We Are Sith - Part II

The Sith are simply too majestic to fit into a single post, so I had to split it.  These things happen when you unleash the power of the Rant Side.  Even Moveable Type cannot contain our power!   Bwuhahaha!

Darth Vader:

Just compare Anakin's acts as a Jedi to his acts as Darth Vader.

As a Jedi, Anakin slaughtered Tusken men, women, and children; a whole village of them.  Lucas uses fancy music to imply this was an act of the Dark Side, and tries to confirm it with Yoda's babblings about fear.  If it truly was the Dark Side then why'd the Jedi welcome him back, since they react to any whiff of the Dark Side like a Pentecostal  glimpsing a Satanic tattoo on a fat whore's cellulite ass?  The very next day Anakin breaks in to a factory and starts cutting down Geonosian workers left and right, proud union men (or whatever they are), like an aristocratic warrior-caste killer who thinks it's his divine right to rule over the workers with the lash and the sword.  For this, he was applauded by Yoda, who showed up with an army of clones to wipe out the rest of those buzzing, petulant workers.  In between episodes II and III Anakin was apparently a shitstorm of death and destruction.

Yet as Vader, Anakin merely ended the Jedi reign, decapitated the leadership of the separatist movement in about two minutes, ending a galactic WAR, and choked a squawking general.  Lucas makes us think he choked the general to death, but any doctor could tell you that to choke someone to death Vader would have to stand there and burn up five minutes of screen time.  You find you were once again misled now, weren't you?  Yes, as Darth Vader Anakin shot down a couple rebel fighters intent on the destruction of government property.  He was attacked by Luke Skywalker, who'd sought him out, and responded in self-defense, of course stopping himself to offer co-rule of the freakin' galaxy.  Really evil, eh? 

When the Emperor, in a drunken rage (power is better than whisky), was about to grievously injure Luke, Vader picked the Emperor up and tossed him down a shaft.  However, no jury in the galaxy could convict him, since half his parts were electro-mechanical and the Emperor was zapping him with Force lightning, inducing cyborg spasms.  That's right.  Taking in the entire Star Wars saga, you couldn't get a civilian grand jury to indict Darth Vader for assault.  Contrast that with the record of the Jedi and your beloved rebels.

Episode I:  Interference with the operation of a space of a vessel, attempted hijacking, destruction of property, flight to avoid arrest, gambling, attemped theft by deception, slave trafficking, breaking and entering, murder.

Episode II:  Wanton endangerment and wreckless driving (multiple counts), attempted carjacking, interference with the pilot of a vehicle, murder (innumerable counts - Tattoine), child murder (innumerable counts), murder (innumerable counts – Geonosis), destruction of property.

Episode III:  Conspiracy to commit high treason, attempted assassination of the Chancellor of the Republic, attempted murder, kidnapping (two counts), theft (droids), high treason, trafficking in stolen children.

Episode IV:  Treason, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, espionage, resisting arrest, flight to avoid prosecution, assault, breaking and entering, aiding and abetting a prison escape, aiding an escaped prisoner, vandalism, more resisting arrest, assault, murder of security officers in the performance of their duties, impersonating military personnel, destruction of government property, murder (innumerable counts).

Episode V:  Treason, flight to avoid prosecution, destruction of yet more government property, murder.

Episode VI: Treason, sedition, impersonating a deity, resisting arrest, incitement to riot, sabotage, destruction of government property, possession of weapons of mass destruction, murder (innumerable counts).

If the rebels sometimes had difficulty evacuating their bases, it's because they were bogged down with three Corellian freighters overloaded with the rebels' parsec-length rap sheets.  No wonder Kenobi dragged Luke into a den of scum and villainy.  To him it felt like home.

Darth Sidious:

Are your wittle feewings all upset because Darth Sideous was running both sides of the war?  Well whoop-dee-fucking-doo.  What more could you want than a leader who's clever enough to run both sides of a war?  That pretty much guarantees victory now, doesn't it?  Who were the combatants in this horrible war?  Clones versus robots.  Hell, even after General Grievous was defeated the Empire could've kept the fighting going as a Pay-Per-View cable show – scrolling, "No actual sentients were harmed in the making of this production."  Palpatine did this because he values life – even a soldier's life. 

He didn't send Republic youth to fight and die in the far-flung reaches of the galaxy like the Jedi were wont to do.  No, he sent clones instead.  Mind-programmed clones of a bounty hunter who lived for the rush of combat, of battle, of the brilliant clash of war.  One the other side he fielded droid armies.  How bloodless can you get?  It wasn't a war to bleed anyone white, it was a war to make the Republic face the reality of their weakness, their inherent flaws, while draining away the undercurrents of incipient separatism like puss.

Understand that the Clone Wars were going to happen whether Palpatine led either side or not.  It's not like some mere Count or Senator can get vast stretches of the galaxy, countless planetary systems, to engage in a long, bloody war of attrition if they didn't have immense grievances, grievances meriting war.  He didn't take advantage of these grievances to topple the Republic; he hammered them into a surgical instrument sufficient to redefine the Republic, to free it from the shackles of a medieval warrior religion, to cleanse it of disorder and corruption.  The separatist movement was pre-existing, inevitable.

But I must admit people have a problem with Emperor Palpatine, usually because of his looks.  They're the same people who chose Clinton over Dole because of Dole's eyebrows.  We call them "shallow".  Others have been sucked into thinking Palpatine was a racist, based on the dime novels pumped out by Lucas Lies, Inc.  Yep.  That must be why racist "Humans-Only" Palpatine had a Zabrak, Darth Maul, as his Dark apprentice.  No doubt they believe the far more believable lies about Bush's racism pumped out by scum like Michael Moore, despite Bush's appointments of Condi Rice and Colin Powell. 

You have to examine the evidence with clear eyes, weigh it, and take care to know what can and can't be known.  For example, in Episode III Lucas has Palpatine urging Anakin to kill a defenseless prisoner, Count Dooku.  Kenobi was unconscious, his usual combat posture.  The other three there, the only witnesses to what really happened, all either were or became Sith.  There's simply no way Lucas could've been told what really happened, because the damnable Jedi who feed him this blatant propaganda couldn't know either.  Do you really think Anakin engaged in a running side-bar dialog while standing right in front of a Sith, one who's proven himself a match for Yoda at spitting forth Force lightning?  I don't think so either.  In truth, Count Dooku would've died a tenth of a second after Anakin saw an opening.

Yet these lies and character assassinations are all we can expect from the Jedi shills.  If Palpatine was so bad, why was everyone pining away for the Republic's glory days, days when it was under Palpatine's leadership?  If he was so evil, so wicked, how come the vaunted Jedi Order didn't have the slightest problem working with him hand-in-glove for a decade or more?  If he's so demonic, how did he so delight and entertain Senators at cocktail parties that they made him Chancellor?  Obviously, Palpatine is a man of warmth, of depth, of humor.  How else could he put up with all the baby kissing required of any Chancellor? 

Keep in mind that Coruscant was nothing like Berlin, if that's where your mind's naturally led on by Jedi propaganda (recall that Bush=Hitler, too!).  If anything, Coruscant was Animal House.  In fact, the Senate was such a useless frat party that certain planets sent hot teenage girls as Senators and frankly, no august body that would accept Teen Nabooian Tatas' Miss August as a voting member could be considered deliberative - titillating maybe, entertaining certainly, but not by a long shot deliberative.  Of course, when the Senate persisted as a drunken party after over a decade of functional rule, finally admitting Alderaan's Miss Bra-less Teen, is it any wonder the Emperor dissolved it?  It was less likely done as a power grab than as a drunk driving measure, and if you think Senators are bad on bridges, just imagine what happened when they were weaving in between skyscrapers in high-velocity flying cars.

The Separatist Alliance:

Let's look at some other reasons people hate the Sith, starting with the Separatist Alliance in the Clone Wars.

Look at who the key separatists were - the Corporate Alliance, the Commerce Guild, the Intergalactic Banking Clan, and the Techno Union.  Does that list sound a bit suspicious, oh proud capitalist American?  These would be considered "evil" separatists to someone born and raised in Berkeley, or more broadly in Marin County, which is exactly where Star Wars comes from.  Here's some of the slanted, socialist dreck Lucas tries to spin.

The Corporate Alliance is the negotiating body for many of the galaxy's largest commercial firms.  The Corporate Alliance sided with the Separatists with the promise of limitless profit under a new government.

Obviously, what the Old Republic allowed was limited profit, if any profit at all.

As the Magistrate of the Corporate Alliance, Argente became indelibly tainted by his wealth and private interests.

This comes from Lucas, a man whose private wealth and interests would boggle a Hutt.

The savvy businessbeing knows how to stay afloat in turbulent economic times, and how to spin social hardships into record revenue.  Scruples get traded for profits among the leading corporate bodies, and the Commerce Guild is no different. Presidente Shu Mai was present in the Geonosis conference room when Count Dooku proposed that his Confederacy of Independent Systems would be committed to capitalism and free trade.

Oh, hurt me plenty, the forces opposed to the Republic support capitalism and free trade.  It seems Count Dooku, Yoda's old padawan, must've had an encounter with a drifting economic space clue.  The Republic doesn't work because it uses a mix of socialism and medieval merchantilism instead of free market capitalism, which is why it's rife with blackmarkets, corruption, and influence peddling.

Many of the galaxy's most industrialized worlds are key members of the Techno Union. Factory planets like Fondor, Foundry, Mechis III, Telti, and Metalorn churn out cutting edge technology to a galaxy that has become increasingly reliant on innovations for day-to-day needs.

Respected corporations such as Baktoid Armor Workshop, Haor Chall Engineering, Republic Sienar Systems, Kuat Systems Engineering, TaggeCo, BlasTech Industries, and the Corellian Engineering Corporation are all signatories, to some degree, of the Techno Union.

"Respected corporations" oppose the Republic, as do many of the "most industrialized worlds."  It's a UN dominated by failed third world countries, with industrialized capitalist countries itching to get out, which would be rather dangerous for them with Jedi assassins running amok.

To protect its intellectual properties and technological assets, the Techno Union had been given alarming freedom to maintain its own droid security as protection.

To maintain his intellectual properties Lucas refused to release his trilogy on DVD until somebody invented sufficiently strong copy protections.  Hypocrisy is all you get from Lucas and the Jedi, making a fortune off capitalism and free trade so they can denounce capitalism and free trade.

Yes, the productive groups wanted to break from the dysfunctional Republic, and they would've succeeded, separating the galaxy into productive capitalist planets and backwater socialist Republic planets, had not Palpatine arranged for the production of clone armies – cloned by fiery-eyed capitalists, of course.  Yet still people despise Palpatine, despite his obvious patience, foresight, vision, and courage.  That's because Lucas gives us a very one-sided view of his actions, most famously the destruction of Alderaan, a joyous and well-deserved strike at the rebellion.

Now allow us to go over some of the other lies you've been fed, lies carefully crafted to turn you against the Empire, to hate it.  In each, Lucas has used every bit of his movie making magic to slant, distort, and obfuscate.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru:

In Episode VI: A New Hope, originally titled Star Wars and truthfully titled Sister Kisser Gets Lucky, we are horrified at the scene of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's burning corpses.  Yet the way Lucas presents the storyline the planet is almost random, as if Leia's ship had been intercepted in route to Alderaan.  That she just happened to send R2D2 and C3PO, Darth Vader's very own droids, away in an unguided escape pod, and that by sheer, absolute coincidence the two droids' misadventures happened to land the plans to the Death Star in the traitorous hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi, exactly where Princess Leia was trying to send them.  Do you really buy that crap?

Question:  Ships can't be intercepted in hyperspace, so why did her ship drop out of hyperspace at Tatooine instead of flying directly to Alderaan?  Could it be that Tatooine was a locus of rebel support?  Do you really think that of all the planets in the Galaxy, she happened to get caught flying past that one?

Question:  Why jettison R2 and C3PO?  Could it be that she'd been told that if Vader sees them the whole traitorous plot would unravel?

Question:  Was it by sheer chance that the escape pod landed within walking distance of Owen and Beru Lars' farm?  Note that if Tatooine is the size of earth and walking distance is 30 miles then the odds against it were 278,606 to 1.

Question:  When C3PO saw the sandcrawler, he waved at it, knowing he was rescued.  Wouldn't this be because he was told to make contact with the Jawas?

Question:  The Jawas pick up both C3PO and R2D2, who'd gone in separate directions, in the middle of the freakin' desert.  A battalion of sand crawlers would take a week to find one lost child, so two robots in a couple hours?  Can you say "rebel homing beacons"?

Question:  The Jawas then immediately end up at the Lars' farm, as if Sand Crawlers sell droids door-to-door in the remote desert wastelands, as opposed to their droid dealership in Anchorhead.  Have you ever had a car-carrier show up at your farm, out of the blue, tyring to sell you a passel of Mercedes and Dodge Rams right off the trailer?  I thought not…

Question:  Owen and Beru Lars adopted a boy who, if his existence were known, would be the most wanted kid in the galaxy, one who appeared in the Emperor's visions.  So do you think the Lars' really didn't know this?  Do you really think they didn't have a plan in case of discovery, or that they went around unarmed, especially given all the Tuskens about?  Do you not in you heart know that Obi-wan told the Lars the same story that he told Luke, that the Emperor's dread apprentice had killed the son of their adoptive mother, the woman who helped to raise Owen, and that Luke was their adoptive mother's grandson, still wanted by the Empire?

Question:  Do you really think Obi-wan just retired?  Do you think a Jedi would stop the struggle against the Sith, that he was just sitting around fishing all week?  For G-d sakes, he's living in the middle of the desert.  There are no fish! He was there with a plan.  It was he who delivered Luke to the Lars, he who would've told the Jawas what to do.  He sat in the center of his own sticky web of lies, deception, and rebellion.

Back in 1977, you thought you bought a ticket to a space opera, but what Lucas sold you was a bright shining lie.  The Jawas knew exactly how to find the droids and where to deliver them, because they were a part of the rebellion.  The Lars' likewise knew what was up, and knew what to do if Imperial troops didn't buy their cover story.  You've seen both the troop of Jawas and the Lars'.  You know the violent extent that Cliegg Lars went to in search of Shmi Skywalker.  You know how desperate and violent Jawas often are.  You know Han shot Greedo as matter of principle, or lack thereof.  Search your feelings.  These are not peaceful, sentimental people.  They lived on the rough edge of the lawless wastelands, and they were ones to shoot first and ask questions later.  They knew the Empire might take an interest in them.  They all knew the risks.  They went up against Storm Troopers and they all paid with their lives.  Rough justice was on the menu, and rough justice was served.

Endor:

Lucas made you want to hug an Ewok, didn't he?  So adorable, so cute, living such simple lives in harmony with nature.  Well as you should expect, that's all bullshit.  Lucas tries to delude you into thinking the Empire made war on the cute little Ewoks.  Not true.  The Empire had obviously been on Endor for years before the rebels showed up, otherwise the battle station built in orbit wouldn't have been fully functional. 

At the end of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, at the big Ewok luau, the Ewoks use Imperial helmets as musical instruments.  Prior to that, when the rebels arrived, an Ewok showed complete puzzlement at Leia's helmet, unable to comprehend that it's just something worn on the head.  Obviously the Ewoks had no significant encounters with Imperial forces during the many benevolent years of Imperial occupation, or they'd already have known all about armor and helmets.  It becomes likewise obvious that the Empire had its equivalent of the Prime Directive.  "If they don't fuck with you, don't fuck with them."  The Empire left the Ewoks' rituals and belief systems intact because the Empire doesn't contaminate harmless primitive cultures.

Contrast that with the attitude of the rebels. 

Step 1 – Show the Ewoks what armor is. 

Step 2 – Have a droid convince them he's their god – able to strike them all down if they disappoint him. 

Step 3 – Completely supplant their religion and mythology with a new one, crafted to teach them about space war, portraying the Empire as the ultimate evil.

Step 4 – Convince the Ewoks to do something they've never done before – make war. 

Step 5 – Summon all the Ewoks in the forest and use them for blaster fodder.

Look at that battle rationally.  You have a couple hundred Imperial troops, possibly more, backed by heavy armor.  A Storm Trooper is armored and equiped with battlefield technology far in advance of our own modern forces.  In an open fight, faced with RPG's and AK-47's, our soldiers generally establish a 20 to 1 or even 50 to 1 kill ratio.  What would be a rational guess at their kill ratio against rock throwing teddy bears?  200 to 1?  1000 to 1?  And a Storm Trooper's?  There's no way the Ewoks weren't piled up in endless mounds after the Imperial forces unleashed on them, and since the Empire was defeated by the onslaught there must've been vast, endless waves of advancing Ewok hordes.  The slaughter was almost certainly bad enough to send ripples through the force, distracting Luke, Vader, and the Emperor. 

Emperor: "I sense a disturbance in the force." 
Luke: "Like tens of thousands of exploding koala bears?"
Vader: "That's it.  That's it exactly…"
Luke: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter koalas?"

Yet what did Lucas show us?  He gave us glimpses of a few dead Ewoks, set to tear jerking music, to give the temporary rebel setback a sad mood.  *sniffle*  Yes, he cleverly made you think only a few Ewoks died, but simple math says that's ridiculous.  That's the Jedi for you, using everyone else as expendable pawns, in this case treating an indigenous culture like literal spear-carriers, while washing away the bloodstains in their Hollywood spin cycle.

Prisoners:

Given our recent prisoner abuse scandals, let's just compare the two sides.  You'll note that in Episode IV, Leia was captured along with her crew.  We saw a stun gun – handcuffs, and spacious well-lit single-rooms.  For someone who'd been "tortured" she sure stayed cute, spunky, and spotless.  Her interrogation was by a freakin' useless toy mind probe that made ditsy whoop-whoop noises.  Hey, maybe they put Moff Tarkin's boxer shorts on Leia's head at some point, but reach out as I can, I just don't sense the evil.  "But oh", you say, "Moff Tarkin was going to have her summarily executed!"  Yeah, right.  He went to all the trouble of showing her his new super weapon just so she wouldn't tell anyone, especially all those rebels he wanted to intimidate with it after his escape plans for her succeeded.  Don't you feel a bit foolish now, oh useful Jedi tool?

In Episode V almost everyone got captured and put in a holding cell to play backgammon while Han was carefully placed in carbonite for shipment to his creditors.  In Episode VI the rebel assault team faked its own capture by those dreaded Imperial Stormtroopers by walking right up to the base with their hands in the air.  This was shortly after Luke had just waltzed right in and surrendered, whereupon he was handcuffed, reunited with his father, profusely complimented, and taken to the best view in the Galaxy, the seat of Imperial Power.  We might as well call the second Death Star SuperFantasticJobs.com the way everyone was throwing competing "We'll rule the Galaxy!" offers at him.  Yep, I'm just quaking in rage at the Imperial mistreatement of prisoners, and I'm not even going to discuss the naked girls in the Jabba do Ghraib scandal.

Skipping through the prequels, Episode I saw Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan briefly captured with no harm done.  Episode II saw Obi-Wan captured by Count Dooku, suspended, and forced to listen to high-level intelligence in what must be the world's first reverse interrogation technique.  Then he, Anakin, and Padmé got to have a blast entertaining the crowds while waiting for the cavalry to arrive.  Episode III saw the Chancellor captured by forces under his own control, strangely enough, and once again we see the "give the prisoner the BEST seat in the house" concept featured in Episode VI.

Contrast this with the way the Jedi take prisoners.  Note that the Jedi don't carry handcuffs because for some strange reason nobody they arrest ends up having any hands.  Can you name a single person captured by the Jedi who managed to stay alive in their custody for more than, oh, three minutes?  The head of the Trade Federation at the end of Episode I?  Nope, he was captured by Miss Nabooian August while the Jedi were tied up with Darth Maul.  Darth Maul died, of course.  Episode II?  Zero, zip, nada, though the shape-shifter got pretty close to three minutes.  Episode III?  Mace Windu was getting close to the three-minute mark before playing executioner, but he couldn't quite make it.  Prisoners just aren't the Jedi way.  Now maybe you claim that the Jedi's enemies always fight to the death.  Let's see you try that line in the rational world, say in front of a grand jury investigating why this Galactic PD apparently hasn't had a single perp survive arrest in the past thirty years.  Yeah, who needs to carry handcuffs when you've got a light saber, a whacko religion, and a license to kill?

So why do you have the very strong impression that being captured by the Empire is a death sentence, while being captured by the Jedi conjurs up the word "rescue"?  Why does this impression stubbornly remain despite of all evidence to the contrary?  Because of nothing more than Jedi lies backed by John Williams' clever soundtracks.  That's it.  Get captured by the Empire and he plays a funeral dirge as you're lead off to your luxury suite.  Get captured by the Jedi and he plays an upbeat heroic love theme while they bounce your head off the ceiling and slice you from crotch to neck.  What was it Obi-wan said about the Force's influence on the weak minded?  Now maybe you understand, though it may feel unnatural, as I said.

Alderaan:

Show me a man who has a problem with killing worthless fuckweasels and I'll show you a man who has a problem killing worthless fuckweasels, one who's fuckweasely challenged.  To kill fuckweasels you need a spine a bit less limber than a weasel's, a spine some might call straight, one that others might call stiff.  If you can lick your own balls then your spine is much too limber for the elimination of fuckweasels, and you might as well immerse yourself in licking because there'll be no end to demands for it.

The same people who cry Light-Side tears over poor Alderaan are the same ones who blast George Bush for not pounding Tora Bora into gravel, thus letting Bin Laden escape.  Look at the Empire's many engagements with the rebels, where despite occupying the orbital high-ground rebel ships and rebel leaders still slipped through the gaps, freed to carry on their seditious libels and terrorist attacks, spreading throughout systems like a cancer.  The inhabitants of the planets had to contend with the onslaught of Imperial forces and occupation, while the ringleaders fled like cowards.  Well, just hit a rebel planet so hard that the self-important aristocrats get snuffed out just like all their spear-carrying underlings.  That'll make them think twice about their self-serving getaway plans, and think twice about conning innocent people into serving as unwitting pawns in their quest for the re-institution of Republic political and economic failure, failure backed by the force of Jedi jihadism.

If you've been calling for turning the Middle Eastern deserts into glass, striking down your co-religionists, heirs to the great monotheistic pantheon, how would you react to beings that are truly alien, truly backwards, truly powerful, and truly reprehensible?  Well if they insist on murdering members of the Empire, despite continued warnings, then why not just blow up their pathetic little planets and be done with them.  Just like Bin Laden, the rebels want to wage total war and then bitch when it's waged against them in turn.

"No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly..." you say?  Bullshit.  Alderaan was a planet that was funding the rebellion, through Bail Organa's many connections, through his Senate seat, through his control of Alderaan's industry, and his ties to Master Yoda and Master Kenobi.  It was the very planet where Leia was trying to deliver the plans to the Death Star.  No rebels on Alderaan, eh?  "No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons".  This was from the same Princess who was just captured on an Alderaanian ship while fighting a protracted and bloody boarding action against an Imperial Star Destroyer.  The Senator from the very planet that helped Kenobi and Yoda make off with Anakin's children, the same Leia Organa who had just lied about the location of the rebel base, who lied about just everything.  Even if they peeled away her intentional lies, all they'd find were the lies the rebels and Jedi had spoonfed her since birth.

I suppose you think that the Death Star arrived at Alderaan by accident - yes, the exact planet where the twins had been taken, and the exact planet where the rebel's funder-in-chief happened to be in power.  I suppose you think that it's just a coincidence that after the action at Alderaan, the rebellion was on the ropes at Yavin 4 and Hoth.  Grand Moff Tarkin said "In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that is to be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan."  I hope you weren't as gullible as Leia was.  He didn't burn a planet's worth of fuel and move the bulk of Imperial firepower to Alderan just because he was irritated with an intransigent young girl.  He was at Alderaan with the Death Star because they already knew how best to cut the rebels funding and support.  Eliminating Alderaan was like taking out Afghanistan, a country not specifically a rebel base, but one providing a haven, support, logistics, and cash to terrorist vermin.  Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora, but nobody would escaped from Alderaan, or any other planet that continued with Treason.

It's just too bad the Death Star wasn't ready during the Clone Wars, or Count Dooku could've used one strike at Geonosis to wipe out all the Jedi, that plague of locusts who were ironically cut to ribbons on a planet run by giant locusts.  Yet again, some escaped to continue their evil perfidity, to perpetuate the lies and deceit that mark their Order.  They claim Sith lie, yet on Geonosis didn't Count Dooku tell Obi-wan flat out that a Sith was controlling the Republic?  Obi-wan refused to believe him because, get this, he thought Sith lie!  Bwuhahahah!  No wonder Darth Sideous found Jedi so amusing.  They are - amusingly blind, amusingly stupid, amusingly predictable – like socialist filth from Democratic Underground.

Yet the most amazing thing about the Empire is their compassion, because despite all this they still didn't destroy Alderaan. How do I know this? Was it a tip from a Bothan spy net? No, by simple logic - a trait lost on the straight-jacketed Jedi mind, who after all, have lost whole planets before. Aderaan's mass wasn't much different than Earths, and the Earth's mass is a Trillion times larger than the mass of Saturn's ring. When a planet is vaporized it doesn't just disappear like it was hit with a Star Trek phaser, it literally turns to molten rock fragments and vapor. It returns to the condition it was in before it was a planet, a vast and massive swirl of nebular material that would almost immediately start condensing into a new planet. The ways of the force may be mysterious, but gravity, dynamics, and gas laws are not. When the Millenium Falcon jumped in they didn't find a nebula, they didn't find anything. Sure, they encountered a few asteroids, but asteroids are a common feature of a solar system. What kind of childish mind would assume that a planet is just "gone"? A drunk, a monkey, a farm boy, and a Jedi. And this even as they road in a Corellian freighter whose sole purpose was to push large cargo barges through hyperspace, which is what that odd looking front was for.

Now ask yourself, why would something called the Trade Federation spend decades designing a giant space cruiser? Given the design time, long predating the Clone Wars, and given that Palpatine himself had no knowledge of it prior to Geonosis, it's obviously not a Sith weapon or even a weapon of war. It must've been, and was, designed as the ultimate tool of trade, one whose staggering, almost unimaginable design and construction costs were expected to be offset by its clear benefit to trade. And what would be the ultimate cost reduction on trade throughout the galaxy? A literal shrinking of the shipping distances, something only made possible by a ship that could move whole planets, pushing outliers back in with the core systems. For this you need a ship of heretofore unimagined size with an incredibly powerful tractor beam. Indeed, you'd need a ship so large that its own mass forces is the design into a spherical shape. Only such a ship could push planets past lightspeed, and rest assured, the Death Star does move that fast, otherwise the trip to Alderaan would've taken 20,000 years.

Well, the Empire found that the Death Star's engines could also power very powerful weapon systems, so these were added, making the entire package the tool for ultimate control of the Galaxy, by not by destroying planets, by being able to reshape the map of where those planets were located. During the Clone Wars all the problems occured with the outlying systems, the ones beyond the reach of law and order. With the Death Star those planets could be brought into the core of the Empire where they'd be safe and protected - and watched. Alderaan was the first of many planets slated for transport to the core, and the Death Star returned for the moons so as not to upset the rhythms of the planet's wildlife. After all, the Force is all about life. If this operation allowed them to play a little prank on a seditious school-girl, so much the better.

Maybe you want to argue that the Death Star really destroyed Alderaan because you saw it. Hey, you saw a movie about it to. Does that make the movie real? Don't you think the Empire has flat panel display technology, or do you really believe that the Empire is somehow less sophisticated than Hooter's? But then, maybe you also think that the General, sitting in the most secure part of the Death Star, had a window office - a window that looked out horizontally - where all you could see was a planet - which blew up without leaving a debris field a hundred AU in diameter - all to impress a bubble-headed girl.

All I ask is that you use the mind that G-d gave you to perceive the truth, to use your feelings to divine whether a responsible Empire would destroy a planet, or even whether an irresponsible Empire would destroy a planet's resources and capital in a profligate waste of truly galactic proportions. Alderaan wasn't destoyed, it disappeared, and as any good magician will tell you, nothing actually disappears, it's just moved somewhere else. Don't fall for the histrionic Jedi propaganda.

Some sci-fi fans love Arnold Schwarzenegger in Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall", especially for its thickly layered mind fucks.  Well that's nothing compared to what Lucas pulled off.  Lucas likely tricked you into choosing the side of absolute evil, and you didn't even realize it.

So now tell us, LCs, which side do you choose?

Do you choose to worship at the altar of a murderous cult that has no respect for law and order, taking it into their own murderous hands and acting as they see fit whenever they see their precious ideology threatened?

Do you choose a path followed by cold, indifferent fanatics who have no place for love, indeed they forbid it to their followers, who value friendship about as much as they value a TV dinner, soon to be consumed and passed with their next bowel movement, who know nothing of loyalty if said loyalty might in the least get in the way of their “lofty” goals of controlling every single sentient in the Galaxy, who have no qualms about destroying a loving family, grabbing their children as spoils to be passed on to whomever they see fit?

Do you choose a side whose every move is designed to keep the Galaxy bogged down in an endless quagmire of petty conflicts and feudal rivalries, in order that they may reign supreme, pulling the strings from the shadows and keeping entire planetary systems bogged down in a medieval Hell so that none may ever arise to challenge their power?

Or do you choose freedom?

We know not what you are, and only you yourselves can find the path you will follow.

But we know what we are.

We Are Sith.