What's the story behind the gold lightsabers?

Not to derail the thread - there's nothing specific about the colors per se. Originally in the game Sith used red/orange/purple for their sabers. Jedi used green/blue/yellow. Then they tossed that out and you could craft your own saber with whatever color you wanted - including black inverted with only colored auras (which looked wicked).

In the video, these twins are the children of the original Emperor who was *radically* more powerful than Palpatine. Palpatine was about as powerful as mid-rung Sith lord on the Sith Council (which is still very powerful) but the Emperor was practically a force-entity.

Quote from: tenbones;933959Not to derail the thread - there's nothing specific about the colors per se. Originally in the game Sith used red/orange/purple for their sabers. Jedi used green/blue/yellow. Then they tossed that out and you could craft your own saber with whatever color you wanted - including black inverted with only colored auras (which looked wicked).

In the video, these twins are the children of the original Emperor who was *radically* more powerful than Palpatine. Palpatine was about as powerful as mid-rung Sith lord on the Sith Council (which is still very powerful) but the Emperor was practically a force-entity.

The Twins are in the SWToR expansion.  In the main game the Sith Emperor is absent for the Sith storylines, and you "kill" him in one of the Jedi storylines.  In actually, the Sith Emperor's been a disembodied Force Being for a while who can inhabit different forms.  So while he's on vacation from the Sith Empire he's been building a whole new Empire which comes and curbstomps both the Sith and the Jedi with those Twins leading the way.  No clue about the maniac girl in the second expansion.

Well, guys- apparently the Empire is a WHITE SUPREMACIST ORGANIZATION!

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/the-inevitable-politicization-of-star-wars-rogue-one/508358/

More shit I won't be throwing money at.  Star Wars and Marvel can continue to wallow it the mountain of excrement they've made.

Well, yeah. That's as subtle as a brick since 1977.

Quote from: Crüesader;933965Well, guys- apparently the Empire is a WHITE SUPREMACIST ORGANIZATION!

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/the-inevitable-politicization-of-star-wars-rogue-one/508358/

More shit I won't be throwing money at.  Star Wars and Marvel can continue to wallow it the mountain of excrement they've made.

Anyone who thinks killing Nazis is controversal can fuck right off.

Quote from: Daztur;933971Anyone who thinks killing Nazis is controversal can fuck right off.

I was genuinely surprised by all the people who thought the First Order was more evil than the Galactic Empire because they were Nazi-like and I'm like, "The Empire has ALWAYS been Space Nazis."

Quote from: Daztur;933971Anyone who thinks killing Nazis is controversal can fuck right off.

I was genuinely surprised by all the people who thought the First Order was more evil than the Galactic Empire because they were Nazi-like and I'm like, "The Empire has ALWAYS been Space Nazis."

Quote from: Baron Opal;933956What's the story behind the gold lightsabers?

The Sith Emperor of THE OLD REPUBLIC is actually a character who is surprisingly well-written, at least in the new version of things. After the main game treats him as a mindless Burning legion sort of villain out to consume the galaxy, you find out that's all subterfuge and that he's actually built a separate culture away from the Sith Empire which uses the Light and the Dark Side of the Force. When you confront him as a Light Side Sith, he can basically explain he got utterly sick of what a bunch of cartoonish Supervillains the Sith Empire was.

You know...he's not wrong.

Interestingly, I'm actually wholesale cribbing the Zakuul plot for this very game as the PCs other enemies than Vader are a Force-wielding monarchy which managed to survive by appearing loyal to the Empire but is actually plotting against Vader and the Emperor. The PCs will help kill the "Tion Emperor" and then get haunted by his ghost as Arcann and his sister serve as Vader's minions.

Quote from: Daztur;933971Anyone who thinks killing Nazis is controversal can fuck right off.

I'd always pictured them as a 'pro-human supremacy' group.  The 'white supremacy' angle is their new Socjus clusterfuck.

Well, never was completely enamoured with Star Wars.  Guess now I can just write them off entirely.  Meh.  Let me know when these folks start getting fired and writers without a political axe to grind start doing things.

Quote from: Crüesader;933982I'd always pictured them as a 'pro-human supremacy' group.  The 'white supremacy' angle is their new Socjus clusterfuck.

Well, never was completely enamoured with Star Wars.  Guess now I can just write them off entirely.  Meh.  Let me know when these folks start getting fired and writers without a political axe to grind start doing things.

It's also manifestly not true since this is the leader of the Empire in the canon Post-ROTJ timeline.



Of course, I assume any geeks who are actually put off by that are trolling because no one can seriously think the Empire aren't Space Nazis.

Quote from: CTPhipps;933984Of course, I assume any geeks who are actually put off by that are trolling because no one can seriously think the Empire aren't Space Nazis.

I can see the fascism and authoritarianism.  But the 'white supremacy' thing is something I don't buy.

The Empire caring about the Master Race and exterminating the genetically inferior? Nah.

The Empire treating all alien cultures as savage Bloody Wogs that need to be controlled and civilized/exploited for the Good of the Empire?  Closer to the Mark.

They didn't put the Wookies into Death Camps, they enslaved them and put them in work camps and reservations.  The Empire's got a Nazi clothing fetish to make them easy bad guys but their sins are much closer to the worst abuses of British and American colonialism than Nazi Genocide.

Quote from: Crüesader;933985I can see the fascism and authoritarianism.  But the 'white supremacy' thing is something I don't buy.

Obviously not with John Boyega.

I think the idea is they're saying, "The Empire hating aliens is meant to represent white supremacy."

Jews=Elves in Dragon Age and all that.

You know, metaphor.

Quote from: CRKrueger;933986The Empire caring about the Master Race and exterminating the genetically inferior? Nah.

The Empire treating all alien cultures as savage Bloody Wogs that need to be controlled and civilized/exploited for the Good of the Empire?  Closer to the Mark.

They didn't put the Wookies into Death Camps, they enslaved them and put them in work camps and reservations.  The Empire's got a Nazi clothing fetish to make them easy bad guys but their sins are much closer to the worst abuses of British and American colonialism than Nazi Genocide.

Notably, the Empire is based on a combination of the Nazis/Ancient Rome/Nixon's America according to Lucas.

So yeah, there's a diluted racism there but not an extermination level.

They prefer to enslave people rather than annihilate them.

Edit:

Strictly speaking in WEG games Star Wars (which I played, nonstop for ten years), I drew from the original Flash Gordon Pulps a lot with the Empire. I based them on a tribute system more than anything else with local governments being largely left intact but subject to the Imperial Governors who did less ruling than supervising the taxation and exploitation of the populace. The Empire usually had relatively small garrisons on worlds so the PCs could actually deal with them numbers-wise but the worlds, themselves, always lived in fear of the Imperial Navy showing up and blasting them from orbit.

All of the Empire's wealth went to either expanding the military and the Emperor's private projects (Byss, The Death Star, Sith research) or was spent on enriching the Core Worlds. Maybe like 20% of the Empire's taxes went to lining the pockets of the Core Worlds and so on. The Emperor, himself, wasn't speciest but made use of the fact humans were the most populace race in the galaxy to divide and conquer.

By pitting humans against aliens, neither side could ever really overwhelm the other because they hated each other more than they hated the Emperor. While the Empire was mostly human, I also had a bunch of satrapies like the Old Marvel comics. Places like Persia where an alien despot would rule in the Empire's name.

Destroying Alderaan was also supposed to be a psychological blow against the galaxy as a whole. If they destroyed Alderaan, the center of pacifism in the universe, then the galaxy as a whole would become more violent and angry and dark which would fuel the Empire as well as the Emperor himself.

Palpatine can at least lay a legitimate claim to leading the Empire. Vader can not.

Palpatine has shown that he is a master of politics and complex scheming. Vader has not.

Palpatine surrounds himself with capable minions. Vader does not.

Vader going rogue and becoming the top target of the Inquisition after leaving the Empire without an Emperor is a far more likely outcome than Vader becoming the next Emperor.

I know that the Empire is intended to smell like Nazi Germany, but to me it looks more like the worst excesses of European colonialism (British Empire, Spanish conquistadors, etc.). They largely were not about dehumanizing those they had lieved among for generations, it was more about exploiting the primitive "others" that they encountered away from their "Core World" of Europe.