Tarkin, if ever there was a shred of humanity in you or these twisted creatures of yours, it's dead now. You're at war with life itself.
— Leia, radio adaptation of A New Hope
Moral Event Horizon in the Star Wars franchise.
Canon works
Films- In Revenge of the Sith, Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious crosses it when he orders the clones to execute Order 66, which involved the massacre of the Jedi and was the last step in his plan to becoming Emperor and thus starting his totalitarian reign of the galaxy.
- In Rogue One, Krennic cemented himself as an irredeemable bastard with his actions on Eadu. When informed that a spy has been leaking out data about the Death Star, Krennic holds Galen's engineering team at gunpoint and threatens to execute all of them unless any traitor confesses. When Galen reveals himself as The Mole and begs Krennic to spare the engineers, Krennic still executes them anyway just to spite Galen for his treachery.
- Perhaps one of the most famous crossings, Wilhuff Tarkin in A New Hope crosses it when he destroys Alderaan just to spite Leia. In-Universe, this event is seen as one for the Galactic Empire as a whole.
Animated series
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- Two contenders for General Grievous:
- In "Shadow of Malevolence", he cheerfully shows us what a nice guy he isn't when he orders the Malevolence to target harmless, fleeing escape pods.
- In "Massacre", Grievous outright commits genocide upon the Nightsisters of Dathomir, massacring all except for a handful without any reservations, and even targeting wounded or disarmed warriors.
- When it becomes clear that he's going to lose Ryloth in "Liberty on Ryloth", Count Dooku orders a scorched-earth campaign against the planet, just to send the galaxy a message about "the cost of a Republic victory". Wat Tambor also crosses it with that action, explicitly ordering the bombing of Twi'lek villages containing women and children, stating "the inhabited ones first."
- Cad Bane's first appearance has him shooting an unarmed hostage In the Back, then trying to blow up the Senate chambers with the hostages inside, even after getting what he wanted. Then, during the Holocron arc, he makes it pretty clear that he isn't friendly through torturing a Jedi to death and kidnapping infants.
- Two contenders for General Grievous:
- Star Wars Resistance: In "Rebuilding The Resistance", Commander Pyre orders the destruction of three shuttles containing unarmed recruits. Tam is not happy with this.
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch:
- Vice Admiral Rampart crosses this when he carries out Tarkin's orders to bombard Tipoca City, destroying all of the cloning technology and facilities there rather than allowing the Kaminoans to keep it, after stealing everything the Empire could use, including personnel, and leaving Crosshair to die in the process. It's unclear how many Kaminoans were killed, but given that the next episode reveals that every facility and city on Kamino was destroyed, this effectively makes Rampart responsible for carrying out a planet-wide Orbital Bombardment on an entire species.
- In his one and only appearance, Lieutenant Nolan, already a confirmed Jerkass who hates clones and prefers TK Stormtroopers, crosses over the line when he spitefully lets the fatally injured Commander Mayday die from his injuries, even after Crosshair begged him to help. Crosshair then angrily and justifiably executes him.
- In Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, it's shown that the moment Count Dooku truly became Darth Tyranus was his execution of Master Yaddle.
- Star Wars: Phasma
- Brendol crosses it when he bombards Parnassos and destroys any semblance of civilization still there, forcing Phasma to watch merely to show what happens to those who would dare to inconvenience him.
- It is up to debate which moment may serve for Phasma considering the amount of stuff she pulls out: arranging her own clan's and family's death; killing off the Scyre and her own brother without regret; abandoning Siv, who was always loyal to her, in a barren wasteland; murdering Frey, her own niece, just to get rid of witnesses or murdering Brendol Hux, the man that saved her from Parnassos and granted her a place in the First Order.
- Star Wars: Squadrons: Compared to older TIE Fighter games that had you quarrel with pirates and imperial warlords, the Imperial part of the campaign conquers that horizon proudly. The campaign starts out with you hunting down survivors of Alderaan, with other pilots pointing out that those refugees are obviously guilty of something because they hide among criminals from the Empire that's hunting them down. Later on, you get to carry out a diversionary attack to draw enemy forces away from the Nadiri Dockyards by attacking Mon Calamari. The attack starts simple enough against some fuel depots, but then moves on to civilian freighters and finally a medical frigate. Even Grey hesitates at this, but Kerrill assures him that it's only carrying supplies; no patients. Nevermind the actual medical staff or regular crew, or the fact she might be lying... fortunately, many civilian targets are optional objective and can be freely ignored, unless you care for 100% Completion.
Legends
Comic books- Star Wars: Darth Vader: Morit pushing Aiolin into lava, after she saved him from being killed in their fight with Vader. Both of them were plotting against each other, but Morit showed in this act to be far more cutthroat.
- Knights of the Old Republic:
- Issues 45 and 46 are this for Chantique. Before it was obvious that she wasn't exactly the most stable individual, but these issues showed just how depraved she really is. She mindrapes Zayne by showing him 1000 years of pain and suffering, forces him to fight the slave he befriended, mocks him when the slave commits suicide, and she keeps him alive just so that he can drive Jarael away. And it works, with Zayne failing to realize that he was deceived until it was too late. And she does it all to get revenge on Jarael.
- Also, the little surprise she prepared for her father Demagol. Just these words:
Demagol: "Where are the children? You said they were out here."Jarael:"You didn't pay attention. I said they were IN the courtyard" - Haazen crosses the horizon when we learn exactly why he warped the Covenant into knights templar, orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of people, and ruined Zayne's life- purely out of jealousy for Barrison Draay, who he already killed years ago. That Start of Darkness made Haazen a pathetic, strangely tragic figure - but it also prevented anyone from sympathizing with the present Haazen again.
- Raana manipulating Shel into trying to kill Zayne. After that pretty much any sympathy the audience had went out the window.
- Issues 45 and 46 are this for Chantique. Before it was obvious that she wasn't exactly the most stable individual, but these issues showed just how depraved she really is. She mindrapes Zayne by showing him 1000 years of pain and suffering, forces him to fight the slave he befriended, mocks him when the slave commits suicide, and she keeps him alive just so that he can drive Jarael away. And it works, with Zayne failing to realize that he was deceived until it was too late. And she does it all to get revenge on Jarael.
- Star Wars: Legacy:
- Darth Krayt, in a fit of temper after losing an important shipyard, orders ten percent of the Mon Calamari species executed on the spot and the rest imprisoned in camps to be worked to death. Even the other Sith thought it was a bit much. As for the reader...
- Vul Isen crosses it when he wipes out 80% of the population of Dac. Not to mention his poisoning of Da Soocha for harboring Mon Cal refugees.
- Roan Fel may have very well crossed it. He decided to have Darth Maladi create the Alpha Red (actually Omega Red) bio-weapon so he can use it on Coruscant. In exchange, he has her released so she can try to kill Cade.
- Star Wars: Republic: Sheyf Tinté betrays Quinlan's parents to the Anzati and forces him to use his psychic powers to relive their deaths because she believes it will prevent the Jedi from taking him to Coruscant.
- Darth Caedus, the villainous Jacen Solo, was apparently intended, to be morally grey at first, sliding down into worse and worse acts of Necessary Evil until the Evil overwhelmed the Necessary. It didn't really turn out like that, considering what he did, including fridging his own aunt, bombarding throwaway planet Fondor after they had already surrendered, and lighting decidedly NON-throwaway planet Kashyyyk on fire from orbit. Fans lost all sympathy for him long before this was intended to happen.
- Interestingly, what his family considered to be his Moral Event Horizon was comparatively minor, using a Nightsister Blood Trail to track Jaina to the Jedi's secret base.
- In-universe by Sith standards, his MEH would be killing Mara Jade. It cements his commitment to the dark side via sacrificing something he loves and only after does he take his Sith name. Also it's a safe bet that any fans left by that point would surely desert.
- We have an in-universe example with Kyp Durron, a young Jedi who in the Jedi Academy Trilogy gets influenced by an ancient Sith spirit to steal a superweapon out of the heart of the local gas giant and go on a spree with it, causing supernovas which kill the populations of various planets. He then flies to a training camp planet supporting about twenty-five million people where his brother had gone to train, was told by an Obstructive Bureaucrat that his brother had been killed during this training, and fired a nova-causing missile at the sun. Then it turned out that the bureaucrat had simply lied, and the brother was flown over to try and stop him, but it was too late; the only survivor in the system was Kyp, safe in his superweapon. Later the main characters found him and convinced him to stick the superweapon into a black hole, which almost resulted in his death; instead he lived, recovered, and went back to training at the Jedi Academy. Because the worlds he'd killed had been Imperial worlds, and he felt bad about killing his brother, and he'd supposedly been possessed by a 4,000 year old Dark Lord who made him do it, all was forgiven. Later books called him on it and called it hard. He'd been influenced, not possessed, or he would have actually killed Luke Skywalker instead of knocking him out. These had still been people who, as the Fix Fic type novel I, Jedi says, had had nothing in any reality to do with him. It became something he could never live down, sometimes making him The Atoner, sometimes making him tired of being reminded of something he did as a teenager when he was in his forties, trying to be a respectable member of the Jedi Council. Some characters are never able to forgive him.
- Thrackan Sal-Solo crossed the horizon in the eyes of the peoples of the Corellian system, especially the Selonians, by holding his first cousins once removed hostage (as leverage on their mother, the Supreme Chancellor) and then trying to vape them. note
- The destruction of Alderaan is an in-universe Moral Event Horizon for a number of characters. It caused a lot of Imperials to defect to the Rebellion, which even before then was largely composed of people who had been Imperial citizens or soldiers at some point. They accepted this new influx, even knowing that some of these ex-Imperials had fought against and killed them. After that, though, ex-Imperial recruits were regarded with more suspicion, many Rebels wondering why they hadn't left the Empire earlier, like right after the news about Alderaan got out. Staying in the Empire's service became a subjective Moral Event Horizon; the longer someone had been with the Empire after Alderaan, the less moral they were seen to be.
- This is a plot point for how other characters treat Baron Soontir Fel in the X-Wing Series, who left almost a year after the Emperor died, and who had been the Empire's most dangerous pilot in that year. Wedge Antilles trusted him instantly, and a pilot who had survived being shot down by him similarly welcomed him, but almost everyone else either was slow to warm up to him or outright refused to trust him. He killed too many Rebel pilots and didn't see what kind of monster he served until far too late.
- In Star Wars: Allegiance, we see that while the viewpoint stormtroopers were just as shocked by the reports as anyone else, official Imperial policies were confused, some saying that the Death Star had been hijacked by Rebels, some saying that the planet had been populated by Imperial sympathizers, some saying that Tarkin had gone power-mad. Sure, the Rebellion had its own claim, but the Rebellion was a terrorist organization, and while they were starting to think that the Empire had some deep flaw, they didn't see any better alternative. Until their unit was sent to slaughter a village, and later one of them was threatened by an officer because he aimed to miss unarmed civilians.
- In Death Star, we have a personal example in Tenn Graneet, head gunner on the titular superweapon, who for most of the novel has his character built up. He always thought the Death Star would never really be used on a living planet, just on really big ships and bases and the like. When it comes to it, he follows orders. He realizes that as word gets around, even people serving with him on the Death Star treat him strangely, and knows that someday everyone will know, and everyone will loathe him as both the biggest mass murderer of his or possibly any time, and as someone who always, always followed orders. Unusually, and unlike Tarkin, who gave the order, he sees his action as a Moral Event Horizon, thinking that they would be right to hate him and one day kill him. The guilt doesn't let him sleep, and he knows he will be commanded to do worse — if he doesn't he'll just be killed for disobedience and they will get another gunner and he will do it — and, when they are in range of Yavin and his hand is at the final button, he desperately stalls while telling everyone to "Stand By," hoping that something would happen to stop him. And it did. Poor bastard. If he ever had a chance at redeeming himself, this would be it—his successful attempt to stall the destruction of Yavin long enough to allow Luke Skywalker to blow up the Death Star would be a spectacular example of Redemption Equals Death.
- In Fate of the Jedi, Daala initially seems fairly reasonable — wrong, but reasonable — about the Jedi and their role in the Galactic Alliance, especially considering the actions of Jacen Solo. She even shuts down her "Jedi Court" when the parents of one of the Jedi that went berserk revealed that its head judge was using the imprisoned Jedi as wall art. Then, in Allies, she attempts to force the Jedi to bend to her will and surrender all Jedi that have snapped (despite the Jedi Temple being far better equipped to hold a mad force user.) by laying siege to the Temple with a Mandalorian battle fleet, with orders to "do what is necessary." The Jedi respond by sending out the Grand Master's personal assistant, a young apprentice (on the grounds that nobody could possibly misconstrue it as an attack, but she has the standing in the Order to show good faith), wearing no armor, carrying no weapon, intending only to negotiate. The Mandalorian commander, after ascertaining that she is neither of the Jedi he was sent to "arrest," calmly informs her that "My orders make no provision for negotiation" and pulls out his sidearm and shoots her down without warning. He then proceeds to announce that if the mad Jedi are not turned over promptly, he will order his fleet to vaporize the temple, and that anyone who tries to leave will be slaughtered without warning. Daala's response, on seeing the LIVE BROADCAST TO THE GALAXY, in which troops operating under her direct orders shot a teenaged girl down in cold blood and then threatened to massacre thousands of people? "Good. Now they should take me seriously." These words make her administration look like a terrorist organization.
- Also, Ascension contains a rare example of a character crossing their own Moral Event Horizon. After several books of UST, Vestara Khai finally starts a relationship with Ben Skywalker and expresses interest in turning to the Light Side. Later in the book, she, Ben, and a Mauve Shirt are sent on a mission, during which an alien predator goes after Ben. Vestara saves him by feeding the Mauve Shirt to the monster. This causes her to label herself as irredeemable.
- The Yuuzhan Vong race in the New Jedi Order series goes about crossing the MEH wantonly. Aside from the killing off of many major characters, some of their things involve going against their word and destroying a planet's ecosystem despite losing a contest for its fate, intentionally attacking/destroying civilian targets in order to burden the New Republic with billions of displaced refugees, spreading a lethal disease among civilians, breeding a toxic animal specially designed to butcher Jedi, and butcher hundreds of Jedi, many young adults and teens, sacrifice millions to their Gods, as well as horribly mutilating and exploiting anyone who joins up with them. By the end of the four-year-long war, the Vong had sadistically and brutally murdered 365 trillion people, the bulk of whom were presumably civilians.
- Joruus C'baoth cements his status as an Ax-Crazy monster when he Mind Rapes General Covell into a mindless extension of his own will, and reveals his plan to do the same to the rest of the Empire.
- The original C'baoth has a more mundane one- Force choking Thrawn after the latter disables his ship. Though things had been getting increasingly worse that moment is described as his true fall to the dark side.
- In Star Wars Revan, it's quickly established that the Sith Emperor was a really bad guy and he does a lot of horrible things. But the sole defining moment? He kills T3-M4 by vaporizing him. He does this right in front of Revan, making Revan watch as he murders one of his closest friends out of sheer spite.
- Darth Bane trilogy:
- Path of Destruction: A couple to choose from, depending on your point of view. Bane realizing he killed his father via the dark side strips him of the Force for a time. Killing rival apprentice Sirak is probably the most mundane example though it is presented as the moment Bane fully embraces the dark side. Killing an entire family including children and leaving the father for last just so he can feed on his suffering is probably the top contender. Though the thought bomb could also count- betraying his allies and dooming the souls of all the Sith and a hundred Jedi to thousands of years of unspeakable, unending agony.
- Rule of Two: As Bane's apprentice Zannah also gets her pick: using Sith sorcery to drive a woman completely insane so that she tears her own eyes out until her consciousness is completely shredded aside from a small part that lives on in a corner of her mind to be tortured by subconscious fears for the rest of her life. And all that for simply having romantic relations with a past lover (whom Zannah was merely using anyway). Or more likely, brutally slaughtering Caleb after the latter healed her master and using the aforementioned spell on her own cousin so he would take the rap with the Jedi, thereby concealing the existence of the Sith.
- Dynasty of Evil: Serra, Caleb's daughter haunted by memories of Bane and the grief of being recently widowed spirals down into darkness culminating in capturing Bane and using her father's knowledge to chemically imprison and torture him. Only realizing what she's done after her best friend is murdered she accepts her fate with her father's stoicism and is killed by the Huntress.
- Darth Malgus despite his obvious commitment to the dark side, conflict and destruction crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he kills his lover Eleena for being his weakness. Ironically it's a Jedi avoiding that same pitfall that causes him to do this. Aryn Leneer, seeking revenge for the death of her Master plans to kill Eleena to hurt Malgus, but pulls back at the last second realizing what it means. This forces Malgus to acknowledge that his love can be used against him and in true Sith fashion kills the last good part of him.
- In the new Star Wars canon novel A New Dawn, Count Vidian crosses it by throwing one of his subordinates in a vat of acid for questioning him. His attempt to destroy a planet's moon simply to take down a business rival only cements this crossing.
Video games
- In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, right after you decide to follow the Dark Side path, the game makes it plain what an ultimately depraved monster you have chosen to become by allowing you to Force Persuade Zaalbar to kill Mission, his best friend, because she refuses to either join you or run away to save herself, and she's too nice to be brainwashed into going Sith herself. And Bastila compliments you for it. Mission is a 14-year-old orphan girl who by this point in the game has not only helped save your life at least twice but whom you've taken under your wing as a surrogate daughter, and who at this point in time is the only member of your party still believing that you can be turned back to the Light Side. You get to hear her anguished cries of betrayal and disappointment as she dies.
- Saul crosses it pre-game when he bombarded Carth's home planet. He was Carth's trusted mentor and friend, and he made the decision to kill his family.
- Malak uses it as an Establishing Character Moment by ordering the wholesale orbital bombardment of Taris just because he's impatient, killing billions of people just because it's taking too long to search for Bastila. Not only are we talking total sociopath, but someone who is a textbook case of wasteful villainy. It says a lot that the fellow above voices an objection to the order.
- If Chuundar didn't cross it selling his political opponents into slavery to shore up his position as Chieftain, then he's crossing it by imprisoning his brother, Zaalbar. And if that isn't enough of a line cross ordering the party to go and kill their father completes a trifecta of "this guy is a dirtbag."
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords allows the players to do many horrible things to NPCs, but killing one of the three Jedi masters you spend the game searching for is considered this. Towards the end of the game, the surviving masters will gather and confront you in one location. If a single Jedi master were killed, the rest will consider you Beyond Redemption and attack you, forcing you to kill the rest as well. In other words, killing one locks you into killing all of them, effectively putting you on the dark side path. If you did not kill any of them, Kreia will still do it in your place.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Emperor Valkorion and his Big, Screwed-Up Family have crossed this in a nutshell.
- Valkorion treated his sons like dirt and mind-raped his daughter until one of his sons rebelled and murdered his twin just in time for their little sister to commit genocide. All so they would become psychotic, flawed heirs for someone to usurp in his name. When the player character learns of the second one, they can comment that this is a new low for a planet eater.
- Arcann glassed five planets. Because he "wanted someone, nobody in particular, to squeal about some secret, infantile organization that almost nobody in the galaxy knew about". Even he doesn't think he can atone for all that he's done if he's "redeemed" and joins the Alliance.
- Vaylin mentally re-enslaved an entire species months after they gained free-willed sentience. And then ordered one of them to murder another as a test run because she was impatient. And then she murdered the technician who helped her with the mind shackles for good measure.
- Star Wars Radio Dramas: Grand Moff Tarkin easily crosses this when he orders the destruction of Alderaan, resulting in many innocent people dying. Leia is forced to watch the destruction of her home planet before her very eyes, and she even points out that this was the moment that Tarkin lost all humanity he may have had.
