Last week I noticed that several of our major news media - the FAZ and the SZ, who are our equivalent to the Washington Post and the New York Times, basically - did major stories about the My Lai Massacre, due to the anniversary. Whereas I didn't see anything in my admittedly limited look at the US media, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it's entirely possible that I missed several articles.

Now, given all that's happening in the US in the present, I'm aware there's no lack of stories about current day calamities. However, I couldn't help but feel reminded of something someone in my circle observed a while ago: the sense that the Vietnam War, which used to be very present in (American as well as non-American) pop culture when I grew up in the 80s, seems to have all but disappeared. And I can't help but speculate, and connect it with a couple of things. 9/11 being one of them. (Which reminds me: the NY Times last week also had an enraged opinion piece by an Iraqui writer on it being the 15th anniversary of W's invasion of Iraq. Someone in the comments observed on the depressing fact that according to current day polls, a lot of US citizens seem to think Saddam had something to do with 9/11. This despite the fact this was one lie too big even for Dubya and his neocons, who stuck to non-existent weapons of mass destruction back in the day. It's not like Saddam is lacking in villainous deeds to be blamed for, but not this one.) And because in recent weeks I finished my Star Trek: Enterprise marathon, my brain made some weird connections, to wit:

1) The Xindi arc in s3 of ENT was an obvious attempt to grapple with 9/11 in fiction. (And the result was, err, less than stellar storytelling.) S4 offered something a bit more nuanced in the form of the the Vulcan three parter. By which I mean that wereas the Xindi arc started by Earth attacked out of the blue by a previously unknown race (who, as it turned out, themselves were manipulated into doing it) , and our heroes deciding that the Jack Bauer way of morality was the way to go, the Vulcan trilogy, written by the Garfield-Stevenses of many a TOS novel fame, had the Vulcans Command dominated by a guy who clamed that the Andorians were in possession of a weapon of mass destruction and that totally asked for a preemptive strike at Andoria. Rather satisfyingly, it ended with the guy in question being deposed and Vulcan society undergoing a moral reformation. But then, it was clearly fiction.

2.) Another attempt to deal with the emotional impact of 9/11 by then ongoing genre shows that I can recall were, of course, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (the scene of the pilots touching the photos of people who died during the Cylon attack on the colonies was meant as a direct evocation, for example).

3.) And then there was the (in)famous review of the newly released The Two Towers in TIME Magazine by Richard Schickel which read the movie as basically Saruman = Osama bin Laden, Aragorn's speech to Theoden = directed at nations unwilling to back the US in its Iraq venture, which enraged Viggo Mortensen to no end. (He wrote a letter of protest to TIME and showed up in every public appearance he had to promote the movie wearing a T-Shirt saying "no blood for oil".)

What all these attempts and interpretations have in common is this: in all of them, the society coded as "us" (as in "the US") is the attacked-by-overwhelming-forces plucky little guy. I mean, technically you couild argue the humans of the twelve colonies on BSG outnumbered the invading Cylons, but the Cylons, at least at this early point in the show, were presented as technically superior and as the relentless hunters whereas the humans were on the run and fleeing, definitely outmached in weaponry. Not a single one of them has the society/group the audience is supposed to identify with as a superpower outmatching their attackers in weaponry, numbers and economic strength. And most definitely not as a superpower with a history of invasions of its own.

Partly I suppose this is because everyone wants to see themselves as the little guy, the plucky rebel/victim of injustice, and not as The Man defending the status quo. But part of it... well, this brings me back to where I started, the My Lai Massacre and all it symbolizes, the Vietnam War. Because my current interpretation is this: the story the Vietnam War told for a while, in the 70s and 80s, was unbearable post 9/11. It amounted to: the US fought a war which not only it did not win but lost both in the moral and the pragmatic sense. None of the aims it set out to achieve was in fact achieved; the end result was Vietnam as a Communist state. In the process, the image of "defender of the free" etc. was torn to shreds; instead of GI's storming the Beach of Normandy, the enduring iconic image was of a naked little girl running because she got bombed with Napalm, instead of flags being put into the sand of Iwo Jima, you got "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" as a summary of US military strategy, between Johnson and Nixon, both parties in a two party system were tainted by leading this war (and lying about it to the public). It was all for worse than nothing. The US soldiers killed for nothing and were killed for nothing. They got addicted to drugs and committed massacres for nothing. Now you can do the Rambo thing and get a still pleasing to to conservatives story of a brave soldier/brave soldiers let down by their government during and after the war in question, yet good by themselves. You can try the "a few rotten apples" explanation for the likes of My Lai. But by and large, you're still left with: the war was lost on every level it could be lost, and nothing good, no grand final justification came out of it. And that's just completely alien to the narrative US Americans are taught about themselves.

Mind you: there's a sci fi saga created at the time in which the narrative "we" and "us" are in fact a superpower, involved in a conflict with what appears to be an inferior foe under false pretenses, a republic which is rotting from within though there are also people in it who do live according to their ideals. A story with heroes who make moral compromises which end up making everything worse, not better, and with a central character who might start out as an innocent thinking the task of his chosen profession is to free people but who ends up committing massacres....why yes, I'm thinking of the Star Wars Prequels. Which have their flaws, sure enough. But in this, they have a bit more narrative honesty than all those other reflections. (Also more than the sequels who avoid the inconvenience of having to depict main characters defending a functioning state and the status quo by destroying the new Republic off screen and presenting its heroes in a brand new rebellion against a superior foe.)

And since I'm ending on a Star Wars note anyway: my favourite WIP has been finished as of last week. I've reccommended it here before, despite usually avoiding WiPs, because it's that good an AU, encompassing Prequel and OT era alike. It uses its time travel element at the start not as a cheat but as a great way to explore the characters, because Vader regretting Padmé's death and his own physical state and wanting to change this isn't the same as Anakin being redeemed, the way Anakin later, at a point when he thinks he's escaped his past, gets confronted with what he did in both the original and the altered time line is enough to satisfy the strictest critic, Leia-as-raised-by-Anakin-and-Padmé is both intriguingly different and yet recognizably herself and has a heartrendering, fantastic arc once she finds out about certain things, Luke is the most humane character as he should be, there's Ahsoka to make my fannish heart happy, and while I'm usually not really into the EU bookverse characters, the way this story uses Mara Jade is awesome. (Especially an angle which the novels she hails from to my knowledge didn't consider, to wit, that she and Anakin share the experience of being groomed by Palpatine from childhood onward.) In conclusion: it's a long tale, but so worth it.


Out of the Dark Valley (324646 words) by irhinoceri
Chapters: 53/53
Fandom: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Ahsoka Tano, Mara Jade, Original Female Character(s), Han Solo, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Barriss Offee, Yoda (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Skywalker Family Feels, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Padmé lives!, minor ahsoka tano/barriss offee, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travel Fuck-It-Up-Again, Family Drama/Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Ensemble Cast
Summary:

15 years after the events of RotS, Darth Vader discovers a way to time travel backwards through the Force, to the moment in his past he most regrets. This creates an alternate timeline where he has the opportunity to change his and Padmé's tragic fate. But reliving the past and making a new future will prove to be no easy task, and the sins of the father will have lasting effects on the next generation. (AU from Mustafar onward. Ensemble PoV featuring Anakin, Padmé, Obi-Wan, Luke, Leia, and Mara Jade. Skywalker family focus with mild Anidala and LukeMara elements. Background Barrissoka. Rated T for violence and dark themes.)