Imperial Atrocities

[Bladed_Crescent]

Note: this post is something of a tangent regarding the Yevetha. Going in, I'd just like to reiterate that the Empire's enslavement and exploitation of the species is not justifiable and certainly should towards their various misdeeds, but that the Yevetha's claims regading their treatment should be considered highly suspect.

It might be prudent to double check the Yevetha entries in the other literature, which I don't have anymore.

Not a problem. This post may have run a bit on the long side, but hopefully it provides some insight into the Yevethan/Imperial situation.

To that my response is, what could Spaar have gained from lying about those details? Did he think Leia would be less sympathetic if they were only put into forced labor?

Maybe, maybe not - but why not go all-out for maximum pity points? It's not like she's going to call bullshit on him. The Rebels have a tendency to believe the worst out of Imperials (ref Iron Fist, Solo Command* - Gara Petothel's identity of 'Lara Notsil' rested on the Rebels believing that she was Admiral Trigit's forcibly durgged, unwilling mistress).

Recall that the entire purposes for the visit to Coruscant and contacting the New Republic was to keep them out of Koornacht, while the Yevethan fleet prepared to exterminate all "vermin" from the cluster. Spaar was spinning a "woe is us" story for Leia's benefit to explain the Duskhan's League "fear" of the New Republic - or any large government intruding into their space.

Lots of worlds had been subjected to forced labour, but tossing the additional degradations makes the Yeventha even more sympathetic and their mistrust of other species even more understandable. I don't have the exact wording, but Spaar's strategy appears to have worked. Once or twice in Before The Storm, Leia defends the Yevetha's xenophobia to her advisors on the grounds of those claims and her reticence to sending the Fifth Fleet in search of the Black Fleet is precisely because of the Yeventhan sensitivies, so clearly there was a gain to sharing that information with Leia - it did make the Yevetha more sympatheic and bought them time to prepare for their extermination campaign.

Remember, Nil Spaar is a known liar - when his thrustship fired up its engines without warning and left port, dozens/hundreds were killed and injured. When the Republic military sealed the ship beneath Coruscant's shield and had a warship pacing it, Nil Spaar went on the HoloNet with a "poor, abused us" story, claiming that Leia was attempting to seize his ship and he had to act in haste or else be captured by the duplicitious, scheming Chief of State.

Later, he breaks into the emergency HoloNet channel to transit a message throughout the Republic, claiming Leia is a dictator in the making, gathering power to herself and trying to seize Koornacht Cluster out of her own ambitions. In each case, the story he spins makes the Yeventha out to be innocent victims of another's unwarranted aggression.

The ethnic cleansing is described as a defensive measure as well, destroying enemy settlements on the League's borders, bases that were stepping stones to an invasion of Koornacht. In Tyrant's Test, in their 'desperation' to protect themselves from 'New Republic aggression', Spaar proclaims the Yeventha's alliance with the fictitious "Grand Imperial Union", specifically to bring up the specter of the Empire and cow the Republic. Again, the Yevetha are the victims, simply trying to defend themselves from Leia's personal crusade against them.

Given that, I would consider any claims made by Nil Spaar towards the non-Yevetha to be highly dubious at best; he's had a long history of lying specifically to engender sympathy and support from other beings.

Why would an Imperial POW discuss possible war crimes to a representative of an enemy government? The POW was likely a part of any injustices against them.

He did discuss war crimes, though - his actions aboard the Forger. Plus, he was a lifer - he was in in prison to stay, so new admissions couldn't hurt him. He just needed an incentive. I've included the quotes from the book as well, to illiustrate the Imperial interactions with the Yevetha. It is possible that Sconn's lying, but he has no incentive to do so; Leia's given him what he wanted and anything he says can't hurt him in prison, since he's already an accomplice to mass murder, so he really doesn't have a reputation to ruin.

"Was it with the Forger that you visited N'zoth?"

"Oh, no. I was on Moff Wevlin-second watch bridge commander of a Fleet tender," he said, hooking one leg over the other. "Why should I talk to you about N'zoth?"

"Why did you talk to the NRI?"

"Because it didn't matter," Sconn said, shrugging. "Because it was a novelty. Because Agent Rallis was such a clueless young lad that I thought I might have fun shocking him with tales of my travels with Papa Vader." He leaned forward. "You're different. You matter. For some reason you really care about what I know. And you're not going to be any fun at all to shock. So I'm afraid you'll have to show me a bit more consideration then Agent Rallis."

"But you forget, Sconn-I already have the deposition," Leia said. "You don't have much left to sell."

"Oh, but you don't know what I left out-"

[Sconn convinces Leia that the price of his cooperation is a trip into space]

Sconn turned back to Leia. "Sit me where I can look out," he said. "I'll answer whatever questions you have."

[Leia shares the record of her interview with Sconn with the Inner Council and Joint Chiefs]

"This is the part I thought you should see," she said, starting the projector.

"Black Fifteen was used mostly for new construction and finish work, not as a repair depot, but it had the reputation for the tightest work in the whole sector. Any captain who had a choice put in there. We took Moff Weblin in there for a rebuild on a blown number four power cell.

"That's not an overnight in any yard, so the captain told me to look into shore leave. The station morale officer laid out the rules: enlisted restructed to the yard and the station, officers permitted but discouraged from going down to the planet.

"I asked him what was up, since Black Fifteen had been there for three years at that point at that point and it didn't usually take the troopers that long to bring the locals in line. He told me that one out of every two Imperial personnel on the planet was a stormtrooper.

"'There's been very little trouble for a few months now, but I don't trust them,' he said. 'They're crazy,' he told me. 'More blood than rain fell in the streets before we got here and it will again when we leave.'"

Leia heard her own voice asking, "What did he mean by that?"

"That's what I asked him. But it turned out he wasn't trying to show off his metaphors. He meant it just like he said it. More blood than rain."

[discussion of Yeventha blood, reproduction and dominance killing]

"After I heard this, I had to go down to the surface myself and see. There were Yevetha all over the yard and no sign of this. The yard boss told the captain they were hard workers-especially since they'd figured out we weren't leaving soon."

[Sconn decribes the murder of a lower-ranking Yevethan male by a higher-ranking one]

Sconn shook his head. "When the yard started losing Yeventha workers to this stuff, having to retrain new ones all the time, I guess the Imperial governor told the troopers to put a stop to it. But they never managed to, unless it happened after Moff Weblin left. And I ended up the onyl one of my crew to go down. After he heard my report, the captain restructed the officers to the base."

So, if we can take Sconn's words at face value, the Yevetha were used as conscripted - if highly skilled - labour and the Imperial presence on the planet was focused more on keeping them from killing each other than massacring dissidents - since the Yevetha were described as hard workers that offered little trouble. Now, it's certainly possible that Sconn omitted the concubines and displays of remains from his interview, but there's a couple things to take into consideration - that the Imperial contact with the Yevetha was debliberately limited and the fact that none of the yard workers "bat an eye" when the higher-ranking Yevetha guts a lower-ranking one in front them. In later scenes, Nil Spaar kills a young male who has offered his blood to nourish Spaar's pregnant wives in front of his advisors; none of them remark on this. Later on, one of Spaar's advisors later proudly informs a captured Han Solo of the benefits of summary execution.

From this, it's not unreasonable to assume that publicly displaying the bodies of murdered dissidents is highly unlikely to bother the Yevetha at all and is just another lie from Nil Spaar to evoke sympathy from Leia. If they existed at all, the, 'dissidents' were probably Yevetha who wouldn't stop killing those of lower station, costing the Imperials skilled personnel.

Even the Yevethan subservience that made the yard boss so nervous is another facade - led by Nil Spaar, the Yevetha seize the Imperial ships and stations and massacre the Imperial families.

Like a cluster of insects returning to the hive, the fleet of Imperial transports rose from N'zoth towards the great dagger-shaped Star Destroyer. More than twenty thousand citizens of the Empire were crammed into the insect fleet-soldiers and bureaucrats, technicians and families.

****

"Activate all autotargeting batteries," said Nil Spaar.

There was a collective gasp from the prisoners on the bridge, who were watching the same display screens as the Yevethan commandos who now occupied their stations.

"You're all cowards," Commander Paret called out to the invaders, his voice bitter with contempt and anger. "A real soldier would never do this. There's no honour in killing the defenceless."

"Nil Spaar ignored him. "Lock on targets."

"You vicious, pathetic fool. You've already won. How can you justify this?"

"Fire," said Nil Spaar.

If we can take Paret's outrage as genuine, then as the commanding officer of the flagship of Black Fleet wasn't even into massacres himself which, I'll admit wouldn't mean much if the Imperial governor was.

So, just to encapsulate - the Imperials did conquer, enslave and force the Yevetha into labour for them. This was not a particularly heroic, commendable or justifiable act.

However, if we take the word of a known liar at face value and dismiss other sources of information (Nil Spaar's willingness to lie whenever it suits him, Sconn's testimony, Paret's outrage at the idea of massacring innocents), then the Imperial occupation of Koornacht Cluster was particularly brutal. If we do not , then the Imperial occupation - aside from the 'either you work for us or we'll shoot you dead' aspect - was focused more preventing intra-species violence and keeping the Yevetha away from Imperials and sensitive technologies.

As Leia put it: "I'm starting to wonder if the greatest indignity the Empire subjected the Yevetha to was holding them to a higher standard of behaviour."

[Ender]

Should we compose a list of worlds coerced by military force to join the Empire, or attacked? I could think of a few, like Dornia and Hapes, which were attacked repeatedly in the course of Imperial history.

Military adventurism and expansionism qualifies as "atrocities" now?

Unprovoked wars of aggression against sovereign nations are war crimes. Or, as was stated at the Nuremberg Trial "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

[Swindle1984]

The Yevetha were evil, sadistic bastards. I see no reason to take anything they say at face value, especially when it benefits them.

[Tiriol]

The Yevetha were evil, sadistic bastards. I see no reason to take anything they say at face value, especially when it benefits them.

It should also be noted that the Essential Guides do not mention Imperials taking Yevethan sex slaves or displaying their remains anywhere. The Imperial enslavement of the species is a fact, but this was the first time I even heard of the Empire's commanders taking alien concubines etc. Yevethans themselves did those things on regular basis (and summary execution seemed to be a way to go for them), that's certain. An ironic turn of events might be that the xenophobic Yevethans learned of the other species' distaste for such barbaric activities from their Imperial slavers and captors.

[lord Martiya]

Returning on the massacre on Falleen and the Human conscription, I find some problem in classifing them as VOLUNTARY atrocities.
The massacre was definitively an atrocity, but had some reason (stopping a lethal bacterium to spread on the entire planet. Killing a few to save many). I think that it was stupid place the laboratory in the city EXACTLY because that could happen, but the attack was necessary.

Or you could quarentine and give out cures.

This is the point: was this possible? Was possible quarantine the place before anyone briged the bacterium outside? Probably, yes. Did cures existed for that bacterium? We don't know.

For the conscription, I have SERIOUS problems in considering it slavery, as in various states are still composed by conscripts (every living Italian born before 1986 was subjected to conscripton, and by law in wartime the armed forces are expanded with conscripts). So my question is: were Imperial armed forces partly composed by conscripts by law?

It depends on the length of service. Having to serve for a few years is different than having to serve indefinately or for decades, although I don't know the time they required. Conscription is mention in relation to the New Order under Palpatines article in Essential People and Characters. I'll try to find the quote.

Thanks

Returning on the massacre on Falleen and the Human conscription, I find some problem in classifing them as VOLUNTARY atrocities.
The massacre was definitively an atrocity, but had some reason (stopping a lethal bacterium to spread on the entire planet. Killing a few to save many). I think that it was stupid place the laboratory in the city EXACTLY because that could happen, but the attack was necessary.
For the conscription, I have SERIOUS problems in considering it slavery, as in various states are still composed by conscripts (every living Italian born before 1986 was subjected to conscripton, and by law in wartime the armed forces are expanded with conscripts). So my question is: were Imperial armed forces partly composed by conscripts by law?

With Falleen, the reason they had to kill 200,000 to stop the spread of the bioweapon is because Darth Vader ordered the development of a research facility inside a populated area. Even though the death of the 200,000 saved many more, those 200,000 should never have died because a moral government should never have been developing bioweapons in the first place!

And for a galaxy spanning government, I find it difficult to believe that the research had to be conducted on a populated world and not an isolated space station or unihabited world/moon.

Well, you have two points. I have to admit that the massacre on Fallenn was an atrocity, aggravated by stupidity. And I failed to notice that.

[Samuel]

This is the point: was this possible? Was possible quarantine the place before anyone briged the bacterium outside? Probably, yes. Did cures existed for that bacterium? We don't know.

That is generally the point of (defensive) bioweapons research. Not to mention that you need cures for the biological blackmail strategy to work- otherwise it is just genocide and orbital bombardment is cleaner.

[Noble Ire]

This is the point: was this possible? Was possible quarantine the place before anyone briged the bacterium outside? Probably, yes. Did cures existed for that bacterium? We don't know.

That is generally the point of (defensive) bioweapons research. Not to mention that you need cures for the biological blackmail strategy to work- otherwise it is just genocide and orbital bombardment is cleaner.

Wasn't the Imperial facility on Falleen a weapons lab rather than a storage yard? If the biological weapon was still in development, its entirely possible that an antidote was either still in development, or hadn't been mass-produced yet.

[Batman]

I fail to see why there would need to be an antidote period. The point of bioweapons is for there to be bioweapons. Sure, IF you want to use them for blackmail you need one (at least if you want to use that gambit more than once).
As for orbital bombardment being cleaner, horseradish. Not only does it do considerably damage the real estate (which you might actually want to USE afterwards) but there're ways to make sure a bioweapon will become harmless once it's achieved its purpose (especially with Wars technology).
Plus, should they want it, a bioweapon gives the Empire plausible denibility.
'Who, us? There wasn't a single Imperial ship in the system when it happened!' Have fun trying to make that convincing for a BDZ.
Plus bioweapons give you the ability to execute selective partial genocides. Let's take Mon Calamari. DO selectively eliminate the Quarren but NOT the Mon Calamari with orbital bombardment.
Tattoine-you can take out the Sand People and Jawas without affecting the human settlers(though Valen alone knows why anybody would want to anyway. Possibly except the human settlers).
Endor-eliminate the Ewoks, leave the rest of the moon intact. Can't do that with orbital bombardment. (I have no idea why the Empire would WANT to but it's one more thing orbital bombardment can't do).

[Darth Nostril]

I fail to see why there would need to be an antidote period. The point of bioweapons is for there to be bioweapons. Sure, IF you want to use them for blackmail you need one (at least if you want to use that gambit more than once).
As for orbital bombardment being cleaner, horseradish. Not only does it do considerably damage the real estate (which you might actually want to USE afterwards) but there're ways to make sure a bioweapon will become harmless once it's achieved its purpose (especially with Wars technology).
Plus, should they want it, a bioweapon gives the Empire plausible denibility.
'Who, us? There wasn't a single Imperial ship in the system when it happened!' Have fun trying to make that convincing for a BDZ.
Plus bioweapons give you the ability to execute selective partial genocides. Let's take Mon Calamari. DO selectively eliminate the Quarren but NOT the Mon Calamari with orbital bombardment.
Tattoine-you can take out the Sand People and Jawas without affecting the human settlers(though Valen alone knows why anybody would want to anyway. Possibly except the human settlers).
Endor-eliminate the Ewoks, leave the rest of the moon intact. Can't do that with orbital bombardment. (I have no idea why the Empire would WANT to but it's one more thing orbital bombardment can't do).

An example of selective bioweapon - the Krytos virus, it didn't infect humans or bothans to cause maximum disruption to the New Republic and there was no specific antidote but it could be cured with massive usage of bacta.

[Darth Fanboy]

I fail to see why there would need to be an antidote period.

Well if the weapon gets out of control or is turned back against you, you don't want it backfiring right?

I would agree that an orbital bombardment is less discriminatory in the damage it deals out that an engineered bioweapon, but the orbital bombardment is far easier to control than a bacteria or virus.

[Darth Hoth]

I am not going to pass any value judgments here, or attempt to begin another debate, since I recognise that apparently no one was convinced by my recent argument. However, I would like to point out what I feel are a few errors, confining this to the not very dubious examples for the sake of simplicity. You may take these arguments however you like.

Talz (Truce at Bakura): Enslaved and forced into mining on their homeworld of Alzoc II, where they were intentionally underfed and benevolent attempts to improve their conditions were punished. This was another situation where the Empire attempted to circumvent the rights of a species by declaring them non sentient.

The Alzoc III situation was not generally known; they were not classed as non-sentient, but hidden completely from the public view. As Luke Skywalker relates in Children of the Jedi:

Alzoc wasn’t even entered in the galactic registry. The Senate found a mention of it a couple of years ago in secret corporate files. Nobody knew what was going on there.

Emphasis in original. The local Imperials who "discovered" Alzoc III (in quotation, because there was at least sporadic Talz interaction with the Old Republic) did not report its existence to the federal authorities.

Wookiees (Dark Lord and other sources): One of the most famous enslaved species under the Empire. Enslavement began in the aftermath of the Clone Wars when a group led by Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader attacked the planet under the pretense of hunting Jedi Fugitives. Trandoshans were permitted by the Empire to hunt and harvest Wookiee pelts, and for a time the Empire maintained a strong militarized presence on the planet. Wookiees were used notably in the building of the Death Star, and were forced into servitude under threat of death for their captive families.

I would ask, what is the source for holding families hostage? Chewbacca's family does not appear, in the Han Solo Trilogy, to have suffered because of his escape.

Yevetha (Black Fleet Crisis): Enslaved by the Empire, who exploited the Yevetha as skilled labor. Yevethan females were used as sex slaves, and Yevethans killed by the Empire had their remains publically displayed at places such as schools in order to inhibit dissention. The Yevethans rebelled just before the Empire was to begin a mass execution of its slaves.

Do we have any objective evidence for sexual slavery and such? Given that the Yevetha have a rather different reproductive mechanism than humans, one might fully doubt whether this would even be possible, and the species is certainly not attractive by human standards.

Ettam Massacre (Empire Comics): Imperial forces destroy a hospital in their hasty attempt to seek and destroy Rebel Forces, no punishment was handed out and the commander responsible praised for his efforts.

Once again, I would like to point out that the Rebels were close nearby and jamming Imperial targeting, which was what caused the destruction of the hospital. This was no cold-blooded action, but rather an accident. The commander responsible later expressed his deep regrets in private.

Falleen (Shadows of the Empire): Many thousands were destroyed when a biological weapon escaped an Imperial Weapons lab, in order to cover up the incident and to prevent the spread of the disease, Darth Vader destroyed the city with an orbital bombardment.

Again, I would like to see the evidence that there was any cover-up. Prince Xizor himself related in Shadows of the Empire that there was a very genuine fear that the disease would depopulate the planet, and possibly spread to other worlds, unless such decisive action was taken, yet made no mention of an Imperial cover-up. As noted, the man who swore to kill Vader for the incident himself viewed it as necessary once the pathogen had escaped; his issue was the placement of the facility to begin with.

[Darth Hoth]

To add to the massacres, in Empire comics (A Model Officer story), Darth Vader orchestrates the orbital bombardment and destruction of a refugee camp/colony of Alderaanians who were off-world when the Death Star destroyed their homeworld. To add to this horrific decision, Vader and his aide, Commander Demmings, made sure that a gunnery officer (who was secretly a Rebel sympathizer and Alderaanian himself) who had turned traitorous made the shot without knowing that he was further exterminating his own people and then coolly informing him afterwards as he was beind dragged away. We do not know how large the colony was, but considering that Vader thought that it could have grown to be a nuisance, it must have had at least a moderate population.

In the comic, Vader specifically ordered a surgical bombardment of the base's defences to that it could be seized by ground forces. Lieutenant Dox, the Alderaani Rebel who fired the shots, actively sabotaged this order with the intent of denying Vader prisoners to question.

[Darth Hoth]

Wasn't the Imperial facility on Falleen a weapons lab rather than a storage yard? If the biological weapon was still in development, its entirely possible that an antidote was either still in development, or hadn't been mass-produced yet.

It was a research laboratory, and Xizor himself was of the opinion that there had been no better option than sterilisation at the time, so yes, this would be the most reasonable theory.

It should also be noted that the Essential Guides do not mention Imperials taking Yevethan sex slaves or displaying their remains anywhere. The Imperial enslavement of the species is a fact, but this was the first time I even heard of the Empire's commanders taking alien concubines etc. Yevethans themselves did those things on regular basis (and summary execution seemed to be a way to go for them), that's certain. An ironic turn of events might be that the xenophobic Yevethans learned of the other species' distaste for such barbaric activities from their Imperial slavers and captors.

As mentioned before, Exultation addicts from Ylesia sometimes ended up in Imperial military brothels in a form of wage-slavery; I do not remember where exactly in the Han Solo books it was stated that they included nonhumans, but Publius says so, and I trust his analysis.

[Tiriol]

To add to the massacres, in Empire comics (A Model Officer story), Darth Vader orchestrates the orbital bombardment and destruction of a refugee camp/colony of Alderaanians who were off-world when the Death Star destroyed their homeworld. To add to this horrific decision, Vader and his aide, Commander Demmings, made sure that a gunnery officer (who was secretly a Rebel sympathizer and Alderaanian himself) who had turned traitorous made the shot without knowing that he was further exterminating his own people and then coolly informing him afterwards as he was beind dragged away. We do not know how large the colony was, but considering that Vader thought that it could have grown to be a nuisance, it must have had at least a moderate population.

In the comic, Vader specifically ordered a surgical bombardment of the base's defences to that it could be seized by ground forces. Lieutenant Dox, the Alderaani Rebel who fired the shots, actively sabotaged this order with the intent of denying Vader prisoners to question.

And that order was given by Vader with the full knowledge what would happen. It doesn't do much to absolve Lieutenant Dox, of course, but Vader was monstrous enough to do so, apparently finding some delight (along with Commander Demmings) in the Rebel's impotent rage and sorrow.

[Darth Hoth]

It is not quite clear from the comic that he knew; he did suspect that Dox had sabotaged two similar orders earlier in the same fashion, but it was only confirmed by the Eolus strike. Of course, we only have Vader's word that it even was an Alderaanian base; it is perfectly possible that it was an ordinary Rebel stronghold (or, given Vader's disposition, perhaps an altogether innocent colony), with him adding that detail only to spite Dox. It looked rather smallish for a full colony, and it would be an amazing coincidence that they just happened to pass by one of the few major Alderaanian remnants. Of course, such things do happen in the galaxy . . .

[Ender]

I am not going to pass any value judgments here, or attempt to begin another debate, since I recognise that apparently no one was convinced by my recent argument. However, I would like to point out what I feel are a few errors, confining this to the not very dubious examples for the sake of simplicity. You may take these arguments however you like.

*snip*

The Alzoc III situation was not generally known; they were not classed as non-sentient, but hidden completely from the public view. As Luke Skywalker relates in Children of the Jedi:

Alzoc wasn’t even entered in the galactic registry. The Senate found a mention of it a couple of years ago in secret corporate files. Nobody knew what was going on there.

Emphasis in original. The local Imperials who "discovered" Alzoc III (in quotation, because there was at least sporadic Talz interaction with the Old Republic) did not report its existence to the federal authorities.

Bullshit. Firstly, the Talz were out roaming the galaxy prior to the Empire, to the point where there were high ranking Talz Jedi Knights. Children of the Jedi also has Triv Pothman stationed on Alzoc III for 30 years, which means the garison was there during the the Clone Wars, before the Empire was formally proclaimed. Secondly, Luke's statement is further contradicted by the fact Wedge knew about them back in Wraith Squadron. Finally, we have Leia's statement in Planet of Twilight

"Everyone knows the deficiencies in the Registry's information. And the Empire "protected the rights" of Alzoc III, of Garnib, of Trosh…"

indicating that such actions were not only conducted by the Imperial Executive, but were a pattern of behavior.

Again, I would like to see the evidence that there was any cover-up. Prince Xizor himself related in Shadows of the Empire that there was a very genuine fear that the disease would depopulate the planet, and possibly spread to other worlds, unless such decisive action was taken, yet made no mention of an Imperial cover-up. As noted, the man who swore to kill Vader for the incident himself viewed it as necessary once the pathogen had escaped; his issue was the placement of the facility to begin with.

Wow, way to play semantics here. It's not the 200,000 dead, its the cover up! They still killed 200,000 innocent beings because they decided to create a bioweapons in the middle of a crowded city and their containment failed.

[Darth Hoth]

Bullshit. Firstly, the Talz were out roaming the galaxy prior to the Empire, to the point where there were high ranking Talz Jedi Knights. Children of the Jedi also has Triv Pothman stationed on Alzoc III for 30 years, which means the garison was there during the the Clone Wars, before the Empire was formally proclaimed.

So the Republic did not register it either? For the WEG depiction of their "discovery" to make any sense, contact before must have been rather limited, and/or kept secret from the federal authorities. That rare individuals would have found their way off the planet by private transport does not necessarily contradict such an explanation.

Secondly, Luke's statement is further contradicted by the fact Wedge knew about them back in Wraith Squadron.

Really? I must have missed that, then. Around where in the book was it? How specific was the mention?

Finally, we have Leia's statement in Planet of Twilight

"Everyone knows the deficiencies in the Registry's information. And the Empire "protected the rights" of Alzoc III, of Garnib, of Trosh…"

indicating that such actions were not only conducted by the Imperial Executive, but were a pattern of behavior.

This one I did know of, but it felt rather off; the assumption that there were substantial settlements on Alzoc to protect runs counter to most sources I am aware of. This contradicts earlier sources, including a book by the same author, who made any number of other continuity misses (including, for example: thinking that Leia had served in the Old Republic; misspelling forth a "Seinar Corporation"; referring to "Mon Calamari Senator Q-Varx of the Rationalist Party" by two genders and three spellings; and giving Warlord Harrsk different titles in every instance that he is mentioned in the same novel). We are to harmonise the evidence and not throw it out unless we cannot help it, and till now I thought of this as a minority source being in error. The X-wing mention might alter this, though.

Wow, way to play semantics here. It's not the 200,000 dead, its the cover up! They still killed 200,000 innocent beings because they decided to create a bioweapons in the middle of a crowded city and their containment failed.

I merely objected to the factual inaccuracy of the detail, not the destruction of the city (which is canonical). We do not know what kind of risk there was for a containment breach.

[Vehrec]

Bullshit. Firstly, the Talz were out roaming the galaxy prior to the Empire, to the point where there were high ranking Talz Jedi Knights. Children of the Jedi also has Triv Pothman stationed on Alzoc III for 30 years, which means the garison was there during the the Clone Wars, before the Empire was formally proclaimed.

So the Republic did not register it either? For the WEG depiction of their "discovery" to make any sense, contact before must have been rather limited, and/or kept secret from the federal authorities. That rare individuals would have found their way off the planet by private transport does not necessarily contradict such an explanation.

While I'm not familiar with WEG's account, there is also the possibility that records were edited at some point-we know that planets were expunged from the Jedi's databanks, so why not from other databases? After all, best way to cover up atrocities is to ensure that nobody knows there was ever anyone to commit them against. Depending on when and how this happened, the planet might have been discovered all over again-and it's a big big galaxy. How many people would see a Talz and know what they were looking at?

[Jade Falcon]

List of Imperial Massacres and Atrocities:
Despayre (Death Star novel): The prison world of Despayre was destroyed in the first firing of the Death Star, although many of its occupants were criminals, many of those criminals were political prisoners not guilty of any actual crime.

While games are low level canon, I believe this is also referenced in the X-Wing game.

Overzealous Police Action #II (Iron Fist) After the jubilation depicted at the end of Return of the Jedi the Empire restored order by opening fire into the crowds. However, given that we see one Stormtrooper being assaulted (and being held rather close to the edge of one of the platforms of the city), and a massive statue being toppled outside the Imperial Palace, it's possible that the crowd had become violent first here, giving the brutality of the response a measure of justification. Again, no use of easily available non-lethal alternatives.

Also shown in the Mara Jade graphic novel, apparently ordered by ISB chief Ysanne Isard.

[Captain Seafort]

Secondly, Luke's statement is further contradicted by the fact Wedge knew about them back in Wraith Squadron.

Really? I must have missed that, then. Around where in the book was it? How specific was the mention?

One of the applicants for Wraith Squadron was a Talz: the individual in question was a former Imperial slave himself, who had piloted freighters and starfighters in the Alliance. "Wraith Squadron", p27

[Darth Hoth]

One of the applicants for Wraith Squadron was a Talz: the individual in question was a former Imperial slave himself, who had piloted freighters and starfighters in the Alliance. "Wraith Squadron", p27

All right, I shall check that.