Superweapon VII

Five thousand and thirty nine.

BedeHistory731 said:

Also, as for Palpatine and Vader’s use of the Sith? I tend to think of Palpatine as somebody who used the Sith as a means to an end, while Vader fully embraced the ways of the Sith. A grifter vs a true believer, as some would say.

In my personal headcanon, I’ve smooshed the Palpatine and Darth Bane characters together. I imagine he had many of the same epiphanies the Bane of Legends/canon did. He may’ve even adopted the Rule of Two at some point. But that went out the window once he discovered how to escape physical death by transferring his soul into other bodies. At that point, any prospective apprentice became a spare body rather than an heir to the Sith legacy. Like the Jedi, the Sith believe in “passing on what one has learned”, but Palpatine would horde his knowledge, and this is anathema to the Sith. Another reason for acrimony between the two parties.

I also like to think that there’s a major difference between Sith philosophy and Palpatine’s. They both worship the dark side of the Force, but the Sith adhere to certain traditions and codes of honour they consider sacred whilst Palps is purely a self-serving psychopath, putting them at odds.

BedeHistory731 said:

Vladius said:

That’s really interesting. I actually just read Dark Empire and I’m on Dark Empire 2 right now. I still question that internal logic though because the Emperor was clearly Vader’s master, and the Dark Lord of the Sith wasn’t ever subordinate to anyone else in TOTJ, other than ghosts of former Dark Lords like Marka Ragnos.

I’m trying to think of a justification for this inconsistency and I’m coming up blank.

I like to entertain the idea that Anakin joined the Sith specifically to gain the power to defeat Palpatine. But he overestimated his own abilities, confronted Palpatine half-cocked, had his ass handed to him, and was forced to join him or die.

Vladius said:

I do think Palpatine was intended to be a Sith, though. Once the Sith and the concept of Sith Lords existed, I’m fairly certain that Vader and Palpatine were integrated into it.

Little doubt this is what Lucas intended, but it’s a factoid he apparently kept close to his chest, because Palpatine wasn’t characterized as a Sith in the pre-1999 EU. Darth Vader was characterized as THE Dark Lord of the Sith during the time of the Empire, and as per Tales of the Jedi, only the reigning Sith lord held the “Dark Lord” title. And Empire’s End excluded Palpatine from the Sith hierarchy.

The Sith spirits were gracious enough to make Palpatine an honorary Dark Lord in lieu of Vader, but that Vader had a throne set up for him in their mausoleum while Palpatine didn’t speaks volumes.

• Ben would’ve been born in 60 BBY. He also would’ve been Owen’s brother, indicating perhaps that his birth name was “Ben Lars”, with “Obi-Wan Kenobi” being a nom de guerre he adopted upon becoming a Jedi.
• Anakin would’ve been born in 55 BBY.
• The Clone Wars would’ve ended in 35 BBY. The wars, in part, would’ve been a conflict between the Republic and malevolent Clonemasters, possibly with a Mandalorian clone army at their command. A few decades of peace would’ve separated the wars from the rise of Palpatine’s New Order and the Jedi Purge.
• Palpatine wouldn’t have been a Sith. He would’ve been extremely old, having been a senator in the Republic Senate in the pre-Clone Wars years, but would’ve used a combination of dark side sorcery and cloning to extend his life and maintain a youthful appearance.
• Yoda would’ve already been living in exile on Dagobah for a hundred years or more, indicating he didn’t participate in the Clone Wars or know Anakin personally.
• Luke & Leia’s biological mother may’ve been a Fallanassi adept named Nashira, though this is a VERY unlikely possibility. She wouldn’t have died at the end of the trilogy, whatever the case.
• Jedi would’ve been allowed to marry/have kids, at least within their own order.
• There would’ve been more lightsaber colour variety, for Jedi and darksiders alike.
• Qui-Gon wouldn’t have been Obi-Wan’s primary teacher.

Suffice to say, an EU-accurate PT would’ve been a very different animal to the GPT even if the main beats of the trilogy been preserved.

Raid the Disney vault, you must.

There’s this line of dialogue from the rough draft, spoken by General Luke Skywalker to Annikin Starkiller:

“You are trained well, but remember, a JEDI must be single-minded, a discipline your father obviously never learned, hence your existence.”

So from early on, Lucas entertained the notion that celibacy was valued by the Jedi. That said, it wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule that Jedi were dogmatically required to adhere to; there’s nothing in the rough draft implying Skywalker held Kane Starkiller in contempt for siring offspring.

My memory of the second-to-third drafts in much hazier, but I recall a mention that in their prime, the Jedi consisted of several hundred families. Again, an indication that celibacy wasn’t a inviolate rule until the prequels were made.

timdiggerm said:

The real question is: why does anyone care about having a consistent canon?

I’m inclined to blame the modernist understanding of truth.

DrMonster’s Good Deeds Network

of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

Okay, so I’m over here looking outside thinking “Why does it look so dark out? The sun is shining brightly and there’s not a cloud in the sky. Have I been looking at screens for too long today or am I going crazy? It just looks… darker somehow.”

Then I learned the solar eclipse was happening today.

So my eyes are fine. I still might be a little crazy, but that’s irrelevant right now.

The cosmic ballet goes on.

“The Ploughshare Without Fear”: Remembering Martin Buber (1878-1965)

Aside from the colour scheme, I don’t see much similarity between Ben’s and Yoda’s robes. Yoda’s inner robe looks closer in style to Luke’s black outfit than Ben’s tunics (take notice of the collar); his outer robe looks like undyed homespun.

WookieeWarrior77 said:

Superweapon VII said:

“Set your lightsabers to ‘baseball bat’.”

I know you’re just making a joke here, but that would be really cool if you could put a lightsaber on different settings like a phaser; which would explain why it has different levels of power in different scenes. I love this concept probably more than I should.

This is canon in the EU, BTW.

Channel72 said:

But presumably Mrs. Skywalker wouldn’t stick around once Anakin became a supervillain, so the only way to pull this off story-wise is to claim Anakin was “secretly” evil for some unspecified time period before the twins were born.

Alternatively, she was a baddie herself. Or worse, she was Anakin’s sex slave.

“Set your lightsabers to ‘baseball bat’.”

Boba Fett should’ve just never showed up post-TESB.

rocknroll41 said:

When TLJ came out I told some old guy “idk I thought it was fine” and then his face turned red and he started crying and screaming “no! No! I’ve been a Star Wars fan since 1977! I KNOW Star Wars!! You’re wrong for liking Last Jedi. You’re WRONG!!”

I didn’t speak to him about Star Wars after that.

Damn. He turned into a real life Wojak.

“Well, if droids could think, there’d be none of us here, would there?”

I’m sure some fanboys out there’ll try to say this is some genius bit of social commentary on bigotry towards robots in the SW Galaxy, but I’m really not inclined to believe Lucas is that deep. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Lucas, at least during the production of the PT, genuinely considers droids mechanical zombies.

CourtlyHades296 said:

Batman (1989) is the best live-action superhero film of all time.

Low bar.

(half-joking)

The Giza Necropolis after Al-Aziz Uthman failed to have it demolished:

Now looks to be as good a time as any to share this article:

How Proof-texting is Ineffective and Disrespects the Bible

I’ve begun re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia, this time in publication order. Several years ago, I took out a Narnia omnibus from the library which was arranged in chronological order and read it that way, being too young and ignorant to know any better. I can’t undo that mistake, unfortunately, but hopefully enough time’s passed since then that I can revisit the books from this different perspective and come away with a new appreciation.

Darth Tremor said:

Stargate was an underrated Space Odyssey.

I go back-and-forth on this. Sometimes I think it’s underrated, other times I think it’s rated appropriately. The script is weak as hell, but every other aspect of the filmmaking is spot-on. Definitely a mixed bag.

SG-1, on the other hand, is grossly overrated. All it does is pilfer from better shows like Trek and Babylon 5, watering down their concepts to be as mass-consumable as possible, seasoned with plenty of casual racism, eurocentrism, and American imperialism. I can understand liking this show as a kid back in the day – I was one of them – but I don’t know how any grown adult can view this show as anything more than a guilty pleasure.