You command the Battle of Crait (RAR).

[The Romulan Republic]

I can see some of the command staff staying put, if they're directing the forces in the field. And also as a show of solidarity with the troops. But yeah, anyone who didn't need to be there should have been hauling ass.

[Eternal_Freedom]

On the Rebel side I think the first thing to do is order everyone off the bridge of the Raddus and into a backup command centre deep inside the hull. Thus, Leia and Ackbar can deal with things instead of Holdo. Also, see if the hanger bays have any sort of armour bulkheads rather than just the mag-con field and if so, close them immediately. If not, have all fighters launch and hold position forward of the Raddus.

[Solauren]

I can see some of the command staff staying put, if they're directing the forces in the field. And also as a show of solidarity with the troops. But yeah, anyone who didn't need to be there should have been hauling ass.

Evac the base, command from the Cruiser. It has to have remote command capabilities.

The only reason to possibly stay at the base was to make it a target. Droids can do that.

[FaxModem1]

I can see some of the command staff staying put, if they're directing the forces in the field. And also as a show of solidarity with the troops. But yeah, anyone who didn't need to be there should have been hauling ass.

Evac the base, command from the Cruiser. It has to have remote command capabilities.

The only reason to possibly stay at the base was to make it a target. Droids can do that.

Maybe there was some resource that was available on the planet that they used? Maybe something as simple as farms for the Resistance to have food to eat? Or raw materials to make parts for ship repairs?

Just spitballing though.

[Solauren]

They base was compromised.
The base was about to be hit by a fucking solar flare weapon capable of wiping out star systems.

It was time to bug out, period.

[Elheru Aran]

They base was compromised.
The base was about to be hit by a fucking solar flare weapon capable of wiping out star systems.

It was time to bug out, period.

...if you mean Starkiller Base was about to hit the rebel base that they were evacuating in TLJ, they destroyed that in TFA. The rebel base was about to get hit by a dreadnought bombarding ship, but not Starkiller Base.

[Solauren]

I was speaking of why they didn't do a complete Evac in TFA, and waited until after the superweapon was destroyed.

[The Romulan Republic]

On the Rebel side I think the first thing to do is order everyone off the bridge of the Raddus and into a backup command centre deep inside the hull. Thus, Leia and Ackbar can deal with things instead of Holdo. Also, see if the hanger bays have any sort of armour bulkheads rather than just the mag-con field and if so, close them immediately. If not, have all fighters launch and hold position forward of the Raddus.

This is a good idea if feasible (does the Raadus have a backup bridge?), as it will likely save the lives of some very experienced officers (albeit possibly temporarily compromising efficiency in battle, and possibly causing Kylo's fighters to pick another target).

However, fan hostility to Holdo aside, I don't think having Ackbar or Leia in command would have made that much difference. Or, if anything, it might have made things worse. Neither Ackbar nor Leia would have been able to turn such a lopsided battle into an outright win, and there's no indication that Leia would have used a substantially different plan than Holdo for the evacuation.

The only real pluses are that a) Poe would be less likely to mutiny against Leia and Ackbar, and that b) Leia's presence could make Kylo hesitate or potentially distract him and Snoke during the early stages of the battle.

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Edit: If Holdo was never moved up to command of the fleet, I can also see her not playing as big a role in the evac, and then Leia might be the one to volunteer to stay on the Raadus. Which means we'd potentially lose Leia then, as well.

[Gandalf]

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

[Solauren]

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

She could end up a female version of Darth Vader.

In Kylo's mind, that could bring them 'closer together' or something.

[The Romulan Republic]

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

How is this true for Rey any more than any other major Force user? Because of some vague lines like Snoke? At most, she's one of a long line of individuals who have some ambiguous destiny in the Force, all of whom eventually died. Or, in Anakin's case, fell to the Dark Side for a couple of decades and then died.

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

She could end up a female version of Darth Vader.

In Kylo's mind, that could bring them 'closer together' or something.

Yup. Though I may be biased here in that my personal theory (albeit one that I believe canon heavily hints at) is that Rey is a reincarnation of/another iteration of the Chosen One. Essentially, a gender-swapped Anakin.

[FaxModem1]

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

How is this true for Rey any more than any other major Force user? Because of some vague lines like Snoke? At most, she's one of a long line of individuals who have some ambiguous destiny in the Force, all of whom eventually died. Or, in Anakin's case, fell to the Dark Side for a couple of decades and then died.

Rey wouldn't die. She has some sort of divinely determined fate, so somehow things would tip in her favour.

She could end up a female version of Darth Vader.

In Kylo's mind, that could bring them 'closer together' or something.

Yup. Though I may be biased here in that my personal theory (albeit one that I believe canon heavily hints at) is that Rey is a reincarnation of/another iteration of the Chosen One. Essentially, a gender-swapped Anakin.

....Sometimes a swirl in the force, is just a swirl in the force.....

[Patroklos]

This is a good idea if feasible (does the Raadus have a backup bridge?), as it will likely save the lives of some very experienced officers (albeit possibly temporarily compromising efficiency in battle, and possibly causing Kylo's fighters to pick another target).

This is scifi fictionism for characterization purposes, but there is no advantage to fighting a ship via windows. We don't do it in the real world, it makes even less sense in space. I don't hold this against the movie because is a rule of cool thing and other scifi avoids it like Battle Star Galactica all the way back to the original. However, if you wanted to do it there is a precedent as a backup bridge is mentioned in legends regarding the Executor. There they lost the ship because they couldn't transfer control in time, which is just more justification to have the internal bridge be the primary one.

However, fan hostility to Holdo aside, I don't think having Ackbar or Leia in command would have made that much difference. Or, if anything, it might have made things worse. Neither Ackbar nor Leia would have been able to turn such a lopsided battle into an outright win, and there's no indication that Leia would have used a substantially different plan than Holdo for the evacuation.

It should be done for no other reason than the fans like and care about Ackbar. Having survived, he had quite a life in the expanded universes, old and new. Even the people who doggedly apologize for Hodor's incompetence don't pretend they care about her as a character.

Other effects, no rebellious Poe likely means no Rose and Finn mission, no capture, transports not detected (unless Snoke or Kylo senses them through the Force). On the downside, Holdo never makes her ramming attack, the FO fleet is intact, and there is no convenient cover for Rey to make her escape. Rey may very well die, although it is just possible that she'll be able to outduel Kylo (I actually doubt it, though- she doesn't have that much more experience or training than when she fought him on Starkiller Base, and she barely beat him then when he was badly hurt).

It would be a good story point to have the destruction of so much of the FO fleet have an impact on the next movie. It will never be mentioned again. Just like the loss of Starkiller base hours before the opening of TLJ was barly (ever?) mentioned again and had no noticeable impact on the FO. Regardless of the in universe feasibility and the continuity destruction of the Supremacy stunt, the reason why the whole thing is a big yawn is that it really don's matter to the story.

I have the same complaint about he Executor btw. That ship had a convoluted ending to because they didn't think the were going to have another movie and how are you not going to take the opportunity to blow up that model. They had to wrap things up in a bow. This is not the case with TLJ.

Edit: If Holdo was never moved up to command of the fleet, I can also see her not playing as big a role in the evac, and then Leia might be the one to volunteer to stay on the Raadus. Which means we'd potentially lose Leia then, as well.

Yeah, but has been mentioned before that would have been a better way for Leia to go out versus the off screen whatever they come up with. Sure, they didn't know the actress would die, but its so obvious that Leia should have been the one to do that, clearing all the old characters out for a 100% new character final movie. Or that could have just how Ackbar goes out, instead of as a throwaway extra unceremoniously killed out of center frame.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is scifi fictionism for characterization purposes, but there is no advantage to fighting a ship via windows. We don't do it in the real world, it makes even less sense in space. I don't hold this against the movie because is a rule of cool thing and other scifi avoids it like Battle Star Galactica all the way back to the original. However, if you wanted to do it there is a precedent as a backup bridge is mentioned in legends regarding the Executor. There they lost the ship because they couldn't transfer control in time, which is just more justification to have the internal bridge be the primary one.

All of which I am well aware of, and agree with. I'm just curious as to a) whether there is canon confirmation anywhere of the Raadus specifically having a backup bridge, and b) whether trying to suddenly shift the command center of the ship there would be disruptive to ship operations and impair efficiency. Sorry fi that wasn't sufficiently clear.

It should be done for no other reason than the fans like and care about Ackbar. Having survived, he had quite a life in the expanded universes, old and new.

Out of universe, Ackbar is a popular fan favorite character (though let's be realistic, most of that popularity basically boils down to one line that became a meme). In-universe, however, it has no bearing on the question of what would constitute the most effective battle plan or who would be the best commander for the fleet, or what the effects of a change in command would be.

Let's not shift the focus too much from "what is the best battle plan" to "does TLJ suck"?

Even the people who doggedly apologize for Hodor's incompetence don't pretend they care about her as a character.

Sigh...

Would it surprise you to know that I actually do care about Holdo, to the point that I've seriously contemplated writing some fanfic from her POV and expanding on her characterization? Or would you simply assume that I am lying, because obviously no one could sincerely like different characters than you do?

But then, I admit that I've never been a huge Ackbar fan. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate him. Its just that it irks me that the EU made him out to be this awesome badass admiral, when his performance at Endor honestly seemed fairly mediocre to me. Not awful, probably more or less competent under most circumstances, but hardly Nelson in space either. I thought long before Disney bought Star Wars that the EU cheated Lando out of his due credit for winning the Battle of Endor by giving it all to Ackbar.

It would be a good story point to have the destruction of so much of the FO fleet have an impact on the next movie. It will never be mentioned again. Just like the loss of Starkiller base hours before the opening of TLJ was barly (ever?) mentioned again and had no noticeable impact on the FO. Regardless of the in universe feasibility and the continuity destruction of the Supremacy stunt, the reason why the whole thing is a big yawn is that it really don's matter to the story.

I have the same complaint about he Executor btw. That ship had a convoluted ending to because they didn't think the were going to have another movie and how are you not going to take the opportunity to blow up that model. They had to wrap things up in a bow. This is not the case with TLJ.

And the purpose of this thread is not to rehash everything we like or hate about TLJ or TFA, or think will suck about the next movie. I mean, its going to come up a bit, and since I'm not a mod I can't make you do anything, but let's not veer too off-topic please, if you don't mind.

Yeah, but has been mentioned before that would have been a better way for Leia to go out versus the off screen whatever they come up with. Sure, they didn't know the actress would die, but its so obvious that Leia should have been the one to do that, clearing all the old characters out for a 100% new character final movie. Or that could have just how Ackbar goes out, instead of as a throwaway extra unceremoniously killed out of center frame.

The reason for that, IIRC, is that Ackbar's voice actor died in between the filming of TFA and TLJ. The alternative would have been to recast the character, which you can bet would have been met with fan whining about how it was "disrespectful" to replace the original actor. Its a similar situation with Leia- as you noted, they had no way of knowing that Fisher would die. And personally, I think that losing both Luke and Leia (plus being deprived of a reunion between the two on-screen) would have been too much.

All of which, again, is off-topic when it comes to what would have constituted a sound battle plan in-universe.

[houser2112]

Yeah, but has been mentioned before that would have been a better way for Leia to go out versus the off screen whatever they come up with. Sure, they didn't know the actress would die, but its so obvious that Leia should have been the one to do that, clearing all the old characters out for a 100% new character final movie. Or that could have just how Ackbar goes out, instead of as a throwaway extra unceremoniously killed out of center frame.

The reason for that, IIRC, is that Ackbar's voice actor died in between the filming of TFA and TLJ. The alternative would have been to recast the character, which you can bet would have been met with fan whining about how it was "disrespectful" to replace the original actor. Its a similar situation with Leia- as you noted, they had no way of knowing that Fisher would die. And personally, I think that losing both Luke and Leia (plus being deprived of a reunion between the two on-screen) would have been too much.

All of which, again, is off-topic when it comes to what would have constituted a sound battle plan in-universe.

I think recasting Ackbar wouldn't have quite the same backlash as recasting Leia (Although I don't understand the backlash for that, myself. I think it's better to recast Leia than have the character be off-screen the whole movie, or worse, die off-screen), because Ackbar is a relatively minor character.

[Gandalf]

Wow. I did not know that people were so touchy about Ackbar dying. The voice actor died and a big theme of the trilogy is sweeping away the old to make place for the new. Keeping him around would be the stranger act.

[Crazedwraith]

I don't think I knew it was actually Ackbar in the new movies until someone complained about his death. I just thought it was another random mon cal officer.

[Gandalf]

I don't think I knew it was actually Ackbar in the new movies until someone complained about his death. I just thought it was another random mon cal officer.

I'll admit that I didn't either. Evidently there's only room for one guy from Mon Cal in the whole saga.

[Crazedwraith]

I don't think I knew it was actually Ackbar in the new movies until someone complained about his death. I just thought it was another random mon cal officer.

I'll admit that I didn't either. Evidently there's only room for one guy from Mon Cal in the whole saga.

TbF I think there was a Mon Cal pilot in TFA? Unless that was Ackbar showing the whippersnappers how it was done.

[Elheru Aran]

I don't think I knew it was actually Ackbar in the new movies until someone complained about his death. I just thought it was another random mon cal officer.

I'll admit that I didn't either. Evidently there's only room for one guy from Mon Cal in the whole saga.

TbF I think there was a Mon Cal pilot in TFA? Unless that was Ackbar showing the whippersnappers how it was done.

There was at least one funny-looking alien dude in TFA piloting a X-wing. Don't recall any Mon Cals piloting fighters in TFA, but Ackbar was in the control room.

[KraytKing]

Ackbar moved his whole head when he talked in TFA. Like snapped it back and forth with his mouth. They did an astronomically better job with his costume in the OT, so I for one was not sad to see him out of the picture. I, too, was unaware that this was Ackbar in the bridge. It does seem weird the way he died, with no fanfare. It seems to be Disney underestimating the power of established characters. Granted, that's more of a Johnson choice than a Disney one, but still. Weird thing to see in a reboot of such a famous franchise.

[Patroklos]

I have no issue with him dying, just with how he died. They had a role for a storied admiral in the script, and killed of the established storied admiral character most people liked to replace him with nobody character most people don't. And then killed that character, so it wasn't like they were going to pass the torch or anything.

I was actaully surprised Ackbar was in the film, and to be honest he shouldn't have been. Ackbar was a senior leader in the Rebel Alliance at the time of Endor. I mean that rank and age wise. Just like Mon Mothma, I just assumed they are dead or retired via old age at this point, 30 years later.

But since the did bring him back, they should have used him or given him a send off he deserved. Like some of you said, he got so little attention some of you didn't even know that was him. Maybe they should have just made that the case then.

But to bring this back to topic.

REBELS: Push Holdo out of an airlock at the first opportunity. Poe was only limited to his own restricted intellect and his inept co-conspirators because she is a power hording control freak, and Poe/Rose/Finn only arrived at their plan because of the limitations of the Holdo imposed information and resource blackout. I have complete confidence that without these artificial restrictions someone onboard would have come up with a better plan than either Holdo or Poe. Like, maybe the janitor droid.

[Vendetta]

REBELS: Push Holdo out of an airlock at the first opportunity. Poe was only limited to his own restricted intellect and his inept co-conspirators because she is a power hording control freak, and Poe/Rose/Finn only arrived at their plan because of the limitations of the Holdo imposed information and resource blackout. I have complete confidence that without these artificial restrictions someone onboard would have come up with a better plan than either Holdo or Poe. Like, maybe the janitor droid.

Poe/Rose/Finn arrived at their plan because Poe is a dumbass who can't handle the fact that he's not in charge, and he's not in charge because he can't be trusted not to fuck everything up.

Hux is sufficiently gormless and shortsighted that her plan would absolutely have worked if those three hadn't blown opsec wide open on a stupid glory hunt. They would have been presumed dead in the cruiser and free to get sympathetic forces to rescue them later when the First Order had gone away.

[Patroklos]

Holdo’s plan was never to Kamikaze the Raddus. Her plan was going to have the Raddus keep going to draw the FO forces away from the escape. There was no hint she was going to kamikaze until the transports got shot up. Is she was, why wait?

She only kamikazied it when faced with the failure of her plan as an act of desperation and to escape responsibility. It’s also why we know she didn’t have any idea her suicide would have the effect it did or she would have done so at the beginning of the chase?. I’ll give her some credit, even she could figure that cost benefit analysis out.

As it stands her idea was that the FO would follow the Raddus, never noticing the chase passes suspiciously close to a planet in plain sight. And if they didn’t see through it off the bat, when they caught the Raddus with one person and dry tanks, they wouldn’t figure out that planet is where they were instantly.

If that plan sounds stupid to you congratulations, you have at least two brain cells. The movie doesn’t allow us to assess if the FO also had two brain cells to do the same, but since I would like the antagonists to be the slightest bit threatening in EIX, I am going with yes. Holdo is dead, there is no future benefit to making positive assumptions about her competence in the face of the observed past.

So again, Holdo was the root cause of all the bad events post Supremacy showing up. Everything follows from her initial choices. Which does not absolve others like Poe for theirs, but this is a god mode revision exercise so I am going to the source.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, you could say it all follows from her choices- but her choices also largely followed from things that happened earlier on, like Poe's insubordination during the evacuation, Leia planning to evacuate to Craite (that was her plan, remember, Holdo was just following it), and so on. And we could go back forever arguing who has original sin (in which case, the closest thing to an answer that we're ever going to get if we play that game is "Palpatine", since it was he who destroyed a millennia of largely peaceful, stable galactic government and started the succession of increasingly horrific galactic wars to begin with).

In any case, its a moot point right in this scenario, because per the terms of the OP, Holdo isn't in command- you are. And barring you, Leia, and Ackbar all being taken out of action, she won't be in command. If you want to play it extra safe you could remove her from the chain of command altogether, but you'd probably need some justification for doing so based on her record up to that point, and the film gives us no indication that she has a prior history of incompetence. Or you could promote someone else over her head, though I'm struggling to think who.

Your suggestion of pushing her out an airlock, while perhaps facetious, would probably lead to the ship under her command mutinying (she commanded one of the escorts before being promoted to fleet command by Ackbar's death and Leia's incapacitation IIRC), and turn most of your personel against you (even Poe, who even after he went as far as mutiny made ever effort to take Holdo alive and hold her as prisoner) as summary executions of officers without cause are really more of an Empire kind of thing.

Best option, if you really don't want her anywhere near a battlefield command, is to give her an assignment that lets her do something useful far, far away from the battlefield. I assume you're familiar with the expression "kicked upstairs"?

Send her off to negotiate on Leia's behalf with allied factions- she's a fairly high-ranked officer, a friend of Leia's, and has something of an aristocratic style. She ought to be qualified. Or, if you don't trust her to have the tact successful diplomacy, put her on a fuel-raiding team. There's no indication that she lacks personal courage or combat skill- she probably wouldn't suck at commando work, actually.