Why I think the Empire is better than Republic

[Oneirophrenia]

Fair point.

 

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

 

Possibly. To me the Sith Empire actually reminds me of the feudal Japan prior to the unification by the Tokugawa Shogunate, especially the Heian period.

 

- An emperor who was little more than a figurehead while the real power is held by a small group of powerful daimyos who often warred among themselves for power and territory. Practically the mirror image of the Dark Council.

- A highly militant civil structure that was dominated by the martial samurai ruling class (Sith) who were mostly above the law. Often times they also meted out extrajudicial and harsh punishment on the ashigaru regulars (Imperial military) as well as the general peasantry.

- The samurais themselves were quasi-religious and believed by the commoners to have supernatural abilities. Their adherence to a mixture of Shintoism and the code of bushido were very much like the Sith (and the Jedi order for that matter).

- An exceptionally homogenous and somewhat xenophobic society where other ethnic groups were shunned, enslaved, exterminated or expelled.

 

The resemblance in those aspects is uncanny in my opinion but there are still some differences of course.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Oneirophrenia

[QuiDonJorn]

I think I am now going to permantly delete my 3 lvl 55 Empire characters and the one 33rd level one (Agent).

 

I side with the Republic, always have, and there isn't anything you could ever say that would make me believe that the Empire is "superior" or "better" in any way.

[shamfurdispray]

I think I am now going to permantly delete my 3 lvl 55 Empire characters and the one 33rd level one (Agent).

 

I side with the Republic, always have, and there isn't anything you could ever say that would make me believe that the Empire is "superior" or "better" in any way.

 

Don't get it wrong but I find it funny that you're strongly devoted to the Republic to the level of reject anything that is Sith or Imperial, and yet you have three highest level characters, one mid level character on Empire faction. Oh the irony.

 

On the contrary beside the reasons I like Empire better because of uniform, british accent, better writing and better animation. I find that playing as light side character on Empire is more interesting and discovering a shade of grey reality.

 

The way George Lucas portrait Good & Evil and the Empire in movies are quite biased in my opinion, and it's not much of the whole picture if you look past the whole slavery, xenophobia, mass genocide or sith's sociopathic behavior (I still believe those are bad things and flawed in the Empire). However as mentioned before I believe that core principles of the Empire is "Order and The end justifies the means" from Imperial's point of view Rebel Alliance are close to terrorist and trouble maker.

 

Beside the Republic are not role model of pure good or perfect democracy. I'm not going into Jedi & Sith philosophy debate here, there are corruption inside the Galactic Senate and Republic Military, on the countless time Jedi have rather hypocrite, self righteousness behavior (you can see the example cleary ingame as Light side Sith), and not to mention if you trace back to Great Hyperspace War, the Republic and Jedi simply agreed on annihilate entire civilization.

Edited November 28, 2013 by shamfurdispray

[BacaWicket]

I play as an Agent so I get a completely different perspective of the sith Empire than the sith do. As an IA I see the consequences of backstabbing and power grabs. I even know how the sith feel about the "pyramid" because i have a lvl 15 SW. !!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! don't say that I didn't warn you

After the emperor's death(yes the emperor "died")

and i put "died" in quotes because in the SW storyline the hand confirms that he is recovering

malgus seized the throne for himself and took the Emperor's cloaked space station. Many Imperials sympathsized with Malgus (and I would have too because he wasn't a racist plus he had schism colective lasers:csw_deathstar_un:)but many more preppared a strike team to end his revolution once and for all. After Malgus's death, the Empire was severely weakened; the republic was on a short road to victory when like-minded sith like Marr took the Empire into his own hands(not the same thing as taking the throne)and seized makeb's isotope 5. Aliens are now being allowed to join and for new reasons, the kaleesh have sided with the empire. I'm prety sure all kaths as of lvl 55 have been ended by marr prematurely. And the nice thing about it is, is that the republic doesn't even know that the empire is getting back up on its feet. I think it will be interesting when the republic, still believing it's on a short road to victory will get overconfident and lose to the empire's new isotope 5 fleet. I like the ziost idea about the republic fleet arriving over ziost and the imperial fleet wiping out the pub fleet.

[ShadowMudkip]

I chose slavery because first, it's rampant in SWTOR, and second, because it's possibly the easiest of all moral questions. No grey area anywhere. It's never necessary. It's always harmful to a society that practices it. Even those doing it know it's wrong. They just don't care.

 

Interestingly enough, both sides in SWTOR practice and tolerate it.

 

In our society today, this is correct. However, historically, slavery has been not been harmful to the society in which it was practiced. Ancient Egypt became a great superpower in its day due to slavery. Elizabethan England was one of the most powerful empires in the world, again had slavery in its society (which it eventually cast out). My point is, is that todays norms and our values both say slavery is an absolute evil, it Is how we were raised to think. But, go back a few centuries , and slavery is perfectly acceptable. The Empire, most likely sees slavery in the mindset we had a few centuries past, they didn't think anything of it, it is a normal part of society.

 

One hundred years from now, our descendants might find our practice of inoculations barbaric, after all, who would purposefully stab people with needles? Even if it did have a benefit?

 

TL:DR Times change with cultural perspective, what is morally grey might be good or bad in the future.

[ninjamau]

I think I am now going to permantly delete my 3 lvl 55 Empire characters and the one 33rd level one (Agent).

 

I side with the Republic, always have, and there isn't anything you could ever say that would make me believe that the Empire is "superior" or "better" in any way.

 

Ignorance is strong in this one.

[Ardarell_Solo]

I prefer playing Rep side, as, on average, teamplay's better there, there's less sociopaths going about and it's simply a more civilized playstyle altogether. There are exceptions on both sides, naturally, but the tendency is undenieable.

 

Oh, and capes are for sissys! :-P

[AlrikFassbauer]

Ancient Egypt became a great superpower in its day due to slavery.

 

I visited the new Egyptian museum in Munich, Germany, at the beginning of November.

 

A guide there told us that this is actually untrue. Ancient Egypt NEVER had slavery. The people were free there.

She couldn't say why and when the cliché of Ancient Egypt having slavery emerged; but as a professional guide, she told us that this view is wrong.

 

Point is that the time between the harvest was a time ith nothing to do - so in order to get paid for buying food and stuff, people had to go to work for the state, so to say. All of these ancient building had to be built.

 

And those workers were FREE people. Regardless of having to go to work at least somewhere to get some money.

 

Another point which is quite alien to us nowadays is that there was not that much of an economy like we are used today. Almost all work was coming from the state, so to say, and there were no firms or companiex like we are used to. There was only 1 giant firm / company, and that was the state. Everything else was just smaller companies / firms, like selling food ( the little that people could keep, because EVERYTHING went to the state and was THEN assigned individually to people ! ), craftsmen, and so on.

[ralphieceaser]

Empire is changing for the better, less racism and hate and less infighting

 

while republic worsens, The new senator is too warlike and aggressive and shrouds info through the cartel cubes says that she has a lot more plans for changing the republic to a very evil and warlike horrible republic

[Vhaegrant]

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.

 

 

I nearly agree with you 100%, but feel the issue is more symptomatic of being Light side rather than the faction you belong to.

 

In pure game mechanics I find most if not all the endgame daily content seems to favour the Imperials rather than the Republic. The quests just seem to be closer together with a more logical path through them, the difference may be closing with the release of more content that is nearly identical for both factions though.

 

The aesthetics of the Empire tend to be more formal, symmetrical with overtures of cutting edge technology, oozing the sense of power and glory while the Republic feels outdated and content to look back on faded glories. I wish I could remember the companion (want to say Jaesa) that comments on the fact all the fashion designers went to the Empire.

 

Sith tend to be portrayed with a desire for self fulfilment (whether that be immediate self gratification or a longer term establishment of a powerbase to rival the Emporer), while the Jedi are portrayed with a desire to help others (an altruistic undertone often accompanied by an arrogant 'I know best so do as I say not as I do') even if that is to support underlying corruption.

 

I would have preferred a more open game to explore the middle ground between the two extreme philosophies of force users. Personally I think Aristotle was very close with his remarks about the 'Golden Mean' the point of balance between two opposing extremes (in this case the extreme and deficiency of emotion), and also the right to display emotions that are relevant to the situation (It is understandable to want the head of a man who has killed your family, it is not however justified to want the mans head if he has beaten you at a game of Monopoly, although I don't think Aristotle worded it like that been too long since I last read 'Ethics').

 

As to slavery? It is a very emotive word and instantly tends to conjure up images of people dragged away from their homeland, transported in inhumane conditions, flogged under the whip until their is spirit broken or they rise in open revolt. It is an affront to the idea of personal freedom. Look at the UN declaration of Human Rights ( http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ ) and you'll probably find the Empire transgresses everyone of them to some degree while at least the Republic has aspirations to uphold them.

 

That said, I still find it more enjoyable to play as a LS Sith trying to find a less brutal, totalitarian response.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Vhaegrant

[Trentest]

Evil is a consequence, not an initial state. The way many Sith interpret and use their teachings; that's what often leads to evil.

 

As to the Jedi not being allowed emotions, that's not accurate. They are taught to keep their emotions under control and under wraps. They still have them, but they have mastered them. Kind of like the Vulcans in Star Trek. If you slap a Jedi, they might get sad or angry inside, but they have trained themselves to have a clear, focused and level head at all times, hence you're unlikely to get a reaction

 

I do agree that the Empire is more interesting though.

[Floredon]

pubs are scrubs.

 

enough said.

[Aeneas_Falco]

It is fun to play the villain at times and I enjoy my Sith Inquisitor alt, but if these were real world factions living on a world managed by the Republic and the Jedi would be about a billion times more preferable than living on one ruled by the Empire and the Sith.

 

Democracy > Absolute Monarchy / Oligarchy

 

And while the Jedi have their flaws, they aren't sociopathic war-mongering elitist tyrants like the Sith. The Sith would think nothing of butchering thousands of innocent people if it furthers their goals, and merely voicing dissent against a Sith regime is enough to earn imprisonment and/or death. The Sith Empire is basically comparable to some of the worst dictatorships in human history, with a human rights record that would be just as bad or worse.

 

Lets not confuse having more fun playing a character that is villain with mass-murdering dictatorships/oligarchies actually being preferable to a representative democracy.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Aeneas_Falco

[TheNahash]

Lets not confuse having more fun playing a character that is villain with mass-murdering dictatorships/oligarchies actually being preferable to a representative democracy.

 

Real life has nothing to do with a game.

In games, movies and books, Evil is fun because it allows you to do things you wouldn't want to do in real life. It's escapism.

Good in games, books and movies is full of rules and ethical dilemmas. It's boring and, to a certain degree, it's also stupid.

 

Good and Evil in Star Wars are pretty one-dimensional (and that's not just SWTOR's fault).

You're either a benevolent Jedi/Republic soldier that suffers from a massive messiah complex or a sadistic evil Sith/Empire player who would kill his own friends just for the lulz.

 

But real life has no place in a video game. If anyone thinks that a real life Empire would be a "good idea" should probably have their head checked.

Edited November 30, 2013 by TheNahash