Number of Capital Ships in the Empire

TrekWarsie · Post by **TrekWarsie** » 2004-09-07 08:34am

I don't know if this question has been done before (it probably has) but is there any Canon or EU information on just how many capital ships the Empire had at its height?

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2004-09-07 08:35am

Well there are meant to be 25,000 Imp Stars, so id assume that would be thousand of other kinds as well

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-09-07 08:52am

Dartzap wrote:Well there are meant to be 25,000 Imp Stars, so id assume that would be thousand of other kinds as well

Only this number is totally outdated and clearly wrong, because the writer who wrote this not throught about the galactic scale, so it must be MANY more.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-09-07 09:33am

You can't just dismiss a statement like that because the writer didn't understand scale. It can easily be interpreted to mean just a particular type of Star Destroyer (ISD, probably), and it still doesn't include the other vessels of the Imperial Starfleet, or the second-line, non "Star" vessels.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-07 11:19am

IIRC it was said there was a minimum of 2,400 lesser ships per ISD in a sector fleet. 24 ISDs in a sector fleet gives us 57600 ships. IIRC there are 1,000 sectors. Thats 5.7 million ships. Apprently much of the Empire was tied up doing garison duty and much of the Imperial fleet was made up of Frigate level and lower (going by ISD and VSD being destroyers). A core of extremely capable destroyers (VSD and ISD) along with a small but still noticable fleet of larger ships varrying from cruiser to super massive mamoth battleships (Sovereign, Eclipse, Executor) existed for offensive opperations when the Empire needed them.

So where did all these ships go after Endor? Why are fleets so much smaller? The Emporer had the bulk of the cruiser+ fleet recalled to Byss (IIRC) and the rest of the Imperial fleet was destroyed when infighting began. That left a pale shadow of the former Imperial navy for the Rebel Alliance to deal with.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-09-07 11:26am

Not to mention captures and defections to the Alliance cause.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-07 11:34am

Exactly. At first sight one wonders how the Empire lost so much. But then a cursory look at what happened to the Empire shortly after Endor shows you a very common thing. Warlords. Everyone wanted to carve up a piece of the Empire for themselves. Infighting destroyed the bulk of the Imperial fleet and Palpy had the bulk of the larger ships recalled. Suddenly the Empire is sucking hind tit and the Rebellion has a real chance now.

Killing the Emporer did more for the Rebellion then they could have dreamed.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-07 12:03pm

Alyeska's estimate is the most common one, though some (like Marina's) go up much, much higher.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-07 01:10pm

Well, consider this. ISD's always struck fear into the hearts of rebels. And in a lot of the 'minimalist' books (say, the Krytos Trap, where 7 VSD's were Coruscant's defense force), you'll notice that a couple ISD's often comprise planetary defense forces.

What IF, the Empire has MILLIONS (even hundreds of millions) of other ships, and just 25,000 ISD's? That would mean that ISD's are relatively rare outside the core, and when you see one, it's time to ruuuun...

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2004-09-07 01:29pm

Praxis wrote:Well, consider this. ISD's always struck fear into the hearts of rebels. And in a lot of the 'minimalist' books (say, the Krytos Trap, where 7 VSD's were Coruscant's defense force), you'll notice that a couple ISD's often comprise planetary defense forces.

What IF, the Empire has MILLIONS (even hundreds of millions) of other ships, and just 25,000 ISD's? That would mean that ISD's are relatively rare outside the core, and when you see one, it's time to ruuuun...

The idea of not seeing ISD's a lot near the outer rim makes sense when you think about Han's comment in ANH when he's leaving Tatooine. He's apparently very surprised that there are three ISD's (I think it was three) in the area and says something to the effects that his cargo must be in deep shit to get this kind of attention.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-09-07 01:34pm

Captain_Cyran wrote:
Praxis wrote:Well, consider this. ISD's always struck fear into the hearts of rebels. And in a lot of the 'minimalist' books (say, the Krytos Trap, where 7 VSD's were Coruscant's defense force), you'll notice that a couple ISD's often comprise planetary defense forces.

What IF, the Empire has MILLIONS (even hundreds of millions) of other ships, and just 25,000 ISD's? That would mean that ISD's are relatively rare outside the core, and when you see one, it's time to ruuuun...
The idea of not seeing ISD's a lot near the outer rim makes sense when you think about Han's comment in ANH when he's leaving Tatooine. He's apparently very surprised that there are three ISD's (I think it was three) in the area and says something to the effects that his cargo must be in deep shit to get this kind of attention.

it was three: 1 one from aft and 2 from front. 25.000 figure still seem a bit too small to me (uneless it's just ISD's)

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2004-09-07 01:36pm

Thats what i meant, 25,000 Impstars, while they are probably sevral dozen diffrent kinds of Capital vessals, and probably many more in amount

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-07 04:23pm

phongn wrote:Alyeska's estimate is the most common one, though some (like Marina's) go up much, much higher.

Yeah. I don't recall offhand where the "thousand sector" estimate comes from, but the ISB indicates that (at least post Yavin) there were thousands of sectors, meaning at least 2000 (which is stated several times in th ebook I believe. In fact, I believe its suggested there are one or more Regions in the Empire composed solely of t housands of sectors, although this is not neccesarily representative of all or even most of them... alot of others could easily be as few as three.. or somewhere in between.)

A rough estimate of sectors I've come up with is between 4000 and 5000, based on an assumed "average" distribution of 200-250 systems per sector (based on the ISB information and the Imperial Remnant makeup, which could reasonably assumed to be similar to the Empire's structure.), which suggests something on the order of tens of millions of ships, I believe. And that may still be conservative - I believe the ISB further suggests that the 2400 ship/24 ISD figure is a minimal Sector group requirement - in some sectors it could conceivably be larger.

Canonically, the only implied figures come from the Dodonna quote and baseline estimates of capital ship firepower. They tend to produce figures n order of magnitude or so higher than wht the ISB implies (although if you go with the 1e38 joule estimate rather than the 2e32 or the 1e33 "sustained" estimate, the fleet figures easily come out into the trillions.)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-07 04:26pm

Vympel wrote:You can't just dismiss a statement like that because the writer didn't understand scale. It can easily be interpreted to mean just a particular type of Star Destroyer (ISD, probably), and it still doesn't include the other vessels of the Imperial Starfleet, or the second-line, non "Star" vessels.

Yup. Han canonically mentions the "Big Corellian ships" as part of the Imperial fleet.. the 25,000 figure refers only to the ISDs made by KDY, not ships built by any other shipbuilder.

And the Corellian yards are at least as large/important as KDY's - post Endor, KDY was protected by 15 Star Destrtoyers, while Corellia had 25 - and that was before another five ISDs and an Executor-class were added (meaning that corellia had at least 3x the firepower defending it that Kuat had. Which is fine with me, since I think KDY's contributions tend to be overrated anyhow.)

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2004-09-07 04:31pm

IIRC, the 'thousand sector' comment originates from 'Spectre from the Past', where the NR senate was stated to be comprised of represeantatives for 1,000 sectors each averaging 125 systems. Which, if anything, indicates that the NR at that point was a fraction (1/8th at best as per the 'million' quote from the ANH novel) of the size of Palpatine's Empire.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2004-09-07 04:39pm

Old thread debate about this

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2004-09-07 04:40pm

Batman wrote:IIRC, the 'thousand sector' comment originates from 'Spectre from the Past', where the NR senate was stated to be comprised of represeantatives for 1,000 sectors each averaging 125 systems. Which, if anything, indicates that the NR at that point was a fraction (1/8th at best as per the 'million' quote from the ANH novel) of the size of Palpatine's Empire.

It comes from TPM where there were 1024 sector senators

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-07 04:44pm

Alyeska wrote:IIRC it was said there was a minimum of 2,400 lesser ships per ISD in a sector fleet. 24 ISDs in a sector fleet gives us 57600 ships.

Black Sword Command had far more Star Destroyers than that, though. It had 3 Executor class vessels alone, though only one (Intimidator) was named and seen in the BFC trilogy. Wasn't it assigned to just one sector?

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-07 05:07pm

Batman wrote:IIRC, the 'thousand sector' comment originates from 'Spectre from the Past', where the NR senate was stated to be comprised of represeantatives for 1,000 sectors each averaging 125 systems. Which, if anything, indicates that the NR at that point was a fraction (1/8th at best as per the 'million' quote from the ANH novel) of the size of Palpatine's Empire.

Do you recall which page number or chapter? Or which point in the book? I'd like to check that out.

And 125,000 systems, while smaller than I'd thought, is still bigger than the 10,000 or so systems they had in the Black Fleet Crisis

IIRC the Empire had 50 million protectorates according to WEG in addition to a million or so member worlds. And if you include the 50 million figure into the "average" estimate I made before, fleet numbers go up a bit higher (like an order of magnitude or so I think)

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-07 05:10pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:And 125,000 systems, while smaller than I'd thought, is still bigger than the 10,000 or so systems they had in the Black Fleet Crisis

Yeah, BFC was a rather odd mix of minimalism and huge fleets...

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2004-09-07 05:14pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
Alyeska wrote:IIRC it was said there was a minimum of 2,400 lesser ships per ISD in a sector fleet. 24 ISDs in a sector fleet gives us 57600 ships.
Black Sword Command had far more Star Destroyers than that, though. It had 3 Executor class vessels alone, though only one (Intimidator) was named and seen in the BFC trilogy. Wasn't it assigned to just one sector?

`Nope

Before the Storm, page 137 wrote: 'Black Sword Command defended the center of the Empire's Rim territories,' Drayson noted. 'Praxlis, Corridan, the entire Kokash and Farlax sectors.'

At least two sectors, if not four. Of course, its not like the Black Sword Command neccesarily included just the forty four capital ships missing...it could conceivably been larger. IIRC the ISB mentions "special" fores sometimes attached to Regions or other specific areas (Oversectors I think they're called..)

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2004-09-07 05:20pm

Connor MacLeod wrote: Do you recall which page number or chapter? Or which point in the book? I'd like to check that out.

Spectre [i]of[/i] the Past, Bantam paperback, don't ask me for the reprint, pg112 halfway down wrote: With nearly a thousand senators already-and with each representing fifty to two hundred entire worlds

I have apparently misrepresented worlds as systems, and my interpretation of 50-200 as 125. My apologies.

And 125,000 systems, while smaller than I'd thought, is still bigger than the 10,000 or so systems they had in the Black Fleet Crisis
IIRC the Empire had 50 million protectorates according to WEG in addition to a million or so member worlds. And if you include the 50 million figure into the "average" estimate I made before, fleet numbers go up a bit higher (like an order of magnitude or so I think)

Hey, you'll get no argument from me, I just wanted to offer a source for the thousand sector quote (flawed as it turned to out be

)

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-07 05:31pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:
phongn wrote:Alyeska's estimate is the most common one, though some (like Marina's) go up much, much higher.

Yeah. I don't recall offhand where the "thousand sector" estimate comes from,

In the Black Fleet Crisis, I seem to recall reading one part that mentioned an average sector had two or three thousand systems...

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-07 05:32pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
Connor MacLeod wrote:And 125,000 systems, while smaller than I'd thought, is still bigger than the 10,000 or so systems they had in the Black Fleet Crisis
Yeah, BFC was a rather odd mix of minimalism and huge fleets...

It sucked...lol. A hundred Yevethan thrustships were supposed to be enough to scare Han into imagining the destruction of Coruscant? ROFL.
Not only that, but they even imply that SW uses nuclear fusion at some point in the book. *sigh*

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-07 06:15pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
Alyeska wrote:IIRC it was said there was a minimum of 2,400 lesser ships per ISD in a sector fleet. 24 ISDs in a sector fleet gives us 57600 ships.
Black Sword Command had far more Star Destroyers than that, though. It had 3 Executor class vessels alone, though only one (Intimidator) was named and seen in the BFC trilogy. Wasn't it assigned to just one sector?

Not all sectors are created equaly.