Why do people join Dark Side?

[Sadishist]

Please do actually, I read about that somewhere and the discussion sounds interesting.

Read the book Yoda: Dark Rendezvous.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Sadishist

[Beniboybling]

Read the book Yoda: Dark Rendezvous.

Naaah.

[Aurbere]

Please do actually, I read about that somewhere and the discussion sounds interesting.

 

Very well.

 

 

"You want me to tell you about the power of the dark side?" Dooku said wonderingly.

 

Yoda had the dragon's eyes again: half closed, gleaming under heavy lids. "Strong, strong the dark side is in this place," he murmured. "Touch it you can, like a serpent's belly sliding under you hand. Taste it, like blood in the air... Tell me of the dark side, apprentice."

 

"I'm not your apprentice anymore," Dooku said.

 

Yoda snuffed: laughed: stirred the air with his crooked stick. "You think Yoda stops teaching, just because his student does not want to hear? Yoda a teacher is. Yoda teaches like drunkards drink. Like killers kill," he said softly. "But now, you be the teacher, Dooku. Tell me: is it hard to find the power of the dark side?"

 

"No. The lore of the Sith-that is another matter. But to touch the power of the dark side, to begin to know it, all you have to do is...allow yourself. Relax. We carry the dark side within ourselves," Dooku said. "Surely you must know that by now. Surely even Yoda has felt it. Half of life, dark to balance light, waits inside you like an orphan. Waiting to be welcomed home.

 

"We all desire, Yoda. We all fear. We are all beset. A Jedi learns to suppress these things: to ignore these things: to pretend they don't exist, or if they do, they apply to someone else, not us. Not the pure. Not the Protectors." Dooku found himself beginning to pace. "To know the dark side is merely to stop lying. Stop pretending you don't want what you want. Stop pretending you don't fear what you fear. Half the day is night, Master Yoda. To see truly, you have to learn to see in the dark."

 

"Mmmmmmmm." Yoda hummed and grunted, eyes nearly closed now. "The dark side, power would it give me."

 

"Power over all. When you understand your own evils and the evils of others, it makes them pitifully evil to manipulate. It's another kind of push-feather," the Count said. "The dark side will show you the stiff places in a being. His dreads and needs. The dark side gives you the keys to him."

 

"Hmph. Very fine that is, but Yoda has power," the ancient Master said, examining his hairy toes. "I live in a palace bigger than this one, if I count the Temple as a palace. Dooku is a master of armies: but Yoda is a master of armies, too. So far, we are even."

 

"Is there such a thing as too much power?" Dooku mused. "For instance," he continued carefully, "there was a day when your power was clearly greater than mine. Today, however, I have waxed as you have waned. You stand in my citadel. I have at my command servants and droids and great powers of my own that I think would overwhelm even you. It is possible that at a single word, I could have you killed. And without you, how long would those dear to you last? I could have them, one by one: Mace and Iron Hand, Obi-Wan and precious young Skywalker, too. Surely you would feel safer if this were not so."

 

Yoda cocked his head to one side. "Like Anakin, you do not?"

 

"Perhaps he reminds me too much of myself at the same age. Arrogant. Impulsive. Proud. I realize humility is high among the Enforced Virtues, the ones no one acquires by choice; but that being said, if Fate is looking for an instrument to humble Skywalker, I confess myself willing to volunteer."

 

Yoda reached behind his back with his stick, trying to scratch a spot just between his shoulder blades. "Power over beings, need I not. What else can it give me, this dark side of yours?"

 

"What games are you playing here, Master Yoda?"

 

Yoda smiled at the term Master-curse him-and shrugged. "No game. Wasteful this war is. Even you agree. Sent you the candle, did I: you know there can be coming home for you. Know this, both of us do, and if come back to the Temple you wish, I will take you there."

 

"Very kind," Dooku said dryly. "Decent of you to give me an arm to lean on."

 

"Always catch you I will, when you fall," Yoda said. "I swore it."

 

Dooku flinched as if stung.

 

"But another way to solve the war there is. If you will not join me, perhaps join you I should. Tell me more," Yoda said testily. "If power over beings need I not, what else can your dark side do for me?"

 

"What do you want?" Dooku snapped. "Tell me what you want and I will show you how the dark side can help you achieve it. Do you want friends? The dark side can compel them for you. Lovers? The dark side understands passions better than you never have. Do you want riches-endless life-deep wisdom...?"

 

"I want..." Yoda held up the flower in his hand and took another sniff. "I want a rose."

 

"Be serious," Dooku said impatiently.

 

"Serious am I!" Yoda cried. He bounded to his feet. Standing on the desktop, he was almost as tall as Dooku. He held the flower imperiously toward his former pupil. "Another rose, make for me!"

 

"The dark side springs from the heart," Dooku said. "It isn't a handbook for cheap conjuror's tricks."

 

"But like this trick, do I!" Yoda said. "The trick that brings the flower from the ground. The trick that sets the sun on fire."

 

"The Force is not magic. I can't create a flower out of thin air. Nobody can-not you, not the Lord of the Sith."

 

Yoda blinked. "My Force does. Binds every living thing, the Force I understand."

 

"Master, these are games of words. The Force is as it has always been. The dark side is not a different energy. To use it is only to open yourself to new ways to command that energy, that have to do with the hearts of beings. Want something else. Want power"

 

"Power have I."

"Want wealth."

"Wealth I need not."

"Want to be safe," Dooku said in frustration. "Want to be free from fear!"

 

"I will never be safe," Yoda said. He turned away from Dooku, a shapeless bundle under a battered, acid-eaten cloak. "The universe is large and cold and very dark: that is the truth. What I love, taken from me will be, late or soon: and no power is there, dark or light, that can save me. Murdered, Jai Maruk was when the looking after him I had; and Maks Leem; and all the many, many more Jedi I have lost. My family they were."

 

"So be angry about that!" Dooku said. "Hate! Rage! Despair! Allow yourself, just once, to stop playing at the game of Jedi Knight, and admit what you have always known: you are alone, and you are great, and when the world strikes at you it is better to strike back that to turn your cheek. Feel, Yoda! I can feel the darkness rising in you. Here, in this place, be honest for once and feel the truth about yourself."

 

At this moment Yoda turned, and Dooku gasped. Whether it was the play of the holomonitors, beaming their views of bleak space and distant battles, or some other trick of the light, Yoda's face was deeply hidden in the shadows, mottled black and blue, so that for one terrifying instant he looked exactly like Darth Sidious. Or rathe, it was Yoda as he might have been, or could yet become: a Yoda gone rotten, a Yoda whose awesome powers had been utterly unleashed by his connection to the dark side. In a flash Dooku saw how foolish he ahd been, trying to urge the old Master to the dark side. If Yoda ever turned that way, Sidious himself would be annihilated. The universe had yet to comprehend the kind of evil that a Jedi Knight of nearly nine hundred years could wield.

 

From the shadows, Yoda spoke. "Disappointment like I not, apprentice," he snarled, in a wicked, wicked voice. "Give me my rose!"

 

"Your hand is shaking," Yoda said.

 

"Yes." Dooku frowmed down at it. "Age."

 

Yoda smiled. "Fear."

 

"I don't think-"

 

Yoda came out of the shadows. The vision of him in his Sith avatar faded. It was only Yoda, the same as always, taking Dooku's hand and studying it intently, as if he were mad Whirry, trying to read the future in the pattern of liver spots. "Feeling the trembling, even you must."

 

Behind him, broadcast on the holomonitors, the attack on Omwat played out. "I tricked you into coming here," Dooku said. "This is a trap."

 

Yoda said, "A trap? Oh, yes it is."

 

His old touch was warm and firm. If you fall, catch you I will.

 

No. Not if but when. Yoda had said When you fall, catch you I will. Had he known even then, seventy years ago, that this day would come? Surely even Yoda could not guess that his star pupil would fall so very, very far.

 

"To the dark side I do not think I shall go," Yoda said conversationally. "Not today. Feel the pull, do I? Of course! But a secret let me tell you, apprentice."

 

"I'm not your apprentice," Dooku said. Yoda ignored him

 

"Yoda a darkness carries with him," the Master said,"... and Dooku bears a light. After all these years! Across all these oceans of space! All these bodies you have tried to heap between us: and yet call to me still, this little Dooku does! Flies toward the true Force, like iron pulled to a magnet." Yoda cackled. "Even the blicd seed grows to the light: should mighty Dooku be unable to achieve what even the rose can do?"

 

The Count said, "I have gone too far down the dark path to ever return."

 

"Pfeh." Yoda snapped his fingers. "The empty universe, where is it now? Alone are you, Count, and no one your master. Each instant the universe annihilates itself, and starts again." He poked Dooku in the chest with his stick, hard. "Choose, and start again!"

 

 

It's an interesting passage, I feel.

[Beniboybling]

It's an interesting passage, I feel.

Hmmm, very interesting.

[Sadishist]

Hmmm, very interesting.

 

As I said, read that novel, if you want to know what you're talking about lorewise.

[Beniboybling]

As I said, read that novel, if you want to know what you're talking about lorewise.

Is that perhaps an accusation?

 

I don't read novels for information, I read novels for entertainment.

 

And in all honesty I've never been particularly interested in the novel side of the EU, not enough novelty I feel.

[Scutum]

The conversation between Yoda and Dooku was the best part of the book, and the main reason I read it. Dooku laid out almost every reason why people can be drawn towards the dark side, but Yoda shows him that even the power of the dark side can't give you everything. Yoda understands that there is darkness in him and everywhere, but he chooses to live without those wants owning him.

[Sadishist]

The conversation between Yoda and Dooku was the best part of the book, and the main reason I read it. Dooku laid out almost every reason why people can be drawn towards the dark side, but Yoda shows him that even the power of the dark side can't give you everything. Yoda understands that there is darkness in him and everywhere, but he chooses to live without those wants owning him.

 

Yoda went to the dark side to draw on the planet's dark side power to fight Dooku.

[Aurbere]

Yoda went to the dark side to draw on the planet's dark side power to fight Dooku.

 

What? I just read the duel and I didn't see anything to indicate that except for one vague sentence that isn't indicative of anything.

[theUndead]

You know something has always puzzled me.

 

 

In the final battle of the Knight story and he fights the Emporer, the Emporer made a comment about the Knight having extreme power.

 

 

This interested me because what could he be referring to? Was it his combat prowess? His clarity of force? When ever I hear of powerful beings in the force I usually imagine great and powerful Sith who wield massive amounts of Force Lightening and stuff like that. But when compared to the Jedi how do you describe their power? Is it their aura of pure clarity, their lethal martial might by being totally selfless? I don't know it has always been something that has interested me.

[Scutum]

Yoda went to the dark side to draw on the planet's dark side power to fight Dooku.

 

I don't remember him drawing on the dark side to fight him. If I missed something, can someone put the duel here so I can read it again? I feel like if Yoda did it would have been a slap to the face of his argument.

 

 

You know something has always puzzled me.

 

 

In the final battle of the Knight story and he fights the Emporer, the Emporer made a comment about the Knight having extreme power.

 

 

This interested me because what could he be referring to? Was it his combat prowess? His clarity of force? When ever I hear of powerful beings in the force I usually imagine great and powerful Sith who wield massive amounts of Force Lightening and stuff like that. But when compared to the Jedi how do you describe their power? Is it their aura of pure clarity, their lethal martial might by being totally selfless? I don't know it has always been something that has interested me.

 

I feel like when a dark side user says that a Jedi has power it is based mostly on their martial prowess and skill with the force. If it is a Jedi not very skilled with a saber it's usually because they have some unique skill in the force that makes them dangerous, like Bastilla and her battle meditation.

 

Although with the Jedi clarity seems to go hand-in-hand with strength, since most of the people who could be considered almost enlightened are usually somewhat decent warriors at the least.

[Beniboybling]

This interested me because what could he be referring to? Was it his combat prowess? His clarity of force? When ever I hear of powerful beings in the force I usually imagine great and powerful Sith who wield massive amounts of Force Lightening and stuff like that. But when compared to the Jedi how do you describe their power? Is it their aura of pure clarity, their lethal martial might by being totally selfless? I don't know it has always been something that has interested me.

Light and dark are two sides of the same coin, neither is strong than the other. But your right, they wield them in different ways. The Jedi are more passive, they use things like Force Valor and Tutaminis. The former increasing one's speed, strength etc. and the later increasing one's ability to deflect energy attacks.

 

Just think of Yoda for an example, he's a blur of raw energy who can overwhelm even the most accomplished of duelists, and when up against raw manifestations of dark side energy he simply blocks and redirect them.

[Beniboybling]

I feel like when a dark side user says that a Jedi has power it is based mostly on their martial prowess and skill with the force. If it is a Jedi not very skilled with a saber it's usually because they have some unique skill in the force that makes them dangerous, like Bastilla and her battle meditation.

 

Although with the Jedi clarity seems to go hand-in-hand with strength, since most of the people who could be considered almost enlightened are usually somewhat decent warriors at the least.

The Sith Emperor was clearly referring to his Force Ability however, his ability to withstand and dispel the Emperor's assaults and come down on the Emperor like a ton of bricks.

[Scutum]

The Sith Emperor was clearly referring to his Force Ability however, his ability to withstand and dispel the Emperor's assaults and come down on the Emperor like a ton of bricks.

 

Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying. It's more combat-oriented when it comes to Sith describing power, but it also includes force abilities that threaten their power or their own unique abilities.

 

I would agree that while both sides have great power, the light side uses it in more passive or protective ways. To me severing someone's connection to the force is the ultimate form of this, used against foes of great danger to stop them from bringing harm for good (so far as the Jedi believe).

 

I know the dark side can cloud someone's force abilities (like sensing and visions), but has there been a dark side user who was able to sever someone's force connection? Or has it been a purely light side thing?

[Beniboybling]

Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying. It's more combat-oriented when it comes to Sith describing power, but it also includes force abilities that threaten their power or their own unique abilities.

 

I would agree that while both sides have great power, the light side uses it in more passive or protective ways. To me severing someone's connection to the force is the ultimate form of this, used against foes of great danger to stop them from bringing harm for good (so far as the Jedi believe).

 

I know the dark side can cloud someone's force abilities (like sensing and visions), but has there been a dark side user who was able to sever someone's force connection? Or has it been a purely light side thing?

But its Force Ability that allows him to resist the Emperor's powers, and Force Ability which makes him such a powerful warrior. This I feel is the 'immense power' that the Sith Emperor was referring to.

 

And the dark side variant would be Force Drain, which involves draining the Force energies of your enemy until there is simply nothing left, a far more aggressive technique which usually results in death. Refer to KOTOR 2 for details.

[Scutum]

But its Force Ability that allows him to resist the Emperor's powers, and Force Ability which makes him such a powerful warrior. This I feel is the 'immense power' that the Sith Emperor was referring to.

 

And the dark side variant would be Force Drain, which involves draining the Force energies of your enemy until there is simply nothing left, a far more aggressive technique which usually results in death. Refer to KOTOR 2 for details.

 

I'm not sure if you see it, but I'm agreeing with you.

 

I was saying that if it isn't just purely martial skills that the Sith is referring to, it's usually some unique force technique or ability that can resist their powers or stand as a strategic threat. Like the knight versus the emperor, Nihilus versus Surik, Bastilla and her meditation, etc.

 

And I totally forgot about drain, duh! Thanks for the reminder.

[theUndead]

Light and dark are two sides of the same coin, neither is strong than the other. But your right, they wield them in different ways. The Jedi are more passive, they use things like Force Valor and Tutaminis. The former increasing one's speed, strength etc. and the later increasing one's ability to deflect energy attacks.

 

Just think of Yoda for an example, he's a blur of raw energy who can overwhelm even the most accomplished of duelists, and when up against raw manifestations of dark side energy he simply blocks and redirect them.

 

I suppose you are right. I guess I was trying to get some further understanding into what a dark sider sees in a light sider in terms of power. I remember in the Revenge of the Sith novel, that Yoda was compared to a serene meadow with a fountain and that he is pure light and which I suppose would be tremendously powerful to a dark sider.

 

But answer me this, do you think the notion of being totally selfless no emotion makes one a fierce combatant at least in the terms of Jedi and Sith?

[MadelineMadrigal]

I'd say because they want power and they want it quick and easy, when following the light side you use your abilities without thinking of yourself, and it's all about learning to limit the power you exert over others in the name of the greater good. You acknowledge that your know more/less important than the rest of life in the galaxy and that as someone enlightened with that knowledge you have a duty to keep the peace and maintain balance/harmony wherever you can for the good of all. < a selfish, power hungry individual does not see the point in this and will never understand as they lack the empathy skills needed to see that they should not hoard power as others will suffer because of it (whether they mean for it or not.) Yes you could counter argue that some people join the darkside to save others e.g someone they love, but ultimately it's still a selfish thing to do, exactly why the jedi forbid attachment.

 

You have to use the light side as a contrast to understand, while a true light side force user e.g. Jedi trains to live in harmony with the force and not for personal gain, a darksider learns their skills exactly for the opposite reason, to become more powerful.

 

Basically it's usually loosers with no patience and everything to fear, that and a sense of unwarranted self importance that join the darkside as a quick and easy way to get what they want. That and some just can't control their emotions very well and fall down the slope into corruption. I think it takes a lot more personal strength to be a successful jedi than it does to be a sith personally.

[Synti]

Dark Jedi and Sith are two different things. Dark Jedi is selfish, Sith actually believe in a cause. I don't think it's about good/evil.

This is what does it for me personally; it isn't just that the jedi are boring, it is that the whole Republic side of things is generally boring to me. I do not believe for a minute that any of the differences between the two sides are about good / evil. People who think that are very short sighted.

 

Empire is no more evil or power hungry than the Republic; they are just simply more honest about it. It is about ideology, forms of government and disciplines clashing which makes it interesting. The empire is darker because they do not hide their true natures, and that darker world is something I enjoy exploring. It actually started a long time ago for me, when I first read the R.A Salvatore's Dark Elf trilogy, which got me interested in the darker aspects of the human psyche.

 

I enjoy the discipline and mentality of the Sith, where you are encourage to use your emotions, your passion to overcome obstacles, with only the strong surviving and the weak falling. Conflict drives evolution and war advances civilization. The sith encourage the exercise of power, while the jedi believe in restraining.

 

That's it, I guess, in a nutshell. Can't really explain it better than that.

 

One big contributing factor, why I find this line of game play more interesting, is simply because the side of "good" or "light," is the stereotypical setting and ending of almost every modern story, whether in a book or a movie; good always overcomes evil, which, I think, we all know is an illusion. Simply put; that side of things have already been explored to the death.

 

It's like beating a dead horse so hard even its bones have ground to powder.

[DarthDymond]

I do not believe for a minute that any of the differences between the two sides are about good / evil. People who think that are very short sighted.

 

Empire is no more evil or power hungry than the Republic; they are just simply more honest about it.

 

This line of thinking is utterly disturbing. Because the Republic is less than 100% perfect, it is just as bad as the Empire? The Republic has a some corrupt politicians who are willing to look the other way or personally profit from slavery, but as a whole it has banned and opposes slavery - but that's just as bad as the Empire actively promoting slavery and having it as an integral part of their society?

 

The Republic may sometimes fall short of its ideals: democracy, equality, tolerance and the rule of law, but as a whole it strives for them. The Empire strives for having the strong dominate the weak, subjugating anyone who does not fit the ruling caste's ideal, and using terror and indiscriminate slaughter as means of waging war.

 

It's a question of what is the baseline for the civilization vs In the Republic, those who would violate the SW equivalent of the Geneva Convention are the radicals; in the Empire, those who would promote an alien to a position of authority are the radicals. That right there points to the "difference" between the two sides.

 

The Empire isn't a Saturday Morning Cartoon "Legion of Evil", they're painted as believable characters who have reasons to support the civilization they've built. But that civilization is built on some pretty damn evil principles. The Republic has a number of zealots who will do anything to defeat the Empire, but just as often the Republic quest lines involve curbing or defeating those zealots as it does fighting the Empire.

[Beniboybling]

This line of thinking is utterly disturbing. Because the Republic is less than 100% perfect, it is just as bad as the Empire? The Republic has a some corrupt politicians who are willing to look the other way or personally profit from slavery, but as a whole it has banned and opposes slavery - but that's just as bad as the Empire actively promoting slavery and having it as an integral part of their society?

 

The Republic may sometimes fall short of its ideals: democracy, equality, tolerance and the rule of law, but as a whole it strives for them. The Empire strives for having the strong dominate the weak, subjugating anyone who does not fit the ruling caste's ideal, and using terror and indiscriminate slaughter as means of waging war.

 

It's a question of what is the baseline for the civilization vs In the Republic, those who would violate the SW equivalent of the Geneva Convention are the radicals; in the Empire, those who would promote an alien to a position of authority are the radicals. That right there points to the "difference" between the two sides.

 

The Empire isn't a Saturday Morning Cartoon "Legion of Evil", they're painted as believable characters who have reasons to support the civilization they've built. But that civilization is built on some pretty damn evil principles. The Republic has a number of zealots who will do anything to defeat the Empire, but just as often the Republic quest lines involve curbing or defeating those zealots as it does fighting the Empire.

I don't think that is what he is getting at, like he says:

 

It is about ideology, forms of government and disciplines clashing which makes it interesting. The empire is darker because they do not hide their true natures, and that darker world is something I enjoy exploring.

 

Everything you said simply supports that statement, terror, repression etc. these are merely tools stemming from a differing set of political ideals. However ultimately the Republic and the Empire want fundamentally the same thing, they want to establish a stable and prosperous civilization that is as beneficial to its 'citizens' as possible. And yes above many other things both factions desire power, that is the crux of what this war is about, a contest for power.

 

The difference is the Empire are willing to make more sacrifices than the Republic are to achieve this.

 

Given that, one cannot label then "good" and "evil" in a sense that there is a question of whose approach it right and whose is wrong, they simply approach things from a differing political perspective, and it just so happens the Imperial perspective is one we find distasteful, just as they would regard ours. They are as he says no more evil than the Republic. Not to say that this makes both factions "evil" - this label cannot be applied to either of them at all.

 

And ultimately I agree with Synti that there is something intriguing and engaging about the unrestricting path of the Sith, no boundaries, no obstacles, just an exercising of power to achieve your goals, not matter the cost.

 

Its liberating I suppose. Whereas I do find the Republic storylines rather dull and unsatisfying.

[Xilizhra]

I don't think that is what he is getting at, like he says:

 

It is about ideology, forms of government and disciplines clashing which makes it interesting. The empire is darker because they do not hide their true natures, and that darker world is something I enjoy exploring.

 

Everything you said simply supports that statement, terror, repression etc. these are merely tools stemming from a differing set of political ideals. However ultimately the Republic and the Empire want fundamentally the same thing, they want to establish a stable and prosperous civilization that is as beneficial to its 'citizens' as possible. And yes above many other things both factions desire power, that is the crux of what this war is about, a contest for power.

 

The difference is the Empire are willing to make more sacrifices than the Republic are to achieve this.

 

Given that, one cannot label then "good" and "evil" in a sense that there is a question of whose approach it right and whose is wrong, they simply approach things from a differing political perspective, and it just so happens the Imperial perspective is one we find distasteful, just as they would regard ours. They are as he says no more evil than the Republic. Not to say that this makes both factions "evil" - this label cannot be applied to either of them at all.

 

And ultimately I agree with Synti that there is something intriguing and engaging about the unrestricting path of the Sith, no boundaries, no obstacles, just an exercising of power to achieve your goals, not matter the cost.

 

Its liberating I suppose. Whereas I do find the Republic storylines rather dull and unsatisfying.

Well, strictly speaking, all morals are just opinions... but from a position of conventional societal morality followed by most people who wouldn't be considered antisocial and the like, the Empire is pretty much evil.

[theUndead]

Well, strictly speaking, all morals are just opinions... but from a position of conventional societal morality followed by most people who wouldn't be considered antisocial and the like, the Empire is pretty much evil.

 

I disagree. I think that some morals are ingrained on society in such a way that they no longer stay opinions but become facts of life. But, I also disagree that the Empire is pretty much evil. Yes they are a autocratic and rather power hungry but they are still a society.

[Beniboybling]

Well, strictly speaking, all morals are just opinions... but from a position of conventional societal morality followed by most people who wouldn't be considered antisocial and the like, the Empire is pretty much evil.

Well that's where the idea of the Empire being darker comes in, however even from that perspective we cannot label them as evil as they pursue the same fundamental goal the Republic.

 

Is the Emperor evil? Well you'd have a much stronger case there.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Beniboybling

[Xilizhra]

I disagree. I think that some morals are ingrained on society in such a way that they no longer stay opinions but become facts of life. But, I also disagree that the Empire is pretty much evil. Yes they are a autocratic and rather power hungry but they are still a society.

True, but their entire value system seems pretty much dedicated to evil.

 

Well that's where the idea of the Empire being darker comes in, however even from that perspective we cannot label them as evil as they pursue the same fundamental goal the Republic.

I don't think the Republic's goal is complete totalitarian domination of the galaxy and human supremacism.