An unexpected party takes care of ISIS (RAR!)

[Zor]

Care to inform us how they would even identify ISIS supporters, from, you know, every other human in ISIS territory? Is every Stormtrooper a mind reader? What targets ISIS exactly has worthy bombing from orbit not killed already by US non stop bombardment? How you stop all healed people from being dissected to learn how it was done? Or religious nuts from blowing up embassies in revenge?

They landed 30,000 troops into Iraq and Syria in the heart of ISIS controlled territory while announcing their intent to deal with ISIS combatants with lethal force. ISIS was not expecting nor had time to prepare for such a rapid intervention. They have a list of prominent ISIS clerics, leaders and other such individuals for elimination. They also send attaches to the US and Iraqi government to coordinate efforts.

As for the bases, they have weapon detectors to snoot out anyone trying to bring in a bomb.

Zor

[jwl]

Care to inform us how they would even identify ISIS supporters, from, you know, every other human in ISIS territory? Is every Stormtrooper a mind reader? What targets ISIS exactly has worthy bombing from orbit not killed already by US non stop bombardment? How you stop all healed people from being dissected to learn how it was done? Or religious nuts from blowing up embassies in revenge? Why the intervention makes so little sense?

If this is the modern galactic empire (as in, not "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"), there might be large jedi group by now within the empire who could direct the stormtroopers around. If this is the empire of the movies, well, vader could tell obi-wan was on board an area the size of the death star and sidious is even more powerful, so they could just individually pick out every isis member, and take them out themselves. Considering the speed of transportation they can have in the empire, they could probably take out one isis insurgent per minute, so if vader works on this for five hours per day and there are 30000 isis insurgents in iraq and syria, he'll have done in 100 days all by himself. The empire will also have better sensors than the US have, so they can collect better intelligence.

And if all else fails, they can just walk into, say, mosul and take out anyone who tries to stop them. I don't see it as impossible that ISIS will see they are so overwhelmingly out-everythinged that this will end up a bit like russia vs ukraine over Crimea (or indeed, isis vs the iraqi army at some points). Sure, isis might be able to go into guerrilla warfare but at least they won't hold any territory, and when they try something the empire will be able to react fast.

[Darth Tanner]

vader could tell obi-wan was on board an area the size of the death star

Just a nit pick here but Vader was stood about 10m away from Obi-Wan at the point he senses him... as far as we can tell he doesn't sense him adequately to tell he was in the floor plates either... unless he comes up with the tracking plan immediately.

sidious is even more powerful, so they could just individually pick out every isis member

There is no evidence the force works on demand like that, the Emperor did not detect Luke on the shuttle or landing on the moon - as far as we know he only knew the rebels had landed because the shuttle had been reported to him and scout troopers started to go missing... he was expecting a rebel attack after all.

[jwl]

vader could tell obi-wan was on board an area the size of the death star

Just a nit pick here but Vader was stood about 10m away from Obi-Wan at the point he senses him... as far as we can tell he doesn't sense him adequately to tell he was in the floor plates either... unless he comes up with the tracking plan immediately.

sidious is even more powerful, so they could just individually pick out every isis member

There is no evidence the force works on demand like that, the Emperor did not detect Luke on the shuttle or landing on the moon - as far as we know he only knew the rebels had landed because the shuttle had been reported to him and scout troopers started to go missing... he was expecting a rebel attack after all.

Fair enough.

[Cykeisme]

I realize there is absolutely zero evidence or even any vague indication of this (particularly in the second instance), but when Obi-Wan was aboard the first Death Star, and when Luke was in the vicinity of the second, they could have been using some technique to deliberately mask their presence from the nearby Sith Lord(s).
It just seems like an ability the Jedi might have worked on developing during their two decades in hiding, which may also have been taught to Luke on Dagobah.


Of course, I must also say that the idea of detecting terrorists still falls apart anyway, because we're talking about Sith Lords picking out ISIS insurgents from afar, when they showed no similar long-distance capability to pick out Rebel Alliance insurgents n the films. This is also a far more specific and similar example than the instances of detecting Jedi.

[Borgholio]

they could have been using some technique to deliberately mask their presence from the nearby Sith Lord(s).

Well Yoda was so strong he had to hide on Dagobah near that dark side cave to mask his presence. Obi Wan in all honesty wasn't all THAT powerful. There were many Jedi in the order who were stronger than he was. So hiding in a hut in the middle of the desert and not actually using the Force much was probably enough to stay concealed.

[Channel72]

Um...

George Lucas is immediately kidnapped by the CIA and interrogated for hours/days/months to find out information about how he knew, back in the 70s, anything about this mysterious invading force. Early drafts of Star Wars are poured over for hours by CIA analysts trying to figure out how the fuck Lucas knew any of this. The early VFX and model designers who created the original models for Imperial Star Destroyers and Storm Trooper armer - in such explicit detail - are also brought in for interrogation.

We want answers Zor, how the fuck did they know!?

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, Sith lords show no ability to just stare at a random patch of planetary surface and go "I spot rebels there, there, and there." They might well be able to identify rebels from non-rebels at close range, but it's not like Vader is going to waste his time marching down a long line of random Iraqis trying to single out the rebels.

No, the Imperials would just view this as a routine thing, not requiring Sith attention, and park stormtrooper garrisons in the middle of the place, then slaughter everyone who shot at them and engage in mass reprisals agaisnt the civilian population for shooting at them. Or something along those lines.

they could have been using some technique to deliberately mask their presence from the nearby Sith Lord(s).

Well Yoda was so strong he had to hide on Dagobah near that dark side cave to mask his presence.

He may have initially decided to use the cave to mask his presence, and then spent the intervening 15-20 years working on other, entirely different techniques to hide himself. Which would be useful both as things to teach Luke, and if Yoda ever had to actually leave Dagobah for any reason.

Or Yoda may have known these techniques already (did Palpatine know Yoda was coming when Yoda attacked him in his quarters during Episode III?), and felt they might be insufficient to stop a galaxy-wide search for him, and thus decided to pick a place where he could be even more secure.

Or maybe the techniques only work when you're awake and concentrating on "nobody here but us chickens, no Jedi at home, go away scrying Sith minds." In which case, again, Yoda would need another place to hide himself where he would be free to go to sleep or concentrate on things other than cloaking himself.

Obi Wan in all honesty wasn't all THAT powerful. There were many Jedi in the order who were stronger than he was. So hiding in a hut in the middle of the desert and not actually using the Force much was probably enough to stay concealed.

True, especially since Vader is unlikely to ever willingly return to Tatooine- there is nothing there for him now, and post-Clone Wars Vader is very much a creature of his own personal neuroses and agonies. So all Obi-Wan should really have to do is avoid being detected at long range by someone who isn't specifically looking for him there.

[lord Martiya]

As far I'm concerned, I'd join their military to escape whatever political and/or sociological collapse and the worst parts of the colonization I expect Earth to go through (like with pre-Columbian civilizations when the Conquistadors showed up or China when they found out they weren't all powerful after all).
That, and I'm out of job.

[Simon_Jester]

One wonders what the Imperial military's recruitment standards look like for a planet at Earth's technical level.

[Darth Tanner]

What would the empire need the locals for, we have no technical or social skills in their civilization - I'd imagine any recruits are going to be largely using local technology to oppress the other locals as something like the SA or black shirts. I suppose they might cycle you to another planet to oppress their locals while their recruits are cycled to Earth to oppress us like the Romans did with their auxiliaries to prevent desertion - or they might just cycle people around Earth so American recruits end up beating up people in China while the Chinese beat up people in the middle east.

[Purple]

What would the empire need the locals for, we have no technical or social skills in their civilization - I'd imagine any recruits are going to be largely using local technology to oppress the other locals as something like the SA or black shirts. I suppose they might cycle you to another planet to oppress their locals while their recruits are cycled to Earth to oppress us like the Romans did with their auxiliaries to prevent desertion - or they might just cycle people around Earth so American recruits end up beating up people in China while the Chinese beat up people in the middle east.

Or maybe the empire has advanced to the point where most of their tech can be learned easily enough. Sure we might newer be able to use the SpaceIpod but their rifles work easily enough. And they don't need us to be civilized members of society but soldiers.

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, soldiers need to be technically literate to be effective. They're not just cavemen trained to point a gun in the right direction so the bullets go away from their face.

If soldiers don't understand how to operate a piece of technology, they cannot do any useful task related to maintaining it or diagnosing its faults. They are likely to cause inadvertent damage out of ignorance. They'll make mistakes and show incompetence that even the stupidest person from a society familiar with the technology would never make.

At best they're menials... and in Star Wars there's not much point in hiring a menial when you could have a droid doing the job.

[lord Martiya]

They'd need to know enough to maintain the gun and armour, not to repair a serious damage (unless the repair only consists in swapping the broken piece with a spare part). And that is taught easily enough.

[Purple]

This is a universe where you can just imprint huge amounts of knowledge on people if you want to. Flash training I believe it was called.

[cmdrjones]

Um...

George Lucas is immediately kidnapped by the CIA and interrogated for hours/days/months to find out information about how he knew, back in the 70s, anything about this mysterious invading force. Early drafts of Star Wars are poured over for hours by CIA analysts trying to figure out how the fuck Lucas knew any of this. The early VFX and model designers who created the original models for Imperial Star Destroyers and Storm Trooper armer - in such explicit detail - are also brought in for interrogation.

We want answers Zor, how the fuck did they know!?

I think you all may be missing another possibility: Some extra galatic civilization saw and analyzed the SW movies and created the Ships/crews to match what we already percieved to be "The Empire" in order to elicit a certain reaction. Perhaps a much more difficult investment of resources than simply coming in hyperspace from another galaxy, but not from anotehr galaxy AND another TIME.

[Joun_Lord]

Sounds a bit like Galaxy Quest.

Would explain the "Empire's" love of Earth. They somehow got our transmissions and modeled parts of their society on what they saw. Their military could be based on the Empire of Star Wars but other parts of their society could be based on other things. Their own exploration/science vessels could look like Federation ships of Trek, cities modeled to look like London, Paris, or NYC, names and fashions lifted from out TV and movies.

I doubt they would be that far away, our transmissions couldn't have made it that far, and the Empire (atleast in its Star Wars form) couldn't be that old considering Star Wars has only been around for a little under 40 years. It was first broadcast on pay per view in 82, so unless the aliens were already here they would have had to wait for the signal from 82 to reach them. Thats not even getting into signal degradation, meaning even by time the signal containing Star Wars reach them it might have been too far gone to view.

Though if they are just doing it for shits and giggles "to elicit a certain reaction" I can't see any civilization spending that amount of resources just to see how some primitives shit their pants when shit from their fiction shows up. Maybe some godlike entity like Q doing it because they are bored super-beings but I think I'd rather have the actual Palpatine Empire showing up to fuck with us. Less chance of all dying horribly.

The most likely explanation in this scenario for the Empire showing up on Earth in the SW movies before the actual Empire showed up is alien refugees fleeing the Empire for whatever reason and assimilating on Earth.

George Lucas is an alien.

[Purple]

The most likely explanation in this scenario for the Empire showing up on Earth in the SW movies before the actual Empire showed up is alien refugees fleeing the Empire for whatever reason and assimilating on Earth.

George Lucas is an alien.

Now that would be awesome. What do you think would be the most likely point of divergence between the "reality" and what we see in the movies? IMHO it's probably somewhere right after the destruction of Alderan. Maybe Luke Skywalker does not exist and the "victories" he enables are just fantasies of a sad lonely alien. That would be awesome.

[Simon_Jester]

This is a universe where you can just imprint huge amounts of knowledge on people if you want to. Flash training I believe it was called.

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

The most likely explanation in this scenario for the Empire showing up on Earth in the SW movies before the actual Empire showed up is alien refugees fleeing the Empire for whatever reason and assimilating on Earth.

George Lucas is an alien.

Now that would be awesome. What do you think would be the most likely point of divergence between the "reality" and what we see in the movies? IMHO it's probably somewhere right after the destruction of Alderan. Maybe Luke Skywalker does not exist and the "victories" he enables are just fantasies of a sad lonely alien. That would be awesome.

How and why would that be awesome?

[Lord Revan]

This is a universe where you can just imprint huge amounts of knowledge on people if you want to. Flash training I believe it was called.

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

In the old EU it was used as an alternative way to train clones, though the Kamino method was considered superior.

[Purple]

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

The existence of a massive clone army, far larger than the one seen in EP2 indicates that some method must exist in order for the Republic to be capable of replacing its losses. Beyond that, the details of the method it self are irrelevant.

How and why would that be awesome?

Two reasons.
1. It would be awesome to know of that whole epic. Just imagine this. A pair of aliens escape the destruction of the rebel base at Yavin and flee to the stars eventually coming to our world. Here they discover a world where they can blend in but that the empire has not heard of. So they spend years living in hiding and start a family. They make up stories for their children, stories of their lives at the stars. But not the sad truth, for that is too depressing. So they make up a happy ending. A good ending. And their children eventually grow up to make like an exadollar off the things by making movies. Now, the empire arrives and that one act of indiscretion gives them away.

It's awesome because it's a good narrative.

2. We get the full brunt of Palpatines evil empire combined with a fully operational battle station, an army of white clad enforcers and droids. All that commanded by nothing less than an evil wizard. And they get to conquer us. How is that not awesome?

[Joun_Lord]

The most likely explanation in this scenario for the Empire showing up on Earth in the SW movies before the actual Empire showed up is alien refugees fleeing the Empire for whatever reason and assimilating on Earth.

George Lucas is an alien.

Now that would be awesome. What do you think would be the most likely point of divergence between the "reality" and what we see in the movies? IMHO it's probably somewhere right after the destruction of Alderan. Maybe Luke Skywalker does not exist and the "victories" he enables are just fantasies of a sad lonely alien. That would be awesome.

Its hard to say whether much of anything in the movies is real beyond the obvious pointy ships and white armored dudes working for an Empire. They could be documentaries but they could be propaganda.

Look at regular Earth propaganda and see how close it is to reality. So is close with some editing to paint a narrative, some has cartoon ducks heiling hitler, so are just balls to the wall fantasy.

An alien all pissed at the Empire for running them out of town would probably not make an objective documentary but a hit piece to make the Empire look as evil as possible, whether or not they actually are. For all we know in reality Alderaan was never destroyed but invaded to remove the corrupt murderous leadership Iraq style (also they had space oil). Iraq was fucked up but not destroyed (not yet atleast) but a pissed off Iraqi making a movie about it might have the evil faceless Americans blow-up Iraq completely with the super weapon the Enterprise but then a plucky young goat farmer hits its obvious weak point with a Mig fighter and blows it up.

There is some truth to that, except the Enterprise kersploding, but isn't the truth. Even things in the Star Wars movies based on real events might be completely divorced from reality.

Using the movies to try to gauge how the Empire is and how badly they will fuck us would probably be foolish. Could you imagine the UN asking the Imperials if they actually blew up Alderaan and the Imperials reacting with horror about how these caveman savages could possibly think they would blow up an entire planet full of people? Or they'd be like "yeah, what of it" and its not like the UN could do anything, even sanctions, against a galactic entity capable of blowing up planets.

This is a universe where you can just imprint huge amounts of knowledge on people if you want to. Flash training I believe it was called.

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

In the old EU it was used as an alternative way to train clones, though the Kamino method was considered superior.

If I recall correctly the differences between the two was while Spartii cloning with flash imprinting was much faster then regular Kamino cloning but led to troops who were inflexible as hell, had the knowledge of tactics but no experience, and had the knowledge of weapon use but no hands on experience of muscle memory.

[InsaneTD]

Didn't the Kamino flash train, then put the clones through actual training so they learnt how to actually use the training and skills?

[Lord Revan]

Didn't the Kamino flash train, then put the clones through actual training so they learnt how to actually use the training and skills?

IIRC the Kamino method used a combination of flash training and regular training to make the clones learn at an acclerated rate, but training the normal way was still a major part of how they learned things.

[Simon_Jester]

This is a universe where you can just imprint huge amounts of knowledge on people if you want to. Flash training I believe it was called.

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

In the old EU it was used as an alternative way to train clones, though the Kamino method was considered superior.

For all we know, maybe that only works on clones with a pre-existing blank brain that contains nothing?

Where's the evidence for that again?

I mean, even the clones we see in the movies have to train in tactics and fighting techniques apparently. There may be other means to educate people rapidly but there's not a lot of evidence for it that I can recall.

The existence of a massive clone army, far larger than the one seen in EP2 indicates that some method must exist in order for the Republic to be capable of replacing its losses. Beyond that, the details of the method it self are irrelevant.

We don't know how long it took for those clones to be raised and trained, and we don't know if the method for training clones would work on non-clones that already have a mature brain.

It's awesome because it's a good narrative.

2. We get the full brunt of Palpatines evil empire combined with a fully operational battle station, an army of white clad enforcers and droids. All that commanded by nothing less than an evil wizard. And they get to conquer us. How is that not awesome?

Because we're getting tortured and beaten up and oppressed and it sucks, and it's just this endless dystopia?