Purist Thought Experiment: Post-ROTJ GFFA

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-07-30 05:04am

Using movie data as the only authoritative information, with non-contradictory EU as a guide, i.e., that the governmental/political structure of the Empire, and the Rebellion's size and sponsorship, etc. is all approximately of the nature and scale presented in the Expanded Universe. So, using what we know of the GFFA in the EU as a guide, but not a limit (only the movies are that), what do you really think would've happened after Endor for the Empire and the Rebellion's struggle to take back the galaxy.

Personally, I think the strike at Endor would result in something like what we see in Half Life 2 after Gordon hits Nova Prospekt. The Rebellion, and I mean the entire rebellion, not just the Alliance, would being open street wars and insurrections, protests, assassinations, propoganda campaigns. Sympathetic cells would go to war with the military, and in some less civilized and less idealistic (your rebel cells more like FARC in Colombia or the Mafia in Cuba) or more radical corners (like Commie extremists in Latin America more concerned with purging the impure from the Central Committee than winning anyr revolution) with each other. Moffs looking for an excuse to knife their superiors and seize a more autonomous position of power, would. Totalitarians and radicals tempered by respect and fear of Palpatine would make naked grabs for power on Coruscant. Popular revolutions would overthrow domestic Quisling governments and lynch Coruscant's proconsuls.

When the dust settled, I think you'd have a lot of worlds displaying nominal independence and much more open sympathy for the Alliance and other groups. Most of the fighting would be street wars and popular revolutions to seize sectors without naval occupation. I think the locally-raised Sector Groups would defect in most cases, along with the revolution. I think the Empire would react by sending some its galactic forces to burn some sectors as an example, but this would just inflame the populace more, and the Core Worlds would probably reject support for the regime in many cases. You would have enormous pressure for COMPNOR and the Emperor's Advisors to return legislative oversight and authority to a restored Senate by many remaining loyalist planets. I imagine the Core Worlds in many cases tolerated the Senate's suspension because of a combination of COMPNOR's corruption of their domestic politics to a degree and because of broad popular affection for Palpatine.

This would put the Imperial leadership, already in a precarious position because of uncorked political forces vying for power and no clear source of legitimacy and authority for the executive arm of the government, which drew authority solely from being Palpatine's representatives, in a double-bind. If they attempt to liberalize and reform to control the problems, you get a Gorbachev-esque problem of escalating disaster becasue without sufficient iron-fisted top-down authority, the escalating economic fluctuations and the inevitable forthcoming publicity on the atrocities of Palpatine and his subordinates - the truth about Endor, etc. would undermine the Imperial legitimacy and remove stigma from the Alliance. But if they maintain the status quo they're inevitably removed by the plentiful diverse political movements which believe they are failing and want a shot at power themselves. If they tighten down, the Core Worlds scream from loss of influence and autonomy and the revolutionaries and reactionaries are both given legitimacy. At that point Republicans (which I think were a lot more plentiful than simply the Rebel Alliance) would probably get a lot of consideration, and people remember the thousands of years of peace and prosperity under the old model. On the other hand, a bunch of people probably buy into radical new schemes or want to get to work at a thousand revanchist policies Palpatine prevented them from getting. I think its inevitable for whatever reason that while Palpatine's advisors are given a temporary chance, they'll be inevitably sacked.

I think the Alliance's model for re-Republicanizing the galaxy would be more like the American Revolutionary model and less like the Chinese Civil War/Russia Civil War-model the EU adapted, where the more violent extreme factions gain the most political traction and bit by bit crush all opposing ideologies and factions. I think there would be fewer split-off authoritarian states like the countless warlords of the EU, and a lot more neo-Republican or moderate-Palpatinist states ruled by juntas or provisional assemblies would spring up. I think the Alliance would assemble a Congress of opposition to the Empire, and would grow perhaps more aggressively politically as more and more states grew disenchanted with the decay of Coruscant's political stability and leadership and the increasing lack of solidarity with the Imperial model. The equipment used in the war against the Rebellion will be a lot, mostly by a big margin at first, of defected or indigenously-copied Imperial hardware. Indigenous mass-produced designs probably owing a lot to the CIS of the Clone Wars would probably proliferate as the war drug on. Overall, the Rebellion's forces in the field are not going to look so different from the Empire's. Especially once it got to the point of real conventional warfare between states of relative parity.

In sum, the biggest difference from the EU's model is that without Palpatine, who essentially personally worked for decades to form the careful coalitions (in a way that reminds one of the extremely heterogeneous-yet-authoritarian party that backed Franco) that transformed the Republic to Empire. A lot of the legitimacy and momentum behind sustaining that political project will be lost irrevocably with Palpatine's death, and I think a lot of people in the Core Worlds would rather give the millenia-tried Republic model a try-again, and go back to ass-kissing, corrupt politicians bickering in the Senate over a bunch of opportunistic lackeys and bootlickers left over in Palpatine's vacuum - a group which is strongly suggested in SW to be the group actually blamed by the Imperial citizenry for the pain and atrocities and corruption under the Empire. I think the Alliance would actually be a tiny part of that neo-Republican tendency.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-07-30 11:26am

No Galvatron, other purists? EU-haters? Come on, I'm sure someone has a more radical vision for how the post-ROTJ thing should've gone down.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » 2006-07-30 04:14pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:No Galvatron, other purists? EU-haters? Come on, I'm sure someone has a more radical vision for how the post-ROTJ thing should've gone down.

I'm afraid your post is utterly confusing to me. I can't speak for the others though.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-07-30 04:28pm

Wanderer wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:No Galvatron, other purists? EU-haters? Come on, I'm sure someone has a more radical vision for how the post-ROTJ thing should've gone down.
I'm afraid your post is utterly confusing to me. I can't speak for the others though.

He's just baiting people stupidly. Ignoring him is usually the best solution.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2006-07-30 05:05pm

Does this include the PT or just the OT?

Addendum: And is the OT the original version or special edition?

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2006-07-30 05:10pm

I wouldn't mind seeing a group of influential former senators like Mon Mothma announce a cessation of hostilities by the Alliance, declare that the rebellion is over since Palpatine is now dead and call for the Imperial Senate to be reconvened so a new chancellor could be elected.

Given General Tagge's incredulity that the Empire could endure without the Senate, not to mention the loss of two Death Stars (which were supposed to address this problem), I think many in the Imperial military would favor this rather bloodless return to the pre-ANH status quo.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2006-07-30 05:43pm

Galvatron wrote:I wouldn't mind seeing a group of influential former senators like Mon Mothma announce a cessation of hostilities by the Alliance, declare that the rebellion is over since Palpatine is now dead and call for the Imperial Senate to be reconvened so a new chancellor could be elected.

Given General Tagge's incredulity that the Empire could endure without the Senate, not to mention the loss of two Death Stars (which were supposed to address this problem), I think many in the Imperial military would favor this rather bloodless return to the pre-ANH status quo.

Wouldn't the removal of government officials put in place by Palpatine be necessary for that to happen? Or are you thinking everyone important that had to be removed was on the DSII?

I rather like this line of thought, since it would keep the military intact and provide stability.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-07-30 05:45pm

Darth Fanboy wrote:Wouldn't the removal of government officials put in place by Palpatine be necessary for that to happen? Or are you thinking everyone important that had to be removed was on the DSII?

Even putting aside the EU completely, it would make no sense for every important Imperial leader to have been on the Death Star at the time of its destruction. It's not like they blew up Coruscant or something.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-07-30 06:03pm

I think the Empire after Endor can tip one of two ways. IP described one of them. The other way it can go, I think, is if some faction siezes control on Coruscant and gets the backing of enough of the Navy that the rest doesn't splinter away into warlordism. Thrawn (the only decent original EU character) would be a good choice for the guy who can bring the fleet behind Coruscant, especially if he scored some quick victories against the Rebellion which took some of the shine off their victory at Endor. The problem is that the coalition running the Empire in Palpatine's place would be extremely fragile, and the only thing really holding it together would be the knowledge that if it broke up, whichever side the Navy sided with would crush the other. That's going to put an awful lot of power in the Navy's hands. Restoring the Senate in order to gain some legitimacy for the junta carries its own risks; they're not going to be pliant, not with Palpatine gone.

All this would really only delay the disintegration of the Empire. At some point or another, someone's going to get it in his head to blow down the house of cards on Courscant for whatever short-sighted reason, and nobody's going to be able to prevent full-blown civil war after that.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-07-30 07:53pm

RedImperator wrote:All this would really only delay the disintegration of the Empire. At some point or another, someone's going to get it in his head to blow down the house of cards on Coruscant for whatever short-sighted reason, and nobody's going to be able to prevent full-blown civil war after that.

Couldn't the Alliance do this by siding with one faction or another, causing them to be ejected from the coalition?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-07-30 08:05pm

Surlethe wrote:
RedImperator wrote:All this would really only delay the disintegration of the Empire. At some point or another, someone's going to get it in his head to blow down the house of cards on Coruscant for whatever short-sighted reason, and nobody's going to be able to prevent full-blown civil war after that.
Couldn't the Alliance do this by siding with one faction or another, causing them to be ejected from the coalition?

Only if the rest of the coalition allows it. The Alliance is militarily so insignificant (at least when there aren't any Death Stars around to blow up) that the coalition can tell it to fuck off. It would be like Osama bin Laden endorsing a US presidential candidate: it would only matter if the other side decided to make a big deal out of it.

You know, once upon a time, I had the plot synopsis for a 9 or 12 part book series that would have formed the core of a an alternate EU, detailing the entire history of the GFFA from about 10 minutes after Endor until the swearing-in ceremony of the first President of the Second Republic. I never posted it and I've lost the file. Fuck.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-07-30 08:31pm

RedImperator wrote:You know, once upon a time, I had the plot synopsis for a 9 or 12 part book series that would have formed the core of a an alternate EU, detailing the entire history of the GFFA from about 10 minutes after Endor until the swearing-in ceremony of the first President of the Second Republic. I never posted it and I've lost the file. Fuck.

Do you remember enough of it to give a brief summary?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-07-30 09:55pm

phongn wrote:
RedImperator wrote:You know, once upon a time, I had the plot synopsis for a 9 or 12 part book series that would have formed the core of a an alternate EU, detailing the entire history of the GFFA from about 10 minutes after Endor until the swearing-in ceremony of the first President of the Second Republic. I never posted it and I've lost the file. Fuck.
Do you remember enough of it to give a brief summary?

The short version is, after word of Palpatine and Vader's death gets back to Coruscant, there's an emergency meeting of the top brass to form a governing council for the interregnum. They decide the only way to hold the Empire together is to call the Senate back into session to elect a successor. In the meantime, Thrawn links up with the remnants of the Death Squadron and whips the Rebels' asses when they try to mount an offensive in support of a planet rebelling against the Empire. He eventually chases them all the way back to Mon Calmari, smashes their fleet, occupies Mon Cal itself, and the Rebellion goes underground in the Outer Rim just to survive.

The Senate elects a successor to Palpatine (a tricky job because the candidate has to be satisfactory, or at least not actively offensive, to the coalition of Tarkinian technocrats, New Order true believers, old school military, the civil service that's largely intact from the First Republic, and corporate bigwigs who make up the interregnum council), and the council convinces Thrawn to back him, in the hopes that the rest of the navy will get behind the guy who avenged Palpatine. Thrawn does because he knows full well what will happen to the galaxy if the Empire falls apart, and because he knows he basically owns them: if he decides to stage a coup, he can do it. They give him a blank check on the use of force to keep the Empire together, and he uses it to crush several moffs who were setting themselves up to be warlords.

This whole arrangement is extremely fragile, and what's worse, a lot of the problems that existed under Palpatine are exacerbated without him around to keep his more sadistic underlings on a short leash. The new emperor is weak because he has too many different factions to keep happy, and if they send Thrawn after abusive planetary governors and the like, you might as well just declare a military dictatorship and be done with it. At the same time, with a weak central government, rebellion is much more common, especially on planets which are being governed badly. The Tarkinites want to resort to terror tactics to bring them back in line, but the coalition balks. The situation is especially bad in the outer rim, where imperial governors traditionally had carte blanche to be as corrup and repressive as they liked, when they weren't outright in the pockets of the likes of the Hutts. This kind of chronic, low-grade chaos is the perfect environment for the remnants of the Rebel Alliance, which recovers from near extinction reoganized as a loosely connected network of cells in the outer rim.

The situation on Coruscant between the factions continues to decay and only doesn't collapse completely because the Navy is backing the emperor as Palpatine's legitimate successor. The Tarkinites get the bright idea of getting one of their own on the throne, so the emperor is assasinated (it's not known by whom immediately) and they use a combination of threats and political maneuvering to get the senate to elect a successor who calls himself Palpatine II and pronounces the triumphant return of the Tarkin Docterine. The Tarkinites immediately overplay their hand by trying to terrorize the core worlds back in line; this causes much of the old bureaucracy, the traditional military, and the corporations to break away, blame the Tarkinites for the assasination (which they suspect, but don't actually know), declare the Senate on Coruscant illegitimate and hence Palpatine II as well, and set up their own Senate on Corellia which elects a different successor.

So now you have two emperors, a detested one elected by a legitimate senate at gunpoint, the other elected by a senate with no legal authority with a popular mandate from the most important worlds in the galaxy, and backed by corporate money. Thrawn tries to stay clear of the whole mess to keep the Navy from falling apart, since the flag officers are split pretty much down the middle, so at a critical moment, the one force which could have decisively ended the dispute sits on its hands. Both sides go to war anyway with local defense forces and whatever Navy forces ignore Thrawn's orders to join the fight. All this only pours more fuel onto the fires in the Outer Rim, where the chaos has graduated from terrorism and simmering resentment to full scale revolutions. Each side in the Core blames the other for what's happening, every attempt by the Navy to restore order is necessarily half-assed because once a planet is brought back under the flag of the Empire, to which imperial government does it actually belong?

Seeing the Navy paralyzed and the central government falling to pieces, the middle worlds start breaking away too, and the navy begins falling apart with it. The Rebel Alliance is something like al Queda at this point: a philosophical movement with tens of millions of cells which have no contact with any kind of central authority, but share the goal of restoring the republic. At this point, Leia Organa reemerges and offers an alliance with Thrawn, as the only two sources of legitimate galaxy-wide authority left. The deal is the Rebel Alliance will support the Corellia Senate against Palpatine II with the understanding that the Corellia Emperor will authorize a constitutional convention to create a Second Republic, and abdicate once that constitution is ratified. Thrawn doesn't like it, but the alternative is to watch the galaxy self-immolate. He can't hold the Navy together forever with just his force of will, and the Rebels have the moral authority to halt the disintegration of the Empire without slaughtering trillions of sentients. Thrawn throws his weight behind Corellia, there's a short, intense civil war that ends with Palpatine II deposed and the Tarkinites and the last of the New Order diehards and Palpatine I cultists defeated and scattered. Thrawn and the emperor keep their word (if they don't, Leia promises a revolt on practically every world in the galaxy), the convention (barely) succedes, and we fade to black as the first president of the Second Republic takes the oath of office.

The idea I had was that these events would span 9-12 novels that would constitute the "core" EU. These would be the ones where galaxy-shaking events happened and the main characters from the movies played. The rest of the EU would take place on the fringes of these events, featuring pirates, foot soldiers from both sides, smugglers, aliens, all the good shit that you'd expect to happen in a galaxy-spanning civilization. The writers in the secondary EU would have lots of latitude, but they wouldn't be allowed to touch the main characters or play with big events. This means if some hack wrote a shitty novel, it would be a shitty novel featuring some characters nobody cared about doing nothing that truly impacted the universe. There'd also be a "reference" EU which would be all the things like the ICS and the reference guides and the like (which would be strictly monitored for consistency with the movies and the core EU, and would form the bibles for the writers of the secondary EU--no more 8 mile Executors just because some RPG hacks can't get it right). And finally there would be a "historical" EU which would cover events before the movies.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2006-07-30 10:05pm

Sounds good. What i like about it, no sith lord of the week that no-one heard of before. I assume the Jedi order stays dead in this arc?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-07-30 10:18pm

Lord Pounder wrote:Sounds good. What i like about it, no sith lord of the week that no-one heard of before. I assume the Jedi order stays dead in this arc?

I'm not quite sure what to do with the Jedi. In one version, Anakin's force ghost tells Luke that the Rebellion has served its purpose (this is after they've been crushed as a military force) and it's time for him to move on. Luke eventually leaves the Rebellion and goes underground. Years later, once things start falling apart on the Outer Rim, the most abusive officials and mobsters occasionally turn up dead of acute lightsabre poisoning, and Luke eventually reemerges along with the core of a new Jedi Order which is devoted to protecting the innocent, not the Republic, Luke having come to the conclusion that the Jedi Order politically retarded the First Republic and made it vulnerable to a takeover by someone like Palpatine.

The Sith, however, are extinct. Master and apprentice died at the same time, and all that EU horseshit about Palpatine training Sith alcolytes or Dark Jedi or whaterver is going right into the trash where it belongs. And if anyone so much as pitches a "return of Palpatine" story, his ass is blacklisted at Lucasbooks. Maybe after the core EU is complete, you could have a series about an attempt to revive Sith and how the Jedi, with their extremely limited numbers and resources, try to combat it, but not until the Second Republic arc is complete.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-07-30 11:11pm

Red, in an alternate universe where everything is right in the world, you'd make EU fanboys very happy.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-07-30 11:33pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:
Wanderer wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:No Galvatron, other purists? EU-haters? Come on, I'm sure someone has a more radical vision for how the post-ROTJ thing should've gone down.
I'm afraid your post is utterly confusing to me. I can't speak for the others though.
He's just baiting people stupidly. Ignoring him is usually the best solution.

How long has it been since we've had a debate? Over a year? Get over yourself.

Apparently contributing members - like Galvatron, who I've actually discussed stuff with in the last six months and about speculative and purist ideas regarding SW - thought there was substance to my prompt and responded, but please, enlighten me as to what I was about to do since you felt it important enough to troll this thread sans contribution.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-07-31 01:15am

RedImperator wrote:
Surlethe wrote:
RedImperator wrote:All this would really only delay the disintegration of the Empire. At some point or another, someone's going to get it in his head to blow down the house of cards on Coruscant for whatever short-sighted reason, and nobody's going to be able to prevent full-blown civil war after that.
Couldn't the Alliance do this by siding with one faction or another, causing them to be ejected from the coalition?
Only if the rest of the coalition allows it. The Alliance is militarily so insignificant (at least when there aren't any Death Stars around to blow up) that the coalition can tell it to fuck off. It would be like Osama bin Laden endorsing a US presidential candidate: it would only matter if the other side decided to make a big deal out of it.

You know, once upon a time, I had the plot synopsis for a 9 or 12 part book series that would have formed the core of a an alternate EU, detailing the entire history of the GFFA from about 10 minutes after Endor until the swearing-in ceremony of the first President of the Second Republic. I never posted it and I've lost the file. Fuck.

I think the Alliance has major political legitimacy and credibility as the only pan-galactic, pre-Endor opposition, and I simply don't see large components of the Palpatine-era Empire going down quietly. I've been running ideas by Publius and others.

I think the Alliance would solidify its gains and make alliances amongst the springing-up resistance groups and tone-down their rhetoric. I think they'd seek the aid of already recalitrant Core Worlds, like Corellia with their independence streak and Chandrilla with their sympathies and Republican character. I think they'd call a Congress of movements and galactic member states to call for the reinstatement of the Imperial Senate, which I doubt would happen with the Imperial Advisors already holding legislative authority (by edict) in conjunction with COMPNOR. If any claimant to the Imperial throne would emerge, I'd imagine it'd be a Legitimist claimant from within Palpatine's family. However he always kept them shrowded in mystery and anonymity and they have no power bloc to draw authority from. I think they'd try but be rejected. Because Coruscant would both not reinstate the Senate nor affirm a Legitimist pretender, I see opposing factions gaining momentum and strength looking for some kind of leadership. As they scored more victories I think they'd call for more assemblies and affirm a return to Republicanism. And most of the war would be fought against Imperial hard-liners and powerful warlords.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2006-07-31 01:42am

I have some questions.

As of what we know right now, who exactly knows that the Emperor was Darth Sidious, if any one?

What impact, if any, would Luke communicating with the "public" what he had learned about Darth Vader being Anakin Skywalker have on the galaxy?

Does Luke at this point, after confronting Sidious and Vader even know what a Sith is?

Would the millitary care that they had been under the control of the Sith if that information came to light?

And finally would any of this information have any political impact on how events would unfold after the destruction of the second Death Star and Palpatine and Vader's death?

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2006-07-31 02:33am

RedImperator: Sounds good. No Mara Jade, though? And are there any threats to the Empire (besides itself) like the Ssi-Ruvi or the Vong? I kinda doubt it, considering your focus. I would also assume that there are no further "even more uber-" superweapon wankery.

Also, I didn't know that Tarkin's technocratic ways was backed by some sort of ideology. Interesting.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-07-31 02:39am

Battlehymn Republic wrote:RedImperator: Sounds good. No Mara Jade, though?

I shan't speak for Red, but I would say Mara's character could stand to be included. She is one of the best characters in the EU, and I like Garm Bel Iblis as well. No coincidence that they're all Zahn creations.

And are there any threats to the Empire (besides itself) like the Ssi-Ruvi or the Vong? I kinda doubt it, considering your focus. I would also assume that there are no further "even more uber-" superweapon wankery.
Also, I didn't know that Tarkin's technocratic ways was backed by some sort of ideology. Interesting.

The rule-through-terror-weapon ideology. It's pretty basic, but it depends on a piece of technology to work, hence technocracy.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-07-31 02:39am

havokeff wrote:As of what we know right now, who exactly knows that the Emperor was Darth Sidious, if any one?

Darth Vader, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage and probably a handful of Palpatine's other close advisors, and maybe a few of his high inquisitors and Dark Force-adepts.

What impact, if any, would Luke communicating with the "public" what he had learned about Darth Vader being Anakin Skywalker have on the galaxy?

It would be treated as Rebel propoganda. As far as the Galaxy knew, Anakin died fighting "traitorous" Jedi during Order 66. And even if for some reason he was believed, since Vader is simply an executor of the Emperor's will, and already hated, the fact that he was once a hero of the Republic would make little difference (and might even warm a few people up to him).

Does Luke at this point, after confronting Sidious and Vader even know what a Sith is?

I do not believe so. IIRC, he learns of the Sith either from Obi-Wan's ghost at some point after ROTJ, or from a Jedi holocron.

Would the millitary care that they had been under the control of the Sith if that information came to light?

Vader was already known to be a Sith; Tarkin all but says it in ANH, and it was part of his publicised title "Lord of the Sith".

And finally would any of this information have any political impact on how events would unfold after the destruction of the second Death Star and Palpatine and Vader's death?

Probably not.

Stofsk wrote:I shan't speak for Red, but I would say Mara's character could stand to be included. She is one of the best characters in the EU, and I like Garm Bel Iblis as well. No coincidence that they're all Zahn creations.

I wouldn't mind seeing Pellaeon, either, even only in a minor role (perhaps in the same one he plays in the Thrawn trilogy; the captain of the Admiral's flagship).

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-07-31 03:15am

Battlehymn Republic wrote:RedImperator: Sounds good. No Mara Jade, though?

Mara Jade could possibly have a role in the coalition trying to hold the Empire together. She would not be a love interest for Luke Skywalker. I refuse to turn Star Wars into "All My Jedi" or "As Coruscant Turns".

And are there any threats to the Empire (besides itself) like the Ssi-Ruvi or the Vong? I kinda doubt it, considering your focus.

Not during the main arc. Afterwards, you could have another main arc, and an extra-galactic threat could work, if done well. The biowanking goes right out the window, though. The Vong suck, and if the galaxy is going to be threatened, it's not going to because the Republic is staggeringly incompetent. In an arc like that, the Republic would fight bravely and well...and lose anyway, at least for the first half.

I would also assume that there are no further "even more uber-" superweapon wankery.

Fuck. No. The closest I'd come is maybe during the invasion talked about above, they debate building a new Death Star.

Also, I didn't know that Tarkin's technocratic ways was backed by some sort of ideology. Interesting.

The ANH novelization stated pretty plainly that men like Tarkin were a major force in the Empire, and in the film itself it was obvious that Tarkin and Motti were allies, and Motti at least had nothing but contempt for Vader (until he got Force choked, anyway). From there it was easy to figure there's a faction within the Imperial government that thinks like Tarkin: autocratic rule by terror, using the fleet and the Death Star. One imagines they got knocked back on their heels after DSI was destroyed, but would make a resurgance after Palpatine's cult of personality got extinguished--after all, without that, there's not a whole lot to hold the New Order together besides terror.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-07-31 03:30am

RedImperator wrote:
Battlehymn Republic wrote:RedImperator: Sounds good. No Mara Jade, though?
Mara Jade could possibly have a role in the coalition trying to hold the Empire together. She would not be a love interest for Luke Skywalker. I refuse to turn Star Wars into "All My Jedi" or "As Coruscant Turns".

I'm not sure why this would be an issue. Romance is a part of the saga. You don't have to have soap opera to tell romance (and I know you know that, so I guess you're really irritated by the EU's treatment of the whole thing... but the whole point is that this is a reset!

)

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2006-07-31 03:37am

RedImperator wrote: The ANH novelization stated pretty plainly that men like Tarkin were a major force in the Empire, and in the film itself it was obvious that Tarkin and Motti were allies, and Motti at least had nothing but contempt for Vader (until he got Force choked, anyway). From there it was easy to figure there's a faction within the Imperial government that thinks like Tarkin: autocratic rule by terror, using the fleet and the Death Star. One imagines they got knocked back on their heels after DSI was destroyed, but would make a resurgance after Palpatine's cult of personality got extinguished--after all, without that, there's not a whole lot to hold the New Order together besides terror.

Don't you think that the rule by fear doctorine would have taken a pretty substantial blow after the destruction of the second DS? Wouldn't that second massive victory give rebelling systems that had suffered under or just didn't like the Empire, that much more resolve when it came time to resisting a post-Palpatine regime of any kind?