#genocide*

[eldunea]

Why I Am EXTREMELY Against Zarkon Getting a Redemption Arc

[CW: Intense salt about Voltron and in-depth discussion of genocide.]

i’m gonna just put it right the fuck out here: LM and JDS had no idea what the FUCK they were doing and i have the numbers to prove it.

so they wanna tell kids to forgive a murderous genocidal tyrant. that’s bad enough. but it makes it even worse that the writers of the show didn’t seem to have any conception of the scope of the crimes they were committing. like……seriously. are they so stupid that they don’t even understand the monstrosity that zarkon has canonically done? let me break it down for you all exactly how bad an atrocity that we’re talking about.

the galra have either killed or enslaved every single sapient species they’ve conquered. this is CANON. 

the galra have conquered nearly the entire known universe. this is ALSO CANON.

with a track record like that, i’m going to give you an estimate of how many people zarkon killed or enslaved.

there are at least 100 billion planets in the milky way, 40 billion of which are habitable. there are at least 200 billion galaxies in the universe. let’s pick a real low number and assume each of the 200 billion galaxies in the universe have 10% of their habitable planets inhabited. this makes 4 billion inhabited planets per galaxy * 200 billion galaxies = 800 billion inhabited planets. now, since the galra have conquered almost the entire known universe, let’s say 90% of those inhabited planets have been colonized. that means 720 billion planets, or 7.2 x 10^11 planets, have been conquered.

now, populations vary based on planet to planet. with maxed out efficiency of resource use, some scientists think the earth is capable of carrying 10 billion people, which is probably the amount that other planets can carry and the amount that advanced alien civilizations would be able to approach but not exceed. many planets will have far less people, however, whether due to lower carrying capacity or due to the fact that those civilizations have technology equivalent to preindustrial humanity and thus factors like illness and starvation keep their population numbers low. so, in the end, it would probably average out to 5 billion (5 x 10^9) people per planet.

put that all together and you have 5 x 10^9 * 7.2 x 10^11. 

Conservatively, 3.6 x 10^21 or 3,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 people were killed or enslaved by the Galra.

that’s 3.6 sextillion people, exponentially more people than there have ever been humans alive on earth.

we cannot fathom it.

we can’t ask children to fathom it.

I don’t think LM and JDS even TRIED to understand that when they say a species has 1) conquered an entire universe and 2) enslaved and murdered every single sapient species within it, THIS IS THE HORROR THAT THEY ARE IMPLYING. THIS IS THE HORROR THEY WANT //CHILDREN// TO FORGIVE. 

because listen. when you say that genocide happened across the universe, the crimes perpetrated would INEVITABLY be on a scale beyond that of the holocaust. beyond that of the holodomor. beyond that of the cultural revolution. beyond what pol pot did to cambodia, beyond what happened in the rwandan genocide--beyond the death tolls of all of humanity’s atrocities throughout the entirety of human history PUT TOGETHER.

and to write that the person in charge of such unfathomable crimes should be forgiven?

should be redeemed?

should get to fight alongside the paladins he killed and tried to kill in some bullshit solidarity because he’s “sorry” and he “didn’t mean it” and he’s obviously a ~better person~ now so he can somehow get a ~second chance?~

i have nothing more to say in reply to that. 

It makes me angry beyond words.

[ofalsehoods]

statistics of altean death and enslavement.

[CW for sensitive content]

of the 50 billion alteans that were alive when the galra empire fell, here is how they ended up.

5 billion were killed in the destruction of altea.

12 billion were systematically exterminated.

8 billion died as a result of the consequences of being universally hunted (starvation, disease, suicide, empathic death due to death of loved ones, etc.)

20 billion were sent into breed slavery (being used as livestock).

4.5 billion were sent into labor slavery.

500 million (0.5 billion) managed to successfully evade death and capture.

it should be noted that even though half of the alteans were killed, the other half was actually kept alive to be used as slaves. contrary to canon, the galra did not aim for killing all of the alteans--rather, they wished to enslave the ones they thought they “needed,” and kill everybody else. it is also worth noting that of the enslaved alteans, the vast majority of them are enslaved as livestock--once again, contrary to canon, the galra did not want to exterminate the alteans, but rather to use them and commit genocide against all the others. the fact that they didn’t want to kill every single altean, though, doesn’t make what they did any less bad.

there are an estimated 30 billion alteans alive today, 3.75 billion of whom were rescued by lotor, 250 million of whom are still on the run. the other 26 billion are enslaved--22 billion as breed slaves, 4 billion as labor slaves. the vast majority of alteans are being used as livestock; the galra have actually stopped their extermination campaign and have now just decided to use what is left of the altean population as labor and food.

[eldunea]

some notes on lotor’s storyverse, designed in the world of bibi / @welcome-to-our-domain​!

lotor is a half-human half-demon eclipse mage born to the light mage zander (zarkon) and the demon dark mage honerva. being an eclipse mage means that he can use the powers of both light and dark magic.

given that demons are heavily discriminated against, zander’s marriage to honerva was met with extreme disgust and discrimination. some people tried to warn him saying honerva would kill him, but he wouldn’t listen--if she did want him dead he loved her so much he’d still love her even as he drew his dying breath. in the end he was kicked out of his home country and disowned by his parents, but not even that could sway his love.

honerva for her part was forced to flee her nation, the demon country of jyn--for discovering the corruption that happened in the royal court. zander and honerva were basically exiles together; their love allowed them to tough out all the difficulties they faced.

honerva knew the mother of celebi, a muse of bibi’s. celebi views honerva as a mother and lotor as a brother.

wouldn’t you know it, my lear / @isleprized is a part of this too. >:3 he is a light mage descended from the light mage of the old race, and embodies all of their holier-than-thou attitude. he is vociferously outspoken against those with demon heritage and believes all demons should be wiped from the earth. 

he did, however, have a thing for honerva in spite of the fact she was a demon. he told her once that he would wipe out all of her people but spare her to be one of his concubines, for she was “dearest” and “fairest” and “the only lovely one among the demons.” but as soon as she rejected him he called her a “disgusting fiend” and swore he’d destroy her along with the rest of her wretched race, thus proving himself more than worthy of being featured on r/niceguys.

[eldunea]

i had a conversation with @cairis-in-the-field about their muse cairis in harry potter verse being able to pick up on the fact that lotor’s spidey sense for when people are being mistreated/abused is so accurate that it has to come from SOMEwhere aka she figures out that he’s not being 100% honest about how much people have hurt him in the past. and i got to thinking like……yeah lotor really isn’t the type of person who would reveal all of his traumas to people, even if it would mean helping them by inspiring them or showing to a greater extent “hey, i went through the same thing.” 

really, he just seems like the kind of guy who would keep that all under wraps because in spite of his extroverted personality he has a very strong sense of privacy. he hates admitting his vulnerability (sometimes even when it benefits him) and trusts only a very few people to know just how vulnerable he was. many muses--hogwarts students, MFE pilots, even the paladins unless it is very late in their relationship--would not qualify as those people. as a survivor of genocide in both harry potter and mainverses (you can’t tell me voldemort didn’t want to start a genocide against all the “impure”), he would never do what many IRL genocide survivors have done and go around giving talks about his experiences. he likes to keep it between himself and his family and friends--and he tells them things that he wouldn’t even tell his therapists.

he will talk briefly, however, about traumatic experiences that are public knowledge. for example in mainverse he’d talk about that time where he tried to bleed himself out and the recording of it went viral on the internet, the fact that zarkon destroyed many planets that he tried to protect, or the fact that during his exile his dad tried to erase all of the empire’s material evidence that lotor was his son. in harry potter verse he’d talk about how he was cruciatused on a more or less weekly basis for a number of years and about how he was given a life sentence in azkaban + narrowly avoided the dementor’s kiss for killing to defend himself from a hate crime. there are also some experiences that he slowly grew to not mind talking about, such as being called slurs while casually minding his own business or the times when he won physical fights against his bullies. 

he won’t go into serious detail about any of these, however; if he’s talking about them to provide comfort to those who have been through similar things he tends to focus on motivating the other person, talking about the other person’s feelings and perhaps persuading them to take a different course of action if that’s part of the conversation. there are times when he says “too much” due to emotion, but his gift of speech and persuasion is usually enough to keep things under wraps; he tells just enough details to give the person a sense that he knows what he’s talking about and stops there. prodding him for more information will leave him very cross and if you push him too hard he’ll yell. he’s flipped his shit at rapacious reporters who don’t seem to understand that it’s a sensitive subject that he doesn’t want to discuss any more than he deems necessary.

[forcefuried]

🔑🔑🔑🔑! - @littlevictorys​ 

the republic is literally like the united states of america in the following four ways.

[TW: Discussions of racism, genocide, slavery and general real-world events.]

it benefits from depriving people of human rights. 

i don’t know what part of “we modified [the clones’] genetic structure to make them less independent” wouldn’t have sounded like a giant human rights violation to sifo dyas, but it is. it’s fucking creepy that these people were mass-produced to become an army, drones meant only for battle and not to live the full and rich human experience however they pleased. what if they wanted to leave the army? would that have been an option? oh, wait, it probably wasn’t, given how they’re all genetically predisposed not to rebel……… 

i need to do more research to ascertain whether the clones were truly slaves but it sure as hell smells like slavery to me. and may i also point out that, given jango fett is portrayed by temuera morrison, a maori man, that the clones are POC? yeah, this is just about as fucked as it sounds.

it benefits from discrimination and a history of genocide.

i think i’ve talked enough about how the kaminoans are eugenicists. my disabled ass will literally never shut up about this but instead of going on again about what i’ve been saying this entire time i will just link to the post where i have the Receipts(tm). however, i would also like to add that it’s literally canon that the jedi committed genocide against the sith people during the time of the old republic. yes, the sith had an empire and they were hardly poor innocent babies in this situation, but you know what? NOTHING justifies genocide. we would never advocate genocide against white americans for establishing a colonial empire on native american land and dressing it up in the term “democracy,” now would we? so why would it be justified to advocate genocide against the sith?

it has an ineffectual democratic form of government ruled by a charismatic leader who claims he’s for the people but only wants to work for his own gain. 

because let’s face it, palpatine is what would be happening to the united states right now if donald trump were smart. because he’s racist. see: the canon where the empire enslaved + committed genocide against nonhumans and enforced human supremacy, and the little bit in legends where all religion was banned in the empire. he’s also power-hungry and has no regard or respect for the processes of democracy……

at the same time, though, it wasn’t like the processes of democracy were doing so great to begin with. i think we can all see that the senate is indirectly responsible for the blockade of naboo starving and killing so many people, they were all too much of pussies to do anything that would actually solve the problem and actually do something and it took padmé amidala joining forces with the gungans to finally kick the trade federation’s asses……meanwhile smart trump palpatine never actually lifted a finger in the phantom menace to help the crisis, he only used it as an excuse to get himself elected a new leader of the senate. does that sound vaguely familiar to all my americans out there who are sick of our own senate, or what?

it opposes an even greater villainous force WHILE STILL BEING VILLAINOUS ITSELF.

say it with me everybody: if the american government were fictional, IT WOULD MOST LIKELY BE THE FUCKING VILLAIN. given the fact that it’s built on slavery and genocide and continues not to give a fuck about the human rights violations it continues to commit, i’d say that’s pretty goddamn villainous, wouldn’t you think? yet there have been worse villains out there, such as the nazis and the communist russians. america opposed them, as it should have, but does that make us the hero? no. opposing totalitarian dictatorship is not a sign of heroism, it is the BARE MINIMUM of being a decent human being. this country is not good because it went up against those who were far more horrific, it only means that Even Evil Has Standards. in other words, it just means that the u.s. is a less shitty villain.

same with the republic. in case anyone is out there thinking i’m a sith empire/palpatine stan or some sort of bullshit, I’M NOT. THE SITH EMPIRE WAS WAY WORSE THAN THE REPUBLIC. I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE ON THAT. HOWEVER, i’m also not of the opinion that the republic was good. the republic are nothing more than villains who have convinced themselves they are the heroes simply because they’re not as bad as the sith, the even worse bad guys on the block……and that is the goddamn TEA.

[forcefuried]

Malvina Luminaire and the Knights of Light malvina “mal” luminaire is a half-human, half-high elf jedi who lived in the south of the high elvish empire of coruscant. she was still a little girl when anakin/vader opened the gates to exegol and unleashed the sith order upon galaia in order to free humanity from enslavement and take revenge upon those who had enslaved them. naïvely, she thought that vader would never hurt her high elvish father because he was kind to humans, had a human wife, and did not permit human slavery within the city that he ruled. she was wrong. one of vader’s acts as the enforcer of exegol was to exact tribute from every high elvish family: each unit of parents and children would have to send someone to imperial city to be slaughtered as repayment for high elvish genocide and atrocities against humans; for mixed families such as malvina’s, he would demand that the person sent be at least part high elvish. if a single family in any city did not give tribute, the whole population of high elves in that city would be wiped out. vader demanded that the luminaires pay tribute as well in spite of previously promising that he wouldn’t touch them, and since malvina was an only child, it would either be her or her father who was killed. her father refused, and got every single other high elvish family in his city to refuse as well. for that, just as vader said, all of the high elves of malvina’s city were killed, including both of her parents–he had said that other-species members of high elvish families would not be spared, because it was “treachery” to have intimate relations with high elves. malvina was the only one who escaped. even having lost everything, she tried to cultivate a sense of hope. she accepted a paragon into her body to become a jedi and learn the light side of the force. she trained with yoda alongside luke skywalker and became best friends with him and his sister. she was determined to kill vader to stop him from killing more innocent people–and if it couldn’t be her, she would have wanted luke and leia to do it in her stead. but this grand vision of hers was never to be……instead of killing vader as luke had said he would, a little thing called vader being his father got in the way, and all of a sudden, after vader killed palpatine, luke and a supposedly reformed anakin skywalker were allies. ALLIES. in her mind, there was only one person who had perpetrated a betrayal just as bad. that person was vader himself. malvina was beyond shattered–she was destroyed. how could luke do this? how could luke insist that vader deep down was a good person who the jedi ought to be allies with, and how could leia be “conflicted” over this instead of taking her side? disgusted, she refused to join the jedi order that her former best friends led, and created her own jedi order: the knights of light. this order was comprised mainly of jedi who, for obvious reasons, did not want to ally with vader and the sith, did not want to acknowledge that vader was a chosen one destined to restore balance to the force by bringing light and dark together again, wanted vader dead and wanted luke to see that he was wrong–wrong–wrong–to ever think that such an allegiance was acceptable. though she did not fundamentally believe that it was wrong for the light side and dark side to be allies, she believed it was wrong for anakin specifically to still be alive and to lead the sith in a “better direction” (because honestly who is he to speak on that?) she would have been willing to be allies with a different sith leader, one who was more reasonable. however, in order to take down anakin and hold off his extremely powerful children at the same time, she felt she had no choice but to ally with someone she hated who also opposed the jedi-sith union as it stood: EDIT THIS BECAUSE THE FIRST VERSION WAS A MISTAKE.

[eldunea]

retconned. for some reason tumblr won’t let me delete this post but i no longer think this hc was in good taste so i got rid of it.