So I watched the latest Star Wars Squadrons () trailer, and I can't help escaping the notion that someone, either at Lucasfilm or at EA has missed the point of quite a lot of the Empire's characterization.

These guys are genocidal fascists, right? 1/12

That's not to say you can't have a good game from the standpoint of a TIE-pilot. TIE-Fighter (1994) did exactly that...but without losing the fundamental inhumanity of an empire. It both captured the law-and-order framing of the empire's propaganda, but also... 2/12

...pointedly hammered home that the player was functionally trapped in their role as an imperial pilot. It did not sugercoat the genocidal fascism of the empire. The organization your character was in were clearly bad guys doing some war crimes. 3/12

But at the same time, the game made it clear that you didn't have a choice .You get sent, very deliberately, on missions designed to get you killed but which you cannot refuse. You don't have a choice, which softens the framing problem. 4/12

But it seems like no one in the EA writer's room realized the implications of a character who *chose* to keep fighting for the genocidal fascists after the opportunity presented itself not to.

Does this hero tie-fighter pilot believe in the genocidal fascism? 5/12

And if he *does* believe in the genocidal fascism, why does he get the stirring music when he decides to keep fighting the [checks notes] rebellion against the genocidal fascism.

There are not two morally equivalent factions! This is not a morally neutral choice! 6/12

But then, I think the folks at Lucasfilm/EA/Disney etc. have forgotten that too, because we keep seeing people of color in positions of importance in the imperial remnant.

But the Empire was racist! That was a big part of the theming of Star Wars! 7/12

It wasn't an accident that all of the aliens, women and people of color in the original Star Wars were rebels while the imperials were uniformly white guys with posh accents! This was made explicit in the expanded stuff, but it was very clear in the original films!

8/12

And I feel like we should be clear just how obvious this framing is: the all-white, all-human Nazi-cosplay faction that brags about disestablishing the democracy and does some planet-wide genocide all in first hour of the first film...

Probably, these are the bad guys! 8/12

Lindsay Ellis ( @thelindsayellis ) had a good video a while back () about how Disney seemed intent to sand off the edges of the Empire and the First Order - both obviously genocidal fascists - in order to merchandise them. 9/12

And it reminds me most of all of the Lost-Cause Both-Sideism vision of the Civil War (e.g. Gettysburg (1993)). Everyone gets stirring music, each side gets to make their propaganda pitch with favorable framing.

Except one of these sides are a bunch of racist slavers! 10/12

I am deeply bothered by a framing which presents fighting for the Nazi-cosplay Brigade as cool and tragically heroic, with lots of band-of-brothers framing.

Yes, there is a part of the human psyche that finds fascism deeply appealing. That's what's so dangerous about it. 11/12

Storytellers shouldn't be trying to capitalize on that human weakness, they should be telling stories that are clear about the dangers of letting that part of our primal brain rule us.

Friends don't let friends fly fascist TIE-fighters, is what I'm saying. end/12

As an addendum: yes, this kind of thing effects how likely I am to buy the game. If I have to play the gleeful fascist parts to get to the fly-for-freedom-in-an-X-Wing bits, I'm gonna pass on the whole thing and go back to making my own star wars sounds in Elite: Dangerous. 13/12