rufusluciusivan wrote: Wed May 21, 2025 6:41 amGiven how corrupt, power-hungry, and violent most of the Empire's leadership is, the best way to give it more nuance is indeed to explore the mindset and adventures of the people who genuinely believed in its ideal of Order. This series strikes me as rather light-hearted in its themes (key word being rather, of course, the prologue is quite brutal) and apparently will focus on those "drills", so hopefully Satine won't be in for a brutal awakening. Like being sent to "pacify" civilians. Or do some ethnic cleansing. Of planet-wide extermination via Death Star. (Gosh, Star Wars is so dark when you think about it more than two seconds...)Stormtrooper1990 wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 7:32 pm Satine herself is not your average Imperial. She's isn't a racist and doesn't seek fame or influence like so many of her fellow Imperials, but instead is a true believer in the Imperial cause. She sees the rebels as cruel terrorists, who want nothing but chaos. If her work prevents the Rebels from infiltrating Imperial bases then all the better. Plus, she's a reference to the Clone Wars Series; her name was inspired by Duchess Satine Kryze, the ill fated ruler of Mandalore, Obi-Wan's love interest and older sister to a certain Bo Katan Kryze who has also featured in one of my stories.
Noticed she shared a name with Duchess Satine, but since the two characters were a lot different lore-wise and personality-wise, I thought it was a coincidence.
Personally, Satine brought to my mind Natasi Daala, from the old Expanded Universe - a woman fiercely loyal to the Empire instead of her own ambitions. Still remember that scene in Darksaber in which she kills all the petty Imperial warlords and take control of the Imperial Remnants because she can't trust them to forget about their ambitions and actually work together.
"Enough! I didn't want to rule. I had no intention of becoming a political leader. I wanted to crush the Rebels instead—but you give me no choice. I cannot leave the Empire in the hands of fools like you."
Though Satine strikes as miles more level-headed and capable than Daala ever was...
You've hit the nail on the head, that's exactly what I want to explore with this series. Speaking as someone who's a fan of the Empire, I have long believed that the Empire has long been misrepresented and thought it high time to explore the psychology of a true believer like Satine. True, many of the Imperial leadership are corrupt and self serving (like the Senators of the Old Republic), but for every ten of those there had to have been those who believed in the Imperial ideal of Order. And if you've watched Andor, it reveals that the Empire weren't the only ones who were self serving and violent.
With the series in general, Satine will just stick to being sent to do these unannounced inspections and won't be sent to anywhere like Ghorman. However, in the next mission she'll get the opportunity to arrest a very infamous rebel cell, on the planet Lothal. But events like Ghorman will be in the background and Satine will share with Cora her thoughts about how the Empire is playing straight into the rebels hands and should focus more on combating the rebel scourge and winning hearts and minds. She will lament the loss of life but her faith in the Empire will remain unshakeable.
The prologue's brutality is to highlight what made Satine into the true believer she is in 6 BBY and that the rebels are not entirely the paragons of virtue we make them out to be. Indeed, Saw Guerrera was a cruel terrorist and a murderer who often killed civilians during his attacks and murdered Imperial officers in front of their families and tortured imperials like Satine just because he could( tactics reminiscent of the IRA or Al Qaeda but thats a whole different story). And it will get darker in Chapter 2, as the prologue there will explore how she killed to escape and also the horrific fate of her squad mate Jan, which will turn her into that true believer.
Well the name is all she has in common with Duchess Satine, the two couldn't be more different both in terms of lore and personality. I was inspired by the name and character so decided to use it. In fact Satine's personality and capability was inspired by Lieutenant Mira in the series Andor, who was an example of a true believer.
Even though I have never read the old expanded universe graphic novels, I do remember Daala and I would say that Satine shares her loyalty and devotion to the Imperial creed, but has you rightly pointed out she is more level headed and skilled then Daala ever was. For Satine her goal is to restore Order in a galaxy gone mad, which reflects the true mission statement of the Empire. And reading that passage from Daala has given me an idea that in one of the series, I will have Satine go up against an Imperial officer who is the antithesis of herself.