Could the Fulminatrix have pierced the Raddus's shields?

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm going to add here that I don't really mind that characters use questionable tactics or strategies. Because a short look at any part of the history of war will reveal that that shit happens ALL THE TIME. People act like "bad tactics"="bad movie", as though its only a good film if the characters behave like perfectly programmed tactical computers that never make a mistake. Personally, though, I'd rather my films have characters- fallible, complex, erratic, as people are.

Poe's decisions are fucking stupid, but they're believable stupid. Luke and Leia's judgement is clouded by their emotions, but that's believable too. Holdo underestimating the threat Poe posed? Believable. They're not all the same magnitude of mistake, but they're all believable mistakes for those characters in those situations. I wish I could say that Hux was too stupid to be real, but anyone who's read about a charge across No Man's Land, or McClellan's endless litany of insubordination and missed opportunities during the Civil War, or Hitler wasting entire armies against the Soviets, knows that its a slight exaggeration at worst.

[Solauren]

I agree with you 100% TRR. No war is full of perfect tactics, and people make mistakes, underesimate people, etc.

And as for Hux, he was clearly letting his Ego get in the way of his judgement.

Either that, of if he was the First Orders version of a tactical genius, their education system was shit.

[Gandalf]

I agree with you 100% TRR. No war is full of perfect tactics, and people make mistakes, underesimate people, etc.

And as for Hux, he was clearly letting his Ego get in the way of his judgement.

Either that, of if he was the First Orders version of a tactical genius, their education system was shit.

It could be a case of a politically reliable guy getting a good posting, and not delegating the necessary functions to his subordinates.

[Solauren]

Sorry, he doesn't seem reliable at all. Remember his reason for turning traitor in Rise of Skywalker? It was as a 'fuck you' to Kylo Ren.

[Gandalf]

Loyal to Snoke I guess?

I'll be honest, I forgot that he was in the last one.

[Galvatron]

This was sort of addressed in TLJ. Snoke actually seemed pleasantly surprised when Hux informed him that they could track the Resistance fleet through hyperspace (around the 16:30 mark).

Hux also took credit for the First Order's stormtrooper indoctrination program, which apparently worked well despite a handful of outliers like Finn and Jannah.

Given his prominence at Starkiller Base, it's also possible that he was a driving force behind its creation as well.

He may not be a competent battle commander, but Hux was at least partly responsible for the development of the First Order's war machine.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, that works. An ideologically committed technocrat who has no business actually commanding on a battlefield, and should never have left the R&D department.

Though, I'll give him credit, he did realize Kylo was being baited by Luke, and tried to point it out to him, though that was probably more motivated by his disrespect for Kylo and perhaps the Force in general- Hux strikes me as someone who would likely share the view of that general Vader choked on the Death Star, that "ancient religions" are no match for the superweapons they can build.

[ray245]

Speaking about the troopers, is anyone uncomfortable with the idea that the good guys are happily gunning down child-soldiers left, right and centre? In all of the Lucas' films, at the very least they tried to make the armies they are fighting left, right and centre either soldiers who seems willing to volunteer for the empire, or they are essentially droids.

With the Clones, they are the "good" guys most of the time, and even when the Jedi have to kill them for self-defence, some Jedi like Ashoka are deeply unwilling to kill their former friends. Having evil empire made-up of a Galaxy's worth of kidnapped children makes the whole conflict deeply troubling.

At least the Duel of the Fates version saw a massive stormtrooper uprising compared to the tiny battalion of dissenters. Former Rebels like Lando are essentially risking the chance of killing their own children.

[The Romulan Republic]

I mean, exploring the implications of that past the first third of TFA would have required actually developing Finn as a character, and we can't have that, can we?

[Gandalf]

With the Clones, they are the "good" guys most of the time, and even when the Jedi have to kill them for self-defence, some Jedi like Ashoka are deeply unwilling to kill their former friends. Having evil empire made-up of a Galaxy's worth of kidnapped children makes the whole conflict deeply troubling.

War sucks, who knew?

Also, the Jedi fought alongside genetically designed slaves. I'm not sure why their being good guys makes it better. Like the weird attitude SW has with slavery, it's largely ignored.

[Ralin]

Also, the Jedi fought alongside genetically designed slaves. I'm not sure why their being good guys makes it better. Like the weird attitude SW has with slavery, it's largely ignored.

As a Civil War historian I'm friends with likes to say about some of the legally questionable shit Lincoln pulled during the war, it was kind of an emergency. The Jedi/the Republic didn't have an alternative non-slave army to use instead and it's not hard to believe they couldn't feasibly assemble one when the Separatists were attacking right now. That might not justify it, but it's enough that there's a big difference between them just...not thinking too hard about it...for the sake of not letting Galactic civilization go down the crapper and enthusiastically embracing slave soldiers for the sake of perpetuating an evil empire.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that defending the manufacture of an entire population of cloned child slave soldiers is not a position you want to take.

[Ralin]

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that defending the manufacture of an entire population of cloned child slave soldiers is not a position you want to take.

Just checking, do you think the Republic should have surrendered to the Separatists/let them secede? Because I'm not seeing what their other options were at that point. The war was apparently desperate with an actual army. Presumably they would have lost without it.

[Gandalf]

I'm not sure we really know enough about the origin of the conflict to judge whether allowing them to secede would have been morally acceptable.

[The Romulan Republic]

While the circumstances are probably somewhat vague, especially post-decanonization of Legends, I'm not sure the argument of self-determination is applicable. IIRC, the secession was portrayed, from what we saw of it in the films, more as something being pushed by a conglomeration of big business consortiums who wanted to be able to run the Outer Rim as their private empires, than as a popular movement for independence. In which case, it has as much legitimacy as if, say, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Koch got together and decided to take control of the states where their corporate headquarters are based and leave the United States to form a Confederacy of Independent Corporations. That is, zero legitimacy.

Now if it had been a slave revolt against the Republic, my sympathies in that conflict would be rather different.

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that defending the manufacture of an entire population of cloned child slave soldiers is not a position you want to take.

Just checking, do you think the Republic should have surrendered to the Separatists/let them secede? Because I'm not seeing what their other options were at that point. The war was apparently desperate with an actual army. Presumably they would have lost without it.

They lost the war with the army, too. Because the army was programmed to turn on them.

The war was already pretty much lost by the time it started. That's with the benefit of hindsight, of course, but the whole thing was basically a big pantomime carried out by Sidious. The only time there was an actual fight between two opposing sides was the brief period between Anakin going to tell the Council that Palpatine was Sidious, and the failure of Yoda and Kenobi's assassination attempt.

As to how they should have fought it, if Palpatine had fallen down the stairs or something...

Well, the best thing to do would have been to start beefing up the Federal forces after the Naboo crisis. Maybe not an army, but definitely an expanded judicial force, perhaps under Jedi control. This force could have them acted as the nucleus of a military which would also oversee/coordinate the various planetary defense forces, of which there are many. They probably wouldn't have had much offensive capability, but could (without Sidious's interference) fought a defensive war, delaying the Separatists until they could either bring them to the negotiation table, or use Jedi special forces to take out Dooku. The Republic could have also started producing its own (non-sapient) droid troops.

Of course, the Jedi had a long tradition of abducting children to brainwash them into their paramilitary order before this. They were merely acting in keeping with the deeply unegalitarian cultural traditions of their galaxy. And in the end, it destroyed them.

I rather like the idea that the collapse of the Republic, and Anakin Skywalker/Vader in particular, was the galaxy's "punishment" for the institution of slavery. To quote Lincoln:

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

[Galvatron]

Yeah, that works. An ideologically committed technocrat who has no business actually commanding on a battlefield, and should never have left the R&D department.

Snoke even admitted to Kylo that Hux was a "rabid cur" and then explained that his weaknesses could be manipulated into a strength. In other words, Hux was an ambitious weakling and could therefore be motivated to compensate for his tactical incompetence with valuable technological innovations.

Also, the Jedi fought alongside genetically designed slaves. I'm not sure why their being good guys makes it better. Like the weird attitude SW has with slavery, it's largely ignored.

I always wondered what sorts of euphemisms the Republic used to deceive themselves about their enslavement of the clones. Were they referred to as "conscripts," perhaps?

[Patroklos]

I am thinking it was along the lines of they were specifically created and conditioned for this task and they are happy to do it, mixed with a bit of this being a path to their own emancipation when the war is over. Self deluding, but also self serving for the circumstances.

The whole thing is sort of ruined by the plot hole of nobody caring where they came from after a one line hand wave of dialogue. There are a lot of interesting moral hazards to be explored here but the complete lack of curiosity on the Jedi/Republic part is inexcusable and cartoonish.

I like you thoughts on incompetence and luck/chance explaining some of the tactical stupidity we see on screen, but that can only go so far. Really lucky incompetents don’t make for compelling villains, and bumbling but lucky do goodies don’t make for inspiring hero’s.

[Solauren]

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that defending the manufacture of an entire population of cloned child slave soldiers is not a position you want to take.

Versus armies of manufactured sentient artificial soldiers?

[chimericoncogene]

Just checking, do you think the Republic should have surrendered to the Separatists/let them secede? Because I'm not seeing what their other options were at that point. The war was apparently desperate with an actual army. Presumably they would have lost without it.

I think Separatist war aims were a bit more grandiose than "let us secede in peace" at times. It's not entirely made clear what Separatist war aims were, but the ROTS novelization at least seemed to suggest that the destruction of the Galactic Republic (or some massive curtailing of its power) was in the cards. Possibly, the Confeds might have demanded control over a few otherwise Republic-leaning sectors, self-determination by popular vote for planets and sectors (thus breaking up the Republic), a big demilitarized zone, favorable trade terms, etc, etc. Either way, galactic civilization as it had been for the last thousand years would have been finished, and you'd be setting up a few wars down the line.

Regarding the lack of interest in Sifo-Dyas... it's easy not to dig when there's a massive war on and all the leads are dead-ends. I'm also strongly convinced that a lot of people knew about the Clone Army (Kuati shipbuilders, Rothana tank manufacturers, Incom, Sienar, heck, the staff and naval officers you'd need to recruit from Anaxes and Coruscant to train the clone officers...), and that everyone's involvement eased a lot of minds and bred complacency.

Yeah, the Republic had a secret army. So what? We were all in on it. Heck, would you believe the Jedi weren't in on it? Obviously, the Republic was preparing for war for ten years! We aren't that dumb! Our leaders saw this war coming, and made sure we were prepared.

Also, I'm of the mind that the measures proposed by TRR - the expanded Judicial Corps, extra ships, Senate Commandos (kitted with DC-15As, interestingly), more men, etc... that was all ongoing through 30-20BBY. I mean, Venators were probably hanging around before the Clone Army came into the picture (why else would they be called "Jedi Cruisers???"), and with war clouds hanging over the Republic, there would have been a slow but steady walk towards militarization.

That process was probably one of the catalysts for the Clone Wars. If you're an Outer Rim World, and you see all these Core Worlds building military academies, putting in place mobilization plans, building dual-use infrastructure, training ROTC cadets, and building a stronger Judicial Corps (which is increasingly looking like a proper Navy) - well, your response is to buy a trillion battle droids.

I'm running on a World War II model, which has the Republic beginning a buildup of administrative and mobilization capacity well before the official start of the Clone Wars. Things like expanding planetary defense forces, standardizing equipment, writing doctrine, setting up staffs, etc, etc could easily have taken place in plain sight, with no problems for anyone. By AOTC, the "Military Creation Act" is a stamp on changes that have already taken place, and would basically involve swapping out a few plaques on offices and putting new rank insignia on shoulders. The name of the legislation is so provocative that it can only be the culmination of a series of efforts, rather than the start of such. The presence of a Clone Army (and a million warships) to fill out the TO&E is merely icing on the cake.

[Ralin]

I think Separatist war aims were a bit more grandiose than "let us secede in peace" at times. It's not entirely made clear what Separatist war aims were, but the ROTS novelization at least seemed to suggest that the destruction of the Galactic Republic (or some massive curtailing of its power) was in the cards. Possibly, the Confeds might have demanded control over a few otherwise Republic-leaning sectors, self-determination by popular vote for planets and sectors (thus breaking up the Republic), a big demilitarized zone, favorable trade terms, etc, etc. Either way, galactic civilization as it had been for the last thousand years would have been finished, and you'd be setting up a few wars down the line.

Yes. I meant that to be implied. Thus the "It was kind of an emergency."

[Ralin]

While the circumstances are probably somewhat vague, especially post-decanonization of Legends, I'm not sure the argument of self-determination is applicable. IIRC, the secession was portrayed, from what we saw of it in the films, more as something being pushed by a conglomeration of big business consortiums who wanted to be able to run the Outer Rim as their private empires, than as a popular movement for independence. In which case, it has as much legitimacy as if, say, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Koch got together and decided to take control of the states where their corporate headquarters are based and leave the United States to form a Confederacy of Independent Corporations. That is, zero legitimacy.

Yeah, I said ‘let them secede’ for brevity but I didn’t mean to imply that wouldn’t be terrible.

They lost the war with the army, too. Because the army was programmed to turn on them.

The war was already pretty much lost by the time it started. That's with the benefit of hindsight, of course, but the whole thing was basically a big pantomime carried out by Sidious. The only time there was an actual fight between two opposing sides was the brief period between Anakin going to tell the Council that Palpatine was Sidious, and the failure of Yoda and Kenobi's assassination attempt.

Don’t be silly. There was an actual war with most of the participants on both sides not being aware of the underlying Sith plot. The Separatist armies were still burning planets and what not and the Grand Army of the Republic really was fighting desperately to stop them.

Hell, even if you want to go that route the clones technically never turned on the Republic. They followed the chancellor’s order to kill the Jedi after the Separatists were mostly defeated and then continued to serve it after the Senate voted to turn the Republic into the Empire. Not that I think that’s particularly relevant.

As to how they should have fought it, if Palpatine had fallen down the stairs or something...

Well, the best thing to do would have been to start beefing up the Federal forces after the Naboo crisis. Maybe not an army, but definitely an expanded judicial force, perhaps under Jedi control. This force could have them acted as the nucleus of a military which would also oversee/coordinate the various planetary defense forces, of which there are many. They probably wouldn't have had much offensive capability, but could (without Sidious's interference) fought a defensive war, delaying the Separatists until they could either bring them to the negotiation table, or use Jedi special forces to take out Dooku. The Republic could have also started producing its own (non-sapient) droid troops.

Yes those all would have been great ideas in retrospect, but they didn’t do those things and you go to war with the army you have. Whether they should have seen it coming or not when the war started their choices boiled down to using the suspicious but effective clone army that *someone* ordered or try to pull one out of their collective asses on the stop. Which they apparently did not consider feasible.

[chimericoncogene]

Yes. I meant that to be implied. Thus the "It was kind of an emergency."

Of course; you were reasonably clear. I just found the whole idea interesting to explore, and your statement got me considering what Separatist war aims might be.

As is usual for this sort of thing, I would expect war aims to fluctuate depending on how the war was going, with victories bolstering those arguing for "topple the Republic" and strategic corrections favoring the "secede in peace" faction.

Generally, the Republic is depicted as the bigger and wealthier polity (a la WWII America), so the duration and pace of the Clone Wars would basically be set by competing Republic and Separatist industrial mobilization timetables (with both sides getting a head start with secret armies and pre-war shadow mobilizations, with the Separatists being more mobilized to start off with, considering Sep design philosophies and reliance on existing anti-piracy droid armies scaled up to galactic size). Continuing the WWII/ACW rhyme, a longer war would favor the Republic, so the Separatists would start the war on the offensive, with Republic industrial might taking a few years to kick in.

[The Romulan Republic]

Interesting parallel to the US Civil War- early, a lot of the existing military forces defected to the South, which helped them early on. But as the war continued, the Union's superior industrial strength and population allowed it to wear the South down.

[Patroklos]

I know this is the conventional read, core vs rim, regarding industry. In this case we are also talking droid vs biological and with all the planetary scale droid factories the separatists were using that were described as stripping bare portions of the galaxy if I am remembering correctly I am not sure quantity is on the Republic’s side.

It’s also not clear the Core was on the Republic’s side wholesale as the same corporate interests that we associate with the separatists are also associated with the monied elite of the Core. It would be odd if the banking clan strong enough to move and shake the galaxy was based in the equivalent of Aruba rather than Wall Street. Even Switzerland is in the middle of the old western world, not Antarctica

This seems more like a quality over quantity thing, with the Jedi and clones being sort a few hundred clones each. This matches everything we see on screen movie wise.

[Ralin]

This seems more like a quality over quantity thing, with the Jedi and clones being sort a few hundred clones each. This matches everything we see on screen movie wise.

Uh, excuse me, the clone troopers were all Mandalorian super soldiers who could each personally take on millions of combat droids and win. Duh.