Marvel's Star Wars: Darth Vader comic series

[Galvatron]

I suspect Tarkin would be familiar with Mos Eisley because that's where the search for the plans for the Death Star was going on, regardless of weather he was familiar with it before hand.

I agree that he'd be familiar with Tatooine after being briefed by Vader, but I doubt he'd recognize Mos Eisley by name unless it was already well known throughout the galaxy.

Also, Captain Panaka immediately recognized Tatooine as a Hutt planet. If not for the strong Hutt presence there, I suspect it would be all but unknown to most.

[Borgholio]

Nitpick - Panaka immediately recognized who the Hutts were. He didn't actually know Tatooine was controlled by them until Qui Gon mentioned it.

[Galvatron]

True. I stand corrected.

[FTeik]

Given the events depicted in the animated clone-wars movie the Hutts and Jabba are more important galactic players than the OT and TPM suggested. Which makes sense considering the amount of space they control (and not even counting their econonomic dominance in areas outside Hutt-space, which according to the old EU reached as far as the Corellian Sector).

[Galvatron]

I hadn't even considered that, but since TCW is still canon it should definitely be included as a reference point for this new EU. The point remains the same, however: the Hutts put Tatooine on the galactic map simply for being the home turf for some of their more prominent crime lords.

I also don't see the minimalism in having the Empire rely on the Hutts for certain resources. Maybe Hutt Space is rich with natural hypermatter or some other unobtanium that the Empire is short supply of following the Battle of Yavin.

[Thanas]

Right, because states just go to the mob if there is a shortage....No. This is minimalism pure and simple, and it is not made better by Vader flying a TIE patrol to chase down pirates. If we apply the same standards here that we apply to the old EU then there is no reason to assume a few pirates with a corellian corvette as their ship are a danger warranting Vader to investigate - except for minimalism.

[Tychu]

What do you want from a series staffed by Marvel comic writers. The head of the main series doesn't know Star Wars from StarGate

[Galvatron]

Right, because states just go to the mob if there is a shortage....No. This is minimalism pure and simple, and it is not made better by Vader flying a TIE patrol to chase down pirates. If we apply the same standards here that we apply to the old EU then there is no reason to assume a few pirates with a corellian corvette as their ship are a danger warranting Vader to investigate - except for minimalism.

Vader began his cinematic career by chasing down a Corellian corvette, personally boarding it and interrogating the crew. I see no reason why this sort of activity is suddenly beneath him or minimalistic, especially if it's directly affecting vital Imperial supply lines.

[Gandalf]

I just assumed that Vader liked doing that sort of stuff, if only because it meant that he wasn't dealing with the establishment who had little regard for him.

[Galvatron]

Exactly. He certainly didn't hesitate to jump into his TIE and take on the rebels personally during the Battle of Yavin. Nor did he stay on the Executor during the Battle of Hoth. Vader is very hands-on and has little patience for verbal sparring.

[The Romulan Republic]

Right, because states just go to the mob if there is a shortage....No. This is minimalism pure and simple, and it is not made better by Vader flying a TIE patrol to chase down pirates. If we apply the same standards here that we apply to the old EU then there is no reason to assume a few pirates with a corellian corvette as their ship are a danger warranting Vader to investigate - except for minimalism.

Vader began his cinematic career by chasing down a Corellian corvette, personally boarding it and interrogating the crew. I see no reason why this sort of activity is suddenly beneath him or minimalistic, especially if it's directly affecting vital Imperial supply lines.

Hardly the same. The opening of A New Hope featured a mission against a Rebel leader to regain plans for the Death Star, not chasing some pirates.

[Anacronian]

It is possible that Tagge has the Dark Lord of the Sith spending his time doing menial work for no other reason than Tagge wants to assert himself over Vader.

[Galvatron]

Indeed. Tagge may not have been as openly contemptuous of Vader as Motti was, but it wouldn't surprise me if he held the dark lord in the same low regard.

[Irbis]

I imagine that this relatively brief period was one of great turmoil as whole sectors rebelled against the emperor--who was suddenly deprived of his trump card against the more heavily defended inner systems: the Death Star. IMO, the emperor was not firmly in control of the galaxy post-ANH and was therefore scrambling to deal the rebellion a crushing blow simply to keep his dominion from falling apart. Hence the urgency in building a second Death Star. It wasn't just a "terror weapon." He needed it.

You know, my first thought was "what a colossally idiotic idea". But then, I thought some more about it, and it could be neat concept. Empire scrambling to gain advantage as Rebels adopt tactics based on Separatist defeat, learning what strategies failed and recruiting veterans of that time. If that would be neatly executed, concept of Palpatine creating his own downfall could be really nea--

From the novel Tarkin, Chapter 14:
"Just now the Joint Chiefs of the Empire's military were gathered - Admiral Antonio Motti, General Cassio Tagge, Rear Admirals Ozzel, Jerjerrod, and others - along with several top officers from COMPNOR, including Director Armand Isard, ISB deputy director Harus Ison, and Colonel Wullf Yularen. Naval Intelligence was represented by Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed, who had requested the meeting."

I see several problems with this:
1) This is five years after the events of ROTS. Of the - with Tarkin - ten persons mentioned by name three die aboard the DeathStar (see point 2). Motti and Tagge are alreay Joint Chiefs, so what is this business with Tagge's promotion to Grand General?
2) In the new comic Vader is made subordinate to Tagge, because he is "the only one" capable of dealing with the Rebel-Alliance. Huh? Are there no other capable officers? Grand Admirals, other Grand Generals or Moffs? The empire must be really short on high-ranking officers, too short for Vader to waste them the way he seems to do in TESB.

Wut?

So 5 years after RotS... The entire Imperial military was headed by every single named officer from the movies? Seriously, only captains Needa and Piett are missing. I can't also help but notice that most of these bozos are awfully low rank, and there is not enough of them to fully staff one fleet, much less command all Imperial forces. This is minimalism far worse than the stuff WEG managed to vomit in their worst years.

Of note, COMPNOR is still canon, and of course they weren't used in SW Rebels, where they would be perfect of behaviour of Imperial forces. Consistency, what's that?

*sigh* Why they had to revive Tagge? Now it looks like half of DS crew managed to run before station exploded (see Chief Bast, for example). Couldn't they use someone of the same school of thinking? Someone of higher rank than lackey of lackey? I don't know, this comic makes Vader very... underwhelming to me. I hope they will rehabilitate him somehow

[Elheru Aran]

It's not impossible that the staff of admirals and whatnot that were meeting with Tarkin were there for... the meeting... and simply left on their business afterwards. It's been awhile since I watched Star Wars, but that was before they destroyed Alderaan, perhaps slightly after Luke and company left Mos Eisley (my timeline is probably off though). It's not a whole lot of time... but remember they're in two different systems across the galaxy, and hyperdrive isn't *that* fast. The general staff had plenty of time to leave the Death Star before it transited to Yavin.

[Borgholio]

The meeting was after they captured Leia and brought her to the Death Star. From that point, it was at least several hours in-universe, possibly a day or two before the DS made it to Yavin. So yeah, plenty of time to have the meeting, discuss business, then go their separate ways.

[Elheru Aran]

I mean, look at it logically. Here we have a meeting of at least high-middle level military, possibly political leaders (I forgot what all they did although Motti was an Admiral and Tagge a General). They're busy men and they run large units or sectors; they don't need to sit around the Death Star playing cards. They go, they have the meeting because Tarkin's their boss, then they hop on a few shuttles and head home. The more sycophantic ones might have stuck around to kiss Tarkin's wrinkly ass a little more but other than that there's really no reason to assume they were there when it was destroyed, as I understand was the previous conclusion that the EU had reached.

[Borgholio]

Yeah the conclusion was made, I think, because we never did see any of them again except for Vader in the rest of the series. So it was simply assumed that they died.

[Elheru Aran]

I mean, there was Chief Bast... but who gives a shit about Chief Bast? Seriously. I vaguely think Tagge may have escaped as well, but I'm probably mixing that up with his brother, who was in the early Star Wars comics. Motti and the rest of them were definitely supposed to have been killed on the DS, though.

[Irbis]

It's not impossible that the staff of admirals and whatnot that were meeting with Tarkin were there for... the meeting... and simply left on their business afterwards.

No, read the passage again. The meeting was six years after RotS. 14 years before ANH. This means Empire's military was commanded exclusively by 8 guys we see in the movie, 8 guys who despite being Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Galactic Empire also had to take time 15-20 years later to personally command Devastator, DS I, Executor, and DS II. Singular, low ranking posts.

This makes no freaking sense whatsoever!

I mean, fucking Poland has more higher ranging admirals, and our fucking fleet is one leaking corvette and two junk ex-frigates, not millions of starships!

[Elheru Aran]

Just addressing your comment about "half the DS crew running". The named general staff all meeting before ANH is stupid, I absolutely agree. There's really no reason for a career to remain static *that* long unless they were at the mother of all desk jobs without any progression whatsoever, and that wouldn't work for all kinds of reasons. The only way it would make sense is if it's some kind of really contrived coincidence or maybe Palpatine froze promotions... who the fuck knows. So, yeah, it's stupid.

[Galvatron]

I haven't reached that point in the novel yet, but Jim Luceno seems to be reintegrating every old EUism under the sun just for shits and giggles. I wish he'd treat this all more like a fresh start and make up something new.

[Adam Reynolds]

I haven't reached that point in the novel yet, but Jim Luceno seems to be reintegrating every old EUism under the sun just for shits and giggles. I wish he'd treat this all more like a fresh start and make up something new.

In general I have a feeling that the new EU is going to do this quite heavily. I also have a feeling that despite paying lip service to the concept of a unified continuity, the films are going to completely ignore the EU when it's inconvenient, just as happened when Lucas was in charge. The Journey to The Force Awakens(the various new stories that take place post-ROTJ, mostly coming out in September) will likely be similar to the pre-ROTS Clone Wars stories in that there might be minor references, but it would be because the EU writers had access to the notes for the new film, not because the EU influences the films.

The new novel Aftermath will likely also follow this trend, reintroducing things like Wraith Squadron or GADM Thrawn, but doing so in such a way that they fit into the continuity for the new films rather than the old EU.

As for Luceno, I feel like he hasn't been as good lately in terms of many of his big ideas. The Darth Plagueis novel I though was terrible in that it combined two interesting stories, Palpatine's political rise to power and Palpatine killing Plagueis. Having Plagueis die during the events of TPM was one of the worst things from the PT era EU. And thus making Darth Maul never actually a full Sith is awful. From this depiction, when the Jedi Council stated that "only two there are" were they just full of shit?* I realize the Jedi were often portrayed as wrong in the PT era, but this is going a little too far. The whole point was that they were wrong for the right reasons rather than simply not having the facts.
* This discussion recently took up a couple pages on the trailer discussion thread.

[Irbis]

Just addressing your comment about "half the DS crew running". The named general staff all meeting before ANH is stupid, I absolutely agree. There's really no reason for a career to remain static *that* long unless they were at the mother of all desk jobs without any progression whatsoever, and that wouldn't work for all kinds of reasons. The only way it would make sense is if it's some kind of really contrived coincidence or maybe Palpatine froze promotions... who the fuck knows. So, yeah, it's stupid.

If you mean the DS meeting seen in the movie - weren't these guys all there because they were commanding DS personnel from their arms branches? Yularen being ISB, Motti and Tagge army and fleet, etc. They had the ranks for that too - all fits and their inclusion under Tarkin was realistic. I was merely disputing that them being leaders of the Empire 15 years ago makes no sense, you'd expect them to be heavily promoted, not demoted.

But even if you take this realistic view, the comic makes no sense. If Tagge was department leader on DS I, the only way his survival would fit is if evacuation was sounded. And Tarkin explicitly rubbished that. So if he survived, it's because he deserted his post mid-battle. That doesn't exactly sound like someone you want in charge, I'd think.

Plus the whole 'Palpatine being scared of rebel threat' thing sounds a lot off. He weathered massive galactic civil war with huge military all while under threat of discovery by the Jedi and now he fears band of dirty force-less guerillas? After 20 years of time to consolidate power? Huh?

I vaguely think Tagge may have escaped as well, but I'm probably mixing that up with his brother, who was in the early Star Wars comics.

Wasn't vengeance for his brothers death were the whole reason for the Tagge family subplot in these comics though?

[FTeik]

Well, Tagge could have pulled an Oberstein and left the battle he - rightly - considered to be lost. Or he was recalled to Coruscant prior by Palpatine to report why there are no news from Alderaan. Both assuming, that in the new contuity Tagge was still a department-head aboard DS1.