OOTS #1154 - The Discussion Thread

[Snails]

The problems with the Imperial chain of command were further explored in the novel's about Grand Admiral Thrawn. Dictatorships very often have a gnawing trust problem, because one swift stroke and a whole cabal of conspirators can get instant promotions.. Is that commander incompetent or untrustworthy for reasons of his own? Well, the only solution is to favor loyalty above all us -- at least you know what you are getting.

Palatine and Vader favored developing elite forces, because they actually get things done and a few particular potent balls in the air are easier to keep you eye on. The Death Stars were logical extremes of that -- weapons that were supposedly irresistible.

But at the broader scale elite forces can drain the young talent from the larger organization -- it is a genuine controversy in military theory. Did the creation of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain divisions in WW2 create two awesome and effective divisions that helped win the war more quickly? Or did it drain 5,000 men who could easily have been groomed into excellent corporals and sergeants and lieutenants away from 50 divisions, and thus greatly exacerbating the effectiveness problem that needed a solution?

In the case of the Battle of Endor, the destruction of the Executor annihilated most of a generation of young officer talent. Yes, being under Vader's nose ran the risk of getting Forced choked to death for an error. But it also brought the promise of rapid promotion for real talent.

With Palatine, Vader, the Executor permanently out of the picture, the Imperial Navy found itself chock full of commanders who knew how not to be blamed, without any chain of command to lean on. Meekly retreating when things look bad is not a shocking choice. And once one capital ship chooses retreat, the option starts looking safer and safer.

[pendell]

Why would they not be?

Because they're not alive. The Force is generated by living things, and droids aren't alive in a biological sense. Nonliving things can be acted on by the Force -- witness Luke lifting rocks -- but they do not generate or control it.

I will agree that the rancor was not able to use the Force but that doesn't mean it was not part of the Force, in the sense of being one of the living creatures generating the energy field the Jedi call "the Force"

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Because they're not alive. The Force is generated by living things, and droids aren't alive in a biological sense. Nonliving things can be acted on by the Force -- witness Luke lifting rocks -- but they do not generate or control it.

I will agree that the rancor was not able to use the Force but that doesn't mean it was not part of the Force, in the sense of being one of the living creatures generating the energy field the Jedi call "the Force"

Respectfully,

Brian P.

And yet the Force still works on non-living things, like the drowned X-Wing. So "part of the Force" sounds like a meaningless distinction.

Speaking of which, the living Rancor which contributes to the energy field doesn't find food in the wild by the "will of the force," it finds food by instinct, skill, and luck. The same luck that Solo has.

[Fyraltari]

Hang on.

The Force has volition?

According to the Jedi yeah. It's bascically a pantheist religion.

The Force can control your actions, but it also obeys r your commands. I choose to believe that the corollary is true, that if you can't command it, it can't control you. I also hate all that "Will of the Force" stuff, and noticed it was only Force users that it really affected.

How do you know that? The force users are the only one who believe in the Force (well them and the Church of the Force and such) but why would it not affect other people? Obi-Wan can affacet people through the Force, can he not?

Solo's doing was his own. The Force didn't affect him any more than it affected the Rancor in Jabba's palace.

What makes you think the Rancor wasn't affected by the Force?

It's a living thing, isn't it? Or at least, it comes from living things. A symbiotic relationship?

Whether it is actually *alive* itself, it is at any rate so closely related to life that I think it makes no difference; the Force is a living thing, and so it has volition.



I disagree; the Rancor is a living thing and so is as much a part of the Force as the trees of Dagobah is. Granted, it's probably a very dark-sided thing, being all hunger and rage, but that doesn't make it not part of the Force. I think the things that aren't part of the Force are droids.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I think it's still canon that Jabba's Rancor was driven half-mad by being stuck in a cave and fed only people Jabba wanted dead and in their natural habitat rancors are rather peaceful.

Why would they not be?

They're not organic, basically.

[zimmerwald1915]

Because they're not alive.

According to what criteria?

[Snails]

Solo's doing was his own.

A digression...I always found the following both a charming and gobsmacking non-sequitur:

Luke Skywalker: You don't believe in the Force, do you?

Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.

[Peelee]

How do you know that? The force users are the only one who believe in the Force (well them and the Church of the Force and such) but why would it not affect other people? Obi-Wan can affacet people through the Force, can he not?

A.) a whole lot of people in the Old Republic believed in the Force. Also a whole lot of people in the New Republic. And the Rebellion. Motto certainly believed after getting choked. I'd say more non-Force users believed than Force-users (though that's a cheating statistic, like how China has more English speakers than America)
2.) If I push you and you fall, that doesn't mean that if you trip and fall the next day that's the will of gravity. Kenobi can control the Force and let it guide him, because he can use the Force. Solo can't. Most animals can't. I see no reason to extrapolate that they can.

[pendell]

According to what criteria?

Biology. Pulse zero, no heartbeat. They aren't alive in the sense that cells or plants are. They are machines , constructed of metal or plastics and powered by electricity. They are no more alive than my wristwatch is.

I would be willing to change my view if you can produce evidence of a droid who is also a Jedi. A droid who could use the Force would be part of the force and therefore "alive", for the purpose of this definition.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Biology. Pulse zero, no heartbeat. They aren't alive in the sense that cells or plants are. They are machines , constructed of metal or plastics and powered by electricity. They are no more alive than my wristwatch is.

I would be willing to change my view if you can produce evidence of a droid who is also a Jedi. A droid who could use the Force would be part of the force and therefore "alive", for the purpose of this definition.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Do crystals count? I am not bringing up Skippy.

[pendell]

Shards? Interesting, but I don't think they're in the same category as droids. Shards are a naturally occuring lifeform which has a silicon biology rather than a carbon one. That's not the same thing as a manufactured droid.

You would think that, with all the droids the Trade Federation produced during the Trade Wars, if it were possible for them to use the Force they would have found some way to identify them and make use of them. As it is , the absence of any force-using droids during the clone wars is a strong argument against the possibility.

Also, the Ep. III novelization notes that Vader was far weaker in the force after being cyborged than before; this again points to the idea of metal, of machines, being inherently outside the force.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

A.) a whole lot of people in the Old Republic believed in the Force. Also a whole lot of people in the New Republic. And the Rebellion. Motto certainly believed after getting choked. I'd say more non-Force users believed than Force-users (though that's a cheating statistic, like how China has more English speakers than America)
2.) If I push you and you fall, that doesn't mean that if you trip and fall the next day that's the will of gravity. Kenobi can control the Force and let it guide him, because he can use the Force. Solo can't. Most animals can't. I see no reason to extrapolate that they can.

Motti certainly believed Vader had psychic powers, did he believe them to come from an all permeating energy field and did he believe siad field to have a will are two related but separate questions.

That Solo cannot sense the Force does not mean the Force isn't affecting him. Why reject the testimony of the people who can actually feel the Force?

[Resileaf]

And yet the Force is directly stated not to work on everyone. Watto is entirely immune to Qui-Gon's attempts to manipulate him, and I'm pretty sure it's stated that anyone with a strong-enough willpower can resist a Jedi's mind control powers.
Wouldn't that confirm that the Force is not controling people unless directed to?

[Aveline]

Biology. Pulse zero, no heartbeat. They aren't alive in the sense that cells or plants are. They are machines , constructed of metal or plastics and powered by electricity. They are no more alive than my wristwatch is.

The line between alive and not-alive is a fuzzy one. Is our star system, for example, alive in and of itself? (An open question in my view.) Are single-celled organisms alive in and of themselves? Then why shouldn't "grey goo" be considered alive, and then why not larger droids?

I find that definitions of life which exclude artificial* mechanisms are specifically contrived to do so, such as by asking whether or not the specimen is made of carbons, which is really what is meant by "organic".

*Please note that I consider the term "artificial" to be dubious in a philosophical sense.

I would be willing to change my view if you can produce evidence of a droid who is also a Jedi. A droid who could use the Force would be part of the force and therefore "alive", for the purpose of this definition.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

What about the story where the first droid Luke buys out of the sandcrawler kills itself to fulfil its Force vision of Luke buying R2 and subsequently becoming a Jedi?

[zimmerwald1915]

Also, the Ep. III novelization notes that Vader was far weaker in the force after being cyborged than before; this again points to the idea of metal, of machines, being inherently outside the force.

Interesting. Is a given human stronger in the force when they have an iron deficiency than they are when their iron levels are normal? What about sodium? Potassium? Calcium?

[Fyraltari]

And yet the Force is directly stated not to work on everyone. Watto is entirely immune to Qui-Gon's attempts to manipulate him, and I'm pretty sure it's stated that anyone with a strong-enough willpower can resist a Jedi's mind control powers.
Wouldn't that confirm that the Force is not controling people unless directed to?

Well, not really, the Jedi Mind Trick is always attempted to make the target carry out a specific action. That has the subtelty of a slegdehammer when it comes to influence. The will of the force could influence people by giving them particular feelings to prompt them to act in certain ways that they would call "intuition", "instinct" or "my guts" or be even more mysterious.

[Snails]

Biology. Pulse zero, no heartbeat. They aren't alive in the sense that cells or plants are. They are machines , constructed of metal or plastics and powered by electricity. They are no more alive than my wristwatch is.

I would be willing to change my view if you can produce evidence of a droid who is also a Jedi. A droid who could use the Force would be part of the force and therefore "alive", for the purpose of this definition.

I agree. In some fashion that is hard to fanthom, midichlorians can symbiotically "live" within "living things". This seems to be related to the ability to purposefully tap into the Force. We have no reason to believe machines can have midichlorians. I assume that all living creatures have some amount of midichlorians within them, even things like weird living rocks.

[Kish]

I was using that as the closest english equivalent to the concept of "légitime défense": the use of proportional, necessary violence to end a direct threat to oneself or another because I did not want to make a periphrase. Bottom line: Luke's actions in episode IV qualify as defence because he stopped people from getting murdered by using the only means at his disposal. His striking the Emperor in the throne room do not as evidence by the fact that none of the people in that room interfere with the battle whatsoever.

In other words, you're using your conclusion as support for itself.

If it means anything to you, I concede that if someone started with the premise that the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion, then the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion.

Beyond that, it appears to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're arguing that the climax of the movie was somewhere other than Luke facing down the Emperor.

You may be correct.

But if you are, from where I'm sitting, that makes the movie worse, not better, than I started off arguing it is. ("Return of the Jedi!...Not that there are any Jedi in the climax, or that they ultimately make any difference to it...")

[Fyraltari]

In other words, you're using your conclusion as support for itself.

If it means anything to you, I concede that if someone started with the premise that the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion, then the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion.

What in the movie supported that the Emperor was a threat to the Rebellion? Again in that particular battle, because if you are going to say, had he lived he would have kept fighting them I'd say that pre-emptive strike do not count as either self or légitime defense

[zimmerwald1915]

What in the movie supported that the Emperor was a threat to the Rebellion?

Mon Mothma deciding to prioritize her attack on the Death Star II because the Emperor would be present. If the Emperor was not a threat worth terminating, his presence would make no difference.

[Keltest]

In other words, you're using your conclusion as support for itself.

If it means anything to you, I concede that if someone started with the premise that the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion, then the Emperor was no threat to the Rebellion.

Are you suggesting that the Emperor was actually micromanaging the battle while messing with Luke? Because while theres some support for that in Legends, theres no indication that the Emperor and Vader were anything other than observers to the fight in the movie.

Also, how is "They weren't involved in the battle, therefore they weren't influencing the outcome" circular logic rather than, you know, a basic truth? We can see what theyre doing, we know they aren't directing the battle or fighting in it, Battle Meditation not withstanding.

[pendell]

Interesting. Is a given human stronger in the force when they have an iron deficiency than they are when their iron levels are normal? What about sodium? Potassium? Calcium?

An excellent question. I don't think this was addressed in story, but I suspect such issues would have minimal impact. It's not like a huge portion of the body was replaced with mechanical parts such as the subject could accurately be described as "more machine than man".

The line between alive and not-alive is a fuzzy one. Is our star system, for example, alive in and of itself? (An open question in my view.) Are single-celled organisms alive in and of themselves? Then why shouldn't "grey goo" be considered alive, and then why not larger droids?

Gaia hypothesis! :) But even within a multicelled body, there are parts that are both alive and not-alive. For instance, my outer skin cells are dead by design. If they were not, every moment would be agony.

So even if the entire galaxy can be considered a single multi-celled organism, that doesn't mean that everything within the organism is alive. Droids would be part of the not-alive parts, along with most rocks.

What about the story where the first droid Luke buys out of the sandcrawler kills itself to fulfil its Force vision of Luke buying R2 and subsequently becoming a Jedi?

I will concede that a droid who can have force visions is indeed "alive" in this sense. Not being familiar with the story, I can't say to what extent that reflects Lucas' original vision and design of the GFFA.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Snails]

What in the movie supported that the Emperor was a threat to the Rebellion? Again in that particular battle, because if you are going to say, had he lived he would have kept fighting them I'd say that pre-emptive strike do not count as either self or légitime defense

The evidence is the building of another Death Star, that we can reasonably assume would eventually be used in the same fashion as the first.

[Keltest]

As I recall, Skippy The Jedi Droid was A: really dumb and B: later retconned out of the canon.

[Fyraltari]

Mon Mothma deciding to prioritize her attack on the Death Star II because the Emperor would be present. If the Emperor was not a threat worth terminating, his presence would make no difference.

I redirect you to "pre-emptive strike is not defense". Wether Mon Mothma considered the killing of Palpatine a strategic priority (which it was) is irrelevant to the discussion of wether killing him in cold blood is more or less dark sided than blowing up the Death Star when it's about to fire.

The evidence is the building of another Death Star, that we can reasonably assume would eventually be used in the same fashion as the first.

And?

[Snails]

I redirect you to "pre-emptive strike is not defense". Wether Mon Mothma considered the killing of Palpatine a strategic priority (which it was) is irrelevant to the discussion of wether killing him in cold blood is more or less dark sided than blowing up the Death Star when it's about to fire.

Actually a strike against the specific weapon of mass murder being built by a foe that has proven the desire, means, and willingness to make pre-emptive strikes against non-military targets, what could be more legitimate?

In light of the undeniable facts about the Empire, the Death Star is a legitimate military target under every scenario except surrender of the base or a peace accord.

The presence or non-presence of the top of military chain of command responsible for atrocities is not very important from a moral point of view. Palatine's presence only increases the legitimacy of the strike.

[Fyraltari]

Actually a strike against the specific weapon of mass murder being built by a foe that has proven the desire, means, and willingness to make pre-emptive strikes against non-military targets, what could be more legitimate?

In light of the undeniable facts about the Empire, the Death Star is a legitimate military target under every scenario except surrender of the base or a peace accord.

Great! That's not what we are talking about.

[Keltest]

Actually a strike against the specific weapon of mass murder being built by a foe that has proven the desire, means, and willingness to make pre-emptive strikes against non-military targets, what could be more legitimate?

In light of the undeniable facts about the Empire, the Death Star is a legitimate military target under every scenario except surrender of the base or a peace accord.

The Death Star is certainly a legitimate target, and if Palpatine is onboard when it blows, sucks to be him, he shouldn't have tried to kill planets. But for the purposes of assassinating him, where it happens is largely academic to whether it would be a dark side act or not. Luke wasn't there to destroy the Death Star, he was there to confront his father and the Emperor.

[zimmerwald1915]

I redirect you to "pre-emptive strike is not defense".

I didn't say it was. But you asked for evidence that Palpatine was a "threat," not an "imminent threat implicating the legal doctrine of self-defense." People reacting to him as if he's a threat is evidence of him being a threat, if not necessarily dispositive.

[Snails]

Okay. I will politely punt. Seems I missed the thrust.

[Peelee]

Shards? Interesting, but I don't think they're in the same category as droids. Shards are a naturally occuring lifeform which has a silicon biology rather than a carbon one. That's not the same thing as a manufactured droid.

So natural vs artificial is the line in the sand? Sucks for clones, then. Especially don't tell Dorsk 81.