Okay, So. The Senator's Speech. Here's Why I'm Okay With It: It Fundamentally Misunderstands The Worldbuilding

Okay, so. The senator's speech. Here's why I'm okay with it: It fundamentally misunderstands the worldbuilding of Star Wars and the Force, in a way that's reasonable for a senator to misunderstand. To say the senator is right, you would have to say that the entire foundations of the Force are wrong, as well as it's pretty laughable to say that you shouldn't control your emotions. "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." is pretty good advice and that's literally just "control your emotions, before they control you". Because that's how the Force works, it's based on the emotions you pour into it--if you don't control your emotions, then you will run wild and out of control. To say that the Jedi seek to control their emotions, which is an impossible thing to do, fundamentally misunderstands that it's entirely possible. This is a speech coming from a member of the Senate, which has historically not always had the purest motivations, that Padme and Bail and Mon are written specifically as a contrast to the vast majority of senators who don't actually care beyond their own desires. We don't know anything about this senator specifically, but that's the weight that comes with having a character like this introduced--especially one who is trying to drag the Jedi into being more politically bogged down. Because that's the solution he's suggesting here, to weigh the Jedi down with outside oversight that doesn't actually understand who they are or what they do, who fundamentally misunderstand who they are (they're not a religion? come on, my guy, they are very clearly a religion, they have specific beliefs, practices, rites, and attitudes, to say they're not a religion is either dumb as shit or malicious bad faith lmao) and is very clearly not interested in the Jedi beyond them being a political enemy of his. He says, "But it's only a matter of time before one of you snaps." as if the Jedi haven't existed for literally 20,000 years at this point in galactic history and been aligned with the Republic since it's inception, something like 900 years ago at this point. His speech acts like a Jedi has never gone bad before or that the Jedi pretend they're above it--they very much don't. The Jedi are constantly making a point about how no one is above the dark side within them (TCW has a whole scene where the High Council say not even Yoda is beyond the dark side, and Yoda straight up agrees immediately), to say that one of them will snap and "who will be powerful enough to stop them?" is deliberately ignoring the worldbuilding. It ignores what the Jedi actually practice (it's a lifelong challenge not to give in to anger, so they're constantly on the path to turn away from it), it ignores that emotions very much are controllable, it ignores that the Jedi Order has been keeping a handle on their shit for thousands of years at this point, and it ignores that there's dark siders out there that were never trained by the Jedi, so if the Jedi aren't around to stop them, the Sith would have been wrecking the Republic's shit for the last 500 years. To be fair, they don't know that (but we the audience do, so we should know a bullshit argument when we hear one), but "who will be strong enough to stop him"? Idk, maybe the rest of the level 100 psychic space wizard monks? Pretty sure there's enough of them to stop someone who "snaps", if that happens. The senator's speech just flat out doesn't work with the established worldbuilding, in a way that really works for me, because that's kind of a huge established point throughout just about every piece of canon with the Jedi in it--people just do not understand them and hate the idea that anyone might actually be truly good because they can't imagine it for themselves. Because, as is a theme in Star Wars: "As much as people loved the Jedi, they also hated them, on some level. It is hard to look at people who have become their best selves. It reminds you that you have not."

The senator cannot fathom the idea that a group of people could become their best selves, he doesn't believe that it's possible, because he has not achieved it, and so seeing it in others unsettles him. And, yeah, that's a whole thing that happens with the Jedi in Star Wars, so this speech made a whole lot of sense to me, especially combined with, "So the answer is more bogging them down in political oversight that does not bother to or even want to understand them?" Like, yeah, I see where you're coming from, sir. And that's not even touching the idea of calling the Buddhist-inspired religion (which the Jedi explicitly are) a "cult", because anyone who unironically says that should not be trusted.

This is why the Big Four were arguably better than BR could ever hope to achieve. You have innovation, you have pride in the workplace, in your job. You’re more likely to travel by train then you are by car if you lived when the Big Four were alive and well. I maintain that if BR had been a five year plan to get the railways back on their feet it’d be fondly remembered by the engines rather than disliked.

(I might also be saying this because of an absolutely stubborn person in a RP server I moderate in. He has this very 1955 mindset and just made OCs of mass-produced engines and gave them one emotion to go off of rather than actually flesh them out.)

What are Sir Topham Hatt’s (and the engines) opinion on how privatization was handled? When I read about it, I always think how absurd it was to keep the track nationalized, but let other companies run the goods trains, then different run the passenger trains. It is a spaghetti mess. Sodor had the right idea to yoink the old Furness mainline.

Thank you for your ask! (and I'm really sorry for the long wait). This is actually going to be really fun to potentially answer, so let's see...

Officially, the NWR regards privatisation as: "an important milestone in Britain's railway history and the beginning of cooperation between the NWR and our partner railways throughout Great Britain." It's a very prim and proper way of saying "the only thing that changed was the name of the idiot company that keeps delaying our trains." In private however, reactions were very, very different.

For a few engines, it meant very little: Thomas in particular barely cared at all. "What'll change? Not my branchline, that's for sure!" he once snapped at Duck when the Western engine tried to goad him into ranting with him about privatisation. Duncan said something very similar to a visiting diesel, only his version was far too inappropriate to be put in writing. Ever.

In stark contrast, a lot of the engines had very loud opinions about the entire thing. Duck spent most of one night trying to tell anyone who would listen that it was "disgraceful, disgusting and despicable" that the GWR hadn't been reformed after privatisation. (Henry, James and Gordon had to be physically restrained by BoCo and Bear before they tore Duck a new funnel for stealing their catchphrases). Donald and Douglas both tried to convince the Fat Controller to send them to London to 'politely make a case for a fully independent Scottish network'... multiple times. They also managed to say such inappropriate things that Oliver had to double-head all of Douglas' trains for a month to act as a censor for his language!

Gordon decided to offer the press his own solution to the privatisation issue, which went something like this: "What we need, is four companies to look after trains in different parts of the country - like we used to." "Like the Big 4?" "Indeed!" "We can't do that, such a system is considered to be a monopoly, and the government won't allow it." "Alright then, how about this: we have one railway that runs in the North and the East... and down to London perhaps. Then we can also have one railway that runs in the Midlands, and in Scotland... and also down to London perhaps, so you have your competition. Then we could have a railway that is in the West, and one in the South-" "Like the Big 4?" "No! These companies would be completely different!" "Look, Gordon, the government has made it very clear that the Big 4 will not return." "Well then FUCK JOHN MAJOR AND ALL THE TORY PARTY! [...] There would be competition anyway, with the roads, don't those blithering idiots understand?! [...] If any of them took a train for once, they'd realise just how bloody stupid the whole thing is, the bunch of------" (About twenty minutes worth of ranting has been omitted, due to various constraints...)

It was no surprise to anyone that Gordon personally campaigned for the Labour Party in 1997.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Sir Stephen Hatt and his sister Bridget were frantically pouring over the old charters of the NWR, hoping to be able to keep the new companies off Sodor - and indeed they found they could, as a 1925 Government deal originally intended to keep the NWR independent of the LMS also (entirely by accident) meant that no private, standard-gauge railway company other than the NWR could operate on the Isle of Sodor. Sir Stephen happily shoved that document in parliament's face when they tried to privatise the NWR's various assets, and then got his deal for the Furness Line from a different parliament committee before anyone could cross-reference him. By the time anyone managed to question why exactly they were selling an entirely railway line to a man who had very loudly told them to 'shove off and leave my railway alone', Sir Stephen had already taken control.

Their opinion: "Why treat a railway like its an airline? Honestly, it'll just wind up causing more problems in the end. A railway is a public good - yes, it makes us a lot of money, but we still run it for the people of Sodor, not for - no, we don't know why they divided British Rail like that, it makes no sense to us either - please stop asking more questions before we can finish our thoughts."

Also, a small rather large side note - Britain's railway privatisation is a complex and very unique affair that really showcases how exactly not to privatise a railway network. For example: for around seven years, the railway infrastructure was owned by a private company called RailTrack... which was terrible at doing its job and caused a number of major railway accidents (See Hatfield, 2000; Southall, 1997; Ladbroke Grove, 1999) and then panicked after the Hatfield crash and basically shut the network down, leading to questions over its competence and the finally its re-nationalisation because - surprise surprise - a private company trying to produce profits really shouldn't be in charge of the safety of millions of people with almost no proper accountability. Worse yet, the monopolies that the Tories wanted to avoid by breaking up the system happened anyway - see EWS, which bought up almost all the freight franchises and created a monopoly, only to be bought by Deutsche Bahn, which created an even bigger monopoly as it also owned (at the time) Arriva (they sold Arriva in 2024). To worsen the spaghetti, the system was divided into three basic sections: the infrastructure (RailTrack), Train Operating Companies (who owned the trains) and Franchises (who ran the trains and hired staff). In other words: a ticket in the UK is so expensive because you are paying for: the train crew, renting the train, renting the track, renting the platforms and producing profits for shareholders.

Oh, and suddenly freight and passenger trains owned by different companies are all competing to have priority at every. single. signalbox. in the country.

Now, I am not an expert in fixing extremely broken railway systems, but even still, I feel like I could probably do better than this mess!

Thank you for reading!

Okay, you know what? After reading this post, I jokingly said we should all just make a pact to reblog it five times a day forever. So I'm gonna do this louder for the people in the back:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

AO3 IS RUN BY FANS (VOLUNTEERS, NO LESS)

AO3 IS PART OF THE NON-PROFIT, ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS

AO3 IS NOT OWNED BY ANY COMPANIES AND DOES NOT EARN REVENUE

AO3 OPERATES ON DONATIONS FROM FANS

again:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

Intro

Heya, I’m Scottish Productions, he/him. I enjoy quite a variety of things but mainly TTTE. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on anything.

I've seen little about it so, Just an FYI what's been unfolding in England today. Far-right protestors are literally trying to kill asylum seekers in hotels.

In Rotherham, Yorkshire fascists have tried to set a hotel on fire with migrants staying there. Some signalling cut-throat gestures at the people staying in the rooms.

In Tamworth, Staffordshire the very same thing is happening. Another hotel has been set on fire with asylum seekers still inside alongside racist graffiti.

Other similar protests that are going uncountered are happening in Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Stoke-on-Trent and many more areas, chances are there will be one somewhere by you if things keep going the way they are. Nazis are literally strolling about unchallenged and these people are marching happily with them. There are more sensitive videos online which I won't share here but there are groups of nazis chasing down and circling black people in cities and beating them up, indian and chinese takeaways being targetted, turkish barbers being set alight and there have been incidents of muslims being assaulted and even stabbed.

BUT... There are success stories from UK cities where riots have failed due to no turnout or due to antifascists driving far-right pricks out of the city.

Cardiff, Wales - About 5 fascists turn up compared to 500 conuter-protestors. They failed to get anyone here despite trying two times.

Liverpool, Merseyside - A significant EDL mob is marched out of the city and fought against. Counter-protestors form a ring around a mosque being targetted.

Bristol, City of - antifascists block the entrance to a hotel that nazis are trying to get into as well as a fierce citywide push against the EDL and racism.

Nottingham, East Midlands - A huge antifascist counter protest outnumbers EDL and the far-right, preventing a riot from occuring.

There are many many more of these riots planned. If you're in the UK get organised and be prepared to fight alongside the people who make our communities stong and resiliant and make our country and cities a wonderful vibrant and friendly place to be. Help by whatever means you can. If you are not from the UK then please signal boost this because this needs to stop this nastiness from spreading and to make nazis afraid again.

Hi there 👋,

My name is Mohammad, and I’m reaching out in a moment of desperate need. I’m a father of three young children living in Gaza, and we are caught in the midst of a catastrophic war. Our home is no longer a safe haven, and the future here seems increasingly uncertain. 💔

I’ve launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $40,000 to relocate my family to a safer place where my children can grow up in peace and have a chance at a brighter future. 🕊️🇵🇸

Unfortunately, my previous fundraising efforts were abruptly halted when my account was terminated without explanation. However, I remain determined to keep fighting for my family’s safety and well-being. 🫶

If you could take a moment to read our story, consider donating, or simply share our campaign with others, it would make an incredible difference. Every act of kindness, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to safety and a new beginning. 🙏

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unfortunately i can not donate, but that doesnt meen i cant spread the word