Star Wars canon question(s)

[gomipile]

I have a question about the new canon of Star Wars, since the Disney purge. Since others might have other questions on canonicity, this thread would probably be a good place for those, too.

Does the Emperor canonically discriminate against non-humans in canon now? In the Legends EU, he was very pro-human. Our, at least his actions were very speciesist. It's a plot point that Thrawn was one of the only non-human members of the imperial military.

Basically, are there definitive examples in canon of Palpatine explicitly excluding non-humans from.... stuff?

[Mando Knight]

Imperial humanocentrism is still a thing in the new canon, though exceptional aliens loyal to the Empire (the Inquisitors, Thrawn, Mas Amedda, etc.) are respected, not discriminated against. I'm not sure if there's any clear indication of whether the Emperor himself takes part in the speciesism, though.

[Darth Credence]

At present, there is nothing overt. You can infer from the original trilogy that he has a pro-human bias, because you don't see any non-humans on the Imperial side. This is almost certainly just a function of when the movies were made.

At this point I would say they are not keeping the Non-HuMan bias (they were anti-woman in the EU as well). The leader of the navy right after Endor is a woman, and there are enough non-humans and women in the Empire without any comment that it seems to not be important. This isn't official, and it could change, but I'm up to date on everything Star Wars at the moment, and it doesn't appear to be a thing.

ETA: OK, Mando Knight, what are you seeing that supports the bias? I thought I was up on everything, but if you think it's still there, I must have missed something.

[hamishspence]

Imperial humanocentrism is still a thing in the new canon, though exceptional aliens loyal to the Empire (the Inquisitors, Thrawn, Mas Amedda, etc.) are respected, not discriminated against.

In the new book Aftermath: Life Debt - a point is made of how the Empire has strong propaganda against aliens - (and that there is some distrust of "near-humans" as well). We get to see just how horrendously the Wookiees (enslaved as a species) are treated, and how ruined their ecosystem has become through Imperial occupation.

The leader of the most powerful of the Imperial Remnants post-Endor is Grand Admiral Rae Sloane - but she self-promoted to Grand Admiral after seizing power and eliminating her rivals (manipulating the New Republic into doing some of the eliminating - her "advisor" is the one guiding the process and coming up with the plans) . A point is made of how she was previously marginalized. It's not the only remnant out there - but it consists of most of the Navy. Eventually she cuts a deal with Grand Vizier Mas Amedda - who leads another Remnant.

[Yael]

Lord Vader, Excecute Order 99... Ha-ha!

http://www.bigmike-productions.com/images/posts/artwork-49-lord-mickey-2015/IMG_4387.JPG

Seriously, tho. There always have been a slight disaproval from the Empire towards alien races, humanoid or not. Mostly (if not all) its military force is conformed by humans (non-clones).

[dancrilis]

Does the Emperor canonically discriminate against non-humans in canon now? In the Legends EU, he was very pro-human. Our, at least his actions were very speciesist. It's a plot point that Thrawn was one of the only non-human members of the imperial military.

Basically, are there definitive examples in canon of Palpatine explicitly excluding non-humans from.... stuff?

I am not sure Palpatine was ever explicitly pro-human in either canon - he always struck me as the kind of guy that could get along with anyone (he had separatist friends, jedi friends, trooper friends, droid friends ...)

The Empire as a whole certainly used to be before Disney.
Is it now? Signs point in multiple directions (most military people being human, most Inquisitors being aliens etc)- but those directions seem to agree that competence matters more than anything else.

[Rakaydos]

I'd say the Empire is pro-imperial agenda.

People always point to how the wookiee's are abused, without noting how much the Trandos made out like bandits on the deal. Thrawn, Inquisitors, the bounty hunters in Empire Strikes Back, all point to the empire using any weapon that works the way the emperor wants it to. Pretty sure the Darth Vader comic has more imperial/alien dealings.


Which brings us to the Imperial Military. Coming off the clone wars, the newborn empire has a large military infrastructure optimized to support large numbers of one specific human in the best possible combat condition. Now, Jango might have liked the thermostat set at 70 instead of 72, but for the most part a ship designed to be operated by human clones can house a human crew in comfort. A Bothan crew, in comparison, might find the lack of shed-fur-handling equipment to be trying in the long term.

[Traab]

I'd say the Empire is pro-imperial agenda.

People always point to how the wookiee's are abused, without noting how much the Trandos made out like bandits on the deal. Thrawn, Inquisitors, the bounty hunters in Empire Strikes Back, all point to the empire using any weapon that works the way the emperor wants it to. Pretty sure the Darth Vader comic has more imperial/alien dealings.


Which brings us to the Imperial Military. Coming off the clone wars, the newborn empire has a large military infrastructure optimized to support large numbers of one specific human in the best possible combat condition. Now, Jango might have liked the thermostat set at 70 instead of 72, but for the most part a ship designed to be operated by human clones can house a human crew in comfort. A Bothan crew, in comparison, might find the lack of shed-fur-handling equipment to be trying in the long term.

Many bothans died cleaning out the air filters.

[Drascin]

I'd say the Empire is pro-imperial agenda.

People always point to how the wookiee's are abused, without noting how much the Trandos made out like bandits on the deal. Thrawn, Inquisitors, the bounty hunters in Empire Strikes Back, all point to the empire using any weapon that works the way the emperor wants it to. Pretty sure the Darth Vader comic has more imperial/alien dealings.

The Trandos made off like bandits because it was a very easy and expedient way to screw over the Wookiees. Kashyyyk as a planet was enormously pro-Republic and pro-Jedi (in old EU several Jedi Masters hid in Kashyyyk for years with the complicitness of the population), and was a revolt in waiting. It was either send the actual Imperial fleet to stomp on Kashyyyk, or sending some backup for the Trandos and let the dumb aliens murder each other, then come in to get all the free slaves for the Empire mines and workshops (cause a hilarious thing seems to be that the Trandos are catching slaves, but somehow Wookiees are by an overwhelming majority Imperial slaves).

Trandoshans are, basically, not actually threatening for the Empire. They're exploitable. Wookiees were not. This doesn't mean the Empire likes Trandoshans or intends to let them actually be important to anything. There's a reason that, despite the Trandoshans falling in with the empire wholeheartedly, no Trandoshans seem to actually be a part of the Imperial structure, and the single most famous Trandoshan in the galaxy is a two-bit bounty hunter whose claim to fame is not being a third as good as Boba Fett.

[Hopeless]

Many Bothans died in pursuit of this mission...
Last time I send them out for Coffee! Admiral Ackbar.

I believe Palpatine didn't give a d**n!

Now given the Separatists were almost entirely alien would make that prejudice understandable.

I believe the prejudice was more with his lackeys than the Emperor himself after all in ANH they described him as a recluse with those surrounding him believed to be responsible for all the evil doing.

Now you might say otherwise but all it takes is a single kernel of truth to help the rest of the lie so I figure he didn't care as long as he remained happy.

Any arguments?

[dancrilis]

Kashyyyk as a planet was enormously pro-Republic and pro-Jedi (in old EU several Jedi Masters hid in Kashyyyk for years with the complicitness of the population), and was a revolt in waiting.

Sounds like they had it coming - bunch of terrorist supporting and symphatising scum.

For a more real 'anti-alien' element from the Empire you can look at how they treat loyal and good subjects - the Geonosians, they build the Death Star and to keep it secret they approximately 100 billions of them were destroyed (in the current canon) ... of course not that anyone ever cares about that compared to the ~2 billion on Alderaan (but than the Rebels have always been more overty pro-human than the Empire).

But frankly while I disagree with the decision and think it paints the Empire in a negative light - I do suspect they would have done the same to a planet of humans also..

[Hopeless]

And until we discover what the Empire does when they bdz a target world I suspect they already have especially as I can see Tarkin not being particularly troubled by that!

[Friv]

If we can agree that the original movies aren't a great judge of whether the empire is anti-alien (after all, there aren't any aliens shown in the Rebellion until Return of the Jedi, discounting Chewbacca), probably Rebels is where we have to look. And Rebels suggests that while the Empire doesn't explicitly have a pro-human agenda, it has a pretty strong bias. The only Imperial non-humans in Rebels are the Inquisitors (until Thrawne shows up next season). Every pilot, every officer, even all of the cadets at the Stormtrooper academy. And Lothal itself has a large non-human population, so it's not like they're starved for options.

[Keltest]

If we can agree that the original movies aren't a great judge of whether the empire is anti-alien (after all, there aren't any aliens shown in the Rebellion until Return of the Jedi, discounting Chewbacca), probably Rebels is where we have to look. And Rebels suggests that while the Empire doesn't explicitly have a pro-human agenda, it has a pretty strong bias. The only Imperial non-humans in Rebels are the Inquisitors (until Thrawne shows up next season). Every pilot, every officer, even all of the cadets at the Stormtrooper academy. And Lothal itself has a large non-human population, so it's not like they're starved for options.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, can we be sure that's from imperial prejudice and not, say, logistical reasons? Look at all the body shapes of all the various aliens in Star Wars for a moment. There are some that are nearly human shaped, and then there are some like the Ithorians that clearly would require an entirely different design of armor. And every single non-standard alien would require its own separate armor design. And there are some aliens that cant even survive in "standard" atmospheres without specialized equipment which would also need to be integrated into the armor.

The Empire at its height has nearly the entire galaxy to draw from. There are enough human-shaped recruits to fill out their armies without getting desperate and customizing the armor for all the different alien species.

[Aeson]

I'm with Keltest on this. There are a lot of practical reasons for species-based segregation, and even species-based discrimination, in a military organization. Even the Rebellion as depicted in the original trilogy appears to recognize this. How many nonhuman X-Wing pilots did you see? How about humans on the bridge of Home One, not counting the briefing?

People who work together need to be able to communicate with one another, and it's best if they don't need to go through an interpreter to do so, which means that they need to be able to make and differentiate between the same kinds of noises. If they're using the same equipment, they'll also preferably be able to see in the same parts of the EM spectrum, have very similar body shapes and sizes, have very similar grasping and manipulating appendages, have very similar fields of view, and so on. If you want them to be in the same environment, then it's for the best if they can comfortably breath very similar atmospheres, prefer similar temperatures and humidities and light levels, etc. Everyone on the same ship or at the same base or supplied by the same logistical support unit being of the same species is simply pragmatic, and isn't strongly indicative of any significant species bias on the part of the overall organization.

[Rakaydos]

I'm with Keltest on this. There are a lot of practical reasons for species-based segregation, and even species-based discrimination, in a military organization. Even the Rebellion as depicted in the original trilogy appears to recognize this. How many nonhuman X-Wing pilots did you see? How about humans on the bridge of Home One, not counting the briefing?

People who work together need to be able to communicate with one another, and it's best if they don't need to go through an interpreter to do so, which means that they need to be able to make and differentiate between the same kinds of noises. If they're using the same equipment, they'll also preferably be able to see in the same parts of the EM spectrum, have very similar body shapes and sizes, have very similar grasping and manipulating appendages, have very similar fields of view, and so on. If you want them to be in the same environment, then it's for the best if they can comfortably breath very similar atmospheres, prefer similar temperatures and humidities and light levels, etc. Everyone on the same ship or at the same base or supplied by the same logistical support unit being of the same species is simply pragmatic, and isn't strongly indicative of any significant species bias on the part of the overall organization.

Indeed, and all the Empire's hardware was optimised to support Human Clones, so it's easier for the empire to recruit humans than redesign their hardware.

[Velaryon]

Sounds like they had it coming - bunch of terrorist supporting and symphatising scum.

For a more real 'anti-alien' element from the Empire you can look at how they treat loyal and good subjects - the Geonosians, they build the Death Star and to keep it secret they approximately 100 billions of them were destroyed (in the current canon) ... of course not that anyone ever cares about that compared to the ~2 billion on Alderaan (but than the Rebels have always been more overty pro-human than the Empire).

But frankly while I disagree with the decision and think it paints the Empire in a negative light - I do suspect they would have done the same to a planet of humans also..

What are you basing the bolded statement on? I'm not up on the new EU, but the original films either showed non-humans as a non-factor (their almost complete lack of Imperial or Rebel presence in ANH and ESB), or the Rebellion as more pro-diversity (Imperial officers' disdain of Chewbacca, Sullustans and Mon Calamari at Endor). The old EU explicitly had the Rebels and New Republic as pro-diversity, contrasting the pro-human, anti-everyone else Empire.

If you're seeing something to indicate the Rebels as more pro-human, can you show me where that's coming from? I can't see it myself.

[Keltest]

What are you basing the bolded statement on? I'm not up on the new EU, but the original films either showed non-humans as a non-factor (their almost complete lack of Imperial or Rebel presence in ANH and ESB), or the Rebellion as more pro-diversity (Imperial officers' disdain of Chewbacca, Sullustans and Mon Calamari at Endor). The old EU explicitly had the Rebels and New Republic as pro-diversity, contrasting the pro-human, anti-everyone else Empire.

If you're seeing something to indicate the Rebels as more pro-human, can you show me where that's coming from? I can't see it myself.

Agreed. At best I can see a "humans are everywhere, which means they happen to make up a majority of the rebellion" attitude, but I haven't seen any indication that they are actively turning away aliens or anything like that.

[dancrilis]

What are you basing the bolded statement on? I'm not up on the new EU, but the original films either showed non-humans as a non-factor (their almost complete lack of Imperial or Rebel presence in ANH and ESB), or the Rebellion as more pro-diversity (Imperial officers' disdain of Chewbacca, Sullustans and Mon Calamari at Endor). The old EU explicitly had the Rebels and New Republic as pro-diversity, contrasting the pro-human, anti-everyone else Empire.

If you're seeing something to indicate the Rebels as more pro-human, can you show me where that's coming from? I can't see it myself.

Leia: Get this walking carpet out of my way.
Effectively this indicates the the leaders of the rebellion hold aliens (or at least some groups of aliens) as lower than humans.

This is also evidenced by the treatment of Jabba the Hutt - Han literally steps on him, meanwhile the Empire allows him to rule his planet in peace.

Than in the third film the rebels conduct an attack on Jabba's palace resulting in the deaths of likely hundreds of people - mostly alien, some working for there enemy as guards others merely slaves or engaged in non-hostile work.


Effectively the Empire treated you badly if you were anti-empire, the Rebellion just frequently treated people and those people were predominantly alien.

I also believe that they had some insults for the Ewoks but I cannot remember any off the top of my head (but they did abuse there cultural beliefs to get them into a war the Ewoks had no part in).

[Keltest]

Leia: Get this walking carpet out of my way.
Effectively this indicates the the leaders of the rebellion hold aliens (or at least some groups of aliens) as lower than humans.

This is also evidenced by the treatment of Jabba the Hutt - Han literally steps on him, meanwhile the Empire allows him to rule his planet in peace.

Than in the third film the rebels conduct an attack on Jabba's palace resulting in the deaths of likely hundreds of people - mostly alien, some working for there enemy as guards others merely slaves or engaged in non-hostile work.


Effectively the Empire treated you badly if you were anti-empire, the Rebellion just frequently treated people and those people were predominantly alien.

I also believe that they had some insults for the Ewoks but I cannot remember any off the top of my head (but they did abuse there cultural beliefs to get them into a war the Ewoks had no part in).

Or maybe Leia is just rude? She is an imperial senator as well, remember, or at least she was. She's not gonna waste manners on these bunglers, they cant even get out of the prison block without her help.

[Traab]

The empire doesnt "allow" jabba to rule in peace, the slug is an intergalactic mob boss with powerful connections and resources and he lives out on the fringes of the galaxy where the empire has little direct power. Its like saying the american government "allowed" the mafia to operate freely in new york. Han is a cocky smuggler rogue, not even remotely connected to the rebels at the time of the stepping. Also, that was added in in "special editions" of the movie, along with NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and greedo shooting first. In other words, its garbage that doesnt count. Meanwhile the rebels had actual nonhuman officers, nonhuman pilots, nonhuman everything. How many grand moffs did you see in the original trilogy that werent human? How many of the bridge crew of the death star, or the command at the meeting where vader choked a guy for bad mouthing his religion? None.

[dancrilis]

Or maybe Leia is just rude? She is an imperial senator as well, remember, or at least she was.

It isn't the insult it is the level of attack - she summerised Chewbacca's entire existance as an item rather than a person, good for exactly a single thing - to be made into a carpet.

In contrast she called Han a 'scruffy nerf herder' possible showing classist behaviour and insulting nerf herders by using them as an insult - but clearly still indicating that Han was a person.


The empire doesnt "allow" jabba to rule in peace, the slug is an intergalactic mob boss with powerful connections and resources and he lives out on the fringes of the galaxy where the empire has little direct power.
The empire has no problem setting up checkpoints on Tatooine and no issue with hiring bounty hunters that intend to report to Jabba - if they had an issue with an Alien running a planet I am pretty confident that Vader could have sorted it out when he was there with his star destroyer.

[Traab]

It isn't the insult it is the level of attack - she summerised Chewbacca's entire existance as an item rather than a person, good for exactly a single thing - to be made into a carpet.

In contrast she called Han a 'scruffy nerf herder' possible showing classist behaviour and insulting nerf herders by using them as an insult - but clearly still indicating that Han was a person.


The empire has no problem setting up checkpoints on Tatooine and no issue with hiring bounty hunters that intend to report to Jabba - if they had an issue with an Alien running a planet I am pretty confident that Vader could have sorted it out when he was there with his star destroyer.

The checkpoints were a temporary thing to try and find the droids, not a permanent encampment. And had Vader just blasted jabbas palace, something tells me things would have gone poorly overall. Guys that connected to the underbelly of society tend to have a lot of power and connections.

[Chen]

Leia: Get this walking carpet out of my way.
Effectively this indicates the the leaders of the rebellion hold aliens (or at least some groups of aliens) as lower than humans.

Yeah this was a single statement after she was frustrated by Han was giving her lip after rescuing her. I mean imagine saying something similar about a shaggy dog that was in your way. Would you consider that the person in question certainly hated dogs? Probably not.



This is also evidenced by the treatment of Jabba the Hutt - Han literally steps on him, meanwhile the Empire allows him to rule his planet in peace.

Than in the third film the rebels conduct an attack on Jabba's palace resulting in the deaths of likely hundreds of people - mostly alien, some working for there enemy as guards others merely slaves or engaged in non-hostile work.

Han wasn't even part of the rebellion at that point. And clearly he wasn't dismissing Jabba because he was an alien but rather he was basically an enemy of his. The rescue in episode VI doesn't really have much to do with the Rebellion and is all about rescuing their friend who was kidnapped by this gangster.



Effectively the Empire treated you badly if you were anti-empire, the Rebellion just frequently treated people and those people were predominantly alien.

The empire plain out murdered an entire Sandcrawler's worth of Jawas and tried to pin it on Tuskan Raiders. Clearly it wasn't to send a message since they tried avoiding letting it be known they did it. But even here, I don't consider this some sort of racist thing. They did it for their own ends. If it was a full Sandcrawler's worth of humans they'd probably do the same (like how they burned Luke's Aunt and Uncle).

[Aeson]

the Rebellion as more pro-diversity (Sullustans and Mon Calamari at Endor)
You should realize that the Rebellion doesn't need to be pro-diversity or pro-nonhuman rights or pro-anything to give Sullustans and Mon Calamari any kind of prominent position at Endor. The Rebellion simply has to need or want the resources that the Sullustans and Mon Calamari can provide badly enough that any prejudices that the Rebel leadership may have would be set aside until the resources are no longer needed.

I would also point out that every single heavy ship which the Rebellion had at Endor appears to have been a Mon Calamari vessel, and that the non-Mon Calamari vessels that the Rebellion brought to Endor include ships which appear to be of the type used to evacuate Hoth. In other words, the Rebellion's human component appears to have brought transports to something which appears to have been intended to be almost exclusively a space battle; there are no planned landings or ground actions mentioned at the briefing aside from the commando raid on the shield generator.

As far as the Sullustans go, note that Vader mentions that a Rebel fleet was reported to be massing near Sullust. This suggests, though it does not prove, that the Sullustans were providing significant materiel support to the Rebellion, possibly including access to port facilities of the kind that you find at major shipyards (given that the Mon Calamari appear to have provided the heavy ships of the Rebel fleet, the Mon Calamari likely also provided the Rebellion with access to these kinds of facilities).

These are not the kinds of things that the Rebellion can afford to risk losing just to indulge any prejudices that the leadership might have.

One final thing: Consider when we start seeing nonhumans figure prominently in the Rebel leadership and in Rebel military forces - after Hoth, where the Rebellion appears to have lost a relatively important base and likely much of the equipment and materiel at it, though a reasonable portion of the light equipment and personnel seems to have been evacuated successfully. Note that, according to the opening crawl of The Empire Strikes Back, this is but the latest in a string of defeats suffered by the Rebellion. Also note that the known Rebel bases appear to have been improvised facilities in remote, sparsely-populated, or inhostpitable regions - caves in the frozen wastes of Hoth, an old pyramid in the jungle on Yavin IV, some place on Dantooine when Dantooine is "too remote to make an effective demonstration" of a weapon which destroys entire planets; heck, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion appears to be hiding in deep space a significant distance outside of the galaxy, though it's possible that the Rebellion has yet to establish a new base by that point. At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion appears to be losing, and rather badly at that; if the Sullustans and the Mon Calamari offer their help but require certain guarantees and a certain position in the Rebellion's power structure in exchange, the Rebellion does not appear to be in a position to refuse.

[Traab]

Except all of that is speculation (or not included in the movies) and doesnt change the reality. The empire is pretty much completely run by humans. The rebels have various aliens in their command structure. The obvious inference is there as to which side is more likely to be racist and its not the rebels.

[Aeson]

Except all of that is speculation (or not included in the movies) and doesnt change the reality.
So is the claim that the Empire is almost entirely run by humans. Consider the size of the sample - the claim that the Imperial military is (almost) exclusively human is based upon the bridge crews of perhaps three Star Destroyers, a small sample of personnel on the two Death Stars, a handful of base personnel at Endor, and maybe one or two other officers or enlisted personnel seen here and there. The claim that the Empire's civil authorities are human is based off of a sample comprised of Governor/Grand Moff Tarkin, Senator Organa, the Emperor and a handful of people who may be high-ranking advisors who accompanied him to the second Death Star, and maybe Darth Vader. This is a tiny sample size upon which to base such claims.

At Endor alone, there were roughly 40 Star Destroyers in the Imperial fleet, despite the ships of the Imperial Navy being dispersed throughout the galaxy in an effort to engage the Rebellion - and this is a sufficiently small force that the Rebellion's intelligence services either didn't notice that all those ships were missing from their usual patrol sectors or their usual stations or their usual formations or wasn't unduly concerned by an inability to locate about 40 heavy warships out of however many ships are in the Imperial Navy prior to launching a major operation against a high-value target which they knew was going to have a high-value political figure visiting it around the time of the attack. This suggests that the Imperial Navy is significantly larger than just the 40 or so Star Destroyers present at Endor - but then, if we're being rational, we knew that anyways, because the volume of either one of the Death Stars is the same as millions of Star Destroyers even accepting the current canonical 120km and 160km diameters so even discounting that by several orders of magnitude we still end up at a construction effort equal to that required for thousands or tens of thousands of Star Destroyers (and note that the second Death Star was constructed in secret, and on top of that it would appear as though construction work canonically only begins after the destruction of the first), and even ignoring that the total size of a fleet of a galaxy-spanning empire is almost certainly orders of magnitude more than just a few dozen warships.

As far as the civil administration side of things goes: Claiming that the Empire is 'almost entirely controlled by humans' off of a sample set which includes the Emperor, one sector governor, one of about a thousand senators (assuming that the Old Republic Senate and the Imperial Senate are the same size), and a few flunkies is like claiming that the USA is run by black people based on a sample set consisting of Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice. Actually, it's probably worse, because, proportionally, Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice are almost certainly the larger sample set; the USA has a population of only a few hundred million, after all, whereas Coruscant alone likely has a population well into the trillions, if not higher, and there are about another million planets in the Empire even assuming that Tarkin's figure was all-inclusive rather than simply considering full member or otherwise important worlds, and on top of that it is by no means certain that Coruscant is unique in being a city-planet (in fact, if you accept EU material, it is provably not unique in being a city-planet).

Such strong evidence you provide for an Empire almost exclusively run by humans.

Also, you want in-movie material showing the Rebellion snubbing nonhumans? Try the awards ceremony at the end of A New Hope. Luke gets a medal for shooting a torpedo into the Death Star and Han gets a medal for shooting at Vader's flight of TIEs. What does Chewie get for piloting the Millenium Falcon in such a manner as to allow Han to shoot at Vader's flight of TIEs? The right to walk up the hall with Luke and Han, and the right to stand on the stairs a little below, in front of, and to the side of Han and Luke while they're being presented with their medals, which is roughly the same precedence afforded to C3PO, R2D2, and the random Rebel officers standing at the top of the stairs. Then, in The Empire Strikes Back, C3PO excuses Chewie's strangulation of Lando Calrissian ... by saying "he's only a Wookiee, you know." Hmm, yes, I'm sure that this is a completely unbiased and reasonable statement, and does not at all reflect poorly on the people with whom C3PO most frequently interacts - Han, Luke, Leia, the personnel in the Rebel headquarters area on Hoth. Also, Leia's comment about Chewie being a walking carpet, while perhaps excusable due to her irritation, is rather suspect.

If we're taking the lack of visible nonhumans in the extremely small portion of the Imperial military and the Imperial civil government which we see as evidence for an Imperial bias against nonhumans, then the fact that the Rebellion likewise lacks visible nonhumans until after it suffers a string of defeats is not promising, unless you want to apply a double standard. I do not personally believe that the Rebellion had a bias against nonhumans, or at least not a strong one, but you can construct a reasonable case for the Rebellion having such a bias based upon what's in the Original Trilogy, and you can use the same standard of evidence as is used to justify an Imperial bias against nonhumans - lack of visible nonhumans among the personnel seen.

[hamishspence]

Also, you want in-movie material showing the Rebellion snubbing nonhumans? Try the awards ceremony at the end of A New Hope. Luke gets a medal for shooting a torpedo into the Death Star and Han gets a medal for shooting at Vader's flight of TIEs. What does Chewie get for piloting the Millenium Falcon in such a manner as to allow Han to shoot at Vader's flight of TIEs? The right to walk up the hall with Luke and Han, and the right to stand on the stairs a little below, in front of, and to the side of Han and Luke while they're being presented with their medals, which is roughly the same precedence afforded to C3PO, R2D2, and the random Rebel officers standing at the top of the stairs.

That was probably a late change - given that the novelization, published before the movie came out, had Chewie get his medal.

The comic adaptation resolved the difference by saying "He will get his medal - but he'll have to pin it on himself".

Newcanon novels published after the canon reboot also have him in possession of a medal for his actions in ANH.

The "where are you taking this ... thing" remark by an Imperial officer in ANH, is another indication of a certain disdain for nonhumans.

[Traab]

Long reply notwithstanding, you can only go off what you have seen in the films. In the films the empire is represented 100% of the time by humans. Yes its a small representation, but its still a sample size of the empire. The entire command staff of the death star? All human. Every person we see wandering too and fro on the various vessels? All human. All those storm troopers? Well presumably human, im not sure if they ever specify they are in the movie, but they dont look alien so its a safe assumption. Meanwhile the rebellion has aliens on its command staff, aliens in its star fighter ranks. There arent a lot of them, but then thats a small sample size as well, and its still far more than the empire shows (which is zero) It would have cost lucas nothing to have one of the random bar aliens from tattoine put on a uniform shirt and wander across the background of one of the many scenes of the film instead of nothing but humans, but he didnt.

[Darth Credence]

The Clone Wars and Rebels count as well. They both show that the Twi'leks are either the first rebels or among the first. The group that is focused on in Rebels include three humans, a Twi'lek, a Lasat, and a droid. Their handler is a Togruta. There is pretty much no reason to believe that the Rebels have any anti-alien bias.

Of course, it also counts for the Empire. The Grand Inquisitor was a Pau'an, the Seventh Sister was Mirilan, the Fifth Brother is some type of non-human. So the evidence doesn't support the Empire being anti-alien completely, although the evidence for the military being anti-alien might still hold.

[hamishspence]

Of course, it also counts for the Empire. The Grand Inquisitor was a Pau'an, the Seventh Sister was Mirilan, the Fifth Brother is some type of non-human. So the evidence doesn't support the Empire being anti-alien completely, although the evidence for the military being anti-alien might still hold.

In Aftermath: Life Debt, it was distrustful of near-humans, outright hateful toward "aliens" - characters like the Inquisitors might come under near-human, since the differences are subtle rather than dramatic.

[Dragonexx]

Or the empire might be pragmatic enough to realize that they can't be choosy when it comes to finding potential inquisitors.

[Aeson]

The comic adaptation resolved the difference by saying "He will get his medal - but he'll have to pin it on himself".
That's still a snub for the sole nonhuman to receive a medal for the destruction of the Death Star. The humans who get medals are presented with the medals in a big ceremony; the nonhuman gets handed a medal while nobody's looking and told he can pin it on himself.


The "where are you taking this ... thing" remark by an Imperial officer in ANH, is another indication of a certain disdain for nonhumans.
So (one officer who makes a speciesist comment) && (no nonhumans visible) => (organization is speciesist) but (one officer who makes a speciesist comment) && (one droid whose duty station appears to be in headquarters and who commonly associates with several officers making a speciesist comment) && (no nonhumans visible until after a string of defeats) => (organization is not speciesist), does it?

There are black people who served on the front lines in combat roles in both world wars, and some of them were awarded medals. There are black actors who received Academy Awards for their performances prior to 1950. There are black people who played baseball in the Major Leagues prior to 1950. Does this mean that neither the USA nor the armed services of the USA had any issues with racism against blacks prior to 1950?


All those storm troopers? Well presumably human, im not sure if they ever specify they are in the movie, but they dont look alien so its a safe assumption.
It isn't specified in the movies.


Every person we see wandering too and fro on the various vessels? All human.
And yet, despite the Death Star's apparently all-human crew, no one looks askance at a Wookiee wandering through the corridors or appears to regard it as at all unusual for there to be a Wookiee present, though I'll grant that the Wookiee appears to have been accompanied by at least one person in a stormtrooper uniform until after the incident in the detention bay and that there may have been a little Jedi trickery involved in getting from the Millenium Falcon to the security post overlooking the hangar bay.


Meanwhile the rebellion has aliens on its command staff
Who are never seen in the movies until after Hoth, and are only seen when the Rebellion is launching a major operation which, given that it appears to be sending transports into what it intends to be a fleet action, may well be stretching the Rebellion's resources to the limit.


aliens in its star fighter ranks.
I recall exactly one nonhuman in a pilot's uniform in the Original Trilogy, and he ended up serving as the sensor officer on the Millenium Falcon. Every single pilot we actually see in a Rebel starfighter appears to be human.

Also, this gets back to the real-world example - there's a number of black pilots who served in the USAAF in WWII, some of them in combat over the front lines in Europe. "There are _ among the ranks of our pilots" != "We are not bigoted against _."


Regarding material from outside the movies: You can accept it if you want, but remember that discrimination against nonhumans is not something which is strongly supported by the films, and that more speciesist comments are made by Rebel-affiliated characters than Imperial-affiliated characters. Most fiction prefers to portray the protagonists as 'the good guys,' and casting the Empire as an organization that discriminates against nonhumans while the Rebellion is all for nonhuman civil rights is a cheap, easy way to make the Empire seem bad while at the same time making the Rebellion appear good, or at least better.

[Darth Credence]

The medals went to the pilots. Should Chewie have gotten a medal? I think so. Are there times in the real world where the flashy job gets the medal and the people doing the other jobs don't? Absolutely.

I fall on the side that there really isn't a bias in either. The guy on the Death Star who calls Chewie a thing could be speciesist, as could Leia based on walking carpet. But I don't think that is enough evidence to say either organization is. I don't think there is enough evidence in the movies to conclude either way. We don't see enough of either side to make a statistical decision, we only see the people that the stars actually are around. Since most of the time they aren't around the majority of the Rebellion or Empire, we are just getting a tiny slice.

I also would not argue books or comics, but I would argue the TV shows are worth looking at. They have been full canon since their premieres, and have always been tightly tied into the over all story. Everything else may drift out of canon over time, but I expect everything visual will remain.

[hamishspence]

I also would not argue books or comics, but I would argue the TV shows are worth looking at. They have been full canon since their premieres, and have always been tightly tied into the over all story. Everything else may drift out of canon over time, but I expect everything visual will remain.

The Droids, Ewoks, and Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars TV series haven't been specified as carried over to the newcanon the way the Dave Filoni Clone Wars series has.

Nor have the Ewoks movies and the Holiday Special.

[Darth Credence]

The Droids, Ewoks, and Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars TV series haven't been specified as carried over to the newcanon the way the Dave Filoni Clone Wars series has.

Nor have the Ewoks movies and the Holiday Special.

True - and sorry, I should have phrased it better. When I referred to the TV shows that have been full canon since their premieres, I meant only The Clone Wars and Rebels. The stuff that is currently visual canon I would expect to stay canon, while I would expect that if anything ends up being removed from canon it would be the current canon books and comics. I have little doubt that if a future movie wants to do something and the story group bring up that issue X of the Star Wars ongoing comic contradicts that, they will end up ignoring the comic book. But I also think that if they want to do something that is contradicted by episode Y of Rebels, they will not ignore the TV show.

[Jasdoif]

The Droids, Ewoks, and Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars TV series haven't been specified as carried over to the newcanon the way the Dave Filoni Clone Wars series has.I still want to know who sat down and thought "Hey, we can call our 3D animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars! No one's ever going to confuse it with the 2D animated Star Wars: Clone Wars because of 'The' in the name, right?"

[Traab]

I still want to know who sat down and thought "Hey, we can call our 3D animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars! No one's ever going to confuse it with the 2D animated Star Wars: Clone Wars because of 'The' in the name, right?"

The same people who decided that naming the remake Ghostbusters would in no way be confusing when trying to talk about the original Ghostbusters movie.

[Velaryon]

Leia: Get this walking carpet out of my way.
Effectively this indicates the the leaders of the rebellion hold aliens (or at least some groups of aliens) as lower than humans.

This is also evidenced by the treatment of Jabba the Hutt - Han literally steps on him, meanwhile the Empire allows him to rule his planet in peace.

Than in the third film the rebels conduct an attack on Jabba's palace resulting in the deaths of likely hundreds of people - mostly alien, some working for there enemy as guards others merely slaves or engaged in non-hostile work.


Effectively the Empire treated you badly if you were anti-empire, the Rebellion just frequently treated people and those people were predominantly alien.

I also believe that they had some insults for the Ewoks but I cannot remember any off the top of my head (but they did abuse there cultural beliefs to get them into a war the Ewoks had no part in).

Way to cherry pick examples there. These have already been discussed by others, but since it was in reply to my request for clarification, it seems right that I should reply.

Leia was frosty toward all three of them during that rescue. While it may or may not indicate speciesism on her part, it certainly does not implicate the Rebel Alliance as a whole or even the entire leadership. And it was a one-off comment on her part that is never repeated as far as I can recall. Snubbing Chewie for a medal in the film is also problematic, though as others have said there are several potential reasons for that, not all of which indicate prejudice.

Han stepping on Jabba was a necessity of film editing. At the time that scene was filmed, Jabba the Hutt was a human. The idea of Hutts as giant sluglike aliens did not come up until Return of the Jedi; "the Hutt" was some kind of title for the gangster named Jabba. When they made the (ill-advised) choice to restore that scene to the film in the special edition, the footage they had involved Harrison Ford walking behind the character of Jabba... right where the tail would be on a Hutt (the slug aliens we know and loathe). That stepping on Jabba's tail arguably fits the brash, jerkface character of pre-Rebellion Han Solo is secondary to the fact that they literally had to have him step on the tail in order to fit terrible CGI Jabba into the footage they already had.

The "attack" as you put it on Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi was portrayed as more of a group of friends rescuing their friend than an actual Rebel operation, as evidenced by the lack of military support or hardware. It was literally four people and two droids conducting an infiltration operation that clearly caused more death and destruction than they had originally planned. Remember that Leia tried to sneak him out, that Luke offered to bargain and tried (albeit poorly) to talk his way out of it without a fight. Since Jabba imprisoned them and tried to execute them, I hardly think the fact that he and a lot of his gangster cronies ended up dying for their trouble can be used as evidence of any sort of anti-alien bias on anyone's part.

The Empire treated you badly if you weren't an Imperial (and sometimes if you were). There is zero indication from any of the films (save perhaps Mas Amedda in Revenge of the Sith) that any nonhumans served in the Empire. If we exclude the old canon novels from evidence, they don't even have Thrawn until his appearance in the Rebels cartoon.



It isn't the insult it is the level of attack - she summerised Chewbacca's entire existance as an item rather than a person, good for exactly a single thing - to be made into a carpet.

In contrast she called Han a 'scruffy nerf herder' possible showing classist behaviour and insulting nerf herders by using them as an insult - but clearly still indicating that Han was a person.

The empire has no problem setting up checkpoints on Tatooine and no issue with hiring bounty hunters that intend to report to Jabba - if they had an issue with an Alien running a planet I am pretty confident that Vader could have sorted it out when he was there with his star destroyer.

On the contrary, an Imperial officer comments "Bounty hunters - we don't need their scum!" when they're brought aboard the Executor. It's clearly just Darth Vader who decides to hire them, because he's sick and tired of the Imperial Navy failing to capture the Millennium Falcon. I'm pretty sure Vader had killed off at least two of his officers by that point in the movie.

[hamishspence]

I'm pretty sure Vader had killed off at least two of his officers by that point in the movie.

He'd killed Ozzel - but Needa is killed after Vader's conversation with the bounty hunters - Piett comes in saying "My lord - we have them" (the Avenger has just caught sight of the Falcon re-entering the asteroid field from its space slug hideaway, and is in pursuit).

[Wardog]

Add me to those that think the original trilogy gave no clear indication that the Empire was human-supremicist.

For the first two films, there were hardly any aliens on either side, and apart from one officer making derogatory comments about Chewie, I'm not aware of any anti-alien sentiments by them. And conversely, Leia also mde a derogatory comment about him too. Other good-guys - Luke and/or 3P0, if I remember right - also made derogatory comments about Jawas and Sand People. They also don't show any hostility or prejudice against the droids.

Jedi introduces lots of aliens on the Rebel side, and not on the Imperial, but there is still no overt anti-alien sentiment from the Empire.

So prejudice against non-humans is present, but the Empire doesn't seem to be any worse than anyone else.

To be honest, the whole Human High Culture (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Human_High_Culture)/ anti non-HuMan (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Non-huMan) thing that the EU came up with always struck me as silly.

Not only is there no evidence for it in the original movies, it feels as though someone thought ''The Empire is a murderous, planet-destroying dictatorship ruled by an evil wizard. Let's make them politically incorrect, so everyone knows they're the bad guys!''

[Drascin]

Add me to those that think the original trilogy gave no clear indication that the Empire was human-supremicist.

For the first two films, there were hardly any aliens on either side, and apart from one officer making derogatory comments about Chewie, I'm not aware of any anti-alien sentiments by them. And conversely, Leia also mde a derogatory comment about him too. Other good-guys - Luke and/or 3P0, if I remember right - also made derogatory comments about Jawas and Sand People. They also don't show any hostility or prejudice against the droids.

Jedi introduces lots of aliens on the Rebel side, and not on the Imperial, but there is still no overt anti-alien sentiment from the Empire.

So prejudice against non-humans is present, but the Empire doesn't seem to be any worse than anyone else.

To be honest, the whole Human High Culture (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Human_High_Culture)/ anti non-HuMan (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Non-huMan) thing that the EU came up with always struck me as silly.

Not only is there no evidence for it in the original movies, it feels as though someone thought ''The Empire is a murderous, planet-destroying dictatorship ruled by an evil wizard. Let's make them politically incorrect, so everyone knows they're the bad guys!''

The Empire are literally Nazis. Like, they are specifically inspired on the Nazis, by word of Lucas, down to the uniforms. He's on record saying he wanted the Palpatine coming to power thing in Episode 3 to be a direct Hitler reference. To which then you add the human bias we see, and, gee, I WONDER why people might think these guys may be racist.

[druid91]

Funnily enough, the Empire has Alien members as early as A New Hope.

Or did you forget this fellow? (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Garindan)

[Traab]

Funnily enough, the Empire has Alien members as early as A New Hope.

Or did you forget this fellow? (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Garindan)


He is an informant, about as much a member of the imperial forces as your average crimestoppers caller is a part of the polic force. Noone is trying to say that aliens dont exist in the empire, just that you never see one as an official employee of said empire. That they are second class citizens. No alien officers, no alien crewmen, no alien fighter pilots. Nothing but humans as far as the eye can see in any position of power.

[druid91]

He is an informant, about as much a member of the imperial forces as your average crimestoppers caller is a part of the polic force. Noone is trying to say that aliens dont exist in the empire, just that you never see one as an official employee of said empire. That they are second class citizens. No alien officers, no alien crewmen, no alien fighter pilots. Nothing but humans as far as the eye can see in any position of power.

Except there is a readily available explanation for that that's already been given. They have a massive industrial complex devoted to constructing military things that are fitted to human needs. It would be expensive to retrofit this, and given they were so cheap that TIE fighters literally have no hyperdrive, shields, or life support. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Given they are a Militaristic dictatorship, Military service is going to be the primary path to power and authority. Particularly once the Senate is dissolved.

There's no need for active racism to justify this.

[Traab]

Except there is a readily available explanation for that that's already been given. They have a massive industrial complex devoted to constructing military things that are fitted to human needs. It would be expensive to retrofit this, and given they were so cheap that TIE fighters literally have no hyperdrive, shields, or life support. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Given they are a Militaristic dictatorship, Military service is going to be the primary path to power and authority. Particularly once the Senate is dissolved.

There's no need for active racism to justify this.

Ah, my apologies, I just remembered I erased a post I made earlier instead of printing it. You are right, there is no real sign of overt racism that cant also be explained in any number of ways. Its just easy to slap a racism label on there because the empire are the bad guys, and when there are multiple interpretations for what we see and no official explanation, its kind of an occams razor thing to assume the worst. Plus, as was said, the empire was designed based off nazis, so the parallels are there, including a penchant for thinking of everyone not like you as a lesser race/creature/etc.

As for the comment on fighters, they are that way because there is no reason to give them those things. They dont need hyperdrive as the fighters are short range craft meant to fight in the general area they are deployed in. As for shields, do any small ships have actual shields? I mean, the falcon does, but its clearly much larger than a fighter jet, which the tie fighters are clearly designed to be. Which is also why they have minimal life support, they are designed to be like fighter jets, oxygen masks and all. Complaining they dont have hyperdrive is like complaining that an f-15 cant fly from its air base in chicago to a dog fight in iran on a tank of gas. Its not designed for long range travel like that. And fighter jets dont have their own "life support" like say, a jumbo jet does, because of space constraints, weight issues, god knows why else, I doubt I can think of all the reasons. Its not just to be cheap (though im sure it probably helps shave a few hundred thousand off each unit) Its about efficiency.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Except there is a readily available explanation for that that's already been given. They have a massive industrial complex devoted to constructing military things that are fitted to human needs. It would be expensive to retrofit this, and given they were so cheap that TIE fighters literally have no hyperdrive, shields, or life support. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Given they are a Militaristic dictatorship, Military service is going to be the primary path to power and authority. Particularly once the Senate is dissolved.

There's no need for active racism to justify this.

Its still racist, if only humans get to serve in the Imperial military and the military is the only path to power and authority. Its racist no matter the non-nonsensical equipment explanation. Even it it wasn't intended to support human supremacy to begin it would be a natural outgrowth from only having one race in power.

Directly to the equipment argument.

Every race you see flying around the starwars galaxy is going to be one out of billions or more of the same species. (except for the ones the Empire committed genocide against). Someone is making the equipment they need to take part in the galactic community, those someone's could also make that equipment in Imperial colors and style. You really think its going to be vastly more expensive? Sure a wookie storm trooper's armor would probably cost twice as much as a regular human trooper. However he could carry weaponry that would normally require it be mounted on a vehicle or in some secured emplacement

The Empire had no problem supplying equipment to be used by the various non-human slaves who built the Death Star. (Yes the Death Star being built by among others Wookie slave labor is still CANON). Weapons Factory Alpha the largest Imperial weapons factory in the Galaxy was kept running day and night by non-human slaves. So somehow the Empire can have non-human slaves building all there ****. But it be to much of a logistical expense to have non-humans serving in there military aside from the few brilliant exceptions.

Sorry Empire fans, Disney may have swept away the old EU but the new material that's come out sense the sweep continues to support the Empire putting humans above other races.

[Aeson]

given they were so cheap that TIE fighters literally have no ... shields
Personally, I think that this assertion of the EU is rather questionable. The assumption of a lack of shielding on TIE fighters is based upon the relative survivability of the fighters as seen in the movies. However, X-Wings and Y-Wings, which per movie dialogue have shields, do not appear to be significantly more capable of surviving TIE weapons fire than TIE Fighters are capable of surviving X-Wing weapons fire, and given that X-Wing lasers are roughly 6.8m long and have a low rate of fire whereas TIE lasers cannot be more than ~1.8m long assuming a linear array and have a high rate of fire ... let's just say that a lack of shielding on the TIEs does not appear necessary to explain what difference there is in fighter survivability.

Moreover, the EU also assumes that A-Wings have shields despite the oversized drives, hyperdrive, life support, missile launchers and associated magazines, etc which are also shown or assumed to be present on the fighter. A-Wings do not appear to be that much bigger than TIE fighters.

I will also add that it is the Empire, not the Rebellion, which sees fit to armor its primary infantry forces. Ineffective though the armor may be against direct hits from most infantry weapons, it still suggests that the Empire places a somewhat higher value on the lives of its stormtroopers than the Rebellion does on the lives of its common infantrymen. In light of that, it'd be a bit odd for the TIEs to lack shielding, despite EU claims to the contrary.


The Empire had no problem supplying equipment to be used by the various non-human slaves who built the Death Star.
For there to be any slaves at all, nonhuman or not, in Imperial service, you have to look outside the movies. Who built the Death Star and under what conditions the laborers worked is not something which can be discovered from the movies. The second Death Star, moreover, is strongly implied to have been built by Imperial service personnel.

Also, while it may be canonical, the source from which it comes - the EU, new or old - is generally heavily biased in favor of the Rebellion by comparison to the movies of the original trilogy, and is also not infrequently inaccurate with regards to things that appear in the movies.


However he could carry weaponry that would normally require it be mounted on a vehicle or in some secured emplacement
Wookiees are not that much larger than humans, and, EU claims to the contrary, the movies also don't support the idea that they're that much stronger. In neither the prequel nor the original trilogies are Wookiee infantry arms visibly much more powerful, if at all, than the blasters used by stormtroopers, Rebel infantry, and clone troopers.

Beyond that, though, so what if wookiees can bring slightly more powerful weapons to the party? Standard blasters are more than adequate for infantry combat, and heavy single-man rifles such as carried by some of the the clone troopers are capable of dealing with shielded destroyer droids.

[Velaryon]

I will also add that it is the Empire, not the Rebellion, which sees fit to armor its primary infantry forces. Ineffective though the armor may be against direct hits from most infantry weapons, it still suggests that the Empire places a somewhat higher value on the lives of its stormtroopers than the Rebellion does on the lives of its common infantrymen. In light of that, it'd be a bit odd for the TIEs to lack shielding, despite EU claims to the contrary.

Given the stated differences in resources and personnel between the two sides, it seems to me that it makes more sense to attribute the difference in personal armor between the two sides to affordability, as opposed to using it as a measure of how much either side values their soldiers.

Of course, the real reason is most likely that it helps the Imperial soldiers remain faceless and uniform in comparison to the Rebel soldiers, thus making them less sympathetic for the audience. But presumably we're keeping our arguments to an in-universe viewpoint.

[Rakaydos]

"You will never find a more wretched hive of Scum and Villany."
*not a human in sight*

[Lurkmoar]

"You will never find a more wretched hive of Scum and Villany."
*not a human in sight*

Han doesn't count as human? What about the bartender? And was the deformed guy that was bugging Luke really an alien or just a guy who got his face smashed in for picking fights before?

Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about the guy that says "He doesn't like you." Not the guy that Obi disarmed.

[Velaryon]

"You will never find a more wretched hive of Scum and Villany."
*not a human in sight*

How about BoShek, the dude with the sideburns that Obi-Wan was chatting with before he met Chewie and Han?

[i,g]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/01/Bo-shek.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111029223530[/img]

Edit: And the Tonnika Sisters.

https://cantinacustoms.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/tonnika.jpg

And the bartender.

http://img.lum.dolimg.com/v1/images/wuher-main-image_883bdea2.jpeg?region=0%2C44%2C800%2C450&width=768

[Traab]

There was the mention of chewie ripping a mans arms off by Han. Now he is a known liar, but chewie was pretty clearly not denying it and that does require significant strength (Or really good leverage) As for slavery, you can make a damn good case that the galactic senate and jedi order as well as the empire all, if not approve, at least condone slavery. Or does the vast army of vat grown clones, brain washed into being loyal infantry for their army, not strike you as slavery? Their entire military is largely made out of slaves. At least the nco or lower ranking troops. That being said, its only in the eu that there is any indication that its no longer the case in the original trilogy. In fact, that the princess greets luke with "A little short for a storm trooper arent you?" implies they are still cookie cutter units for the most part

[Aeson]

There was the mention of chewie ripping a mans arms off by Han. Now he is a known liar, but chewie was pretty clearly not denying it and that does require significant strength (Or really good leverage)
Han said that wookiees are known to pull people's arms out of their sockets. I understand this to mean dislocate their shoulders, not rip their arms off.


As for slavery, you can make a damn good case that the galactic senate and jedi order as well as the empire all, if not approve, at least condone slavery. Or does the vast army of vat grown clones, brain washed into being loyal infantry for their army, not strike you as slavery? Their entire military is largely made out of slaves. At least the nco or lower ranking troops.
There is no good reason, other than perhaps public opinion, for the Empire to have continued the clone army program. Modern armies can train infantrymen in perhaps a couple of months and specialists within about a year; the clones in the prequel trilogy take about ten years. The only justifications for the clone army of the prequel trilogy are those of secrecy (Palpatine cannot openly raise an army without the Senate's approval) and the need for a force that will not question the order to kill off the Jedi commanders and has a reasonable chance of doing so successfully.

Also, so far as the slavery of the clone army goes, I see no reason to believe that the Rebellion would handle a clone army any differently than the Republic did. They certainly don't seem to handle the enslavement of droids any differently than the Empire and the Republic did, and there's really not that much difference between a sentient, sapient being who comes off an assembly line and one who comes out of a cloning vat. Both are artificially-created beings which can be nearly identical to millions of other artificially-created beings; that one is 'just' a very advanced computer whereas the other is genetically human should not matter. Given the behavior seen in C3PO and R2D2, it is rather likely that it would be difficult or impossible to distinguish between droids and people in a scenario where neither is visible.

There is no evidence within the movies that the Rebellion holds a different position from the Empire on any question of civil rights aside from the right to elect the top government officials.


In fact, that the princess greets luke with "A little short for a storm trooper arent you?" implies they are still cookie cutter units for the most part
There is visibly some variation in the heights of the stormtroopers seen in the original trilogy. It is much more likely that there is simply a minimum height requirement and that Luke is either below it or a little on the short side but not necessarily outside of the range accepted. Height requirements are not exactly unheard of even in the real world, and the fewer sizes of armor you need to stock, the easier it is to procure it and ensure that every unit has enough of it. The Empire has a sufficiently large recruitment pool that if it wants to reject all potential stormtroopers who are less than, say, 5'10" (1.78m) tall, it can likely do so without significant adverse effects on the number of troops it can field, and if that makes a difference to how many variations on stormtrooper armor the Empire needs to stock or to how expensive an individual suit of armor is, they may very well do it.

[Traab]

Han said that wookiees are known to pull people's arms out of their sockets. I understand this to mean dislocate their shoulders, not rip their arms off.


There is no good reason, other than perhaps public opinion, for the Empire to have continued the clone army program. Modern armies can train infantrymen in perhaps a couple of months and specialists within about a year; the clones in the prequel trilogy take about ten years. The only justifications for the clone army of the prequel trilogy are those of secrecy (Palpatine cannot openly raise an army without the Senate's approval) and the need for a force that will not question the order to kill off the Jedi commanders and has a reasonable chance of doing so successfully.

Also, so far as the slavery of the clone army goes, I see no reason to believe that the Rebellion would handle a clone army any differently than the Republic did. They certainly don't seem to handle the enslavement of droids any differently than the Empire and the Republic did, and there's really not that much difference between a sentient, sapient being who comes off an assembly line and one who comes out of a cloning vat. Both are artificially-created beings which can be nearly identical to millions of other artificially-created beings; that one is 'just' a very advanced computer whereas the other is genetically human should not matter. Given the behavior seen in C3PO and R2D2, it is rather likely that it would be difficult or impossible to distinguish between droids and people in a scenario where neither is visible.

There is no evidence within the movies that the Rebellion holds a different position from the Empire on any question of civil rights aside from the right to elect the top government officials.


There is visibly some variation in the heights of the stormtroopers seen in the original trilogy. It is much more likely that there is simply a minimum height requirement and that Luke is either below it or a little on the short side but not necessarily outside of the range accepted. Height requirements are not exactly unheard of even in the real world, and the fewer sizes of armor you need to stock, the easier it is to procure it and ensure that every unit has enough of it. The Empire has a sufficiently large recruitment pool that if it wants to reject all potential stormtroopers who are less than, say, 5'10" (1.78m) tall, it can likely do so without significant adverse effects on the number of troops it can field, and if that makes a difference to how many variations on stormtrooper armor the Empire needs to stock or to how expensive an individual suit of armor is, they may very well do it.

Yes, the clones take ten years, but they can also be constantly produced in batches so the reinforcements keep coming. Why waste the lives of "your people" when you can use the clone army to do all the fighting and dying for you? As for the rebellion, you are right there, thats why I pointed out the galactic senate AND the jedi order all were willing to use this army of brainwashed clones. Maybe not all the jedi were happy about it, but that didnt stop them from leading them in battle. That doesnt change the fact that the empire/republic used an army of slaves to fight and die for it.

As for your gear statements, how much more does that apply for only needing a single size of each set of armor? Thats way cheaper. As for there being size differences in the troopers. Well yeah, its not like they could use cgi to create an army of identical troops. But they were all setup the same way as the clone troops were in the prequels gear wise, and we never see them without their helmets, so there is no reason to assume the emperor stopped using brainwashed slaves for his grunts and just populated the officer ranks with actual citizens instead. It makes sense on so many levels.

Here is one for the pr aspect. If the only people dying are (mostly) clones, who will complain about death tolls? You wont have planets full of grieving mothers and angry fathers who lost their only son stirring up resentment against you. It makes sure they wont care about the rebellion or the ongoing wars because unless it happens on their world it doesnt effect them in any way. And since its not like the clones are really people, who cares the last battle cost the empire 500k troops? Just squirt out another batch of identical replacements and keep going.

[Mando Knight]

In fact, that the princess greets luke with "A little short for a storm trooper arent you?" implies they are still cookie cutter units for the most part

She also has a ludicrously sharp tongue for a prisoner slated for execution by an oppressive militaristic regime. The height crack was likely as much about trying to get her supposed captor riled up as it was an actual observation about Luke being shorter than the average Imperial goon.

[Aeson]

As for your gear statements, how much more does that apply for only needing a single size of each set of armor? Thats way cheaper. As for there being size differences in the troopers.
You do not need completely identical people to outfit all of them with the same size gear. How many shirts do you own whose size is "medium" (or any other generic size term)? Sealed environmental suits and good armor probably require tighter tolerances than your average T-shirt does, but as long as the body size and shape is sufficiently similar, one size of bodysuit and a bit of play in the adjustment straps on the armor, which you'd need even with completely identical clones, will cover everyone who you accept.


Yes, the clones take ten years, but they can also be constantly produced in batches so the reinforcements keep coming.
That only works if you can predict the number of clones you'll need 10 years into the future. If you need to increase the size of the military or if you need more replacements than you budgeted for, you're back on conscripts and volunteers; if you need to cut the size of the military, you've got all of these people who have no rights and were never trained for civilian life that you need to deal with.


Here is one for the pr aspect. If the only people dying are (mostly) clones, who will complain about death tolls? You wont have planets full of grieving mothers and angry fathers who lost their only son stirring up resentment against you. It makes sure they wont care about the rebellion or the ongoing wars because unless it happens on their world it doesnt effect them in any way. And since its not like the clones are really people, who cares the last battle cost the empire 500k troops? Just squirt out another batch of identical replacements and keep going.
It also prevents the Empire from drumming up popular sentiment against the Rebellion by putting a spotlight on the families who have lost relatives to those murderers and terrorists who keep attacking Imperial government and military facilities. Conscription may not be the most popular thing, but, especially if the Empire can claim that it's only necessary because of the troublemakers who keep attacking Imperial government and military installations, it also won't necessarily hurt the Empire's PR campaign. If the Empire uses a volunteer army (and the only information provided within the movies related to Imperial military recruitment policy suggests that applications to an academy are required for at least a portion of it), well, very few people are going to be happy about losing a relative, but it's a risk that a person who volunteers has chosen to accept.

Also, "just squirt out another batch of 500,000 troops?" And have them arrive when? Ten years from now? How useful. If you need to replace 500,000 troops due to battle losses and the only recruitment pool you have is a cloning process that takes ten years, you needed to know you'd lose those 500,000 troops ten years ago when you ordered the batch of clones that becomes ready next.

A clone army might be something you can use to get the nominal force strength, but when you're looking at ten years maturation time per batch, you cannot reasonably maintain force strength in a war using only clone forces. You might be able to 'rob the cradle' and take some of the next batches early, but this isn't sustainable in the long run and you're looking at roughly ten years before any increases in batch size that you might make can come into effect, by which time you may very well no longer have any need for the increased numbers. Something similar is true for nonclone forces, but the lag time is significantly shorter, and, unlike with clones, there's usually older people who can be brought into the service in addition to younger people. The 30-60 year olds might not be the preferred recruitment/conscription pool, but at least they exist in fairly large numbers and not all of them are that far past their physical prime. With the slave-soldier clone army model, it is very likely that the clones serve until they die or are so crippled by age and injury as to be no longer useful. There is no pool of veterans or of nonmilitary clones from whom you can pull replacement forces should you require more new forces this year than you budgeted for when you ordered the batch of clones that matures next. In a society where military service is not generally a lifelong career, though, such a pool does exist.

[Traab]

I think the problem here is the scale. You are thinking on terms of a nations army, whereas this is a galactic empire. They can afford to overbuild for the future when it comes to clone troops. There is always a nice backwater station to post a garrison on, or to increase the size of a troop concentration temporarily, then transfer them out as needed to the front lines. These guys are interchangeable lego blocks. They fit anywhere the empire needs warm bodies, so it doesnt matter if they spend 6 months to 6 years in the swamp of bumblefunk nowhere then get rushed out to the front lines to make good on troop losses.

There is also no reason why, if troops numbers rise too high, they cant just throw some away at a hard target or with less planning to inflate the losses and still complete the objective. Either way, they have slack to work with. I used to do it all the time in my turn based war games. My troop totals get too high to sustain with my tax rate? Throw a large army into a war of expansion until they die or I now control enough territory to turn a profit again. Meanwhile my garrisons are still producing troops and keeping my territory safe, these are the extras, the spillovers that are more than I can fit in the castle. So even if they all die and the enemy tries to counter, im still strongly defended.

[Aeson]

I do not think we disagree (much) on the magnitude of the forces available to the Empire1; I think we disagree on the magnitude of the Empire's commitments. The Empire's resources are massive, yes; it has more or less an entire galaxy to pull from. The Empire's commitments, however, are equally massive; it has more or less an entire galaxy to defend, and it's fighting a war against a guerilla organization that can strike more or less anywhere in the galaxy within a few hours or maybe days of leaving its secret bases. The Empire has to be strong more or less everywhere, and has relatively little opportunity to employ its strength; the Rebellion merely needs to find weak points and exploit them, and then exploit any weak points that emerge as a result of force reallocation to make up losses, and continue doing so and wearing down the Empire's forces, and with a clone army having a ten-year lag in its ability to alter the rate at which new forces become available, attrition becomes a rather concerning issue for an Empire reliant on clone military forces once the Alliance to Restore the Republic or other rebellious, insurrectionist, criminal, or piratical groups become active enough.

I think we also disagree on the likelihood that an engagement that costs a single side half a million casualties is a relatively isolated event. A military force large enough to inflict half a million casualties on its opponent in a single engagement is unlikely to just give up and go home after only one such engagement, particularly if the force emerged victorious from that engagement, except perhaps if the Empire and the leaders of the uprising are willing to negotiate with one another. Moreover, the Empire has such a significant advantage in resources that any single planet, or even a ~small coalition of worlds, is unlikely to be able to resist a determined effort by the Empire indefinitely, if the Empire is free to commit as many resources as necessary. It is therefore likely in my opinion that single engagements which cost the Empire half a million casualties are part of a larger war - something like the Clone Wars, perhaps, or the wars which presumably occur after the Battle of Endor and establish the New Republic as a reasonably powerful successor state to the Empire (although given how little impact the New Republic has on anything in the new movie, one could argue that the New Republic is just another minor power, at best, in the new canon); responsible leaders do not generally enter into wars that they know that they cannot win. This doesn't mean that such an engagement cannot be a relatively isolated event, but I really don't see it as likely for such to be the case.

1I would nevertheless dispute the assertion that the Empire has enough resources that it can really afford to pack off any significant number of troops to backwater garrisons. The resources of a galaxy-spanning empire are massive, not infinite, and a galaxy-spanning empire's military forces have a galaxy's worth of potential targets to protect. Ships in Star Wars are extremely fast on the strategic level relative to the size of the galaxy, and a small, highly-mobile force that doesn't have any significant locations that it absolutely must protect can cause enormous issues for a much larger force that is tied to locations which need to be defended, in part due to the sheer size of the forces which must be committed to protecting those locations adequately against a hit-and-run raid. There's also the possibility of there being a darker side of the Rebellion and other rebelling groups than the more or less military organization shown within the original trilogy, and even if there isn't there are certainly criminal organizations with which the Empire could (and in the EU occasionally has) come into conflict, organizations which might not have the same disdain for bombing a civilian spaceport terminal, and the demand for public security to deal with these kinds of attacks would place a further strain on the Empire's resources, potentially well beyond that imposed by needing to defend actual military targets.


I used to do it all the time in my turn based war games. My troop totals get too high to sustain with my tax rate? Throw a large army into a war of expansion until they die or I now control enough territory to turn a profit again. Meanwhile my garrisons are still producing troops and keeping my territory safe, these are the extras, the spillovers that are more than I can fit in the castle. So even if they all die and the enemy tries to counter, im still strongly defended.
You're seriously bringing games that allow that kind of military power into this debate? I mean, if we want, we can have a pissing contest over who's better at Risk or Civilization or whatever, but games that allow you to have sizable garrison armies everywhere and sufficient available forces to throw into wars of expansion where you're more or less unconcerned about the losses sustained and the success of the war hardly qualify as solid support for the case you're trying to make.

[Hopeless]

Look I know you've given a lot of thought about this, but you need to remember George Lucas never planned to make the prequels when he began work on the Original Trilogy.

Once it proved that successful instead of maintaining the level of caution he had available during the OT he instead decided to ignore the best part of the OT the fact he had someone to point out the flaws in the mess we call the PT.

Even the Clone Wars animated series was also effected when as a prequel to ROTS he got the creator of Samurai Jack to demonstrate what he can do and then George eventually tried to do better than that only managing to provide a better explanation for Anakin's downfall than the PT ever managed!

Now back to the basics, the Republic apparently stood for a thousand generations, clearly it had problems but its chief rival the Sith instead of rebuilding their ranks rebuilt their forces by establishing a clone army that took decades in advance to build before the Jedi stumbled onto them and they were used against the Separatist Droid army which was never intended to be the mainstay of an army just a diversion to weaken the Republic enough for the Sith to assume control of their overwhelming clone armies and literally wiping out all opposition.

Palpatine having worked his way up to the role of Supreme Chancellor simply by arranging the fake invasion of his home world and using the accumulated good will of the Republic to pave his way to the position he needed to help arrange the resulting fake war so he could whittle down the Jedi by waging battles between both forces he was commanding.

He went through apprentices as a result of needing someone to use as a catspaw, but at the moment he was unveiled as the true villain the only remaining Jedi made the mistake of not openly revealing his guilt and confronted him in such a way that he could make it look like the Jedi were the bad guys.

As far as the racism goes, please remember the Core Worlds didn't consist of only humans.
The only characters we saw as human was more because they didn't have the means to show humanity wasn't as omnipresent as you're suggesting.

Its entirely possible there are entire brigades of storm troopers and TIE pilots who aren't human but because of their protective armour and helmets we have no idea they're not human.

The racism you're referring to was more shown by those raised in the Core and how they look upon those outside of the Core especially after the Clone Wars that blackened the reputations of countless worlds and their inhabitants just so the surviving Sith could assume control of their Empire!

[hamishspence]

Han said that wookiees are known to pull people's arms out of their sockets. I understand this to mean dislocate their shoulders, not rip their arms off.


Newcanon (specifically, the TFA novelization - which unlike past novelizations is not considered Legends) - has Unkar Plutt lose an arm to Chewie - in a bonus scene:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unkar_Plutt

[Traab]

I actually think the wargame comparison is apt, considering we are talking about both a sith lord that really doesnt care who lives or dies so long as he wins, and the fact that he has a mass produced army that is effectively droids that happen to bleed for all the give a darn people have for them. He has his troop producing factories constantly cranking out new units, if he has too many because the resistance has been quiet for awhile he has places he can send them to keep them out from under foot, and if he ever has to he can manufacture an excuse to send a large number away to keep them from being a drain on resources while leaving behind the needed troops for a garrison wherever they are. He isnt leaving a weakness, he is reducing the troop concentration down to a normal level for protecting the area and sending the excess off to go die somewhere.

Also keep in mind the mentality of palpatine. He uses manufactured war to gain and maintain power all the time. We even see it in the original trilogy with his death star and blowing up of alderan. He knows exactly what that act will cause, and it sure as hell isnt going to be peace. So what if the rebels have a few victories? It just means he can seize more control and power for himself "to deal with the threat" And because he has planned for this, he isnt exactly hurting for troops at any point as he can shuffle excess around to wherever he needs them in the empire.

[Wardog]

The Empire are literally Nazis. Like, they are specifically inspired on the Nazis, by word of Lucas, down to the uniforms. He's on record saying he wanted the Palpatine coming to power thing in Episode 3 to be a direct Hitler reference. To which then you add the human bias we see, and, gee, I WONDER why people might think these guys may be racist.

The Empire dress like Nazis.

But I'm not oware of any overt Nazi-like ideology displayed or hinted at in the original trilogy - or in the prequals either, even if Palpatine's rise was meant to mirror Hitler's. (And according to Wookipedia, the EU references to Human High Culture and anti non-HuMan prejudice predate Phantom Menace, so that can't really be a justification for what the EU did).

For the most part, they just behave like a generic tyranical dictatorship, who'll shove people around, and kill anyone (and their family, and possibly even their whole planet) that crosses them. They don't seem to have any particularly ideological basis, until you get to the Sith themselves - and they don't seem to care about such petty things anyway.


In any case, I'm not arguing that people wouldn't have prejudices. We know that prejudice (and general jerkish behaviour) does exist in the SW universe, including among the Rebels, the Empire, and the general population. (And its reasonable to assume that it is worse in the Empire, because bullies will gravitate to and take advantage of positions of power).

It's also possible that there is some sort of institutional discrimination in favour of humans (if you go for a Watsonian rather than Doylist explanation for why all the officers are human males).

What I'm disputing is that there is any evidence in the films for the idea that ideological prejudice is not only prevelant, but a fundamental underpinning value of the Empire. (And suggesting that the EU's invention of such is an unecessary and silly deviation into cartoonish villainy, compared to the original presentation of pragmatic ruthlessness in the persuit of power).

[Foeofthelance]

The Empire dress like Nazis.

But I'm not oware of any overt Nazi-like ideology displayed or hinted at in the original trilogy - or in the prequals either, even if Palpatine's rise was meant to mirror Hitler's. (And according to Wookipedia, the EU references to Human High Culture and anti non-HuMan prejudice predate Phantom Menace, so that can't really be a justification for what the EU did).



Stated? No. Hinted at?

Look at every scene in the original trilogy. The scenes on Tatooine, Cloud City, Yavin 4, and any scene on a rebel capital ship or base. What do you see? Lots and lots and lots of aliens. Not so much that they outnumber the humans, at least not until cheap CG made them more available for the prequels, but usually enough to fill out any crowd scene. Even the occasional woman in the form of Leia and Mon Mothma.

Now let's look at any scene taking place on an Imperial base or ship. There are humans, some more humans, and then, just for extra flavor, even more humans. They even lack the number of droids that the Rebellion and everyone else seems to use. Now think about something the size of the Death Star or the number of crew on a Star Destroyer, and it becomes quickly evident that even if you're not told they actively anti-everyone else, you definitely get shown it.

[dancrilis]

You are assuming that Stormtroopers are all human - the movies don't tell us that, and we do see some human like aliens in them.

Also when hiring non-human bounty hunters nobody says 'non-human filth' the only negative comment is on hiring contractors not on the grounds of species.

If you want you can imagine a racially charged time in history and slot in some racially oppressed groups into the bounty hunters position - chances our your scene plays out with reference to race rather than profession.

[Legato Endless]

You are assuming that Stormtroopers are all human - the movies don't tell us that, and we do see some human like aliens in them.

Also when hiring non-human bounty hunters nobody says 'non-human filth' the only negative comment is on hiring contractors not on the grounds of species.

If we're shown nothing but humans in every other Imperial rank, the reasonable assumption is there aren't any aliens hiding under the Troopers' masks. But let's say this is the case, this leaves us with the following.

So the Empire's entire visible command structure is human, every person of any real rank, but they may have aliens filling out their cannon fodder infantry and pilots. That still doesn't send any alarm bells?

[Aeson]

Also when hiring non-human bounty hunters nobody says 'non-human filth' the only negative comment is on hiring contractors not on the grounds of species.
I'd suspect that the comment "bounty hunters ... We don't need their scum" had less to do with the fact that they're contractors than with the fact that bounty hunting is probably at best a borderline-legal profession full of people who use borderline-legal means to bring in their quarries and commonly associate with criminals even if they themselves are not, and, given that Vader felt the need to explicitly warn one of them against disintegrating people, I'd wager that at least one of them has a reputation for a certain disregard for the condition of their quarry and perhaps also a lack of concern about collateral damage. Boba Fett may be the EU's poster boy for superstar bounty hunters who do no more than what the job requires, but the fact that Vader feels the need to single Fett out in The Empire Strikes Back when he said that there were to be no disintegrations when capturing the Millenium Falcon and its crew suggests otherwise.


The scenes on Tatooine, Cloud City, Yavin 4, and any scene on a rebel capital ship or base. What do you see? Lots and lots and lots of aliens.
I recall seeing exactly one nonhuman at the Rebel bases on Yavin IV and Hoth in the movies - Chewbacca. Moreover, as far as I can tell from the movies, the only reason that Chewbacca is there at all is because Chewbacca is Han's copilot, and maybe also bodyguard.

Tatooine and Cloud City have a bunch of aliens, true, but I notice that a lot of the aliens on Tatooine and Cloud City have body forms, body sizes, grasping appendages, or eye placements that would cause difficulty at the very least when trying to develop equipment for use by all those kinds of aliens and humans. The ergonomics of a console designed for a 3' tall ugnaught are not going to be good for a 6' tall human, nor will the ergonomics of a display designed for someone with eyes arranged like a squid's be all that good for someone with eyes arranged like a human.

Regarding Rebel species integration: Home One, the only Rebel capital ship for which we can get a good idea of the crew composition, appears to have an almost-exclusively Mon Calamari crew. Aside from one Sullustan who, given that he ends up as General Calrissian's sensor officer rather than in a starfighter, may well be Lando's adjutant rather than a pilot, there are exactly zero nonhuman Rebel starfighter pilots that I can recall seeing in Return of the Jedi, whether you count only those you see actually piloting a starfighter or include anyone who looks like they're wearing a pilot's uniform. There are no nonhuman pilots (or indeed any Rebel-affiliated nonhumans aside from Chewbacca) visible in either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. Chewbacca is the only nonhuman I can see in the Rebel force that infiltrates the Sanctuary Moon. At the briefing prior to Endor, the sum total of nonhumans other than Mon Calamari who can be seen are one guy who might be a Bothan (visible in the background as the camera follows two Rebel officers into the briefing room), the Sullustan in a pilot's uniform who serves as the sensor officer on the Millenium Falcon and may be Lando's adjutant, and two nonhumans of a species that I cannot identify (visible behind and to the right of Mon Mothma's head when she introduces Admiral Ackbar); if the short hooded guy is not human, then that's one more, but he's not recognizably nonhuman to me. Adding in the Mon Calamari only gets you another six nonhumans by my count, despite the ship being a Mon Calamari vessel with, to appearances, a largely or exclusively Mon Calamari crew. To appearances, standard Rebellion doctrine segregates species by unit; the only visible exceptions are Lando and his Sullustan sensor officer, and Han and his partner Chewbacca.

We only see the command crews of maybe three Star Destroyers and Executor, and a handful of personnel of reasonably identifiable species on the two Death Stars and in the garrison force on the sanctuary moon. We also know that the Rebellion, which some in this thread seem inclined to argue is a paragon of species integration, appears to segregate species by unit. If we're being at all reasonable, we also acknowledge that there are practical issues involved in having multiple species with differing grasping appendages, fields of view, body shapes and sizes, etc use the same equipment or be served by the same medical and supply units. The case that the Empire discriminates against nonhumans based upon what can be seen in the movies is extremely tenuous.

The case that the Rebellion, which in the movies has no nonhuman personnel aside from Chewbacca (whose affiliation appears to be more strongly with Han than with the Rebellion, and who does not, as far as I can tell, ever hold any sort of official position within the Rebellion in the movies, unlike Han) until Return of the Jedi, has an anti-nonhuman bias is only contradicted by the presence of a few nonhumans at the briefing for the Endor mission and in the fleet that goes to Endor in Return of the Jedi - which is after the Rebellion has suffered the latest in a string of defeats driving them out of their bases. The alien species with the greatest representation at Endor also appears to have brought all of the heavy ships that were in the Rebel fleet that went to Endor, and presumably also provided the crews for them. Given Vader's comment about where a Rebel fleet is massing, the Sullustans appear to have provided some form of logistical support or base facilities to the Rebellion, and one turns up at the briefing in a pilot's uniform and appears to be Lando's sensor officer or perhaps adjutant. There's a background character who may be Bothan at the briefing; we are told that large numbers of Bothans gave their lives to secure the intelligence upon which the Endor mission is being based. Hmm, there seems to be a bit of a pattern to the nonhuman representation here. You can make about as strong a case for a Rebellion biased against nonhumans as you can for an Empire biased against nonhumans, just going by what's in the movies.

Regarding the criticism about gender equality: Aside from Leia, Mon Mothma, and two of the background officers at the briefing before Endor (who, given that they are not wearing uniforms or rank insignia of a style recognizably similar to that of the male human Rebel officers or to what Leia is wearing and instead are wearing something closer to what Mon Mothma is wearing, might very well be political rather than military figures), do we actually see any women in Rebel service? I don't recall any. I would further add that at the time that the original trilogy was made, a large number of real-world militaries did not permit women to serve in front line roles - no female combat infantrymen or tank drivers or fighter pilots, and no women sailors on front line warships. Yes, it's a bit sexist to forbid women from serving in such roles, but it's a crime of which the real world was equally guilty at the time the movies were made, and remains guilty of to some degree today. It's also plausible that the Rebellion and the Empire do not permit men and women to serve in the same unit if affording separate facilities for the men and women of the unit has a relatively high opportunity cost or if the men and women will be serving together in enforced close quarters with little privacy for prolonged periods of time; the US Navy, last I heard, did not permit male and female enlisted sailors to serve together on submarines for reasons more or less of this nature. Sexist it may be, but the real world doesn't have any significant degree of moral high ground in this regard.

One last thing - The prequel trilogy introduced at least one species of nonhuman who can be virtually indistinguishable from humans, at least by appearance, so we could very easily question the certainty with which we can say that everyone that we see who looks human actually is human.


So the Empire's entire visible command structure is human
The entirety of the visible Imperial command structure consists of Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, the Emperor, a handful of advisors, and a handful of personnel on a few Star Destroyers, the two Death Stars, and a single small garrison base. Any rational person can see that there are pragmatic reasons to segregate units by species; if you'd like to argue otherwise, let's hear how you'd make equipment suitable for 7' tall Wookiees and 3' tall ugnaughts and everyone in between, and for people with fields of view similar to a Mon Calamari's while remaining suitable for people with a field of view similar to a human, and for people with grasping appendages similar to those of a human while at the same time being suitable for grasping appendages like a Trandoshan's or Yoda's or the bug-like bounty hunter in The Empire Strikes Back. Try getting people who don't speak the same language to work together effectively, and then imagine how much worse it is when not only do they not speak the same language but they're also unable to distinguish the same kinds of sounds, or don't hear in the same frequency range, or see in the same part of the spectrum. Try providing proper food, drink, medical supplies and expertise, reasonably comfortable living quarters and environments, etc to people with extremely different, potentially contradictory, needs.

There are very good reasons for species-based segregation within military units. Even the Rebellion, the supposed (relative) paragon of species integration, does it, despite the probability that the Rebellion is far more short of personnel than the Empire is and thus has much stronger reasons to pay the costs associated with multi-species units.

[BlueHerring]

Boba Fett may be the EU's poster boy for superstar bounty hunters who do no more than what the job requires, but the fact that Vader feels the need to single Fett out in The Empire Strikes Back when he said that there were to be no disintegrations when capturing the Millenium Falcon and its crew suggests otherwise.I always felt that Vader singles out Fett for the no disintegrations bit because Fett might have disintegrated someone on a prior job that had been brought up to Vader's attention.

Like, say, on a certain moisture farm on Tatooine.

[hamishspence]

Regarding the criticism about gender equality: Aside from Leia, Mon Mothma, and two of the background officers at the briefing before Endor (who, given that they are not wearing uniforms or rank insignia of a style recognizably similar to that of the male human Rebel officers or to what Leia is wearing and instead are wearing something closer to what Mon Mothma is wearing, might very well be political rather than military figures), do we actually see any women in Rebel service? I don't recall any.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Toryn_Farr

Also, women were cast as Rebel starfighter pilots - but their scenes were sometimes cut, or their voices overdubbed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sila_Kott

http://www.flickfilosopher.com/2012/12/question-of-the-day-why-do-you-think-three-female-rebel-pilots-were-cut-from-return-of-the-jedi.html


Aside from one Sullustan who, given that he ends up as General Calrissian's sensor officer rather than in a starfighter, may well be Lando's adjutant rather than a pilot, there are exactly zero nonhuman Rebel starfighter pilots that I can recall seeing in Return of the Jedi, whether you count only those you see actually piloting a starfighter or include anyone who looks like they're wearing a pilot's uniform.

Nien Nunb isn't just Lando's sensor officer - he's Lando's co-pilot:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nien_Nunb

[Traab]

I always felt that Vader singles out Fett for the no disintegrations bit because Fett might have disintegrated someone on a prior job that had been brought up to Vader's attention.

Like, say, on a certain moisture farm on Tatooine.

No, those were stormtroopers who did that. Remember? Obiwan pointed out that while they tried to damage the jawa vehicle in a way that suggested sand people but were marching in stormtrooper formation. They werent using bounty hunters at that stage of the film. There was no need considering they had an imperial cruiser in orbit with probably thousands of troops available to scour the planets surface looking for droids.

[Legato Endless]

We only see the command crews of maybe three Star Destroyers and Executor, and a handful of personnel of reasonably identifiable species on the two Death Stars and in the garrison force on the sanctuary moon.

That sounds like a pretty big sample size in a communication medium that's predicated on abstraction to communicate ideas.


If we're being at all reasonable, we also acknowledge that there are practical issues involved in having multiple species with differing grasping appendages, fields of view, body shapes and sizes, etc use the same equipment or be served by the same medical and supply units.

Except for all the humanoids that do interact seemingly effortlessly in human friendly environments and equipment. And the near humans to whom that argument doesn't apply at all.


Any rational person can see that there are pragmatic reasons to segregate units by species; if you'd like to argue otherwise, let's hear how you'd make equipment suitable for 7' tall Wookiees and 3' tall ugnaughts and everyone in between

The fact that some alien species would require such consideration doesn't answer why a vast galactic spanning organization pulls from just humans when there's a substantial sect of people that aren't functionally different. That's not practicality.


Try getting people who don't speak the same language to work together effectively, and then imagine how much worse it is when not only do they not speak the same language but they're also unable to distinguish the same kinds of sounds, or don't hear in the same frequency range, or see in the same part of the spectrum. Try providing proper food, drink, medical supplies and expertise, reasonably comfortable living quarters and environments, etc to people with extremely different, potentially contradictory, needs.

Except you wouldn't need to. You'd just recruit people who were all functionally fluent. Because you live in a market that naturally provides massive amount of personal of various species who already have those skills. Segregation doesn't make sense, because your argument presumes this takes place in a vacuum. It doesn't. It takes place in a wildly heterogeneous environment, from the heavily civilized areas as shown in the Prequels to even the hinterlands of the OT. The creation of a massive homogenous peacekeeping force in that setting is more expensive, not less.


The case that the Empire discriminates against nonhumans based upon what can be seen in the movies is extremely tenuous.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/e/ea/Shann_Childsen_HS.png/revision/latest?cb=20130318060641

"Where are you taking this… thing?"

Officer Childsen nobly demonstrates Imperial practicality in acknowledging the walking rug at all.

In a story of the films, this is a generic Imperial Officer. In his only characterization scene he communicates pretty transparent bigotry. If your argument is that he's some kind of strange outlier as Darth Credence does, go ahead, but that requires you to ignore the prevailing stylistic conventions upon which the Trilogy is told. The line was written for a reason, and it being a display of non normative behavior is fairly baffling for inclusion.

[Aeson]

"Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?" - Princess Leia.

"He's only a wookiee, after all." - C3PO, to Lando Calrissian after Chewie spends a bit of time strangling him.

The Empire does not have a monopoly on speciesist comments. Nor, for that matter, are the majority of the speciesist comments in the movies made by Imperial personnel. Furthermore, a single speciesist comment by a single person in a very large organization does not damn the whole group.


That sounds like a pretty big sample size in a communication medium that's predicated on abstraction to communicate ideas.
It sounds like a pitifully small sample set to go by when you consider that either one of the Death Stars is sufficiently large that it likely took a construction effort equivalent to building thousands of Star Destroyers, if not more. It sounds like a pitifully small sample set when you consider that a galaxy-spanning state probably has many orders of magnitude more ships than were present at Endor. It sounds like a pitifully small sample set when you realize that species segregation makes sense from logistical, medical, and ergonomic perspectives unless you're too short of personnel to do otherwise, especially if you then notice that all of the Star Destroyer crews that we see parts of belong to Vader's squadron.

And as far as the argument about the medium goes: There are limits to how far the budget will go. Putting a bunch of actors in relatively normal clothing is cheaper than putting them in distinctly alien costumes and rubber masks. They already spent a fair bit on putting background characters into alien costumes for Cloud City and Mos Eisley and Jabba the Hutt's palace. They spent a fair bit more on putting people in teddy bear and squid alien costumes for the Endor sequences. We see the Rebel side of things a fair bit more than we see the Imperial side. Species-based segregation in military units makes logical sense, and the Rebellion, which should logically be far more short of manpower than the Empire, can more easily be argued to have enough of a personnel shortage that they'll mix species.


The fact that some alien species would require such consideration doesn't answer why a vast galactic spanning organization pulls from just humans when there's a substantial sect of people that aren't functionally different. That's not practicality.
We see an insignificant fraction of the Empire's total military forces. We see an even less significant fraction of the Empire's civil government. We can recognize that there are pragmatic reasons not to have multiple species in the same unit, because even if the only difference between a human and a (random alien species) is that the (random alien species) keeps its heart where a human's liver would be, you have a problem.

It is entirely pragmatic to segregate species within a military organization unless you're so short of personnel that you cannot reasonably do so. You do not want to have to train your ship crews in first aid for fifteen different species. You do not want to have to train your medical staff for everything likely to come up for those fifteen different species. You do not want to have to stock blood plasma for fifteen different species, nor do you want to have to supply the correct medicines for them. You do not want to have to keep the ship adequately supplied when you have to look at the nutritional needs of fifteen different species. Even if you're lucky and there's no ergonomic or environmental issues causing problems with the species you're trying to integrate, you still have problems when you try to integrate species within the same unit.

The pieces we see are such an insignificant fraction of the Empire's military forces that it is entirely within reason for there to be nonhuman forces elsewhere, and, given the host of pragmatic reasons to not integrate multiple species within a single unit, it is entirely reasonable for the insignificant fraction of the Empire's forces which we do see to be all-human; they are, by and large, parts of the same units - we see parts of the crew of Vader's Star Destroyer in A New Hope, we see parts of the crews of several of the Star Destroyers in Vader's squadron in The Empire Strikes Back, we see parts of the crew of Vader's personal flagship in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. We also see the Death Stars, and given that those are probably logistical nightmares it's well within reason for the Empire to try whatever it can to simplify the logistics for those, and some of the garrison on Endor.

The Empire has the personnel to have large units be comprised of only a single species. There is very little good reason to complicate the logistical question by mixing species within the units.

[hamishspence]

And as far as the argument about the medium goes: There are limits to how far the budget will go. Putting a bunch of actors in relatively normal clothing is cheaper than putting them in distinctly alien costumes and rubber masks. They already spent a fair bit on putting background characters into alien costumes for Cloud City and Mos Eisley and Jabba the Hutt's palace. They spent a fair bit more on putting people in teddy bear and squid alien costumes for the Endor sequences.

Given that they already have the costumes - why don't we see an Imperial Twi'lek, or Gotal, or Weequay, or whatever? All they'd have to do would be have one of the Imperial officer actors use the Jabba's Palace (or ANH) headwear.

Or, if they're really lazy, just paint somebody in green or blue makeup.

The absence of alien officers in ROTJ seems to me like a conscious choice.

People were saying the same way back in 1978, of ANH:

STAR WARS: OFFICIAL POSTER MONTHLY #6

Published March 1978 by Galaxy Publications. Text writers Michael Marten, Jon Trux, John May.

http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post6-03.jpg

but about both sides.

[Traab]

The problem with that as an explanation is that there is absolutely zero evidence to back it up. All of the evidence we DO see shows the empire is 100% human run. Everyone we see working for the empire outside of bounty hunters is human. Not humanoid, not close to human, human. We dont get any hint that there are segregated troop setups where there is a force of bothans (who tend to die an awful lot) a force of wookies, a force of ewoks, a force of hutts, whatever. Any suggestion that they may exist in the empire as such is baseless speculation. Whereas the theory the empire is humanocentric if not outright racist is backed up by what we DO see and hear. When literally every single officer we see is human, every single troop that isnt wearing a full body covering, every single unit we interact with on the side of the empire is human, despite knowing there are dozens, if not hundreds or more, species in the empire aside from humans, its reasonable to draw some conclusions from that.

You talk about the difficulty in equipping alien troops, thats nonsense. There is absolutely nothing stopping their home planets from producing stormtrooper gear with holes for lekku, or eyestalks, or whatever, and shipping them to the galactic equivalent of a quartermaster for the empire. In fact, its a new source of revenue for that world to be able to produce said armor which is good for everyone. More taxable income for the empire, more profit for the planet in question, etc etc etc. So if the toydarians want to be stormtroopers they train on their home world, are equipped by their home world, and can get replacement gear sent out to wherever they happen to be stationed. No muss, little fuss.

But we dont ever see that done. Its nothing but humans from the top of the food chain all the way to the blaster fodder. The most likely explanation for never seeing an alien in the empire is they are being excluded. And the most likely reason for that isnt some confusion over equipment, as there are a half dozen races at least that are close enough to human that there would only be minor modifications at best to the armor, and none to the equipment they can use, its that the aliens arent wanted for some reason.

[hamishspence]

For a more real 'anti-alien' element from the Empire you can look at how they treat loyal and good subjects - the Geonosians, they build the Death Star and to keep it secret they approximately 100 billions of them were destroyed (in the current canon)

They did believe they were building it for the Confederacy, at the time, when they began work on the Death Star.

[Ebon_Drake]

Regarding Rebel species integration: Home One, the only Rebel capital ship for which we can get a good idea of the crew composition, appears to have an almost-exclusively Mon Calamari crew. Aside from one Sullustan who, given that he ends up as General Calrissian's sensor officer rather than in a starfighter, may well be Lando's adjutant rather than a pilot, there are exactly zero nonhuman Rebel starfighter pilots that I can recall seeing in Return of the Jedi, whether you count only those you see actually piloting a starfighter or include anyone who looks like they're wearing a pilot's uniform. There are no nonhuman pilots (or indeed any Rebel-affiliated nonhumans aside from Chewbacca) visible in either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. Chewbacca is the only nonhuman I can see in the Rebel force that infiltrates the Sanctuary Moon. At the briefing prior to Endor, the sum total of nonhumans other than Mon Calamari who can be seen are one guy who might be a Bothan (visible in the background as the camera follows two Rebel officers into the briefing room), the Sullustan in a pilot's uniform who serves as the sensor officer on the Millenium Falcon and may be Lando's adjutant, and two nonhumans of a species that I cannot identify (visible behind and to the right of Mon Mothma's head when she introduces Admiral Ackbar); if the short hooded guy is not human, then that's one more, but he's not recognizably nonhuman to me. Adding in the Mon Calamari only gets you another six nonhumans by my count, despite the ship being a Mon Calamari vessel with, to appearances, a largely or exclusively Mon Calamari crew. To appearances, standard Rebellion doctrine segregates species by unit; the only visible exceptions are Lando and his Sullustan sensor officer, and Han and his partner Chewbacca.

Nien Numb and Ten Numb (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ten_Numb) are different characters. Also, the other species visible at the briefing are Dressellians (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dressellian) and (as you can see in that link) there were three of them there including the classic character Orrimaarko, AKA Prune Face. You need to up your Star Wars trivia game, sonny.

[Aeson]

The problem with that as an explanation is that there is absolutely zero evidence to back it up.
The Rebellion appears to normally segregate units by species. Did you see any nonhuman fighter pilots aside from Lando's adjutant at Endor? I didn't. Did you see any evidence of any significant non-Mon Calamari presence in the crew of Home One? I didn't. Did you see any nonhumans other than Chewbacca at Yavin IV or Hoth or in the commando team that landed on the Sanctuary Moon? I didn't.

Hmm, the organization that you're claiming to be unbiased against nonhumans appears to segregate its military forces by species, despite its relatively small pool of trained personnel. If species-based segregation in the military arm of the organization with the smaller pool of trained personnel is reasonable, it is also reasonable for the military arm of the organization with the larger pool of trained personnel, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that the Rebellion's pool of trained personnel or its recruitment base are all that comparable in size to those of the Empire. Given the likelihood that the Empire's recruitment base and pool of trained personnel are significantly larger than those of the Rebellion, the Empire is also rather likely to be capable of segregating by species on larger units than the Rebellion can, and if there are pragmatic reasons to do so - and any rational person can see that there are pragmatic reasons to do so - there is no good reason for the Empire not to do so.

Also, you know what I do see at Endor? Evidence that the Rebellion is straining its resources to send a fleet to the battle. The Rebel fleet that goes to Endor includes several ships of the type used to evacuate Hoth, which implies that the Rebel fleet brought transports to the Battle of Endor. The briefing makes no mention of any planned ground operations aside from the commando raid on the shield generator, nor is there any clear reason why the Rebellion would attempt to land on the Sanctuary Moon after the operation outlined in the briefing even if the operation does go off successfully. Why, then, are there transports in the fleet? The obvious explanation is that the Rebellion does not have enough resources for what it intends to do without bringing the transports along. The Rebellion also brings a ship which is explicitly called a 'medical frigate' into the battle. Hospital ships are typically not sent into engagements and are instead kept somewhere relatively safe; wounded can be taken care of by the medical personnel on the warships during and in the immediate aftermath of a battle, and severely injured personnel can be transferred to the hospital ships when it's relatively safe to do so. Why is the medical frigate present at Endor with the Rebel fleet? Again, this suggests that the Rebellion lacks sufficient resources for the operation to do otherwise. Lack of sufficient resources to do otherwise is a good reason to put up with logistical, ergonomic, linguistic, training, etc headaches, especially when it is very important that the operation be undertaken, as it presumably was with the assault on the second Death Star.


Nien Numb and Ten Numb are different characters.
I'm so terribly sorry about being unable to distinguish between virtually identical characters who are never seen together or in a situation where they're clearly in two different locations simultaneously.


Also, the other species visible at the briefing are Dressellians and (as you can see in that link) there were three of them there including the classic character Orrimaarko, AKA Prune Face.
Okay, so I missed a minor background character who disappears for the rest of the movie and whose presence or absence makes very little difference to the overall composition of the briefing.

[Keltest]

The Rebellion appears to normally segregate units by species. Did you see any nonhuman fighter pilots aside from Lando's adjutant at Endor? I didn't. Did you see any evidence of any significant non-Mon Calamari presence in the crew of Home One? I didn't. Did you see any nonhumans other than Chewbacca at Yavin IV or Hoth or in the commando team that landed on the Sanctuary Moon? I didn't.

Hmm, the organization that you're claiming to be unbiased against nonhumans appears to segregate its military forces by species, despite its relatively small pool of trained personnel. If species-based segregation in the military arm of the organization with the smaller pool of trained personnel is reasonable, it is also reasonable for the military arm of the organization with the larger pool of trained personnel, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that the Rebellion's pool of trained personnel or its recruitment base are all that comparable in size to those of the Empire. Given the likelihood that the Empire's recruitment base and pool of trained personnel are significantly larger than those of the Rebellion, the Empire is also rather likely to be capable of segregating by species on larger units than the Rebellion can, and if there are pragmatic reasons to do so - and any rational person can see that there are pragmatic reasons to do so - there is no good reason for the Empire not to do so.

Also, you know what I do see at Endor? Evidence that the Rebellion is straining its resources to send a fleet to the battle. The Rebel fleet that goes to Endor includes several ships of the type used to evacuate Hoth, which implies that the Rebel fleet brought transports to the Battle of Endor. The briefing makes no mention of any planned ground operations aside from the commando raid on the shield generator, nor is there any clear reason why the Rebellion would attempt to land on the Sanctuary Moon after the operation outlined in the briefing even if the operation does go off successfully. Why, then, are there transports in the fleet? The obvious explanation is that the Rebellion does not have enough resources for what it intends to do without bringing the transports along. The Rebellion also brings a ship which is explicitly called a 'medical frigate' into the battle. Hospital ships are typically not sent into engagements and are instead kept somewhere relatively safe; wounded can be taken care of by the medical personnel on the warships during and in the immediate aftermath of a battle, and severely injured personnel can be transferred to the hospital ships when it's relatively safe to do so. Why is the medical frigate present at Endor with the Rebel fleet? Again, this suggests that the Rebellion lacks sufficient resources for the operation to do otherwise. Lack of sufficient resources to do otherwise is a good reason to put up with logistical, ergonomic, linguistic, training, etc headaches, especially when it is very important that the operation be undertaken, as it presumably was with the assault on the second Death Star.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason we see Home One crewed by Mon Calamari is because it was a pre-existing Mon Calamari ship that, along with its crew, joined the rebellion some time after the battle of yavin, and reassigning the already-experienced crew to other ships and replacing them with new people has little benefit. The rebels cant exactly just buy a ton of ships from a lot, their heavy hardware pretty much needs to be stolen or come from defectors, which means theres a significant chance that there is a pre-existing crew for said heavy cruisers.

[Aeson]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason we see Home One crewed by Mon Calamari is because it was a pre-existing Mon Calamari ship that, along with its crew, joined the rebellion some time after the battle of yavin, and reassigning the already-experienced crew to other ships and replacing them with new people has little benefit. The rebels cant exactly just buy a ton of ships from a lot, their heavy hardware pretty much needs to be stolen or come from defectors, which means theres a significant chance that there is a pre-existing crew for said heavy cruisers.
There are still no examples suggesting that multi-species units are anything like standard Rebel doctrine, even giving the Mon Calamari cruisers a pass on their all-Mon Calamari crews.

[Keltest]

There are still no examples suggesting that multi-species units are anything like standard Rebel doctrine, even giving the Mon Calamari cruisers a pass on their all-Mon Calamari crews.

The flaw in your reasoning here is assuming the rebels have a standard doctrine. While they are a relatively professional military unit for their scale, they are also a mobile force without a consistent and reliable source for medium and heavy hardware. They take what they can get and stick people where they know how to do their thing. They don't even have a proper headquarters for more than a few months at a time before theyre forced to relocate. They almost certainly aren't sending out vast squadrons of soldiers out on assault missions, anything they gained like that would just be bombarded into oblivion by the imperial fleet. As far as I remember, the only time we even see anything resembling an actual squadron beyond just a handful of pilots is at the end of ANH, where you have a bunch of soldiers in formation at the ceremony.

[Friv]

I strongly suspect that, in A New Hope, the Empire was meant to be a specifically human government - as in, not only run by humans, but entirely made up of them. It explains why all of the rebels are human, and so are all of the few civilians we see. Only on Tattooine, which is specifically a far-flung frontier world, are there non-humans around. Similarly, in Empire Strikes Back, we only see non-humans in two places - a few bounty hunters hired by Vader, who the Imperial officers react to with scorn and dismay, and a few beings on Cloud City, which is itself a remote frontier operation.

It isn't until Return of the Jedi that Lucas seems to have decided that non-humans were under the thumb of the Empire as well. At this point, various aliens were added to the Rebel meetings, and Admiral Ackbar was named as the non-human commander of the entire Rebel fleet.

So the easiest answer for why there weren't aliens in the Rebellion early on is "Lucas hadn't thought of that yet".

As far as the multi-species thing - from a Watsonian perspective, it makes sense for species to mainly group by ship. Every species has its own gravity and atmosphere preferences. While some can work together without much trouble, if you can get all of your Rodians on one ship they'll be more comfortable than if you're scattering them around. Since the only ships we actually see are Rogue Squadron, the Millenium Falcon, and Home One, and both the Falcon and Home One have non-human staff, it seems safe to assume that other Rebel capital ships at the battle of Endor were crewed by non-humans as well.

[Legato Endless]

It sounds like a pitifully small sample set to go by when you consider that either one of the Death Stars is sufficiently large that it likely took a construction effort equivalent to building thousands of Star Destroyers, if not more.

You're right, we really need an in-depth series of thousands of episodes to explore each section of the Death Star to have idea what it contains.


And as far as the argument about the medium goes: There are limits to how far the budget will go. Putting a bunch of actors in relatively normal clothing is cheaper than putting them in distinctly alien costumes and rubber masks. They already spent a fair bit on putting background characters into alien costumes for Cloud City and Mos Eisley and Jabba the Hutt's palace. They spent a fair bit more on putting people in teddy bear and squid alien costumes for the Endor sequences. We see the Rebel side of things a fair bit more than we see the Imperial side.

There are 44 Imperial characters with names in the OT. All of them are humans. All of them. That's pretty extraordinary for 6 hours in a Space Opera.

And no depicted extras in the Empire buck this trend. Yet no other major organization in the Galaxy displays this. Not the Jedi Order. Not either incarnation of the Republic. Not the Rebel Alliance, whatever bigotry they may also possess, which is kind of irrelevant to me. Not the Separatist Alliance. Not Jabba's crime family. Not even the Sith.

They are an outlier, along with say, the Trade Federation, who do work freely with other species but are pretty blatantly one race. That's not happenstance or only a product of the time. The instant Lucas was presumably able, he very conspicuously added non-humans to the Rebels. Yet the Empire remains unchanged.


We see an insignificant fraction of the Empire's total military forces.

We see enough to get an idea of who they are and what they do.


We can recognize that there are pragmatic reasons not to have multiple species in the same unit, because even if the only difference between a human and a (random alien species) is that the (random alien species) keeps its heart where a human's liver would be, you have a problem.

Except the Empire's design philosophy makes this consideration immaterial. These are the designers of the Tie Fighter. Mass quality care for their forces is not an important consideration. But even if it were...you're painting a picture of vastly divergent tech level than is depicted in Star Wars.

Bacta Tanks exist. You literally just dunk almost any species into them and they're fine. The Empire has easy access to magic healing goo, among other things.


The absence of alien officers in ROTJ seems to me like a conscious choice.

Indeed.


The problem with that as an explanation is that there is absolutely zero evidence to back it up. All of the evidence we DO see shows the empire is 100% human run. Everyone we see working for the empire outside of bounty hunters is human. Not humanoid, not close to human, human. We dont get any hint that there are segregated troop setups where there is a force of bothans (who tend to die an awful lot) a force of wookies, a force of ewoks, a force of hutts, whatever.

Did you know Sauron almost certainly had Elves allied him in The Lord of the Rings? It's pretty inevitable they ALL couldn't have opposed his industrial efforts. I mean we never seen the Northern theaters of the war depicted, how could we know for sure they all fought against him?

[Wardog]

Did you know Sauron almost certainly had Elves allied him in The Lord of the Rings? It's pretty inevitable they ALL couldn't have opposed his industrial efforts. I mean we never seen the Northern theaters of the war depicted, how could we know for sure they all fought against him?

I know that's blue, but I'll address that anyway: its explicitly stated in LotR (the books at least) that elves universally hate Sauron for what he's done to them in the past and will never again be taken in by him again. (When I first read LotR, I interpreted this as a sign of the Elves inherent goodness. After reading the Silmarilion, I realised it could involve an equal amount of ''We hates it! We hates it forever!'' style peevishnss about being conned).


Anyway, back to Star Wars:

According to Wookipedia, human were the most numerous sapient species in the galaxy. (It doesn't say whether this was a majority or just a plurality).

Either way, it is highly likely that the the political and command structure will become dominted by humans. An as I said earlier, I quite accept that this may either lead to or be a sign of institutional discrimination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism) against non-humans - even if their isn't any overt prejudice. (And this goes for the Rebublic and the Rebellion, as well as the Empire).

We also see isolated examples of individual acts of prejudice (by members of both the Empire and the Rebellion - and at least hinted at in the Republic, with the attitude of the Naboo human towards the Gungans).

But I still consider that in the films there is no evidence of overt, ideological prejudice or hatred against non-humans (or women).

At no point does anyone in the Empire dismiss the the Rebellion as ''A bunch of aliens and alien-lovers''. At no point does anyone in the Empire suggest the Rebellion is doomed because they let women have positions of authority. At no point is any attrocity carried justified on the grounds that its only aliens being killed.

Not even in the prequals, where non-humans are far more numerous, the Republic/Empire was starting to dress in Nazi fashions (and the EU had already come up with the idea of ideological prejudice being a fundamental part of Imperial ideology), and so where it would be the perfect time to make such ideological prejudice explicit if it was actually supposed to be a thing.

[hamishspence]

30 years on, we see the Resistance with alien pilots (Nien Nunb again, and Ello Asty) and on the Resistance base, we see plenty of alien personnel. We don't see that with the First Order (the Empire's successor).

[Drifter]

I'm thinking (well, hoping) that much of this confusion over the canon attitudes within the Empire post-retcon will be cleared up after the upcoming series of Star Wars: Rebels. The teaser trailer featured a certain well-loved blue-skinned Grand Admiral. As long as his plot arc and inclusion is handled deeply and appropriately - and I do believe that Timothy Zahn is going to be involved in the writing of accompanying material - it should serve to formally answer the question of whether the New EU Empire is still as xenophobic as the old, according to the reactions of other Imperial officers to working with, and under, an alien.

Indeed, the Han Solo backstory may do the same thing if Chewbacca's encounter story is kept central to the plot and unchanged from the original.



I still consider that in the films there is no evidence of overt, ideological prejudice or hatred against non-humans (or women).
At no point does anyone in the Empire dismiss the the Rebellion as ''A bunch of aliens and alien-lovers''. At no point does anyone in the Empire suggest the Rebellion is doomed because they let women have positions of authority. At no point is any attrocity carried justified on the grounds that its only aliens being killed.


I don't believe it actually needs to be overt and ideological. Subtle, systemic and constantly perpetuated by the rigid command structure would work just as well to demonstrate prejudice.
That said, it likely is still ideological in some form, given the Empire's portrayal throughout the films and currently eligible series'.
It may simply be that Lucasarts and Disney were uncomfortable with making this too blatant in their major releases.

[Legato Endless]

According to Wookipedia, human were the most numerous sapient species in the galaxy. (It doesn't say whether this was a majority or just a plurality).

Either way, it is highly likely that the the political and command structure will become dominted by humans.

If the prequels are canon (the scope of this discussion seems to vacillate) that's extremely unlikely to be the case by anything other than design. The problem with the Empire is it's merely a reorganization of The Old Republic, not a wholly new invention. Why is it so much less diverse than it's predecessor after a mere two decades? Institutional drift should maintain whatever skewing of Galactic demographics is in play. Yet that's not the case. At no other point in cinematic Galactic history do humans dominate at all levels, except under a highly controlled dictatorship.


At no point does anyone in the Empire dismiss the the Rebellion as ''A bunch of aliens and alien-lovers''. At no point does anyone in the Empire suggest the Rebellion is doomed because they let women have positions of authority. At no point is any attrocity carried justified on the grounds that its only aliens being killed.

I don't see a functional reason for the Empire to state it outright regardless. The Empire doesn't have to be The Fantasy Racist Empire. It can easily be the Antidemocratic Fascist Regime that reigns through maniacal terror based genocide and is also anti-alien. The Empire doesn't need to suggest the Alien explanation at all, because the Rebel's great sin is that they rebelled. That's why they're scum. The Empire will burn the population of a planet to ashes on the pretext of a weapon's test and a political theory. They're way past the point of elaborate justifications. Atrocity is just what happens to those who stand against the natural order. Or whatever. But the primacy of that ideology doesn't necessarily make them less pro human, it's just not the first thing they're about.


We also see isolated examples of individual acts of prejudice (by members of both the Empire and the Rebellion - and at least hinted at in the Republic, with the attitude of the Naboo human towards the Gungans).

But the prejudice isn't of the same nature from what examples we see. Leia (a privileged royal from a human planet) drops a racial slur in a fit of pique. The Naboo show unease from generations of tribal conflict. None of that's justified, but it doesn't carry the same implications. The Imperial Jail officer in ANH doesn't see Chewie as a person.


After reading the Silmarilion, I realised it could involve an equal amount of ''We hates it! We hates it forever!'' style peevishnss about being conned).

Heh.


It may simply be that Lucasarts and Disney were uncomfortable with making this too blatant in their major releases.

On the other hand, it's a credit to their storytelling to not simply phrase everything blatantly while leaving various implications for the audience.

[Aeson]

There are 44 Imperial characters with names in the OT.
And how many of those are actually named in the movies? As in, somebody actually says their name during the actual film, rather than a character name popping up in the credits somewhere?

In A New Hope, you get Vader, Tarkin, TK-421 (if you count a callsign as a name), maybe Motti. In The Empire Strikes Back, you get Vader, Veers, Ozzel, Piett, and Needa. In Return of the Jedi, you get Vader and the Emperor. If the only time the character's name shows up is in the credits, the character is effectively unnamed within the movie.


Bacta Tanks exist. You literally just dunk almost any species into them and they're fine. The Empire has easy access to magic healing goo, among other things.
So something which was only shown to be used to treat a human for exposure and minor facial injuries is a miraculous cure-all for all species, is it? The EU says it is, sure, but there is absolutely no evidence supporting this position in the movies.

Also, 'just dunk them into the tank and they're fine' would seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, given that Luke appears to be under medical supervision until the Imperial attack and that improvement in the the facial injury looks more like the result of dried/frozen blood being cleaned off than any significant healing.


Except the Empire's design philosophy makes this consideration immaterial. These are the designers of the Tie Fighter. Mass quality care for their forces is not an important consideration.
The inferior quality of the TIE Fighter is an invention of the EU. X-Wings and Y-Wings do not demonstrate notably better survivability against TIE weapons fire than TIE Fighters do against X-Wing weapons fire, despite visual indications that X-Wing laser cannons are considerably more powerful than TIE Fighter laser cannons (X-Wing laser cannons are ~6.8m long, have a relatively low rate of fire, and cause minor explosions when hitting the Death Star's armor; TIE Fighter laser cannons are in a position where they cannot be more than ~2.5m long, have a high rate of fire, and do not appear to cause any explosions when striking the Death Star's armor). Additionally, given that the A-Wings and B-Wings used at Endor have weapons which appear to be of the same general type as X-Wing laser cannons but which are considerably smaller (~2.9m for the A-Wings, ~5.8m for the B-Wings), it may very well be the case that the X-Wings are overgunned.

Further consider that we are told by an Imperial officer that there are 30 Rebel fighters attacking the Death Star and that the Death Star's defensive emplacements have difficulty hitting the fighters, that only six TIE Fighters are seen to have been scrambled when Vader orders the crews to their fighters, that the Vader and his two wingmen (making for a total Imperial fighter force of 8 TIE Fighters and 1 TIE Advanced x1 shown in the movie) are only shown to engage those Rebel fighters which are attempting or have attempted the trench run, that only one fighter is shown to be downed by something other than a TIE, and that only three Rebel fighters are shown to be returning to the Rebel base after the Death Star is destroyed. For only 9 fighters deployed against 30, that's really not a bad showing for such an 'inferior' fighter as the EU makes the TIE Fighter out to be.


Did you know Sauron almost certainly had Elves allied him in The Lord of the Rings? It's pretty inevitable they ALL couldn't have opposed his industrial efforts. I mean we never seen the Northern theaters of the war depicted, how could we know for sure they all fought against him?
Are you aware that one of the theories presented in Tolkien's writings about the origin of orcs is that the orcs are elves, twisted and corrupted by evil? Taking that theory to be true, not only are there elves allied with or in service to Sauron, but the number of elves allied with or in service to Sauron appears to greatly exceed the number of elves who oppose Sauron.


30 years on, we see the Resistance with alien pilots (Nien Nunb again, and Ello Asty) and on the Resistance base, we see plenty of alien personnel. We don't see that with the First Order (the Empire's successor).
On the other hand, we do see that the First Order's leader appears to be nonhuman. We also hear that the First Order's stormtroopers are effectively brainwashed slaves who are kidnapped as children, and the one stormtrooper whose species can be established from the movies is a human.


If the prequels are canon (the scope of this discussion seems to vacillate) that's extremely unlikely to be the case by anything other than design. The problem with the Empire is it's merely a reorganization of The Old Republic, not a wholly new invention. Why is it so much less diverse than it's predecessor after a mere two decades? Institutional drift should maintain whatever skewing of Galactic demographics is in play. Yet that's not the case. At no other point in cinematic Galactic history do humans dominate at all levels, except under a highly controlled dictatorship.
Is it less diverse, though? We never see the Imperial Senate; only a single senator. We see hardly any of the civil administration - only a single person identified by dialogue as a governor, the Emperor, a handful of people who may be advisors who accompanied the Emperor to the second Death Star, an Imperial Senator and Rebel agent, and maybe Vader. (We might see two Imperial Senators who are both Rebel agents, as Mon Mothma appears to have been a Republic Senator in the prequel trilogy, though I don't believe that Mon Mothma's status as a member of the Imperial Senate prior to its dissolution is something that can be confirmed by reference to the original trilogy.)

The Republic military shown in the prequel trilogy is no more diverse than the Imperial military which replaces it; every single non-Jedi officer and all enlisted personnel seen are human, unless I'm forgetting some random minor character from a trilogy of movies that I have no desire to watch again. We see some nonhumans fighting alongside the Republic's military forces, but whether they're actually part of the Republic's national military forces rather than being the local system government's military forces is ambiguous; the Wookiee forces on Kashyyk certainly aren't wearing anything that looks like Republic uniforms or rank insignia, for example, nor are they using equipment similar to that which is used by the forces which clearly belong to the Republic's national military forces. Of course, the portion of the Republic military that we're shown in the prequel trilogy is largely the clone portion; given that the canonical number of clone forces is ludicrously low, it's possible that there are other forces that we're not shown and that the clone forces are simply employed as elite brigades or divisions assigned to each Jedi officer. We aren't shown it in the movies, though, which means that diversity in the Republic's military is in exactly the same spot as diversity in the Empire's military - it's an assumption you could make which is neither supported nor contradicted by anything in the movies.

[hamishspence]

The inferior quality of the TIE Fighter is an invention of the EU.

Them being shieldless, is part of the newcanon though - Rebels: Fighter Flight "This bird has no shield."

And we already know they are also hyperdriveless from ANH.


I don't believe that Mon Mothma's status as a member of the Imperial Senate prior to its dissolution is something that can be confirmed by reference to the original trilogy.)


It was in the ROTJ novelization.


Mon Mothma entered the room. A stately, beautiful woman of middle age, she seemed to walk above the murmurs of the crowd. She wore white robes with gold braiding, and her severity was not without cause—for she was the elected leader of the Rebel Alliance. Like Leia’s adopted father—like Palpatine the Emperor himself—Mon Mothma had been a senior senator of the Republic, a member of the High Council.

When the Republic had begun to crumble, Mon Mothma had remained a senator until the end, organizing dissent, stabilizing the increasingly ineffectual government. She had organized cells, too, toward the end. Pockets of resistance, each of which was unaware of the identity of the others—each of which was responsible for inciting revolt against the Empire when it finally made itself manifest.

There had been other leaders, but many were killed when the Empire’s first Death Star annihilated the planet Alderaan. Leia’s adopted father died in that calamity. Mon Mothma went underground. She joined her political cells with the thousands of guerrillas and insurgents the Empire’s cruel dictatorship had spawned. Thousands more joined this Rebel Alliance. Mon Mothma became the acknowledged leader of all the galaxy’s creatures who had been left homeless by the Emperor. Homeless, but not without hope.

[Aeson]

Them being shieldless, is part of the newcanon though - Rebels: Fighter Flight "This bird has no shield."
Funny how the out-of-movie material will tell you that something like an A-Wing packs a good sensor and jamming package, a pair of missile launchers with reasonably high-capacity magazines, oversized sublight drive thrusters that make it (supposedly) the fastest/highest-acceleration fighter of the original trilogy, relatively long-term life support, a hyperdrive, a shield generator, servos that allow its laser cannons to be aimed in a direction at least slightly off the primary axis of the fighter, etc while still remaining cheap enough that it can be fielded in sufficient numbers to compete with the presumably vastly cheaper TIE Fighters which, so we are to believe from out-of-movie material, do not have any of these features and, as seen in the movies, also do not appear to need any great numerical advantage despite the out-of-movie material claiming that such numerical advantages are necessary.

Rebels: Fighter Flight probably claims that TIEs have no shields because the old EU commonly claimed that TIEs have no shields. This is a claim that is not explicitly contradicted by the original trilogy, true, but it's also a claim that has no support in the original trilogy and might be implicitly contradicted by it, depending on how much credit you give Rebel fighter shields for Rebel fighter resilience against TIE weapons fire and how much of a difference you consider there to be in the explosions that consume TIEs and Rebel fighters.


And we already know they are also hyperdriveless from ANH.
Hyperdrives are an unnecessary feature for a fighter which accompanies a carrier into battle. It's arguably useful since it allows the fighter to be deployed prior to arrival in or near the engagement zone, but the lack of one is not a strong indication of any sort of inferiority in the fighter.

Also, while I agree that TIEs lacking a hyperdrive was what was meant when Obi-Wan Kenobi identified the TIE as a short-range fighter, 'short-range' does not necessarily mean 'lacks a hyperdrive.' A hyperdrive with an operational range of 50 lightyears, for example, would almost certainly qualify as 'short-range.'

[hamishspence]

Hyperdrives are an unnecessary feature for a fighter which accompanies a carrier into battle.

In ROTJ, the Rebel fighters are seen on the carriers, before accompanying them into battle. The main advantage of hyperdrives is that they allow the fighters to escape the battleground if their carrier is destroyed, to take themselves to bases rather than requiring others to take them to bases, etc.

The Legendsverse may have set the trend for the TIE fighter being portrayed as a fragile ship - but the newcanon-verse continued it:


http://www.starwars.com/databank/tie-fighter

Building on the Clone Wars’ advances in starfighter design, the TIE became the signature fighter of the Empire. TIE fighters lacked shields and tough armor, depending on maneuverability and their pilots’ skill for effectiveness in combat. As the Empire tightened its grip on the planets of the galaxy, the Imperial war machine built TIE fighters on more and more worlds, and they became common sights in the skies of planets such as Lothal.

A TIE cockpit was cramped, and the fighter’s lack of defenses made flying one a dangerous calling. But TIE pilots took a perverse pride in the flaws of their craft. They saw the ability to fly a TIE effectively as the sign of true ability for a pilot, and TIE aces were held in great esteem by pilots who dreamed of amassing similarly impressive service records.

The Rebel Alliance countered the Empire’s TIE squadrons with X-wings and Y-wings, which boasted heavier weapons and protective shields. But all Rebel pilots learned to fear the trademark howl of a TIE in flight. TIE fighters played many roles within the Imperial fleet: conducting reconnaissance for Star Destroyers, serving as sentry ships for the Death Star, neutralizing or destroying ships flown smugglers and pirates, and patrolling the skies of Imperial worlds.




Also, while I agree that TIEs lacking a hyperdrive was what was meant when Obi-Wan Kenobi identified the TIE as a short-range fighter, 'short-range' does not necessarily mean 'lacks a hyperdrive.'

"A ship that small couldn't have gotten this deep into space on its own"
"He must have gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something."



The idea that Rebel equipment is good (beating the Empire's), kind of fits with ANH:


"Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped."

[DataNinja]

But all Rebel pilots learned to fear the trademark howl of a TIE in flight.

That part amuses me, just because, realistically, there'd be no way for a pilot to hear the TIE's howl out in space... :smallamused:

[hamishspence]

That part amuses me, just because, realistically, there'd be no way for a pilot to hear the TIE's howl out in space... :smallamused:

I think the EU's explanation was something along the lines of "the ship fighting the TIE generates the sound itself, to help pilots get an idea of where the TIE is without having to look down at their instruments":


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsNoisy


The best justification so far actually links into the above in "auralization", where a ship creates sound effects as part of an In-Universe Viewer-Friendly Interface for its crew. If we can have 3D positional sound with home acoustic systems, why should spaceships not have audio representations of events to complement visuals? (It happens very rarely, however, that the auralization breaks, just like the artificial gravity never does.)

FILMS (LIVE ACTION)

According to the NPR radio plays of the original trilogy, ships in Star Wars use auralization as an audio aid to their crews.

[Aeson]

The idea that Rebel equipment is good (beating the Empire's), kind of fits with ANH:

"Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped."
"They are better equipped than we are" does not follow from "they are sufficiently well-equipped to be a threat," particularly when "they are sufficiently well-equipped to be a threat" comes with the qualifier of "until the Death Star is fully operational." Granted, that qualifier seems born more out of arrogance than reality, but the quoted statement is still far from providing any real support for the statement "Rebel equipment is superior to Imperial equipment."

Moreover, the idea that Rebel equipment is superior to the Empire's is contradicted by the events of the movie. Neither dialogue nor visuals contradict the idea that only six TIE Fighters were scrambled when Vader ordered the fighter crews to their stations (they also don't explicitly contradict the idea that more TIE Fighters are scrambled). Based on what is seen in the movie, we know that these six TIE Fighters down at least one X-Wing, and that at least one other X-Wing is downed either by mechanical trouble or fire from the Death Star's weapons emplacements. Vader can be credited with downing six Rebel fighters (3 Y-Wings and 3 X-Wings) and his wingmen can be credited with downing one X-Wing and damaging another. We are told that there are 30 Rebel fighters attacking the Death Star, see 11 X-Wings and 2 Y-Wings taking off from the Rebel Base and 13 X-Wings and 6 Y-Wings in space shortly before the fighters begin passing through the Death Star's magnetic field, and we see 2 X-Wings and 1 Y-Wing returning to the Rebel base after the Death Star is destroyed. That leaves 5 X-Wings and 2 Y-Wings unaccounted for out of those we actually see to participate in the attack in the movie, and 18 Rebel fighters unaccounted for if the Imperial officer's '30 Rebel ships' number is accurate. We see two of the six TIE Fighters in the first group downed by X-Wings, with the other four being unaccounted for at the end of the engagement but presumably destroyed or returned to the hangars since they don't interfere with the fighters making the trench run or with the three X-Wings held back from Red Group's first trench run. One of Vader's wingmen is destroyed by the Millenium Falcon and the second is destroyed by collision with the Death Star after clipping Vader's fighter while attempting to exit the trench.

While one could certainly assume that more TIE Fighters are scrambled on Vader's orders than are shown and that as a result the TIE Fighters have something which more closely approximates numerical parity or reaches numerical superiority, the fact of the matter is that what we are shown is that the Rebel fighter group is numerically superior to the Imperial fighter group. Two confirmed kills of X-Wings by TIE Fighters for two confirmed kills of TIE Fighters by X-Wings, despite the apparent numerical superiority of the Rebel fighters and the fact that the Rebel pilots appear to be covering one another while the Imperial pilots are not shown to be cooperating, is rather weak evidence for any superiority in the equipment of the Rebel fighters. What superiority is in evidence is in the tactics employed, which might indicate superior training on the part of the Rebellion, or simply that the TIE pilots seen to go down are relatively inexperienced; getting separated from your wingmen in a manner which prevents you from supporting or being supported by them suggests relatively little combat experience in a fighter and possibly poor training, and is also something that Luke, and maybe the pilot of the Rebel X-Wing seen to be downed by a TIE in the group of six which was scrambled on Vader's orders, seem to be guilty of, and to our knowledge Luke has no prior combat experience or in a starfighter or atmospheric fighter, nor is he known to have been trained in fighter combat tactics.

We can further note that by the time that Vader destroys the 3 Y-Wings with which he can be credited by events depicted in the movie, Red Group appears to be down to six fighters out of the nine which appear to have been in the group (the roll call produces responses from Reds 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11; as Red Leader's call sign appears to be Red Leader and there is no clear reason for him to have two callsigns or to report in when he himself asks all fighters to report in, that gives 9 fighters in Red Group, with a potential for 11 based on highest callsign or for 13 based on number of X-Wings seen in the fighter group approaching the Death Star); Red Leader is ordered to hold half of his group back for the next run, and this causes Red Leader to order 3 fighters to remain back while he and two other fighters of Red Group make their run. If we assume that the Y-Wings were the preferred fighters for the trench run (based on the fact that the first run depicted was made by Y-Wings) and that lone fighters are not permitted to attempt the trench run while larger sections are available, we may also surmise that Gold Group has lost at least two fighters, as six Y-Wings were seen to be in the group of fighters approaching the Death Star, three Y-Wings make the first run and are destroyed by Vader, one Y-Wing is seen to have survived the engagement, and the second and third trench runs are both made by X-Wings of Red Group. Given that Vader and his wingmen appear to be focused on those fighters which attempt the trench run, it is unlikely that Vader and his wingmen accounted for any of the missing Rebel fighters. Given that an Imperial officer states that the Death Star's turbolasers cannot effectively engage the Rebel fighters and that the only Rebel fighter seen to be downed by something other than a TIE may have been downed by mechanical trouble rather than by fire from the Death Star's defensive emplacements, it can be doubted that the Death Star accounts for many, if any, of the missing fighters. If those assumptions are correct and we assume that all fighters which cannot be accounted for were downed, then TIE performance, does not look at all bad by comparison to Rebel fighter performance, despite the evidence noted earlier for a lack of experience or training seen in the tactics employed by the group of six TIE Fighters which were launched on Vader's orders.


The main advantage of hyperdrives is that they allow the fighters to escape the battleground if their carrier is destroyed, to take themselves to bases rather than requiring others to take them to bases, etc.
As I said, hyperdrives are an unnecessary feature for starfighters and lack of one is not an indicator of inferior quality.


Also, since the TIEs seem to have come up as an example of Imperial disregard for the lives of Imperial personnel, let's talk about the flight suits. The Rebel flight suit does not appear to be sealed, nor does it appear to be capable of being sealed without 'force fields' or similar, nor does it appear to have a face mask for delivering oxygen to a pilot's mouth and nose or for keeping a pressurized bubble around the pilot's head. If the cockpit of the fighter is depressurized or if the pilot is forced to eject (or otherwise survives the destruction of his or her fighter and is exposed to vacuum), this is a problem - especially if there is any significant delay in activating any 'force fields' or similar things which would protect the pilot from the effects of very low pressure or hard vacuum. The TIE pilot uniform appears to be completely sealed and, if the EU is to be believed, also carries a life support unit which is capable of sustaining the pilot for at least as long as the expected duration of the mission upon which the pilot was sent.

[Foeofthelance]

Also, since the TIEs seem to have come up as an example of Imperial disregard for the lives of Imperial personnel, let's talk about the flight suits. The Rebel flight suit does not appear to be sealed, nor does it appear to be capable of being sealed without 'force fields' or similar, nor does it appear to have a face mask for delivering oxygen to a pilot's mouth and nose or for keeping a pressurized bubble around the pilot's head. If the cockpit of the fighter is depressurized or if the pilot is forced to eject (or otherwise survives the destruction of his or her fighter and is exposed to vacuum), this is a problem - especially if there is any significant delay in activating any 'force fields' or similar things which would protect the pilot from the effects of very low pressure or hard vacuum. The TIE pilot uniform appears to be completely sealed and, if the EU is to be believed, also carries a life support unit which is capable of sustaining the pilot for at least as long as the expected duration of the mission upon which the pilot was sent.

That I chalk up to different design philosophies. The rebels rely on their ships being as sturdy as possible, including shields and armor on each craft, with the environmental systems built into the cockpit. So anything that can punch through the shields and punch through the armor is likely going to kill or cripple the craft. If the cockpit survives, the pilot likely can survive until rescue arrives. A hit on the cockpit, however, is most likely going to kill the pilot as well. At that point, any survival suit the pilot is wearing becomes superfluous. Having an oxygen bottle doesn't help if the TIE punched a hole through your chest. It'd be slightly more usable for atmospheric combat, but figure most planetside battles are going to take place on relatively habitable planets, as those would presumably be the most valuable. On hostile environment worlds, you run into difficulties with making it to the crash site, assuming its not a gas giant like Bespin where the fighter ends up in the core. That means designing a survival suit capable of withstanding anything, which is expensive. (And I don't think even the TIE fighter pilots have suits that good.)

The TIE pilots, on the other hand, are given a ship with no shields, no armor, and no life support systems. They do get a vac suit with an oxygen bottle, but no rations or other form of long term support. The vac suit is not designed to protect them. Its designed so that they have enough air to go out, do the mission, and return. This allows them to be deployed cheaply and in great numbers. They are very much the quantity versus the Rebel's quality.

[Legato Endless]

Are you aware that one of the theories presented in Tolkien's writings about the origin of orcs is that the orcs are elves, twisted and corrupted by evil? Taking that theory to be true, not only are there elves allied with or in service to Sauron, but the number of elves allied with or in service to Sauron appears to greatly exceed the number of elves who oppose Sauron.

No, because those aren't allies then, by your own admission. They're servants. :smallwink:


Is it less diverse, though? We never see the Imperial Senate; only a single senator.

Which would be interesting, as that might lend some context to the transition period. Although as the Senate gets dissolved in Act 1, it renders the point a bit moot because it's irrelevant to the governance of the galaxy. If we saw a meeting of 12 highest ranking regional governors, are they were all human, would that mean anything?


On the other hand, we do see that the First Order's leader appears to be nonhuman. We also hear that the First Order's stormtroopers are effectively brainwashed slaves who are kidnapped as children, and the one stormtrooper whose species can be established from the movies is a human.

And this is the problem. After going around about this, there doesn't seem to be a holistic argument for all this. It's more arguing all angles for all things so that Empire isn't racist specist, which apparently people are really invested in. For that matter, we see a lot of people working for the First Order in TFA. All of the ones that don't have their faces obscured, the ones with authority minus Phasma, are confirmed to be human. The Supreme Commander not being human, wouldn't magically negate the idea of the First Order being anti-alien even if he were an ordinary person to whom the standard rules apply. And he's emphatically not. Although unlike the Empire, maybe the Order will demonstrate otherwise in the next two films.

What's more, if we filed off all the proper nouns and presented the various interpretations in your posts to a random screening of people who weren't familiar with the Legends EU, I'm pretty dubious anyone would recognize the entity as the Empire in Star Wars. It's some Alternate Universe fic. Separate but equal (Honest!) armed forces species segregation is a fairly inimical concept to the series I would bet for most viewers, not to mention the writers were they all alive to be polled. Among other things, like common biochemical barriers being an actual inconvenience that mattered to logistical organization. Not the technology overcomes most anything but heroism and Space Magic motif so dominant in the series.

It's been fun, but I'll bow out as I'm not convinced 12 films and a cast of 500 Imperials all being shown as human would be persuasive to you. There'd be just more special pleading of sample sizes and Alternate Universe hypotheses. If you're not taking this as seriously as I'm starting to wonder (I haven't been) don't take the aforementioned too seriously. If you are...eh.

[Wardog]

I don't believe it actually needs to be overt and ideological. Subtle, systemic and constantly perpetuated by the rigid command structure would work just as well to demonstrate prejudice.
That said, it likely is still ideological in some form, given the Empire's portrayal throughout the films and cur


The old EU explicitly claims it is the former (including coming up with the absurdly-capitalized concept of ''non-HuMan'' to refer to anyone that isn't a human male). All I'm arguing is that the actual movies only support the latter interpretation at the most.

[Aeson]

It's been fun, but I'll bow out as I'm not convinced 12 films and a cast of 500 Imperials all being shown as human would be persuasive to you. There'd be just more special pleading of sample sizes and Alternate Universe hypotheses.
As I understand it, your position is that the absence of nonhumans seen in Imperial military forces and the existence of one speciesist officer constitutes sufficiently strong proof of Imperial discrimination against nonhumans to dismiss logical explanations for the lack of nonhumans in the sample of Imperial military forces depicted, despite the fact that the Rebellion as depicted in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back exhibits the same disturbing trends and, when proven by Return of the Jedi to have a nonhuman component which includes nonhumans who hold reasonably high positions within the Rebellion's power structure, shows a multi-species fleet whose organization appears consistent with the logical explanations for a lack of visible nonhumans in the military forces depicted. I do not agree that your position is sufficiently strongly supported to prove the hypothesis despite the lack of positive evidence to the contrary; you lack positive evidence supporting your position, and there are logical explanations which appear consistent with how a multi-species fleet within the setting is organized.

My position is that the original trilogy does not strongly support either anti-nonhuman discrimination or a lack thereof on the part of the Empire. There is no positive evidence for either position, and while there are disturbing trends, there are also rational justifications for those trends which do not involve discrimination, and the sample size is rather small relative to the total size of the Empire or its military forces. Further supporting the idea that the original trilogy is ambiguous on the question of Imperial discrimination against nonhumans is that the Rebellion exhibits many of the same disturbing trends in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, provably has a nonhuman component with members in relatively high positions within the Rebellion's power structure in Return of the Jedi, and appears to organize the one multi-species Rebel force that we see along lines consistent with the justifications for a lack of nonhuman personnel that we can come up with.

Does the Empire exhibit disturbing trends? Yes. Are those trends exhibited strongly enough for me to conclude, in the absence of positive evidence one way or the other, that the Empire discriminates against nonhumans? No. If I were unable to provide a justification that I consider reasonable for the absence of nonhumans in the Imperial forces depicted, would I consider it probable that the Empire discriminates against nonhumans, given the existence of disturbing trends and the absence of positive proof to the contrary? Yes, but since I can come up with justifications for a lack of nonhumans in depicted Imperial forces that I consider reasonable and which appear to me consistent with how the Rebellion organizes its own forces, I'll need more than a lack of evidence to the contrary to prove to my satisfaction that the Empire discriminates against nonhumans. There is not enough evidence for Imperial discrimination against nonhumans in the original trilogy for me to conclude, based on what is seen within the original trilogy, that the Empire actually does discriminate against nonhumans. Similarly, there is not enough evidence that the Empire does not discriminate against nonhumans for me to conclude that the Empire has no bias against nonhumans. Therefore, the original trilogy is, in my view, ambiguous on that question.

I also agree with Wardog that the extremely overt discrimination depicted in the old EU is inconsistent with what is seen within the original trilogy.


If we saw a meeting of 12 highest ranking regional governors, and they were all human, would that mean anything?
It would certainly be disturbing.

[Traab]

The problem is, your rational explanations have nothing to back them up. From WHAT WE ARE SHOWN, the most likely interpretation is a humanocentric empire. To go with your theories we are expected to take it on faith, with absolutely no evidence to back it up that they really arent speciest. No, there isnt any iron clad proof of racism being the oil that helps the empire run, but the inferences are there and it leans more in that direction than some segregated separate but equal empire where the only reason you dont see any aliens working for them is because they are in a different sector of space entirely for reasons which are unknown. But no, really, they are there guys.

Again, there is no rock solid proof the empire is racist. No, no admiral goes, "Boy im glad we arent landing on endor, those filthy freak aliens dont know their proper place yet and reek of bantha poodoo." But what we are shown does suggest things in that direction over an empire that is totally eclectic, they just dont meet up with each other. Ever.

[Rakaydos]

The problem is, your rational explanations have nothing to back them up. From WHAT WE ARE SHOWN, the most likely interpretation is a humanocentric empire. To go with your theories we are expected to take it on faith, with absolutely no evidence to back it up that they really arent speciest. No, there isnt any iron clad proof of racism being the oil that helps the empire run, but the inferences are there and it leans more in that direction than some segregated separate but equal empire where the only reason you dont see any aliens working for them is because they are in a different sector of space entirely for reasons which are unknown. But no, really, they are there guys.

How much of the empire do we see, other than the military?

Because I totally buy the explanation that the Jango Fett-only military that the Republic used was opened up in the Empire to any alien who could fit in Jango Fett's uniform. Which is pretty much just humans.

[Friv]

How much of the empire do we see, other than the military?

Because I totally buy the explanation that the Jango Fett-only military that the Republic used was opened up in the Empire to any alien who could fit in Jango Fett's uniform. Which is pretty much just humans.

That would only apply to stormtroopers, though. Officers were never clone troopers in the Republic, and Imperial officers are all human, too.

[Rakaydos]

That would only apply to stormtroopers, though. Officers were never clone troopers in the Republic, and Imperial officers are all human, too.

CAPTIAN Rex would disagree about the "never clone officers" statement.

But you're talking Navy, right? If I recall Clone wars cartoon right, the naval rank and file was filled out with clones, (because that's easier for the animators) but the ranking commanders were filled out with commanders with previous military experience. Alas, the sepratists got all the alien commanders, where the droids didnt care what the enviroment was set to, and the republic got human commanders who felt comfortable in a Jango Fett-optimised ship.

As the Republic grew into empire, I would say officers who used to fit into stormtrooper armor were promoted to command positions.

[Traab]

CAPTIAN Rex would disagree about the "never clone officers" statement.

But you're talking Navy, right? If I recall Clone wars cartoon right, the naval rank and file was filled out with clones, (because that's easier for the animators) but the ranking commanders were filled out with commanders with previous military experience. Alas, the sepratists got all the alien commanders, where the droids didnt care what the enviroment was set to, and the republic got human commanders who felt comfortable in a Jango Fett-optimised ship.

As the Republic grew into empire, I would say officers who used to fit into stormtrooper armor were promoted to command positions.

The thing is, we still dont see anything to back that up! The only thing we ever see is 100% humans on the side of the empire. We never see any aliens of any rank on the side of the empire at all. The closest they get is dealing with gangsters and bounty hunters. When the republic was a thing, we see nonhuman officers and senators and such all over the place in coruscant and on other worlds. And of course a wide assortment of jedi species. Once we get to the original trilogy though, there arent any aliens shown on the side of the empire. Where did they all go? Well the jedi all died off barring like, 2. But we now know there were hundreds of alien species represented in the republic before it became the empire. And yet we never see any sign of them in the original trilogy. Thats not a good sign.

[cobaltstarfire]

CAPTIAN Rex would disagree about the "never clone officers" statement.

But you're talking Navy, right? If I recall Clone wars cartoon right, the naval rank and file was filled out with clones, (because that's easier for the animators) but the ranking commanders were filled out with commanders with previous military experience. Alas, the sepratists got all the alien commanders, where the droids didnt care what the enviroment was set to, and the republic got human commanders who felt comfortable in a Jango Fett-optimised ship.

As the Republic grew into empire, I would say officers who used to fit into stormtrooper armor were promoted to command positions.

Don't the clone troopers age/degrade/die really rapidly after their peak? I can't remember where I read/heard that, but it doesn't sound conducive to former clone troopers making it very high up in the command structure if it is allowed at all simply because they aren't going to live long enough.

I dunno how rank is treated in the Empire, but in the real world, there is often a time component to promotion, as in: you must be B rank for at least X years before we even consider promoting you to C rank.

[hamishspence]

Don't the clone troopers age/degrade/die really rapidly after their peak? I can't remember where I read/heard that, but it doesn't sound conducive to former clone troopers making it very high up in the command structure if it is allowed at all simply because they aren't going to live long enough.

According to Dave Filoni, producer of Rebels, production of clone troopers was discontinued - and most clones are now elderly and retired.

Other newcanon authors have included the occasional older, still-serving clone (possibly those are the clones that were babies in AOTC) but those generally aren't high-rankers.

That said, in Lords of the Sith (set 5 years after ROTS) there's a clone in Palpatine's Royal Guard.

[Rakaydos]

The thing is, we still dont see anything to back that up! The only thing we ever see is 100% humans on the side of the empire. We never see any aliens of any rank on the side of the empire at all. (...) When the republic was a thing, we see nonhuman officers and senators and such all over the place in coruscant and on other worlds. And of course a wide assortment of jedi species. Once we get to the original trilogy though, there arent any aliens shown on the side of the empire. Where did they all go? Well the jedi all died off barring like, 2. But we now know there were hundreds of alien species represented in the republic before it became the empire. And yet we never see any sign of them in the original trilogy. Thats not a good sign.

Where do we see a non human, non jedi Republic military officer leading troops not their own species?

Because as I recall, the republic and sepratist forces were each already racially segragated. The republic used Human commanders leading human (clone) troops for the bulk of their military forces, whereas sepratist forces were Droids+nemodians, or Droids+Banking clan, or droids+nonhuman commander of the week. When the Mon Cal homeworld was invaded, Mon cal forces, Quarren forces, Aquatrooper clones and Gungan forces were all racially segregated.

[Keltest]

Where do we see a non human, non jedi Republic military officer leading troops not their own species?

Because as I recall, the republic and sepratist forces were each already racially segragated. The republic used Human commanders leading human (clone) troops for the bulk of their military forces, whereas sepratist forces were Droids+nemodians, or Droids+Banking clan, or droids+nonhuman commander of the week. When the Mon Cal homeworld was invaded, Mon cal forces, Quarren forces, Aquatrooper clones and Gungan forces were all racially segregated.

Given that many if not most of the non-jedi officers were also clones, that's probably why you don't see too many aliens in their army that aren't Jedi. And the reason all the different forces on Mon Calamari were racially segregated was because they were all different armies. The Mon Cala army and Gungan army are not just branches of the Grand Army of the Republic, they are their own forces for their own species and not obligated to fight in the Clone Wars at all except by their own sufferance.

Also, if were going to not count the jedi, we cant count the separatist commander of the week either, because they fill the same positions militarily most of the time.

[druid91]

The thing is, we still dont see anything to back that up! The only thing we ever see is 100% humans on the side of the empire. We never see any aliens of any rank on the side of the empire at all. The closest they get is dealing with gangsters and bounty hunters. When the republic was a thing, we see nonhuman officers and senators and such all over the place in coruscant and on other worlds. And of course a wide assortment of jedi species. Once we get to the original trilogy though, there arent any aliens shown on the side of the empire. Where did they all go? Well the jedi all died off barring like, 2. But we now know there were hundreds of alien species represented in the republic before it became the empire. And yet we never see any sign of them in the original trilogy. Thats not a good sign.

Except, the guy in Mos Eisley, in A New Hope.

Who's treated like an equal. Heck, a superior even. This guy shows up, talks to the Stormtroopers, and there's zero hesitation. They start running for Hans hangar bay and arming their weapons.

That doesn't sound like the way you treat a shady tipoff. That seems like the way you trust intel from a long since proved reliable source.

Compare to how Leia treats Luke, Han, and Chewbacca. These are some random dudes who just showed up trying to help.

[Darth Credence]

Now that I have read Life Debt, it is clear that as far as Disney and canon are concerned, the Empire is speciesist. They state it flat out, and everything is canon, so that is the way it is.

Now, just taking the stuff on film is a bit tricky to me. There is an obvious reason why you don't see aliens on either side in Star Wars and Empire - budget constraints. Logically, no one in a galaxy far, far away would be human, so everyone should have been an alien of some sort. But having everyone in the movie in an alien costume or makeup the entire movie would be expensive and likely off-putting. By Jedi, they had a story that would support aliens and the budget to do it, so you get alien ships fighting with the Rebels.

But if we can't use the knowledge of how the movie was made, it appears that there just isn't enough evidence to make a call. Someone said earlier that the guy on the Death Star who says "where are you taking that...thing" was saying that for a reason and it is to establish that the Empire is speciesist. That is fine, and I can agree with it, but it means that you are not looking at just what is done, but analyzing it as a movie. If you are analyzing it as a movie, you should also account for the prevailing attitudes of the time it was made, the amount of budget they had, what studio released it and what their personal politics might have been, and so on. When you account for that, no aliens is best explained by no budget for aliens. If we don't account for that, and imagine that we are somehow just seeing what happened rather than watching a movie, there is no good reason to say that that particular man spoke for policies of the wider Empire. He could have just been a bigot, as could Leia with her walking carpet statement.

As to Garindan, the spy in Mos Eisley, he most certainly did not work for the Empire. He was a spy that was hired to help find the droids. There is zero hesitation because the Imperials hired the guy to do a job, and so they believed the guy they hired when he said the equivalent of "They're headed for docking bay 94, if you hurry you can still catch them". If Stormtroopers will follow that direction from a random droid, they would also follow it from a hired spy.

[Traab]

The thing is, yeah budget was a problem, but they already had plenty of costumes from the mos eisley cantina scene. They could have easily stretched out an empire officers uniform on one of them and placed them in the background of any scene on board any imperial ship, but they dont. For all three movies they dont. That alone wouldnt be enough to proclaim, "Argument settled, they are all racist monsters" But it is enough to suggest it leans more towards racism than equal opportunity employer. But if disney is proclaiming it canon that yes they are, I guess that settles that.

[Jayngfet]

They'd have had to fish all those masks out of storage and spend hours a day putting prosthetics on in some cases.

Yeah, they had those costumes. For Mos Eisley. They shot those scenes in Africa. The rebel base was shot in Central America. The on ship and special effects stuff was done in the U.K. They'd have had to spend an insane amount of time and money just to reuse existing costumes.

They couldn't even keep actors consistent between location shoots half the time unless they were main characters. Wedge is played by two completely different people for that specific reason. Just getting a couple of costumes transported would have been a logistical task they plain had no time or money for.

[Rakaydos]

Given that many if not most of the non-jedi officers were also clones, that's probably why you don't see too many aliens in their army that aren't Jedi. And the reason all the different forces on Mon Calamari were racially segregated was because they were all different armies. The Mon Cala army and Gungan army are not just branches of the Grand Army of the Republic, they are their own forces for their own species and not obligated to fight in the Clone Wars at all except by their own sufferance.

Also, if were going to not count the jedi, we cant count the separatist commander of the week either, because they fill the same positions militarily most of the time.

Quite right- A human army of the republic, racially serigated planetary armies, and droid-supplemented racialy biased sepratist forces.

The only egalitarian forces we see belong to the hutts.

[Jayngfet]

Quite right- A human army of the republic, racially serigated planetary armies, and droid-supplemented racialy biased sepratist forces.

The only egalitarian forces we see belong to the hutts.

To be fair, you try tailoring a uniform standard across that kind of variance. Egalitarianism is hard to do when half your force has a different number of arms and legs and can't even use weapons the same way.

[Traab]

To be fair, you try tailoring a uniform standard across that kind of variance. Egalitarianism is hard to do when half your force has a different number of arms and legs and can't even use weapons the same way.

Thats why you have a factory on each world building gear for their species. Since most worlds seem to have their own, albeit limited military, it wouldnt be that hard to get the imperial designs and alter them to fit a guy with flippers where his cheeks should be. After all, thats as normal for them as making room for two arms and legs is for us.

[Rakaydos]

And that's a reasonable approach for planetary forces. But the Army of the Republic, which turns into the Imperial Fleet, is a HUMAN fleet. It's always been racially segrigated, they just dont have the excuse of clones anymore.

That doesnt mean the Galactic Senate was whitewashed in the last 20 years, just that the Imperial military is the same as it ever was.

[Foeofthelance]

And that's a reasonable approach for planetary forces. But the Army of the Republic, which turns into the Imperial Fleet, is a HUMAN fleet. It's always been racially segrigated, they just dont have the excuse of clones anymore.

That doesnt mean the Galactic Senate was whitewashed in the last 20 years, just that the Imperial military is the same as it ever was.

Except that the Republic didn't have any real army before the Clones. It had the Judicial Corps and then each planet had its own self defense forces. For the thousand or so years before that, the primary peace keeping force in the Republic was the Jedi, who are quite clearly represented by a multitude of species across the films when seen in any numbers aside from Luke and Ben. It's why Padme had to go ask for help in the first place - there was no standing army that could go and lift the blockade the Trade Federation was maintaining around Naboo, and the Senate was treating it as a dispute between two different members than as an attack on a member by a hostile power. It's why they only sent two Jedi and not a battle fleet.

Then, surprise! The Clones were really just Palpatine's shake-and-bake army to take over the Republic and clear out the Jedi once he'd made his throne. So the creation of the Clone Army and its transition to the Imperial Navy/Army was all orchestrated with the idea of being a Humans Only club from the outset, as every bit of the Empire's hierarchy took their cue from Palpatine.

[Jayngfet]

Thats why you have a factory on each world building gear for their species. Since most worlds seem to have their own, albeit limited military, it wouldnt be that hard to get the imperial designs and alter them to fit a guy with flippers where his cheeks should be. After all, thats as normal for them as making room for two arms and legs is for us.

Yeah, if you're using normal scale. Remember an imperial star destroyer is ten times the size of a modern naval equivalent and even just Imperial class destroyers number in tens of thousands, and the number of people needed to man one is drastically greater than the number of people needed for one naval ship, and you need ten thousand troops per ship.

Baring in mind, of course, most planets aren't earth. Tattoine can't round up ten thousand people just to stand around on a destroyer(or the forty needed to actually make it move around and shoot), without impacting itself rather dramatically, since that combined 50k accounts for either half or a quarter of the planets entire population.

There, now you have a star destroyer's personnel. As in one. No escort craft. No other troops or personnel for special assignments or carrying. No soldiers to man a ground base. No pilots for fighter squadrons.

It's just plain not worth it simply because even on worlds with a population of billions you'd get a couple of viable battleships worth of people unless you draft large percentages forcibly?

And that's before you account for languages. Does every single officer suddenly need to learn literally ten thousand or so separate languages? Does an empire that's essentially bankrupting itself on it's current projects buy literal millions of additional protocol droids? Do you lump them into one species per ship and deal with the idea that they'll invariably have serious firepower and be more loyal to individual captains of the same culture, language, and origins than a distant ruler? Even with power schemes to enforce loyalty the empire already loses smaller escort cruisers and transports more than a few times. Imagine a rebel alliance with access to full scale imperial star destroyers.

The raw fact is that the empire would rather quickly disintegrate into a pile of petty rivalries and regional powers. If you don't believe me open a history book and you can see it happen to more than half of historical empires even on a scale of a few miles, often within a single generation.

[Rakaydos]

Then, surprise! The Clones were really just Palpatine's shake-and-bake army to take over the Republic and clear out the Jedi once he'd made his throne. So the creation of the Clone Army and its transition to the Imperial Navy/Army was all orchestrated with the idea of being a Humans Only club from the outset, as every bit of the Empire's hierarchy took their cue from Palpatine.

You're acting like a Humans Only Club was palpatine's personal brainchild. The Trade Federation was a Nemodian (and droid) only club long before the Grand Army rolled around. The Gungan army used on Mon Cal didnt have any naboo humans, and the Mon Calimari and Quarren had separate, rival power structures despite being on a single planet.

The Grand Army was just the same thing, but bigger.

[Keltest]

You're acting like a Humans Only Club was palpatine's personal brainchild. The Trade Federation was a Nemodian (and droid) only club long before the Grand Army rolled around. The Gungan army used on Mon Cal didnt have any naboo humans, and the Mon Calimari and Quarren had separate, rival power structures despite being on a single planet.

The Grand Army was just the same thing, but bigger.

Naboo humans cannot breathe under water. Its kind of a plot point.

[Aeson]

Naboo humans cannot breathe under water. Its kind of a plot point.
From what's shown in the movies, Gungans probably cannot breathe underwater either. Gungans are bipedal and more or less humanoid and lack visible gills or other obvious adaptations for an aquatic or amphibious lifestyle, the underwater Gungan city and the Gungan submarine are air-filled and water-tight, the Gungan point of retreat after their city is (presumably) attacked by the Trade Federation is to some place above water in the marshes, and the Gungan army appears to have no issues operating on land and makes use of a form of cavalry which, like the Gungans themselves, is visibly not well adapted for an aquatic lifestyle.

[hamishspence]

From what's shown in the movies, Gungans probably cannot breathe underwater either. Gungans are bipedal and more or less humanoid and lack visible gills or other obvious adaptations for an aquatic or amphibious lifestyle,

They're often compared to frogs - which have lungs not gills, but cope very well in water, and (in some cases) can absorb oxygen from the water through their skins.

With stalk-eyes and extendable tongues, they do seem very froglike - Jar Jar swims like one, and appears to be a good jumper as well when he jumps in.

[Rakaydos]

Naboo humans cannot breathe under water. Its kind of a plot point.

From what's shown in the movies, Gungans probably cannot breathe underwater either. Gungans are bipedal and more or less humanoid and lack visible gills or other obvious adaptations for an aquatic or amphibious lifestyle, the underwater Gungan city and the Gungan submarine are air-filled and water-tight, the Gungan point of retreat after their city is (presumably) attacked by the Trade Federation is to some place above water in the marshes, and the Gungan army appears to have no issues operating on land and makes use of a form of cavalry which, like the Gungans themselves, is visibly not well adapted for an aquatic lifestyle.


They're often compared to frogs - which have lungs not gills, but cope very well in water, and (in some cases) can absorb oxygen from the water through their skins.

With stalk-eyes and extendable tongues, they do seem very froglike - Jar Jar swims like one, and appears to be a good jumper as well when he jumps in.

We've already discussed the logic behind segregated military units in star wars, and this is just more of the same. My point is that not only does species segregation make sense for military reasons, but that we actually see star wars militarys broken into species segregated units, well before "imperial racism" is a thing.

The only exceptions are the Jedi Order, who have manpower issues, and various scum groups- bounty hunters, hutts, and so on.

[Aeson]

they do seem very froglike - Jar Jar swims like one
Jar Jar swims like a human doing breast stroke.


and (in some cases) can absorb oxygen from the water through their skins.
The amphibians that can do this also have a tendency to need to keep their skins moist, and so appear slimy or shiny. Gungans do not appear to have any particular shine to their skins which might indicate that the skins are constantly moist. Furthermore, Jar Jar does not appear to have any significant difficulty functioning on Tatooine, despite its rather hot and dry environment, which is rather odd for an amphibian adapted to absorb oxygen from water in contact with its skin.

[hamishspence]

Jar Jar does not appear to have any significant difficulty functioning on Tatooine, despite its rather hot and dry environment, which is rather odd for an amphibian adapted to absorb oxygen from water in contact with its skin.

He does complain "this doing murder to my skin" though.

In TCW, when Mon Cala is under attack, it's the Gungans that the Jedi end up asking to send a fleet of seatroopers.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gungan_Attack

[Foeofthelance]

We've already discussed the logic behind segregated military units in star wars, and this is just more of the same. My point is that not only does species segregation make sense for military reasons, but that we actually see star wars militarys broken into species segregated units, well before "imperial racism" is a thing.

The only exceptions are the Jedi Order, who have manpower issues, and various scum groups- bounty hunters, hutts, and so on.

But that's the thing. There is no army before Palpatine makes one. The Republic didn't have one military segregated into units by race. Instead, each race had its own army to maintain and protect its own planets. The closest the actual Republic had to an armed forces was the Jedi. Each planet then had additional input via the Senate, which, while not a perfect system (Naboo did not apparently have any Gungans representing it until Jar-Jar) was still inherently multiracial.

Then Palpatine orchestrates his rise to power, and the independent militaries are restricted and/or disbanded and replaced with the Imperial forces, which is almost entirely restricted to humans, save for the occasional notable character such as Thrawn. Likewise, the Senate is disbanded and all power turned over to the Emperor and Moffs and System Governors, who are again dominantly, if not purely human. (I cannot for the life of me think of a non-human Moff, nor do I remember any alien Governors, but my knowledge of the EU canon is not all encompassing.)

[Rakaydos]

There is no army before Palpatine makes one. (...)Instead, each race had its own army to maintain and protect its own planets. I consider that a contradiction. Planetary, racial armies exist. Multiple racially segrigated armies exist on the same worlds, in both the case of Naboo (human and gungan forces) and on Dac (mon cal and quarren). If I recall correctly, the mon cal and quarran armies even used to share a common head of state, till the sepratists got involved.

The Chanceler saying "we need an army, lets make it the same as a planetary army but bigger" is not itself racist.

Got a newcanon source for the rest of that?

[Foeofthelance]

I consider that a contradiction. Planetary, racial armies exist. Multiple racially segrigated armies exist on the same worlds, in both the case of Naboo (human and gungan forces) and on Dac (mon cal and quarren). If I recall correctly, the mon cal and quarran armies even used to share a common head of state, till the sepratists got involved.

The Chanceler saying "we need an army, lets make it the same as a planetary army but bigger" is not itself racist.

Got a newcanon source for the rest of that?

I get where you're seeing the contradiction, but I disagree with it. During the Republic, each planet was on its own. So if they split their forces based on physical considerations, that was up to them. As you've pointed out, in that case, its a reasonable consideration. And the Republic wasn't exactly a perfect place, as Naboo demonstrates. Haven't seen the movies in a while, but if memory serves the Gungans weren't just a seperate army, they were a completely independent nation. So them having a different army from the human government was more like the US and China having different armies. But where there were united governments, such as the Mon Calamari and Quarren, both races were still allowed to participate. They answered to the same chain of command and presumably had to follow the same equivalent of the Military Code of Justice on down. Different equipment, different spheres of influence, but same rules and accountability.

Under the Empire, they were not allowed to participate. They were forced to submit to the Imperial military, which deliberately excluded any participation of nonhuman troops. Not just segregated, but completely eliminated or heavily reduced in scope and role.

As for a new canon source, on which bit?

Star Wars: New Stars Follows two characters through their initial years with the Empire, including training at the primary academy. There are no nonhumans included in the cast at that point. You don't meet any aliens until one of them jumps ship to the Rebellion.

Star Wars: Twilight Company follows the titular Rebel company as they move from battle to battle, including multiple humanoid aliens as part of the main cast. One of the characters has a backstory where the Empire showed up and just started crushing local armies.

Star Wars: Aftermath has a group of remaining Imperial officers and politicians gather to plot out the future of the remaining Empire. They're all human, including their forces.

Star Wars: New Dawn is the prequel to Rebels, and there are several mentions of the Imperials cracking down on the local security forces, then eliminating and replacing them. The villain also muses several times about how having so many prosthetics causes the other Imperials to look down on him despite his position and accomplishments.

Haven't read the Tarkin or Leia novels yet, nor the Rogue One novels.

[Rakaydos]

http://www.starwarspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/33.jpg

[Traab]

About the gungans, as far as I can tell, they arent a space faring race at all. They are a mainly amphibious underwater dwelling race with limited tech. I mean, they ride animals into battle. They have energy bombs but use freaking catapults to launch them. They had no air force at all. Thats probably why they dont get a spot at the republic as well.

[Foeofthelance]

http://www.starwarspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/33.jpg

(Stuck the image in spoilers for space considerations.)

I consider myself mildly rebuked. As I said, I am not a master of all Star Wars canon. That said, two things stand out to me about that image:

First, he refers to himself as a Provincial Governor, rather than a Planetary Governor. Wookiepedia doesn't have much on him, but based on that I would assume that he has some sort of role in the local government operating under the Imperial government, rather than a place in the actual Imperial Hierarchy.

Second, while he claims to have the full backing of Imperial Authority, those are most definitely not Stormtroopers standing behind them, or at least not a variant I've ever seen before. So while he is claiming Imperial Authority, he does not, in fact, appear to have any control over Imperial troops.

My take, then, on that particular scene, is that he's an enforcer on very small and local level who then reports to the actual Imperial government/forces in some way. The equivalent would probably be something along the lines of a state governor here in the US. He has authority over the local state police and some play in the state government, but the Imperials have authority over him, and if he has to call them in on anything then it also involves him forfeiting control over the situation.

[Rakaydos]

(Stuck the image in spoilers for space considerations.)

I consider myself mildly rebuked. As I said, I am not a master of all Star Wars canon. That said, two things stand out to me about that image:

First, he refers to himself as a Provincial Governor, rather than a Planetary Governor. Wookiepedia doesn't have much on him, but based on that I would assume that he has some sort of role in the local government operating under the Imperial government, rather than a place in the actual Imperial Hierarchy.

Second, while he claims to have the full backing of Imperial Authority, those are most definitely not Stormtroopers standing behind them, or at least not a variant I've ever seen before. So while he is claiming Imperial Authority, he does not, in fact, appear to have any control over Imperial troops.

My take, then, on that particular scene, is that he's an enforcer on very small and local level who then reports to the actual Imperial government/forces in some way. The equivalent would probably be something along the lines of a state governor here in the US. He has authority over the local state police and some play in the state government, but the Imperials have authority over him, and if he has to call them in on anything then it also involves him forfeiting control over the situation.
I only read that comc once while waiting for my Xwing group to show up, but the govenor in question was talking with Kanan's master in the clone wars when order 66 happened. He's still in the same position 15-odd years later, so he hasnt been frozen out of the republic/imperial command structure... though he hasnt been promoted either, and he gives adult kanan a "these imperials suck, I'd totally help if the sepratists came back, wink nudge."

But again, I'd need to reread the comic (Kanan the last Padawon 1-6) to do a proper analysis.

Also, those unknown stormtrooper varients might be exactly what Traab suggested, armor for locals based on imperial patterns.

[Jayngfet]

I consider that a contradiction. Planetary, racial armies exist. Multiple racially segrigated armies exist on the same worlds, in both the case of Naboo (human and gungan forces) and on Dac (mon cal and quarren). If I recall correctly, the mon cal and quarran armies even used to share a common head of state, till the sepratists got involved.

The Chanceler saying "we need an army, lets make it the same as a planetary army but bigger" is not itself racist.

Got a newcanon source for the rest of that?

Wrong on nearly all counts. The Naboo forces aren't a standing army, they're security and royal guard forces. Mon Cala's forces aren't regular soldiers, they're knights operating on knightly tradition(hence why their head of state is a king who charges to battle with them). The Quarrens were a separate group created for and backed by separatists.

The Gungans were ironically the only group confirmed to keep a regular standing army. That's why they were so key to taking Naboo and then later aiding in the clone wars.

In the Tarkin novel Eriadu has a defense force, but it's under strength and out of date and no other forces can actually help or reinforce them. Tarkin basically had to not only command the naval forces, but redesign their ships and operate on the idea that even a small number of pirates could completely deadlock the economy of whole planets at a time. Once he joins the judicial forces he repeatedly points out that regular soldiers with blasters are considered worthless by a republic that's way too reliant on Jedi for jobs regular humans could do with proper training(a mistake Palpatine doesn't make himself. He thinks the force is paramount to all else but he's more than willing to basically make Tarkin emperor to further his other goals).

[Foeofthelance]

I only read that comc once while waiting for my Xwing group to show up, but the govenor in question was talking with Kanan's master in the clone wars when order 66 happened. He's still in the same position 15-odd years later, so he hasnt been frozen out of the republic/imperial command structure... though he hasnt been promoted either, and he gives adult kanan a "these imperials suck, I'd totally help if the sepratists came back, wink nudge."

But again, I'd need to reread the comic (Kanan the last Padawon 1-6) to do a proper analysis.

Also, those unknown stormtrooper varients might be exactly what Traab suggested, armor for locals based on imperial patterns.

Yeah, him being in the same position for the full 15 years reads like its more of a planetary government position than an Imperial position. So him claiming the backing of Imperial Authority is probably a lot like Boba Fett claiming the backing of Imperial Authority. While they work for the Empire, and the Empire would (probably) drop a world of hurt on anyone who opposed them, they are not actually Imperials themselves and the retribution would more be just because the Empire doesn't like any challenges.

As for those being local variations of storm trooper armor, I don't see it. There's no commonality of shape, color, or equipment that we see with the other Stormtrooper variants. For example, while the scout troopers on Endor have flatter helmets with a brim over the eyes and the Snowtroopers from Hoth have an extra cloth piece over their face pieces, all three styles have the same D-turned-sideways style of eye piece and are white. The soldiers in the comic have a Y fronted helmet and are almost pure olive green. Assuming they are the same species as Gamut Key, who is humanoid, there's no reason not to use either of those distinctive features. All they would really need is some accommodation for the scalp crest and wider cheeks for those fins on the side of the face.