Is the Alliance Evil? (Firefly)

The Alliance wasn't evil, so much as it represented an orderly, socialist ideal. Life in the Alliance was a paradise, supplemented by a system-wide tax base. Yet this selfless, socialistic paradise could not perpetuate itself due to the self interests of individuals, which always strive for personal attainment.

To that end, the Alliance developed the PAX, so that people would lose that sense of self and become cogs in a perfect, orderly society. Yet when people exposed to the PAX lost their sense of self, for the purposes of my argument, they lost their chaotic tendencies. Ultimately our sense of self is tied to survival instincts. It's our base need for emotions, materials, and nourishment that drive people to put themselves before others, as well as to create. When people lost that, they lost their will to live. Why should one need nourishment when one has no impulse for it?

Alternatively, the people who reacted negatively to the PAX lost all sense of order, or ego. The Reavers had become the ultimate primal parts of humans, where their survival instinct became paramount, and nothing but their self remained. It is because Reavers had selfish tendencies, I suspect, that they were able to survive as collectives out in space, as the Reavers recognized that they would tear each other apart, and needed to cooperate on some base level to guarantee their survival.

I may be giving too much credit to the creator, but I think my assessment of the Reavers makes sense.

Ultimately, the purpose behind the Alliance's development of the PAX was good, in that they wanted to create "A World Without Sin," yet it's because of their idealism that they lost their understanding of human nature, and as a result unleashed the Reavers onto the rim worlds.

The Alliance is more an example of an entity that doesn't want to be realistic than a legitimately malevolent government.

As for Eleo's theory. Assuming that people lost their violent tendencies, the only way for them to overcome violent force would be to do so by proxy, like say, robots.

How ya doing, buddy?

But how do we classify evil? Is it truly evil what the Alliance leaders did? If it was, then what the Alliance did during the war of independance was no better than the American Civil War.

Think about it. What does a faceless, nameless, uknown Alliance leader honestly need? He's already one of the most powerful man or woman in the Alliance. Anything he or she wants is readily at his disposal. What recourse is there, then? The preservation of the status quo, or as it was during the war, the preservation of the state. If the Alliance dissolved, then so does the possibility that they can keep their positions.

Even assuming that these faceless beurocrats were accountable to a constituency, the actions they ordered would have caused them no consequence, as their constituents would've recognized the need to maintain Alliance sovereignty. If the Rim Worlds could declare their independance, what's to stop the core worlds from doing so? That was essentially the crux behind Northern reasoning for the Civil War. If states were allowed to secede, then the Union could not stand, because when the states collectivised their power, they could become a powerful nation.

The same can be said for the Alliance. Why should the Alliance allow these insolent rabble autonomous government? They've lived under the Alliance umbrella for years, and now they don't want a part of it? Well nuts to that.

Is it truly evil when Alliance heads ordered brutal measures to preserve the state? Did preserving the Alliance not ultimately benefit the greater good? The Alliance heads to me, are much like Darth Vader. Not really evil, so much as they are esoteric Straussians.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Quote:

However, Whedon has this lovely habit of having a good idea and not taking it nearly far enough.

Shouldn't that be inadvertently presenting the room for a good idea while not actually focusing on it? The show and movie, are, after all, biased towards Mal.

Most amazing jew boots

Well, what I'm saying is that Mal simply being biased may have not actually been Whedon's intent. Much like how Lucas didn't intend for the Rebel Alliance to spread Galactic Anarchy after the death of the Emperor.

It's entirely possible that Whedon could've intended Mal to give off the appearance of a hardass while on the inside he's just a boyscout, and as he goes along in the show he lowers that shell.

It seems more likely to me that it's an example of cliche character development.

How ya doing, buddy?

Simply because Whedon ripped his idea from the restoration doesn't necessarily mean he had any intention for Mal being wrong. It's not as if the Independance was fought over slavery, and there was a clear moral pitfall for Independant ideals.

Quote:

An unfair statement for several reasons.

First, I'm not drawing anything from the Extended Universe. The Grand Moff Tarkin said himself that once the Senate was dissolved, each region of space would be controlled by the Governors. Each Governor has his own army and navy assigned to him for the purposes of protecting his Fief. When the Emperor dies, there's no line of succession, and the Governors would war against themselves and splinter, like what happened to the Chinese after the end of the last Dynasty.

To that end, the Rebels don't have any plans for the future, or any idea what they're going to do after the Emperor is dead. They eventually become nothing more than a catalyst for Anarchy in the Galaxy, and despite their attractive ideals, create more death and suffering than the Sith or the Moffs ever did under Imperial rule. The Alliance was wrong, and I can guarantee you that it wasn't Lucas's intent for them to be so, just like it wasn't his intent for Vader to come off as a Straussian instead of somebody legitimately evil.

You know, and I know, that any claim to the contrary is just a bunch of bullshit designed to clean up Lucas's philosophical mess.

Quote:

Quite possible - and ultimately a bad idea. I'd want Mal to be a nice guy just as much as I want Greedo to shoot first.

True. But Whedon isn't above being a whore.

Quote:

And hence - through circular logic - you came to agree with me.

What can I say? I like picking nits.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Quote:

Secondly, the American Civil War was *not* faught over slavery. This happened to be something that was found in hindsight - that the war proved to be beneficial in freeing black slaves from their Southern masters.

I didn't really need the History lesson, but no amount of historical revisioning can get around the fact that the driving issue that caused State's Rights to come to the forefront of American politics was the question of slavery. Even though the North never fought with the intent of abolishing it, it still ended up being the ultimate issue. None of the states that seceded were free states, and that's because the secessionists did so in order to protect the State's right to allow slavery.

Had Lincoln not been elected to the Presidency, who know's what would have happened, but it's not as if the Country wasn't on the verge of splintering several times before over the issue of slavery.

To that end, despite being underdogs, the South was still fighting to protect an institution that people consider to be morally wrong. Mal is never saddled with that stigma, because all the Independance ever was were underdogs.

What I've ultimately had a problem with is your verbage, since for Whedon to take the idea of Mal being wrong not far enough, he would've had to take it somewhere, i.e. Mal would have had to be wrong at some point.

That's what I'm getting at. Mal was never wrong.

Quote:

You could also argue that the Empire turning on it's self is no better or worse than the Rebel Alliance turning on the Empire.

That depends on how you classify the threat significance of the Alliance as a whole, which the movies don't do a lot to establish. The way they channel their headquarters from hidden base to hidden base, however, implies that they're more like the French Resistance in Space. Before the Battle of Endor, the Rebels were more of a nuisance than a legitimate threat to the sovereignty of the Empire.

If the Empire splinters, then Alliance worlds can openly announce their sovereignty, but the warring that would occur between the Moffs would be far more significant than the innumerable skirmishes between the Alliance and the Empire.

Quote:

It's a mess, yes. But theres a lot of fucking subtexts in the prequels. No one bothers to bother looking at the mess because everyone doesn't want to bother thinking about anything anymore. This doesn't excuse the fact that Lucas has the narrative flow of a rock wall in the middle of a stream but there are some things that *are* there.

Here's the problem, though. The assumtion that the Jedi were wrong invalidates the moral dichotomy presented by the movies, in that followers of Light and Dark sides are good and evil, respectively. If the Sith were right, then how can they truly be a force of evil, when their actions create more welfare than harm?

How ya doing, buddy?

Quote:

It's good we stopped slavery. And yes, it was an issue that divided the country - but we didn't go to war because of slavery, we went to war because of the fear of secession. "A divided house cannot stand" and the like.

It's a cause and effect relationship. While the stated reasons were different, that doesn't mean that the source of the conflict couldn't have come from somewhere else. It's entirely different in the case of the Second World War, because we couldn't give a rat's ass what Hitler was doing to the Jews both before and after the Final Solution. Anti-Semitism wasn't an issue, because everybody was an anti-Semite.

Quote:

Well, to be correct in this, we need to know what the fight was about in the first place. Perhaps I got ahead of myself - but do we ever know what the war with the Alliance was about? Theres a couple of insinuations - Mal says that the Alliance meddles in people's affairs when it has no right to - but nothing concrete. Theres never a forward statement of issues, just Mal being elusive on it.

(I want to go as far as saying that Mal is elusive because he's just a "stupid grunt" in the war - but theres also no insinuation on that either. Being elusive on a subject does not make you ignorant of it.)

Isn't the Alliance meddling in people's affairs enough? People declared their independance because they didn't want to be ruled by the Alliance, and they did so for a myriad of reasons unique to each of the Independant worlds. Perhaps the people of one world wanted to have a Free Market economy, or the people of another wanted to be ruled by the leader of a religious cult. The show doesn't need to be specific, because the Independance itself was so disjointed. You do bring up a very good point, though, in that we aren't aware of Mal's personal reasons for volunteering.

Quote:

I come back to the earlier point of saying - thats not interesting. Mal playing as the righteous underdog is not interesting writing. Theres no character conflict within or without.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be more interesting. Mal being wrong would make for great stuff, but the way you said it seemed to credit Whedon with some creativity concerning the possibility of interesting character development, which I doubt he possessed.

Quote:

Heres a major problem with Firefly fans: none of them can tell me why they, the viewer, hates the Alliance. They're just told to and take it at face value.

I didn't like the Alliance because they're presented as an archetypal opposite to free thinking. Since I dig all of that freedom shit and am a card-carrying Libertarian, I'm naturally disposed to side with the Independance, but I'm sure that the Alliance wouldn't be any worse off a place to live, or be governed by.

I guess it's because they're brutal that people aren't supposed to like them, but then again that's the only defining aspect for why the Empire is evil in Star Wars. =P

Quote:

French Resistance In Space is pretty apt. But you're wrong about one thing - the Rebels were a threat following the destruction of the first Death Star. Hell, the opening crawl of ESB tells us this immedeately.

Yet, if they were such a significant threat, then why were they hiding on Hoth, and when confronted directly were unable to defeat a single detachment of the Imperial Army? Simply because Lucas's narrative insists that the Alliance is a threat doesn't mean that what we see happen in the movie supports it.

Quote:

Well, heres a question for you - where does Endor lie? Whos the regional control? Wheres the Moff in charge of it? What fleets were there?

Theres too much we don't know to be any ounce of specific. Making assumptions in these situations has as much weight as fanfic writings.

Well, the only fleets we know of are the personal vanguards of Vader and Palpatine. Other fleets could simply be detachments, but you're right, we don't know enough to be specific.

I would still refer back to Tarkin's mention of the governors, however, since the Empire has absolute sovereignty over the Galaxy. Because it has absolute sovereignty, then every single inhabited world would be under the control of a Moff. Whether Moffs have administration over a sector of space or individual planets isn't specified, but even assuming it's the latter, that doesn't mean that individual Moffs can't band together to form self-serving alliances, again like the Chinese.


It just occurred to me, though. What ultimately made the Union right wasn't the opposition of slavery on behalf of the abolitionists. Lincoln himself admitted that it was impossible to determine whether or not God's favor would be for the North or the South, despite the fact that both invoked his name assuming they were right.

What made the Union right was in that the States were more powerful as a Federation than a Confederation, and it's along those same lines that the Independance could've been in the wrong during the war.

FELIPE NO

As am I, and while you've made several points which are possible for me to argue, I would like to point out a few things:

Quote:

Actually, this is a EU subplot that I kind of liked but once the Death Star is destroyed over Yavin, the Emperor was so angry he refused to put another Moff in charge of such a project - which is why you see Vader personally pursuing the Rebellion in ESB.

I'm sure that the Death Star was also inteded to keep Moffs from "self-serving alliances".

I'm not sure if you're just being off-topic, but with no Emperor and no Death Star how does that stop the Moffs in his absence?

Quote:

1.) Any tactician will tell you that for something like the Rebellion to exist, there has to be other operating cells. That is to say - Hoth may be the largest base for the Alliance but it's not the only one, either. So, the Rebellion isn't in full force, so to speak.

Clearly, but then neither is the Empire. I'm not saying at all that Star Destroyers are bitch ships, in fact I believe it was mentioned somewhere (though not in the films) that it takes several systems to provide the logistics that support a single Star Destroyer.

Nonetheless, if Hoth is the Rebel's biggest base, and they are as much a significant threat to the Empire as independant Moffs would be to each other, why can't they meet the Imperials toe to toe? They have no heavy assault weapons, no large capital ships (at the time that we know of), and no sizeable army. Yes, they haven't had much time to prepare on Hoth, but then they should at least have something on-world that can rival the AT-STs, if they're that significant of a threat. The absence of any indication of a major military power indicates that the Rebels are still using hit and run guerilla tactics.

Then again, I suppose this is a case of the absence of evidence not being the evidence of absence. Because we can't see them doesn't necessarily mean that the Rebels aren't capable of meeting the Imperials in the ways that I have described, though I'm fairly confident that the Rebels don't present the kind of threat you're implying because I recall there being at least a slight mention that the Rebels were throwing in everything they could spare at Endor, and that they were showing up in full force.

Then again, I suppose we don't know whether or not the Empire was there in full force, I can just highly doubt it. I also think that if Lucas wanted the Rebels to have all of those cool toys, then he would feature them. The Rebels aren't as alluring, after all, if they're no longer underdogs.

Quote:

However, Star Wars is also a Hero's Journey thing like Beowulf, while Firefly is more like Gettysburg.

It's ironic, then, that in the end of the Hero's journey, he accomplishes nothing but personal growth. If it was truly a Beowulf tale, then Luke would have slayed the dragon, instead of Lando.

It's been a while since I've seen Firefly as well, so I guess the only concrete thing I have to base my view of the Alliance is Whedon's commentary on the Serenity DVD I bought around Christmas. I think in the show, the only indication of that we get was that the Alliance worlds were clean and cosmopolitan, while the Rim worlds were rugged and all that good jazz. It's a simple Black Cape plot device, but I guess it could all just be a bunch of hooey.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Quote:

That second part is awful and stupid though.

Indeed. Perhaps this needs to be explained to me, because the idea that a ship which could field as much power as an entire squadron of Star Destroyers would be rendered useless is Hella stupid.


Also, to Cyantre, read threads before you post in them. I know big words may make brain hurting, but there's something called context that threads follow along paths of conversation. The forums aren't just a medium for your stupid opinions, they're a vehicle for conversation.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Nevermind, either, that a vessel of that size requires an immense support structure. When your last hope of escape could possibly be scrapped within a week, what's the point of drawing so much attention to oneself?

Also the prisoners.

There's nowhere I can't reach.