Could the Fulminatrix have pierced the Raddus's shields?

[Galvatron]

I'm sure it didn't help that Poe probably felt like a helpless caged animal after his X-wing was destroyed.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm sure it didn't help that Poe probably felt like a helpless caged animal after his X-wing was destroyed.

Probably.

Like I said, siege mentality. He's trapped, with nothing to do but wait for the seemingly inevitable destruction.

Now, I know that comes back to the argument of Holdo being at fault for not assigning him something to keep him busy and make him feel useful, but remember, Holdo has to deal with an entire crew of several hundred people, possibly oversee repairs of damage to the ships, oversee the evacuation (which is on multiple very tight time limits), and do all of that with a decapitated command staff. So I don't fault her for not finding time to come up with a make-work assignment for one recently-disgraced officer. There should have probably been a subordinate in charge of personnel to handle that shit- I wonder if that post was one of the ones left vacant by Kylo's attack.

I would suggest that some of the staffing issues we see in the film-Rose apparently appointing herself to guard the escape pods and stop deserters instead of a guard being posted, Poe with nothing to do, nobody noticing that Finn and Rose stole a ship, etc-are probably a result of the fact that a lot of the senior officers got blown up, likely creating confusion and chaos in the chain of command. So there's confusion as to who is supposed to be doing what, with people like Rose and Poe who have no official assignment basically assigning themselves jobs, sometimes in contradiction to the plans of their superiors. A lot of the Resistance's issues in the film can be explained, I think, by a chain of command/communication which is breaking down due to the numerous holes that have been shot in it and lack of sufficient staff to fill them.

Another probable factor with Poe, that I would have liked to see explored more in the film (maybe in a book?) is guilt- on some level, he blames himself too for the loss of the people under his command, many due to his decisions- which makes Leia and Holdo's rebukes sting all the more, because on some level he knows that they're right, and it makes him all the more desperate to do something, anything, to justify his choices and make it all worth it. Probably also survivors' guilt that he wasn't there to die with his squadron- if he hadn't been demoted, he might have already been in the hanger when Kylo blew it up, and gone out with his squad.

Huh, I just realized that Kylo killed off the rest of Poe's squadron when he blew up the Raadus's hanger- which means that most or all of Poe's squadrons would likely have died anyway, just a little later.

[Galvatron]

FWIW, Poe's wingman survived the entire war.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/C%27ai_Threnalli

[FaxModem1]

I'm sure it didn't help that Poe probably felt like a helpless caged animal after his X-wing was destroyed.

Probably.

Like I said, siege mentality. He's trapped, with nothing to do but wait for the seemingly inevitable destruction.

Now, I know that comes back to the argument of Holdo being at fault for not assigning him something to keep him busy and make him feel useful, but remember, Holdo has to deal with an entire crew of several hundred people, possibly oversee repairs of damage to the ships, oversee the evacuation (which is on multiple very tight time limits), and do all of that with a decapitated command staff. So I don't fault her for not finding time to come up with a make-work assignment for one recently-disgraced officer. There should have probably been a subordinate in charge of personnel to handle that shit- I wonder if that post was one of the ones left vacant by Kylo's attack.

I would suggest that some of the staffing issues we see in the film-Rose apparently appointing herself to guard the escape pods and stop deserters instead of a guard being posted, Poe with nothing to do, nobody noticing that Finn and Rose stole a ship, etc-are probably a result of the fact that a lot of the senior officers got blown up, likely creating confusion and chaos in the chain of command. So there's confusion as to who is supposed to be doing what, with people like Rose and Poe who have no official assignment basically assigning themselves jobs, sometimes in contradiction to the plans of their superiors. A lot of the Resistance's issues in the film can be explained, I think, by a chain of command/communication which is breaking down due to the numerous holes that have been shot in it and lack of sufficient staff to fill them.

Comedy:
"Holdo has all these appliances that are low or without power, and has to find a way to power them. I don't fault her for not making use of all these compatible batteries and chargers that she has laying around that are making it difficult to navigate the room, making her trip all over the place."/comedy

There's the obvious solution there. Having crew with nothing to do, and several things needing to get done on a time crunch. The best thing here is to assign Poe one of those critical tasks. Or put him in charge of administration of delegating things. Have him be a runner to and from various departments so that people are aware of what's going on, etc. She has a volunteer, asking her what the plan is, within arms reach. Unless Holdo thinks that pilots can't help load crates, or help with sending messages back and forth, it seems rather, well, obvious.

[Gandalf]

Or Leia/Holdo could have just locked him up, lest he react poorly to something and try his own plan.

[ray245]

Holdo basically tried to have the best of both worlds, by not being overly harsh towards Poe, and at the same time putting him down. She tried to take the middle ground, and that ended up blowing in her face.

[Ralin]

Seriously. It's really frustrating how many Holdo defenders won't accept that yes, I totally would have been okay with her throwing Poe into the brig when he started getting surly. Either allay his fears or nip him in the bud. Don't rile him up and give him time and space to explode into a mutiny.

[ray245]

Seriously. It's really frustrating how many Holdo defenders won't accept that yes, I totally would have been okay with her throwing Poe into the brig when he started getting surly. Either allay his fears or nip him in the bud. Don't rile him up and give him time and space to explode into a mutiny.

Because it's been framed as an issue of Holdo vs Poe, rather an an issue about Holdo's leadership. So Poe must be completely wrong in all of his actions.

[Solauren]

It's a combination of the two.

Holdo strikes me as more civilian leadership (she was not in a uniform). Possibly a diplomat.

She was treating the evacuation as a civilian evacuation - Get everyone to safety.
She failed to see that the military officers should be informed as to what was going on, so they could help accordingly (even if that help was just to help pack)
Poe, on the otherhand, should have remembered the concept 'NEED TO KNOW', which is big in any military, and stayed out of the way.
Or, failing that, requested an assignment to do SOMETHING.

So, someone handling things like a civilian, and someone not realizing that he's going about things the wrong way.

[FaxModem1]

It's a combination of the two.

Holdo strikes me as more civilian leadership (she was not in a uniform). Possibly a diplomat.

She was treating the evacuation as a civilian evacuation - Get everyone to safety.
She failed to see that the military officers should be informed as to what was going on, so they could help accordingly (even if that help was just to help pack)
Poe, on the otherhand, should have remembered the concept 'NEED TO KNOW', which is big in any military, and stayed out of the way.
Or, failing that, requested an assignment to do SOMETHING.

So, someone handling things like a civilian, and someone not realizing that he's going about things the wrong way.

If Holdo is a civilian, why did Leia give her such a high military rank? Did everyone who joined the Resistance get handed a rank? What does that say about their organization?

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's possible that she held that rank in a reserve or intelligence officer capacity prior to joining the Resistance, and they needed everyone they could get. Maybe she was the canon version of Admiral Drayson or General Cracken from Legends.

[Galvatron]

Quite possibly. That could even explain her being overly secretive. It may have served her well as an intel chief, but not necessarily when in command of the entire Resistance.

IIRC, Admiral Drayson was similarly unsuited to that sort of command role when Ackbar was sidelined in the Thrawn trilogy.

[Gandalf]

If Holdo is a civilian, why did Leia give her such a high military rank? Did everyone who joined the Resistance get handed a rank? What does that say about their organization?

In keeping with the theme of people emulating the past, albeit clumsily, it would track that the Resistance just isn't that well set up. It's like the First Order being a poor emulation of the Empire.

It's also apparently what happens when you let Skywalkers run things. Luke set up a new Jedi Order. Leia set up a new Rebellion. Neither did well.

[FaxModem1]

If Holdo is a civilian, why did Leia give her such a high military rank? Did everyone who joined the Resistance get handed a rank? What does that say about their organization?

In keeping with the theme of people emulating the past, albeit clumsily, it would track that the Resistance just isn't that well set up. It's like the First Order being a poor emulation of the Empire.

It's also apparently what happens when you let Skywalkers run things. Luke set up a new Jedi Order. Leia set up a new Rebellion. Neither did well.

They clearly got their administration genes from the father's side of the family.

[Lord Revan]

If Holdo is a civilian, why did Leia give her such a high military rank? Did everyone who joined the Resistance get handed a rank? What does that say about their organization?

In keeping with the theme of people emulating the past, albeit clumsily, it would track that the Resistance just isn't that well set up. It's like the First Order being a poor emulation of the Empire.

It's also apparently what happens when you let Skywalkers run things. Luke set up a new Jedi Order. Leia set up a new Rebellion. Neither did well.

Everything I've read from the canon New Jedi Order was that it was decently well set up and it was destroyed by something they didn't (and possibly couldn't) predict.

[Jub]

Poe, on the otherhand, should have remembered the concept 'NEED TO KNOW', which is big in any military, and stayed out of the way.
Or, failing that, requested an assignment to do SOMETHING.

Does going up to your CO and asking them directly what the plan is not counted as asking for something to do? He asked, it's on Holdo to get back to him or send one of her staff out to ensure that the officers under her command have been clued in to what they need to be doing to make her plan work. Not doing that is an example of extremely poor leadership.

[Batman]

Indeed. The concept of 'need to know' requires you to KNOW there's something you don't need to know. It at least indicates there's a plan, you just (for one of a variety of perfectly sensible reasons Poe would likely have understood) aren't entitled to know it. Instead, when Poe asks what the plan is, she immediately focuses on his (almost guaranteed to be accidental) misrepresentation of his rank, which he accepts in stride by going' Captain. Commander. You can call me anything you want. I just wanna know what's going on', after which ...she goes on denigrating him without so much as hinting there's actually a plan he's merely too unworthy to know.

[Jub]

Just to add to Batman's point; this isn't even a military thing.

Imagine if you had a clash of ideas with a manager at work and then, before that clash was even resolved, your manager was replaced and the first thing your new manager did was berate you about the situation with your previous manager. Would that create a good working relationship between the two of you? Fuck no it wouldn't, it would have you either looking for a transfer away from that manager or looking for a new place of employment.

This hostile attitude is exactly what Poe got from Holdo when he asked for his new orders. It was compounded upon when Holdo issued no orders to anybody outside of her bridge staff and didn't seem to have anybody else delegated to do so either; this is backed up by what we see Rose doing and by how many people are willing to follow Poe's lead staging a mutiny against Holdo.

[Lord Revan]

All too often in fiction "need to know" is used as an excuse for characters to with hold needed information, like in this case Poe needed to know that there was a plan, maybe not the details of said plan but at least that it existed.

If a leader (be they military or civilian) with holds needed information and that leads to a disaster it's the fault of the leader. All Holdo had to say is "There's plan but due to security reasons I can't disclose the details just yet" and most likely the whole mutiny wouldn't had happened.

[channel73]

So we're just going to ignore that the New Republic had largely collapsed by TLJ, that it was heavily demilitarized to begin with, that its fleets were not coordinating with the Resistance at the time, that TLJ is routinely attacked for the small scale of the Resistance as "proof" of what a terrible movie it is until its convenient to paint the Resistance as a large, powerful force in order to vindicate Poe, and just basically make up a different movie from the one that was on-screen?

I'm not attacking TLJ? Or at the least not what's depicted on screen? I am attacking the lack of thought being put in the overall writing process of the entire sequel trilogy and the implications it has on the internal logic of the Star Wars universe when different writers is actively shafting each other.

The internal logic of the entire trilogy suggest Poe's initial plan make sense if we consider the fact that there's still a sufficient NR force that can make up a massive fleet one year after the events of TLJ. The main fleet might be wiped out, but Poe as a NR officer is likely to be aware of the fact that there are other NR forces that can put up a fight against the NR when he attacked the Fulminatrix. He didn't know at the time that the NR remnant will fail to heed Leia's call for help until Lando magically changes everyone's mind.

Yet another way RoS soft-retconned TLJ, I guess.

I don't want to defend RoS at all, because I hate it, but I don't think RoS necessarily retconned this. I never got the impression that the fleet Lando showed up with was some kind of official New Republic fleet. I thought it was literally like a bunch of civilians. The Imperial commander even says something like "it's just a bunch of... people".

[Gandalf]

Yeah, I thought that he was basically leading a popular uprising in that bit.

[Vendetta]

Yeah, it was lazily inserted because everyone loves that bit where it all looks lost but the reinforcements show up at the last second.

Except people love it when the reinforcements that show up are there because of personal connection to the characters doing the showing up or that they are showing up for or both not just because it happened.

And RoS didn't do that because none of the characters in it have a personal connection to anything, because that would mean having to take time build up characters as people and JJ can't do that it's hard so just make something explode and add dumb nerd fanservice like Chewie getting a medal instead.

[Galvatron]

Having seen TLJ again recently, I think Poe had the perfect retort for this part:

HOLDO: "Wasn't it Leia's last official act to demote you?"

Instead of biting his tongue like he did in the movie, he could have said this instead:

POE: "Actually, that was before they tracked us through hyperspace. After that, her last official act was granting me permission to jump in an X-wing and go blow something up."

[ray245]

Yeah, it was lazily inserted because everyone loves that bit where it all looks lost but the reinforcements show up at the last second.

Except people love it when the reinforcements that show up are there because of personal connection to the characters doing the showing up or that they are showing up for or both not just because it happened.

And RoS didn't do that because none of the characters in it have a personal connection to anything, because that would mean having to take time build up characters as people and JJ can't do that it's hard so just make something explode and add dumb nerd fanservice like Chewie getting a medal instead.

It goes to show how underdeveloped the ST era is when most of the characters showing up in the fleet are people from the OT, as opposed to cameo by anyone new from the sequel era.

[FaxModem1]

Scene could have worked too if they were able to get actors from the PT, OT, and ST all in there. In addition to someone like Maz to represent the ST, with Lando and Wedge representing the OT, have someone like Dex and/or Hondo to represent the PT.