Benn Gleck: The Calamari Are the End of the Rebellion

Senior Outer-Rim Analyst Benn Gleck explains why the Calamari Revolt will ultimately be the downfall of the Rebellion.

HNN Senior Outer Rim Analyst Benn Gleck writes an open letter to HNN readers/watchers/listeners. He explains why the revolt of the Mon Calamari tells us what we already knew.

Dear loyal citizens of the Empire,

The revolt of the Mon Calamari tells us all we need to know about the Rebellion and the rest of the Outer Rim.

With that source of lies and spin - Alliance "Free" News - reporting that the Rebellion will support the Calamarians' quixotic quest for autonomy, we see that they will always put the needs of aliens before the needs of humans.

But that's good news too, because it means that they will ultimately fail.

Sure, these Mon Calamari are cute with their decadent arts and bulbous protrusions on their ships, but these are distractions. The Empire, being pragmatic and not wasteful of its citizens' tax credits, knows that form must follow function, and not be splurged on pretty shapes.

But that's not all.

The other benefit is that while some of the Rebellion is human, it's slavishly beholden to the alien interests that used to plague the Republic. Because they're always trying to be 'inclusive' of the aliens, at some point they also like to have those aliens make decisions. That's going to be their downfall.

Humans are the dominant species of the galaxy - always were; always will be. Whenever you have a situation, like under the diminishing days of the Republic when aliens grew too big for their britches, you will see resources moving from hard-working humans to artsy-fartsy lazy aliens. That's not sustainable, and it will ultimately fail the way that civilization has always had a hard time in the Outer Rim.

And in a situation when you're facing the might of the Imperial Navy, Army, and Stormtrooper Corps, you don't have the luxury to embrace the artsy-fartsy ways that these Calamarians just can't live without.

Also, The denizens of Dac - the Quarren and the Mon Calamari - are just sea creatures. They barely know how to stand on their own two feet because they're so used to being carried around by water all the time. And water is nothing like space. If you really want to know how to win a war in space, you have to be a species that brought galactic civilization to the stars - humans - not some species that was dragged into the space age like recalcitrant children, the way that the Mon Calamari and the Quarren were.

Which brings me to the point of it being both Mon Calamari and Quarren.

Apparently neither of these species had the wherewithal to wipe the other species off the planet in their formative stages. That speaks to their lack of native martial prowess, but it also means that as a world, they're not going to have the stick-to-it-ness that they would need to hold off the Empire's superior capabilities and decisiveness. Whenever you have multiple voices involved in the decision-making, the way we had under the Republic Senate, you're going to have compromise and vacillating, and that's just no way to win a war.

So, there you have it. While some think that these luxury star cruisers that the Mon Calamari build will be an asset to the Rebellion, before you know it, their slavish political correctness for aliens, the Calamarians' wasteful decadent ways, and the Quarren's quarrelsomeness are going to hasten the Rebellion's demise.