Free Star Wars on Trial by Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover

valid one.
    It is this last which We of the Defense will be attacking directly
    Why?
    Because we're the Good Guys, of course.
    Well, okay: that's a biased statement. But it's honestly biased. I openly admit that you (or, most particularly, the Sith L-um, Learned Opposing Counsel and his evil minions, er, witnesses) might have a different interpretation.
    Which might be equally valid.
    Hang on to that idea, too.
    Because what we'll be arguing here (with only a very few exceptions) will not be the facts of the case; those facts are on public display, in six films, dozens of cartoons, over a hundred novels and countless comic books. What will be argued here is the interpretation of those facts.
    What the Prosecution will attempt, in fact, is to control your interpretation of the facts.
    Why?
    Not because they're the Bad Guys (well, not just because they're the Bad Guys), but because that control is necessary to their case. They have to make you agree with their nasty-minded misinterpretationsI would say force you, but I won't sink to cheap puns. Very often.
    As soon as you start to think that other, alternate, innocent or even virtuous interpretations of the facts are available to you, their case falls to pieces. So their only option is to twist the facts-and when the facts cannot be twisted, there's only one avenue left.
    Mind control.
    Its an insidious game (in-Sidious, yes, I lied about the cheap puns)-for the need to control is the essence of the dark side-and it has already begun.
    Let's just take a quick look at Learned Opposing Counsel's opening statement for evidence of careful editing of reality to suit a dark agenda....

    For example, Opposing Counsel begins by insisting that Luke Skywalker, in his very first action as ajedi Knight, should have violated the most fundamental principles of the Jedi Order. Opposing Counsel will be satisfied only if Luke threatens Jabba the Hutt-bullies him into submission-rather than entering in peace, and offering even a crime lord a simple, straightforward opportunity to Do the Right Thing. Lukeentirely properly, consistent with his principles and those of the Jedioffers violence only in response to violence. Opposing Counsel, on the other hand, apparently would prefer Luke to have fallen to the dark side by the very first sequence of Episode VI.
    Not that I find this in any way suspicious, you understand.
    While we're at it, let's swiftly dispose of Opposing Counsel's fetish for the Other Franchise as well. Is it really necessary for us to remind the Court that these "closer to average" minor character types in the Other Franchise are statistically far more likely to be disposable cannon fodder than "heroes themselves"? Does Opposing Counsel expect us to believe he is unaware of the etymology and meaning of the SFnal expression redshirt? Does Opposing Counsel expect the Court to forget that-high-minded rhetoric notwithstanding-again, statistically speaking, this so-called Prime Directive has proven to be an SFnal Wicker Man, honored most when it must be burned down in the name of some "greater good"?
    Does Opposing Counsel expect the Court to ignore the plain fact that these Vessels of Civilization he so admires are, in fact, heavily armed warships? That for all its supposed role as a carrier of some theoretical democratic principle, the Enterprise is in fact an authoritarian state in miniature, a collective under the command of an absolute ruler-more often than not in a de facto condition of war.
    This is the truth of the ideal held before the Court by Opposing Counsel: lip service to principles more honored in the breach than in the observance, to create the illusion of democracy-which is actually supported by the suppression of individual rights, in an authoritarian regime justified by a semipermanent state of armed conflict.
    Let me remind the Court that the ship Opposing Counsel fetishizes is "vastly bigger, more complex, a veritable city cruising through space"-a city-ship, one