A. Difference moral compass. You can't judge them based on the moral code you follow, because it simply doesn't connect in that way. B. Yes. I can. For example: The was was four years long, and it caused the deaths of 365 trillion people (the bulk of whom were presumably civilians), or 250 billion A DAY. Put another way, given the roughly 1 million inhabited worlds in the Star Wars Galaxy, that means each and every inhabited world lost an average of 365 million inhabitants (or 6 World War II's, simultaneously, over 4 years). That means every time at the end of a chapter or scene, which usually marks the passage of a day or even a few hours, countless billions more are already dead. Every conversation dithering about morality and using superweapons against the Vong? Hundreds of millions died during the course of the dialog. That's aweful, yes, but it doesn't make the Vong evil, because they just don't respect life the way humans do, or see a need to respect it. It's just how they live as a culture. Oxford defines immoral as "Not conforming to the accepted standards of morality." It defines wicked as "Evil or morally wrong." It defines morality as "Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour." Who decides where that morality is centered? Oxford? I'd think not. The Vong have a morality centered in an entirely different and alien way from what we, as humans, cling to. It's simply not fair to judge them based on what we see in ourselves. Think, say, the Formics from Enders Game, and you'll see what I mean. The Sith are similar, albeit for a different reason. They're not necessitated to be evil, but the orthodox (and majority) view of their religion forces them to act in a way that seems very evil to our view. This is similar to, say, (and I really didn't want to bring real life into this) Muslim fundamentalists. No, not extremists, fundamentalists. Today, they seem pretty evil from a westem perspective, (our morality based almost entirely around Christian teachings) but to them it's just the way life is. They had much the same idea of us (for a given value of "us" based on where you live) back in the middle ages when we were bashing each other's brains in because we couldn't decide which view of Christianity was the right one. To sum up, Palpatine in EPIII wasn't lying when he said good was a point of view. Because it is.

Huh. Cool. Let's hope she does a good job of it.

It's just that sarcasm is difficult to translate into a forum. I wasn't sure if you really didn't know.

That's kind of a big thing, and he was always unhinged deep down anyway.

I don't suppose anyone knows what the Spike channel is on Fios?

Oh. It wasn't very good.

Not as many as you think, perhaps. It's about a fifty-fifty split between people who like the Vong and those who don't.

Fate of The Jedi was a collaborative work by Aaron Allston, Christie Golden, and Troy Denning.

Short story, total technological, artistic, and cultural stagnation brought on by overwrought peace. Long story:

Then why, precisely, did the Son (a pure manifestation of the Dark Side) and the Sith Order end up siding against her? If anything is a corruption of the Force, it's her. She drank from the Font of Power, and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge, and the resulting overload warped her into a cosmic horror, not specifically of the Dark Side.

The Dark Side doesn't "kill the Force". Dark Side users kill other people. You're about to point to Nihilus and Vitiate as "proof" that the Dark Side is unnatural, right? The first was a one-of-a-kind monster created by the deployment of a superweapon. The person that turned into Nihilus was simply unlucky enough to both be Force Sensitive and the focal point of all the death at Malachor V. He is explicitly a "wound" in the Force, not a manifestation of the Dark Side. The second, Vitiate, is simply pure evil. That's all there is to it. It is (or was to be, anyway) the role of the Jedi Knight to destroy him, and stop his plans. IE, the Light Side balancing out the Dark Side. Again, look to Mortis and The Throne of Balance. They're the most recent (and highest) lore on this subject, and as such supercede anything previous.

..... Which is why it needs to be balanced by the Light Side.

"Revengance"?

No. There is no such line dividing good and evil. It's all in the context. For an example, take the Yuuzhan Vong. At first glance, they seem like an evil race of monsters. They invaded the Star Wars galaxy, (it really needs a name by the way) and started a war that would come to kill hundreds of trillions of people. They maim and torture on a daily basis, seemingly for fun. But then you learn more about them. They invaded the galaxy because there is literally no where else for them to go. They started the war because, to them, it was just the natural way to move in. Their society is entirely based around pain because that's simply the way they developed as a culture. The context of their actions is based around an entirely different morallity from what we have. That's not evil. It's just different. Fate of The Jedi. Read it. Mortis. Watch it. To summarize in four words: The Throne of Balace. It is a physical place that allows a being to completely control the flow of the Force. Evil, good, Light, Dark, whatever. The responsibility of the prevalence of any aspect of life is effectively placed upon the being seated on the Throne.

It's also the most recent evidence we have, and it's the closest level of canon to G.

You watched the Mortis Trilogy from TCW, right? It's all about how the Light and Dark Sides need to be balanced. If the Light Side was the true, only, "natural" aspect of the Force, then there was absolutely no reason for the Father to bind the Daughter on Mortis along with the Son.

Effectively, all of the above is the counter-point to your post Rayla. As a side note, we could argue the morality of the Dark Side, Light Side, Sith and Jedi, for weeks. It wouldn't get any of us anywhere.

YMMV. I believe the prevalence of the Republic (and by extension the Jedi) is the reason behind the low rate of technological improvement in the Star Wars universe.

As a secondary to my above post, i'd like to add this: The Light Side may seek preservation, but it also seeks an end to all conflict. That may SOUND nice, but conflict is a driving force behind change; It's a necessary step in the advancement of life. If the Dark Side gets way out of hand, everything dies. If the Light Side has it's way, the universe will permanently stagnate. Absolute control by either side is bad. It's effectively the Big Crunch Vs the Big Chill.

(Sorry, I edited my post a bit late.) Throne of Balance man. It's.... Whoever's job to keep things from getting out of line. Who?

So... Did you not read anything above? The Dark Side mainly represents death, a necessary step of life. Death is a emotional state, hence the Dark Side drawing power from emotion. People have trouble dealing with both heavy emotions and death, so most Dark Siders are consumed by their own hatred and anger. That's not a Dark Side problem, that's a problem all sentient beings share.

Like Aurbere said, the Bane series is great. After RoTJ, start with the Thrawn trilogy, then move on to the Jedi Academy Trilogy (you might want to read a synopsis of the Dark Empire comic series) including I, Jedi, segwaying into the Jedi Knight series of games, and from there move on to New Jedi Order, then on to Legacy of The Force and Fate of the Jedi. Also from the GCW era, read Death Troopers. It's a one-off, but it's awesome. (Or just listen to the this audio book. It really adds atmosphere.) The go-to book from the PT era should be Darth Plagueis. It almost makes sense of Episode I, and it ties in Palpatines plans from other books of the era. As for anything visual, just watch Clone Wars and The Clone Wars. (mid season two on TCW.)

1. The Dark Side is not in any way an imbalance, or "cancer" on the Force. It is a necessary component to cosmic balance. Lucas believes it to be evil, but evil is a subjective term that can mean anything anybody wants it to mean. Case in point: "The overriding philosophy in Episode I—and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter—is the balance between good and evil." -George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999 "In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything." -George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002 "The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film." -George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays "The Force has two sides. It is not a malevolent or a benevolent thing. It has a bad side to it, involving hate and fear, and it has a good side, involving love, charity, fairness and hope." -George Lucas, Times Magazine, 1980 "I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in 'Star Wars.'" -George Lucas, Times Magazine, 2002 "The Light is positive. It is intimately bound with the essence of living things; it is peace, harmony and knowledge. The Light Side springs from the great pattern of existence. It draws strength from diversity and tolerance. It is also inherently communal in nature, thriving on cooperation. Those emotions that enhance the existence of the whole flow from it and tap into its great reserves of strength and peace. Patience, humility and self-sacrifice are paths to enlightenment. Above all, it seeks harmony and perfection. The Dark Side, in comparison, is the force of entropy and destruction. Chaos and rage feed it and are its sources of power. The Dark Side is a part of nature — it is not inherently evil, but evil comes from its irrationality, its intolerance and its lack of control. ******* and predatory, domination is its goal. Mercilessly aggressive and unforgiving, its adherents are blinded by greed and lust for power over those weaker than themselves. The Light and Dark Side manifest themselves in the way they are used; they are simply different interpretations of a single aspect of nature, and they exist in balance with themselves and the universe. Just as with any aspect of life and death, both the Dark Side and the Light Side are intertwined with each other, are necessary to each other and form a cosmic balance." -The Dark Empire Sourcebook And of course, the entirety of the Mortis Trilogy from TCW. 2. It is possible to draw on the Force using positive emotions. This method is just as, (if not more) powerful then either the pure Dark Side or pure Light Side methods. Case in point, right from LoTF Invincible: "... Then Jaina opened herself fully to the Force, drawing it in through the power of her emotions----not through her anger or pain, as a Sith might, but through her love of what her brother had been . . . the teenage jokester who could always find hope in a desperate situation, the questioning warrior who had bested the Yuuzhan Vong warmaster in personal combat, the reluctant champion who had shown the way to compassionate victory. The Force came pouring in from all sides, saturating Jaina and devouring her, filling her with a roaring maelstrom of power, carrying away her pain and leaving in it's place the strength not only to survive, but to rise and fight. 3. As a corollary to the above, there is absolutely no reason (by the Sith Code, or the nature of the Force) a "Light Sided" or at least good, Sith cannot exist. Anything anyone feels like adding?

There was also Mon Mothma.

Post RoTJ, or pre RoTJ? GCW era or PT era? Specifics man.