Set in the New Republic era immediately following the end of Star Wars: Empire's End, the finale of the Dark Empire comic series trilogy, Crimson Empire follows the life of Kir Kanos, a former Imperial royal guard whose duty in life was to protect Emperor Palpatine. Following the final death of Palpatine during the Battle of Onderon and the slaughter of the rest of his kin on Yinchorr, Kir Kanos is left with a blood oath against the enemies of the Empire, swearing death to all involved in the death of his former master.

Disneys did a good deed killing off most of the pro-empire stories

Tweto

I legitimately cannot imagine watching the original Star Wars film and seeing The Empire destroy Alderaan, a peaceful planet purely out of spite, and choosing to understand their perspective.

There’s a reason why A New Hope ends celebrating with The Rebellion instead of mourning “all of the good people with families stationed on the Death Star” after Luke Skywalker destroyed it. There were never any!

Such a fundamental, gross misunderstanding of the core themes of the franchise IMO.

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[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So if you're inclined to view the political structure in Star Wars as strictly black and white, I urge you to check out one or both of these series and take a walk on the Imperial side.

barbara-pit

[–] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

Y'all remember that early TIE Fighter mission where you're defending a peace conference between some feuding fractions, but then your commander was like "dog, idk but we just executed everyone mission accomplished 👍🤙🫰"

Maybe the empire was the baddies but idk lol i-love-not-thinking

[–] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Those stormtroopers were just trying to pay for their college education, sweaty

[–] 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago

-- 7DeadlyBanthaPooDoos

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

Imagine how pathetic Syril Karn must have been considering how the ~~American~~ Imperial army will enlist any loser who wants to take out a 40% APR loan on a ~~Challenger~~ XP-38 Sport Speeder

[–] Crucible@hexbear.net 26 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It was good to wipe it out because they had done 'Palpatine actually had good motivations actually' by establishing that he was militarizing the galaxy to defend against the coming Yuuzhan Vong invasion

Also Abeloth stunk

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yuuzhan Vong

I know nothing about this, but it feels very red scare "Asian boogeyman" coded.

[–] Flyberius@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago

Yup. That's it

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Was that actually established in canon, or was that just a theory that floated around? Either way it's incongruent, because Palpy was an evil bastard long before he could have found out about the Vong.

edit: it's also the same thing people say about Revan as if pre mindbreak Revan wasn't a Ceasar-like figure who returned from war with an army more loyal to them than the "Republic" that they belonged to and tried to take over. You can blame KOTOR2 for that idea, which was introduced strictly because they couldn't make two entire games based on which ending of KOTOR 1 the player liked better.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago

Also Abeloth stunk

the filoni clone wars is bad for what it introduced and did to characters and i would die on that hill if i gave a shit about star wars anymore.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 24 points 1 month ago

Star Wars Legends is my problematic fav. Once writers started asking themselves "what other stories can we do in this universe?", it became pretty much inevitable that some of them would start humanizing the fascists, and that thread had been pulled on by the Star Wars community for a long time by 2011, resulting in takes like this.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I promise you this guy says the same things about Nazi Germany, at least in private, and this is in part his way of trying to present that message.

[–] Zuzak@hexbear.net 22 points 1 month ago

He connected the dots that the "I just signed up to bomb weddings so I could get free college and escape poverty" argument could just as easily justify becoming an imperial stormtrooper, but instead of resolving that by rejecting the former, he decided to resolve it by accepting the latter picard

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Be Disney

Don't want to be beholden to previously written material

Ignore that material

The fans are angry

Bring back some of that material

The fans are angry

I love Star Wars, I hate Star Wars

When does Star Trek: Starfleet Academy come out again?

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I love Star Wars, I hate Star Wars

Actually loving Star Wars means understanding that it's kinda been mid the whole time, but that's ok lol

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's like comic books

There is so much more slop than there is actually quality stuff

But you learn to appreciate the slop, because the good stuff wouldn't exist without it

Like how I love The Punisher, but remember that he's been a mob boss, disguised himself as a black guy, been an angel and a Frankenstein just as much as he's been a stone-cold bastard who kills slavers and cops

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 17 points 1 month ago

The slop often adds texture for the good stuff, too.

That, and there's usually slop that's fun to rotate around in your head (despite being a mess when reading/watching it)!

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'd say now is as good a time as any to have Frank Castle go sicko on ICE. Fuck what the chuds think.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago

I think he's being mind-controlled by The Kingpin at current

Not sure how long that's going on for, but at least he's not just trapped in Weirdworld after his wife got brought back to life and divorced him

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago

Reading through so much of this I was like "yeah, that's the point, even "good" people who work alongside fascists end up only supporting them, and you can't change a system from within." Then I realised he wasn't arguing for what I thought he was, and was instead trying to justify why it is ok to be a brownshirt "just following orders"

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Idk the comics were always hit-or-miss but the novels were great. Fuck Disney for killing the novelization cannon.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago

and the comics were very low in the canonicity hierarchy once that was established. Some of the books were stinkers but far fewer than people think. A rebellion winning and then governing is really rare in western media and a bunch of those books are about repelling external attacks or revanchism. If there were secret communists among the writers they might have even made the imperial remnant a roc-cool allegory but as far as i remember they never went into great detail on that and now never will.

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I’ll be the nerd that says, if done well, you would have a very interesting story about radicalization, what positions of power and prestige do to you, as you tolerate war crime after war crime. How would the dialogue justify it? Look at Andor, we had a great insight into the fascist bureaucrats running the empire. And what a view that was.

But this is about a canon with jizz instead of jazz and darth shitto, so w.e.