Star Wars: Rebels

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, we're really getting in to the big leagues.

[Purple]

' The uploader has not made that video available in your country.'

I'm guessing it's US only cause I can't access it either

Use kproxy.

[Thanas]

If you were a Jedi wanting to hide after Order 66, a backwater system with a weak Imperial presence seems like the perfect place.

forgot about him. It wouldn't surprice me at all if the Lothal Garrison was a place where they sent the children of the imperial upper class who wanted a military career to get "field experience" while being more or less safe from any danger, you don't need alot of officers and NCOs like that and the place is a total disaster when it comes to being used in anything resembling combat.

That's all fine and good until you remember that Tarkin called Lothal essential to their efforts in the outer rim.

[bilateralrope]

If you were a Jedi wanting to hide after Order 66, a backwater system with a weak Imperial presence seems like the perfect place.

forgot about him. It wouldn't surprice me at all if the Lothal Garrison was a place where they sent the children of the imperial upper class who wanted a military career to get "field experience" while being more or less safe from any danger, you don't need alot of officers and NCOs like that and the place is a total disaster when it comes to being used in anything resembling combat.

That's all fine and good until you remember that Tarkin called Lothal essential to their efforts in the outer rim.

I think that's because Lothal was a backwater planet of no significance until the Empire decided to make it important by sticking some important factories there. The decision to pick Lothal for the factories was probably made by someone unaware of the low quality of the local imperial forces.

[Lord Revan]

more likely cause it was militarly speaking a low priority system Tarkin or who made that desession thought Lothal would be safe enough for those important factories, season 1 is set after all before there was a Rebel Alliance that acted more or less Galaxy wide. most of the rebel activities during this time would rather limited so rebel activity at Mandalore or Nemoidia wouldn't effect Lothal that much or the other way around.

It wouldn't matter as much what quality the local military force was since IIRC last time there was any signifigant rebel activity on Lothal before the series was when Ezra's parents were captured and that was 7 years before the series started, so it would considered "safe" by imperial authorities.

[Vance]

yeah, always assumed that Lothal Stormtroopers are the rear echelon unit that has the lowest quality troops the empire has cause Lothal is a low priority system with low risk of open rebellion (or at least it was until the series started), while systems with higher risk of rebellion (like say Nemodia) would have better quality troops.

I had heard Dave Filoni's explanation is that stormtrooeprs suck, lack dedication and can't hit anything.

I was just googling it when I found this comment. It frankly surprised me that he didn't notice that the Imperials let them get away from the Death Star?

http://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/TV-Dav ... 810716.php
"I take up this argument with fans all the time, because I find it fun,” Filoni says, becoming more animated as the conversation reaches geekier heights. “… The Clonetroopers were born and bred to be soldiers. That’s all they knew. The Stormtroopers are people that are drafted into service. They had to be part of the Empire, so there was less motivation. ... I mean, they can’t find these teenagers and an old guy on the whole Death Star?”

http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/ ... p?IID=1883
"In my opinion, having made The Clone Wars and now working with Stormtroopers, I would say that a Clone trooper could outgun a Stormtrooper rather easily. A Clone trooper was bred, born, raised to be a soldier. Lucky for them, the Jedi gave them a lot of personality, but they were very dedicated soldiers. Stormtroopers are drafted into service; you can join through academies. If you watch A New Hope they stand around and say, ‘Hey, you seen the new BT-16?’ They seem interested in their job but you question their dedication. They’re treated as expendable by the Empire, and they definitely can’t shoot anything.

When Obi Wan says, ‘Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise’, I think he’s making that up on the fact that he used to fight with clones, so he assumes that a Stormtrooper is really good. Much to his shock those guys can’t hit an R2 unit in a naked hallway, let alone be precise. So I like Stormtroopers, I find them very interesting. The Stormtroopers have better gear, better weapons in a lot of ways but it’s just a different war they are fighting than the Clone troopers’ was."

[Thanas]

That makes the empire even more stupid, considering that this was the most important installation there is. You'd expect the best soldiers on the DS.

[Vance]

In theory yeah. But I thought it was probably a sloppy analysis. He mocks them for not finding the imposters, when the plan was to herd them off the station and let them go (at least after the detention bay shootout). He says they lack dedication, and that they like the job but aren't fanatical for the Empire, and yet we see them follow orders seemingly without hesitation even when death is nigh-on certain. Such as when they climbed through the blasted hole in the detention bay door under enemy fire, or boarded through a choke-point on the Tantive. Or herding the heroes off of the ship when under orders not to kill, even when taking casualties. Unless we are to assume that Tarkin had already assumed his troops would be so terrible that he didn't even need to worry about telling them they wanted the rebels to escape, but just needed to let them fail? Then he only needed to tell Vader to let them escape, lol.

[Purple]

Honestly I think that neither view is correct. Simply put, I think that the best explanation for the stormtroopers is that they are regime troops. That is to say troops who get decent training, good equipment and stuff. But whose selection and progression is ultimately based more on ideological purity than on actual skill. For them being loyal to the imperial order outweighs by far being able to hit stuff. So you get the combo of great morale, great equipment but lousy combat skills. That is why we see them entering certain death situations without hesitation and yet being unable to accurately hit a thing.

This kind of thing is not without precedent in our world. Any dictatorship worth its salt had an such a force. And it would certainly make sense for this to be true from an in universe perspective. The Empire has just won the first and last great conventional war in its existence. There is likely newer going to be a conflict of that type or scale in the galaxy again. So they do not need an army that is capable of fighting and wining against an equal force. Instead, what they need is an army whose soldiers are willing to enforce the imperial order through any means necessary. And when it comes to gunning down protestors or murdering a few lightly armed terrorists loyalty and nerves of steel outweigh fighting skills as you can just throw more men at the problem.

[NecronLord]

There's quite a lot of information on the selection and training of Lothal troops in some of the SW rebels novels they're now publishing. Among other things, both Zeb (the only professional soldier around) and Kallus think that Lothal's troopers are notably incompetent, compared to troops elsewhere. I'm considering doing a review thread like Connor's 40k threads, because the social and technical information is frankly, quite fascinating given that these books are aimed at a younger audience.

The abbreviated version of this, though, is that the writers of these books, at least, highlight the ineptitude of the stormtroopers trained at Lothal's academy, and pin it on Commandant Aresko and Taskmaster Grint, who are responsible for the training at the academy and are infamous boobs. Lothal troopers mostly come from Lothal, it seems.

Academy Cadets get to intern at Imperial HQ on Lothal as part of their studies. Explaining why that datapad scene was even possible.

Also, stasis field umbrellas.

[Rogue 9]

That trailer's posted on the Star Wars channel rather than the DisneyXD one, so maybe it'll show up for everybody.

[Batman]

Did for me.

[The Romulan Republic]

I have a guess: Lothal will be Base Delta Zeroed at some point. So far, the series seems to focus inordinately on this one system. That hopefully won't last. And we have Grand Moff Tarkin, Mr. Planetary Genocide himself, showing up. We have the blue-haired kid upping the ante by calling on the people to resist. And we see Tarkin making a point of how far he's willing to go to stamp out rebellion. And I remember hearing that they mentioned Base Delta Zeros in the show. Its not a big leap.

[Rogue 9]

I have a guess: Lothal will be Base Delta Zeroed at some point. So far, the series seems to focus inordinately on this one system. That hopefully won't last. And we have Grand Moff Tarkin, Mr. Planetary Genocide himself, showing up. We have the blue-haired kid upping the ante by calling on the people to resist. And we see Tarkin making a point of how far he's willing to go to stamp out rebellion. And I remember hearing that they mentioned Base Delta Zeros in the show. Its not a big leap.

Imperial industrial interests on Lothal are vital to Imperial expansion throughout the Outer Rim, though. Tarkin may eventually decide that the planet is more trouble than that's worth, but I don't think he's there yet.

[The Romulan Republic]

The idea that one world would be more than a drop in the bucket resource-wise is preposterous (unless its the source of something very rare)

[AniThyng]

The idea that one world would be more than a drop in the bucket resource-wise is preposterous (unless its the source of something very rare)

Supply chains being what they are, a disruption in a single mine can ripple throughout the entire economy even if that mine is insignificant % wise.

[bilateralrope]

The idea that one world would be more than a drop in the bucket resource-wise is preposterous (unless its the source of something very rare)

Tarken talked about industrial interests. That suggests that what matters is the output of factories that are either on Lothal or that the Empire plans to build there. It seems easy enough to come up with reasons why the factories would be better concentrated on one planet than spread around.

[Rogue 9]

The idea that one world would be more than a drop in the bucket resource-wise is preposterous (unless its the source of something very rare)

I know, but recall that the Empire is producing an early TIE Advanced model, that they'd planned to produce illegal disruptors there until the rebels managed to steal and destroy the prototypes (though Vizago got away with some, so who knows when that'll bite them in the ass again), and are actively seizing land from farmers to build more stuff. Considering the nature of the disruptor project I'd say that they're using Lothal for black projects, except that publicly announcing the TIE Advanced at the Empire Day parade seems to run counter to that. That said, they may be using Lothal because it's backwater and relatively easily locked down (recall that there seems to be at least two Star Destroyers in orbit at basically all times, despite the fact it's the backside of fucking nowhere).

[Rogue 9]

Really? That's where they end the season?

[bilateralrope]

Really? That's where they end the season?

TV series like ending seasons like that. At least it wasn't a cliffhanger that would be resolved in the first few minutes of the next episode.

[Patroklos]

Honestly I think that neither view is correct. Simply put, I think that the best explanation for the stormtroopers is that they are regime troops. That is to say troops who get decent training, good equipment and stuff. But whose selection and progression is ultimately based more on ideological purity than on actual skill. For them being loyal to the imperial order outweighs by far being able to hit stuff. So you get the combo of great morale, great equipment but lousy combat skills. That is why we see them entering certain death situations without hesitation and yet being unable to accurately hit a thing.

In the old EU it sort of broke down like this for real world dictatorship comparison's sake:

Stormtroopers = SS/Republican Guard/Quds Force
Imperial Army = Heer/Iraqi Army/Iranian Army
CompForce = SA (or maybe more accurately the SS before it got more conventionally armed and organized)/Revolutionary Guard

In that light the Storm troopers are probably better but at least equally as armed/trained as the regular army but lack specific classes or weapons due to a more limited mission set. So we get what we see in the OT, specialized fanatical shock troops attached to important people/places.

Of course that was more a source book/RPG guide breakdown, the EU novels might perfunctorily recognize that scheme but showed something entirely different in their plot details. I never really understood the reluctance of the EU authors to use the Imperial Army extensively in their stories. I get that the iconic Stormtrooper from the movies was an easy hook to use but by using them almost exclusively they had to utilize them as both the chumps and the bad asses interchangeably in their plots and that basically watered them down. Of course this was all reinforced by the stupid decision to 1.) make the clones the good guys in the Clone Wars and 2.) To make the clones the entirety of the Republic's army. From that follows that the Stormtroopers are just regular grunts. But the EU purposing of the stormtroopers that way predates the prequels so those movies are just following a pre-established trend.

[Darth Tanner]

Quite a good end to the season.

Imperials look more and more like brain dead morons... you can literally climb over a wall and steal a transport & Stormtroopers are literally too incompetent to be considered combatants at this stage, their practically civilian casualties considering their effectiveness. The lack of any response from the other Star Destroyers to the disablement of one of their brothers was nearly as dumb as letting the stolen transport hyperspace away when its docked up.

Star Destroyers (at least this unarmed version) can apparently be completely disabled by handheld explosives on the edge of the hanger bay whilst their manned by perhaps double digit personnel! They also share the Venators any damage to the reactor is death vulnerability, a reactor that looks nothing like the ICS diagrams.
Spoiler

Quite shocked the Inquisitor is apparently dead! That was some pretty nice combat choreography for animated action

[Darksider]

Imperials look more and more like brain dead morons... you can literally climb over a wall and steal a transport & Stormtroopers are literally too incompetent to be considered combatants at this stage, their practically civilian casualties considering their effectiveness. The lack of any response from the other Star Destroyers to the disablement of one of their brothers was nearly as dumb as letting the stolen transport hyperspace away when its docked up.

This is primarily a consequence of the small scale of the story. They literally can't have the stormtroopers hit anyone because the only people they can shoot at are the main characters. Hopefully with other rebel cells coming into the equation they'll actually be permitted to shoot at someone they're allowed to hit.

[Batman]

More evidence that in Star Wars, railings are illegal, especially on walkways over pointless deep holes in engineering. Liked the paint scheme on Sabine's TIE. Have to admit a handful of hand grenades being enough to disable an entire Star Destroyer (however briefly) is a tad overboard (as in 'are you fucking kidding me'? overboard).
And given the biggest parasite craft they have at their disposal seems to be that butt-ugly protoshuttle, how the hell do you evacuate several 10 thousand people in time? I know the Empire is Evil and 'Tarkin got away, who cares' from a narrative PoV but is letting all that trained personnel die really cost-effective?
Seconded on the rest of the Star Destroyers doing nothing. 'Hey, there's a squadron of unknown ships aiding the Rebels that are trying to escape. Let's let our TIEs which can only hit the ground because of gravity handle it because it's not like we have guns of our own or something.'
I have to admit I didn't see Ahsoka or Skywalker Sr coming. Let's see what they do with that.

[Rogue 9]

To be fair, a pair of activated lightsaber blades spun directly into the hyperdrive. And what they rigged the captured TIE with was apparently an EMP of some sort rather than conventional explosives, though really, that should not have happened anyway.