since he was already dead and had command of the Death Star.

But the prequels kind of fuck a lot of things up: Darth Vader walking around as DARTH is really bad considering the head of the Separatists was a Darth. So I have to assume Dooku kept it under wraps and maybe Palpy claimed the Jedi labeled Dooku as a Sith in order to cover up the crimes of a "Failed Jedi." And since Grievous also used lightsabers, it's another black mark against the Order.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

The Sith ruled the galaxy a millennia before TPM. Presumably, they had roughly the same level of technology back then too which would no doubt include electronic storage of historical records. People from backwaters like Tatooine and Jakku may have only heard tales of these superpowered beings and written them off as myths and legends, but that's no reason to assume that the more sophisticated peoples of the galaxy did.

And I doubt that Palpatine had any intention of maintaining his ruse a nice guy when he disbanded the Senate or unleashed the Death Star upon the galaxy. At that point, he no longer had to care. I'm talking about the 20 years between ROTS and ANH during which time he didn't have an all-powerful superweapon with which to deter insurrection by the more heavily-defended worlds of the Empire.

Was Dooku publicly known as Darth Tyrannus? I always thought Vader and Maul were the only ones who actually went by their Sith names.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by CaoCao »

jollyreaper wrote: 2018-02-07 04:37pm I always imagined that Palpatine was the face you never saw, the Emperor to be sure but not one to hang portraits of himself in public squares, making speeches for broadcast, etc. I always imagined him as reclusive, only seen by his closest advisers, the unseen spider in the center of a vast web. I would think this is part of his threatening aura, that Imperials served the Emperor but never knew what he looked like, that if you were summoned into his presence you had no idea what you were facing. The unknown is always more terrifying than the known and he would leverage that mystery to greatest effect. It also meant that he could use subtle force powers like mind reading and persuasion on his guests without them even suspecting it was coming or even recognizing it happened. Good intel services along with force visions would help make him appear omniscient. Not knowing he's Sith and this is an ability of his makes it more mysterious since you have no idea how he came by the information.
In Lost Stars (nuCanon), Ciena goes aboard Death Star II, and she is horrified by Palpatine's face (she was expecting pre RotS Palpy). Guess that means he kept a low profile and never revealed he was a Sith.

Another hint could be the talk in DS I, where that imperial officer considered the Force an extinct religion (he wouldn't mock it if he thought the Emperor belonged to such religion). I'm not even sure most of them understood Vader was a Sith, and how it was different from being a Jedi.
Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-07 06:30pm The Sith ruled the galaxy a millennia before TPM. Presumably, they had roughly the same level of technology back then too which would no doubt include electronic storage of historical records. People from backwaters like Tatooine and Jakku may have only heard tales of these superpowered beings and written them off as myths and legends, but that's no reason to assume that the more sophisticated peoples of the galaxy did.
Most people didn't know well what the Jedi were about 50 years after they were destroyed, I doubt they had much knowledge no a group thought to be extinct for a millenia. That and the Jedi order actively hunting Sith reliqs and trinkets, should have left the overall population without much knowledge on the issue.
Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-07 06:30pm Was Dooku publicly known as Darth Tyrannus? I always thought Vader and Maul were the only ones who actually went by their Sith names.
He was always mentioned as Dooku, only Palpy called him Tyrannus.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by NeoGoomba »

With regards to Tarkin, Palpatine wouldn't be stretching the truth much to totally disavow Tarkin's blowing up of Alderaan. In the novelization, didn't Vader of all people try and talk him out of it, saying the Emperor should be consulted first, with Tarkin just grabbing his crotch with one hand, a 40oz in the other, and went all Primary Ignition on his own?
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-07 06:30pmThe Sith ruled the galaxy a millennia before TPM. Presumably, they had roughly the same level of technology back then too which would no doubt include electronic storage of historical records. People from backwaters like Tatooine and Jakku may have only heard tales of these superpowered beings and written them off as myths and legends, but that's no reason to assume that the more sophisticated peoples of the galaxy did.
200 years ago we pissed off the Canadians and those angry bastards burned down the White House. The amount of people that don't know about that is staggering. And you still find people today who root for the South in the U.S. civil war.

Now, that is a bit different than occupation of a capital world, but the Republic is so big, maybe even their politicians don't have the time to care about a 1,000 year old conflict. Even Yoda wouldn't be old enough to remember it. People are dumb and one of the driving themes of the prequels was how the stagnancy of the Old Republic and the Jedi lead to their downfall.
And I doubt that Palpatine had any intention of maintaining his ruse a nice guy when he disbanded the Senate or unleashed the Death Star upon the galaxy. At that point, he no longer had to care. I'm talking about the 20 years between ROTS and ANH during which time he didn't have an all-powerful superweapon with which to deter insurrection by the more heavily-defended worlds of the Empire.
I just don't think much would have changed, with his attitude mind you. He's still a reclusive dictator except with a Death Star. Stay in line, best friends. Look at me wrong, we'll blow your planet up. It's not like if before that the Empire wouldn't pull incredibly vile shit.
Was Dooku publicly known as Darth Tyrannus? I always thought Vader and Maul were the only ones who actually went by their Sith names.
Yea, I don't even recall any of the Jedi referering to him as Darth Tryrannus. This may have been due to arrogance in that they couldn't believe someone so accomplished in their order could be completely lost to the Dark Side. Especially one trained by Yoda and who mentored Qui Gonn, who I assume would be lauded as a hero at this point.
CaoCao wrote: 2018-02-07 08:18pmMost people didn't know well what the Jedi were about 50 years after they were destroyed, I doubt they had much knowledge no a group thought to be extinct for a millenia. That and the Jedi order actively hunting Sith reliqs and trinkets, should have left the overall population without much knowledge on the issue.
Weirdly, not even 50 years. Luke was IIRC 20 at the start of ANH. Motti's actor was only 30 something in ANH, but there's enough Imperials around who would have been involved and fighting in the Clone Wars. While the Jedi were few compared to the trillions involved in the war, their exploits were indeed quite legendary: leading many major battles from the frontlines. Anakin in particular seemed to have been selected (by both Palpy and the Jedi Council) to be their posterboy young heroic Jedi, leading the charge for all the Republic citizens against the monstrous Separatists.

The Clone Wars cartoon also seems to suggest the opening WW2 propaganda is being recorded and broadcast.

I guess it is possible for that kind of superheroism to fall into Legend quickly, but the Jedi were a major political force up until their destruction. They weren't some backwater hicks. Some Monks living on a mountain, only coming down to fight evil. They called in 2 Jedi in TPM and expected them both to easily negotiate (aggressively or not) a settlement within a few hours. They seemed to be on the Senate's speed-dial.

The prequels just kind of fucked a lot of things up.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Elheru Aran »

As far as Darth Tyranus goes: I don't know how many people even KNEW Dooku was called that, much less called him that regularly. Even if they knew, addressing him by his regular name would be a way to de-legitimize his Sith aspirations. Look at how we pretty much always call Palpatine by his name, not 'Darth Sidious'-- it's simply the form of address we most frequently know him by.

Regarding public knowledge of the Sith: Isn't it canon-ish that after the KOTOR era, the Sith basically went into hiding, and the 1000-year-ago conflict was mostly a Jedi-vs-Sith affair, not an outright war between states? I'd check a wiki but for some reason all the Wikia sites hate my adblocks and I don't care enough to change that...

Jedi knowledge during OT era: We're seeing a pretty limited picture. Palpatine, Vader and company tried HARD to really stamp out the Jedi and make them into unpersons. In that kind of context, I can see that for example Imperials might hew to an official line in their meetings (DSI conference), Corellia IIRC wasn't huge on Jedi to start with so Han Solo might have grown up just hearing the occasional bit of myth about them and the Imperial propaganda that "Jedi are THE ENEMY", thus not caring about the Force or lightsabers. Face it, in the OT we're only seeing a small group of characters and the occasional people they interact with. It's no surprise that we might not see a whole lot of public knowledge/perception/myths about Jedi. The old EU did continue the notions that started in the movies, and in retrospect maybe that wasn't the best idea, but honestly it's not the biggest problem I have with their worldbuilding.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-02-08 12:28pmAs far as Darth Tyranus goes: I don't know how many people even KNEW Dooku was called that, much less called him that regularly. Even if they knew, addressing him by his regular name would be a way to de-legitimize his Sith aspirations. Look at how we pretty much always call Palpatine by his name, not 'Darth Sidious'-- it's simply the form of address we most frequently know him by.
Yea, we didn't even know his name till EP1 IIRC. Though I do remember kind of laughing at how the movies were trying to hide "WHO IS SIDIOUS" as if it wasn't a given barring some kind of "haha, I got you" rug pull by Lucas.
Regarding public knowledge of the Sith: Isn't it canon-ish that after the KOTOR era, the Sith basically went into hiding, and the 1000-year-ago conflict was mostly a Jedi-vs-Sith affair, not an outright war between states? I'd check a wiki but for some reason all the Wikia sites hate my adblocks and I don't care enough to change that...
Ah, EU canon... well, KOTOR 1 and 2 set into motion the arrival of the Sith Emperor Vitiate (or something, all I know is that was possibly the most overtuned fight ever), which lead into the events of SWTOR (the closest to KOTOR3 we're going to get). The events of SWTOR take place about 300 years after KOTOR and it's anything but a small dust-up between the Jedi and Sith. Shortly BEFORE the game, the Stih had invaded Coruscant and leveled the Jedi Temple.

But then almost immediately after they offered a peace-treaty. While part of this was because the attack cost the Empire dearly, it was also there to buy the Emperor time for his real plan after giving the Jedi a bloody nose. After the war breaks out again, the Sith easily make inroads into Republic space and invade Corellia. And honestly, the way SWTOR plays out on both sides: the Republic would just flat out lose if the Sith didn't IMMEDIATELY resort to backstabbing as soon as the Republic isn't around... or even if the Republic is around... or even side with Jedi if it means killing a rival Sith... or even for "teh lulz."

I mean, you honestly spend about the same time killing Imperials and Sith when playing as a Sith as you do when playing a Jedi.

EDIT: also, try Wookiepedia.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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CaoCao wrote: 2018-02-07 08:18pm76]
In Lost Stars (nuCanon), Ciena goes aboard Death Star II, and she is horrified by Palpatine's face (she was expecting pre RotS Palpy). Guess that means he kept a low profile and never revealed he was a Sith.
Good. That makes sense.
Another hint could be the talk in DS I, where that imperial officer considered the Force an extinct religion (he wouldn't mock it if he thought the Emperor belonged to such religion). I'm not even sure most of them understood Vader was a Sith, and how it was different from being a Jedi.
Yup. The Doylist explanation is that they didn't know any of that when they were writing it. But any good writer will craft the story around that so a proper Watsonian explanation makes sense. That guy couldn't have known the Emperor was a Sith or he wouldn't be trash-talking the faith right in front of Vader. The Emperor's status and abilities must be secret. (And in the Vader comic Jabba derided Vader's use of jedi mind tricks, whether he was feigning ignorance of the distinction to insult or genuinely didn't know remains uncertain. It's the sort of insult that makes sense in-setting. It's like a Buddhist calling a Satanist a bad Christian. Both the Satanist and the Christian would bristle at that but it seems to make sense. They're adhering to the same religious model, they both believe in the same two deities, they just differ in which one they follow.)

But most writers don't give a damn about keeping the Watsonian explanation intact. That's the thing that's likely to go wrong with Marvel if they handle the skrull invasion stuff in Captain Marvel poorly. Oh, so our hero we know and love is really a skrull imposter. And how long has this been for? The entire time we've known them. And even when they defeated skrull plans they were super duper deep cover. *head thunking on desk*
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by jollyreaper »

The Clone Wars cartoon also seems to suggest the opening WW2 propaganda is being recorded and broadcast.

I guess it is possible for that kind of superheroism to fall into Legend quickly, but the Jedi were a major political force up until their destruction. They weren't some backwater hicks. Some Monks living on a mountain, only coming down to fight evil. They called in 2 Jedi in TPM and expected them both to easily negotiate (aggressively or not) a settlement within a few hours. They seemed to be on the Senate's speed-dial.

The prequels just kind of fucked a lot of things up.
I think it would have to fall out of living memory. Twenty years still seems like too short a time. Jedi should be the stuff of grandpa's tales and far enough in the past that they could be dismissed.

This brings up the question of what the media situation is like in the Star Wars galaxy. It's very easy to question written historic accounts. We can read about what the Mongols did in their conquests but we only have ink on paper to tell it. We have to resort to archaeological evidence to find corroboration. Did they really build skull pyramids of enemies? Was a river really redirected to wash through the center of a sacked metropolis to obliterate it? We don't know.

Move forward to something like the Holocaust and the documentation is there. Sure, you'll get deniers but anyone taking a look at the evidence understands it would be an impossible task to fabricate everything, coordinate testimony from hundreds of thousands of people, explain where the dead actually went if it was all fake, etc. Likewise faking the moon landing. How do you fake the launch of an actual Saturn V moon rocket? David Copperfield, eat your heart out. How do you fake the radio signals and the doppler effect and the evidence those transmissions moved between Earth orbit and Lunar orbit?

It's unclear as to where public skepticism is coming from. Like when Vader chokes the guy, is it assumed to be a sort of magic trick, that he's got a device that allows for telekinesis and he's activating it with his hand? Is it assumed yes, people can do shit with their minds but proof of that doesn't substantiate the rest of their unverifiable religious claims? Han seems broadly dismissive and he's supposed to be a worldly sort, not sheltered and ignorant.

Imperial censorship would have to be very good to remove all documentation and then it would still require the passage of time before people who saw the Jedi first-hand died off and it makes sense for the young to believe it was all tall-tales and fakery.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by TheFeniX »

If anything, it would make sense to play up the Jedi's abilities. If they were just moderately powerful soldiers, then it's hard to justify wiping them out for treason, rather than arresting them. I would assume Jedi had a considerable amount of resentment against them, so if it could be "proved" they tried to murder the Chancellor and take over the Senate, then what else can you really do with them.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if the murder of the Jedi children was covered up.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

TheFeniX wrote: 2018-02-08 11:59am
Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-07 06:30pmThe Sith ruled the galaxy a millennia before TPM. Presumably, they had roughly the same level of technology back then too which would no doubt include electronic storage of historical records. People from backwaters like Tatooine and Jakku may have only heard tales of these superpowered beings and written them off as myths and legends, but that's no reason to assume that the more sophisticated peoples of the galaxy did.
200 years ago we pissed off the Canadians and those angry bastards burned down the White House. The amount of people that don't know about that is staggering. And you still find people today who root for the South in the U.S. civil war.

Now, that is a bit different than occupation of a capital world, but the Republic is so big, maybe even their politicians don't have the time to care about a 1,000 year old conflict. Even Yoda wouldn't be old enough to remember it. People are dumb and one of the driving themes of the prequels was how the stagnancy of the Old Republic and the Jedi lead to their downfall.
I think my point is getting lost in this: we have film footage of WW2, the JFK assassination, the 9/11 attacks, etc. and there's practically an infinite loop of cable television documentaries about all of them. If the War of 1812 or the Civil War had occurred during the age of film, I think it's reasonable to believe that we'd see perpetual footage from them as well and that knowledge about them would be far more commonplace.

Palpatine outright stated that the Sith ruled the galaxy, during which time when the technology was presumably sufficient to make audio/video (if not holographic) records of such events for posterity. Now, as the victors in that conflict the Republic may have cherry-picked the very worst atrocities of the Sith to ensure that they were perceived as the biggest and baddest evil in the history of history, but that's kinda my point.

In short, video tends to both demystify and immortalize historical events no matter how long ago they happened.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by CaoCao »

jollyreaper wrote: 2018-02-08 02:17pm Imperial censorship would have to be very good to remove all documentation and then it would still require the passage of time before people who saw the Jedi first-hand died off and it makes sense for the young to believe it was all tall-tales and fakery.
The Jedi had been entangled in the clone wars since AotC, and they were very few to begin with (few regarding the total population of the galaxy). So the last to see them would be people saved by them from some occupied planet, people whose planet is being occupied by them and their forces, and Clones. If the propaganda made them the instigators of the clone wars, even those saved by them wouldn't talk much.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-08 03:28pmIn short, video tends to both demystify and immortalize historical events no matter how long ago they happened.
That is a good point, which is why I was always weirded out to find that the Clone Wars turned out to be this HUGE Galaxy spanning deal with a massive space battle over the Galactic Capital and Jedi staging a heroic rescue of the Chancellor.

On the flip side, Luke being 20 years old, I had this headcannon that Obi-Wan, Vader, The Emperor, and Yoda (who is already covered here) were like REALLY old. And Luke might have been some kind of clone, put in stasis, or any other number of crazy Sci-Fi insanities to explain how the Jedi could be so quickly forgotten and written off after thousands of years of protecting the galaxy.

Talk about a thankless job.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by jollyreaper »

Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-08 03:28pm
In short, video tends to both demystify and immortalize historical events no matter how long ago they happened.
For now it does and is why I have a hard time believing the SW timeline. Star Wars isn't really interested in exploring this particular idea but I think it will have massive real world bearing in the near future.

The Big Lie has always been effective. Repeat the lie long enough and people will believe it. We've seen examples like Stalin altering the historic record, removing people from official photos once they were denounced. We can also look back further in history to see when someone came out on the wrong side of a dynastic struggle and their name is removed from history, effaced from monuments and no longer to be uttered. We often only know of them from the hole they represent in the record.

Well, we used to have the truism that the camera doesn't lie. Not exactly the truth. You could make an isolated camera fib but you couldn't fake a public event.

But we are getting the techniques of seamlessly manipulating audio and video files to the point where it would be impossible for even experts to authenticate them.



There's already tools in existence that allow you to create virtual porn. Want to see celebrity A having hot, monkey sex with celebrity B? You can.

So we already have the existing trend of denying any real news you don't like by calling it fake. How much easier will that be when smoking gun proof can be easily fabricated?

If you play out the implications this means that pretty much all multimedia evidence is no better than hearsay.

Now it may be possible that someone could create some kind of cryptographic hashing system where we can know whether a video is genuinely captured in-camera without having any pixels altered and we could then have that data relayed from the device to some distributed authentication system. Sort of like how blockchain has a public record of every transaction and 51% of the miners have to agree with what they see for the addition to be accepted. Alteration of the video file would break the hash that's recorded and is then trusted. But that's until someone figures out a way to make alterations that will still hash to the original value or until someone manages to gain control over 51% of the miners and brute force the system or whatever.

The net result of all this is I think we could live in a future where there's no single trusted information source. We will only trust our own records and we'll want to keep our originals offline in a write-only format and copies made directly from those sources will be used to authenticate the live copies to make sure nothing has been changed.

In such an environment it would become very easy to doubt and dismiss what would otherwise be considered incontestable, known history. The images can all be faked, same as the printed words. Video? Puhlease. It would completely ruin the plot of something like the Man in the High Castle because the film reel from another world could now be easily faked.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

Post by Galvatron »

TheFeniX wrote: 2018-02-08 05:15pm On the flip side, Luke being 20 years old, I had this headcannon that Obi-Wan, Vader, The Emperor, and Yoda (who is already covered here) were like REALLY old. And Luke might have been some kind of clone, put in stasis, or any other number of crazy Sci-Fi insanities to explain how the Jedi could be so quickly forgotten and written off after thousands of years of protecting the galaxy.
Luke's ignorance of the Jedi, the Force and galactic history weren't necessarily representative of the entire populace though. Tatooine was quite literally a "third-world" backwater where information resources may have been relatively scarce. Conversely, Leia obviously knew better and Han knew of the Jedi as well, even if he dismissed them as religious charlatans. The Empire probably encouraged this perception of them, which no doubt caught on with skeptical cynics like Han and those of a similar mindset.
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Re: What is the galaxy's perception of Palpatine's defeat?

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Galvatron wrote: 2018-02-08 06:51pmLuke's ignorance of the Jedi, the Force and galactic history weren't necessarily representative of the entire populace though. Tatooine was quite literally a "third-world" backwater where information resources may have been relatively scarce. Conversely, Leia obviously knew better and Han knew of the Jedi as well, even if he dismissed them as religious charlatans. The Empire probably encouraged this perception of them, which no doubt caught on with skeptical cynics like Han and those of a similar mindset.
Tat was likely originally in Lucas' mind as some backwater and the EU and later movies try and treat it as such, but it's kind of like.... La Grange, TX as some small hick-town popularized in Song and Show. Yea, it's a backwater, one that everyone knows about.

Anakin Skywalker, former slave, first human pod-racing champion at like age 8, blew up a Trade Fed Battlestation like a week later, went on to become a Jedi Knight! and future hero of the Republic and posterboy for the war-effort. They should literally have signs up "BIRTHPLACE OF ANAKIN SKYWALKER." And a whole lot of other shit goes on around Tatooine in the EU and I'm stuck thinking it should be treated more like Las Vegas than just some stop at the ass-end of the galaxy. Especially considering its basis as "Desert Nar Shadda." It's a smuggler's paradise, which if they can operate as freely as they do, should bring in some big bucks.

Luke Skywalker, depending on the rarity of the name, would be constantly reminded about how he has the same last name as Anakin. And this also kind of begs the question of how bad is reporting in Star Wars? You'd think some sleuth could dig up the coincidence of Luke being raised by the son and wife of the man that bought, emancipated, and married Anakin's mother.

Prequels man, they make my brain hurt.
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