Why I think the Empire is better than Republic

[Khaleijo]

I prefer the Empire too. Not because of the political system but because of the fun and red threat running through the whole questing experience.

Republic is seen as the good guys but in the game you find so many corrupt and deceptive people, who act no way better than their imperial counterpart but are constantly telling you, "hey, we are the good guys". The empire is at least honest about their intentions, there the laws are strict and not democratic but at least the government is interested that they are followed. Even the authorities have to follow them. Well, ok except of the Sith naturally.

In fact playing grey or light side as imperialside force user is much more logic than a DS jedi, because their whole philosophy is about to be finally free. For me that includes a free decision where i get my power from. It doesn't matter as long as i'm strong enough to be a serious thread to whoever wants to kill me.

 

Sometimes i had the feeling that the Republic is kind of a parody of real "democracies" where corruption or "states within the states" (like the trooper story told politics are only unwanted interference with the military and nothing to care about) is wide spread and politicians have only interest in their own benefit rather than represent their people in a responsible way.

Does the PC meet even one decent republican politician who has no shady issues somewhere? Each one i met so far had something to do with corruption, lies and so on. There was no real interest in doing good things for the people, it was always connected with gaining money, power or influence for him/her, the "good" was a mere byproduct.

 

At the Empire you expect that kind of evil stuff, blind obedience, sith who try to stab you in the back, but at the same time there are surprises who act different, which makes the stories much more interesting. I played several IAs or Inquisitors just to see how the story changes if i'm ds, ls or grey. I tried that at the pub side too, but it lost it's appeal real fast because the difference was so stereotype.

 

Eventually "the result justifies the means" is a common attitude on both sides, but the Republic still propagates that they are following their laws and treaties while they are in fact breaking them knowingly.

Belsavis and its experiments, condemning generations for crimes of their ancestors, what they do to the IA PC are just my most memorable examples. An even i as the hero of the republic have only few opportunities to bring more justice to the Republic. I can help a few people in certain situations, but even being a JK General my impact on the system is zero. I had always the feeling well, you saved everything, but in fact you have no influence on the futture of the Republic, the jedi don't ask me for guidance but will yell for rescue as soon as the next crisis happened. I'm still a soldier who has to follow someone others orders.

At the imperial side my impact is at least a seat in the dark council, or have a powerful network or huge knowledge to influence the future. It just feels more like "you are our hero and you will lead us into the future"

 

In addition the game mechanics don't allow you to really spare people, even if you choose the light side path of a quest you have to massmurder on your way to fullfill the objective. The bonusquests with the republic are far more often kill x, then kill another bunch und a third one, at least as far as i remember them.

 

For me the Republic just appears to be rotten to the core but is showing a shiny facing too often to be fun to play, the jedi are absolutely incompetent except of the PC and the force users clothes are just ugly. The trooper gets a nice styling but that story was not really fun to play for me. I playing republic i always feel like a hypocrite, seeing what my intentions are and what becomes of them as results during the quests.

 

So i stick to the Empire most of the time. Playing DS powerhungry PCs, moderate grey and even LS who want the change from within. Far less quest choices irritate my immersion and much better style. And yes, i love that british accent too

[TechbotAlpha]

Such a dangerous attitude and false equivalency. Is morality gray? Absolutely. Most of the world is gray. But the US, Canada, Europe, etc are not North Korea or Nazi Germany.

 

Late to the party, but...

Wow. This thread god Godwinned in page 1. That's impressive =P

[smartalectwo]

I'm going to take the dangerous position of saying that every single LS/DS choice made sense in context. Edited August 11, 2013 by smartalectwo

[Euphrosyne]

Late to the party, but...

Wow. This thread god Godwinned in page 1. That's impressive =P

The Sith Empire was modeled on Nazi Germany in many ways. It's hardly a violation of Godwin's "law" to point that out.

[ninjamau]

No, evil often isn't a point of view. Slavery, for instance. Always evil, every time.

 

The Bible endorse slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

 

But on topic;

The Jedi Order claim they are defending freedom and justice, but the Jedi Code itself contradicts this: "There is no emotion". This means, ladies & gentlemen, that the "freedom" the Jedi are defending, is non-existent. Furthermore; the Jedi Order are servants of the republic and it's principle of freedom, but as you can see this is intergalactic BS.

True freedom and order and peace is to be found in the Empire.

[illgot]

I feel Empire is more popular due to aesthetics.

 

Imagine if the Republic space station was more regal and less flee market. While the Empires space station is clean, shiny, and open, the Republic looks run down, dull, and cluttered. I do not have to pop my head past huge grates to see which trainers are in that room.

 

Plus OP is right, the animations for the Empire are much more fun.

 

Choke versus Float.

 

Lightning versus Pebbles.

 

Everything Bounty Hunter versus Everything Trooper.

 

When it comes to animations and cool effects the Republic come in last place.

Edited November 27, 2013 by illgot

[AlrikFassbauer]

Imagine if the Republic space station was more regal and less flee market.

 

They could have been using white as the Fleet Colour for the Republic. But now everything is dirt brown. Or something worse.

 

Basically it's like this :

 

Empire = Order

Republic = Chaos

[Jacen_Starsolo]

If you play a light-side SW, you run into a lot of stupid and bloodthirsty Jedi.

 

I already did a DS SW, so doing a LS one to get the LS Jaesa affection maxed. Every single time my SW says to the Jedi basically, "We don't need to fight. I am trying to make a change within the Empire for the good. You can walk out without bloodshed." What does the Jedi do? "Kill the Sith!" I can imagine my SW would say back, "Are you sure you want to go down this road? It's not going to end well for you."

 

Being a LS SW, every Jedi must be on the dark side because they grave blood more than any Sith in the history of Star Wars.

[sinnaman]

I played 5 Republic toons before creating an Empire one, and from the very second I logged in as Empire it was obvious to me that the DEVS favor the Empire over the Republic. As stated before, look at the space stations, bases, ships, etc... Everything looks so much cooler for the Empire and most of the Republic stuff looks like crap.

 

The Devs made Empire side better.

[codycroft]

I understand a lot of people like the lightning over the 'pebbles' but honestly, I got tired real fast of the Force lightning. Everything is lightning, lightning that hurts, lightning that dot's, lightning the is further ranged, lightning that stuns. It got old fast, really fast, like level 22 I was done.

 

Make fun of pebbles all you want but turbulence, disturbance, and force wave are freak'n awesome. Each slightly different but close enough in style to relate. Sound effects are neat. And it's amusing to pull droids out of the ground to slam into your enemies.

 

 

Granted, Force Storm and Whirlwind have it over Quake and float but... lightning got lame.

[Mateops]

I think its a very naive and simplistic explation of slavery...

 

First of, countries that abolished it, without a war did so because the slavery of the times ended up costing too much. The fear of slave uprising, the costs of security. When you have slaves you have to pay for them, keep them in a workable condition etc.

 

So no, no one ever freed anyone because it was right, thats hypocrisy (Well represented by the Republic IMO), even in the roman empire, the biggest move to free slaves was because of tax returns to the state, it never had anything to do with morality.

 

Now most of us are wage slaves, its better to give them some little rights and have them pay taxes, its better for the system. There is still rampant slavery in todays worlds and market... yet we dont really care unless its shown on the news... so to put slavery at the top of the ''evil'' list is not correct, there is no evil, simply human behaviour that dont tend to change very much since the start.

 

A philosopher once said (im paraphrasing) : You will have the morality that is compatible with your strengh.

 

Basically, if your strong and can have others break their back for you, you will rationalise it somehow and sip on pinacoladas, if your at the bottom, then you will speak of morality and freedom; only because its in your interest to do so.

 

Hail to the Emperor!

Edited November 27, 2013 by Mateops

[JPryde]

I feel Empire is more popular due to aesthetics.

[...]

When it comes to animations and cool effects the Republic come in last place.

However when it comes to missions and decisions, the republic is way ahead in my opinion.

 

The class stories are good for empire and republic, but the planetary missions and side missions on empire side sometimes made me simply shake head. So many decisions are what I call "childish evil" and nowhere did I ever see any NPC, which I would take for "mastermind evil".

The empire in total does appear to me like their ruling class (sith) are unable to agree on the color of the dirt beneath their nails and they would rather loose a war, than admit, that they need help from an ally.

 

Many Sith NPC appear to me like little kids, who got just stolen their lollies and are fuming about it to the player to bring that back.

 

As for the animations... I am not sure, that shooting blue lightning, red lightning, purple lightning, white lightning and even more lightning is all so much "better" than the respective skill animations on republic side

[ForceCowboy]

Here is the real underlying problem with the Republic:

 

There's a huge disconnect between what you're doing in between dialog moments with NPC's and what you're doing during those moments.

 

For instance; My Jedi Knight shows up on a new planet, and immediately begins butchering his way through literally thousands of NPC's in order to get to an evil Sith Lord. I defeat him in combat and then I'm given a choice to kill or arrest him. KILL is worth dark side points, while arrest is worth light side points.

 

Wait, wut? Didn't I just indiscriminately murder a few thousand other guys just to get to the one evil guy that definitely should be killed, but killing him makes ME the bad guy?

 

THIS is why playing republic is stupid.

 

It reminds me of a scene from Grosse Pointe Blank:

 

Kevin McCullers: Man, why don't we just do his job, so we can do our job and get out of here?

Steve: What do you mean, "do his job?" What am I, a cold-blooded killer? I'm not a cold-blooded killer.

Kevin McCullers: Now, wait a minute...

Steve: No, you wait a minute. You want to kill the good guy but not be the bad guy. Doesn't work like that. You have to wait until the bad guy kills the good guy, then when you kill the bad guy, you're the good guy.

Kevin McCullers: So - just to clarify - if we do his job we're the bad guys, and if we do our job we're the good guys.

Steve: Yes.

Kevin McCullers: That's... great.

[Ottoattack]

All my toons are LS except one, yet majority of my toons are imps. Honestly, I can't stand the rep main fleet. It's disgusting. Add to that, BW makes the imps in story lines for rep so comical. Every time I fight a Sith, he goes: "I will destroy you and everyone you love. MUWHAHAHA." Versus, imps stories tend to be more complicated with deception and inner fighting, and enemies jedi tend to fall in different shades of gray from goodie goodie to bad, where Sith in rep stories tend to be "we are evil and we love evil!"

 

I did not like any of the rep story lines I played.

[errant_knight]

Both sides are more interesting if you turn off the ls/ds markers and choose according to your character's beliefs/goals. The knight was written to be a struggle between light and dark. The 'best' choices if your goal is to win the war are often not LS.

[BewBo]

Because of Luke Skywalker

[Eldrenath]

Sure the Empire has it's own problems, tyranny, slavery, torture, betrayal and lots of death, but lets look on the bright side, at least the Sith are free to show all of their emotions and passions, basically they are allowed to do whatever they like.

 

So your point is that the Jedi are worse because they can't show their emotions. Ok, good point. You seem to say this this is worse than "tyranny, slavery, and torture".

 

Really?!

 

The other thing to remember is that not everyone in the Republic is a Jedi, nor are they required to be. Yet everyone here is annoyed that the Jedi are self-righteous and talk down to people, and instead prefer the Sith who torture, murder, and destroy for any reason whatsoever, from desire for advancement to simply "I had a bad day so I'm going to kill these three chumps right here"..

 

I enjoy playing empire too, it's kinda fun and a change of pace (I usually play Republic). The stories are cool and the setting is dark and dangerous, which can be pretty exciting. But the things people here are saying, about the sith being less evil than the jedi just seem completely insane to me. Playing imp side you meet sith after sith after sith that are simply insane, murderous, bloodthirsty sociopaths.

 

Yet somehow, Satele Shan is more evil because she "talks down to people"?

 

YEEEESH!

Edited November 27, 2013 by Eldrenath

[lironBD]

Game wise I find the empire side much better.

 

all worst planets.. boring lines and such are empire side...

 

Tythoon.... Taris (puc side) and more...

[BrianDavion]

Having been playing this game on and off for many weeks I've been switching allegiances like a yo-yo, at some points I wanted to be the good hero (Republic) rather than the villain (Empire) and you would of thought it be doable, but in the Star Wars universe the Republic are a long shot far from being heroic good guys, especially for the Jedi.

 

Sure the Empire has it's own problems, tyranny, slavery, torture, betrayal and lots of death, but lets look on the bright side, at least the Sith are free to show all of their emotions and passions, basically they are allowed to do whatever they like.

 

For the Republics own problems lets start with the Jedi code. Lets be honest, not being allowed to show your emotions and passions just makes you act like a mindless drone. True peace is impossible to achieve, there's perhaps more truth with the Sith code than the Jedi code. Also it sucks Jedi forbid love for which I feel sorry for those Jedi lovers on Tython, if it weren't banned then their idea of bribery would of never happened. Secondly there's no end of corruption in Coruscant, the big heads are doing nothing for their people, in fact many of them Senators are corrupt themselves which leads to a rather nasty mission where you try to expose one by taking it from a carrier droid and then this guy comes to stop you...to find that the light side choice is to take the out of date information and have a corrupt Senator walk away...WHAT???! How can you be a true hero of the light if you allow things like this?

 

Putting the story a side, Empire have better character animations (for instance; lightning > rocks), the Empire classes overall have better storylines than the Republic, British accents are simply sexy and if we include the movies, the best Star Wars character ever is Darth Vader.

 

To finally conclude, although I prefer being the hero but sometimes as they say, it's just good to be bad.

 

yeah Jedi are all emotionless robots. you never saw any Jedi express any emotion! nope not once!

[Oneirophrenia]

Personally, I think the Empire is just more relatable to reality. While the Star Wars universe tends to take that ideology to the extremes such as murder, cruelty and other sociopathic behavior (as many fictionable works do for the shock value), to me the core principles behind the Empire is really about two main things: the end justify the means and pure unadulterated power. The Sith do not necessarily have to be *evil* per se, they just happen to use all of the options at their disposal in order to achieve their goals. In reality, that is how many great powers of the past and present behaved despite the morally questionable positions it puts them in.

 

In the end, forces of good and evil in their purist forms are really just aberrations as various shades of gray is far more common.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Oneirophrenia

[Oneirophrenia]

The Sith Empire was modeled on Nazi Germany in many ways. It's hardly a violation of Godwin's "law" to point that out.

 

Or the British Empire, French Empire, Roman/Byzantine Empire, Spanish Empire, Macedonian Empire, Persian Empire, Umayyad Caliphate, Ottomon Empire, Mongol Empire, Tang Dynasty, Soviet Union, or the United States as well as many others.

 

Oppression, slavery, genocide, discrimination, manipulative behavior and other *evil* deeds which are often associated with the Sith Empire is prevelant in the history of all those above examples without exception. To claim that it was modeled after the Nazi Empire is far too simplistic and somewhat naive, no offense.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Oneirophrenia

[Xeraz]

Or the British Empire, French Empire, Roman/Byzantine Empire, Spanish Empire, Macedonian Empire, Persian Empire, Umayyad Caliphate, Ottomon Empire, Mongol Empire, Tang Dynasty, Soviet Union, or the United States as well as many others.

 

Oppression, slavery, genocide, discrimination, manipulative behavior and other *evil* deeds which are often associated with the Sith Empire is prevelant in the history of all those above examples without exception. To claim that it was modeled after the Nazi Empire is far too simplistic and somewhat naive, no offense.

 

Lol @ comparing all those countries as the same.

 

The Empire of the original movies was clearly based on the British empire while the rebels were the Americans. The Empire of the Old Republic is clearly based on Nazi Germany, more than any other nation.

[AshlaBoga]

Or the British Empire, French Empire, Roman/Byzantine Empire, Spanish Empire, Macedonian Empire, Persian Empire, Umayyad Caliphate, Ottomon Empire, Mongol Empire, Tang Dynasty, Soviet Union, or the United States as well as many others.

 

Oppression, slavery, genocide, discrimination, manipulative behavior and other *evil* deeds which are often associated with the Sith Empire is prevelant in the history of all those above examples without exception. To claim that it was modeled after the Nazi Empire is far too simplistic and somewhat naive, no offense.

 

Fair point.

 

It reminds me more of the Persian Empire than it does of Nazi Germany.

[SethMorganaa]

What does 'Better' mean?

[Oneirophrenia]

Lol @ comparing all those countries as the same.

 

The Empire of the original movies was clearly based on the British empire while the rebels were the Americans. The Empire of the Old Republic is clearly based on Nazi Germany, more than any other nation.

 

Just where did I say all of those above empires/nations were the same? What I did say was that those traits which are often associated with the Sith Empire also existed in virtually every other major empires/power besides Nazi Germany. Anyone who is learned in history can not dispute this. George Lucas has also said that he was inspired by many sources when he created the original Star Wars universe, incorporating ideas, symbolisms and mythologies from all across the globe.

 

I also believe you have your comparisons backwards. The Galactic Empire of the original trilogy used few references to the British Empire (other than British actors and perhaps naming convention for ships) but it did give plenty of nods to Nazi Germany. Stormtrooper (Sturmabteilung), Imperial uniforms (Wehrmacht/SS), planets that were named after WWII personalities or locations such Tatooine (in Libya which was a major point of contention during the various North African campaigns) or Hoth (surname of a German general on the eastern front which was rather snowy and chilly). If anything one could even argue that the Rebel Alliance was actually the UK, encircled and on the brink of being wipe out in their struggle to liberate Europe against the Nazi war machine. Anyway, this is not to say that the Galactic Empire was entirely based on Nazi Germany as Lucas has also drawn parallels between Palpatine's rise to power to that of Bonaparte, Caesar, as well as Hitler.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Oneirophrenia