ISD transported to oprbit around 11th century Earth RAR!

[Mr Bean]

Okay time to acutally list what you have on hand, lots of talking past each other time to make a list. I assuming an Imperial MK-I Star Destroyer because of the timeframe. (All figures shamelessly taken from Wookipedia)

Dual heavy turbolaser turrets (6)
Dual heavy ion cannon turrets (2)
Quad heavy turbolasers (2)
Triple medium turbolasers (3)
Medium turbolasers (2)
Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolasers (60)
Borstel NK-7 ion cannons (60)
Phylon Q7 tractor beam projectors (10)

Leaving aside Turbolasers and ion cans even tractor beams are strong enough to simply tear 11th century buildings apart like a cut rate invader abduction beam out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. It goes without saying no armor or force on earth can hope to contest an Imperial Star destroyer. What is noteable is how flexibility your destructive abilities are and how clever you can be with them. Or in other words destruction can be creation if done correctly.

Random Example:Want to start the Suez channel 900 years early? Dig the ground with your medium turbo lasers and shift the rubble with tractors.

TIE/LN starfighter (48)
TIE/sa bomber (12)
TIE boarding craft (12)
Lambda-class shuttles (8)
Delta-class stormtrooper transports (15)
Assault gunboats (5)
A variable number of Skipray Blastboats
Gamma-class assault shuttle (1+)
Repair and recovery vehicles
Theta-class AT-AT barges
Sentinel-class landing craft (12)
AT-AT walkers (20)
AT-ST walkers (30)
Prefabricated garrison base (1)

As far as transports go you have the Assault gunboats, the Blastboats, the AT-AT barges, the twelve Sentinel class landing craft and the iconic Lambda shuttles to move things around in whatever you create. However that last bit is the most important, Star Destroyers as a standard bit of kit contain everything they need for a garrison base. Meaning you have the equivalent of space trailers to plunk down anywhere on earth and construct yourself a base. Want to add on castle walls and a moat? Feel free but your creature comforts for your soldiers are already covered. The only issue is the size of this base is not mentioned but I assume it's not designed for more than a company or two of soldiers not your entire force.

Officers (9,235)
Infantry (9,700)
Enlisted (27,850)
Gunners (275)

Your men such as they are. Right off the bat the number of officers to enlisted means your going to be able to break up detachments quite small. You have four officers per enlisted man when the traditional number is thirty to an officer. Better still you have the gunners broken out, since you likely will never be firing another turbo-laser in anger being able to instantly take those 275 and cut 80% of them for service on any possible ground teams.

Cargo capacity

36,000 metric tons

Consumables

2 years

Cargo means the ability to carry outside of other essental equipment, even if your Star Destroyer is empty of cargo if nothing else it's additional housing.

That's what you have to work with. People are so concerned about machine shops and resupply... Space is the great preserver, lack of oxygen and the cold means you can just hang things in geo-orbit and still have access to them a century later barring meteor strikes. Also lots of stuff can break on a star destroyer and you won't mind. For example if the rotational engine on a turbolaser turret burns out... who cares? Strip if for spare parts you have multiple other turrets and your not going to be doing that much in the way of firing, as long as you even have a single functional heavy turbolaser you can nuke a city at will. The other 7 turbolasers are just spare parts banks for the one you need to work.

There are a lot of systems on the Star destroyer like that. FTL is nice but your committed to living there and the Lamda shuttles have thier own ftl so as long as you can keep the core running and the engines and a touch of shielding you don't need much else.

Let me be blunt the best and smartest long term plan is to empty out the Star Destroyer as soon as possible. Get as much as possible dirtside in your future base of operations and start shutting down non-critical systems aboard the ship and venting the atmosphere in the now unused areas to preserve their systems.

Let me say this again since people are still talking about it
The FTL does not matter, your stuck here. Time to make your life on this Planet Earth

[Purple]

--You have a star destroyer. But you don't have any immediate source of resupply, so you're going to have to make it on your own. This complicates the matter.

Read up on my posts so far.

--So you come from space and distant stars... meh. Who really cares? For all they know all you did was build a few magic machines a continent or two over. It amounts to the same thing, frankly.

I care. Seriously. As far as the natives go it does not matter what name I pick for my self, be it Cthulhu, Jesus or R.W.Reagan. So I might as well pick something that appeals to me.

--Asteroid mining is inefficient. It is not *that* hard to use a bunch of people to simply dig a big hole in the ground. People did just fine back in the day--it wasn't as dirt-cheap as it is now, but a lot of that was due to the amount of work that had to be put in it. So wasting your precious resources just to shoo a few asteroids in the direction of Earth is silly.

Well actually that is not entirely true. High quality iron ore, and other ores were not that common in the time period. Especially not in Japan. So blowing a single iron laced asteroid to chunks and dragging those to earth for the guys to dig a hole into has its advantages. And it is a trivial affair that provides resources for quite a long time.

--For all that you're a god... you still only have a limited number of troops, and there's a lot more people out there. Sooner or later, they're going to find out that gods bleed.

All they might find out is that my faceless white enforces can bleed. Something which is not too uncommon for divine creatures in many cultures. The untouchable almost omnipotent angel is a Christian thing. Other religions have "angel" and "demon" like creatures that can be killed. And these do not diminish from the gods own divinity.

And besides. It's not like I am going to actively enforce my rule any more than I absolutely have to. I intend to set my self up as a god, not a dictator. As far as I am concerned the local lords can have full autonomy over their ancestral lands as long as they give me my tribute and protect the rights of pilgrims journeying to my temple.

[Purple]

The only issue is the size of this base is not mentioned but I assume it's not designed for more than a company or two of soldiers not your entire force.

It's one of these.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Prefabri ... rison_base

EDIT: Can someone merge these please?

[Simon_Jester]

--Asteroid mining is inefficient. It is not *that* hard to use a bunch of people to simply dig a big hole in the ground. People did just fine back in the day--it wasn't as dirt-cheap as it is now, but a lot of that was due to the amount of work that had to be put in it. So wasting your precious resources just to shoo a few asteroids in the direction of Earth is silly.

Given Star Wars technology, use of light turbolasers to break up asteroids and tractors to tow them is fairly practical. As Purple correctly notes, with that level of equipment you don't need to mine the asteroids in a microgravity vacuum, you can literally pick them up and tow them where you want them.

Assuming you can solve the problem of your star destroyer running out of fuel at all, this is an easy problem.

If they can also find out that they are, in fact, men. Who says he isn't going to exclusively use the giant walking, hovering, or flying fire-dragons (AT-AT/ST's, land speeders/tanks, and TIEs)? As long as the troopers don't fall for any Ep. VI shenanigans (and with no high-tech dissenters to unite and aid the locals, that should be unlikely), those vehicles should be invincible to anything earth has available. And he doesn't even seem interested in that kind of rule, so he should be safer still - utilize air-drops, and require the plebs to drop their tribute in a set place or face the consequences.

It is going to be very hard to maintain the crew and troops' consent to a situation where the troops are totally isolated from all contact with humans on the planet. Especially since star destroyers appear to be mostly male.

Also because it's stupidly hard to govern people you can't meet and interact with meaningfully on a daily basis, even if you do have the ability to appear in front of them as a fiery voice. Look at how much trouble God had in the Old Testament.

[This is partly a joke and partly serious and I'll explain if you like; hold off on any flames until you hear the detailed explanation please]

[Patroklos]

That's what you have to work with. People are so concerned about machine shops and resupply... Space is the great preserver, lack of oxygen and the cold means you can just hang things in geo-orbit and still have access to them a century later barring meteor strikes.

This has popped up a couple of times in multiple thread recently and it is not true. While oxygen is corrosive it is hardly the only thing that needs to worry about regarding preservation. In this case specifically vacuum is itself a harsh environment, and while people like to assume space is "cold" it is not a uniform temperature. The temperature extremes between being in space in the sun and not give you temperature swings far greater that you will experiance most places on earth and far more frequently. That constant expansion and contraction can be very damaging over time. SW tech is probably durable enough to handle it but only for things designed to be in space. You can't just dump things into vacuum for storage.

[Purple]

It is going to be very hard to maintain the crew and troops' consent to a situation where the troops are totally isolated from all contact with humans on the planet. Especially since star destroyers appear to be mostly male.

Hence the forbidden city. Ideally, I'd have an inner city in the form of the prefab fort where only my soldiers and their families live. Surrounding it would be a forbidden city of sorts inhabited by locals who have settled there, newer to leave and who run establishments such as taverns, theaters etc. to keep my troops entertained. And surround that walled off section would be a larger outer city where the locals settle in support of the ever flowing stream of pilgrims.

Also because it's stupidly hard to govern people you can't meet and interact with meaningfully on a daily basis, even if you do have the ability to appear in front of them as a fiery voice. Look at how much trouble God had in the Old Testament.

That's why I don't intend to govern them. I intend to marry into the imperial family, have my officers marry into the noble houses and than only meet the family once or twice a year during rituals. They can spend the rest of the year governing the nation as they see fit. Although I would take some protocol droids with built in radio equipment and hand them out for quick conferences with the divine.

[This is partly a joke and partly serious and I'll explain if you like; hold off on any flames until you hear the detailed explanation please]

No flaming here. Just an explanation. And an elaboration of what I personally mean.

[Simon_Jester]

It is going to be very hard to maintain the crew and troops' consent to a situation where the troops are totally isolated from all contact with humans on the planet. Especially since star destroyers appear to be mostly male.

Hence the forbidden city. Ideally, I'd have an inner city in the form of the prefab fort where only my soldiers and their families live. Surrounding it would be a forbidden city of sorts inhabited by locals who have settled there, newer to leave and who run establishments such as taverns, theaters etc. to keep my troops entertained. And surround that walled off section would be a larger outer city where the locals settle in support of the ever flowing stream of pilgrims.

Then your plan won't work. The entertainers will figure out sooner or later that your soldiers aren't supernatural creatures, and they have to be in contact with the people in the outer city because someone has to physically haul the food in and so on.

Also because it's stupidly hard to govern people you can't meet and interact with meaningfully on a daily basis, even if you do have the ability to appear in front of them as a fiery voice. Look at how much trouble God had in the Old Testament.

That's why I don't intend to govern them. I intend to marry into the imperial family, have my officers marry into the noble houses and than only meet the family once or twice a year during rituals. They can spend the rest of the year governing the nation as they see fit. Although I would take some protocol droids with built in radio equipment and hand them out for quick conferences with the divine.

I... really don't think this will be a useful strategy then, because you don't gain any of the benefits of actually governing the territory. You're just a random barbarian horde that took up residence and cannot be dislodged by military means.

This becomes increasingly problematic as your technological edge starts to break down.

[This is partly a joke and partly serious and I'll explain if you like; hold off on any flames until you hear the detailed explanation please]

No flaming here. Just an explanation. And an elaboration of what I personally mean.[/quote]Even from the point of view of an atheist reading the Old Testament as literature, it is quite clear that the god of the Israelites had very serious trouble getting them to actually do as he said.

He'd put in an occasional appearance in front of some prophet as a burning bush or a pillar of smoke or with a bunch of angels that look like bizarre hallucinogenic visions, but the prophets were often ignored, even when they actively worked miracles to prove their credentials.

Meanwhile, the Israelites went off and did whatever they wanted half the time, worshipping other gods, or idols, or violating the commandments, or things like that.

So basically, this illustrates that if your only contact with "your people" is through a handful of supernatural experiences, you have very little actual control over their actions. Your commands are only a tiny tiny percentage of their actual lives and experiences, and they will tend to reinterpret and reimagine your commands however they see fit.

Given actual power you can of course punish people for disobedience... but at that point you're basically all stick and no carrot, and the locals don't have a clear picture of what you really want them to do.

[Purple]

Then your plan won't work. The entertainers will figure out sooner or later that your soldiers aren't supernatural creatures, and they have to be in contact with the people in the outer city because someone has to physically haul the food in and so on.

To an extent, but so what? There are plenty of religions where gods and divine creatures descend to earth and party with humans in human form. Again, shake off the judeo-christian idea of divinity. Forget yahweh and think Zeus. What matters is that the forbidden section of the city is inhabited by people who with each passing generation are more and more disconnected from the outside world. And this breeds an air of mysticism and exceptionalism with both the denizens and the outside population. Those inside will think that human incarnations of gods and angels are visiting them (especially once the orphanage programs kick in) and those outside will retell their stories as mysticised tales of gods coming to earth to rape our virgins in the form of a bull.

I... really don't think this will be a useful strategy then, because you don't gain any of the benefits of actually governing the territory. You're just a random barbarian horde that took up residence and cannot be dislodged by military means.

Which kind of describes the Imperial government in general, doesn't it? But in all seriousness, I do not see any benefit in directly controlling the land. What would I do with it? What possible use could I have from having more direct control over a bunch of 11th century pre industrial savages?

No, my goal is to create a long term sustainable situation for my colony. That's all. And latching onto and propagating existing power structures is the best and least resource intensive way to achieve this.

This becomes increasingly problematic as your technological edge starts to break down.

That's not going to happen for centuries, if not millennia. By which time if my plans work out I should have an organized religion and a great number of temples, followers and generally a power structure in place which has a vested interest in keeping my myth alive in order to maintain their own power. This is where the dynastic marriages kick in as well. The god-king of Japan, born from a family that intermarries with gods has a vested interest in keeping the gods that make him legitimate divine.

Even from the point of view of an atheist reading the Old Testament as literature, it is quite clear that the god of the Israelites had very serious trouble getting them to actually do as he said.

Which is why I won't try. All they have to do is pay tribute to my temple and if they have any need for further guidance, healing or miracles come knocking on the door with more tribute. And every single god in the history of man kind has managed to achieve that much.

He'd put in an occasional appearance in front of some prophet as a burning bush or a pillar of smoke or with a bunch of angels that look like bizarre hallucinogenic visions, but the prophets were often ignored, even when they actively worked miracles to prove their credentials.

All these prophets were still human. It's a bit harder to disprove a protocol droid.

Meanwhile, the Israelites went off and did whatever they wanted half the time, worshipping other gods, or idols, or violating the commandments, or things like that.

So let them. What do I care if they have other gods aside from me? And it's not like I intend to hand out any commandments to begin with. What do I care if they enslave, murder, rape or do what ever to each other as long as the tribute keeps coming? Now granted, I do intend to plant the seeds of an organized religion that will have a proper power structure and all that. But even with that, I still intend to have a very heavily hands off approach to these things.

So basically, this illustrates that if your only contact with "your people" is through a handful of supernatural experiences, you have very little actual control over their actions. Your commands are only a tiny tiny percentage of their actual lives and experiences, and they will tend to reinterpret and reimagine your commands however they see fit.

Which is absolutely positively super duper totally and utterly fine by me. As long as the feudal lords bring offerings to my temple at regular intervals and I can tax the trade from the city built around my main temple that's all I care for.

Given actual power you can of course punish people for disobedience... but at that point you're basically all stick and no carrot, and the locals don't have a clear picture of what you really want them to do.

The carrot is the legitimacy provided to the feudal lords by my divine edict. Unless you have not caught it yet, the only people whose opinions I care for are the nobility whom I intend to tax and the pilgrims whom I intend to perform miracles for so that they keep coming with offerings for me.

[Gandalf]

Can ISDs land?

If so, I land somewhere near a major existing civilisation, say somewhere around the Mediterranean. We start bringing education, technology and philosophy to the locals, and do whatever is needed to make sure we're not worshipped as gods, but people from far away with whom one can cooperate. To aid in this, all non-essential technology will be locked away safely in the ship, to be destroyed when the last Imperial staffer dies. So hopefully this creates a positive, lasting change, or at least prevents the Black Plague.

[Simon_Jester]

Then your plan won't work. The entertainers will figure out sooner or later that your soldiers aren't supernatural creatures, and they have to be in contact with the people in the outer city because someone has to physically haul the food in and so on.

To an extent, but so what? There are plenty of religions where gods and divine creatures descend to earth and party with humans in human form. Again, shake off the judeo-christian idea of divinity. Forget yahweh and think Zeus. What matters is that the forbidden section of the city is inhabited by people who with each passing generation are more and more disconnected from the outside world. And this breeds an air of mysticism and exceptionalism with both the denizens and the outside population. Those inside will think that human incarnations of gods and angels are visiting them (especially once the orphanage programs kick in) and those outside will retell their stories as mysticised tales of gods coming to earth to rape our virgins in the form of a bull.

This is more or less the opposite of what really happened with the real Forbidden City... People aren't stupid enough to ignore the evidence that "men like us" are in fact men like us.

Which kind of describes the Imperial government in general, doesn't it? But in all seriousness, I do not see any benefit in directly controlling the land. What would I do with it? What possible use could I have from having more direct control over a bunch of 11th century pre industrial savages?

No, my goal is to create a long term sustainable situation for my colony. That's all. And latching onto and propagating existing power structures is the best and least resource intensive way to achieve this.

This becomes increasingly problematic as your technological edge starts to break down.

That's not going to happen for centuries, if not millennia. By which time if my plans work out I should have an organized religion and a great number of temples, followers and generally a power structure in place which has a vested interest in keeping my myth alive in order to maintain their own power. This is where the dynastic marriages kick in as well. The god-king of Japan, born from a family that intermarries with gods has a vested interest in keeping the gods that make him legitimate divine.

You're missing a few obvious points, as is usually the case when you indulge your tyranny-fetish.

The big one is that not all power struggles are natives versus conquistadors. There are also internal factions within the conquistador force; Cortez had this problem, every conquering dynasty in history had it after a generation or two, and so on.

And in a situation like the one you've set up, there is a huge incentive for any up-and-coming power blocs trying to redistribute power among the Imperial-descended conqueror population to ally with natives who hate them. The alliance need not be military either; it can be a matter of intelligence and espionage. Having the support of the palace slaves is a great way to smuggle weapons in or out of the palace, or to gain access to the kitchens and sprinkle a little cyanide into the king's coffee.

Even from the point of view of an atheist reading the Old Testament as literature, it is quite clear that the god of the Israelites had very serious trouble getting them to actually do as he said.

Which is why I won't try. All they have to do is pay tribute to my temple and if they have any need for further guidance, healing or miracles come knocking on the door with more tribute. And every single god in the history of man kind has managed to achieve that much.

I suspect you will find the urge to direct and meddle difficult to resist. Most humans will- another way in which this tyranny-fantasy of yours is likely to fail.

So basically, this illustrates that if your only contact with "your people" is through a handful of supernatural experiences, you have very little actual control over their actions. Your commands are only a tiny tiny percentage of their actual lives and experiences, and they will tend to reinterpret and reimagine your commands however they see fit.

Which is absolutely positively super duper totally and utterly fine by me. As long as the feudal lords bring offerings to my temple at regular intervals and I can tax the trade from the city built around my main temple that's all I care for.

You are grossly oversimplifying your picture of how human societies work in order to think this isn't a problem...

[Purple]

This is more or less the opposite of what really happened with the real Forbidden City... People aren't stupid enough to ignore the evidence that "men like us" are in fact men like us.

There is no actual similarity intended between the Chinese imperial palace and my city, so drawing parallels is useless. I am simply calling it a forbidden city for the sake of convenience as it is a city that is forbidden to enter.

You're missing a few obvious points, as is usually the case when you indulge your tyranny-fetish.

The big one is that not all power struggles are natives versus conquistadors. There are also internal factions within the conquistador force; Cortez had this problem, every conquering dynasty in history had it after a generation or two, and so on.

And in a situation like the one you've set up, there is a huge incentive for any up-and-coming power blocs trying to redistribute power among the Imperial-descended conqueror population to ally with natives who hate them. The alliance need not be military either; it can be a matter of intelligence and espionage. Having the support of the palace slaves is a great way to smuggle weapons in or out of the palace, or to gain access to the kitchens and sprinkle a little cyanide into the king's coffee.

Imperial troops are far too loyal to do this to me. Especially if I keep enforcing, supporting and propagating the imperial creed. And whilst it might happen in future generations that is not really my concern. After all, who gives a dam what kind of murder happens inside the walls as long as it stays inside the walls. And keeping my people isolated from natives outside ensures that for the most part they really can't go out and wage actual wars against one another.

I suspect you will find the urge to direct and meddle difficult to resist. Most humans will- another way in which this tyranny-fantasy of yours is likely to fail.

Not really. I have absolutely no desire to micromanage a bunch of 11th century savages. And if I did, there is the forbidden city to play around with.

You are grossly oversimplifying your picture of how human societies work in order to think this isn't a problem...

The way I see it, the more I meddle with the internal affairs of my subject lords the less they will like me. And the less they like me the more likely they are to revolt as opposed to giving me a periodic tribute. So it's best I leave well enough alone and even have my temples preach obedience to their lords as they are my servants. Keeps the lords happy, keeps me happy. Everyone wins but the peasants. And they don't matter.

[Patroklos]

To an extent, but so what? There are plenty of religions where gods and divine creatures descend to earth and party with humans in human form. Again, shake off the judeo-christian idea of divinity. Forget yahweh and think Zeus. What matters is that the forbidden section of the city is inhabited by people who with each passing generation are more and more disconnected from the outside world. And this breeds an air of mysticism and exceptionalism with both the denizens and the outside population. Those inside will think that human incarnations of gods and angels are visiting them (especially once the orphanage programs kick in) and those outside will retell their stories as mysticised tales of gods coming to earth to rape our virgins in the form of a bull.

Except, as I hope you realize, Zeus never actually cam down and partied with humans. There are stories of him doing it, and he still does it as a god or he does it in the guise of a nongod, ie he himself never acts like a human. Nobody ever actually saw him and the stories never talk about him scratching his butt, or breaking an arm and crying like a child, or shitting his pants after drinking all night. No scenario happened where Zeus should have and would be expected to light someone up with a lightning bolt to the face and he had to explain away why he couldn't right now because uh, well, this is awkward.

You can full some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Or some such notion. People have tried this before, being a god on Earth and it doesn't generally work because actually actually think you are a god but rather you have all the secular power to make sure nobody will question your vanity. Roman elites didn't think their Emperor was a god, it was just smart to treat him that way if that's what he wanted you to do. The rabble might be easier to make actually believe, but that requires strict adherence to the rouse by all involved and as history has shown us this has always broken down over time. Elites realized this, which is why we no longer have any in person gods anymore and at best have humans who are prophets for them. These people can still be human but now talk with the authority of God. Even Jesus who is an aspect of God still has an excuse to be human and do human things. Its pretty smart really for those who set it all up.

[Simon_Jester]

This is more or less the opposite of what really happened with the real Forbidden City... People aren't stupid enough to ignore the evidence that "men like us" are in fact men like us.

There is no actual similarity intended between the Chinese imperial palace and my city, so drawing parallels is useless. I am simply calling it a forbidden city for the sake of convenience as it is a city that is forbidden to enter.

Except that you're completely ignoring logistics. You can forbid physical entry into the enclave by anyone other than ship crew. But soon ship crew will start wanting servants, so even that's a problem.

Even if you succeed, this 'inner city' around your enclave will HAVE to have dealings with the outside world... and the people in the inner city have dealings with crew. As noted, they will see crew from the star destroyer get drunk, or make stupid mistakes, or get into accidents, or other things that chip away at that aura of divinity.

You're missing a few obvious points, as is usually the case when you indulge your tyranny-fetish.

The big one is that not all power struggles are natives versus conquistadors. There are also internal factions within the conquistador force; Cortez had this problem, every conquering dynasty in history had it after a generation or two, and so on.

And in a situation like the one you've set up, there is a huge incentive for any up-and-coming power blocs trying to redistribute power among the Imperial-descended conqueror population to ally with natives who hate them. The alliance need not be military either; it can be a matter of intelligence and espionage. Having the support of the palace slaves is a great way to smuggle weapons in or out of the palace, or to gain access to the kitchens and sprinkle a little cyanide into the king's coffee.

Imperial troops are far too loyal to do this to me. Especially if I keep enforcing, supporting and propagating the imperial creed...

What imperial creed? There's no emperor, there's just you! You, trying to make a god-king of yourself out of naked greed on a random backwater planet. Why would anyone be loyal to that?

I mean, if people are sociopathic fuckwits like you, they'd be loyal to themselves in that situation and try to replace you. And if they're not, they'd find your sociopathic fuckwittery intolerable.

And whilst it might happen in future generations that is not really my concern. After all, who gives a dam what kind of murder happens inside the walls as long as it stays inside the walls. And keeping my people isolated from natives outside ensures that for the most part they really can't go out and wage actual wars against one another.

This is gibberish. For one, you yourself were talking about centuries-long plans; this means that you are already concerning yourself with future generations. For another, hell no isolating your people inside an enclave doesn't mean they won't fight among themselves. People struggle for power, especially in a backstabbing hellhole like you propose to create with your luxury enclave that "promotes the imperial creed" of Palpatine's empire.

I suspect you will find the urge to direct and meddle difficult to resist. Most humans will- another way in which this tyranny-fantasy of yours is likely to fail.

Not really. I have absolutely no desire to micromanage a bunch of 11th century savages. And if I did, there is the forbidden city to play around with.

Yes, well, you are a small, cramped version of a normal human mentality, and I don't recommend trying to model other people's behavior as though they're just like you.

You are grossly oversimplifying your picture of how human societies work in order to think this isn't a problem...

The way I see it, the more I meddle with the internal affairs of my subject lords the less they will like me. And the less they like me the more likely they are to revolt as opposed to giving me a periodic tribute. So it's best I leave well enough alone and even have my temples preach obedience to their lords as they are my servants. Keeps the lords happy, keeps me happy. Everyone wins but the peasants. And they don't matter.

Except, again, that collecting tribute requires you to either make credible threats or provide something in exchange. To make threats you have to hurt people which makes them hate you. To offer something in exchange you have to interact with them which makes them realize you are mortal.

[Purple]

[quote="Patroklos]...[/quote]
And as I explained time and time again, I do not need the elites to believe me. It is my full intention to set my self up so that the rabble believe in my divinity and the elites believe that the rabble continuing to believe is good for their power and position.

[Me2005]

This becomes increasingly problematic as your technological edge starts to break down.

That's not going to happen for centuries, if not millennia.

Just to reinforce that - things that aren't deliberately broken in SW seem to be very robust and last a long time. From the old EU, entire lost fleets returned intact with little work, beyond-memory ancient Sith artifacts work just fine, sand crawlers continue to work in the harshest climate imaginable despite being abandoned by their real owners ages ago, droids can be built and rebuilt from scraps. There are hints of those capabilities in the movies; the Falcon being the premier example.

Except, as I hope you realize, Zeus never actually cam down and partied with humans.... No scenario happened where Zeus should have and would be expected to light someone up with a lightning bolt to the face and he had to explain away why he couldn't right now because uh, well, this is awkward.

Not sure how lighting someone up with a blaster bolt through the chest is functionally any different from lightning. Even today we'd be impressed by a blaster, though we'd recognize it as such from the movies.

This is more or less the opposite of what really happened with the real Forbidden City... People aren't stupid enough to ignore the evidence that "men like us" are in fact men like us.

There is no actual similarity intended between the Chinese imperial palace and my city, so drawing parallels is useless. I am simply calling it a forbidden city for the sake of convenience as it is a city that is forbidden to enter.

Except that you're completely ignoring logistics. You can forbid physical entry into the enclave by anyone other than ship crew. But soon ship crew will start wanting servants, so even that's a problem.

So allow servants into the city? Shoot, establish you're the new boss in town, and I'm sure you'll receive servants as tribute eventually. If you're down for that kind of thing, go on raids and abduct people. They get to see that yes, you are just men; but they never leave the city again so who cares?

[The Romulan Republic]

The technology might be physically intact and theoretically functional, but without fuel a lot of it is going to be worth jack. So unless an ISD has the means to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to acquire fuel, the technology might as well be broken as far as actually operating it is concerned.

[Simon_Jester]

[quote="Patroklos]...

And as I explained time and time again, I do not need the elites to believe me. It is my full intention to set my self up so that the rabble believe in my divinity and the elites believe that the rabble continuing to believe is good for their power and position.[/quote]You have proposed to set yourself up in a way that ensures neither of these things.

Except, as I hope you realize, Zeus never actually cam down and partied with humans.... No scenario happened where Zeus should have and would be expected to light someone up with a lightning bolt to the face and he had to explain away why he couldn't right now because uh, well, this is awkward.

Not sure how lighting someone up with a blaster bolt through the chest is functionally any different from lightning. Even today we'd be impressed by a blaster, though we'd recognize it as such from the movies.

The problem with a blaster is that it's clearly a tool, it works equally well for anyone who picks it up.

If I see a guy throwing lightning with his bare hands, he's a god. If I see a guy throwing lightning from a stick, maybe he's a god... or maybe he's just a lucky bastard who found a lightning-stick. Over time, it will become clear that the latter is closer to the truth than the former.

So allow servants into the city? Shoot, establish you're the new boss in town, and I'm sure you'll receive servants as tribute eventually. If you're down for that kind of thing, go on raids and abduct people. They get to see that yes, you are just men; but they never leave the city again so who cares?

[/quote]Because they talk to people who do leave the city.

It's like, if A talks to B, and B talks to C, the fact that A never directly interacts with C doesn't matter at all. It may even become counterproductive because it allows B to set themselves up as a middleman.

[Patroklos]

And as I explained time and time again, I do not need the elites to believe me. It is my full intention to set my self up so that the rabble believe in my divinity and the elites believe that the rabble continuing to believe is good for their power and position.

But you can't maintain that. Lets assume you can pull off a total division of your crew from the natives, them just dropping off supplies at alters and your guys shutting the temple doors and grabbing it at night. Never the two shall meet.

In this scenario all the menial tasks done in the SW era tech base still need to be done, and as your tech slowly degrades these menial tasks will only increase. Presumably when you arrive you already had junior ratings who cooked, cleaned, turned wrenches, unclogged toilets, shined the Captain's boots, etc. And even if those specific things are not required because of droids or whatnot there are SW Imperial Navy shipboard tasks your junior crew will consider equivalent in their frame of reference. So who is going to do these things? Is that cook who just joined the Imperial Navy with dreams of promoting to Petty Officer and striking into the astrogation rating just going to be happy being Cook's Apprentice Timmy for the rest of his 60 odd years of life? More dangerous, is the Ensign who is the Crown Prince or the fabulously wealthy royal family of RichPlanetTopia who was just doing his four year stint for experience and form to gain favor in his future career at the Imperial Court going to be happy wallowing in the wardroom's anchorman position for the rest of his life? I mean, he already assassinated his older brother to be heir and sucked Admiral EvilImperialGuys dick to get his commission. Do you expect this young and energetic society man to forget his ambitions?

So there is your internal dilemma. But what about these locals? Well I think after a few years you are going to start hearing things like "These gods are strange. We keep trying to give them gold and gems but all they ever ask for is fuit, firewood and beer. I mean, I guess God's feast and all but why do they keep asking us for toilet paper? And why is there always buckets of shit on the alter every morning? Gods don't shit, where does it come from?" Those are the regular guys, not the elites, and once the regular guys stop believing there is no need for the elites to pretend for your vanity either. Unless you resort to violence, but how long can you maintain that? And how do you stop the same ambition I described amongst your crew from taking place in the native elite circles? You as the God will end up picking winners and losers, and your winners who are going to be in on the joke will fall from favor eventually. How do you keep them from exposing your secret? Sure you can call them heretics and burn them and that might work some of the time. But every time?

That's just going to get worse over time. You are far better off just admitting you are human but also the divine's chosen, return from heaven in our air chariots to bring his word and wisdom to his Earth bound subjects. If you serve us well perhaps He will choose you to take your place amongst us in our sky castle. That might not wet your "Star-God" whistle, but it would be far easier to maintain. Humans, even the chosen ones, still shit.

[NecronLord]

I'm not seeing why anyone feels a need to impersonate a god.

"I am a servant of the Emperor of the Stars, Sheev Palpatine I. After damage in battle with rebels in the Celestial realm (who will not prevail, of course) we have been forced to land here. We are as mortal as you, though some of the crew, like Sergeant Trask over there, are of different kinds."

Emperor Palpatine is all the god you need. Hell at least one major earth religion has a sacred Celestial Emperor already.

[Ahriman238]

Wasn't Booster Terrik always complaining about how constant and expensive maintenance of a Star Destroyer was?

Yeah, I also see no particular reason to claim divinity. You're all barbarians, but that's okay. We need food and are willing to trade things you cannot imagine for it. Let's start with jewelry and work on it from there.

[amigocabal]

I'm not seeing why anyone feels a need to impersonate a god.

"I am a servant of the Emperor of the Stars, Sheev Palpatine I. After damage in battle with rebels in the Celestial realm (who will not prevail, of course) we have been forced to land here. We are as mortal as you, though some of the crew, like Sergeant Trask over there, are of different kinds."

Emperor Palpatine is all the god you need. Hell at least one major earth religion has a sacred Celestial Emperor already.

That might spook the locals, as it it would be the equivalent of telling medieval Christians that the Devil invaded Heaven.

[NecronLord]

Perhaps, perhaps not. I have a small army of protocol droids whose job explicitly includes intercultural relations, and I am smart enough to let them work out the exact best line to take. People of the 11th century are not too dumb to understand the concept of 'Star Emperor's Navy' really. The key point is that 'I am an officer of the Emperor of an entire galaxy' is frankly impressive enough, so you have no reason to lie.

Oh, and incidentally, if 3PO is illustrative, protocol droid programming includes protocols preventing them from impersonating deities. So you guys wanting to pose as gods will run into a problem that your translators are programmed (can your guys reprogram them? Maybe) or even hardwired not to go along with your deception.

Sure, C-3PO told the Ewoks that he would use magic, which is not really the same thing as claiming divine authority, and even that he was unhappy about. The protocol droids will on the other hand, definitely translate 'We work for the Galactic Empire.' Godhood? Certainly your translators are NOT going to be happy about sustaining such a lie. Threepio actually refuses to do such:

HAN
Well, why don't you use your divine influence and get us out of this?

THREEPIO
I beg your pardon, General Solo, but that just wouldn't be proper.

HAN
Proper?!

THREEPIO
It's against my programming to impersonate a deity.

Han moves toward Threepio threateningly.

HAN
Why, you--

Several Ewoks' spears are thrust in Han's face at the affront to their
god. The Ewoks move in to protect their god and Han is surrounded by a
menacing circle of spears, all aimed at him. He holds up his hands
placatingly.

HAN
My mistake. He's an old friend of mine.

We can assume our protocol droids will be no more obedient to us than he is to General Solo. Only later on, when it's merely "magic," does he translate anything, and even then reluctantly.

LUKE
Threepio, tell them if they don't do as you wish, you'll become angry
and use your magic.

THREEPIO
But Master Luke, what magic? I couldn't possibly --

LUKE
Just tell them.

Threepio speaks to the Ewoks. The Ewoks are disturbed. Logray steps
forward and challenges Threepio. Luke closes his eyes and begins to
concentrate.

THREEPIO
You see, Master Luke; they didn't believe me. Just...

Now the litter/throne, with Threepio sitting upon it, rises from the
ground. At first Threepio doesn't notice and keeps talking.

THREEPIO
... as I said they wouldn't. Wha-wha-what's happening! Oh! Oh, dear!
Oh!

The Ewoks fall back in terror from the floating throne. Now Threepio
begins to spin as though he were on a revolving stool, with Threepio
calling out in total panic at his situation.

THREEPIO
Put me down! He-e-elp! Master Luke! Artoo! Somebody, somebody, help!
Master Luke, Artoo! Artoo, quickly! Do something, somebody! Oh! Ohhh!

I am somewhat amused that this issue is actually called out in the three original films.

[NecronLord]

It also occurs to me that Threepio has that whole 'golden god' thing sorted out remarkably fast and entirely bloodlessly, and manages to go in a very short time from being taken for a god to 'Wonderful! We are now a part of the tribe.' You can't say that he's not actually good at his job, and presumably an imperial protocol droid would be equally adroit at explaining things.