Who is more over-confident really, the Rebels or the Imps?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

It is quite often that the Rebel Alliance blabs something about Imperial overconfidence, and that's why they get to win. This is a typical blurb:

Imperial overconfidence remains the Rebellion's biggest advantage in the galactic civil war, and nowhere was this overconfidence personified better than in the Death Star battle station. Tarkin and his officers believed that its sheer size and destructive potential made it invincible. They believed that no one would dare launch a serious attack against it, if such an attack could actually pose a threat to the station.

But who is really more overconfident? According to them:
1) The X-Wing appeared; the TIEs were murdered, but the Imps also made corrections - developing the Interceptor, Avenger and Defender.
2) Rebels showed the Imps that artillery were useful, the Imps responded by promptly rebuilding the artillery arm.
3) Threat of Rebel fighters supposedly made the Imps build Lancers and the Neb-B.
So, arrogant they might be, but learn from their mistakes they do.

Now compare to that to the Rebels. Often, they don't show this same attitude. They aren't even interested in looking for mistakes. For example, the Appendix 1, quoted above, was supposed to be:

This appendix was attached to the original datafiles for study by Alliance officers, soldiers and diplomats. It sums up the lessons learned from the encounter with the first Death Star and the subsequent victory over Yavin.

It had subheaders like "Overconfidence", "The Force", "Small Craft" and "Interconnected Subsystems". Two of which had nothing to do with "Design Flaws" (which was the title), and none of which is a lesson so much than a propaganda piece to crow over the victory.

Furthermore:

These are young, high-spirited beings. You must convince them that they are the best soldiers in the galaxy, that "a good Rebel can whip 10 Imperials any day." But, at the same time, you have to teach then to wait. You will be on the run for at least the next year, and possibly longer. Under these circumstances, it is easy for even the best troops to become stale, to be infused with a sense of inferiority. You mist keep them sharp, itching for the fight. but willing to wait for the right moment.

In other words, they also teach their soldiers all that Superiority shit, which of course can lead to Overconfidence.

Even more damning is Chapter 6:

Excerpts from an Orientation Meeting Given by General Madine to New Alliance Ground Commanders

The meeting was heavy in propaganda and low in educational content. If you want a detailed going over, I'd do so on request, but for now to avoid boring everyone:

Section 1: Comparison of Imperial and Allied Forces: Madine promptly goes to denigrate his opposition's leadership and morale.

Section 2: Strategy: Madine mixes the obvious with contempt. Such as:

The object of warfare is to destroy the enemy's will to resist. This is one of our strongest advantages because we fight for freedom and for our families; most of them fight for personal gain or because they've got a blaster at their backs. Our will to resist is - and must be - higher than theirs. Make sure that the enemy is aware of this.

The "must be" is fine, but do you see the arrogance of assuming this "is" as a fact?

Section 3: Tactics: Given the time to only do a single tactical vignette, Madine chose one that he considered "perfect" (surely one with some errors would have been a more educational choice). Instead of pointing out points of doubt or improvement, he does nothing but talk about self-obvious things like "training pays off" and takes the chance to crow ... again...

We also learn, amusingly, that even the best Rebel Generals do not recognize the importance of a scale on their battle diagrams!

So, who is really more arrogant? Discuss.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I'd say the fact that the imperial's were still refering to the NR as rebels a decade after the battle of Yavin has them being more pompous, however the Rebels tend to get by with their ridicolous character shields, since the force really is with them.
However by the time of the NJO the NR really is amazingly arrogant (and idiotic) while the imperials really have learned from their mistakes and are willing to help the nr in exchange for membership and the ability to expand.

So for the time of the early rebellion until the end of dark empire I would say the imperials, after that the New Republic.

[Gunhead]

.303 You're a bit of the mark there. Imps calling the NR rebels is pretty easily explained by the fact that they were at war. You do not give any credibility to the claim made by the enemy as long as hostilities continue. It's really more a question of policy than anything else. There are RL examples my favorite being the brits in -41 instructing their troops to refer to the germans as "the enemy" "Germans" not "Rommel this" "Rommel that". The enemy must remain faceless. In this case the Imperial designation is biased, but considering the Imperials though they were fighting insurgents, it's pretty understandable.
Moreover, in many cases the imperials didn't even know they were under attack from any organized rebel group and many different designations would be used.

-Gunhead

[The Grim Squeaker]

However even when the rebels had taken and held Coruscant Isard the director of imperial intelligence was reffering to them as the rebels.

Also Dhala when she attacked from the maw and found out about the new goverment (and underdtood that the only way she could cause damage was by terrorist tactics) was still refusing to call the NR the NR and referenced to them as rebels, even after Dalla recovered from her defeat and took over the empire she refused to call the nr by it's name.
Even Palpatine called them Rebels in DE even before turning them into rebels again.
Continuing to call a group that is larger than you a rebbelion after it has taken over more than half your territory and has raised a major goverment ancknowledged by rival goverments/species shows a certain amout of inflexibility at the very least, it wasn't until Palleon tok over from Dalla that the empire showed some common sense in it's policies (alien stormtroopers, alliances with alliens etc...), taking decades to admit to being defeated shows pride before and after fall.

[Elheru Aran]

Ysanne Isard and Admiral Daala were also pretty much certifiably insane.

As for Wankatine, he *did* have some slight reason for calling them 'rebels', as IIRC he managed to run them off Coruscant and had them more or less on the run for most of the DE period.

And I would say that while the Imperials are certainly overconfident, they don't have much reason not to be-- they held most of the cards.

[NecronLord]

... Gragh. Typical, whenever you want to find mindnumbingly bad stuff, look in the sourcbooks.

Shit, the sourcebook, with 500% additional shit.

one of our strongest advantages because we fight for freedom [...]most of them fight [...] because they've got a blaster at their backs.

And as we all know, the sailors of the Kronstadt Rising, and Trotsky, (Mr. Gun-to-the-back 1920) will tell you what a fantastic advantage this is...

[Noble Ire]

It all depends on time period. Palpatine period, the Empire was more overconfident, even though they had a good reason to be that way. Still, they did loose or at least falter in several significant battles due to their overconfidence. Some Rebels may have been overconfident as well, but I really think that most of it was propaganda that didn't serve to do much more than keep the Alliance together.

However, the NR is incredibly overconfident throughout almost their entire existance, not to mention extremely disorganized and often downright moronic. Pellaeon's Empire in comparison is practial, restrained, and fairly reasonable.

[Gunhead]

The Empire isn't known for it's flexibility. Sure there are some bit extreme examples, but both have always known the NR only as the rebels. They mostly just show that the indoctrination works. Besides policies are not always based on reality, and changing one in an organization as massive as the imperial army takes time. It should be remembered that not all fought for the Empire because they were evil. Many did think they were fighting for a better future and therefore they'd continue calling the NR rebels even when it wasn't really justified anymore.

For rebel side, didn't they declare themselves the NR right after the destruction of DS II. That's being overconfident.

-Gunhead

[Noble Ire]

For rebel side, didn't they declare themselves the NR right after the destruction of DS II. That's being overconfident.

I thought that they waited six months, after capturing several significant Imperial worlds as the remaining warlords quarrled with one another.

[The Grim Squeaker]

For rebel side, didn't they declare themselves the NR right after the destruction of DS II. That's being overconfident.

I thought that they waited six months, after capturing several significant Imperial worlds as the remaining warlords quarrled with one another.

Wasnt it after they captured Coruscant about 5-6 years after Endor?

[Elheru Aran]

For rebel side, didn't they declare themselves the NR right after the destruction of DS II. That's being overconfident.

I thought that they waited six months, after capturing several significant Imperial worlds as the remaining warlords quarrled with one another.

Wasnt it after they captured Coruscant about 5-6 years after Endor?

I believe that was the formal establishment of the NR. However, they were more or less officially unified under that name after the Ssi-ruuvi affair; they simply had temporary capitals on a number of worlds till they took Coruscant.

[FOG3]

Well from the movies it's clear that at least some high ranking members of the Imperial military did take the rebels quite seriously.

"They're to well equipped."

DS 1: On one side we have the Imperial's "overconfidence." This is in many ways overconfidence in the same sense someone saying a M1A2 can take out any tank out there, before a Bolo falls from the sky. The rebels got as clean a shot as they could realistically hope for and it just pecked on the surface. They needed a force sensitive to actually pull it off exploiting the flaw. A group that the Empire had by all rights taken care of years ago.

Main flaw: not deploying enough starfighters to have utterly crushed the rebel starfighters. Doing so would have avoided to surface damage and what not the rebels were causing.

On the other side we have the rebels who weren't set up to bug out due the _secrecy_ of their base. Apparently multiple checkpoints and other countermeasures to prevent a ship with a planted homing device from leading the Imperials straight to them, even when a high ranking member thinks said device might be on board ("They're tracking us."), weren't considered important to maintain said secrecy. Yes, they could have intercepted the Millenium Falcon and sent Tarkin on a merry little chase instead of leading them straight to them. How's that for overconfidence?

Who then proceed to launch a few squadrons in a desperate mission, that they could have avoided had they been reasonably cautious. A mission that only succeeded because Tarkin decided to ignore their fighters, who realistically could do little more then proverbially scratch the paint job, and more importantly against all odds they managed to scrounge up a barely trained Jedi.

Despite that someone high up enough to be in contact with Tarkin directly actually had his shuttle standing by.

[Darth Yoshi]

Well, in defense of the Rebels, they were going to face the Death Star sooner or later, since the whole point of the DS was to blow up Rebel held planets or scare planets from hiding Rebels. They probably figured that Yavin would be the best time to try taking out the DS.

[FOG3]

Yes, but is that really an excuse when they weren't even sure they would find a weakness? Remember Leia made it clear they hadn't found one yet while on the Falcon. ("I only hope a weakness can be found." or something to that effect.) Just imagine if they'd needed more time to find the weakness and had been annihilated before they figured out a way to exploit it.

[Noble Ire]

Well, in defense of the Rebels, they were going to face the Death Star sooner or later, since the whole point of the DS was to blow up Rebel held planets or scare planets from hiding Rebels. They probably figured that Yavin would be the best time to try taking out the DS.

Weren't they suprised by the DS's sudden emergence in the system? IT seemed to me that it wasn't the best time for the Rebels to attack, it was their last hope. If the DS hadn't been destroyed, the Rebel leadership would have gone up in smoke. I doubt that they could have fully evacuated in time even if no weakness had been found.

[Admiral Drason]

Didn't it take the NR 2 years before they even had a declaration of war against the Vong? Even if it wasn't that long, they seemed to be suing for peace against an openly genocidal foe seems to be a bit overconfident

[Noble Ire]

Didn't it take the NR 2 years before they even had a declaration of war against the Vong? Even if it wasn't that long, they seemed to be suing for peace against an openly genocidal foe seems to be a bit overconfident

Actually, the ruling council discounted them as irrelevent space pirates until they had destroyed and occupied several major Outer Rim worlds and were threatening trade lanes. And they did try to sue for peace. The Caamasi negotiator was ritually sacrificed. Only after that did they really get it.

[RThurmont]

When it comes to Imperial overconfidence, what I think is generally seen is extreme overconfidence to the level of arrogance on the part of the commanding officers, and this is taken to such an intimidating extreme that most of their underlings are afraid to comment.

Consider Admiral Piett: every time Vader spoke, he visibly flinched. While fortunately Vader tended to be less supremely overconfident than say, Tarkin, if Vader did come up with a bad idea, you can bet Piett would be to terrified to say anything about it. This was possibly more due to the nature of Piett's rise to power (standing there as his predeccessor was telekinetically strangled) than anything else, since Vader's underlings in ANH seemed much more willing to provide constructive criticism (as witness the dialogue on board the Tantive IV as one officer directly reviews with Vader the dangers of seizing Princess Leia in that manner, criticism Vader acts upon with the decision to make it look as though the Tantive IV had suffered a lethal accident). Perhaps, though, since Moff Jerjerrod also seemed to suffer from "Piett Flinching Disorder", it could have been that Vader himself had changed after nearling being toasted by Han Solo at the end of ANH.

Tarkin was somewhat better than Vader in terms of creating a dialogue with even his more neurotic officers, but, as we can see repeatedly throughout ANH, when they do come to him with a concern, more often than not he dismisses them. Being able to raise concerns is meaningless if the concerns you raise are subsequently ignored.

Palpatine takes the extreme arrogance and overconfidence to an amazing pinnacle, and of course, with Palpatine, no opportunity for dissent, however lethal, presents itself. It seems that throughout the OT, Palpatine relies on Vader to serve as his interface, seldom communicating directly with anyone else (Tarkin in ANH being a notable exception-of course, Tarkin was a particularly important part of the New Order). Vader totally subjugates himself to the Emperor, so no opportunity for even the slightest comment or dissent on even the Emperor's most dangerous plans, such as the DSII charade that ultimately resulted in his demise, presents itself.

What keeps the Empire so successful inspite of this massive, stupid arrogance seems to be the officers that know how to deal with it, and have learned how to underpromise and overdeliver, and manage their operations as efficiently as possible. General Tagge, General Veers, and the lower-ranked officer who warned Tarkin of the dangers of remaining on board the Death Star come to mind.

The Rebel Alliance seems less overconfident than the Empire; it did some very bold things, but most of its most daring moves were acts of desperation.

[wautd]

the Imps were overconfident
the rebels were brave

[Edward Yee]

RE: Death Star
I blame George Lucas' mental masturbation and the 1977 fans' (read: those who for some reason got emotionally attached to a space fantasy like it was the Second Coming for little kids) mental nymphomania.

(Clarification: This is not Star Wars bashing. My position is EMPIRE ALL THE WAY! Albeit We Are Sith and We Are Sith II explain it a lot better.)

**

"Inside every rebel is a tyrant waiting to get out." - the reason for the reversal?

[Civil War Man]

the Imps were overconfident
the rebels were brave

The brave are merely the overconfident that are on your side.

Imperial overconfidence seems to be mostly a disease of the elite, present in the highest-ranking political and military officers. OTOH, Rebel overconfidence struck me as something that infected the entire rank structure from the highest general to the lowest private.

[Lord Revan]

the Imps were overconfident
the rebels were brave

The brave are merely the overconfident that are on your side.

Imperial overconfidence seems to be mostly a disease of the elite, present in the highest-ranking political and military officers. OTOH, Rebel overconfidence struck me as something that infected the entire rank structure from the highest general to the lowest private.

on the other hand the Alliance for restaration of the Republic (AKA The Rebal Allliance) needed to be overconfident (to a degree) because it was almost always outnumbered by the Imps.

[wautd]

the Imps were overconfident
the rebels were brave

The brave are merely the overconfident that are on your side.

or desperate

[Edward Yee]

Civil War Man, how so?

[Civil War Man]

I don't have a lot of time to give the full list, so I'll provide you with one example now and get back to you with the rest when I have more time.

The Rebel fleet exits hyperspace in approach to Endor. Little do they know, the whole thing is a trap. Stormtroopers have captured the away team, the shield is still up, and the Empire knew they were coming while the Rebels were still in the planning phases.

So the fleet is cruising merrily along, their sensors getting absolutely no reading on the status of the shield. There is obviously a difference between "shield down" and "no reading" because someone saw "no reading" and decided to mention it to their superior. Sien Snub makes a comment about this to Lando Calrissian, who within seconds realizes what is happening and warns the rest of the fleet.

Sounds fine, until you realize that apparently the crew of the Millenium Falcon was the only group of people in the Alliance fleet to realize this. Wedge said, "I'm getting no reading, are you sure?" As mentioned before, there had to be a significant enough difference between a "shield down" reading and a "sensors jammed" reading ("How could they be jamming us if they don't know...if we're coming...?") in order for it to be noticed.

This suggests that almost every alliance member with access to the sensors looked for the status of the shield, got no reading, and immediately assumed that their away team was successful.