So me and my girlfriend just got Disney on streaming. I really wanted to show her Star Wars she has no experience with it. So we started with Episode 4 and so far we're at after the battle of hoth in ESB.
It was a long time like 3-4 years since the last time I saw the OT and I started to look at it from a military science fiction perspective. What struck me was the gross incompetence of the Empire. I know it's a running gag like how storm troopers are incredibly bad at shooting, but I've always considered it a joke. When discussing technical data, in online rpgs and in a lot of expanded universe the empire gets some sort of redemption from general Thrawn and sheer numbers, every star destroyer is so incredibly powerful compared to rebel ships etc. And that's OK, although evidence suggests that star destroyers are a bad solution in a universe where ships like the X-wing can have individual hyperdrives. When watching the battle of Yavin I realized they actually say that the turbolasers are too slow to aim at rebel ships, and that they need to deploy fighters. And how many fighters do they deploy? Not enough.
The following display of ultimate power, with a fleet of imperial star destroyers around Hoth, again shows the extreme gross incompetence and its even mentioned in the movie. Admiral Ozzel doesn't believe its the rebels at first and delays reporting to Lord Vader, out of foretold conclussions. When he gets ordered to deploy he wants to surpirse the rebels but in actualllity just sends them too close to the planet, alerting the rebels. This is pushined by force choke from Lord Vader. And with the command executed mid-battle, the blockade and co-ordination of imperial fleet breaks down to the point where they crash into each other. And this is where the Tarkin doctrine comes in.
It's the philosophy behind the Death star. Such a powerful battle station would instill enough fear into the entire galaxy that the rebels would surrender out of horror. But I think this though permeates the whole empire, and I think the source lies in the corruption of the dark side. Remeber that the Galactic empire is a sith empire for all intents and purposes, some would say the no doubt most succesful one. This culture of fear could explain why they rely on sheer numbers of mindless inexperienced and obviously not elite storm troopers, big displays of power like the blockade of Hoth (which people should reckognize as really a failed blockade) and the huge fleet surrounding it.
So this brings me to my conclussion. The Empire has huge potential in the hands of the right person, and I think that had he not stopped grand admiral thrawn would have conquered the galaxy. EDIT: I think the including of C'baoth was the reason he might've failed. I will never RP as rebel scum. But I think that the people of the star wars universe should look at history and see how big superweapons especially combined with the power of the dark side time after time fails for one reason or another. Everything from the rakata to the galactic empire suggests that. The Vong was even immune and independent from the force, and they managed to cause more destruction and win more military victories against the whole galaxy than the empire did facing just the rebels. The dark side of the force seems to be a very bad choice. A military empire is obviously possible, but the republic has always thwarted that with the jedis. Using a sith as your puppet to kill the jedis, and then take over is a good idea, and its a little bit what THrawn tried to do, but you would have to find somebody obedient.
The Emperor had to use the Jedis to quash the CIS because the clone army themselves were comparable to droids and not fit to fight other trained troops, and then he had to, separate them fighting on different battle fields, and then use mindless clones to massacre them by human wave attacks. The force favors use of intellect over emotions and so does empire building. I love how star wars presents these vivid scenarios that fit, even though I don't think George meant it to be interpreted this way. But we can all agree that the Galactic empire is the most successful try to date. I ignore anything by disney in this discussion since I haven't watched enough.
Sorry for the rambling, but please let's just discuss military scifi aspects of star wars.
It was a long time like 3-4 years since the last time I saw the OT and I started to look at it from a military science fiction perspective. What struck me was the gross incompetence of the Empire. I know it's a running gag like how storm troopers are incredibly bad at shooting, but I've always considered it a joke. When discussing technical data, in online rpgs and in a lot of expanded universe the empire gets some sort of redemption from general Thrawn and sheer numbers, every star destroyer is so incredibly powerful compared to rebel ships etc. And that's OK, although evidence suggests that star destroyers are a bad solution in a universe where ships like the X-wing can have individual hyperdrives. When watching the battle of Yavin I realized they actually say that the turbolasers are too slow to aim at rebel ships, and that they need to deploy fighters. And how many fighters do they deploy? Not enough.
The following display of ultimate power, with a fleet of imperial star destroyers around Hoth, again shows the extreme gross incompetence and its even mentioned in the movie. Admiral Ozzel doesn't believe its the rebels at first and delays reporting to Lord Vader, out of foretold conclussions. When he gets ordered to deploy he wants to surpirse the rebels but in actualllity just sends them too close to the planet, alerting the rebels. This is pushined by force choke from Lord Vader. And with the command executed mid-battle, the blockade and co-ordination of imperial fleet breaks down to the point where they crash into each other. And this is where the Tarkin doctrine comes in.
It's the philosophy behind the Death star. Such a powerful battle station would instill enough fear into the entire galaxy that the rebels would surrender out of horror. But I think this though permeates the whole empire, and I think the source lies in the corruption of the dark side. Remeber that the Galactic empire is a sith empire for all intents and purposes, some would say the no doubt most succesful one. This culture of fear could explain why they rely on sheer numbers of mindless inexperienced and obviously not elite storm troopers, big displays of power like the blockade of Hoth (which people should reckognize as really a failed blockade) and the huge fleet surrounding it.
So this brings me to my conclussion. The Empire has huge potential in the hands of the right person, and I think that had he not stopped grand admiral thrawn would have conquered the galaxy. EDIT: I think the including of C'baoth was the reason he might've failed. I will never RP as rebel scum. But I think that the people of the star wars universe should look at history and see how big superweapons especially combined with the power of the dark side time after time fails for one reason or another. Everything from the rakata to the galactic empire suggests that. The Vong was even immune and independent from the force, and they managed to cause more destruction and win more military victories against the whole galaxy than the empire did facing just the rebels. The dark side of the force seems to be a very bad choice. A military empire is obviously possible, but the republic has always thwarted that with the jedis. Using a sith as your puppet to kill the jedis, and then take over is a good idea, and its a little bit what THrawn tried to do, but you would have to find somebody obedient.
The Emperor had to use the Jedis to quash the CIS because the clone army themselves were comparable to droids and not fit to fight other trained troops, and then he had to, separate them fighting on different battle fields, and then use mindless clones to massacre them by human wave attacks. The force favors use of intellect over emotions and so does empire building. I love how star wars presents these vivid scenarios that fit, even though I don't think George meant it to be interpreted this way. But we can all agree that the Galactic empire is the most successful try to date. I ignore anything by disney in this discussion since I haven't watched enough.
Sorry for the rambling, but please let's just discuss military scifi aspects of star wars.
[This message has been edited by thisismacko (edited 09-27-2020 @ 05:50 AM).]