HPCA does Star Wars!

[Gands]

Sci-Fi in the TBOverse is another interesting subject. Does Star Wars get made?

yes - but the Deathstar and the Empire are the good guys - and they win. :twisted:

In fact, one story actually mentions Star Wars and refers to a SAC space station as "The Death Star."

What the... Under what circumstances?!

If you're in the TBO-verse, Winston, look at the SW-verse and apply that mode of thought. Now who are the bad guys?

Ummm... the guys fighting to support a tyranical, racist regieme? Rooting for the empire only goes so far.

Most of the assumptions Lucas made in crafting the Empire and the Star Wars universe are hard to make in the TBOverse.

Nobody would look askance at the idea of a Death Star, because their thinking is that you go to the root of the problem and blow it up. Innocent people will die, and that's quite unfortunate, but it's cheaper in everybody's lives than a long, drawn-out fight to the finish.

So they would expect any rational and moral space organization to act in a similar manner.

Oh I agree with that, but I don't see the Empire as something even TBOverse people would support.

I don't think the empire would necessarily be the evil that it is in @. The whole story is going to be completely different.

It's often said that Star Wars was written from the POV of Rebel propagandists. Of course the Empire looks evil. But where, in the OT, if we except Alderran (a big exception, to be true), does the Empire truly perfom Evil Empire Acts where we know it's the Empire? Most of the evil acts are implied - as a good propagandist would do - but we don't see the Empire doing them.

For all we know, it was the Sand People who shot up the Lars homestead, and despite that ominious interrogation droid Leia certainly didn't seem to be in too much distress when Luke found her...

Oh I agree with that, but I don't see the Empire as something even TBOverse people would support.

The story would be quite different. A possible plot would start on Tattooine with the people going about their lives when a musyerious group attacks them, staging a brutal massacre with the deeply outnumbered imperial stormtroopers staging a heroic but eventually fruitless defense. Luke Skywalker returns from a desert trip and finds his family have been massacred by the attackers. Only one man in the town is left alive, Obi-Wan Kenobi who tells him that the massacre was carried out by rebels striking from an unknown base. Another spaceship lands; its Han Solo, a smuggler loaded with a cargo for one of the dead townspeople. The fact his customer has been killed nearly bankrupts him and he faces ruin. The three of them decide they'll have to get to the nearest Imperial fleet base and tell them what's happened.

Meanwhile The Death Star is at Aldebaraan after another rebel attack. It's protecting a relief convoy that is trying to aid the planet after another rebel attack but there's little left to aid. Terrible scenes of slaughter and brutality by the rebels with Imperial Stormtroopers trying to aid the survivors while also hunting down the surviving rebels. We meet Darth Vader interrogating a captured rebel trying to find out where the rebel base is but he dies.

Cut back to the Millenium Falcon - they spot the rebel group retreating from Tattooine and follow it. It leads them to the rebel base. They get caught (all the scenes in the @ Star Wars then follow except set in the rebel base and its the rebel soldiers who can't shoot straight). Eventually our gallant three rescue a kidnapped Princess from the rebels. Obi Wan Kenobi is killed by the rebels trying to hold them off so the rest can escape. They escape, pursued by rebel fighters. On the transvideo, they here hews of the rebel-staged massacre on Alderaan and head there. On the way they follow some Imperial TIE fighters to the Death Star (still only partially shown). They come on board, tell their story but the commander doesn't believe them. Darth Vader turns up and uses "the force" to realize they are telling the truth. The Death Star Commander tries to argue with him but he does the "I find your lack of faith . . . disturbing" thing. Then the Death Star sets out for the rebel base.

That leads to the climactic battle. The Death Star arrives at the base and attacks. It has to fight its way through hordes of rebel fighters, taking a terrible battering as it does so wth dozens of its screening fighters shot down but eventually it gets there, lines up its planet-killer and blows up the rebel base. Much cheering and rejoicing that the murderous rebels have been killed. The camera pans back from the celebration to reveal (for the first time) the whole Death Star - showing it to be painted with a SAC "Milky Way" band.

Coda scene. Imperial Palace people outside celebrating that they no longer have to fear rebel attacks. Our heroes are rewarded for their gallantry that brought down the rebels. Luke joins the Imperial Star Force to learn to become a bomber pilot - Darth Vader takes him under his wing, adopting him as his son. Han Solo gets compenasated for his lost cargo (even though it was smuggled; the Imperials know when to turn a blind eye to things) and is offered a high position in the Imperial government but turns it down. The Princess is to go back to Alderaan to help rebuild the planet after it has been devasted by the rebels and cries that "if only Obi-Wan could be here to help me" She hears his voice saying "I am here if you will listen" and Darth Vader says that he will be even greater in death than he was in life. Close out to triumphant music.

The guys fighting to support a tyranical, racist regieme? Rooting for the empire only goes so far.

At what point in the original @ Star Wars is the imperial regime racist? I think you are falling into the trap of using "racist" to attack any organization you don't like.

Interestingly enough, I recall that the official Imperial justification for the destruction of Alderaan (once it had been conclusively leaked that they had done it with the Death Star, as opposed to the "natural disaster" line they were using before) was that it had been necessary to "prevent the release of Bail Organa's biowar virus"...

Use of catastrophically destructive strategic weapons in response to biological warfare - now where have I heard that one before? 8-)

The guys fighting to support a tyranical, racist regieme? Rooting for the empire only goes so far.

At what point in the original @ Star Wars is the imperial regime racist? I think you are falling into the trap of using "racist" to attack any organization you don't like.

It's more explicit in the EU; the Empire is specifically described as being pro-human and anti-alien; in the films themselves, this isn't really explicit; the best you can do is to note the make-up of Imperial forces (which are, as far as I can tell, exclusively human, aside from a few mercenaries0 and compare that to the number of aliens we see with the Rebels.

From there it's the same SW discussion you'd see on TEO, but I thought some people might miss these old posts. I can throw up a bunch more later.

[Zod]

so authoritarian right wingers are sympathetic to authoritarian dictator strong states

who knew

[adr-admin]

its actually a really interesting exercise to look at what fictional stuff your fictional world would create

like one time shroom was talking about japanese movies vs american movies and how they deal with monsters differently which reflects the national identity

awesome ass shit to think about with a fictional world too

[evilsoup]

yes
the problem is, that reads like it was written one-handed

[Akhlut]

yes
the problem is, that reads like it was written one-handed

I was under the impression that Bart Blade only had one free hand at all and the other had long since melded to his crotch.

[Nietzslime]

it's more of a claw

[thejester]

like obviously it's tongue in cheek, but at the same time it is the perfect encapsulation of why all of bart blade's stories are total shit

moral position of the death star is basically irrelevant to 'plucky American underdog beats evil opponent'

ps: apparently it is widely believed on the internet (so it must be true) that the Thai colonel bart blade was always corresponding with was in fact a sockpuppet of his

damn

[Losonti Tokash]

whoa

so the lady he very obviously wanted to have sex with all the time

was him

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Remember we must never rebel against authority

Even an authority which would build a planet destroying ray gun as part of a policy of creating fear in the innocent

[Gands]

Remember we must never rebel against authority

Even an authority which would build a planet destroying ray gun as part of a policy of creating fear in the innocent

Unless the authority is British (But only if you're American) or German.

[Gands]

The truth behind TSW?

To be honest, I'm kind of perplexed myself about exactly what the hell happened over there at SDN. I'd been following the TSW saga regularly - in fact, it and some of the fanfic, such as the DrakaFic series (though I think SpaceBattles.com is better for that nowadays) was pretty much the only reason I visited that board regularly; some of its tics, particularly the hard-core, dogmatic atheism/anti-Christianity, irk me, but that's beside the immediate point. Anyway, I went away for a while to other destinations on the Web, and when I came back, oh, I think it was sometime early last year, to check up on updates...

BOOM. The disaster with that so-and-so in the Ukraine had happened, and (as far as I can gather; several people have made references to other incidents, but I don't know what) some other things had happened, and all of a sudden TSW had become Something We Don't Talk About Anymore on SDN and all discussion relating to it had been banned. I'm still scratching my head over the whole business, as I've plainly missed some important contexts (I think a lot of stuff in the discussion threads on SDN got deleted).

I think it can be summed up as typical of That Sort Of Folk:

It became an embarassment, so they unhappened it.

from my privileged position in the peanut gallery, I've been trying to make sense of it and what I have comes out like conspiracy theory. (Which may just be me- all very, very much IMO.)

TSW was to a large extent fan service, and quite deliberately so- entirely apart from the writing itself, that was the hook. It was basically- no, complicatedly- a sugar coated pill of conservative-republican ideology, that many were swallowing- a successful subversion attempt and stealth crowbarring open of closed minds, although with some noise in the undergrowth, up until the Ukrainian business.

That tripped an ideological alarm; most of the crew over on SDN had bought into the human/american triumphalism up until that point, but the righteous vengeance to be visited on said spammer stuck in the collective craw- and I think the chain of thought (or imagination) went the punishment doesn't fit the crime, that's a bit extreme, bit to the right, hold on a minute, we're dealing with someone who self identifies as rich, rotund and republican, aren't we? Not really on our side- waitasecond, this is full of conservative messages- we're being played.

Cue explosion, SDN swung sharply to the left over that and has stayed there ever since, less doctrinaire posters drifting away or being canned as the groupthink bites ever deeper. Ever closer to the self destruct button? (Maybe it wasn't a failed subversion, after all?)

I'm only still there because of Terentius- "I am a human being, therefore nothing human is alien to me." Although large parts are becoming increasingly distasteful. When they ran out Scott Lowther, an aerospace engineer, for not being a rabid Democrat, gaaahhh. It's not really been about science and SF for a long time, and I may need a new home soon.

That's probably a pretty fair summary; I ceased to participate on the site very soon after the Ukrainian affair and I really have no idea what happened after that or what the "other incidents" referred to are. However, I think the lurch away from rationality started when Mike Wong ceased to be a regular participant. When I left, he hadn't posted for over a year and the lack of adult supervision was showing badly. It was Mike Wong effectively leaving that made me decide to do likewise. I don;t know if he ever returned or not.

[Darksi4190]

ah. the "Ukrainian affair."

Much like the American Conservatives vaunted "Gulf of Tonkin Incident."

I.E. it never fucking happened.

[thejester]

What? Both those events happened. The issue was never 'did TSW get torrented?', it was the absurd hissy bb chucked as a result.

[Zod]

the ego stroking is pretty hilarious

[Stofsk]

i love this shit gandz

because it's not like stuart was flat out full of shit, no it must be left-leaning groupthink and wong leaving and no adult supervision

[thejester]

love the juxtaposition of the idea that the board became radically left wing after TSW (as if it was some sort of event) and that things went downhill after DW stopped posting

protip: the guy who lead the charge that turned SDN from a pluralistic board to one primarily of the left wing was DW.

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Obviously the story was actually a secret weapon to open up the close minded leftists to the glory of conservatism

Only they discovered the secret to early

And diverged fully into the ultra left afterwards

[Nietzslime]

Obviously the story was actually a secret weapon to open up the close minded leftists to the glory of conservatism

Only they discovered the secret to early

And diverged fully into the ultra left afterwards

now that's a narrative that fits my preconceptions!

excelsior

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

The irony in those comments is just

Just

[starku]

love the juxtaposition of the idea that the board became radically left wing after TSW (as if it was some sort of event) and that things went downhill after DW stopped posting

protip: the guy who lead the charge that turned SDN from a pluralistic board to one primarily of the left wing was DW.

i think the hilarious u turn of senseless praise and agrandisement to utter contempt and open mockery that the mods failed to contain or divert is the ultimate betrayal of the will

the laugh for me is that people stopped talking about it because staff - under the guise of 'being sick' of it - totally gagged any discussion after the sacred calf got burned

[adr-admin]

What? Both those events happened.

there were no vietnamese ships on aug 4 1964

the gulf of tonkin incident was likely human error or equipment malfunction; sensor ghosts that were misinterpreted and tragically used to get us into war

[thejester]

Good thing no one had claimed that any had been sunk, eh?

People seem to misunderstand the Gulf of Tonkin incident as being about what actually happened in the Gulf of Tonkin. It's not. Sure, there was no attack on August 4th; there was one on August 2nd. The actual issue is that LBJ took a muddied event and portrayed it as a clear, unprovoked attack on US ships and then used that narrative to ram through a bit of preconceived legislation. He mislead Congress and the public so he could execute the decision to escalate the war, a decision made months before the alleged incident that triggered it.

[adr-admin]

yea. which is pretty close to what stuart did too

i think he didn't want to finish that book 3 at all from the beginning and saw this little event as an exaggerated excuse to publically disavow it

[Civil War Man]

because it's not like stuart was flat out full of shit, no it must be left-leaning groupthink and wong leaving and no adult supervision

It's funny because, while it may just be me, it feels as though the board has been tacking pretty hard to the right since Obama was elected. Both from Randroids that have been able to post without DW knee-jerk banning them, and from the "liberals" that suddenly find themselves supporting non-liberal stuff because it's a Democrat doing them now.

Of course, that's irrelevant for people who would view Rorschach as an unambiguously heroic character.

[thejester]

Man really? I would have said there's been a pretty massive anti-Obama backlash.