I watched Andor. Very interesting, unexpectedly mature for this franchise, and quite timely.
Naturally, while examining Emperor Palpatine’s regime, I couldn’t help but think of another dictator starting with P, from our own galaxy. Of course, there are many differences between them. The Empire has no external enemies; it simply has temporarily uncontrollable outskirts, periodically rebellious provinces, and so on. In short, it’s not the RF, but rather something like medieval China. On the other hand, the RF has no parliamentary opposition. In the Empire, the rebel movement is funded by local aristocracy and consists primarily of individual entrepreneurs. In the RF, the core of the protest is also made up of freelancers and other remote workers, and it is funded by crowdfunding. Big business in both cases has completely merged with the state. In general, there are many interesting parallels.
Now I would like to see what the series tells us about the methods of the rebel movement.
A great deal of attention is paid to conspiracy. To the point that operatives can easily be sacrificed, and even eliminated by their own, if there is a threat of exposing key coordinating figures. It’s not like that in the RF, because the protest can be coordinated from abroad, even without hiding, while remaining sufficiently safe, whereas no state borders can protect one from the Empire.
The idea of funding rebels through the expropriation of imperial property is not new and is deeply rooted, among other things, in the Russian Empire. Against this backdrop, the Russian opposition’s emphasis on exposing the corruption schemes of the imperial elite looks completely counterproductive.
The theme of tits “militant wing vs. moderate wing” is not sufficiently explored. Although the rebels seemingly have sympathizers in the Senate, nowhere from a high podium does one hear: “See, this is what your local excesses lead to; why escalate? Let’s not push desperate people toward extremist actions, since the war ended long ago—isn’t it time to loosen the screws?” Instead, the parliamentary opposition is guided by an agenda that does not correlate with the militant actions, which weakens its rhetorical power. And soon, as is well known, the Senate will be completely dissolved.
I was very pleased by the character who, in the pauses between preparing for a combat operation, wrote a book about ancap Resistance manifesto. I truly felt a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, there are no social networks or even Telegram channels in the Empire to promote such manifestos, which heavily centralizes any organizational activity.
The series captures a pattern noted by James Scott: it is precisely the peoples oppressed by the empire that manifest their ethnicity and various unique cultures, while people digested by the empire become unified and lose the traits of any ethnicity. At the same time, in essence, ethnicity can easily be created from scratch based on any traditions extracted from dusty closets—or stylized as such. Alex Rozov writes about the same in the Meganesian cycle, and any community opposing an empire, even libertarians, for example, can reproduce the same if they wish to strengthen their identity. For instance, we are not just some arrived Russes, but already quite proper Monteliberians.
The reader might find my selection of series features for review strange. But I shouldn’t just rave about its artistic merits. They exist, and if it weren’t for them, there would be no point in digging deeper.
