Ludolf Vaas
"Trust me"
Every so often I get hit with a stroke of genius, bestowed upon me by the roleplaying gods. Sometimes it's creating Lando Calrissian's useless fat brother using Carl Winslow from Family Matters as a playby, other times it's coming up with a particularly awesome faction idea.
I know, it's hard being me.
No but really, all kidding aside. I've had this idea for a faction for a while now, but I've always lacked the time and the willpower to actually make it happen. That and I basically have zero desire to inherit the role of a faction leader and all the responsibilities that come with it, with my life being what it is right now. I can barely find the initiative to partake in more than one thread as it stands. But I always thought that this idea was too interesting for someone not to do.
Now, let me try to explain this in a way that doesn't sound completely retarded.
You guys ever seen the movie Equilibrium?
It's a halfway-decent sci-fi movie with Christian Bale. Actually, halfway decent might be giving it too much credit, as it wasn't particularly great. But the story was interesting. It was basically about a future dystopia where all of humanity's wars, conflicts and ills were traced down to what is seen as our one fatal flaw - emotion. This new dystopian government believed that by completely purging human emotion, humans would transcend all the conflicts that have previously held us back, and unite to form a worldwide utopian lovefest free of any kind of conflict or violence. Thus, it was the government's policy to actively seek out and erase all traces of emotion and feeling from society with a pseudo-religious zeal. The populace are literally controlled by mandate through the use of psychoactive drugs that prevent them from feeling emotion. Bale, who's character is a "Cleric", a government agent/warrior monk of sorts, is tasked with destroying illegal contraband, ranging from anything to priceless works of art to poetry books, as well as eliminating "sense offenders" - people who are caught having feelings or thinking thoughtcrimes.
So, emotion = bad. Sound familiar?
It's basically the Jedi philosophy on steroids, taken to the extreme. No longer applied to just the Jedi themselves, but to the entire galaxy at large.
I want to see some Jedi as the bad guys for a change. These aren't your typical Jedi - they're Jedi extremists. Waging a new Holy War on the galaxy, determined to erase all emotion and feeling from the galaxy in order to create a static nirvana completely devoid of sense and feeling. Only then can a new galactic utopia arise. However many planets they destroy, however many millions they kill, it doesn't matter. It's all "for the good of the galaxy", of course.
I want me some evil Jedi. Evil, militant Jedi fundamentalists. The Republic? Heretics. Diplomacy and negotiation? For wussies. There will be war. There will be death. There will be destruction. Basically anyone who isn't them is a heretic and deserves to die. You know, for the greater good and stuff.
Someone needs to make this happen. I think it would be an interesting inversion of the typical good vs. evil, Jedi vs. Sith, Imperial vs. Republic duality we've usually got going on. It's hard to do anything original anymore, but as far as I know, in all my years I haven't seen anyone try to make the Jedi outright bad guys.
And that is why we should.
I know, it's hard being me.
No but really, all kidding aside. I've had this idea for a faction for a while now, but I've always lacked the time and the willpower to actually make it happen. That and I basically have zero desire to inherit the role of a faction leader and all the responsibilities that come with it, with my life being what it is right now. I can barely find the initiative to partake in more than one thread as it stands. But I always thought that this idea was too interesting for someone not to do.
Now, let me try to explain this in a way that doesn't sound completely retarded.
You guys ever seen the movie Equilibrium?
It's a halfway-decent sci-fi movie with Christian Bale. Actually, halfway decent might be giving it too much credit, as it wasn't particularly great. But the story was interesting. It was basically about a future dystopia where all of humanity's wars, conflicts and ills were traced down to what is seen as our one fatal flaw - emotion. This new dystopian government believed that by completely purging human emotion, humans would transcend all the conflicts that have previously held us back, and unite to form a worldwide utopian lovefest free of any kind of conflict or violence. Thus, it was the government's policy to actively seek out and erase all traces of emotion and feeling from society with a pseudo-religious zeal. The populace are literally controlled by mandate through the use of psychoactive drugs that prevent them from feeling emotion. Bale, who's character is a "Cleric", a government agent/warrior monk of sorts, is tasked with destroying illegal contraband, ranging from anything to priceless works of art to poetry books, as well as eliminating "sense offenders" - people who are caught having feelings or thinking thoughtcrimes.
So, emotion = bad. Sound familiar?
It's basically the Jedi philosophy on steroids, taken to the extreme. No longer applied to just the Jedi themselves, but to the entire galaxy at large.
I want to see some Jedi as the bad guys for a change. These aren't your typical Jedi - they're Jedi extremists. Waging a new Holy War on the galaxy, determined to erase all emotion and feeling from the galaxy in order to create a static nirvana completely devoid of sense and feeling. Only then can a new galactic utopia arise. However many planets they destroy, however many millions they kill, it doesn't matter. It's all "for the good of the galaxy", of course.
I want me some evil Jedi. Evil, militant Jedi fundamentalists. The Republic? Heretics. Diplomacy and negotiation? For wussies. There will be war. There will be death. There will be destruction. Basically anyone who isn't them is a heretic and deserves to die. You know, for the greater good and stuff.
Someone needs to make this happen. I think it would be an interesting inversion of the typical good vs. evil, Jedi vs. Sith, Imperial vs. Republic duality we've usually got going on. It's hard to do anything original anymore, but as far as I know, in all my years I haven't seen anyone try to make the Jedi outright bad guys.
And that is why we should.
