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Say something nice about a villain

24

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    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    KalTorak wrote: »
    If Judas hadn't tongued Jesus, the whole sacrifical lamb deal wouldn't have happened and everyone would be in HELLLLLLL!

    I believe there's a theory that the part about Judas' role was mistranslated. What King James describes as "betrayed" could more accurately be "handed over". This also leads to speculation that Jesus actually asked Judas to hand him over, so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

    You've just explained the whole premise of Jesus Christ Superstar.

    I would say the premise of Jesus Christ Superstar is "Jesus was being kind of a dick"

    Khavall on
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    Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Modern Man on
    Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
    Rigorous Scholarship

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    Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Nixon is one of my top five favorite presidents.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
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    MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Actually, the Vong concluded that if the Empire had still been in control of the galaxy when they invaded they would have lost immediately. The Republic didn't have near the military might or solidarity that the Imperials did.

    Also, by the time the Vong invaded, if the Empire had wiped out the rebels, they would have had multiple super-star destroyers, death stars, eclipse class dreadnoughts, etc.

    The end game for the DeathStar project was for each region/sector/governership of the Empire to have one of the battle stations as their seat of power.

    Pretty much, if you were a human on a decently significant world you could probably do quite well within the Empire's rule.

    MagicPrime on
    BNet • magicprime#1430 | PSN/Steam • MagicPrime | Origin • FireSideWizard
    Critical Failures - Havenhold CampaignAugust St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
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    GodfatherGodfather Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    I want to say something regarding Vietnam, but honestly I wasn't there during the time and my scope of the whole picture is hazy at best, so i'll just lay off it for now.


    Somebody else should pick up the slack!

    Godfather on
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    BubbaTBubbaT Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Except for the parts where they had civil wars breaking out every 30 seconds that could only be quashed by the Big 3.


    Also, FDR gave good speeches.

    BubbaT on
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    emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Qingu wrote: »
    George W. Bush.

    Neoconservatism gets a lot of shit. However, I feel like its heart is in the right place. Neocons are right that the world would be a better place if more countries were democracies, and if individuals had more basic freedoms. They are also right in that America should be using our power to spread freedom and democracy. Where they went wrong were the means to do this.

    So, in this sense, I feel like Bush's neoconservative was much more forgivable than past American attempts at imperialism, in particular Manifest Destiny—which was morally indistinguishable from Nazism—but also our "anti-Communism" during the Cold War, where defeating communism was more important than actually spreading freedom and democracy.

    Also, perhaps it's premature to conclude this, but Bush in his second term did try to fix the Iraq War in a more or less rational, non-ideological way. He must have realized, at least partially, the extent of his administration's incompetence.

    Bush's incompetence—combined with his simplistic, childish, fundamentalist ideology—are what make him a "villain," but I'm not actually prepared to say he's a bad person. Clearly he was in over his head.

    My grandma loves Medicare Part D. She doesn't care how it's paid for - she just likes paying $2 for a month's supply of thyroid medication. And Bush helped with the AIDS problem in Africa.

    emnmnme on
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    DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    The mayor from Buffy Season 3 was a very polite and classy soulless bastard

    DVG on
    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
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    emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Hitler was a vegetarian. Did you know he was a vegetarian?

    emnmnme on
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    LeitnerLeitner Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    The British Empire led to slavery being at an all time low, stopped some abhorent local practices in various countries, and collected the best museum in the world.

    Leitner on
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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Time to praise the most dastardly villain of all time...
    Lotso smells of Strawberries!

    RMS Oceanic on
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    OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Actually, the Vong concluded that if the Empire had still been in control of the galaxy when they invaded they would have lost immediately. The Republic didn't have near the military might or solidarity that the Imperials did.

    Also, by the time the Vong invaded, if the Empire had wiped out the rebels, they would have had multiple super-star destroyers, death stars, eclipse class dreadnoughts, etc.

    The end game for the DeathStar project was for each region/sector/governership of the Empire to have one of the battle stations as their seat of power.

    Pretty much, if you were a human on a decently significant world you could probably do quite well within the Empire's rule.
    They've retconned a lot in terms of what the Emperor knew about the coming Vong invasion.

    I don't doubt that the Empire was powerful militarily, but the fact that they lost to the Rebels in the first place casts some serious doubt on their ability to hold off the Vong.

    OptimusZed on
    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Arnold was one of the smartest of the bunch too. Compare him to say Aaron Burr who was just a useless dickbag and Benedict Arnold comes out lookin pretty good

    nexuscrawler on
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    KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Doctor Doom has read the list on being an evil overlord so of course he'd actually make a pretty good dictator. He tends to fuck up sometimes though (I blame RIIIICHAAAARRRRRRRRRDS!)

    KalTorak on
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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Nixon is one of my top five favorite presidents.

    He opened up talks with China, negotiated the ABM treaty with the USSR, and got us the fuck out of Vietnam. He also founded the EPA and OSHA.

    He was actually a pretty damn good President. Unfortunately he started the drug war as we know it, but the good that he did vastly overshadows that.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Also Nixon had a kickass John Adams opera written about him.

    who else can say that?

    Khavall on
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    OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Feral wrote: »
    Nixon is one of my top five favorite presidents.

    He opened up talks with China, negotiated the ABM treaty with the USSR, and got us the fuck out of Vietnam. He also founded the EPA and OSHA.

    He was actually a pretty damn good President. Unfortunately he started the drug war as we know it, but the good that he did vastly overshadows that.
    If Republicans today looked more like the good parts of Nixon than the bad parts, I might be a member.

    OptimusZed on
    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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    WMain00WMain00 Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Ghenghis Khan's history is actually fairly interesting. By all intents for all he was a warlord, he was an extremely fair warlord, and his form of governance united a fairly chaotic region in history.

    WMain00 on
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    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Chiang Kai-Shek promoted the White Terror, cheerfully ignored the suffering of his own people during the Japanese invasion, but the huge amount of cultural artwork and other Chinese historical relics he took with him to Taiwan made a pretty bitchin' museum.

    According to his granddaughter, after his son, an air force officer, surrendered to the Germans in the Second World War, Josef Stalin went to some lengths to make sure his grandchildren escape punishment what the father had done, and to ensure they had food and shelter when literally millions of people were starving and dying.

    Benito Mussolini, when he wasn't busy hanging communists and Marxists from meat hooks, apparently believed that race could not be scientifically measured, but instead was the product of social and class concerns, and that the entire world had become so intertwined that it was pointless anyway. Indeed, if it weren't for Hitler's influence, he probably would have not considered Italian Jews enemies of the state, especially those who worked alongside his own government.

    Nixon, at a time, took his Quake background seriously.

    Synthesis on
  • Options
    TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Arnold was one of the smartest of the bunch too. Compare him to say Aaron Burr who was just a useless dickbag and Benedict Arnold comes out lookin pretty good

    page_1_copy2.jpg

    Taramoor on
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    Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Actually, the Vong concluded that if the Empire had still been in control of the galaxy when they invaded they would have lost immediately. The Republic didn't have near the military might or solidarity that the Imperials did.

    Also, by the time the Vong invaded, if the Empire had wiped out the rebels, they would have had multiple super-star destroyers, death stars, eclipse class dreadnoughts, etc.

    The end game for the DeathStar project was for each region/sector/governership of the Empire to have one of the battle stations as their seat of power.

    Pretty much, if you were a human on a decently significant world you could probably do quite well within the Empire's rule.

    After not knowing what the hell you people were talking about WRT the vong shit, I have done research on Wookieepedia and realize that at least the Empire seemed to have a fucking clue what it was doing, and that the Jedi order seems to just be a fucking breeding ground for genocidal nutcases. Anakin/Vader had the right idea when he killed all those kids in the third movie.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
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    GalahadGalahad Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Qingu wrote: »
    George W. Bush.

    Neoconservatism gets a lot of shit. However, I feel like its heart is in the right place. Neocons are right that the world would be a better place if more countries were democracies, and if individuals had more basic freedoms. They are also right in that America should be using our power to spread freedom and democracy. Where they went wrong were the means to do this.

    So, in this sense, I feel like Bush's neoconservative was much more forgivable than past American attempts at imperialism, in particular Manifest Destiny—which was morally indistinguishable from Nazism—but also our "anti-Communism" during the Cold War, where defeating communism was more important than actually spreading freedom and democracy.

    Also, perhaps it's premature to conclude this, but Bush in his second term did try to fix the Iraq War in a more or less rational, non-ideological way. He must have realized, at least partially, the extent of his administration's incompetence.

    Bush's incompetence—combined with his simplistic, childish, fundamentalist ideology—are what make him a "villain," but I'm not actually prepared to say he's a bad person. Clearly he was in over his head.

    His heart was also in the right place on immigration reform I think.

    Unfortunately his party stabbed him in the back about two seconds after he opened his mouth on that one.

    Galahad on
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    iTunesIsEviliTunesIsEvil Cornfield? Cornfield.Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Andrew Jackson. Dickbag, who wasn't about to let some anti-tax goofballs from South Carolina fuck things up for the United States by way of nullification:
    Yes I have; please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.

    Cracks me up.
    Man, I hope I've got my history right on that one.

    iTunesIsEvil on
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    Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Hitler banned hunting with dogs - it was one of his first bits of legislature, I believe.

    Rhesus Positive on
    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • Options
    emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Kim Jong-Il and the NK elite were the biggest customer of Hennessy cognac for many years, spending as much as $700,000 a year on the drinks. He's cut back on his booze consumption, though, after his stroke and some think he has diabetes now but no one can say he didn't help capitalism in some small way when his health was good.

    emnmnme on
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    Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    WMain00 wrote: »
    Ghenghis Khan's history is actually fairly interesting. By all intents for all he was a warlord, he was an extremely fair warlord, and his form of governance united a fairly chaotic region in history.
    The rule was, if the Mongols showed up outside your city and you surrendered, you were peacefully incorporated into their empire and given full protection. They were religiously tolerant, pretty fair in judging disputes and protected trade along the silk road. For the average person, life probably got better if they peacefully surrendered to the Mongols. And the Mongol rulers, coming from what was a pretty backwards and primitive culture, tended to assimilate into their subjects' culture, rather than forcing them to adopt Mongol religion and culture.

    If you resisted and lost, well, keep in mind that Afghanistan used to be a pretty advanced region, full of wealthy and fertile cropland watered by an ancient irrigation system, but the Afghans decided to fight the Mongols......

    Modern Man on
    Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
    Rigorous Scholarship

  • Options
    TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    WMain00 wrote: »
    Ghenghis Khan's history is actually fairly interesting. By all intents for all he was a warlord, he was an extremely fair warlord, and his form of governance united a fairly chaotic region in history.
    The rule was, if the Mongols showed up outside your city and you surrendered, you were peacefully incorporated into their empire and given full protection. They were religiously tolerant, pretty fair in judging disputes and protected trade along the silk road. For the average person, life probably got better if they peacefully surrendered to the Mongols. And the Mongol rulers, coming from what was a pretty backwards and primitive culture, tended to assimilate into their subjects' culture, rather than forcing them to adopt Mongol religion and culture.

    If you resisted and lost, well, keep in mind that Afghanistan used to be a pretty advanced region, full of wealthy and fertile cropland watered by an ancient irrigation system, but the Afghans decided to fight the Mongols......

    So.... the economic crash is the Mongols' fault?

    Taramoor on
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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Leitner wrote: »
    The British Empire led to slavery being at an all time low, stopped some abhorent local practices in various countries, and collected the best museum in the world.

    The British really were the most competent of the colonial powers. Least they realized that colonies were more profitable if you developed them economically and let people have some level of self governance. Most of the other colonial countries just enslaved everyone and stripped the places of their resources.

    nexuscrawler on
  • Options
    OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Actually, the Vong concluded that if the Empire had still been in control of the galaxy when they invaded they would have lost immediately. The Republic didn't have near the military might or solidarity that the Imperials did.

    Also, by the time the Vong invaded, if the Empire had wiped out the rebels, they would have had multiple super-star destroyers, death stars, eclipse class dreadnoughts, etc.

    The end game for the DeathStar project was for each region/sector/governership of the Empire to have one of the battle stations as their seat of power.

    Pretty much, if you were a human on a decently significant world you could probably do quite well within the Empire's rule.

    After not knowing what the hell you people were talking about WRT the vong shit, I have done research on Wookieepedia and realize that at least the Empire seemed to have a fucking clue what it was doing, and that the Jedi order seems to just be a fucking breeding ground for genocidal nutcases. Anakin/Vader had the right idea when he killed all those kids in the third movie.
    Being a Jedi is like being a Psyker in WH40k, but without all the pre-screening for psychotic tendencies.

    OptimusZed on
    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • Options
    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Leitner wrote: »
    The British Empire led to slavery being at an all time low, stopped some abhorent local practices in various countries, and collected the best museum in the world.

    The British really were the most competent of the colonial powers. Least they realized that colonies were more profitable if you developed them economically and let people have some level of self governance. Most of the other colonial countries just enslaved everyone and stripped the places of their resources.

    To be fair, this is also true about certain British colonies after certain times (India).

    But consider that, for example, King Leopold personally owned the Belgian Congo colony (unless my knowledge of African History is failing me).
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Well, if we can go fictional:

    As dictators go, the Emperor was pretty good. The Empire kept order and patrolled space, which allowed commerce and trade to continue. Sure, there was repression, but I doubt the average citizen was all that oppressed. It was a dictatorship that was more similar to ancient Rome than North Korea.

    The Rebellion, on the other hand, basically kicked over the entire apple-cart without any real plan on what to do after the Empire was defeated. Post-Endor, the galaxy probably devolved into a bunch of mini-states run by local warlords.
    Actually the galaxy did fairly well for a while, until it got beaten on by the Vong and the dickbag Bothan in charge lost his mind.

    Actually, the Vong concluded that if the Empire had still been in control of the galaxy when they invaded they would have lost immediately. The Republic didn't have near the military might or solidarity that the Imperials did.

    Also, by the time the Vong invaded, if the Empire had wiped out the rebels, they would have had multiple super-star destroyers, death stars, eclipse class dreadnoughts, etc.

    The end game for the DeathStar project was for each region/sector/governership of the Empire to have one of the battle stations as their seat of power.

    Pretty much, if you were a human on a decently significant world you could probably do quite well within the Empire's rule.

    After not knowing what the hell you people were talking about WRT the vong shit, I have done research on Wookieepedia and realize that at least the Empire seemed to have a fucking clue what it was doing, and that the Jedi order seems to just be a fucking breeding ground for genocidal nutcases. Anakin/Vader had the right idea when he killed all those kids in the third movie.
    Being a Jedi is like being a Psyker in WH40k, but without all the pre-screening for psychotic tendencies.

    I don't see how it couldn't be. Isn't their primary method of recruitment taking small children from their parents and their own societies to serve in their clerical warrior league, regardless of how the parents (or children) feel?

    How could not that lead to a bunch of psychotics eventually?

    EDIT: Also, here's something that could be "saying something nice". Compared to the ancien régime that they replaced (and subsequently replaced them when they lost disastrously), the armed forces of the Empire were more accepting of women serving as general-grade officers. Wookipedia named at least two women who were admirals, and at least one who was a general, compared to zero among the Rebels/Republicans even after their military grew to the scale of the Empire's.

    Synthesis on
  • Options
    Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Taramoor wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    WMain00 wrote: »
    Ghenghis Khan's history is actually fairly interesting. By all intents for all he was a warlord, he was an extremely fair warlord, and his form of governance united a fairly chaotic region in history.
    The rule was, if the Mongols showed up outside your city and you surrendered, you were peacefully incorporated into their empire and given full protection. They were religiously tolerant, pretty fair in judging disputes and protected trade along the silk road. For the average person, life probably got better if they peacefully surrendered to the Mongols. And the Mongol rulers, coming from what was a pretty backwards and primitive culture, tended to assimilate into their subjects' culture, rather than forcing them to adopt Mongol religion and culture.

    If you resisted and lost, well, keep in mind that Afghanistan used to be a pretty advanced region, full of wealthy and fertile cropland watered by an ancient irrigation system, but the Afghans decided to fight the Mongols......

    So.... the economic crash is the Mongols' fault?
    The more you look into the period, the more you realize just how much of the world today, especially in the swath of real estate from India to Iraq, has been shaped by the Mongol invasions.

    And part of the reason why Eastern Europe has historically been less developed than Western Europe is due to the Mongols conquering and destroying large parts of the region. If Ghengis hadn't dropped dead during an orgy, the Mongols might have ended up trashing the rest of Europe, which would have strangled the Renaissance in its crib.

    Modern Man on
    Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
    Rigorous Scholarship

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    SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Arnold was one of the smartest of the bunch too. Compare him to say Aaron Burr who was just a useless dickbag and Benedict Arnold comes out lookin pretty good

    Aaron Burr was the best super villain America has yet had.

    SniperGuy on
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    durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Taramoor wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    WMain00 wrote: »
    Ghenghis Khan's history is actually fairly interesting. By all intents for all he was a warlord, he was an extremely fair warlord, and his form of governance united a fairly chaotic region in history.
    The rule was, if the Mongols showed up outside your city and you surrendered, you were peacefully incorporated into their empire and given full protection. They were religiously tolerant, pretty fair in judging disputes and protected trade along the silk road. For the average person, life probably got better if they peacefully surrendered to the Mongols. And the Mongol rulers, coming from what was a pretty backwards and primitive culture, tended to assimilate into their subjects' culture, rather than forcing them to adopt Mongol religion and culture.

    If you resisted and lost, well, keep in mind that Afghanistan used to be a pretty advanced region, full of wealthy and fertile cropland watered by an ancient irrigation system, but the Afghans decided to fight the Mongols......

    So.... the economic crash is the Mongols' fault?

    The Mongol Empire totally weren't villains.

    I mean, in the sense of "They came in, killed a ton of people, stole from us, and then overthrew our government" they obviously were. But then, that's what every nation did. The Mongols were at least good enough at it that the areas they conquered remained pretty peaceful. Hell, even after Genghis died and his empire split there was no bloody war of succession or anything.

    I mean if you had to pick one group to take over most of the world, some simple but effective nomadic tribe that administrated with a reasonably light touch was probably the best one for all involved.

    That said, I don't know that anyone whose land was razed, salted, razed again, salted again, then cursed, then washed in the blood of their newborns was all that happy about the situation. But that's why you don't step up to the Khan.

    durandal4532 on
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    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Arnold was one of the smartest of the bunch too. Compare him to say Aaron Burr who was just a useless dickbag and Benedict Arnold comes out lookin pretty good

    Aaron Burr was the best super villain America has yet had.

    He killed Alexander Hamilton! Literally!

    Synthesis on
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    WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Oda Nobunaga is sometimes depicted as not just villainous, but actually demonic. And he probably was pretty ruthless, because you don't get to be the warlord that nearly united the whole of Japan by being nice.

    He also had an interest in economics, promoting trade with foreign nations, abolishing monopolies and laying down roads everywhere (although this was also to help him move his armies around).

    WotanAnubis on
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    Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Modern Man, do recall that the Wookiees were enslaved.

    Captain Carrot on
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    Lezard ValethLezard Valeth Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Dr. Breen knew mankind cannot survive an open war against the combine, so he negociated the surrender.

    Lezard Valeth on
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    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Most of the time when Captain Maleshenko bitches at you for failing to meet objectives, it's because your screw up led to the death of men--often his men--that could have otherwise been prevented. He's too much of an uncle to his men.

    Synthesis on
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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Oda Nobunaga is sometimes depicted as not just villainous, but actually demonic. And he probably was pretty ruthless, because you don't get to be the warlord that nearly united the whole of Japan by being nice.

    He also had an interest in economics, promoting trade with foreign nations, abolishing monopolies and laying down roads everywhere (although this was also to help him move his armies around).

    Tokugawa likely would have never risen to power if not for his alliance with Nobunaga

    nexuscrawler on
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    SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Synthesis wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Modern Man wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    Benedict Arnold is often treated as the biggest villain of the American revolution, but he was one of the few competent generals that the American colonies had at the beginning of the war, and the war might have been lost without him. He also got completely dicked over by the continental congress.

    He also has hilarious (from an American perspective) stuff about him in British Museums. Because from the British perspective he was all loyal and whatnot. It's amusing.
    I had a professor in college that said that if the Brits had won, he would have ended up as Duke Arnold. On the other hand, if Arnold had stayed loyal, he would have been up in the top tier of Founding Fathers and West Point would probably be called Fort Arnold. We'd probably have a monument for him in DC.

    Arnold was one of the smartest of the bunch too. Compare him to say Aaron Burr who was just a useless dickbag and Benedict Arnold comes out lookin pretty good

    Aaron Burr was the best super villain America has yet had.

    He killed Alexander Hamilton! Literally!

    No, he was very good at dueling.

    SniperGuy on
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