Ok, this entry will probably be more philosophical than most, and you may wonder what it has to do with Star Wars at all. I was contemplating whether I should even post it here, but I decided to go ahead. If any mods don't think the blurb about Hard Contact at the bottom is enough to warrant this being categorised under 'Expanded Universe', let me know and I can remove the category. But I wanted to touch on this a bit because it's not too often that I'm able to write about serious stuff in a semi-coherent way. And all this is very interesting! Well, I find it interesting, you may disagree.

I like thinking about stuff. Not necessarily philosophical questions like "what is life's purpose?" and the like, because it bothers me that so much of traditional philosophy can't be proved one way or the other... and when it can, half the time I disagree with the starting premise so the results don't mean anything anyways. But no, I like thinking about issues I can see both sides of, and sort of letting them bounce around in my brain until they balance out and I can make sense of them. This is not a short-term thing, nor something where I lie around on my bed for hours just thinking. No, it's just a context I try to view the rest of life in. If I'm currently contemplating something, I will be on the lookout for events, opinions, and interactions that go along with the way I'm leaning on an issue, or be the total opposite. Each issue I'm thinking about at a particular time (there's normally 2 or 3) is like a lens that I can view life through. To use a computer analogy, these issues are things I keep in RAM all the time. As I interact with other people and experience life, I can gain new insights into these problems by looking at the current situation from as many perspectives as I have stored away. In the past, this has helped me figure out exactly what I think and believe about certain things, and overall has helped me to know myself better.

For example, many of my issues lately have been military-related, and this causes me to pay special attention to situations I come across in fiction or real life that might be relevant (for example, soldier characters in Star Wars, and how they make their decisions, and how they're portrayed by the authors).

(One quick example of something I have pretty much resolved now? My issues with first-person-shooters. I've never really liked "violent" games, and I'm also someone who likes to take games seriously. It makes it more fun. But playing games where you go around killing people... it just made me uncomfortable. I avoided those games for years, playing them only at LAN parties and even then, only Star Wars ones where the focus was actually lightsaber combat - which didn't seem as bad, because lightsabers are another step away from reality and thus it was more detaching. But after a lot of thinking, reading, and talking to others about it, I know myself better now, and I know more about how these kinds of games affect me. I don't see them as dangerous anymore, because I'm more aware of myself. So now I play Star Wars FPS games on my own (RepCom, Battlefront II) and at our last LAN party, I played Battlefield 2... and it was very fun. That would have been unheard of 3-4 years ago. I don't like the FPS genre enough to play a lot of its games, but I don't think I have issues with it anymore - which is a very good thing because it was very... distracting before.)

So anyways, there are two of these issues I've been thinking a lot about over the past months. One of them is how much intent should be taken into consideration when someone causes an undesirable event. (If you don't mean to do something, should you be off the hook? Or should it only be what you do that matters? And to what degree either way?) I don't want to discuss that one too much here because it's not related directly to Star Wars (yet), but I find it very interesting... especially since most of our legal system is based around intent.

The second issue is one involving orders; I guess mostly in a military situation, but I suppose it could be generalised beyond that as well. And more specifically, how can responsibility be assigned in these cases? Knowing that humans are social animals practically programmed for compliance, how much blame can be assigned to someone for carrying out orders deemed 'wrong' by others? Where and how does a single soldier draw the line on what orders to follow and what orders to disobey? And how much blame should be assigned to the authority giving the orders - even though they're often detached from the situation and don't have to do the 'dirty work' or witness the direct fallout of their orders? The diffusion of responsibility in situations like these can be astounding. It's a very interesting thought-puzzle and I definitely have a lot more thinking and reading to do before I can come up with any sort of answer.

Anyways, yesterday we were watching an episode of Stargate SG-1 that dealt with these issues a bit, and that's what reminded me about this. See, when I read Republic Commando: Hard Contact the first time, there was one part that really took me aback, moreso than in any other Star Wars book. (Though, oddly enough, I then forgot about this particular scene until yesterday, probably because I couldn't really come up with an answer so I stored it away for later contemplation... I do that a lot.) So I thought I'd share it here.

Scene: The clone commando Darman had just captured the Separatist scientist Uthan in the enemy facility, which was rigged to explode. He finds out that she had four scientists working for her, and inquires to his superiors whether they were to be apprehended as well. The answer comes back: no, not required.
Uthan: They were just following orders.
Darman: So am I.

My first thought upon reading that was to say "that's a good point" to Darman. Because I'd never thought of it that way before. It seems very distasteful to me that they'd leave the other scientists there to die. (Yeah, they were the enemy and working on an anti-clone nanovirus... and I know that "not all soldiers wear uniforms" and all that... but still.) Especially since they were just following orders. So some of the responsibility should diffuse to their superiors. Yet it wasn't Darman's place to make that call - he had his orders too. There's a weird looping thing happening here, with the two sides almost being mirrored. It never really hit me until that moment that there can never really be "good guys" (using the traditional definition) in war. It's the little things that differ between the sides, not the big things. Fascinating.

The people who say Star Wars is mindless light entertainment that can never make one question the important things in life? They have no idea what they're talking about.