What I Think Happened to Revan

[Crimson_Paladin]

Having him redeemed again would start him on a third light-dark cycle, not finish his development. Falling once and coming back was interesting. Falling twice and then coming back, after planning what would have been one of the largest acts of genocide in galactic history... would that have been any less pitiful? Would anyone really find that titillating? What's that Lucy, a football for me to kick? I'm sure you wouldn't pull the same trick three times in a row!

But it wouldn't just be the cycle repeating itself. The last time he was redeemed, it was because he lost his memories and by the time he got them back, he was a new person. I don't want that happening again, nor do I want him turning to the Dark Side a third time. What I want for him is different. I want him to have the chance to see what he's become and hopefully turn away not from the perspective of an amnesiac Jedi, but as the person who thought wiping out the Sith Empire was a good idea. And in doing so, he will finally be able to resist falling into the same pitfall a third time. As it stands, killing him off at the Foundry feels like a 300 year long shaggy dog story, because he ends up essentially the same as if Bastila had never healed him when Malak tried to kill him, thus making his personal journey since then moot.

 

As for consequences, he never actually carried out genocide, he was thwarted before he could. The Republic won't take action against him because even if he did something that is against their law, they have no evidence. The Jedi will forgive because and give him another chance because that's what they do. And the Sith will hate him regardless.

 

 

I'm sorry, did you do the Foundry?

 

Revan's grand plan to stop the sith was to commit genocide and wipe out everyone with sith ancestry. He would kill billions of people; imperial civilians, imperial defectors, republic civilians, anyone with a specific ancestry no matter how diluted. That's not nearly the same thing as a war. Revan didn't scour the Outer Rim, murdering mandalorian babies and anyone with a mando in their family tree, as he planned for the sith. Considering that Revan himself turned to the dark side and led a sith crusade against the Republic - without himself or any of his followers having genetic sith ancestry - it is a hypocritical non-solution.

 

Normally I don't like to Godwin. People typically Godwin in very clumsy comparisons. But Revan is literally Space-Hitler. The guy used genetic ancestry as a scape goat for all the problems facing his civilization and planned to unleash an indiscriminate, methodical genocide of anyone in that racial group. He's directly, seamlessly, effortlessly compatible with the actions and rhetoric of that other guy.

 

Once you associate a character with the attempted genocide of billions of people without discrimination, it really isn't credible to say he is a good person again and expect your audience to buy it. The credibility is gone, the character has been used up, and any attempt to salvage it would be so inelegant as to make things worse. Again, Bioware can learn a lot from the storytelling failures of other games in the mmo arena, which have made these same mistakes to predictably bad results.

Sith never intermingled with the Republic. The Republic wasn't even aware of their existence until the Great Hyperspace War, and after it was over it was believed that the Sith race was extinct. Very, very few people in the Republic would have Sith blood, few enough that comparatively speaking, the collateral damage is minimal yet there will be few Imperials that would survive, too few and presumably too removed from the Sith ways to rebuild their Empire into what it was.

 

I suspect the reason he chose Sith blood was because it was an effective way to distinguish Imperial from Republic, because few Imperials don't have any Sith blood, while few Republic citizens do. Even then it's not for some reason of racial purity of perceived superiority, it's because the Sith Empire has engineered no fewer than three invasions of the Republic, four if you include the Great Hyperspace War. I don't condone his actions, but I can see where he's coming from in wanting to finish the SIth Empire off once and for all.

 

Seeking to commit genocide =/= Hitler. Hitler did it for purposes of removing undesirables and asserting racial superiority, more along the lines of what Darth Ikoral desires. Revan wants to ensure the Sith Empire gets wiped out without the opportunity to recover and instigate yet another invasion. Racial ancestry just happens to be a very efficient way to distinguish Imperial from non-Imperial. And it's all to protect and aid the Republic.

 

And as a disclaimer, I don't condone what he did. But it's hardly the same as what Hitler did.

[Sarog]

I don't want that happening again, nor do I want him turning to the Dark Side a third time. What I want for him is different.

 

Be that as it may, as storytelling goes, there is a reason why "second chances" are successful and common while "third chances" are virtually non-existent. What you want doesn't lessen the fact that the horse is dead and flogging it won't put the genie back in the bottle.

 

As for consequences, he never actually carried out genocide, he was thwarted before he could.

 

Meaningless. He intended to. It isn't a matter of legality and republic response, it is a matter of character development. As a character, he is well beyond the moral event horizon. For his characterization process to be rolled back to pre-moral event horizon status would be jarring and worse writing than spawned the problem to begin with.

 

Sith never intermingled with the Republic.

 

Sith sent sleeper agents into the Republic. We know this from the timeline trailers. Imperials have also defected from the Empire, and the Empire's colonization efforts in the outer rim have spread imperial genetic legacy pretty far. Space-Hitler's ambitions would have killed billions of innocent people without regard for political affiliation while not actually solving the problem of the sith because the sith are, as we well know and as Revan experienced, a philosophical movement that has more to do with force sensitivity than it has to do with ancestry.

 

Even then it's not for some reason of racial purity of perceived superiority, it's because the Sith Empire has engineered no fewer than three invasions of the Republic, four if you include the Great Hyperspace War.

 

One of those invasions led by Revan himself. With no one involved in the invasion having sith or imperial origins.

 

It is using a race and ancestry as a scapegoat for an ideological movement that has precious little to do with race, the crimes of which Revan himself is more guilty of than 99.99% of the people he intended to murder.

 

Seeking to commit genocide =/= Hitler. Hitler did it for purposes of removing undesirables and asserting racial superiority, more along the lines of what Darth Ikoral desires. Revan wants to ensure the Sith Empire gets wiped out without the opportunity to recover and instigate yet another invasion. Racial ancestry just happens to be a very efficient way to distinguish Imperial from non-Imperial. And it's all to protect and aid the Republic.

 

Using race and ancestry as a scapegoat for problems that are social/ideological is exactly the same rhetoric as Hitler. If you did a search-replace for Mein Kamph to insert the word "sith" into the text, you'd have exactly Revan's rhetoric. Revan is blaming the imperials as a race, because of their genetic make up, for the evils that plague the galaxy and condemning them to death for it... when he knows perfectly well that isn't how force corruption works because he was/is a sith himself. And justifications of "protecting" his nation and defeating its foes with "finality" are exactly the types of justifications used by the real life genocidal crazies in question.

 

And as a disclaimer, I don't condone what he did. But it's hardly the same as what Hitler did.

 

The distinctions you draw are very arbitrary and rely a very great deal on Revan's subjective justifications for his actions. Hitler also had subjective justifications. It is the nature of evil to justify itself and see itself as righteous. Doesn't change the fact that the ethical principles and rhetoric are the same. "Race and ancestry as a scapegoat for social problems", "predisposition of some races towards evil/corruption/unworthyness", "genocide as an acceptable solution to protect what I see as my nation's interests".

Edited April 21, 2012 by Sarog

[Crimson_Paladin]

Be that as it may, as storytelling goes, there is a reason why "second chances" are successful and common while "third chances" are virtually non-existent. What you want doesn't lessen the fact that the horse is dead and flogging it won't put the genie back in the bottle.

Why not? Actually having to confront his actions head-on would be a first for him, because he wouldn't simply be confronting it from behind amnesia and brainwashing.

 

Meaningless. He intended to. It isn't a matter of legality and republic response, it is a matter of character development. As a character, he is well beyond the moral event horizon. For his characterization process to be rolled back to pre-moral event horizon status would be jarring and worse writing than spawned the problem to begin with.

I don't want him rolled back. I want him to get the chance to recover from his maddened state, to realize the error of his ways. This would be completely different from what happened to him during the Jedi Civil War 300 years ago. And I think he deserves the chance to see it for what it is instead of getting killed off in the middle of screwing up again.

 

Sith sent sleeper agents into the Republic. We know this from the timeline trailers. Imperials have also defected from the Empire, and the Empire's colonization efforts in the outer rim have spread imperial genetic legacy pretty far. Space-Hitler's ambitions would have killed billions of innocent people without regard for political affiliation while not actually solving the problem of the sith because the sith are, as we well know and as Revan experienced, a philosophical movement that has more to do with force sensitivity than it has to do with ancestry.

I doubt he would be attacking Republic held territories or even neutral territories. He seemed pretty determined to go after the Empire. The racial ancestry was simply an effective means of distinguishing Imperials from non-Imperials. Imperials who defected won't be an issue, given they won't be found in the places he would have planned on attacking.

 

As for the Sith philosophical movement, they seem to place a great deal of importance on racial heritage, and from what I seen, it may also provide them with force sensitivity. Of the projected 2.3% of Imperials that the droids wouldn't attack, disproportionately few would be Sith.

 

One of those invasions led by Revan himself. With no one involved in the invasion having sith or imperial origins.

 

It is using a race and ancestry as a scapegoat for an ideological movement that has precious little to do with race, the crimes of which Revan himself is more guilty of than 99.99% of the people he intended to murder.

It's not a scapegoat, it's a means to end the idealogical movement. As I said, these Sith place great importance on having Sith ancestry. Yes at this point there have been Sith that have had no such racial views. Those Sith have been dead for 300 years. And yes a few Sith may not have any Pureblooded ancestry. Those Sith are probably few enough that at the time they could be considered to be a non-issue. That said, it's still unjustified overkill. But I do think he's not too far gone.

 

Using race and ancestry as a scapegoat for problems that are social/ideological is exactly the same rhetoric as Hitler. If you did a search-replace for Mein Kamph to insert the word "sith" into the text, you'd have exactly Revan's rhetoric. Revan is blaming the imperials as a race, because of their genetic make up, for the evils that plague the galaxy and condemning them to death for it... when he knows perfectly well that isn't how force corruption works because he was/is a sith himself. And justifications of "protecting" his nation and defeating its foes with "finality" are exactly the types of justifications used by the real life genocidal crazies in question.

This isn't real life. There's no persistently aggressive Empire led by someone who is seeking to commit galactic omnicide in real life and there never was.

 

The distinctions you draw are very arbitrary and rely a very great deal on Revan's subjective justifications for his actions. Hitler also had subjective justifications. It is the nature of evil to justify itself and see itself as righteous. Doesn't change the fact that the ethical principles and rhetoric are the same. "Race and ancestry as a scapegoat for social problems", "predisposition of some races towards evil/corruption/unworthyness", "genocide as an acceptable solution to protect what I see as my nation's interests".

It's not a scapegoat in Revan's case, it's efficiency. As HK-47 pointed out, it'd potentially mean the death of 98.7% of the Empire's population, and from what I've seen on Korriban, a disproportionate number of that will be of the Sith philosophy.

 

Of all the genocides carried out in human history, I feel Hitler's is actually one of the less fitting comparisons. The Sith Empire is nothing like those Hitler or any other mass murderers ever went up against. In fact I don't know of any thing in real life that it could be adequately compared to. This kind of thing is more akin to what you'd find in Warhammer 40k.

[Sarog]

Why not? Actually having to confront his actions head-on would be a first for him, because he wouldn't simply be confronting it from behind amnesia and brainwashing.

 

Because it has been done. He confronted the reality of what he had done in kotor, but even in having a fresh start with amnesia he still proved to be the same corruptible person. In its current form, it is consistent. What you suggest would break the character consistency in favour of covering ground that has already been covered but somehow lead to a different person. Madness is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

 

Well-written characters have consistent progression that follows predefined themes. You can't just keep hitting reboot on a character narrative without reducing it to childlike fan fiction. I like to think Bioware is too competent to do things that make little storytelling sense just for sentimentality.

I don't want him rolled back. I want him to get the chance to recover from his maddened state, to realize the error of his ways.

 

...which would revert his character status to a pre moral event horizon status rather a post moral event horizon status and would constitute narrative regression.

 

Good storytelling is not about what a character "deserves", or what makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Characters aren't real people, they are not your friends. Characters are fuel for good storytelling, which is why good writers sometimes have to destroy their most beloved creations for the sake of the quality of their work. If you just want what you want for Revan and nothing's going to change that, at least be aware that you want isn't necessarily good.

 

 

I doubt he would be attacking Republic held territories or even neutral territories. He seemed pretty determined to go after the Empire. The racial ancestry was simply an effective means of distinguishing Imperials from non-Imperials. Imperials who defected won't be an issue, given they won't be found in the places he would have planned on attacking.

 

I reckon you should do the foundry again. It is fairly clear that he's going to release the droids to kill anyone with sith ancestry without discrimination. If he was going to direct them so specifically as to avoid people who aren't politically affiliated with the empire, there wouldn't be a need to wipe out imperial civilians because he could just as easily direct his droids to focus exclusively on military targets.

 

As for the Sith philosophical movement, they seem to place a great deal of importance on racial heritage, and from what I seen, it may also provide them with force sensitivity.

 

You have experience with the rest of the star wars franchise, I assume? The movies, kotor, etc? You're aware, then, that the disappearance of the sith race from the galaxy did nothing to stop non-stih from adopting sith ideology and perpetuating the same ideological struggle. Revan did it, Exar Kun did it, Palpatine did it. Heck, the original sith were victims of dark jedi exiles who enslaved them. The association of sith ancestry with the sith movement is a symptom, not the cause, and an extremely trivial thing to focus on considering that the overwhelming majority of imperial citizens are not sith but rather victims of the sith regime. If Revan really wanted to put an end to the sith, he'd have his droids target force sensitives rather than simply an ethnic group he didn't like, seeing as how the star wars franchise is essentially a long narrative of how billions of people die in wars because of the jedi order's inability to keep its house in order.

 

It's not a scapegoat, it's a means to end the idealogical movement.

 

No it isn't, because the entire history of the franchise proves otherwise, and Revan knows otherwise from personal experience being on both sides of the problem. Darkside force users caused the sith, by enslaving their culture and planting the seeds of the great hyperspace war. The sith species' association with the dark side crusade is a symptom of ideological differences among force users that has nothing to do with being genetically evil.

 

There are two facts here that prove that Revan's plan is born of corruption and madness rather than sane utilitarian necessity.

 

1) Wiping out everyone with sith ancestry would do absolutely nothing to rid the galaxy of the darksider problem that causes all the sith-jedi wars. Revan knows this, because he knows the history of the jedi order and he himself was sith.

 

2) There's no reason to wipe out all imperial civilians with a giant droid army when that same droid army could be directed exclusively against military targets.

 

Your idol is beyond the point of no return. He's so hung up on race and hatred that he wanted to commit the genocide of billions to solve a problem that he knew it wouldn't solve using excessive force that he could have directed more specifically.

 

This isn't real life. There's no persistently aggressive Empire led by someone who is seeking to commit galactic omnicide in real life and there never was.

 

The "it is fantasy" argument is a good indicator that you've hit the dead end where you cannot reconcile your moral opinions with your fan opinions. Separating fantasy and reality is indeed important, so long as you're properly self-aware about it. When you make a moral statement, you create a principle that can be applied to other things... and if it can't apply to other things, it should apply in the original context either. Consistency. You can't make moral excuses and argue for the redemption of exaggerated acts of fictional terrorism and genocide but not make those same excuses for real acts of genocide while remaining consistent in your values. In other words, no, this isn't real, but it does use ideas and concepts which exist in the world (like genocide, racial profiling, state terrorism, war crimes, etc), and if we are to discuss these things as fans we have to be aware of the implications that our rhetoric could have if applied in the real world.

 

The other problem with your argument is that it isn't cogent. Revan's plan would not solved the sith problem; knowing this franchise, a jedi trying to defend the innocent imperial population from the killbots would have fallen to the darkside, discovered a holocron (maybe Exar Kun's, maybe Revan's own), and started a new sith tradition and hit a reset button on the conflict without having a drop of sith blood in him. And killing the civilians as well is completely arbitrary and unnecessary. If Revan's plan would actually have worked and his actions would actually have been necessary, you'd have an argument. As it is, you just making excuses for murderous insanity by focusing entirely on subjective particulars that don't hold up to close scrutiny.

 

It's not a scapegoat in Revan's case, it's efficiency.

 

I don't think you are quite using the word efficiency correctly.

 

Efficiency is "accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort".

 

Killing the 99% in order to stop the 1% is the exact opposite of efficiency.

 

As HK-47 pointed out, it'd potentially mean the death of 98.7% of the Empire's population, and from what I've seen on Korriban, a disproportionate number of that will be of the Sith philosophy.

 

Wait, what? You know that korriban is the sith holy world, right? That the representation of the sith order and imperial citizens there s not representative of the whole empire? The sith are a magocratic minority in their empire, with the vast majority of imperial citizens being people who are guilty only of being born into an oppressive society ruled by a corrupt regime.

 

Of all the genocides carried out in human history, I feel Hitler's is actually one of the less fitting comparisons. The Sith Empire is nothing like those Hitler or any other mass murderers ever went up against.

 

No no, it is quite apt. Racial scapegoat solution for social/political problems based on patriotic dogma. I've already pointed out how the moral principles involved in the decision making in both cases are mirrored. The reason it seems different to you is because your argument continually focuses on subjective trivialities and justifications specific to Revan (of which Hitler had his own versions) without looking at the fundamental principles.

 

TL;DR. Revan is used up. Revan is Space-Hitler. Revan is beyond the point of no return. Any effort made to pull Revan back in spite of these things would rely on terrible writing and ruin the character further.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Sarog

[Captain_Zone]

Ok, I feel the need to say something here. The Revan in the Foundry was completely out of character for the Revan everyone knows. Seriously, I don't care how much crap he had to put up with for 300 years of dealing with the Emperor, he would never go through with a genocidal plan. It's just a stupid plot point to make it ok for the Empire characters to kill him. I heard that Drew Karpyshyn wrote both Jedi Prisoner and Foundry FP stories. If that is true, then I would say retcon it. It's just messed up how he went BACK to the Darkside, knowing the path would doom him to failure AGAIN. Somehow I think the Foundry is non-canon as it stands. Too many inconsistencies with the Jedi Prisoner arc, imo.

[Sarog]

Ok, I feel the need to say something here. The Revan in the Foundry was completely out of character for the Revan everyone knows. Seriously, I don't care how much crap he had to put up with for 300 years of dealing with the Emperor, he would never go through with a genocidal plan. It's just a stupid plot point to make it ok for the Empire characters to kill him. I heard that Drew Karpyshyn wrote both Jedi Prisoner and Foundry FP stories. If that is true, then I would say retcon it. It's just messed up how he went BACK to the Darkside, knowing the path would doom him to failure AGAIN. Somehow I think the Foundry is non-canon as it stands. Too many inconsistencies with the Jedi Prisoner arc, imo.

 

I can appreciate the point here. When a writer derails a character so that that character's actions don't fit the characters themes and progression, it is very jarring and can be very stupid. I don't necessarily agree that it is the case with Revan, since to me it seems rather in character for him considering how he fell the first time, but still. The problem is that the only way to fix this is with retcon, and retcon is a terrible, terrible last resort tactic. When a writer has to retcon something significant (not just small setting details, but significant characters arcs), he's basically hoisting a banner that says in big letters "I RUINED MY STORY, MULLIGAN PLEASE". It is jarring both to the writer (who has to swallow his "artistic vision" and admit failure in front of his audience/readership and loses credibility in the process) and to the reader/audience (because their knowledge and experience of the story is forcibly changed outside of the narrative process, not through narrative progression, and thereby immersion dies and it becomes difficult to invest the same kind of faith in the story as was possible previously).

 

Retcons should only be used when NECESSARY. They are the storytelling equivalent of the President punching in the nuclear command codes. Frankly I don't think they should bother retconning Revan to get more use out of him, because it would be an unnecessary INDULGENCE that would contribute precious little and just add to the overall awkwardness of Revan's already extremely splotchy time-child narrative.

[Tfranco]

Revan should be dead. This is 300 years after kotor, the fact they kept him around disapointed me tbh. I mean really we get it he was a bad ***, now let's make way for new ******es. They can only milk him out so long.

[Tfranco]

Ok, I feel the need to say something here. The Revan in the Foundry was completely out of character for the Revan everyone knows. Seriously, I don't care how much crap he had to put up with for 300 years of dealing with the Emperor, he would never go through with a genocidal plan. It's just a stupid plot point to make it ok for the Empire characters to kill him. I heard that Drew Karpyshyn wrote both Jedi Prisoner and Foundry FP stories. If that is true, then I would say retcon it. It's just messed up how he went BACK to the Darkside, knowing the path would doom him to failure AGAIN. Somehow I think the Foundry is non-canon as it stands. Too many inconsistencies with the Jedi Prisoner arc, imo.

 

The Revan I know, the one I played, was a sith lord. So ya idc what tor lore says, I like my evil Revan and evil exile

[Captain_Zone]

The Revan I know, the one I played, was a sith lord. So ya idc what tor lore says, I like my evil Revan and evil exile

 

Read the book.

[Andronicos]

I just did Foundry for the first time today and was dissapointed in how...well, unimportant it was, Bioware kept this guy alive for 300 years for this? I wish he would have just died back then, and not bring him back to be some forgettable side character...

 

I think the whole thing was epitomized by my scavenging teammate who proceeded to scavenge HK-47 for crafting parts after we took him down, hilarious and sad at the same time

 

I hope he got to meet Satele Shan at least, would have made for a touching moment

[Sarog]

I hope he got to meet Satele Shan at least, would have made for a touching moment

 

I don't get the impression that Satele is the kind of woman who could overlook the fact that her great, great, great, great grandaddy is Space Hitler.

[Deviss]

I heard that Drew Karpyshyn wrote both Jedi Prisoner and Foundry FP stories. If that is true, then I would say retcon it.

 

I do not know where you read it, but this statement is actually completly wrong. DK was responsible only for the Jedi Prisoner flashpoint. He had nothing to do with the Foundry FP.

 

I guess that is what happens when you let people who know nothing of certain character continue his story and pretty much retcon all of it.

 

My bet is that the writer/group of writers who was/were responsible for the Foundry FP just glanced at wookieepieda, spent like 5 minutes reading stuff about Revan and then thought of something along those lines: "Ok, so lets make players feel heroic by making Revan a killable boss with teh epix loot! We shall make him evil sith lord again!"

 

Outcome is what it is...

Edited April 23, 2012 by Deviss

[Andronicos]

I don't get the impression that Satele is the kind of woman who could overlook the fact that her great, great, great, great grandaddy is Space Hitler.

 

Well I meant after Jedi Prisoner but before Foundry, Revan had to see the Jedi Council at some point to outline his plan since there were a lot of pretty strong Jedi at the Foundry

[SWFTW]

@Sarog:

 

Why all the venom??? Your posts are the most hate filled posts I've seen in years if browsing Internet forums. Why all the hate against a well developed, well liked, FICTIONAL character? While the Foundry was stupid, raging like there's no tomorrow and self appointing Revan as 'Space Hitler' is a *bit* overboard don't you think?

 

@Everyone else:

 

Just pretend the Foundry never happened. Until BW fixes it (and contrary to Sarog's widespread hate posts, there are countless ways to fix it), it never happened. Easy solution .

Edited April 23, 2012 by SWFTW

[Rayla_Felana]

@Sarog:

 

Why all the venom??? Your posts are the most hate filled posts I've seen in years if browsing Internet forums. Why all the hate against a well developed, well liked, FICTIONAL character? While the Foundry was stupid, raging like there's no tomorrow and self appointing Revan as 'Space Hitler' is a *bit* overboard don't you think?

 

@Everyone else:

 

Just pretend the Foundry never happened. Until BW fixes it (and contrary to Sarog's widespread hate posts, there are countless ways to fix it), it never happened. Easy solution .

 

Not all of us are complete fan-boys of Revan, surprise surprise.

[Darth_Solrac]

Not all of us are complete fan-boys of Revan, surprise surprise.

 

Says one of the most subjective, irrationally hating, 'teh death to Revan!' posters here. I'd rather be a fanboy, than OD on haterade.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Darth_Solrac

[Wolfninjajedi]

Says one of the most subjective, irrationally hating, 'teh death to Revan!' posters here. I'd rather be a fanboy, than OD on haterade.

 

I like GATorade myself. Haterate tastes nasty.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Wolfninjajedi

[Captain_Zone]

I do not know where you read it, but this statement is actually completly wrong. DK was responsible only for the Jedi Prisoner flashpoint. He had nothing to do with the Foundry FP.

 

I guess that is what happens when you let people who know nothing of certain character continue his story and pretty much retcon all of it.

 

My bet is that the writer/group of writes who was/were responsible for the Foundry FP just glanced at wookieepieda, spent like 5 minutes reading stuff about Revan and then thought of something along those lines: "Ok, so lets make players feel heroic by making Revan a killable boss with teh epix loot! We shall make him evil sith lord again!"

 

Outcome is what it is...

 

To be fair, I liked the Jedi Prisoner FP. It was outstanding, in fact. Now Foundry makes more sense to me, seeing as Drew didn't write it. My hate of Drew has dissipated somewhat.

 

That said, I believe you're right in that Revan in Foundry was written by people who didn't know the character as well as they should. In fact, he was completely OUT of character compared to the book and the JP FP. Some idiot on Fleet was the one who said Drew wrote both.

 

My Fold Space theory still stands, however. I believe he decided to pop smoke and break contact at the end.

[Rayla_Felana]

Says one of the most subjective, irrationally hating, 'teh death to Revan!' posters here. I'd rather be a fanboy, than OD on haterade.

 

Ah the assumptions, so so many assumptions, but I'll leave you to your ignorance.

[Crimson_Paladin]

I reckon you should do the foundry again. It is fairly clear that he's going to release the droids to kill anyone with sith ancestry without discrimination. If he was going to direct them so specifically as to avoid people who aren't politically affiliated with the empire, there wouldn't be a need to wipe out imperial civilians because he could just as easily direct his droids to focus exclusively on military targets.

The Republic was backing him up 110%. So were the Jedi. Do you really think that they weren't at least partially in on it? Or do you really think he'd actually betray the Republic that supported him, the Republic that he did everything for? I don't think so, to me it was pretty clear he was going after the Empire. Don't forget that the Republic continued to crush the Old Sith Empire after it was clearly defeated, and it elected to the office of Supreme Chancellor somebody known for calling for the complete eradication of the Sith Empire. Sounds to me like they were in on it, because that's what they want too.

 

As for the civilians: the Sith Empire isn't just a bunch of victims oppressed by their evil overlords. The citizens love their Empire, and they'll do everything in their power to keep it going. If the Sith were wiped out, the people of the Empire would continue to work to fight the Republic and the Jedi, only with Moffs in charge rather than Sith Lords. Am I trying to justify it? No. Is it unjustifiable and tantamount to the holocaust? No.

 

You have experience with the rest of the star wars franchise, I assume? The movies, kotor, etc? You're aware, then, that the disappearance of the sith race from the galaxy did nothing to stop non-stih from adopting sith ideology and perpetuating the same ideological struggle. Revan did it, Exar Kun did it, Palpatine did it. Heck, the original sith were victims of dark jedi exiles who enslaved them. The association of sith ancestry with the sith movement is a symptom, not the cause, and an extremely trivial thing to focus on considering that the overwhelming majority of imperial citizens are not sith but rather victims of the sith regime. If Revan really wanted to put an end to the sith, he'd have his droids target force sensitives rather than simply an ethnic group he didn't like, seeing as how the star wars franchise is essentially a long narrative of how billions of people die in wars because of the jedi order's inability to keep its house in order.

Where are Exar Kun's Sith? Long dead. Where are Revan and Malak's Sith? Long dead. Where are the Sith Empire's Sith? Alive and kicking despite having been crushed in the past.

 

We're still at the point at which the majority of the Sith problems are directly related to the Sith Empire. It was founded by the Dark Jedi from the Hundred Year Darkness. It was responsible for the Great Hyperspace War, the Jedi Civil War, and the Great Galactic War. Even the Exar Kun War wouldn't have happened without the involvement of the former rulers of the Sith Empire. And eliminating the Sith Empire wouldn't stop something similar. But even then, right now it's the exception, not the rule. There's been no Darth Ruin, Darth Bane, Darth Sidious, or Darth Krayt to prove just how resilient and versatile the Sith movement can be.

 

No it isn't, because the entire history of the franchise proves otherwise, and Revan knows otherwise from personal experience being on both sides of the problem. Darkside force users caused the sith, by enslaving their culture and planting the seeds of the great hyperspace war. The sith species' association with the dark side crusade is a symptom of ideological differences among force users that has nothing to do with being genetically evil.

 

There are two facts here that prove that Revan's plan is born of corruption and madness rather than sane utilitarian necessity.

 

1) Wiping out everyone with sith ancestry would do absolutely nothing to rid the galaxy of the darksider problem that causes all the sith-jedi wars. Revan knows this, because he knows the history of the jedi order and he himself was sith.

 

2) There's no reason to wipe out all imperial civilians with a giant droid army when that same droid army could be directed exclusively against military targets.

 

Your idol is beyond the point of no return. He's so hung up on race and hatred that he wanted to commit the genocide of billions to solve a problem that he knew it wouldn't solve using excessive force that he could have directed more specifically.

As I said, it's not just the Sith, it's the billions of loyal citizens that want to crush the Republic. Wiping out the Sith overlords would do nothing to stop the threat of the Empire. If their military was wiped out, they'd continue to fight, and they'd be more than capable of it because most that don't actively fight have probably already served their required tours of duty, or simply haven't gotten the chance yet. Wiping out everyone, while a distasteful and excessive solution, would in theory solve the problem and leave no room for them returning in another 1300 years. Sure there will be more Sith perhaps, lured by lost teachings or corrupted by ghosts. But it's still a huge windfall to the Republic and the Jedi for the Empire to not exist anymore.

 

 

The "it is fantasy" argument is a good indicator that you've hit the dead end where you cannot reconcile your moral opinions with your fan opinions. Separating fantasy and reality is indeed important, so long as you're properly self-aware about it. When you make a moral statement, you create a principle that can be applied to other things... and if it can't apply to other things, it should apply in the original context either. Consistency. You can't make moral excuses and argue for the redemption of exaggerated acts of fictional terrorism and genocide but not make those same excuses for real acts of genocide while remaining consistent in your values. In other words, no, this isn't real, but it does use ideas and concepts which exist in the world (like genocide, racial profiling, state terrorism, war crimes, etc), and if we are to discuss these things as fans we have to be aware of the implications that our rhetoric could have if applied in the real world.

I assure you, I've not come close to running out of ideas. Real world comparisons do not work because they're too different. 2 or 3 similarities out of 100 isn't a good comparison. Was Hitler only trying to stop an aggressive, expansionistic Empire that had caused several wars over 1300 years and desired to wipe out his home country, led by a man who had singlehandedly destroyed his home civilization and now desired to wipe out all life? Was the reborn Revan a politician who saw enemies where there were none, bullied and conquered peaceful nations and sought to make his race the master race? There are not enough similarities to declare Revan to be "Space Hitler". If anyone in this setting deserves that, it's the Sith Empire. They herd Evocii into death camps. They aggressively break peace agreements to further their territory and power. They seek to make their race the master race. They seek to subjugate lesser races beneath them. They wear unforms inspired by the Galactic Empire, which was in turn inspired by Nazi uniforms. And they place resources into designing numerous over-engineered superweapons.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking this. It's pretty clear that even things blatantly inspired by the Nazis, like the Sith Empire, Galactic Empire, and Imperium of Man, are pretty popular with fans, yet there's clearly nothing wrong with being fans of such things. Perhaps the real fallacy here is the idea that there's anything wrong with liking such things. And while I contend that Revan lacks the necessary similarities to be able to be called "Space Hitler", perhaps the real thing to think about is that perhaps that even when somebody makes such a comparison, it doesn't make it any less right to be a fan of him. Revan, that is.

 

 

The other problem with your argument is that it isn't cogent. Revan's plan would not solved the sith problem; knowing this franchise, a jedi trying to defend the innocent imperial population from the killbots would have fallen to the darkside, discovered a holocron (maybe Exar Kun's, maybe Revan's own), and started a new sith tradition and hit a reset button on the conflict without having a drop of sith blood in him. And killing the civilians as well is completely arbitrary and unnecessary. If Revan's plan would actually have worked and his actions would actually have been necessary, you'd have an argument. As it is, you just making excuses for murderous insanity by focusing entirely on subjective particulars that don't hold up to close scrutiny.

As I said, at the moment the real Sith Empire has been directly responsible for 3 out of the 4 Sith-related wars since the Hundred Year Darkness. Yes getting rid of them won't stop people like Exar Kun from digging their teachings up and talking to their ghosts. But having one Sith conflict over the period of 1300 years instead of four is a huge improvement, and a great windfall to both the Republic and the Jedi. Sure it'll probably be disproved later, but you can't blame Revan for not being able to foresee what Darth Ruin, Darth Bane, or Darth Krayt will do thousands of years from then. He doesn't have the benefit of 3700 additional years of hindsight that we have.

 

I don't think you are quite using the word efficiency correctly.

 

Efficiency is "accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort".

 

Killing the 99% in order to stop the 1% is the exact opposite of efficiency.

If the 1% was the entirety of the problem, the war would have been resolved long ago. The problem for Revan and the Republic is that it isn't. The people of the Empire are behind the Sith, and even if the Sith philosophy is wiped out, it won't stop the Empire, not by a long shot. They won't bow to the Republic if their ruling magocracy is wiped out, they'll continue to fight defiantly.

 

No no, it is quite apt. Racial scapegoat solution for social/political problems based on patriotic dogma. I've already pointed out how the moral principles involved in the decision making in both cases are mirrored. The reason it seems different to you is because your argument continually focuses on subjective trivialities and justifications specific to Revan (of which Hitler had his own versions) without looking at the fundamental principles.

There's some major differences. Hitler saw enemies where there were none. Revan on the other hand knows that the Empire is a threat, and it runs far deeper than its armies and overlords. Anyone in the galaxy can see that the Empire is a threat to both the Republic and the Empire. Hitler's campaigns were centered around conquering unaggressive, peaceful nations. Revan is trying to stop what is currently the closest thing to Nazi Germany in the galaxy. Hitler sought to establish a master race. Revan seeks to stop a group that seeks to establish a master race. The differences are anything but trivial. If anything, it is the similarities that are more trivial than the differences.

[Sarog]

@Sarog:

Why all the venom??? Your posts are the most hate filled posts I've seen in years if browsing Internet forums. Why all the hate against a well developed, well liked, FICTIONAL character? While the Foundry was stupid, raging like there's no tomorrow and self appointing Revan as 'Space Hitler' is a *bit* overboard don't you think?

 

Psychological projection much? Sorry but you are way off base. There's no venom or hate in my posts; just critical discourse. If my posts are "the most hate filled thing you've seen in years of browsing internet forums" and seem like I'm "raging like there's no tomorrow", then you must have very little experience with discourse on the internet or even just the Bioware forums. In fact, given that the general objective of my posts is rather the opposite of "raging" about the foundry as I argue that the foundry fits the character's narrative progression, I'd say you've misunderstand my posts on a very fundamental level and probably haven't actually read them in detail.

 

That the foundry has turned Revan into a science-fiction equivalent of Hitler is objective truth based on direct compatibility between the methodology and rhetoric employed by both the character and the real world historical personality. If it is upsets you so much that I pointed this out rationally that you make such wildly inaccurate accusations as what is quoted above, I think it is more likely that, of the two of us, you are the one who is posting while emotionally compromised.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Sarog

[Rayla_Felana]

If the Republic and the jedi order hadn't resolved to wiping the Sith population in the first place then this would have all turned out differently, the Sith were beaten, the Republic and the Order could have shown the citizens freedom and offered what I imagine would be the majority of the Sith population membership to the Republic, without the Sith Lords reigning over them, and the Force Sensitive Sith could have been taken in by the order.

 

My point being, I believe all of this could have been averted, but the defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy resorted to genocide.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Rayla_Felana

[Sarog]

The Republic was backing him up 110%. So were the Jedi. Do you really think that they weren't at least partially in on it? Or do you really think he'd actually betray the Republic that supported him, the Republic that he did everything for?

 

Perhaps, but beside the point and not relevant. Nothing suggests that Revan was going to limit which genetic-Imperials were going to be subjected to genocide. If that was the case, he could have directedthe droids exclusively against military targets and not against civilians. Civilians were to be included in the genocide; ergo Revan was not discriminating.

 

As for the civilians: the Sith Empire isn't just a bunch of victims oppressed by their evil overlords. The citizens love their Empire, and they'll do everything in their power to keep it going. If the Sith were wiped out, the people of the Empire would continue to work to fight the Republic and the Jedi, only with Moffs in charge rather than Sith Lords. Am I trying to justify it? No. Is it unjustifiable and tantamount to the holocaust? No.

 

1 - Speculative. That the CIVILIANS of the empire would fight the republic no matter what, even if their military and their sith overlords were removed from the picture, is EXTREMELY speculative and rather contrary to human nature. And beside the point as well, because such civilians would never pose the same threat to the galaxy nor be agents of the dark-side driven omnicide that Revan was reacting to begin with.

 

2 - The methodical ethnic cleansing of billions of civilians wouldn't be tantamount to the holocaust? Flawed assertion again. You're defining the holocaust on the specifics of what motivated it, not the specifics of what it was. The holocaust was the methodical ethnic cleansing of millions of human beings, ergo the same thing as what Revan would have enacted.

 

Where are Exar Kun's Sith? Long dead. Where are Revan and Malak's Sith? Long dead. Where are the Sith Empire's Sith? Alive and kicking despite having been crushed in the past.

 

Except the existence of such sith, including Revan himself, proves categorically that sith ideology is not dependent on sith ancestry and that the fundamental problem that causes dark side holy wars against the republic and the jedi is an ideological split amongst force users. Nationalistic dogma is secondary and a mere symptom of what Revan is reacting to, not the purpose of his attentions. Given that Revan is specifically targeting people with sith ancestry, non force sensitive civilian noncombatants included in his genocidal plans, he is therefore using race as a scapegoat for an ideological problem.

 

We're still at the point at which the majority of the Sith problems are directly related to the Sith Empire. It was founded by the Dark Jedi from the Hundred Year Darkness. It was responsible for the Great Hyperspace War, the Jedi Civil War, and the Great Galactic War. Even the Exar Kun War wouldn't have happened without the involvement of the former rulers of the Sith Empire. And eliminating the Sith Empire wouldn't stop something similar. But even then, right now it's the exception, not the rule.

 

The problem Revan is responding to is the SITH (dark side force religion with its origin in the Dark Jedi), to which the EMPIRE is secondary, and more specifically the Emperor. You're argument presupposes that EMPIRE > SITH, both as a threat to the galaxy and as the fundamental root of the problem, neither of which is true. Revan is responding to the threat posed by the SITH (dark side force users) to the rest of the galaxy (galactic omnicide), not the political interests of a nationalistic empire. If the problem was the empire itself as a political force, and not the darkside cult in charge of that political force, then he could just as easily have directed his army of super droids to dismantle the empire as a political force without having to commence ethnic cleansing on non combatants. Considering that he probably knows that force-blind non combatants aren't a threat to all life in the galaxy, we can assume that he's including them in the genocidal plan not because their nationalism is an affront to all life, but because he fears their sith genes make them predisposed to the dark side (which, as personified in Vitiate, is what Revan is trying to protect the galaxy from). Given that Revan himself has fallen to the dark side to save the galaxy from the dark side, and given the logical fallibility of his plan given the knowledge we must assume he has, it is clear that Revan's line of argument is logically invalid.

 

So, he is clearly mad and that madness is manifesting itself in genocidal ambitions coupled with delusions of being the galaxy's saviour in the process. And, considering that 1) killing billions of random innocents is rather in keeping with the dark side's influence and what Vitiate himself is planning, and 2) dark side corruption has a history of manifesting itself through "the ends justify these hella horrific means" justifications, it seems obvious that Revan has been turned around and is playing for the wrong team without realizing it himself.

 

If their military was wiped out, they'd continue to fight,

 

A bunch of civilians, scattered across many different worlds and deprived of the only leadership they have ever known and their armed forces, would continue to prosecute a war of conquest against the galaxy's leading superpower AND the army of super killbots who just wiped out all the sith lords and the imperial military? With sticks and harsh language?

 

Sorry, but that statement is baseless. The imperials are nationalists, not a zombie hivemind, and are subject to morale and logistics the same as anybody else. Without their military or their sith overlords, the civilian non combatants wouldn't pose a threat to the galaxy. The most that could be expected of them would be civil discontent and feeble resistance, but nothing that could threaten the republic military AND the kill bot Horde, and certainly nothing that would threaten galactic omnicide. Killing all the civilians would be a worse dark side act than anything the civilians could do if they were spared, if they even tried anything to begin with.

 

2 or 3 similarities out of 100 isn't a good comparison.

 

Again, you are fixating on incidental details rather than the fundamental moral principles involved. You may as well argue that blowing up a green plane with a red bomb is a completely different thing than blowing up a yellow cruise ship with a blue bomb. It doesn't matter. When you compare things on a MORAL basis, the MORAL principles are what matter. In a different discussion involving military strategy, the socio-political climate, and a side-by-side comparison of facial hair, yes there would be differences worth discussing. In a moral context, what matters is that both figures planned a methodical racial genocide against civilian non-combatants based exclusively on genetic traits rather than a person-by-person threat assessment in order to safeguard what they felt were the interests of their nation. The PRINCIPLE is identical and therefore the moral implications are interchangeable.

 

perhaps the real thing to think about is that perhaps that even when somebody makes such a comparison, it doesn't make it any less right to be a fan of him. Revan, that is.

 

Nothing to do with what I'm talking about. At no point has my point been "if you like Revan you are a nazi". That would ridiculous. My point is "Revan has gone well beyond his moral event horizon, to the point that he cannot be redeemed again, therefore the character's moral progression is used up". I justify this through Revan having acted on the same moral principles as Hitler. There is an implication there that if you say Revan was redeemable, that means that by the application of the same principle so was Hitler... but that is the risk of moral debates. As I said in an earlier post of mine... we have to be very mindful of the moral justifications we make for fiction because the precedent we set in our thought processes could have implications for real world ethics that we haven't considered. So it is, for example, absolutely OK to like Darth Vader as a character, but one should be careful not to slip into seriously justifying his actions, agreeing with him, and letting that spill over into one's real life moral values.

 

The above paragraph is just food for thought, though. Not relevant to the rest of the debate. I've noticed in other discussions that some people can make very disturbing moral conclusions in the context of video games. In another thread I was in, a poster was telling me that it is morally justified to murder policemen and security guards because "they knew what they were getting into". I just think it is important to be very aware of the implications of video game arguments if they were put in a different context. Something to be aware of.

 

As I said, at the moment the real Sith Empire has been directly responsible for 3 out of the 4 Sith-related wars since the Hundred Year Darkness

.

 

And if we want to be more specific, at the moment jedi splinter groups are responsible for 4 out of the 4 sith-related wars since the Hundred Year Darkness AND the Hundred Year Darkness itself. Blame for everything can be laid at the feet of civilians who are only guilty of being descended from beings that were enslaved by dark jedi, or it can be laid at the feet of the legitimate source.

 

Without the sith and the imperial military in the picture, there is no reason to kill the imperial civilians.

 

But having one Sith conflict over the period of 1300 years instead of four is a huge improvement, and a great windfall to both the Republic and the Jedi.

 

The point of the killbot horde is not to win a political windfall for the Republic. The point of the killbot horde is not to ensure the republic's nationalistic supremacy until the end of time.

 

The point of the killbot horde is protect the galaxy from omnicide at the hands of dark side practitioners.

 

So, if Revan were sane, he could accomplish his goal using the same tools available without having to go holocaust on the human population of the outer rim.

 

Sure it'll probably be disproved later, but you can't blame Revan for not being able to foresee what Darth Ruin, Darth Bane, or Darth Krayt will do thousands of years from then. He doesn't have the benefit of 3700 additional years of hindsight that we have.

 

I can blame him for not learning from his own history. He has the benefit of more than enough hindsight. He knows that the sith began with Dark Jedi exiles. He knows that sith ancestry is not a necessary component for dark-siders to plunge the galaxy into war. He knows that force-blind civilians cannot use the force to kill the galaxy.

 

If the 1% was the entirety of the problem, the war would have been resolved long ago. The problem for Revan and the Republic is that it isn't. The people of the Empire are behind the Sith, and even if the Sith philosophy is wiped out, it won't stop the Empire, not by a long shot. They won't bow to the Republic if their ruling magocracy is wiped out, they'll continue to fight defiantly.

 

Again, highly speculative that the civilians will continue to wage the holy war of their cruel overlords. Without their military, they COULDN'T have posed a threat to the Republic + Killbots even if they wanted to. And I'm fairly sure the imperial populace doesn't want to have their life essence om-nom-nommed by the emperor anymore than the next nation does.

 

Your argument blurrs points. You have lumped the POLITICAL EXISTENCE of the empire as an expansionist nation in with METAPHYSICAL AIMS of Vitiate and the sith, whereas the two are very much distinct from each other and one is completely ignorant of the other. The empire and its people are just a tool to the Emperor, and they are ignorant of his goals. Revan is not ignorant of the Emperor's goals, he is reacting to them. Revan's plan isn't about politics (though, I dare say that committing genocide in order to wipe out feelings of cultural and nationalistic pride is just as irredeemably evil as the alternative), it is about the threat of the dark siders ending all life through the use of the dark side of the force.

 

Imperial civilians are COMPLETELY TRIVIAL on the subject of thwarting Vitiate's plan of nomming the galaxy, because the civilians are incapable of killing the galaxy. And yet Revan was going to wipe them all out. Wiping them all out to kill their nationalistic pride would have been evil, but wiping them out to stop galactic omnicide is evil, really stupid, and amusingly hypocritical. Ergo, Revan is mad.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Sarog

[SWFTW]

Psychological projection much? Sorry but you are way off base. There's no venom or hate in my posts; just critical discourse. If my posts are "the most hate filled thing you've seen in years of browsing internet forums" and seem like I'm "raging like there's no tomorrow", then you must have very little experience with discourse on the internet or even just the Bioware forums. In fact, given that the general objective of my posts is rather the opposite of "raging" about the foundry as I argue that the foundry fits the character's narrative progression, I'd say you've misunderstand my posts on a very fundamental level and probably haven't actually read them in detail.

 

That the foundry has turned Revan into a science-fiction equivalent of Hitler is objective truth based on direct compatibility between the methodology and rhetoric employed by both the character and the real world historical personality. If it is upsets you so much that I pointed this out rationally that you make such wildly inaccurate accusations as what is quoted above, I think it is more likely that, of the two of us, you are the one who is posting while emotionally compromised.

 

Sorry mate, but you just blew my mind. I intended, and intend now, absolutely no offence. I simply read 10-15(ish) posts by you in this thread repeatedly pressing on and on, saying how horrible the Foundry was, how unsavable Revan was, and overall why Revan should be burned and forgotten. To me, it sounded like ridiculous over the board rage.

 

You do realize how serious it is to call someone Hitler right? And spending all this effort to talk about how insane and illogical Revan was showed me a level of malice I have never seen in a forum post before. Take a deep breath mate, and think before you post.

Edited April 24, 2012 by SWFTW

[JediMasterYuvan]

I don't think Revan intentionally wanted to commit genocide against the Sith. Do remember that at the end of "Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan," when Revan was in stasis for over 300 years by the Emperor, Revan felt the Sith Emperor draining off his power and knowledge and giving him influence, but Revan was also able to do that.

 

Revan's influence on the Sith Emperor: The Treaty of Coruscant

The Sith Emperor's influence on Revan: The destruction of all life

 

Lord Vitiate said that Revan can still be of use to him. That's why he kept him in stasis: to drain knowledge of the Republic and Jedi Order, to drain Revan's power for sustenance, and to corrupt him again (since Revan resisted him). Remember, Revan was being influenced by the Emperor for over 300 years and that idea of mass destruction was in his mind. This develops another similar irony to what Revan did during the Mandalorian Wars: mass destruction to destroy the Sith Empire. Revan came outta that stasis half-insane and confused. He ended up mixing his principle to protect the Republic with the mass destruction of all life.