EU Fic: RotJ-NJO Era

[Admiral Felire]

My points on the Empire is that its not dead. It exists. Which means that there are a large number of story potentials there that could be interestingly developed.

That said, I don't have a problem with this being an era of the New Republic and that the Empire doesn't do much on the galactic level. Except throw its opinion around occasionally.

But despite its economy and military being in shambles give it a few decades and it should be somewhat better off. Not conquer the galaxy better off, but not third world country either. Something like a nicely developed internal region that trades mostly within itself and keeps itself mostly closed off but connected to the wider galaxy.

And in addition, I never wanted to give it millions of systems, what I wanted to to was increase it to more than 8 sectors because that is not a lot when you consider the sheer scope of the galaxy. Even 10,000 systems make it pretty much nothing compared to the number of worlds in the galaxy, but it does provide it with a little bit more of support and I think believability.

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As to Deep Core Imperials, I think some pack up, some join Pellaeon but remain where they are and some remain independent, though mostly quiet.

[Admiral Felire]

Here is another question that I figure that the people in this project might be better able to answer them me.

Okay, as it stands right now the stats and numbers we have for the various classes of Imperial starships (Imperial Star Destroyers, Executor Command Ships, etc) are pretty much low compared to their sizes and designs.

If we were to fix the rpg stats for the various ships what sorts of crews, troop capacity, fighter capacity, and weaponry numbers would be give to them.

Or do you think the rpg numbers are fine and we should keep that as it is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Also, after Thrawn dies, Pellaeon should basically become a nobody. He does seem to get promoted several times by the time the Empire fully collapses, if one assumes his rank of vice admiral was a legitimate elevation. Immediately afterward though, the fleet withdraws (under the command of Thrawn's actual operational second-in-command, no reason to have him repeat his shame of Endor). As soon as Thrawn's confirmed dead, Dangor and the other insiders throughout the galaxy (including Pestage, heading making sure things are running to plan on the inside of the Deep Core), proceed with the next phase. A new SCAFI is elevated, arrangements made with the warlord and other Imperalist factions, and the arrangements for the coalition campaign are made. Pellaeon probably gets promoted to somesort of admiral in this phase (maybe skipping a grade, going to commodore?). I can see Thrawn's fleet unit being dispatched to the allied staging areas in the warlord fiefdoms on the outskirts of the Deep Core. Perhaps Pellaeon serves under Teradoc, setting him up to be his subordinate later. In the initial campaign he does quite well, and gets elevated to rear admiral lower half/counter admiral/flotilla admiral (is that the correct translation, Hoth?), then rear admiral (upper half), probably at the beginning of Shadow Hand, loses the Chimaera at Duro, and ends service in the Armed Forces as a newly-minted vice admiral.

[Admiral Felire]

Pellaeon's personal history is fine. It gets him to where we need him to be - in the Deep Core where he can meet Dalaa and unite the warlords. By the way, at some point I think he served within the Imperial Fleet of the Reborn Emperor.

[Pelranius]

I always had a bit of trouble believing the 8 sector line myself. It seems weird as say the Allies stop attacking the Nazis after Mid March 1945, when there's no real factor stopping them from curbstopping their enemies. Even the most minimalistic numbers for the NRDF should guarantee a victory over the 8 sector remnant.

Perhaps ten percent of the galaxy would a reasonable figure? It would be small enough to make Pellaeon a nonentity on the strategic field, but it wouldn't be a cakewalk for Ackbar and the rest.

[Admiral Felire]

10,000 systems or a 100,000 member systems are numbers that work for me. What people seem to be forgetting is that when Pellaeon signs the treaty the Empire was slightly on the rise again - this was in the Hand of Thrawn duology. I don't think they should be a true threat to galactic power, but they shouldn't be such a miniscule number of worlds and from all that we know of Star Wars 1,000 systems is nothing.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Its not like Allies vs. Nazis, its about the Union not deciding it'd be worth it to totally purge the Southern culture and ruling class to the last man, and letting them reincorporate into the system having lost. The Galactic Civil War is a civil war, and by the Daala-Pellaeon phase, its probably ceased being a real general war, and more like periodic attempts by the NR to finish off Empire-sympathizers and fully incorporate all of the galaxy under their system. By the time of Hand of Thrawn, public support for continued hostilities is non-existent, and both sides are willing to work out a system they can both live with (the NR as the predominant power and in control of the galactic civilization, and the Imperial holdouts able to make a living while still hanging up posters and having rallies and old uniforms as they please). Even Zahn conceived of the galaxy as having over a thousand sectors. He knew he was giving the rump-Empire significantly less than 1% of the galaxy's territory, in the shittiest real estate category it has.

Furthermore, the Empire SHOULD know they lost, and not a World War One German, half-assed "we were still fighting in the field" bullshit, they know they lost big-time, and now all they want is to be allowed to move on, and maintain some ritual and aesthetics and culture (as I said, more like the Confederate South).

[Admiral Felire]

But the Empire didn't know they lost, Pellaeon did. He signed the treaty despite the fact that a lot of Moffs did not to. That they considered it a traitorous and unnecessary action.

This is their personal conception of the situation and not what actually happened - the Empire was not going to win. But they didn't want to beleive it.

And if Pellaeon was not there to force them to sign the treaty, they would have fought.

And increasing them to 10,000 member systems (for example) changes nothing you pointed out, it just makes it fit better in the galactic sense.

[Admiral Felire]

I would like to make another point here. Just because the Empire no longer as galactic-scale conflicts on its size doesn't mean that nothing happens in it. That nothing interesting or cool or fun to read and write about is not exactly a completely true statement.

I could think of dozens of entertaining stories that could occur during in the Empire, and those stories would not be of the galaxy-spanning nature. They would be about the continued survival and growth and development and politics of the Empire. They would be about trying to establish a society, culture and infrastructure in the outer rim and somewhat barren systems of the galaxy.

Just because the Empire has lost, doesn't mean their stories are over.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sure, but there are also dozens if not hundreds of pocket societies comparable to the Empire when is surrenders, like the Commonality, the Corporate Sector, the Tion Hegemony, Hutt Space, and ones never described or fleshed-out. Time to visit some of those places at the expense of the Empire, I say.

[Admiral Felire]

But there is no reason for the writing stories at the expense of the Empire - we are not trying to make money, we are not constrained by polciies or time or anything like that. We could create a mini story about Tion just as we can about Bastion. While galactically they do not matter, it doesn't mean they should not be covered. In addition, just because they do things small doesn't mean that some of their actions shouldn't be part of the galactic timeline.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Let's re-center the discussion. I think after Glove of Darth Vader, the next major event of the post-ROTJ situation which requires tightening up is the Zsinj campaign in general, and the Courtship of Princess Leia thereafter. Any thoughts for how to fix or deal with this?

[Vehrec]

Let's re-center the discussion. I think after Glove of Darth Vader, the next major event of the post-ROTJ situation which requires tightening up is the Zsinj campaign in general, and the Courtship of Princess Leia thereafter. Any thoughts for how to fix or deal with this?

For starters, I'd have Zsinji be the Warlord's Warlord, Prince of Pirates as it were. He doesn't like to fight stand up battles, and raids planets outside his territory for resources and packs up infrastructure in FCSs. Then he ships it off to planets in the corner of No and Where, and builds up an infrastructure there, irregardless of the presence or lack of dark side cults on said planets. By transporting his support infrastructure away from its normal location and into deep space/other poorly charted areas, he keeps it hidden, allowing him greater flexibility. His teritory might be marked by endemic corruption, as a lot of his commanders seem to be in it for themselves when I think back on it. So maybe this is part of Palpatine's plan, to put Zsinji in a position where he can gather all the most disloyal and greedy under himself and then be snuffed out.

Han would probably be in command of many more ships than we saw in the X-wing books, but he might have dispersed them across or around Zsinj's territroy to be able to react to any attempted break-outs. Alternatively, he could be in charge of a PR squadron, while other Generals and Admirals do the heavy lifting of dealing with everything EXCEPT Iron Fist.

Battle of Kuat can be explained as 'Well the Republic was trying to take Kuat, so they had a ton of Mon Cal crusiers and Star Destroyers, and Kuat was needing almost every ship they had to hold them off'. Couple that with Kuat's pranoid hyper-spatial access denial, and you have something of a plan. Take down whatever tech they use to keep the system mostly interdicted, steal the Razor's Kiss(stupid name) and whatever else comes to hand, and high tail it out of there.

Also, another thing that needs tweaked-not fixed exactly-is the Seige of Coruscant/Wedge's Gamble. More ships, more infiltraitors, more Rebels going 'What the fuck, where are the Imperial reinforcements?'

[Darth Raptor]

We really need to place an emphasis on the "behind the scenes" events as described in Parts I and II of "Sic Transit Gloria". This is when the New Republic is really coming into its own and the Empire is losing its "Galactic" status. It's one thing to say that Isard's counterintuitive machinations are part of Operation Shadowhand, but in the spirit of avoiding awkward questions, I think we should demonstrate how it was in the best interests of Palpatine to scrap his Empire and start over rather than attempt to salvage the existing incarnation. Isard taking the fall at Brentaal and Coruscant is conducive to this strategy, while the Thrawn Campaign was not (hence his assassination).

While the Phony War and the subsequent balkanization of the outer Regions make sense to those who have done their research, the treatment of these issues by the main narrative leaves much to be desired. Again, we run into awkward questions. "How has the Alliance transitioned into a bona fide New Republic without getting crushed?", etc. These questions have answers, but it took an exhaustive effort by Publius and others to find them. Perhaps we should emphasize just how much the death of Palpatine started a cascade failure that tore the Empire apart, while the purpose of Isard's regency is to oversee the controlled death and dismantling of the State to pave the way for her master's return. More than anything, the depths of anarchy and chaos to which the Expansion Region, Outer, Mid and parts of the Inner Rim descend should be made clear. The complete breakdown of shipping, communications, commerce and the surge in piracy should make alternative authorities like the Pentastar Alignment and the New Republic plausible. Alienated Imperial worlds and those who just want some semblance of relief and normalcy should be flocking to their banners en masse.

When the Republic finally moves against Zsinj, the scale of the campaign should be emphasized. Both sides should be throwing the full force of their respective fleets against each other, and BOTH sides should be using mostly Imperial hardware. The shipyards at Dac simply cannot tool up to a level approaching Kuat, Corellia or Fondor overnight, and even if they could it would take years for them to produce a fleet consistent with their canon portrayal. The sensible alternative is that just as many ex-Imperials went over to the Alliance as went rogue, and the New Republic pretty much inherited the bulk of its early military from fragments of the Empire. We talked about this in PSW: Making the Galactic Civil War an actual civil war. It's this precise period that the war escalates into a large-scale shootout. Icom, Mon Calamari, etc. should definitely get preferential treatment, but politics shouldn't win out over pragmatism. Not in OUR New Republic. The minimalistic Rebel Alliance 2.0 of the X-Wing series should be dialed up to eleven. Even the politics of the Republic should probably be revamped. After Endor, it should shift gears from a rebel to a Republican revivalist movement; an attractive alternative to both the anarchy of the warlords and the mismanagment of the Empire.

[Illuminatus Primus]

One concept I have revolves around the Generationals. They fancy themselves as a near-upper class stewardship of the Republic. Some of my working concepts for the Clone Wars make them comparable to the late Roman Republic's Civil Wars, with the clones replacing the Marian legions (and perhaps, also serve as the mercenaries in a Thirty Year War analog) which sap the strength of the legitimate government's authority, and allows the standing military to wane. The Generationals are grateful for Palpatine's saving of the galaxy from anarchy and chaos, despotism, or barbarism like everyone else, and particularly grateful for his rebuilding of the standing military and (officially at least) banning military cloning. However, they're not happy with his radical reforms of the Republic and populism and sidelining of the sovereign Senate (they are Legalists and very conservative Republicans). However, they deal with as Palpatine ascension is legal, and they tell themselves he deserves it as a lifetime achievement award and fitting retirement gift for saving civilization. However, Palpatine (through the ruling party) subverts the military with ideological monitoring, sponsoring of his favorites and partisans, and limited purges and promotes a new generation of Militarists. By Endor the military is divided between the Generationals (very conservative, Legalistic, Republican at heart) and the Militarists (Palpatinist, Machievallian, and authoritarian/autocratic), with the latter having some majority or at least the dominance of the Armed Forces. After Endor and Palpatine's death, and the illegal machinations on Coruscant, the Generationals feel liberated to defect. The New Republic moderates and courts the Generationals who in turn influence the New Republic. The Generationals are the core of the very early New Republic military (they compete for power and influence with the very smaller but old shirt Alliance fighters who are overrepresented in the highest echelons, but Mothma and such try to build a happy medium).

[Darth Hoth]

I am presently drafting up a novelisation of the X-wing story arc "In The Empire's Service", sort of based on the model of Publius's The Test of Wills (though I fear I cannot hold up to his standards of writing). In my work on it, I ran into several of those same issues - e.g., how can the Rebels seriously contend with the Empire over a major Core World in all-out military conflict barely a year after Endor? (Yes, so Isard set it up, all right, it still would not work, High Command would scramble forces to hold it no matter what.) How come no ships are seen passing Brentaal if it is supposedly an uberduper-important transport hub on a major hyperlane intersection? And so on.

The answer I came up with was akin to yours - emphasising the Imperial collapse. I would start with having Zsinj as a major force - not some pirate king blasting around with an ISSD, but the Warlord controlling a full third of the former Empire. One might perhaps see him as a manifestation of the Outer Rim and its opposition to the Core-run central government; in this aspect, one might even make him some sort of "True Imperial", "Anti-Revisionist" lip-service Palpatinian populist who would catch the hearts of the Rimmers (this could perhaps also be tied to his relatively low birth). His movement, while still opportunist, could then be seriously secessionistic, at least in its propaganda, rather than merely despotic, and moreover, popular, as opposed to the cardboard figures to take over Corewards after the great Palpatine and ruining his works.

The Empire would then see him as more immediate a threat than the Rebels, allowing them to act more boldly without fearing Imperial reprisal. The spring at Brentaal would still be atypical - I would rather imagine that they would be rounding up support in the more outlying regions where people would be more favourably inclined towards them.

One might also stretch the power struggle on Coruscant itself - Pestage having to spend most of his time fighting the Ruling Council (Led by Dangor at this time? If not, we can invent or emphasise someone else) and Isard generally making things difficult by sowing disinformation and interfering with the military (Perhaps she has a Hoover/Himmleresque hold over many influential politicians and more or less forces Pestage to give her authority far beyond her formal turf in return for her support? This would also explain why the comic depicts her as some kind of equal partner to him, rather than a subordinate).

[Illuminatus Primus]

Publius and I discussed this era, the idea being that Pestage convened a rump Senate and had himself made Regent of the Empire (the Ruling Council becoming pointless, which triggers the formation of the Emperor's Ruling Circle led by the losers of the Ruling Council - most notably, Dangor, who is actually a double agent for the conspiracy). They attempt to coup Pestage but cohabitation is brokered by Isard, who is installed as Minister-President at the head of a galactic unity government to bridge the two groups. Pestage replaces himself with an unstable/incompetent clone, Isard and Pestage decide to engineer its replacement with her while moving ahead their wrecking plans, so she provokes the ERC into couping Pestage's Regency (I intend for them to set up a large Regency Council with the Tribunal being a day-to-day presidium for doing business when the Council doesn't have a quorum). In the coup, Dangor's opponents manage to topple him. Then Isard counter-coups the ERC and just so happens to eradicate Dangor's rivals, leaving him in undisputed control of the rump ERC which concedes to Isard (the ERC not purged or dominated by Dangor and conceded to Isard abandons the State to back the Legitimists, together with the Moffs alienated by Isard's centralization policies).

[Darth Raptor]

The whole Generationals thing is very poignant. It's the Imperials who are the revolutionaries. At its core, the Alliance is a conservative, counterrevolutionary movement with the usual peripheral resentment toward the Core thrown in for flavor. The Empire is a departure from the last thousand years of governance and greater trends that stretch back to the dawn of galactic civilization. The socio-political pull towards a Republican system must be very strong indeed. Without Palpatine to act as the Empire's central, supermassive black hole, the whole thing flies apart under the centripetal forces of long-standing trends.

[Darth Hoth]

Publius and I discussed this era, the idea being that Pestage convened a rump Senate and had himself made Regent of the Empire (the Ruling Council becoming pointless, which triggers the formation of the Emperor's Ruling Circle led by the losers of the Ruling Council - most notably, Dangor, who is actually a double agent for the conspiracy). They attempt to coup Pestage but cohabitation is brokered by Isard, who is installed as Minister-President at the head of a galactic unity government to bridge the two groups. Pestage replaces himself with an unstable/incompetent clone, Isard and Pestage decide to engineer its replacement with her while moving ahead their wrecking plans, so she provokes the ERC into couping Pestage's Regency (I intend for them to set up a large Regency Council with the Tribunal being a day-to-day presidium for doing business when the Council doesn't have a quorum). In the coup, Dangor's opponents manage to topple him. Then Isard counter-coups the ERC and just so happens to eradicate Dangor's rivals, leaving him in undisputed control of the rump ERC which concedes to Isard (the ERC not purged or dominated by Dangor and conceded to Isard abandons the State to back the Legitimists, together with the Moffs alienated by Isard's centralization policies).

Wait . . . are you going by the idea that Isard is really a Palpatine cultist who knows of his impending return and is actually working for him all along?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yes, its the best way to make her decisions not incredibly stupid, and fits with his MO. Besides, we know she knew by after leaving Thyferra, given how Isard's Revenge ends with her knowing she failed him. Furthermore, as Superintendent of the Ubiqtorate, she would be in a position to know about the Deep Core enclaves; they were found and built and colonized with Imperial Intelligence quarterbacking the effort. The circumstantial evidence also extends to her withdrawal of forces inward (eventually sequestering reserves, infrastructural components, and supplies in the Deep Core; the Black Fleet's final destination was Byss, from when the Fleet slave-jumped from N'zoth at the end of the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy, that fleet was being moved by Isard right before it was captured), and most importantly, why intentionally abandon Coruscant in order to wreck/cripple the New Republic from within, as opposed to trying to hold it?

We know Palpatine is an obsessive contingency planner; he actually brainstormed for a Dark Empire-like contingency while aboard the Death Star (I guess this is what he does with his spare time), as the Dark Empire Sourcebook states he came up with idea of the Shadow Hand Strategy while awaiting Skywalker's arrival aboard Death Star II. I'm sure he had contingencies in case he were ever incapacitated and/or apparently killed. And knowing his MO, he certainly had a "control group" of insiders ready to devolve upon such contingencies in the event. My idea was they hadn't decided to try and go for the rebuild from scratch contingency until Palpatine is reincarnated in his clone on Byss (approx 1 year after Endor), but is still incapacitated (Essential Chronology says he "finally recooperated" around the time of Thrawn's return).

Accordingly, many of my ideas for the Rise of the Empire era mirror or mimic the apparent shape of things between Endor and Dark Empire (all of which was orchestrated behind the scenes indirectly through proxies). Afterall, the scheme after Endor was the second time he seized control of the galaxy, and certainly he's learned a thing or two from the first time he did it. This is one of the real challenges of the PT era, as opposed to this, here we know the broad outline and the characters and narrative impact and compellingness we're looking for, all we have to do is adapt and fit the parts together a little bit better. The PT needs to have all the characters the same (Palpatine most notably) and have them end up in the same places through different means. Furthermore, it has to be portrayed such that in-universe it looks like they are aware and informed by their experiences and actions in the earlier era, even though we're working backwards. On the other hand, at least it does give us inspiration for how he does what he does in the Rise of the Empire era.

[Czechmate]

Here is another question that I figure that the people in this project might be better able to answer them me.

Okay, as it stands right now the stats and numbers we have for the various classes of Imperial starships (Imperial Star Destroyers, Executor Command Ships, etc) are pretty much low compared to their sizes and designs.

If we were to fix the rpg stats for the various ships what sorts of crews, troop capacity, fighter capacity, and weaponry numbers would be give to them.

Or do you think the rpg numbers are fine and we should keep that as it is.

I believe we should have the basic, skeletal outline of the new timeline, from start to end, even if it's in single-line point form, before we set about trying to finagle the specifics of each ship according to more 'realistic' capacities. For now, it would be least distracting to simply go with the current consensus on the various classes (ignoring such blatant idiocy as 'lol 60 TLs and 60 ion cannons on this ISD lolol') until I (and the others willing to do it) have been able to work out the basics of the various fleets progressing from the pre-Clone Wars era into the post-ROTJ era.

It would take, in my estimation, at the very minimum a solid month of research and calculation and notation to put out even the most basic notated 'accurate' ship listing out.

While I'm on the topic; IP, how do you suggest i go about picking from amongst the various disputed size of vessels like Executor and Eclipse? I am leaning towards a rather wafer-thin 19km for the Executor and a much wider and deeper but slightly shorter Eclipse and Eclipse II at 17km. Ideally, I could have your permission (and that of Hoth) to simply come up with a set of basic shiplists on my own and then present it to you in a week or so from now for your perusal and editing.

[Darth Hoth]

While I'm on the topic; IP, how do you suggest i go about picking from amongst the various disputed size of vessels like Executor and Eclipse? I am leaning towards a rather wafer-thin 19km for the Executor and a much wider and deeper but slightly shorter Eclipse and Eclipse II at 17km.

I would want the Eclipse to actually be double the length of the Executor, as the comic very obviously intended it. Saxton fixed the Lady Ex, so we can fix it in turn. If the Emperor built his big black ship basically for the sole purpose of having the biggest flagship around, why have it smaller (in length, not volume, of course) than a standard Sector command ship (Executor-class)? Its only raison d'être is its sheer gigantism and decorative value anyway.

Ideally, I could have your permission (and that of Hoth) to simply come up with a set of basic shiplists on my own and then present it to you in a week or so from now for your perusal and editing.

You need no permission to present ideas. Go ahead.

[Illuminatus Primus]

While I'm on the topic; IP, how do you suggest i go about picking from amongst the various disputed size of vessels like Executor and Eclipse? I am leaning towards a rather wafer-thin 19km for the Executor and a much wider and deeper but slightly shorter Eclipse and Eclipse II at 17km.

I would want the Eclipse to actually be double the length of the Executor, as the comic very obviously intended it. Saxton fixed the Lady Ex, so we can fix it in turn. If the Emperor built his big black ship basically for the sole purpose of having the biggest flagship around, why have it smaller (in length, not volume, of course) than a standard Sector command ship (Executor-class)? Its only raison d'être is its sheer gigantism and decorative value anyway.

Only the DESB claimed that the Eclipse was twice the length of Executor. The comic just stated outright that it was 10 miles from stem to stern.

[Crayz9000]

I humbly suggest that whenever vessel sizes are in question, we use Saxton as a reference.

[Czechmate]

Upon being presented with alternate information, I agree with Hoth. Double the length of Executor it is; an astounding thirty-eight kilometers from bow superlaser to stern garbage chutes. I believe that this is a perfectly-fitting flagship for the Emperor.

Crayz9000; I will refer to Saxton when vessel sizes are in question, but by no means will I use only his work as a reference. Many people have worked to determine the sizes of ships in the SW universe, not simply him, and I feel that we will have an excessively Saxtonesque feel if we rely on his data too greatly. We are making a new EU; let's not have it be built of just one shape of stone.

EDIT: see my sig for a very succinct summary of my view on the different SW schools of thought.

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Also, since it was mentioned either here or in one of the other EUFic threads; I suggest the Allegiance be referred to as the Allegiance-class Heavy Star Destroyer (for those who prefer that system) or Allegiance-class Star Battleship (for the saxtonites). I suggest this because there's some rumor floating around that it is now some sort of 'Imperial-class Super Star Destroyer', and that name just has too much potential for confusion with the much better-known Imperial/Imperator-class SD. This is one of those cases where I'd like to strike a logical balance between the two schools of thought.

Being nigh-hangarless (surely it has some shuttles) and almost entirely designed as a ship-to-ship combatant and command vessel, it is quite possibly the perfect example of a 'battleship', a dedicated ship-to-ship combatant with little regard for other use, in the Star Wars setting. The ISD, comparatively, is a multirole heavy cruiser. Almost like the SW equivalent of the Soviet Navy's Kiev-class 'Aircraft-Carrying Cruiser', except with the capacity for a division/legion of troops as well.