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Star Wars X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble ends with captured X-Wing pilot Corran Horn and Imperial officer Ysanne Isard. The techniques Isard employs here, both subtle and overt, are but a glimpse into what will soon follow in Star Wars X-Wing: The Krytos Trap .
Before looking at the specific details from the text, let’s talk generally about the process of brainwashing. Brainwashing generally starts with psychological torture. The intent of psychological torture is to keep an individual off balance and to break their will and mind, to put a person under so much mental pressure that they become malleable. This is accomplished by putting the individual in a state of constant pain, fear, and general distress. They may be exposed to their greatest fears or drugs may be used to distort reality. Putting the subject in a room that is lit 24 hrs/day, for example, alters their perception of time, making the other torments seem to be never ending. Once the individual’s mind is broken, now the assailant has a fresh foundation for brainwashing.
Brainwashing is the process of remaking a person’s mind with the intent of being able to control both thoughts and actions. Once an individual has become so dehumanized, degraded, debased, and has so lost their sense of self, they are now susceptible to a gradual rebuilding into whatever their captor desires them to be.
One of the best ways to build these new beliefs is by connecting them to strong emotions so that it is harder to deprogram the subject at a later date (think Peeta in Hunger Games after he’s hijacked). Like with the breaking down, the rebuilding is entirely dependent on the inputs provided by the captor. It is now that the captor starts to feed a narrative to the subject using very specific language coupled with extreme repetition, and, depending on the end goal, other possible techniques. The captor’s general end goal in any case is to create a new reality with accompanying beliefs in which the subject will now function that gives the captor some form of control over the subject.
Now, let’s go thru the epilogue:
Corran has been kept forcibly unconscious for at least 4 days, presumably through the use of one or a cocktail of drugs being forced into his system. During this time, Isard has or could have:
- Moved Corran to wherever she likes,
- Perform any number of medical procedures or physical assaults,
- Emphasized that Corran no longer has personal agency. His desires and wishes will no longer be a factor is his fate,
- Made Corran reliant on her for his continued health. It is not to her advantage to have a healthy, alert Rebel pilot in her possession.
If there was a part of him that didn’t hurt, Corran Horn couldn’t name it .
- Suggests widespread physical injury or strain. After 4 days of forced“rest”, this is concerning.
His chief complaint came from his shoulders. He could feel the binders holding his arms at the small of his back constantly exerting pressure to pull his elbows closer together. They sheathed his arms in metal from fingertips to elbows and were the kind of restraints that had been outlawed for CorSec’s use.
- The restraints are causing significant pain. Long-term, this could result in long-term muscular and/or skeletal issues.
- The binders severely limit his range of motion and physicality. He is highly vulnerable and unable to defend himself.
- He is unable to use his hands or fingers.
- A restraining device would have been banned for CorSec’s use if they were (1) ineffective, (2) considered inhumane, and/or (3) cause lasting physical damage.
He found himself lying on his stomach in the dark on a thin cot of some sort .
- He has been moved without his knowledge or consent.
- In the dark, Corran cannot determine if he is alone or if his environment has any potential dangers.
- If left alone long enough, Corran could be forced to consider that he has been blinded.
- He’s in a prone position, his back exposed with no protection
He was naked, save for the binders, and the room was slightly chilled .
- Being stripped of clothing is incredibly dehumanizing. Without clothes, your status as a person has been taken from you. You are wholly exposed to whoever can view you. You are being denied anything to shield you from environmental or physical harm.
- Being naked makes you incredibly vulnerable and signifies a loss of control when the situation is an involuntary one; this vulnerability and loss of control, and the anxiety is causes, results in a loss of the ability to function logically and construct a mental resistance to physical torture. (Think of any dreams/nightmares you may have had where you were naked in a room full of people and the accompanying emotions.)
- The chilled room will cause growing discomfort the longer Corran is there. This will inhibit his ability to try to rest and slowly disturb his mental process.
A weak, barely noticeable vibration ran through the cot, producing a low hum that depending on how he turned his head, he could occasionally hear...the vibration suggested he was on a starship heading through hyperspace to some destination or other.
- Corran is still be moved against his will.
- The suggestion of hyperspace means that Corran could end up on a world he has never heard of, one hostile to the New Republic, or entirely unknown to most of the galaxy. His options for successful escape are diminishing with every moment.
Corran found his thoughts wandering, which made him think he’d been drugged.
- Severe reduction of mental faculties.
- Medical procedures have possibly been performed without Corran’s knowledge or consent.
The darkness and drugs kept him disoriented. His nakedness made him defensive -- or was supposed to. He recalled a CorSec training seminar about methods used by kidnappers to keep their victims off balance and was able to pinpoint himself as the subject of such treatment.
- Even though Corran understand the purpose and methods being deployed, he is not invulnerable to their effects.
He knew the Imps would be fleeing Coruscant…’If they are running, we won.’ He frowned. ‘But if we won, why am I their captive?’ ... He tried to remember what he could of his last moments on Coruscant...the ship flipped itself into a high g-force turn and he remembered nothing more. ‘Without acceleration compensation, I felt the full effect of the turn. Blood drained from my brain and I went out.’
- Corran has no idea how he came to be captured or who was involved.
- Loss of consciousness due to G-forces can have severe side-effects (symptoms based on G-force testing on Earth -- symptoms likely to be more severe in the SW universe):
- Disruption and potential damage to the circulatory system,
- Loss of blood and oxygen to the brain causing force disruption to one’s vision then loss of consciousness,
- Disruption to lung functioning,
- Musculoskeletal pain (usually confined to the back and neck),
- Small punctate bruises called petechiae from overwhelmed capillaries that rupture,
- Myoclonic convulsions and potential anemia once blood flow and oxygen are returned to the brain.
Lights flashed on brilliantly in an instant, stabbing forked pain into his brain .
- Suggests potential brain injury.
- More importantly it says they were watching. They probably had some sort of sensors setup to detect when Corran awakened. He sits up, they wait until he’s bent over and vulnerable from disorientation do to head rush, and then they throw on the lights in the middle of his weakness to induce fear and further push him off balance.
And now, key moments in the conversation between Corran and Isard:
“Ah, the infamous Horn wit.”
- Isard suggesting she has extensive intelligence on him and his family.
She brought her hands up and clapped gently. “I’m amazed a man in your condition can make jokes.” She squatted down and caught him across the face with an open handed slap he never saw coming. “I’m amazed a man in your situation would make jokes.”
- The open handed slap is meant to demean and humiliate him; it is the least physical harm she can do to him and he was powerless to stop it.
- She’s also calling his bluff; the humor is his attempt to construct a facade that projects him as being devoid of fear and discomfort; it is a projection of strength, and her reaction is all the proof she needs that at that moment he has none.
Corran played his tongue over his split lip. “Lieutenant Corran Horn, Alliance fleet, Rogue Squadron.”
Ysanne Isard stood again but he didn’t bother following her with his eyes. “Very good, defiance. I like defiance.”
- Shows she’s unconcerned with his lack of cooperation; she’s going to enjoy breaking him; all he shows her here is that he’s going to make this process interesting for her as opposed to a terrible bore; she is a sadist who enjoys stripping people to nothing.
“We are bound to Lusankya, my private workshop for people like you.”
- This isn’t a throw away comment or a simple answer to his question; she’s telling him she’s skilled at this, that she has all the right tools, and he already knows he is certainly not the first, and that those that came before him wreaked great havoc; she’s not just skilled; she’s successful.
This exchange here highlights everything discussed above
[Back and forth where Isard hints at the plague she engineered and left to infect members of the New Republic and the general population. Corran is disturbed but inclined to believe her. She then informs him that the man he has suspected of being a traitor has been arrested on charges of treason and murdering Corran.]
“I will return you to them after they have convicted and executed him. His wrongful death will gnaw away at consciences and undercut the Rebellion’s illusion of moral superiority.”
“I’ll tell them the truth.”
“The only truth you’ll know is the one I give you.” [Isard finished with triumphant statements about how she will turn and use Corran against the Alliance on behalf of the Empire.]
Sources
http://goflightmedicine.com/pulling-gs/
"Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control" by Kathleen Taylor