Interesting take, DZ, though it has some of the issues that plagued my prior crawls, such as ‘Imperial agents’ not really being accurate since they are from the First Order and the problems with stating that the Republic was responsible for the Resistance.
Hmmm. My only concern with this is that it turns the First Order into active belligerents, since threatening ‘destruction’ for seeking the Jedi is essentially a soft declaration of war on their part. I think that’s an issue, because the fragile peace between the First Order and New Republic is one of the main reasons why the New Republic doesn’t officially throw its support behind the Resistance. I still think there’s big value in emphasising the fragile peace, and less-but-still-some value to emphasising the First Order as a particularly extremist faction.
I see how this could be an issue, but consider that in the theatrical version Leia is convinced that Snoke is behind the destruction of the new Jedi Order, which is a far more blatant act of war than merely a vague threat of destruction if a government does something which it hasn’t officially done.
It also gets into the murky situation, if I were to say ‘There is an uneasy peace between the First Order and the New Republic’ that this would establish the two powers as comparable in strength, or at least having a known strength. With the current wording it could be interpreted that the First Order is a largely unknown power arising from a secret base, which makes the threat more like something that would come from a modern day stateless terrorist organization rather than a country with nuclear weapons. One expects that a terror organization would make these kind of threats and be ‘at war’ with a government while the government wouldn’t be in a position to deal with this diplomatically.
I also just think that having the First Order make a threat against anyone seeking the Jedi’s return is a far better attitude than having them be on a quixotic vendetta against Luke specifically, a person who has already disappeared and isn’t currently a thorn in their side. When Kylo Ren orders the destruction of San Tekka’s disciples, this is directly in line with the established First Order threat because the disciples are part of the Church of the Force, a sanctuary of those who believe in the Jedi. In the theatrical version this scene came across as a gratuitous ‘kick the dog’ moment, while this new decree practically requires such an action. The belligerence of the First Order rises in scale from there, with the attack on the Force-sympathetic Maz’s castle to the destruction of a government secretly supporting Jedi sympathizers. They may not be terribly effective in their villainy, but with this decree they are at least murderously consistent.