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Perhaps someone did notice, but just saw it as a glitch or an oversight, or maybe was unable to get anyone of significance to notice before the battle began.

Metahive wrote:In my opinion letting the Rebel Commando land on Endor instead of capturing Shuttle Tydirium in space via tractor beam struck me as something of a plot hole, since doing so would A, deliver Luke right into Vader's and the Emperor's hands and B, quite efficiently prevent the sabotage of the Death Star Shield. I don't think any reason why the imperials had to let the commando set foot on Endor was given in the movie.

Did you miss the bit where the Emperor explains everything has been his plan all along? He leaked the code and Vader was on hand to let the shuttle through in case a lackey got trigger happy. His plan was to bring Luke to a point of maximum despair as all his friends died about him.
Not the brightest of plans, but as it's been pointed out already Palps was a cackling villian of the old school.

dworkin wrote:

Metahive wrote:In my opinion letting the Rebel Commando land on Endor instead of capturing Shuttle Tydirium in space via tractor beam struck me as something of a plot hole, since doing so would A, deliver Luke right into Vader's and the Emperor's hands and B, quite efficiently prevent the sabotage of the Death Star Shield. I don't think any reason why the imperials had to let the commando set foot on Endor was given in the movie.

Did you miss the bit where the Emperor explains everything has been his plan all along? He leaked the code and Vader was on hand to let the shuttle through in case a lackey got trigger happy. His plan was to bring Luke to a point of maximum despair as all his friends died about him.
Not the brightest of plans, but as it's been pointed out already Palps was a cackling villian of the old school.

Having his friends strapped to torture tables would have gotten him more dispair

"Your resistance causes your friends pain, and your fleet has no way of knowing that there is no way to drop the shields! It's truely hopeless!" (Cackling).

Hell, make it so that the torture happens at the flip of a switch, and Vader and Palpatine are in the way of Luke rescuing his friends (who are like, on the wall or something), and that would really push Luke to flip out.

How about just drop the overly complicated plan in the first place, finish the DSII, and start blowing up worlds until Luke surrenders?

Surely Luke would take the death of a few hundred billion to heart, especially if it included places like Dac.

How about just drop the overly complicated plan in the first place, finish the DSII, and start blowing up worlds until Luke surrenders?

Surely Luke would take the death of a few hundred billion to heart, especially if it included places like Dac.

Sure go on blowing up planets giving more sypathy for the rebels while at the same time making more rebels in the process.

Stupid fuck.

Yeah, because I can't think of any examples of powers going round raising places until they were pacified. Thats certainly never worked in history before. No sir, totally unheard of. Those Romans? Myth. Mongols? Lies. Japanese around 1945? Just a legend.

STUPID FUCK!!!!! Ahhhh snap!

It is totally unheard of for an empire to raze their own population, you stupid fuck. The Romans, Mongols and Japanese, as ruthless as they were towards populations they were conquering, never turned their wholesale destruction against other Romans, Mongols or Japanese. Once you joined the Roman empire and fulfilled your civic duties, you were a Roman citizen and enjoyed all the privileges and protections thereof. The Mongols and Japanese were united by tribalism — their violence was directed outwards and at other populations. In any case, as long as you fulfilled your duties as a Roman, Mongol or Japanese, violence was not directed against you.

What you propose the Galactic Empire to do is to do exactly what the Roman, Mongol or Japanese empires never did: direct violence indiscriminately at its own population. This is politically unsustainable — the reason you are in the Empire is to gain the protection thereof. If joining the Empire does not gain their protection, then it doesn't matter if you join or not — your planet may be blown away at any time. This is not a recipe for loyalty.

Patroklos wrote:How about just drop the overly complicated plan in the first place, finish the DSII, and start blowing up worlds until Luke surrenders?

Surely Luke would take the death of a few hundred billion to heart, especially if it included places like Dac.

The second the Empire pulled that, they'd be faced with ever single planet merging their defense forces and launching an all out assault on the Death Star + Coruscant. Then there is a good chance every mercanary and criminal would do that as well.

You don't clean your own house by shitting in the corner.

Idiot.

Wyrm wrote:What you propose the Galactic Empire to do is to do exactly what the Roman, Mongol or Japanese empires never did: direct violence indiscriminately at its own population. This is politically unsustainable - the reason you are in the Empire is to gain the protection thereof.

And yet the Empire did exactly this to the population of Alderaan.

Channel72 wrote:

Wyrm wrote:What you propose the Galactic Empire to do is to do exactly what the Roman, Mongol or Japanese empires never did: direct violence indiscriminately at its own population. This is politically unsustainable - the reason you are in the Empire is to gain the protection thereof.

And yet the Empire did exactly this to the population of Alderaan.

Which was known to harbor dissident elements. And they did suffer for it.

The point is, one planet will scare many and make many rebel. But to go "Fuck this shit" and start blowing away planets to have one man turn to the dark side? And people think movie Palpatine is a psychpathic idiot.

Wyrm wrote:It is totally unheard of for an empire to raze their own population, you stupid fuck. The Romans, Mongols and Japanese, as ruthless as they were towards populations they were conquering, never turned their wholesale destruction against other Romans, Mongols or Japanese. Once you joined the Roman empire and fulfilled your civic duties, you were a Roman citizen and enjoyed all the privileges and protections thereof. The Mongols and Japanese were united by tribalism — their violence was directed outwards and at other populations. In any case, as long as you fulfilled your duties as a Roman, Mongol or Japanese, violence was not directed against you.

Jesus, so much ignorance is contained in your post I don't know where to start.

1.) Not only is there ample evidence of the Romans, Monguls, and Japanese doing this to their own kind, but they certainly did it on a regular basis to rebeling areas within their empires in the case of the Romans and Monguls. Some of the most famous and bloody wars in all of Roman history were civil wars between the Roman citizenry (does Octavian and Marc Antony ring any bells?). Honestly, for you to bring up the Romans as an example of an empire NOT being brutal to its own citizens is comic.

And you missed the Japanese analogy, as the closest real world analogy we have to the DS destroying a planet is in the SW universe is us nuking a city on Earth, and even then it doesn't scale correctly. It did, however, intimidate a previously fanatical enemy into surrender. But then again just to highlight your ignorance once again, you do understand the Japanese intercine warfare is famous right? So prevelent that it jumps out of history, right?

2.) No, when provinces were brought into the Roman empire the inhabitants did NOT become Roman citizens. And I use the word "brought" because besides so very few examples there was no "joining" the Roman Empire, you were CONQUERED. It was many hundreds of years into their history until the inhabitants of Italy itself, traditionally enjoying Latin status but not citizenship, were granted Roman citizenship. It wasn't until very late into the Empire, during its collapse, that in a last ditch effort to raise tax revenues Empire wide citizenship was enacted.

3.) Its funny you mention the "as long as you fullfill your duties" bit because guess what? Thats exactly how it worked in the Galactic Empire too. Seriously, was there any point to your post at all?

What you propose the Galactic Empire to do is to do exactly what the Roman, Mongol or Japanese empires never did: direct violence indiscriminately at its own population. This is politically unsustainable — the reason you are in the Empire is to gain the protection thereof. If joining the Empire does not gain their protection, then it doesn't matter if you join or not — your planet may be blown away at any time. This is not a recipe for loyalty.

Well, since we have already established that your premise about a lack of inter empire warfare is comletely retarded, the rest of your arguement really isn't going anywhere. There a myraid examples of empires held together primarily via force or the threat of it. Its actually the primary way empires functioned, which shouldn't be a surprise to you considering they were composed of subjugated conquered peoples for the most part.

Solauren wrote: The second the Empire pulled that, they'd be faced with ever single planet merging their defense forces and launching an all out assault on the Death Star + Coruscant. Then there is a good chance every mercanary and criminal would do that as well.

Except that is exactly what the original plan was wasn't it? In fact, thats EXACTLY what Tarkin was doing in the damn movie. He wasted Alderaan because it was a rebelious planet and to make an example out of it. And it is made clear that an operational DS would mean the end to the Rebellion, which is exactly why they risked everything on a hairbrained last ditch effort to destroy it. They knew it meant game over.

The only reason the act of destroying Alderaan formented rebellion instead of stopping it was that the DS was destroyed. That left the Empire in the worst of situations, having exposed the level of brutality they were willing to resort to but now no longer being able to follow through with it again. An example of force only works if you can convincingly repeat it.

You don't clean your own house by shitting in the corner.

Idiot.

I am sorry the basic plot of the movie escaped you. The whole point of the DS was that it was to be invicible and irresistable for th purposes of gaining obedience through intimidation. Most grade schoolers picked it up, I am why it went ofver your head.

Ghost Rider wrote:[
Which was known to harbor dissident elements. And they did suffer for it.

The point is, one planet will scare many and make many rebel. But to go "Fuck this shit" and start blowing away planets to have one man turn to the dark side? And people think movie Palpatine is a psychpathic idiot.

That’s not what I said. I said start blowing up planets, which the DSII was going to do anyway. The idea put forward was that personal loss would drive Luke to the dark side. If that’s the case and you were already going to use an operational DSII to go around stamping out the Rebellion one planet at a time, a course of action that I would hope would trigger the same personal loss reaction from Luke given the scale of destruction, why worry about the complicated plot of ROTJ?

The way they went about entrapping Luke introduced a level of risk that was not required. Just finishing the DSII and letting it do its thing should accomplish the exact same objective.

Hell, its not like the Emperor or Vader knew about Han or Leia being on Endor to die, when the Emperor said "friends" he was talking about the fleet out the window. Vader and the Emperor were banking on the destuction of the Rebel fleet and thus the Rebel cause to trigger the right emotional reaction. In that case they didn't need the DSII at all, they could have just as easily destroyed the Rebel fleet at Sullust with conventional forces.

would they? The rebel fleet could easily flee, and the empire didn't necessarily know they were at sullust. the rebel fleet was mobile and could hide. they needed the rebel fleet in one spot. the ds enabled that. The DS II would make sure no one would try once they had victory. It didn't work but it wasn't a bad plan.

I was pretty sure that the Empire had recieved reports of the massing Rebel fleet. Yep, after a bit of googling:

"What of the reports of the Rebel fleet massing near Sullust?" -Darth Vader.

Vader says this before the the Battle of Endor, so the Empire knew where the Rebel fleet was.

As for the rebel fleet fleeing Sullust in the event of an attack I guess they could, I am not sure what anti hyperspace abilities were available at the time. But as the ROTJ shows apparently there are ways to trap a fleet without using gravity wells, the Empire obvioulsy had some way in mind to keep the Rebels from just hyperspacing away in the Endor trap.

Perhaps after the Rebel fleet dropped out of hyperspace and then closed with the DS, the DS's own gravity well would prevent them leaving, with the Imperial pincer fleets simply keeping them from fighting their way out of the DS's gravity well. Thats just guessing though, I am not sure how close to a gravity well you need to be for it to affect you.

Yes, the novel points out that the rebel fleet was trapped between Endor, the DSII and it's shield, and the Imperial Fleet. The could have worked their way through the Imperial fleet and ran for it, but as it was, they stuck around to fight.

Patroklos wrote:

Wyrm wrote:It is totally unheard of for an empire to raze their own population, you stupid fuck. The Romans, Mongols and Japanese, as ruthless as they were towards populations they were conquering, never turned their wholesale destruction against other Romans, Mongols or Japanese. Once you joined the Roman empire and fulfilled your civic duties, you were a Roman citizen and enjoyed all the privileges and protections thereof. The Mongols and Japanese were united by tribalism — their violence was directed outwards and at other populations. In any case, as long as you fulfilled your duties as a Roman, Mongol or Japanese, violence was not directed against you.

Jesus, so much ignorance is contained in your post I don't know where to start.

1.) Not only is there ample evidence of the Romans, Monguls, and Japanese doing this to their own kind, but they certainly did it on a regular basis to rebeling areas within their empires in the case of the Romans and Monguls.

Which would fall under "not doing one's duty to the Roman/Mongul/Japanese empire." Because last time I checked, rebelling against your host government is not allowed anywhere.

Patroklos wrote:Some of the most famous and bloody wars in all of Roman history were civil wars between the Roman citizenry (does Octavian and Marc Antony ring any bells?). Honestly, for you to bring up the Romans as an example of an empire NOT being brutal to its own citizens is comic.

Did Octavian and Marc Antony wage war against their own areas? No, they waged it against areas under control of their rival... because waging war against areas that are under their control and behaving themselves is stupid. Dumbfuck.

Patroklos wrote:And you missed the Japanese analogy, as the closest real world analogy we have to the DS destroying a planet is in the SW universe is us nuking a city on Earth, and even then it doesn't scale correctly. It did, however, intimidate a previously fanatical enemy into surrender. But then again just to highlight your ignorance once again, you do understand the Japanese intercine warfare is famous right? So prevelent that it jumps out of history, right?

The US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the US was trying to get a power under neither their control nor their protection to capitulate by show of force. But the US never dropped a bomb on New York city or any other city under our control. The Japanese, had they the bomb, would never had dropped that bomb on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. That is what you are proposing the Emperor to do to the Empire multiple times over to get Luke to go Dark Side. I'm sorry, but I don't think that Luke is worth nearly that much to the Emperor. When Luke showed much less resistance to being turned than enduring the death of billions upon billions of innocent imperials would need, the Emperor was perfectly willing to simply off him.

Patroklos wrote:2.) No, when provinces were brought into the Roman empire the inhabitants did NOT become Roman citizens.

Of course not. They had to serve a tour of duty in the Roman army. Hence my qualification: "fulfilled your civic duties"

Patroklos wrote:And I use the word "brought" because besides so very few examples there was no "joining" the Roman Empire, you were CONQUERED.

Yes. You were conquered— your ability to make war against the Roman Empire was destroyed and your people came under Roman rule, while your lands became Roman lands. You were not subject to genocide unless you proved particularly troublesome.

Patroklos wrote:3.) Its funny you mention the "as long as you fullfill your duties" bit because guess what? Thats exactly how it worked in the Galactic Empire too. Seriously, was there any point to your post at all?

You were proposing that the Galactic Empire wipe out planet after planet until one boy turned to the Dark Side. Presumably they would be inhabited, which would no doubt include bona fide imperial citizens who were holding up their end of their social contract with the Empire. Hence you were advocating that the Empire exercise indiscriminate violence against its own citizenry. Even Alderaan had a veneer of reasoning behind its destruction, and even so, it did excite sentiment for the Rebellion, but do you think that spin will fly if the Empire started destroying planet after planet?

Patroklos wrote:Well, since we have already established that your premise about a lack of inter empire warfare is comletely retarded, the rest of your arguement really isn't going anywhere. There a myraid examples of empires held together primarily via force or the threat of it. Its actually the primary way empires functioned, which shouldn't be a surprise to you considering they were composed of subjugated conquered peoples for the most part.

The shows of force you talk about is against people objecting to imperial rule, you stupid twat. Unless the Emperor was willing to manufacture stories of planets in rebellion wholesale and out of whole cloth across his Empire and destroy asset after asset to get one boy to turn to the Dark Side, there is no way your plan has even a whiff of plausability to it — and I doubt the Emperor thought Luke was worth even one planet.

And you missed the Japanese analogy, as the closest real world analogy we have to the DS destroying a planet is in the SW universe is us nuking a city on Earth, and even then it doesn't scale correctly. It did, however, intimidate a previously fanatical enemy into surrender. But then again just to highlight your ignorance once again, you do understand the Japanese intercine warfare is famous right? So prevelent that it jumps out of history, right?

Japan doesn't belong to america.

Japan's fleets weren't mobile hell,they had been destroyed for the most part at that point.
Bombing japan was different than oh lets say America BOMBING it's own allies. You idiot.
.

2.) No, when provinces were brought into the Roman empire the inhabitants did NOT become Roman citizens. And I use the word "brought" because besides so very few examples there was no "joining" the Roman Empire, you were CONQUERED. It was many hundreds of years into their history until the inhabitants of Italy itself, traditionally enjoying Latin status but not citizenship, were granted Roman citizenship. It wasn't until very late into the Empire, during its collapse, that in a last ditch effort to raise tax revenues Empire wide citizenship was enacted.

which doesn't apply to the GE since the republic senate VOTED to become an empire.

3.) Its funny you mention the "as long as you fullfill your duties" bit because guess what? Thats exactly how it worked in the Galactic Empire too. Seriously, was there any point to your post at all?

Except that the Alderaan was harboring enemies of the empire, "secretly" plotting against the empire, helping to create the rebellion, YUP they were doing their part. You stupid fuck.

Its actually the primary way empires functioned, which shouldn't be a surprise to you considering they were composed of subjugated conquered peoples for the most part.

Again that doesn't apply to the GE they started by voting the republic into an empire. Meaning they were MOSTLY comprised of willing member worlds and not the other way around.

Wyrm wrote:Which would fall under "not doing one's duty to the Roman/Mongul/Japanese empire." Because last time I checked, rebelling against your host government is not allowed anywhere.

Except you said the Romans NEVER turned their violence against their own. This is patently false when you admit the happily do so for any number of political ends, rebellion being one. Dynastic and succession stuggles being another. Religious schism is another great one, note the French Hugenots. And as was pointed out Alderaan WAS rebelling. Unless you think every member of a Roman province rebelled to the man then the situations are analogous, both empires attacking a portion of their own empire en masse and definetly snaging a few loyalists in the process. You can deny it all you want, but empires attacking portions of their own empires for whatever reason did occur, and occured often.

Did Octavian and Marc Antony wage war against their own areas? No, they waged it against areas under control of their rival... because waging war against areas that are under their control and behaving themselves is stupid. Dumbfuck.

What does it matter if it was under their own control, it was still portions of their own empire. Yes, Greece was a full Roman province when Octavian and Antony fought there. And we don't even have to go there, because there are the examples of Caesar, Pompey, and Sulla amoungst others who fought in Italy and marched on Rome itself. So again, there is nothing particulary novel about an empire attacking its own citizens.

The US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the US was trying to get a power under neither their control nor their protection to capitulate by show of force. But the US never dropped a bomb on New York city or any other city under our control. The Japanese, had they the bomb, would never had dropped that bomb on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. That is what you are proposing the Emperor to do to the Empire multiple times over to get Luke to go Dark Side. I'm sorry, but I don't think that Luke is worth nearly that much to the Emperor. When Luke showed much less resistance to being turned than enduring the death of billions upon billions of innocent imperials would need, the Emperor was perfectly willing to simply off him.

The Emperor was going to blow up planets ANYWAY. That was the whole point of the DS in the first place. Blow a few up, and then let that example and your unquestioned will to continue doing so terrorize the galaxy into submission. I personally think that was a lot of overkill given the situation within the Empire at the time, but for whatever reason the Emperor and Tarkin didn't share my assessment.

I didn't say blow up planets just for the sake of Luke, but that the plan in ROTJ was redundent, they were going to blow up planets anyway destroying the Rebellion and evoking the exact same sense of loss in Luke they were going for in the ROTJ plot. All they did with their Endor machinations was introduce uneeded risk.

Again, this was a response to the assertion that the Emperor needed to inflict personal loss on Luke via destroying the Rebellion to get a dark side reaction. I can go with that, I am just asking why it had to be at Endor and why did it have to expose the DSII and the Emperor himself to any risk when the end result of a fully constucted and campaigning DSII would have done that anyway?

Of course not. They had to serve a tour of duty in the Roman army. Hence my qualification: "fulfilled your civic duties"

"Fullfilled your civic duties" had nothing to do with it. You could be a perfectly loyal subject raising your sheep in Illyrium while paying your taxes and never raising a hand against Roman authority and it would not get you citizenship.

There was no expectation of military service for the provincials (or non propertied Roman citizens for that matter), it was not some mandatory civic duty. If you fought for the Romans you MIGHT get rewarded with citizenship, but it wasn't as if the Romans expected or wanted every subjuct under their standard to fight for them. The simple fact was that the vast majority of the populous under Roman rule were not citizens and had no opportunity to become citizens until the Caracalla granted it to everyone (free male) in the third century.

As for fighting for them, you actually had to be a landed citizen to join the legions in the first place (though many a Roman aristocrats cheated on this requirement when raising their armies). Eventually just a citizen as the land requirement was dropped. Non citizens joined the axillia.

Yes. You were conquered— your ability to make war against the Roman Empire was destroyed and your people came under Roman rule, while your lands became Roman lands. You were not subject to genocide unless you proved particularly troublesome.

Whether you were troublesome or not, you were still a formal part of the Roman Empire and thus being attacked by the Roman state constitutes the empire fighting its own people. This is of course exactly what the Galactic Empire was doing with the DS, Alderaan WAS rebellious.

You were proposing that the Galactic Empire wipe out planet after planet until one boy turned to the Dark Side. Presumably they would be inhabited, which would no doubt include bona fide imperial citizens who were holding up their end of their social contract with the Empire. Hence you were advocating that the Empire exercise indiscriminate violence against its own citizenry. Even Alderaan had a veneer of reasoning behind its destruction, and even so, it did excite sentiment for the Rebellion, but do you think that spin will fly if the Empire started destroying planet after planet?

I said no such thing, I said planet after planet and then qualified it with Dac. Do you know anything about the planet Dac? I'll give you a hint, it was the openly rebellious homeworld of the Mon Calamari and a central fixture of the Rebellion military establishment. In other words, NOT some random planet of totally benign loyal citizens.

When I said planet after planet, and then qualified it with Dac, if you knew anything about SWs it would be obvious I was talking about REBEL planets. This was going to happen anyway, this is what the DS/DSII was designed to do until the Rebellion was crushed and any further threat was intimidated away.

The shows of force you talk about is against people objecting to imperial rule, you stupid twat. Unless the Emperor was willing to manufacture stories of planets in rebellion wholesale and out of whole cloth across his Empire and destroy asset after asset to get one boy to turn to the Dark Side, there is no way your plan has even a whiff of plausability to it — and I doubt the Emperor thought Luke was worth even one planet.

The Emperor didn't have to manufacture stories wholesale, because as a matter of fact there were planets in rebellion wholesale. Dac is one shining example. Alderaan was not destroyed at random, it was a perfectly logical target given the purpose of the DS, a planet that was rebellious AND was a Great Power, proving the Empire had the means and will to bring anyone into line.

Whether the Emperor thought Luke was worth even one planet is debatable. We have seen the Empire unleash serious destuction for things obviously far less important to the Emperor than fullfilling whatever Sith fantasy bringing Luke into the fold provided.

Then again nobody said anything about doing it just to get Luke, he would be doing it to destroy the Rebellion and get Luke with one stone. We know destroying the Rebellion was worth destroying planets, Tarkin made that quite clear.

As far as the DS I agree that the Emperor didn't want to destroy planets it he didn't have to, at least not important ones like the Great Powers of the core which constituted the majority of his power base. He did want to entirely control them though, and having an irresistable weapon that can crack any defense and having proven your ability and will to use it on a couple singular examples would allow you to indimidate loyalty without having to damage the others at all. Lose one for a return of the unquestioned obidience of a thousand more, not exactly a trade I'd put past Palpantine.

Japan doesn't belong to america.

It’s irrelevant to the example being pointed out. I raised Japan for two reasons.

1.) Its was an example of a state that routinely engaged in warfare against its own subjects, for whatever reason. In case you missed it, the reference was to fuedal Japan.

2.) And in a separate example shows how a demonstration of irresistible force and the unquestioned belief that you can and will continue to use it can pacify a previously intractable enemy.

Japan's fleets weren't mobile hell, they had been destroyed for the most part at that point. Bombing japan was different than oh lets say America BOMBING it's own allies. You idiot.]

The status of their fleet is irrelevant.

And as you yourself are about to point out in the next quote, in a perfect example of how your posts are a random vomit of thoughts with no coherence whatsoever, Alderaan was not in fact an ally but a rebellious world. And Alderaan was never an "ally" or the Empire, it was a state compelled to membership via its previous Republic membership and the inability to legally secede (as the Clone Wars made clear), its hostility to the creation of the Empire and the Imperial system in general (not it itself illegal) made official and clear by Senator Leia Organa and others long before the events of ANH.

which doesn't apply to the GE since the republic senate VOTED to become an empire.

The discussion of Roman citizenship rules was not meant to be equated with the Galactic Empire on my part, but rather to correct the notion that all people under Roman control were somehow privy to Roman citizenship. The idea that empires "never" attack their own people was not presented by me.

It is really irrelevant either way, the fact is the Roman Empire and many others used violence on their own subjects and citizens in many famous examples. Its not limited empires either. The idea that the Galactic Empire is for some reason unable to use violence against its own population to achieve centralized goals without it automatically leading to some debilitating civil uprising is refuted by real world examples of other states doing so and many times emerging more powerful or with better internal control because of it. Not always of course.

Except that the Alderaan was harboring enemies of the empire, "secretly" plotting against the empire, helping to create the rebellion, YUP they were doing their part. You stupid fuck.

Yes, this is exactly my point. Which is why the Empire attacked Alderaan. If you can think of any planets destroyed via DS that were not directly linked to the Rebellion or uninhabited by citizens feel free to let me know, then you can pretend you have a point. Loyal galactic subjects were not specifically targeted for destruction by the DS as seen in the movies. They were certainly affected by the intimidation factor by design, but then a Galactic wide message of the impossibility of armed insurrection is going to reach the loyal and rebellious alike.

Again that doesn't apply to the GE they started by voting the republic into an empire. Meaning they were MOSTLY comprised of willing member worlds and not the other way around.

Correct, but just because the Senate voted for it does not mean each dominion wanted it unless you want to quote us the source giving us a unanimous vote on the topic. Due to the actions of the Senate powerful regional states like Alderaan and Chandrila who were loyal to the Republic but obviously had no desire to be in the Empire were compelled to be members anyway. Unless you are going to tell us the Empire had a viable peaceful secession model those states and presumable many others in the Outer Rim suffering the brunt of the Imperial state's brutality could use, they were very much compelled to remain Imperial dominions against their will.

That would be the whole point of the Rebellion in the first place. Hell, the Republic/Empire had just reconquered a large portion of the galaxy that had just in fact attempted secession. Do you think those recently conquered and subjugated systems who were unhappy under the yoke of the Republic were now happy Imperial dominions under a state far more centralized and ruled by the exact same people that thwarted their independence and laid waste to a good portion of their territory via offensive warfare?

My, this is a stupid thread.

But a couple days ago I watched ANH and ESB again and figured I'd just throw out some stuff I noticed. It's basically all irrelevant nitpicks that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movies, but what the fuck, right?

1. How did Han not know he was flying into a Space Slug? He's all 'oh shit, yeah we're in an animal, shit' when they see the teeth upon leaving, but like... The monster still had teeth when they flew in, right? Unless he was like, 'lol, look at those things. which are stalactites and which are stalagmites again?' Fuck knows.

2. It's not so much a plot hole, but I love the implications in that Obi Wan is a 'strange old hermit' who also happens to be a connoisseur of the Mos Eisley bar scene, to the point where he knows which current bar the spacers go to and not only knows the climate of the bar, but finds its violence kind of endearing.

3. How the fuck did the Millenium Falcon actually, like, show up for the end of the ANH to shoot Vader. So the Death Star was designed not to shoot fighters, okay. But then when they saw a ship much bigger than a fighter were they just, like,
'Should we shoot it down, sir? It's, like bigger than a fighter. Maybe our useless big-ass turret towers could shoot it down? I hear morale is down in the turret after they failed to kill, like, one y-wing.'

'No, can't be too important.'

'Maybe we should send up some fighters? If there are only two people on board it could only possibly be manning one of its anti-fighter space anti-space fighters space gun space turrets.'

'Naw, fuck it.'

'It's heading for the thermal exhaust port. Should we inform Lord Vader? It's right on top of him...

Commander?'

*commanding officer blows a bunch of weedsmoke in the dude's face with disdain*

The commander died stoned though so I guess I can't really knock his decision.

4. Jesus, Piett, ever hear of knocking? Vader hasn't even finished putting his face on. Awkward.

5. The odds. They don't make sense. R2 calculates the odds of surviving a Hoth night as being 725 to one, I think. So how did they figure that out? Did 725 rebels freeze and one make it back alive so they could balance the numbers? I mean, maybe, but the weather channel bases its forecasts on decades of empirical discovery and I don't know whether I should wear a fucking jacket tomorrow. I think R2-D2 just bullshits a lot, honestly. He's so used to dealing with 3PO that he just trolls everyone all the time and enjoys their suffering. That's my theory anyway (OVERRIDES C-CANON). And then later C-3PO calculates the odds of surviving in an Asteroid field - and R2 isn't around, so I guess he just got the numbers off wikipedia or something. But he calculated it as being in the thousands to one, as I recall. And not just this asteroid field - any field. Apparently the belt between Mars and Jupiter would halt any Imperial invasion of Earth since less than 0.1% of ships would survive the trip. Slow-moving space rocks (and giant shoes) are the bane of the Empire. Okay, it was comic relief, I get it. Not important to the plot, either. They're just silly and don't make sense. It's cool. But I find the implications amusing, much as above. And asteroids can also apparently jam Star Destroyer communications.

6. Luke apparently totally can't manage a controlled landing on Dagobah. And there was an open, dry spot big enough for an X-Wing without overhang, like, a couple yards from where he crashed. This isn't a plot hole in the movies at all, actually, it just kind of contrasts with how SUPERLEETAWESOME X-Wings are in the books. Dense cloud cover and dense foliage can just totally fuck anybody's shit up, even Luke, who was like the alliance's pilot czar, because it's just like an oldschool fighter jet. Makes sense. Whatevs. Maybe the EU gave Dagobah magical jamming powers, I dunno.

7. I still don't entirely understand the mechanism between all the tubes Luke falls through at the end of ESB. Unless it was, like, Vader telekinetically moving him to the weather vane? I dunno.

8. Is Boba Fett kind of a puss? I mean from RoTJ we know the answer is a resounding YES but I mean in Empire, when Vader has to physically stop him from shooting Chewie in the carbonite room. When Chewie is right next to Han, the only thing Fett cares about and wants to keep alive. And part of Fett's job is depositing Leia and Chewie to Vader, when Vader wants them alive. And Vader tends to choke a bitch whenever things don't turn out as he wanted them to. Was Fett scared of a Wookiee in shackles on the other side of a room filled with stormtroopers? no boba consequences boba remember consequences.

9. There's other stuff and I remember there was something about the Bespin scenes where I was like 'whut' but it really doesn't matter. Everything I mentioned is little stuff which has really no bearing on anything.

And only a couple of the things I mentioned are really plot holes.

Correct, but just because the Senate voted for it does not mean each dominion wanted it unless you want to quote us the source giving us a unanimous vote on the topic. Due to the actions of the Senate powerful regional states like Alderaan and Chandrila who were loyal to the Republic but obviously had no desire to be in the Empire were compelled to be members anyway. Unless you are going to tell us the Empire had a viable peaceful secession model those states and presumable many others in the Outer Rim suffering the brunt of the Imperial state's brutality could use, they were very much compelled to remain Imperial dominions against their will.

In addition to this the Alderaans and Chadrillas had an alternative to secession which was legeslate the Empire away to return to the Republic via the normal political process. This was obviously deemed impossible, thus their resort to armed rebellion. I didn't want to insinuate that the Alderaan and Chandrila were against a united galactic state and perfered independance, they just wanted a united galactic state that didn't look like the Empire.

Patroklos wrote:

Wyrm wrote:Which would fall under "not doing one's duty to the Roman/Mongul/Japanese empire." Because last time I checked, rebelling against your host government is not allowed anywhere.

Except you said the Romans NEVER turned their violence against their own. This is patently false when you admit the happily do so for any number of political ends, rebellion being one. Dynastic and succession stuggles being another. Religious schism is another great one, note the French Hugenots. And as was pointed out Alderaan WAS rebelling. Unless you think every member of a Roman province rebelled to the man then the situations are analogous, both empires attacking a portion of their own empire en masse and definetly snaging a few loyalists in the process. You can deny it all you want, but empires attacking portions of their own empires for whatever reason did occur, and occured often.

Nitpickery. I was not refering to the background intrigue that normally goes on in a political arena, nor in the internecine battles that would obviously happen in a civil war — where a unified nation breaks up into a number of factions that then proceed to make war on each other, or in the case of feudal societies were never united as one people in the first place. I was talking about one unified faction essentially engaging in total war on itself.

THIS is a whole different level and kind of violence that simply doesn't happen in even the most repressive regimes, because such an action is on its face retarded. Total war has the purpose of both destroying the target's warmaking ability and to force it into capitulation through sheer destruction and slaughter. But parts of your unified faction have already accepted your rule by definition and you are harming your own warmaking capabilities. Not only that, but your territories accept your rule because (theoretically) accepting your rule means you won't killfuck them indiscriminately. But with such actions you demonstrate that you'll even killfuck them indiscriminately even if they do accept your rule, so some people decide they might as well rebel.

Oppressive regimes must keep up the illusion that the loyal citizen has nothing to fear. Rebels are disruptive elements, the other faction of a civil war is opposing the true succession of power, the odd planet turns out to be a rebel nest so we blew it up, you can expect no comfort from our mortal enemy, ect. If the Emperor starts killfucking a lot of planets one after the other, the sheer number of rebelling planets indicates that (a) the Emperor's hold on the galaxy is weakening, or (b) the Emperor doesn't care about loyal citizens anymore and has started killfucking everything indiscriminately. That will entice the fencesitters and even a good chunk of solid loyalists to take up arms and rebel, and the more planets killfucked the worse it gets. You might as well rebel because you're going to get killfucked anyway. This is not what you want to do when quelling a rebellion.

Patroklos wrote:What does it matter if it was under their own control, it was still portions of their own empire. Yes, Greece was a full Roman province when Octavian and Antony fought there. And we don't even have to go there, because there are the examples of Caesar, Pompey, and Sulla amoungst others who fought in Italy and marched on Rome itself. So again, there is nothing particulary novel about an empire attacking its own citizens.

More nitpickery. I was not referring to obvious exceptions like a full-on civil war, where one unified nation breaks up into a number of warring factions, nor was I referring to a feudal society where there was never a unified rule and national identity to begin with. Your argument isn't even live to begin with, because Octavian's holdings are obviously not loyal to Marc Antony, and as such it is valid militarily for Marc Antony to move in and take Octavian's holdings by force, and vice versa. You will never see Octavian move in and wage war on one of his own holdings without a clear military interest in doing so, like a rebellion against him and such.

This doesn't even apply to the Galactic Empire because the Rebels had no holdings, as they could not even hope to hold off a concerted Imperial assalt. The rebellion only had hideouts. Apart from a traitorous fraction of regressives, the Empire is a unified state. Unfied by fear and force, but still unfied, and there's no reason for total war of a unified nation upon itself.

Patroklos wrote:The Emperor was going to blow up planets ANYWAY. That was the whole point of the DS in the first place. Blow a few up, and then let that example and your unquestioned will to continue doing so terrorize the galaxy into submission.

While that would be the official Imperial talking point, it'll never happen. The US's few-gigaton stockpile of nuclear weapons is still pointed at Russia to this day and their nukes are pointed right back at us. And while the threat is very real, it does not mean that either side considers firing their missles first to be any sort of realistic option. The nuclear stockpile is there as a deterrence; the weapons are so powerful even the threat of using them is quite effective and more effective than actual use.

Same with the DS. It's capabilities are known from Alderaan, and as such as soon as the DS shows up in your sky, you can guarantee that an immediate and unconditional surrender will be broadcast. That can work, but it's not actual violence against people who accept imperial rule. While the threat is real, and if the planet doesn't surrender unconditionally it will be killfucked, the Emperor doesn't really think the superlaser will ever need to fire again because of this exact calculus.

In order for this mad plan you project onto the Emperor to work, you would have to find either a load of planets that don't promptly surrender (very rare), or killfuck surrendering planets anyway. Which brings about the point that loyalty to the empire is no reasonable assurance of safety. You have to get something for your loyalty.

Patroklos wrote:Again, this was a response to the assertion that the Emperor needed to inflict personal loss on Luke via destroying the Rebellion to get a dark side reaction. I can go with that, I am just asking why it had to be at Endor and why did it have to expose the DSII and the Emperor himself to any risk when the end result of a fully constucted and campaigning DSII would have done that anyway?

That's the other point, that destroying billions of people would have more impact on Luke than watching his friends die. It's a sad fact of the human condition that the loss of people you know intimately usually has far more effect on you than hearing of the loss of a large population of faceless people. It is not unlikely that the perishing of the rebellion, with everyone he knew personally, would have a greater impact on him than a killplanet spree. If that's the case, then the Emperor would know that Luke was a lost cause and your killplanet spree would not happen for the abovestated reasons.

If billions of dead would be more impactful on him, then Luke had already gone as close he would get to the Dark Side in his climatic shit fit against Vader and refused to turn, and it was obviously as far as the Emperor was willing to push Luke. ("So be it... Jedi!") Your killplanet spree will still not happen for the abovestated reasons.

Patroklos wrote:"Fullfilled your civic duties" had nothing to do with it. You could be a perfectly loyal subject raising your sheep in Illyrium while paying your taxes and never raising a hand against Roman authority and it would not get you citizenship.

The definition of "civic duties" varies from government to government and from person to person and even from circumstance to circumstance. "Civic duty" wasn't meant to be homogenous; I just didn't want to get into the details.

Patroklos wrote:There was no expectation of military service for the provincials (or non propertied Roman citizens for that matter), it was not some mandatory civic duty.

It is if a formerly provincial resident expects to gain Roman citizenship, you asshat.

Patroklos wrote:If you fought for the Romans you MIGHT get rewarded with citizenship, but it wasn't as if the Romans expected or wanted every subjuct under their standard to fight for them.

If you were lucky enough to get into the axillia, did your tour of duty and survived, then you gained citizenship. That was Roman law. And no, not everyone was expected to join.

Patroklos wrote:The simple fact was that the vast majority of the populous under Roman rule were not citizens and had no opportunity to become citizens until the Caracalla granted it to everyone (free male) in the third century.

That's nice. Too bad it has nothing to do with the point, shitstain.

I was quite deliberate in the use of "citizens", and meant it for those peoples who could reasonably expect to enjoy the privilages and protections of the Roman/Mongol/Japanese empires. Even Roman provincials could reasonably expect not to be indiscriminantely killfucked, without military reason.

Patroklos wrote:Non citizens joined the axillia.

Yes, and when you completed that, you became a full citizen, although not a patrician. That way, the provinces could be self-defended by people who had an interest in continued Roman rule. That's why Roman expansion worked so well.

Patroklos wrote:Whether you were troublesome or not, you were still a formal part of the Roman Empire and thus being attacked by the Roman state constitutes the empire fighting its own people.

Yet more nitpickery. Again, I was quite deliberate in my use of "civilians". The provincials were not citizens of Rome, but rather people who happen to be resident in Roman provinces and although subjected to Roman law, were not given full Roman rights. They were not recognized as "Roman people" no matter how you try to weasel around the issue; the Roman empire had only the slimmest duty of care to provincials.

Patroklos wrote:This is of course exactly what the Galactic Empire was doing with the DS, Alderaan WAS rebellious.

So you admit that even the one instance of any DS destroying any planet, the planet's choice was not indiscriminate. We're not talking about valid military targets here. We're talkning about indiscriminate massacre and destruction, which is the only way you're going to get enough planets to push Luke to the Dark Side; the boy got into this war partially because of the Empire's destruction of Alderaan, and he already knew that should the DSII be completed, that any rebellious planet was going to be in the crosshairs.

Luke is already steeled against the possibility of a few planets ending because of their failure, while the rebellion as a whole would surrender. The only thing that will get him over this is a massive killfuck — that even surrendering to the Empire will not stop the massacre but only his yielding to the Dark Side. But that's not going to happen for reasons previously stated.

Patroklos wrote:I said no such thing, I said planet after planet and then qualified it with Dac. Do you know anything about the planet Dac? I'll give you a hint, it was the openly rebellious homeworld of the Mon Calamari and a central fixture of the Rebellion military establishment. In other words, NOT some random planet of totally benign loyal citizens.

When I said planet after planet, and then qualified it with Dac, if you knew anything about SWs it would be obvious I was talking about REBEL planets. This was going to happen anyway, this is what the DS/DSII was designed to do until the Rebellion was crushed and any further threat was intimidated away.

I already answered this. Rebellious planets are valid military targets, and an openly rebellious planets being killfucked would not even elicit an eyebatt for a loyal imperial citizen on a loyal imperial planet. The power of a DS was already well known, and any planet with rebellious aspirations will immediately surrender for occupation by the Empire. I already pointed out that would work, but it would leave a dearth of targets that could be used to turn Luke. A loyal citizen would expect to see at worst a tapering off of reports of killfucked planets and an upswing of surrendering occupied planets as people got the hint, and would likely never get that bad. Your scenario can only work if the Emperor deliberately ignored surrender and killfucked anyway, and that's just retarded.

<snip rest, already answered>

wait what traitors regressives do you speak of. the rebels had a good reason for going to war.

As seen by loyalists, swallowing whole the Imperial propaganda, the rebels would be seen as traitorous regressives.

Srelex wrote:Perhaps someone did notice, but just saw it as a glitch or an oversight, or maybe was unable to get anyone of significance to notice before the battle began.

I don't think that this sort of sloppiness and lack of oversight would be tolerated after the Empire already lost the previous Death Star and considering the pressure Vader put on the people working on it to get it up and running.
I wonder why the Alliance didn't simply rig the shuttle into a floating to bomb and rammed it into the giant dish projecting the shield after getting clearance, after which the fleet would jump in to strike. I mean, covering up the ordinance wouldn't be too hard considering they were on supply for a military unit and I also don't remember seeing any AAA or fighter patrols covering the shield installation on the planet.