Ranma Al'Thor wrote:

It is difficult for me to give this story anything resembling a fair
appraisal because I fundamentally disagree with the central concept of the
story, that humanity needs human evil to thrive and advance.  This is not
a philosophical discussion list, however, so I will refrain from arguing
this point, as all we would likely do is bite each other's heads off and
not convince each other.  If the author or anyone else wants to argue this
point in private with me, I'd be happy to, but...

I can't remember which philosopher suggested that "There is no vice which is
not a virtue in moderation and there is no virtue that does not become a 
vice in excess."  In real life I find that reasoning appealing.  Of course
in real life "evil" is not a thing that can be detected, measured, and
experimented with.  

However, one notes that even the end of Sailor Moon suggested that attempts
to achieve perfect order were bound to backfire.  The real question, of course
is whether Serenity's "purification" of the world constituted such an attempt.
Some people have portrayed Crystal Tokyo as a "true Utopia" free of all manner
of ills, but so far as I know, we are not actually given that much information
about what life and people in the future are like.  

One minor point:  In the canon, the purification takes place AFTER the
Earth has been frozen over and previous civilizations destroyed.

Ah.  I was uncertain of that, which was I broke off my little spamfic at
that point.  Of course, perhaps that was enough talking anyway.  
However, there are some problems with that approach.  Assuming that the
Black Moon clan are descended from exiled rebels against Serenity, it
works better if they are exiled before the ice.  That gives them a 
thousand years to grow in power and craziness before they have to take
Earth on.  Otherwise they have no more than a couple of generations.

I'd suggest changing all the 'Why do you fight Serenity' scenes into
larger scale flashbacks to actually show why they fight Serenity, instead
of a series of repetitive 'question/responce' dialogues.  They also need
to make more of a sense of individuality come through; too many of the
people don't give much of a sense of being different from each other,
although I recognize that in a short story, it's hard to put a lot of
difference between the characters if you have a lot.

That would be interesting.  The author was of course more interested 
in getting across the reason why _he_ would fight Serenity's regime than
in showing a wide range of perspectives on the subject.  For this reason,
the only person we get to really understand is our philosophical Captain
Dumond, and his reasons are so abstract that they would not really be 
amenable to revelation via flashback.  

As the old adage puts it, 'Show, don't tell'.

The real problem with this story is that it is too preachy, and the
Black Moon Forces are too noble.  Let's face it, a large percentage of any
force which is going to fight for the right of evil to exist should
consist of evil bastards who are fighting Serenity because they know
she'll toast them.  People who write these 'humanity loses by losing its
dark nature' rarely actually GIVE a dark nature to the defenders of the
right to be evil.  Where's all the corporate leaders who got to the top on
a figurative trail of bodies and don't give a damn who suffers, but can't
stand the thought of Serenity forcing them to act humanely? 

Didn't you do that with Nabiki, almost?  

Where's

the people who joined the army or police because they can legally shoot
people?  What about the racists who won't support Serenity because she's
Japanese?  The religious bigots who say she's cursed by God because she
isn't Christian or Islamic or whatever?  Where's the evil whose right to
exist the Black Moon is fighting for?  Nowhere.  And that's one of the big
reasons why, in my opinion, this story is a well intentioned failure.

The Black Moon Resistance are noble and self-sacrificing too much, and the
philosophy of the Black Moon as shown in the anime bears no resemblence to
it.  Their philosophy was basically, 'The Strong Survive, the Weak are
crushed, you kicked us off the Earth, now you're all going to die'.  It's
clear in the canon that the Black Moon family didn't reject Serenity's
rule because of any philosophical guff about the right of people to be
evil; they were evil, though also human, and thus redeemable (a major
theme of Sailor Moon).

True, but irrelevant.  The Black Moon (assuming they are exiled before the
ice) have had plenty of time to shift their perspective.  It is logical
however that the Black Moon would consist of not just patriots, and people
opposed to royalty or "mind control", but also of rabid opportunists looking
to play "King of the Mountain", and twistoids and sociopaths looking to 
preserve their pathologies.  

The cynic in me also observes that these rebels are all military men, men
who will lose their jobs and their reasons for existing if Serenity
triumphs, and that one of their fundamental motives is likely their desire
to prevent the loss of their jobs and their purpose in life; what use does
a peaceful land have for soldiers?  Their cant about 'the freedom and need
for dissent' thus becomes simply the self-interested plea of a group
afraid of losing its social role and employment, just as luddism was a
response by work-at-home weavers to the rise of the factory.  And just as
futile in the end.

I don't find it especially plausible that Serenity's Earth has no conventional 
military, unless we are talking the Sailor Orion universe where Senshi can
be deployed in the thousands.  

The story fails to demonstrate that Crystal Tokyo is actually worse off
for the world losing these people.  Oh, they talk about how the dark side
of human behavior has furthered the advancement and prosperity of
humanity, but no concrete examples are provided.

This is true.  Oh, and for the record?  The first computer of the modern
era was a device for controlling automated weaving machines.  (We'll ignore
that silly Babylonian astrolabe which never led to further applications) 
World War II may have accelerated the development of a variety of 
technologies, but progress does not stop just because of peace.  

However, it could easily be pointed out that, for example, the Greek States
for all their warlike lack of unity were far better equipped to resist 
external invasion than were more peaceful cultures, and that any society
which beats it's swords into ploughshares is just asking for someone else
to beat their ploughshares into swords and take advantage, and that 8 soldiers,
no matter how powerful, are not enough to assure security for an entire planet.  

Serenity's argument with Dumond is also flawed.  Why doesn't Serenity cite
things like:
The Inquisition
The Holocaust
Various other examples of Genocide
The destruction of the environment
Wife-beating and Child Abuse

and other forms of evil and ask Dumond why he is willing to defend such
events, since a defense of such things is inherent in his argument?  He
is, in essence, saying that such things should not be prevented in the
future because they push humanity to greater achievements, that it is
better to let the Nazis kill the European Jews, then stop them than it
is to prevent there being a killing in the first place.  Of course,
it's easy for him to ask other people to suffer.

Now, now.  He's prepared to suffer himself, as well.  It is true, however,
that the author has made no effort to put himself in Serenity's funky 
white dress with the silly wing things and ask himself what her reasons are
for her courses of action.  

However there is an excuse for Serenity's feeble argument.  Why should she
bother?  After all, Dumond's choice is predestined.  In fact if she convinced
Dumond not to accept exile, she'd screw up the entire timestream.