aita?

[insertusername]

am i the asshole?

Life isn’t always black and white. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s really at fault, and no one wants to believe they’re the bad guy. Sometimes you need an outside opinion. Or several.

Tell your side of the story and crowdsource an honest answer to the age old question; Am I The Asshole?

Top Level

with your character explaining a situation where they might have been the asshole.

Comment

with your hot takes. Anon or IC.

Comments

Ysanne Isard | Star Wars: Expanded Universe

[iceheart_imperial]

So I released a plague. I came closer to winning a Galactic War with economics and a singular instance of biological warfare than any of my predecessors. Who, I would remind this so-called jury of my peers, viewed the solution as an endless, unwinnable military conflict.

After, of course, trying two planet-killing superweapons. And then degenerating into bickering, petty little princelings the moment the Emperor wasn't there to manipulate them, nor Vader there to enforce their loyalty.

I make no apologies. The virus was engineered to be entirely curable - the so-called 'New Republic' merely chose the death of its citizens over political surrender. If they truly believed in their supposed moral code, they would have chosen otherwise. As for the Lusankya's...creative exit from Coruscant, that too was military necessity.

My actions do not make me an 'asshole', as you seem to believe - the Empire brought order and peace to the Galaxy. Restoring it, saving it from a galaxy-spanning defeat? Calls for all extraordinary measures. If the roles were reversed, see how long the Republic would hesitate before doing the same.

Re: Ysanne Isard | Star Wars: Expanded Universe

[wasstarkiller]

Right, all that slavery and murder the Empire did was incredibly peaceful and orderly.

[iceheart_imperial]

Unfortunate features, but the former would have been phased out by economic development under my administration. It's terribly inefficient, in any event.

As for the latter...are you truly so naive as to think any government doesn't? In any event, it is preferable to a war fought against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of worlds.

[wasstarkiller]

Slavery isn’t an unfortunate feature, it’s an atrocity.

Operation: Cinder. Geonosia. The Empire went far beyond what other governments did, even among its own people.

[iceheart_imperial]

One primarily used to create labor for the Death Star projects. Again, a policy failing that will not recur.

[As for the rest, she's from the universe where those didn't happen. Nor would she have allowed anything so stupidly self-destructive, or ridiculously obvious. In her universe, the Death Star was planned and prototyped quietly in the Maw, then build with labor over the prison planet Despayre - which was promptly destroyed when it was finished. For all the stupidity of the project itself, at least it left fewer obvious traces behind.]

What ridiculousness you're referring to, I have no idea. Probably like something out of a badly-written holo-novel. But you fail to understand the scale - you speak with the morality of one person, when the stakes are, constantly, the peaceful existence of 1.5 million member worlds - and tens of millions of dependent colonies, space installations, and client states.

Sometimes, in that reality, you have to make decisions by different metrics.

[nouskaiananki]

An attempt at peace and security was made but we both are aware there were multiple failures on that account.

And the Republic would have created more Clones and languished in a committee for decades or longer. That was the entire problem.

Still Director - a plague? There are enough of those.

[ Asshole no, rude yes? Is that a vote? ]

[iceheart_imperial]

The Republic was too old and corrupted to adapt to a changing galaxy. A war would have come sooner or later, and without the Emperor's forethought, the entire structure would have collapsed.

I often counseled him towards further improvements, but I suspect he had further goals that he did not share with me - which prevented a proper, Imperialized bureaucracy from taking over from the princelings of the court competing for his favor.

[A tight smile at the last.]

Some of us didn't have Death Squadrons to whistle up. I had constrained resources, and came closer than the Death Stars ever did.

[nouskaiananki]

To be fair to the Republic, Palpatine did speed that war up by several centuries and it may have simply decayed into clusters of a confederacy by then. But it was decaying and needed radical restructuring in order to survive at all.

His ultimate goal was to become immortal and as powerful or more so than the last Sith Emperor. Which meant making sure what proved Vitiate's downfall - the Dark Council - and so there could never be a united group against him.

[iceheart_imperial]

[All of that provokes a sigh, and briefly closed eyes.]

Thus the competing magocracy. When he should have simply done away with them. Such inefficiency.

Yourself excluded, of course. Their attempts to ensnare you in their games universally led to less complication when you'd killed them - and you commanded the fleet's loyalty.

[nouskaiananki]

He wanted entertainment or deniability.

[ Both, it was both. ]

Solely because I'd rather be with the fleet than with the officers. It's easy to earn loyalty. Keeping it is more difficult - and requires one to put in work that is both mentally and physically taxing. Most of them seemed allergric to the concept.

[iceheart_imperial]

[And best of all, it kept him far away from political power. Win-win.]

I am well aware. I reprogrammed more than a share of those inside the Lusankya.

[nouskaiananki]

[ Only because he didn't want it. For himself anyway. ]

Not enough or I'd have killed less of them.

[celchu]

Nice speech, Iceheart. You're absolutely the asshole.

[iceheart_imperial]

Ah, Celchu.

[Behold the false, pleasant smile.]

You're only saying that because of the part where I framed you for treason.

[celchu]

Not only that. Certainly didn't make a good impression, though.