[RepoGirl]

I think you nail some things in your post.

I remember saying about the first of the new Star Wars films, "Any planet who elects a pre-teen girl to be their galactic queen really, seriously NEEDS a little external guidance."

This made me rethink the entire Star Wars dynamic. The empire was "bad" only because it was stated that they were "bad" in the exposition of the film, but all I saw of them was one cool as anything space station and some pretty decent organizational skills.

Granted, the destruction of Alderaan was a BIT harsh, but it drove a point home.

[Cyclopean Squid]

Blowing up a planet may seem harsh to us, but we have to remember the context of the story. The Empire spreads out over an entire galaxy, and a single planet is infinitesimal. It would be no different than the US using a smart bomb on a single house where they knew a major villain, such as UBL, was hiding.

Honestly, when you look at the collateral damage rate of the Empire as it fought for its survival, it would have to rank as one of the lowest civilian death tolls ever. Say the death toll from the Galactic War was 12 billion or so (a couple of planets here and there). Compare that to the population of the galaxy, which must run in the trillions or even the quadrillions (I'm sure there's a Star Wars website that tells us). Not exactly a bloodthirsty or maniacal Emperor. :)

[Cyclopean Squid]

For some unknowable reason, I looked up the figures. The Force.net seems to believe that the population of the Star Wars galaxy is 100 quadrillion. I can't find a casualty table, so we'll use my estimate of 12 billion (which I think is quite reasonable considering the action shown during the movies). If that's true, then the deaths perpetrated by the Empire account for .000012% of the population of the galaxy. Even an extremely liberal estimate of, say, 1 trillion casualities accounts for a rate of .001 % of the galactic population.

Let's compare this with WWII, since the Empire is often labelled the Space Nazis. The total losses in WWII were around 60 million or so (all sides involved). The population of the Earth was about 2.5 billion or so in 1945. The war therefore resulted in the deaths of about 2.4% of the global population.

I'm not sure why I just went through that. None of the above information should be taken too seriously.

[CalRepublican]

<> You know, ultimately that's correct. Leia was a "princess" who seemed to think her status as such elevated her above Luke, Han, Chewbacca, etc. It's only now we find out that she likely was elected princess on some bizarre planet that elects its royalty. It's obvious that the guy has no real conception of how governments work. Han Solo is a smuggler for a mobster. We've always had to wait for the first trilogy to explain exactly why the Empire was bad and Lucas is doing a really lousy job of doing it. People aren't bad just because they wear black.