News #54 - Why the Jedi are (probably) war criminals

Warning: if you're here for Star Wars content, it's very minimal.
This episode, we look at new releases from
Games Workshop
Corvus Belli
Kromlech
Heresy Miniatures, and
Anvil Industry
It's a sci-fi focus, in which I talk about the issues of equipping ultramodern, near future and sci-fi characters with melee weapons, like swords and axes and, yes, lightsabers. The issues are practical, mechanical and ethical.
I reflect upon how this feeds back to my own design work and on the forthcoming Kickstarter campaign.

[@DaiMongar]

I mean, Anakin performed a false surrender in the Clone Wars cartoon as well, so yeah, Jedi are 100% war criminals.

[@PrecinctOmegaWargaming]

Yeah, it's not exactly a hot take, I know.

[@exequielfri1352]

Well, lightsabers can cauterize at the same time that it's used to maim an aggressive enemy, effectively stoping any bleeding, allowing to keep that enemy alive for interrogation (I have my doubt about how a living humanoid can endure the shock of that kind of experience).

[@PrecinctOmegaWargaming]

"I have psychic powers that will allow me to harmlessly hold this person while I question them, but I think I'd rather just cut off their limbs." XD

[@exequielfri1352]

"because I will look cooler that way!"

[@PrecinctOmegaWargaming]

@@exequielfri1352 Cool... comes at a cost.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

Okay... Where do bayonets fit in this picture then? Does this make the British Army war criminals? Or is there a special dispensation for bayoneting the enemy? Cold steel, they don't like it up them, sir!

[@PrecinctOmegaWargaming]

Doctrine on bayonets is interesting. Fundamentally, it's mostly used as a psychological tool to prepare soldiers for CQB, but in almost all the assumption is that engagement will be with firearms and the bayonet is only to provide a tool for of a soldier is caught in the middle of changing magazines. No one with rounds to shoot would *choose* to stab the opponent with a bayonet. If they did then, yes, that would be a war crime.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

@@PrecinctOmegaWargaming Sure. So what about Mad Jack Churchill who went to war with a CLaymore and longbow in WW2.
The only reason I mentioning these exceptions is that I think they're edge cases that can be used to argue against the 'war crimes' assertion you made.

[@PrecinctOmegaWargaming]

@@ashley-r-pollard To suggest that the British were innocent of any war crimes in WW2 or conflicts since would be naive. But the victors rarely face justice. In Mad Jack's case, he was an eccentric but, even then, there is no evidence that he ever wielded either his sword or his bow in combat and although he landed with them on D Day, he no longer had them when he was later captured, suggesting that he had seen sense and realized that they were useless weight in a modern war.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

@@PrecinctOmegaWargaming I'm pretty sure I read that he used the longbow.
But that's not the point. Warcrimes are a legal construct of our Western sociopolitical systems.
I only have to point to ISIS/ISIL where Jihad justifies war. Therefore, we seem to agree that warcrimes are a thing, but it is dependent on assumptions.
So, with SW verse, no the Jedi aren't war criminals. There again they were pretty useless in preventing the Sith from destroying the republic.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

And to add for clarity. I'm not arguing that using light sabers now would not be a war-crime, but rather that in SW verse such things would not be considered war-crimes; given there's slavery, and droids have restraining bolts etc is a feature, not a bug.