[SD.net EU Database] Rebel Alliance Sourcebook

[Darth Hoth]

There's at least one other example I can think of (Dornea form the Black Fleet crisis) and if you go into the fluff from the video games, the Airam Sector rebelled too (and managed to establish a shipyard at least as big or nearly as big as the Mon Cal). In truth, the Alliance had to have held some actual territory in the so called "Galactic Civil War" to be a credible threat of any kind - it couldn't have just been all guerilla/terrorist activity - so other planets must have successuflly rebelled and held off the Empire as well.

My main beef with this is that in the films the Rebels go to extreme lengths to keep much smaller concentrations of force either hidden or mobile in order to evade the Imperials, who are heavily implied to be able to deliver total overwhelming force in any given engagement. Why would Hoth be a major disaster (as it is described in most fluff) when there are entire Sectors of space backing the Rebels? The loss of that small base would be next to insignificant. Why would the Imperial Navy be "spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage [the Rebels]" when it could easily force an engagement against such major concentrations and deprive the Rebellion of vital military-industrial assets in the process? The Rebels are portrayed as not having infrastructure they are required to defend, which is why they can elude the Empire as well as they do; running entire Sectors fits very poorly with this. One might argue individual planets do as well, but the larger the ground they hold the worse it becomes. And an independent Dac before the Battle of Yavin heavily contradicts the spirit, if perhaps not the letter, of the original Star Wars film opening crawl ("Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire").

[PainRack]

My main beef with this is that in the films the Rebels go to extreme lengths to keep much smaller concentrations of force either hidden or mobile in order to evade the Imperials, who are heavily implied to be able to deliver total overwhelming force in any given engagement. Why would Hoth be a major disaster (as it is described in most fluff) when there are entire Sectors of space backing the Rebels? The loss of that small base would be next to insignificant. Why would the Imperial Navy be "spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage [the Rebels]" when it could easily force an engagement against such major concentrations and deprive the Rebellion of vital military-industrial assets in the process? The Rebels are portrayed as not having infrastructure they are required to defend, which is why they can elude the Empire as well as they do; running entire Sectors fits very poorly with this. One might argue individual planets do as well, but the larger the ground they hold the worse it becomes. And an independent Dac before the Battle of Yavin heavily contradicts the spirit, if perhaps not the letter, of the original Star Wars film opening crawl ("Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire").

The losses of Hoth was losses directed to the Rebel Alliance directly, which was a relatively small group under the command of Mon Mothma directly. Losses to allied governments, generals and rebel cells were losses inflicted on the whole of the Rebellion, and not the centralised units under Mon Mothma.