Pro-Alliance

POSTED BY: howdyrockerbaby1
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 03:17
VIEWED: 4472
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CYBERSNARK

Monday, April 26, 2004 2:46 PM

In response to the Star Wars "Empire" analogy:

The Empire isn't so much Evil (though it looks that way from the Jedi/Rebellion's point of view) as they are totalitarian. It's not always the same thing.

I actually think there's a very good Firefly parallel there, perhaps even hinting at the Reavers subplot.

See, the Alliance/Empire's main philosophy is that The Law is all that makes us different from animals (which are bad, and savage, and stupid, and generally not-nice). With no (or even just weak) laws, you get things like high crime rates, crippling poverty, social collapse, cultural degeneration, anarchy, etc. To this way of thought, a culture needs strong laws (and, according to Palpatine, a strong leader to apply those laws), otherwise it'll collapse into corruption and savagery.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's been suggested by the likes of Plato, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Orwell and even most modern socio-political theorists.

The Independents/Rebels believe that strong laws can choke a society and end up abrogating the rights of the citizenry (the feds might think so too, but they feel it's worth it for the sake of security [Yeah, does that sound familiar?]). Or maybe some of them are wise/cynical enough to agree with the Empire's motives, but realize that their "strong society" will inevitably self-destruct into dictatorship and autocracy.

Also, maybe they believe that what makes us "human" isn't external, like laws or social constructions, but something internal, like a personal concept of right and wrong. Maybe they believe that our inner "animal" isn't something to be caged up and sealed away like a rabid lion, but something that has its own kind of wisdom and can be trained. They're just a little bit uncivilized, which makes them all the more civilized than the uncompromising stormtroopers.

Yeah, they're space-hippies.

Remember Mal's comment in The Train Job, about how he doesn't have a choice (about returning the medecine)? That's what the Browncoats were about --a decision from personal ethics.

To the Alliance/Empire, where all Good Behaviour(tm) comes from fear of reprisals, Mal's response (whatever he might tell himself) can only possibly be compelled by fear. Fear of the Alliance coming after him and punishing him for his crimes against society (the health and welfare of the villagers is irrelevent --Laws have been broken).

Basically, the Independents believe in personal justice and ethics, while the Alliance are the Lords of Order, living in fear of the "evil anarchists" who want to tear down society.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CORWYN

Monday, April 26, 2004 9:46 PM

The same reasons that people support the resulting government after the American Civil War. It was primarily a contest between local versus federal control, self-determination of states versus the union being more important than the states.

The first person to bring up slavery is required to include the date on the Emancipation Proclamation.

Thank You Kindly.

LEMAT

Monday, April 26, 2004 11:36 PM

Corwyn,

1863, but when it had been the overriding political issue in Southern politics for a half century, that didn't matter so much.

Lincoln and--more importantly--anti-slavery forces in congress were going to try to stop the western expansion of slavery. This would have caused the slave states to lose their ability to block anti-slavery legislation in the Senate. The game was over even though the buzzer had not sounded, so the South decided to take their ball and go home.

Personally, I blame the constitutional convention. If an explicit end date to slavery had been given, then the south would have been more likly to form an agricultural voting block with non-slave states in the west as those had come into being, as opposed to trying to form the slave state block.

Also, you're a southerner. Poorer and less educated than the national average, and most likly not able to vote. You take your cues from your social betters, who have become rabid sectional patriots. What do you do when the war starts? You join up to fight the yankee menace. Same applies to not slaveholders further up the social ladder. Not everyone who opposed secession left the south; plenty of them joined up with the home team.

Jon

(edited)

LEMAT

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 12:00 AM

Hmm, to answer the question in the thread, I don't know. Maybe the colony moons had been neglected for so long that they finally started acting like independent states, and the folks under the Alliance chafed at it.

Jon

GUNHAND

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 2:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LeMat:
Hmm, to answer the question in the thread, I don't know. Maybe the colony moons had been neglected for so long that they finally started acting like independent states, and the folks under the Alliance chafed at it.

Jon

This is a good point too. Another thing about the whole 'Verse Civil War that maps out to the American Civil War was a territorial distinction between the sides. You had North and South, in the 'Verse you have Core and Colony/Frontier. Lots of civil wars aren't so nice as to provide a line of demarcation between the sides.

So when we say the Core worlders supported Unification it wasn't like some guys on Ariel heard the Colony Moons fired off the equivilent of Ft. Sumter and went,"Hmmm, Jake I think these Independents have the right idea, gonna go sign up with them. Tom and Jack think the same thing but Ben and Jonah went down to the Alliance recruiter..." For the vast bulk of the population in the Core there wasn't any thought to it, they put on the Alliance uniform and went out to fight. Same thing in the Colonies, even if you think Unification may not be so bad the Alliance cruisers that pulled in to blockade and orbitally bombard the place aren't going to be very delicate in their targetting.

Border planets probably wound up being split with certain percentages siding with one side or the other depending on the local conditions. I'd be willing to bet that some of the nastist and bloodiest battles took place here even if they were considered sideshows by the Generals in the "real war", Kansas and Missouri spring immediately to my mind.

I think one of the traps that we can fall into is,"Well this sort of person would support Unification and this sort would support Independence" but even if phillosophically they could lean in the other direction, they'd be most likely to fight for their homes, families and neighbors. Sure there may be some that "went South" as the old expression went, Core world folk going out to the black to join the Independents and vice versa, but it wouldn't be very common I don't think. But it is possible, ironically enough one of my ancestors did this very thing during the American Civil War, born and raised in PA but fought in an Alabama regiment. But that wasn't all that common at all.

So one of the things I think we have to keep in mind with the Unification War, or War For Colonial Independence, or War Against Corporate Interference (hey we have about 10 names for our war, so should they) is that geography would be the primary vote on which side you'd support, unless you were on a Border planet or in a cross-human-space organization.

In the American Civil War the regular army pretty much stayed Union, very few Southern soldiers asked for release from their enlistment, while the officer corps did split heavilly on sectional lines. I'd be interested in seeing what the case was for that sort of thing in the 'Verse. Although from what I see of the Alliance I have a strong suspicion that the Alliance never had a standing army except during the war itself. Navy, yeah. But army, don't think so.

Again, all my own mindless theory on the matter.

"Pain is scary..."

CANTTAKESKY

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 3:17 AM

Cybersnark, that was a very well put and articulate response. I enjoyed it.

I have recently identified the main reason why I am so *emotionally* attached to Firefly. It provides one of the few stories out there of people who prefer the exhausting uncertainties of freedom over the convenient security of a government that takes care of you. But most people (yes, look around you) have absolutely no problems with demanding that government take the responsibility of solving all our problems and giving up individual freedoms as the price.

I have no doubt in my mind that if we were all transported into the Firely Verse, most average normal people would choose to side with the Alliance. We Americans already make that choice everyday. As a country, our collective votes, whether on economic or moral issues, make it clear we want security over freedom.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

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