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

[artfultactics]

For the sake of the galaxy... I hope you're right. 

[He is, at least, willing to concede a little bit on the importance of hope. The material conditions are important, but they aren't everything. They're more akin to terrain than anything else; there are ways to hold and ways to reshape any type of terrain, and sometimes the most difficult ground can be held and controlled with the fewest defenders. Thrawn wouldn't be where he is - or where he was - if individual initiative didn't matter. And he figures experience more than words will round the "no strategy just vibes" corners off Ezra's approach where necessary; he suspects not all of them will have to go. 

It's difficult to forget what his former commanding officer, Admiral Ar'alani, had said to him the last time they'd met: "Someday, Mitth’raw’nuruodo, you’ll overthink and overplan, and it will come crashing down all around you. When that happens, I hope someone is there to lift you back to your feet." And it's difficult to be completely skeptical of the thought that perhaps the Force had brought him and Ezra together to balance each other.

Many of the Jedi he's known, he'd met after they were Jedi; perhaps the Dark Side doesn't faze him as much as it ought to, because that experience has led him to suspect it doesn't change the core of one's personality. For the Inquisitors, that is what allows Palpatine and Vader to keep them in line - and Vader, for whom he has an actual basis for comparison, seems to back up his hypothesis. Even mutilated, half-mad from pain and constant infections, tortured physically and psychologically by his master, Lord Vader is still capable of understanding kindness, and of responding well to being treated well, once he realizes it isn't a ruse to get him to let down his guard and thereby hurt him worse.]

Erasing and reforming the past to his liking is what Palpatine has already done, in a less literal way - again, destruction of information is a tactic the Sith have embraced over the ages. Lothal didn't forget; its past was stolen from it. That is how imperialist colonization always operates. In the right hands, history is not just a weapon, but an entire arsenal, so colonizers always make an effort to deprive the masses of it.

Lothal isn't the only victim of that tactic, and the Empire are not the only ones carrying it out. The enemy I mentioned earlier, the one already making forays into Imperial territory, is known as the Grysk Hegemony - and it is fortunate that they consider an alliance with the Empire to be far beneath their dignity, as their approach to ruling through fear and cultural dislocation makes Palpatine's look childish and inept. I am planning to go and break their stranglehold over the Unknown Regions. It would make things somewhat easier if you would join me - but if you would prefer to return home and enjoy your victory, I'll make the necessary arrangements when possible.

[merging]

First we have to focus on getting anywhere. [He says with a small laugh] Then we'll worry about these Grysk guys and the Empire and the Jedi and everything else.

And then... we'll see, I guess. I don't think I'm the type to "enjoy" a victory.

[He'd be lying if he said there wasn't something appealing about jumping from one war into another. Not on the surface, but... it's all he's ever known. Fighting's easier than rebuilding the Jedi Order. It's probably easier than being a normal person at this point. Being stranded makes him restless, upset at the fact he can't do anything else, but he wonders if that feeling will only magnify once he returns home.

Ezra considers mentioning how annoying it is that Thrawn clearly knows all the way the Empire's super super evil and still decided to side with them. But he swallows his words and moves onto something more productive.]

While we're waiting for all that, there's something I'd like to ask of you too. I know I probably owe you after destroying your career, and ship, and crew, and plans, but. I don't really care.

[And probably Thrawn needs him more than he needs him, but that seems too rude to say out loud even for him.]

I wanna know what the Jedi were like. Everything I was told came from those who grew up in the Order, or those who fought against it. An outsider's perspective could be useful. On the Sith too, since you were working closely with them apparently. And if you don't mind... what the Chiss Force tradition is like.

Seems like we'll have plenty of time before we can actually strike. While you plan, I figure I should study.

[artfultactics]

[Ezra's cooperation will make life significantly easier for all of them, but Thrawn could've dealt with the alternative. He's familiar enough with premodern galactic orienteering methods to figure out the rough position of what's left of his fleet - and depending on how Ezra's abilities operate, he may still need to use them; getting back into navigable space jump-by-jump would be a lengthy process and expose them to more danger than he likes, but it is an option.]

Actually, the Chiss Force tradition is probably the one you'll be learning the most about, because that is the one we'll likely be relying on to get us back to known space. Among the Chiss, Force sensitivity manifests primarily in the form of what we call Third Sight - the ability to see into the future, in a way very similar to how the Jedi use that power in combat. However, we've found a much different use for it. The Unknown Regions are such a morass of unstable hyperlanes and uncharted mass shadows that traditional navicomps are all but useless out here, so we rely largely on our Force sensitives as Navigators instead. The technique seems to be relatively straightforward for someone Jedi-trained to pick up.

((Around here is probably a good place to wrap thread, because I still need to make a lot of decisions about what Thrawn actually does and doesn't know about the Jedi and Sith and how he'd explain it. Which I am totally open to input on if you're interested in another thread that includes something specific about either one!))