The Divine Right of Jedi

[souran]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Split off from the OSSR for Birthright
[/TGFBS]


Starmaker;

I will go point by point for you, but to do so beyond one reply will make this whole thing impossible to read or follow.

Why hello there. (I've met people who hate power fantasies. They're not the D&D audience, but they exist.)

First of all the statement you are responding made no claim to be all encompassing. However, even your response admits that D&D players (and thus the theoretical audience for the Birthright campaign setting) is made of people who will accept

Elf fanboys are also recognized as a class and laughed at in tabletop, because this archetype is a problem in a cooperative storytelling game, unless your whole party is elf fanboys, and maybe even then.


Harry Potter is an anomalous massive marketing juggernaut; its popularity is not evidence of quality. Furthermore, nothing about either the story or the marketing relies on genetic wizardry; it's just an old tired trope that Rowling used because it was an old tired trope back then, too, and she's a shitty writer. (And it's still not as shitty as Birthright: it's not possible to breed for power, and the people who try are the bad guys.) As for fan appeal, I'd say doublethinking your Hogwarts letter might still come IRL is more appealing than blatant counterfactuality.

Children fantasize about having been adopted because were brought up on the same shitty tropes and don't know any better. To them, parents define the world, and wishing for a better world easily leads to wishing for "better" parents.

All of this kind hits on the same thing. I am not arguing that the values implied in elf wankery or Harry Potter are good (or ill), merely that people don't recoil in horror from the presentation. Yes people laugh at elf fanboys, but there are enough of them that people don't do it to their faces at conventions. Nobody is supervised to find elf wankery in a D&D product, regardless of edition, because there ALWAYS is an elf obsessed writer on the staff.

Similarly, Harry Potter is VERY MUCH presented as genetic magic being an important part of the story. Rowling invented an entire vocabulary of slurs because of how important it is to the story. It is a central reason why Harry's aunt hates him. Now I would agree that Rowling is not a top tier writer, but she is a successful one by any meaningful measure.

If we accept Ancients and Franks core theory that Birthright failed because people find the concept of "Superior-By-Birth" to be so anathema to 20th/21st century minds that they wouldn't touch the setting with an adventurer's 11 ft. pole why do people spend billions on Rowling drivel that promotes exactly the same sort of hereditary superiority?

David Brin's Star Wars article may not be enough to vote this election, but it can enlist (with parental consent). Also, I don't need to remind you that people hated midichlorians. The most beloved version of Jedi powers is based on mystical bullshit. It's a bad world to fantasize about in preference to the real one, but in-universe, the notion that consistently doing good makes you a more capable good-doer is kinda progressive. Even if Star Wars isn't especially committed to egalitarianism, what with everyone being sekritly a babby of everyone else, if you tell a kid point blank she can't be a Jedi because her father isn't one, she's going to be fucking pissed.

First of all, Jedi(ism) was pretty clearly hereditary in the original star wars. Its actually so central that it is a central element of the big reveal in Return of the Jedi.

Now, you are correct that its not in Disney's (or previously Lucasfilm, or current owner) of Star Wars to go around telling kids that they can't be a Jedi because they were not born special enough. Instead the FANTASY is sold as "YOU ARE SPECIAL" right out of the box. I don't see how anybody can look at Star Wars and not immediately see that anybody who is not force sensitive is living in a world where they are always and will never be superior to force users. You cannot ever EARN your way to Jedi status, and people don't care.

The main draw of World of Darkness is doing things in what is ostensibly the real world and make use of its rich setting, backstory, and the meaning with which achievements are inherently invested. This means you need a way to kickstart humans into exponential supernatural awesomeness and a reason for the world to stay roughly the same -- but those are game design constraints, not player motivations.
The stereotypical Vampire protagonist is a random lowlife and a victim of violent crime. And then it turns out the vampire hierarchy is even more oppressive than the RL one, BUT, you can totally cheat/lie/manipulate/eat your way to the top.
Werewolf would be massively improved by consensual incest and is NOT a good baseline for tolerable squick.
Mage is where you decide you are no longer one of the sheeple and become awesome by dint of that.

All three of these games have a huge amount of verbage devoted to how Vamps/Werewolves/Mages are superior beings to people. Even the lowliest vampire is allowed to treat humans as little more than insects so long as they don't break the masquerade. While Mage and Werewolf are explicitly "hereditary superpowers" games, Vampire manages to add its own layers of hereditary awesome to a protagonist creation that doesn't NEED to have it included (for instance Buff vamps get levels of awesome just for being old.)

Mage is probably the worst offender because it is basically matrix levels of some people matter and others are meat-bags. Mages count, everybody else is on a default setting that supports the technocracy and evil and you might have to kill somebody at any time because they could help lead the real evils to you.

The most popular fantasy RPG is one with a stark exponential advancement scheme based on killing genetically superior entities. If the game is not meritocratic and superior genetics win, you get fucking roasted and eaten, possibly with ketchup. You're making an argument straight out of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's book if you believe a game can generate zero to hero stories without having it encoded in mechanics.

3.X D&D and beyond pretty much explicitly say that PCs are "exceptional" and even the default die rolling method is designed to create PCs that are above what the game considers average. For all the "Zero-to-Hero" talk D&D PCs have always pretty much started with a significant shove toward Hero...or the character exists to pratfall.

Also, the games rules are massively less important here than flavor and there are a whole host of D&D character concepts and classes that are fundamentally "you are born or have been gifted with a special power"

in 3.X this is true of every divine caster and sorcerers explicitly. It is narratively true of all ARCANE casters in Forgotten Realms were Ed Greenwood has written plenty of times how the gift of Mystra is required to cast magic and not everybody has it.

Similarly, the issue with Birthright is not that characters have a blood potency number on their character sheet representing how awesome they are. Its that they added a feature to characters that is random and good rolls can give you game breaking abilities.

Lets say that instead of being based on being born, "regents" in (any ruler, getting there in any way) drank from a special magic cup that gave them a magical connection to the land. Instead of a blood score you get a cup score. Then the setting STILL would not have sold because the underlying game is STILL crap.

And yes, I care if people are born with "heroic potential" as in Birthright or just work hard to get to 20. If my character's goal is climbing atop the social hierarchy, the underlying assumption is that there's a social hierarchy to climb. If it's inherently stable with better-than-yous on top and my character lost the genetic lottery, he's eternally consigned to sucking DMPC cock. If he won, he's presumably accidentally fallen through the cracks and must regain his "rightful" place among the assholes. Both stories, from a power fantasy perspective, are strictly inferior to one where he and his friends from level 1 get to create a new social order with those assholes at the bottom. The best outcome with better-than-yous is you as the CFO of Mylan getting to share in the sweet price-gouging. The best meritocratic outcome is free epipens and Heather Bresch pouring you coffee.

Wow that's a lot of meaningless ranting. Work hard, put in the effort, and reap the reward is a story. Its a story that is told quite a lot. Its told plenty often enough that wanting to have it as a core conceit for a RPG character seems fine.

However, there are a crapload of hero's journeys that start off with "so [Hero's] mom was smoking hot, so hot she attracted the attention of [god of Something/king of Something] who knocked her up. Later she [had child in secret/died in childbirth/story reason for father not knowing about child]"


Now the first one is much more in line with how we would like the modern world to work. And some of us Fantasize about that paradigm being so absolute that you can literally "work hard" enough to take a seat at the table of the pantheon.

The second one is actually probably more common in fiction than the first, and even though it is clearly espouses a pre-modern belief set, most people don't freak out about that Fantasy, at least as long as they get to be included. If they get the shaft in their escapist fantasy as well there will be hell to pay.

Birthright doesn't have to assume that the world is equal for everybody because it assumes that all the players will be real characters who own lands and run kingdoms. Now its still 2E so once you make your character who is duke so-and-so you have to then take a random roll to see if your character is real enough to be worth keeping or does he exist to do the birthright equivalent of purposefully setting off traps and drinking unlabeled potions.

The thing is, Birthright is a terrible game system. So blaming the hereditary heroes for its failures is like blaming global warming for the sinking of the Titanic.

[Mechalich]

First of all, Jedi(ism) was pretty clearly hereditary in the original star wars. Its actually so central that it is a central element of the big reveal in Return of the Jedi.

Now, you are correct that its not in Disney's (or previously Lucasfilm, or current owner) of Star Wars to go around telling kids that they can't be a Jedi because they were not born special enough. Instead the FANTASY is sold as "YOU ARE SPECIAL" right out of the box. I don't see how anybody can look at Star Wars and not immediately see that anybody who is not force sensitive is living in a world where they are always and will never be superior to force users. You cannot ever EARN your way to Jedi status, and people don't care.

Actually people do care, and anti-Jedi feeling and the pushback against the superiority complex of the Jedi is one of the central plot points of Star Wars. The 'we're better than you attitude' of the Prequels Era Jedi order is a huge part of their disconnect with society and the reason Palpatine was able to manipulate and destroy them. In a Galactic Senate with literally thousands of members, the number of allies the Jedi had in office could be counted on one hand. So that when Palpatine had them all shot, the masses cheered!

Writers across the history of the Star Wars EU have grappled with the problem of elitism by Force sensitives and what it means and how best to handle it, with admittedly widely varying degrees of success. You cannot possibly claim this is not an issue for Star Wars or that the universe and the fandom haven't struggled with it is ridiculous.

While Mage and Werewolf are explicitly "hereditary superpowers" games,

Mage is not a hereditary superpowers game. Acquiring an awakened avatar in MtA has nothing whatsoever to do with who your parents were. Also, while Mage definitely faps to the fantasy that the PCs are special people, it's also a game where the vast masses of the unwashed are more powerful than you via Paradox and trying to change the world in any significant way through magic will cause your PC be erased as if they had never existed.


Look it is certainly possibly to have hereditary powers that produce a class of special people in fantasy. It is even, for certain types of storytelling, desirable. However, doing so creates specialized burdens on the worldbuilding, and these are particularly relevant in the case of a game that is expected to be played cooperatively where the PCs will absolutely grasp any incentive towards power and rocket themselves into realms of terrible squick. Also, individual gaming tables can be expected to burrow into the rules and take them to their logical conclusion, which means if the construction behind the world isn't sound, they will shred it in short order.

Worldbuilding in TTRPGs needs to be ironclad compared to novels - Harry Potter is in fact the perfect example. The worldbuilding of the Potterverse is terrible, but the Harry Potter novels aren't about the Potterverse, they're about the coming of age story of Harry Potter and the fact that the universe is an incomprehensible mess that doesn't function doesn't really matter, but it absolutely would matter if you tried to make a Harry Potter game, and as evidence there are no good Harry Potter games or even serious attempts at them (the extant Harry Potter video games are mostly LEGO-esque adaptations).

[Kaelik]

Actually people do care, and anti-Jedi feeling and the pushback against the superiority complex of the Jedi is one of the central plot points of Star Wars. The 'we're better than you attitude' of the Prequels Era Jedi order is a huge part of their disconnect with society and the reason Palpatine was able to manipulate and destroy them. In a Galactic Senate with literally thousands of members, the number of allies the Jedi had in office could be counted on one hand. So that when Palpatine had them all shot, the masses cheered!

Writers across the history of the Star Wars EU have grappled with the problem of elitism by Force sensitives and what it means and how best to handle it, with admittedly widely varying degrees of success. You cannot possibly claim this is not an issue for Star Wars or that the universe and the fandom haven't struggled with it is ridiculous.

You forgot the first axiom of start wars arguments. Star wars is all the things I say it is and none of the things I say it isn't, so since you pointed to things that don't support my point, I will declare those to be not star wars.

[maglag]

First of all, Jedi(ism) was pretty clearly hereditary in the original star wars. Its actually so central that it is a central element of the big reveal in Return of the Jedi.

Now, you are correct that its not in Disney's (or previously Lucasfilm, or current owner) of Star Wars to go around telling kids that they can't be a Jedi because they were not born special enough. Instead the FANTASY is sold as "YOU ARE SPECIAL" right out of the box. I don't see how anybody can look at Star Wars and not immediately see that anybody who is not force sensitive is living in a world where they are always and will never be superior to force users. You cannot ever EARN your way to Jedi status, and people don't care.

Actually people do care, and anti-Jedi feeling and the pushback against the superiority complex of the Jedi is one of the central plot points of Star Wars. The 'we're better than you attitude' of the Prequels Era Jedi order is a huge part of their disconnect with society and the reason Palpatine was able to manipulate and destroy them. In a Galactic Senate with literally thousands of members, the number of allies the Jedi had in office could be counted on one hand. So that when Palpatine had them all shot, the masses cheered!

Writers across the history of the Star Wars EU have grappled with the problem of elitism by Force sensitives and what it means and how best to handle it, with admittedly widely varying degrees of success. You cannot possibly claim this is not an issue for Star Wars or that the universe and the fandom haven't struggled with it is ridiculous.

Palpatine was a Sith. Aka a force sensitive, aka part of the Star War's master race. Then he puts Darth Vader, another force-sensitive, as second in command with the right to force-choke to death any muggle who even looks at them funny.

The only struggle in Star Wars is between the members of the master race competing to see who's in charge of the masses.

After all Palpatine is only stopped after Princess Leia, another force sensitive, rallies a rebellion to gather more force sensitive people along the way.

[JonSetanta]

I thought anyone could be trained to be force sensitive?

[maglag]

"A Force-sensitive, also known as a Force-user, was any individual who was keenly attuned to the flow of the mysterious energy known as the Force. Among their natural gifts, Force-sensitive beings could see things just before they happened, which gave them faster reflexes than most others. With proper training, Force-sensitives could learn to consciously sense and manipulate that energy, which gave them special powers."

If you're force-sensitive you need training to get full benefits, but you still need to be born as part of the master race.

That's why whole organizations go out of their way to recruit specially force-sensitive people no matter the cost.

[Longes]

Palpatine was a Sith. Aka a force sensitive, aka part of the Star War's master race. Then he puts Darth Vader, another force-sensitive, as second in command with the right to force-choke to death any muggle who even looks at them funny.

Remember that in the original trilogy imperial generals mock Vader in his face and laugh about his superstitious adherence to a religion. Before he force chokes them.

[souran]

Also, Darth Vader was originally supposed to be some elite agent of the Emperor, tasked with retrieving the Death Star plans. Grand Moff Tarkin clearly was higher in the food chain. The character already got immensely popular when they wrote him in Empire Strike Back promoted to be in charge of the Executor-led fleet to hunt the Rebel Alliance HQ.

Well cool. Now the whole thread is derailed into Star Wars territory!

In Star Wars (1977) Vader's position is pretty undefined. He can kill staff officers of a Grand Admiral over petty personal insults at will and can clearly give orders to anybody below the level of a senior officer (As when he commands the pilots who he makes his wingmen to follow him into battle). The movie begins with a Star Destroyer that he may or may not be in charge of and a boarding action where he appears to be in the absolute authority.

in "Empire" he seems to be in charge of the assault on Hoth, exercising command authority at the begging of the battle, but cares so little for the results of the battle itself that he goes down to surface to look for Luke in person. Return makes his rank ambiguous once again. He seems to be in charge of the building of the second death star, at least until the Emperor shows up. However, his reception seems more political than military in nature.

Wookiepedia lists his rank as "Supreme Commander" but honestly, the closest things I can think to make his rank would be something like "Crown Prince or Heir Apparent." His military rank is theoretically below certain other members of the imperial military, but the combination of his political rank and military rank allow him to exercise basically unlimited command authority within at least his presence (I.E. any person he doesn't out rank militarily he could demote as vice-head of state and then kill with impunity).

Sadly, while you would think that birthright would be all about letting you play your Vaderish super-human Mage-Lord you can't actually play that person either because the rules suck at letting you have positions of important authority like his. You can be the emperor, or Jabba, but a Vader is a lieutenant in birthright.

[maglag]

in "Empire" he seems to be in charge of the assault on Hoth, exercising command authority at the begging of the battle, but cares so little for the results of the battle itself that he goes down to surface to look for Luke in person.

That further supports the "ruling divine magic master race" argument for Star Wars.

Vader and Palpatine indeed care little for thousands/million/billions of muggles killing each other. What matters is getting Luke and his powerful bloodline to join their team color the dark side

Wookiepedia lists his rank as "Supreme Commander" but honestly, the closest things I can think to make his rank would be something like "Crown Prince or Heir Apparent." His military rank is theoretically below certain other members of the imperial military, but the combination of his political rank and military rank allow him to exercise basically unlimited command authority within at least his presence (I.E. any person he doesn't out rank militarily he could demote as vice-head of state and then kill with impunity).

I believe names and titles are kinda secondary.

The fact is that Vader has full authority to kill any muggles he dislikes, just like medieval nobles could get away with killing any filthy peasant that displeased them.

Plus there's the whole "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further". Vader doesn't even care about pretending to keep his word to muggles.

Sadly, while you would think that birthright would be all about letting you play your Vaderish super-human Mage-Lord you can't actually play that person either because the rules suck at letting you have positions of important authority like his. You can be the emperor, or Jabba, but a Vader is a lieutenant in birthright.

I doubt birthright even allows you to be the emperor or Jabba, because that would actually be pretty cool if it worked.

[Longes]

I believe names and titles are kinda secondary.

The fact is that Vader has full authority to kill any muggles he dislikes, just like medieval nobles could get away with killing any filthy peasant that displeased them.

Plus there's the whole "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further". Vader doesn't even care about pretending to keep his word to muggles.

So? Palpatine came to power on a political platform of killing all the jedi. Sure he broke all his promises and became an evil tyrant, but Emperor Palpatine was elected by a galactic senate at a point where no one even knew he's a Force user. And since he immediately went with a jedi genocide campaign, I highly doubt he talked about his own force powers much. By original trilogy people don't even believe in the force, and imperial generals call Vader a superstitious sorcerer. Yes, Vader has massive authority in the empire. But he has that authority because he's the Emperor's handpicked enforcer, not because he's a sith. Most people in the galaxy don't even know what a "sith" is!

[maglag]

I believe names and titles are kinda secondary.

The fact is that Vader has full authority to kill any muggles he dislikes, just like medieval nobles could get away with killing any filthy peasant that displeased them.

Plus there's the whole "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further". Vader doesn't even care about pretending to keep his word to muggles.

So? Palpatine came to power on a political platform of killing all the jedi.

A lot of kings/emperors come to power on platforms of killing other kings/emperors, yes. I wouldn't exactly call them political however.

Sure he broke all his promises and became an evil tyrant, but Emperor Palpatine was elected by a galactic senate at a point where no one even knew he's a Force user. And since he immediately went with a jedi genocide campaign, I highly doubt he talked about his own force powers much. By original trilogy people don't even believe in the force, and imperial generals call Vader a superstitious sorcerer. Yes, Vader has massive authority in the empire. But he has that authority because he's the Emperor's handpicked enforcer, not because he's a sith. Most people in the galaxy don't even know what a "sith" is!

Palpatine only campaigned for the destruction of the jedi after he enacted order 66, which only worked because he managed to keep his intentions secrets until the last moment.

Before Palpatine actually collaborated with the jedi in public, appointing them as army leaders against the droids and stuff.

Palpatine only fully turns against the jedi when the jedi themselves discover he's an evil sith and try to take him down. And again, when he starts the public propaganda that jedi are evil, Palpatine already had most of them killed with backstabbing clone soldiers.

By that point he controls both the bot and droid armies, his office has corpses with lightsaber wounds and he's been shooting lighting in the senate chambers. I doubt nobody saw anything. But whoever's gonna be crazy enough to challenge him directly then?

This is, Darth Vader goes around force-choking people left and right. Are video cameras a lost technology in SW? Nobody uploaded a compilation of Darth Vader's ten best force-chokes to their hologramtube?

In particular, whatever soldiers Darth Vader commandeers never seem surprised when they see their master bend the laws of physics to his whims with simple waves of his hands. The few sceptics get weeded out.

[Longes]

My point is - Palpatine didn't become the emperor because of divine right of sith or some bullshit. He became the emperor because he played politics long enough to amass political power and get people to vote him into a leadership role.

[Occluded Sun]

Force-sensitives actually have greater power and insight than normal creatures. The 'divine right of kings' was made up because kings weren't better than the average noble. The Jedi and Sith don't need to make up excuses. They really ARE better.

[Longes]

Force-sensitives actually have greater power and insight than normal creatures. The 'divine right of kings' was made up because kings weren't better than the average noble. The Jedi and Sith don't need to make up excuses. They really ARE better.

But the Jedi didn't rule the galaxy. In the republic jedi were an order of warrior monks that did its own thing and didn't try to rule the galaxy. Sith wanted to rule the galaxy, but that desire for power is supposed to be their flaw - not some kind of divine right fulfillment. The highest Jedi seemed to get in terms of power was becoming army leaders during global conflicts like the mandalorian invasion or sith-provoked civil war.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Jedi are better at space kung fu. That doesn't mean they're better at administrating.

[Kaelik]

Jedi are better at space kung fu. That doesn't mean they're better at administrating.

They have literal mind reading abilities. It's not like the most important thing in the world, but it's a net positive. If they are trained to administer, they are better at administrating than you.

[Mechalich]

At beating people up with glowing plasma sticks or throwing rocks around with their minds, absolutely - force-users (a term which is technically distinct from force-sensitivity because you can have the gift without ever developing any powers) have ordinary people beat. At governance, maybe not.

The force certainly provides insight. Palpatine and Yoda could see possible futures, among other talents. That's clearly established. However, it is also established that force abilities are influenced by the emotional state of the user. Thus, Palpatine was blinded to the very idea that his troops could be ambushed and overcome by the native inhabitants of Endor because he considered them to be mere animals. Also, he was utterly convinced that the will of Vader was totally broken and that no matter what happened he was safe. His hubris in attempting to turn Luke Skywalker - an action that provided him with marginal benefits at best - rather than simply having him shot (or even just keeping the damn royal guards in the room) was his downfall.

There is a similar argument that Jedi, in tune with the force as they should properly be, are actually too empathetic to make good rulers. They can't make the hard and compromising decisions necessary in order to make a society run, being too merciful, too selfless, and frankly just too communist.

In a slightly different vein, Star Wars, despite being a fantasy, is set in a world of highly advanced technology (though some of the choices made by Lucas now seem rather quaint, but hey, it was the 70s). Advanced technology requires advanced skills and Star Wars stories at their best have made a note that the Jedi, for all their powers, do not have the time or inclination to acquire those skills. In the movies this is often seen through the role of the R2-D2 and C-3PO, who have special abilities that are repeatedly used to get Jedi out of jams. The EU has often failed to recognize this limitation and produced super-Jedi who are good at their primary abilities and a complete master at some (or several) other fields, but the best EU stories have made the point as well (most of us have probably played KOTOR, how many times in that game do you need to go grab T3-M4 or Mission Vao for some lockpicking or slicing?). It's even made its way into game design: one of the better choices of the SAGA edition was that the Jedi class had the fewest starting skills. The intent was to allow the Jedi to be combat monsters, but to keep their niche otherwise limited (now SAGA was flawed and this didn't actually work, but the idea was there).

Force-sensitivity does represent a kind of specialized genetic potential. It is the potential to develop skills other people don't have, kind of like being 7 ft tall. If you happen to be 7 ft tall there is a very high chance that, with some tough training and dedication, you will get paid millions of dollars to play professional basketball. Force-sensitivity is like that, only exponential in scale. You have to train the ability and - this is important - most people fail. Jedi began as initiates and had to pass an exam to become padawans and then another exam to become knights - fail at either point and you got to spend you like playing force-farmer or force-nurse. It's maybe a 1 in 4 chance. The filter the Sith used was even harsher - in the Inquisitor storyline for SWTOR you start out part of a class of 10 or so, and everyone other than your character gets killed before you even get accepted as an apprentice (and your subsequent pathway to reaching the rank of Darth consists of murdering your way through a succession of superiors).

But the Jedi didn't rule the galaxy. In the republic jedi were an order of warrior monks that did its own thing and didn't try to rule the galaxy. Sith wanted to rule the galaxy, but that desire for power is supposed to be their flaw - not some kind of divine right fulfillment. The highest Jedi seemed to get in terms of power was becoming army leaders during global conflicts like the mandalorian invasion or sith-provoked civil war.

To get technical, there are sources in the Legends continuity that establish that Jedi did serve as Supreme Chancellors of the Senate and planetary governors during certain prolonged emergencies (the Pius Dea Era and the New Sith Wars period), but they always voluntarily gave up this power afterward. In fact part of the supposed justification for the 'no attachments' rule against romantic relationships was to break up multi-generational Jedi fiefdoms and prevent them from emerging again.

But yeah, the way Jedi philosophy is set up a Jedi is supposed to be a servant (Lucas stole many Jedi tropes straight from Akira Kurosawa films) and a Jedi who finds political power tempting is doing their job badly. Sith, for their part, tend to make bad rules because they inevitably descend into infighting on an extreme scale and because they tend to completely ignore/abuse the populace while focusing their efforts on crazy bids for immortality and other weirdness. Emperor Vitiate (of SWTOR) went from beloved and worshiped as a near god by his people to utterly reviled when he decided it was more important to ritualistically eat the entire population of Ziost than to fight the Republic.

[maglag]

My point is - Palpatine didn't become the emperor because of divine right of sith or some bullshit. He became the emperor because he played politics long enough to amass political power and get people to vote him into a leadership role.

Palpatine only became emperor because:
-He was strong enough in the force to train and coordinate multiple sith disciples to do his dirty work behind the scenes, engineering the war that was essential for him to raise through the political ranks.
-He was strong enough in the force to hold his own against 6 jedis ganking on him when they found out what he was up to.
-He was strong enough in the force to manipulate and corrupt Anakin into his fanatic and efficient servant, Darth Vader.

Palpatine without the force would've just been shown his true colors and arrested by the jedi master race. If he wasn't outright killed before by one of the many sith agents he employed to advance his agenda.

Force-sensitives actually have greater power and insight than normal creatures. The 'divine right of kings' was made up because kings weren't better than the average noble. The Jedi and Sith don't need to make up excuses. They really ARE better.

But the Jedi didn't rule the galaxy. In the republic jedi were an order of warrior monks that did its own thing and didn't try to rule the galaxy. Sith wanted to rule the galaxy, but that desire for power is supposed to be their flaw - not some kind of divine right fulfillment. The highest Jedi seemed to get in terms of power was becoming army leaders during global conflicts like the mandalorian invasion or sith-provoked civil war.

In corner A we have the Empire with sith Palpatine on command and his champion fallen jedi Darth Vader making sure shit gets done in the field.

In corner B we have the rebels with force-sensitive Leia on command and her champion jedi Luke Skywalker making sure shit gets done in the field.

Factions not ruled by force-sensitive are minor powers that must grovel and lick the shoes of either the rebels or the empire if they want to stick around.

[Longes]

Jedi are better at space kung fu. That doesn't mean they're better at administrating.

They have literal mind reading abilities. It's not like the most important thing in the world, but it's a net positive. If they are trained to administer, they are better at administrating than you.

Jedi must put the needs of the community above the needs of individuals.

Republic doesn't want space communists running the place apparently.
Also using the force powers for administration seems like an easy way to slippery slope into dark side.

[Mechalich]

Palpatine without the force would've just been shown his true colors and arrested by the jedi master race. If he wasn't outright killed before by one of the many sith agents he employed to advance his agenda.

You know, if Jedi are a master race, they're terrible at recruitment. Even a low end estimate holds that there are billions of Force-sensitives in the Star Wars galaxy, but there are only a few tens of thousands of Jedi and Jedi affiliates during the Prequels and maybe a few million at most during more abundant time periods. There are entire species that are universally force-sensitive to at least some degree (the Miraluka are probably the most familiar) but they aren't ruling the galaxy.

In corner B we have the rebels with force-sensitive Leia on command and her champion jedi Luke Skywalker making sure shit gets done in the field.

The leader of the Rebel Alliance and later the New Republic (in both continuities) was Mon Mothma (miss 'many bothans died to bring us this information'). She was not force-sensitive.

Leia Organa was force sensitive, but her abilities during the original trilogy are minimal and have not advanced at all up to Force Awakens (in the EU her abilities eventually develop in a more traditional Jedi fashion). Leia is a powerful but untrained force sensitive and her other skills including political acumen, resistance to intimidation, and being a surprisingly good shot are far more important to her character.

While Force abilities were ultimately rather important to Luke's contribution to the galactic civil war, he spent most of his career with the Rebel Alliance being known as a hotshot pilot (most of Luke's rebel career occurring during the 3 years between New Hope and Empire). Luke lacked consistent command of the force until Cloud City and he ran few missions for the Rebel Alliance in the several months between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He mostly spent that time training at Obi-Wan's place and running around looking for Han (according to Legends, though the new continuity is mostly in the same vein).

They have literal mind reading abilities. It's not like the most important thing in the world, but it's a net positive. If they are trained to administer, they are better at administrating than you.

Jedi aren't trained as administrators and rules, and neither are Sith, so they're actually the wrong example here.

There is a Star Wars society that does train its force-sensitives for this: the Voss.

Voss society is ruled absolutely by mystics, who spend all their time staring into the future and relaying visions of what must be done in order to make Voss society survive and prosper. However, as you play through the Voss storyline in SWTOR you learn that because these visions are subject to imperfect interpretation and the prejudices of the mystics themselves, they lead to the Voss people taking actions that are irrational and horrifically tragic and the leave the entire society open to manipulation by a powerful dark side entity that is slowly driving them all mad.

SPOILERS to follow:

In particular you learn that the Voss mystics had a vision that their society should divide itself and fight until only one side remained. So they did that, and countless Voss died. I fact this vision represents the proto-Voss dividing into two species the Voss and the Gormak as a result of a mass force-heavy war and they were already following the vision without even knowing it, so all the deaths were totally pointless.

Information derived via the force may not be available through any other source, but it is still incomplete (and often prejudiced) data and reliance upon it - which force-users will tend to do almost is not completely exclusively, has its own problems.

Having a force-user on you administrative council is superior to not having a force-user, but having only force-users is not necessarily superior to having no force-users.

[Maxus]

The Jedi system as presented in the movies always seemed a way to minimize their presence and impact. In a good way. Force-users, despite the power, are still ordinary people psychologically. The Jedi temple system seemed a way to scrub out out ego and selfishness and fill any prospective young superhero's head with stuff like virtue and the importance of serving your fellow beings. Much like how Clark Kent got raised by kindly virtuous farmers.

Once you have Jedi administering, you'd have the room for competition and ego to creep in, and down that road lies some pretty nasty wars.

[hyzmarca]

The big problem is that the Dark Side is evil cocaine made out of fear, anger, and hate. And sometimes you think that you're just going to have one snort, but you always end up with a giant hole in your nose, yellow puss dripping out of your genitals, and several warrents for your arrest in different states after a blurry week-long bender that you barely remember flashes of.

[Mechalich]

The Jedi system as presented in the movies always seemed a way to minimize their presence and impact. In a good way. Force-users, despite the power, are still ordinary people psychologically. The Jedi temple system seemed a way to scrub out out ego and selfishness and fill any prospective young superhero's head with stuff like virtue and the importance of serving your fellow beings. Much like how Clark Kent got raised by kindly virtuous farmers.

Once you have Jedi administering, you'd have the room for competition and ego to creep in, and down that road lies some pretty nasty wars.

There's also the simple problem of the force being unable to render evidence, and that force-users are always massively outnumbered by the general population.

To elaborate on the Voss example. In Voss society if a mystic has a vision that says 'your five year old son will give rise to a great evil. This must not be, shoot him dead now,' a Voss will obey. The word of a mystic is law and without question and Voss psychology and cultural indoctrination is such that this is not a problem. The Voss will not ever rebel against their mystic masters, no matter how brutal the command, they can't even formulate the idea of doing so.

Now if a Jedi tells a human 'your five year old son will give rise to a great evil. This must not be, shoot him dead now,' the average human parent response will be 'go fuck yourself' followed by going for the nearest blaster, and if the Jedi murders the parent too not only have they just committed a crime of their own, but they've set up a situation where the community is almost guaranteed to rise against them unless further repression is enacted. When the Sith end up in charge that's what happens, and the repression gets intense. Exhibit A: Alderaan.

The force is ultimately a religious agency and it doesn't play nice with the needs of humans or other sapient species. Rule by the force is therefore inherently autocratic and as such enlightened rule via the force can be seen as a contradiction. It certainly is by the Jedi, who resist taking up the mantle of rulership accordingly. This makes sense because - contrary to the beliefs of the Voss - force-users can most certainly be wrong, which means that force-based autocracy is not morally superior to any other form of autocracy.

[Voss]

There is a similar argument that Jedi, in tune with the force as they should properly be, are actually too empathetic to make good rulers. They can't make the hard and compromising decisions necessary in order to make a society run, being too merciful, too selfless, and frankly just too communist.

In a slightly different vein, Star Wars, despite being a fantasy, is set in a world of highly advanced technology (though some of the choices made by Lucas now seem rather quaint, but hey, it was the 70s). Advanced technology requires advanced skills and Star Wars stories at their best have made a note that the Jedi, for all their powers, do not have the time or inclination to acquire those skills.

Have a giant pile of go fuck yourself. The jedi order, once finally portrayed, is a giant institution of fuckwits and emotionally stunted trolls with no empathy at all.
'Kid you want me to free your mother? Nah, fuck slaves.'
'Kid, you love your mother? What kind of fucking monster are you? You'll certainly never be trained by us.'
'Yeah, lady, your planet is being invaded? Yeah, so what? Politics, am I right?'

That they later completely reverse themselves and go full hypocrite wasn't a sign of selflessness or mercy, but a policy decision made out of a) plot railroading (and maybe guiltily going along with the wishes of the deceased because he turned out to be right all along)
and
b) wanting to use a teenaged girl as bait so they could find out about possible sith.
They didn't give two shits about anyones' plight. Just politics and duty to the Council.

As for no tech skills... you're a moron. Annie and Luke are both super pilots because they're force sensitive, not bad pilots because they never had time to learn. On top of that, Annie is a super tech mechanic also. As far as is shown, force-people learn at absurd levels in absurdly short times, and can just innately be tech masters with no training at all, in addition to being skilled jedi.

Palpatine only became emperor because:
-He was strong enough in the force to train and coordinate multiple sith disciples to do his dirty work behind the scenes, engineering the war that was essential for him to raise through the political ranks.
-He was strong enough in the force to hold his own against 6 jedis ganking on him when they found out what he was up to.
-He was strong enough in the force to manipulate and corrupt Anakin into his fanatic and efficient servant, Darth Vader.

Palpatine without the force would've just been shown his true colors and arrested by the jedi master race. If he wasn't outright killed before by one of the many sith agents he employed to advance his agenda.

No, Palpy became emperor because the Senate was corrupt and stupid, and employed painfully obvious political ploys. He was caught because he confessed his Sithness to Annie, who went to the council. Had he just played dumb (and continued to hide being Sith) and gone along with being arrested, he could have made amazing scapegoats out of the Jedi.

'Engineering' the war took very little effort or force ability. The Senate was full of bullshit disagreements that any first year student of Machiavelli could have taken advantage of. He just stopped pretending because the writing was just that shit, and having normals simply murder the fuck out of them was apparently just that easy.

Palpatine without the force likely would have gotten away with the whole bag, because the only reason the Jedi gave any fucks at all was because Annie snitched on his stupid confession and they went on a Sith hunt. The only reason the jedi got involved in any of that crap was a mysterious dark force user jumped ol' Quaff Down Gin on Tattoine, and they collectively had a sithgasm.

[Mechalich]

'Kid you want me to free your mother? Nah, fuck slaves.'

You do know that Tatooine is in Hutt Space in Epsiode I right? That is not part of the Republic at all and that Qui-Gon has no legal authority whatsoever there? Qui-Gon tries, and fails, to bargain for Shmi Skywalker's release. That he chooses not to fight a war over slavery in the territory of a foreign power is one of the reasons why Jedi don't rule. If you put Jedi in charge of the Republic on Monday, they start a war with the Hutts on Tuesday.

'Kid, you love your mother? What kind of fucking monster are you? You'll certainly never be trained by us.'

Yes, because Anakin's failure to overcome the weight of emotional attachments could never possibly have bad consequences...oh wait...

Look there's a lot that can be said about the no attachments rule regarding Jedi, and indeed a lot that has been said, but Anakin Skywalker is the very last person who can be used as an argument against that ruling.

'Yeah, lady, your planet is being invaded? Yeah, so what? Politics, am I right?'

How many wars would you like the US military to intervene in tomorrow then? Syria? Ukraine? Against cartel and gang violence in Guatemala and Honduras? Perhaps you'd like to topple Kim Jong-Un, it's totally doable, so long as you're willing to accept a nuke hitting Seoul.

The Jedi are restrained by a non-Jedi civilian authority that limits their ability to act as moral crusaders. Qui-Gon Jin very much wants to fight a war for Padme Amidala, but he is not allowed to. As it stands he stretches the boundaries of his mandate as her bodyguard pretty far in the service of his ideals.

As for no tech skills... you're a moron. Annie and Luke are both super pilots because they're force sensitive, not bad pilots because they never had time to learn. On top of that, Annie is a super tech mechanic also. As far as is shown, force-people learn at absurd levels in absurdly short times, and can just innately be tech masters with no training at all, in addition to being skilled jedi.

Did I mention piloting? No, I did not. That's because, in Star Wars piloting is not portrayed as an intense technical skill but as a highly intuitive skill involving dexterity and special awareness in the vein of WWII fighter piloting - which is how fighter piloting is commonly portrayed in space opera anyway (Battlestar Galactica for one).

Yes Anakin is a highly skilled technician, of course he acquired those skills before he started his Jedi training and when it comes to his abilities rather than his emotional failings he's as Gary Stu as the universe needs him to be at any time, so that's not a very good example.

Many Jedi have valuable secondary skills. Obi-Wan is a talented diplomat, Palpatine had a masterful gift for politics, Revan was apparently charismatic as hell and a highly skilled strategic mind. This area is a weakness of Star Wars as it has often been handled very poorly - most recently with Rey, who tagged with accusations of Mary Sue status (which is a reach) across many sections of the internet after Force Awakens came out. Even so, it is one of the natural limits on Jedi abilities built into the setting - they are warrior monks, not scientists, slicers, merchants, explosives experts, farmers, or any other field.

No, Palpy became emperor because the Senate was corrupt and stupid, and employed painfully obvious political ploys. He was caught because he confessed his Sithness to Annie, who went to the council. Had he just played dumb (and continued to hide being Sith) and gone along with being arrested, he could have made amazing scapegoats out of the Jedi.

He confessed because the game was up and the secret was about to come out. Nute Gunray and the other surviving Separatist commanders (all those guys Anakin executes on Mustafar) had information in their possession that was capable of IDing Palpatine as Sidious in conjunction with the clues the Jedi already had. It was actually necessary for Palpatine to confront the Jedi before the war ended because otherwise Order 66 would not have been a viable plan and though he would have likely held Coruscant anyway it would have touched off a second galaxy-wide civil war.