Illuminatus Primus wrote:The specialists and officers will take a while to train effectively, and this is going to be the major limiting factor regardless. No matter how fast you can physically build the ship and crew it either with enlisted men or droids, specialists and irreplacable officers will be holding that vessel off until they can be provided. So I would say that the CIS may only be able to field a ship only somewhat faster than the Empire/Republic, all other things equal.
Somehow I think the enlisted men of the Imperial Navy would disagree with you over the idea that they are simply organic droids that are easily trained. And of course, if you think training sixty specialists is as hard as training six thousand or so specialists of an ISD, you've got to be on something pretty powerful.
Another thing is not all other things are equal: the Republic's locus is the Galactic Core - the region of the spiral arms immediately about the galactic bulge - where stars and matter is at its densest within the galaxy, and mining and industry are the most cost-effective and economical. Building a ship at Kuat is probably much cheaper pound for pound than building one at Kessel, and not just because the former is far more built-up and fitted with appropriate infrastructure.
And yet the Republic couldn't use this kind of advantage against the seperatists in the war... why?
Another issue is although CIS warships are limited in the time required to field them by the time required to adequately train and prepare the officers and specialists which cannot be replaced with automation and droids, Republican warships appear not: Venator-class Star Destroyers superficially appear to supplement or supplant much of an expected enlisted crew with clone crewmembers, and even operate a bridge largely crewed - and even commanded! - by clones. Secondary and circumstancial evidence suggests that clone production has become much more rapid since the initial Kaminoan method and original production line, with the explicit use of flash-learning apparati and the awknowledged invention of Spaarti cloning cylinders.
Spaarti cylinders still require months or years if the Thrawn technique is unavailable do they not?
Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that heavy warships may actually be fielded more rapidly and more cheaply by the Republic/Empire.
Explain why they're loosing the war by RotS if they have parity with the CIS.
ROTS ICS suggests that militarization continues unabated into the Imperial age under the rouse of Seperatist sympathizers and holdouts and rebels.
Yes. However, the Clone War era ships are supposedly decomissioned. I find it unlikely that the Empire is that much more powerful than the republic, despite rebel claims to the contrary. Certainly technology has advanced by the Imperial era, but the weapons yeilds of weapons like the Banking Clan Frigate exceed anything that has ever been stated for even an ISD's broadside.
It may continue to build up it's fleet, but it will not be at that massive a rate, and certainly there is no evidence that that entire fleet would be needed to supress the Vong. A fraction of it would do quite well. A fraction such as that held by the CIS.
Hence, weapons technology hasn't progressed that much, and the CIS has the all the advantages that the NR lacked when fighting the Vong does it not?
Given how inept the NR was required to be to loose so much ground to the Vong, I see no reason to assume that the Vong will defeat the CIS, do you?
Hardly what is implied by the text. The implication is that the CIS has been forced to the Rim and bogged down in sieges over insignificant worlds, actually.
See below.
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Handwavium. I didn't realize that "[hand wave] It is so!" passed for a rebuttal on SDN. Things must have declined without me noticing.
What? You want spoiler quotes? Fine.
Let's see. How many pages into the novel do I have to go...
Two. Spoilers ahead:
Across the remnants of the Republic, stunned beings watch in horror as the battle unfolds live over the holonet. Everyone knows that more Jedi are killed or captured every day, that the Grand Army of the Republic has been pushed out of system after system
The novel is littered with similar quotes.
I think you are taking the evacuation of the CIS leaders to Mustafar as proof of the CIS being driven back on all fronts. I disagree, given that it was ordered specifically by Palpatine to get them all alone in one place for his new protegee to move them, it cannot be assumed to be indicative of the general state of affairs. Certainly the republic can take Utapau, but this was explicitly stated to be a simple trap for Obi-Wan or Grievous (whichever dies, Palpy wins), rather than an outpost the CIS was committed to defending.