The Imperial Military is a Paper Tiger
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There's a misconception that military first dictatorships like the empire field stronger and more capable military forces, or at least that is what the propaganda masters want you to think. Today we take a look at the internal workings of the imperial military and why a system that lacks power sharing, checks and balances creates a far worse fighting force.
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The Tarkin Doctrine basically doomed the empire from the start
I think that it was already doomed.
What i find weird in star wars is that the community has pretty much understood that militarily the empire makes no sense, from a practical, doctrinal and technological stand point. The writers for the OG trilogy really had no idea about science and stuff, most of the things that became common knowledge like lasers being plasma for example, is an ad hoc creation made long after the movies were released.
Basically later writers, introspective reflexions and legend contributors thought really hard about how the hell they were gonna make star wars sci fi instead of space fantasy. The area they couldn't fix is doctrine and practicality. How does the death star makes any sense? Why the hell did the empire use only star destroyer that were clearly weak to small fighters? Why the hell is there no support crafts etc... That became "the tarkin doctrine"
Everything that couldn't be fixed became known as the "tarkin doctrine" a derogative term as opposed to new innovative ideas like the tie defender which are often expressely mentionned to NOT follow the doctrine. If it's bad it's the tarkin doctrine, if it's good then it's likely not a part of the tarkin doctrine. the best part about it is that most movies and shows NEVER mentions the tarkin doctrine... Come on find me a single example you can think of, it's unfathomably rare, it's the fans themselves, usually not the media, who bring up the tarkin doctrine.
Fascinating really, this is not an elegant means of explaining why the empire's military objectively sucks but it's certainly good enough, it does it's job as an in universe explanation to gaps in early star wars lore.
@@pougetguillaume4632 It's an easy fix. I'll show you.
In any actual military, in order to more effectively lead troops, the officers actually specialize in what their troops do. You have infantry officers, cavalry officers, armor officers, artillery officers, intelligence officers, aviation officers, engineering officers, medical officers, ect. ect. ect.
Officers generally get promoted to higher ranks where their command becomes more general due to the different specializations coming together. A calvary officer gets promoted high enough he gets command of not just 3 calvary units but three infantry units an artillery unit, and maybe gets the power to request an air wing. Because of how long our officer has been a calvary officer, he's going to favor calvary tactics and doctrine because his success there is how he got promoted so high. Continued successes promote him even higher and he's still going to favor his approach of calvary tactics. Everything else is just to support his favorite doctrine.
The Galactic Empire is literally a direct comparison to the WWII Nazi Germany fighting force. Keep that in mind.
Tarkin as a young officer had a penchant for cruelty and using fear against the CIS. He likely didn't face much droid opposition and without Jedi oversight was likely pretty successful. It also might have helped that he was a particularly wealthy and connected 'nobleman' of sorts in the Republic. This perfect storm allowed him to request deployments against organic soft targets where his tactics worked and as he brought home more victories, he would rise through he ranks of the GAR.
The Emperor would take notice and since he was a Sith, would look favorably to Tarkin's strategy of employing overwhelming might and fear on his enemies to make them submit. There were no depths he wouldn't sink to. The two were ideologically aligned. This would help Tarkin rise through the ranks to the position he attained of Grand Moff. Literally the head of all planetary governors. It would be easy for him to patsy any failures onto subordinates at that point. Tarkin as an officer created his signature 'Tarkin Doctrine' which he then transitioned over to how he wanted the Empire ruled and Palpatine looked favorably on this. (It helped that the Jedi were absolute dogshit as officers save very few exceptions and had no idea what a 'doctrine' was.)
Now it doesn't mean that everything that isn't part of the Doctrine gets thrown out. There's always going to be points where other types of commanders are going to have their own successes and this gives them political clout needed to push back against a uniform adoption. They can point to their own victories in given situations and say 'see? my way worked, your way wouldn't have stood a chance.'
The Tarkin Doctrine may have been the dominate one due to who was in power but it didn't work everywhere and other commanders would swear by their doctrines as effective.
Perhaps the writers were more knowledgeable then you think given how Tarkin viewed the Death Star and how Princess Leia stood her ground with her signature line about him. "The tighter you close your grip. The more star systems will slip through your fingers." That's her referencing the Tarkin Doctrine in all but name.
@Peters6221 Yeah for all the complacency the jedi had at least they didn't use the clone army to fight each other in a bid for power.
I mean yea it did rid of the clones and replace them with normal citizens and under trained them just to save money and let not talk about the equipment they where given like at-at and tie fighters
Ironically the weakest link in the empire was... the Emperor. His mindest was exellent for the ranks of the sith, in small numbers. But when expanded to the empire entire, it faced the same issue that led the sith of old to fall apart. The infighing and paranoia weakned the empire.
Putting ethics aside for a moment, there was so many ways that Palpatine could have handled the situation that would have been more intelligent. but he gave into his desire to rule through personal power and fear alone. Though to Palpatine, the Empire was a means to an end, not really an end unto itself. It was a tool in his persuit of power.
The smartest Sith Lord was Revan, and he wasn't even an actual sith.
@@arx3516 I don't know, Valkorian was pretty crafty. He led not one, but two empires side by side and also manipulated the entire arc of Revan.
@@arx3516 His followers sure fit the bill... even if he didn't.
Ironically, he would have retained power longer if he didn't rule like a Sith.
Damn this whole thing just slunds like Russia to a T
Palpatine was way better at taking over the galaxy than he was at actually running it..
yea definitely agree, scheming against the republic kept him sharp. Once he had all the power he kind of just lost his touch
It's almost as if autocratic regimes are inherently corrupt, and lazy....
Staying hungry is a thing for Sith, not just champion athletes
@@GenerationTech False. Palpatine would've won if he didn't play around with Vader and Luke on Endor and kept using his Battle Meditation against the Rebels. He played them like a fiddle and got them to attack a fortified target where death was their only option. Then he dies, his Battle Meditation, which the local Imperial fleet came to rely upon instinctively dies off, and they're left confused and in disarray. Prior to that, every other battle had the Empire winning; they decimated the Tantive IV crew, they wiped out most of the rebel fighters on the Death Star battle in Yavin IV, they defeated the Rebels on Hoth, and they crushed the Rebels' Mid-Rim Offensive so badly that it became known as the Mid Rim Retreat.
Palpatine was literally winning the war until he let his baby-mama-drama with the Skywalkers get in the way. If he just ordered Vader to stash Luke away in a jail cell until the Battle of Endor was over, then he'd have won rather decisively.
To be honest he was probably excited when the Rebellion started it gave him something to do after so long.
on the topic of dictators involved in the design process, Sadam Hussein's son was a big starwars fan. When he got put in charge of designing the helmets for the special forces, he based it off darth vader.
If anyone is curious, the helmets were crap and broke easily
Sounds about right.
I just looked up the helmet. No kidding they broke easy, they look like matt black leftover failed casts for Darth Vader’s costume
Their doctrine was mostly overwhelming numbers in conventional fights. They weren’t prepared for the guerrilla tactics that could whittle them down from any direction and fade.
They also ignored logistics
@@timothybrandriff6499 lol, your " Info" on Russian Military is pretty much a one sided propaganda, without overwhelming support of the west, from funds, training, intel, weapons, Ukraine won't even have artillery shells right now, even Joseph Borell straight up saying in an interview that the quickest way to make Ukraine surrender is to stop weapons flowing from the west
also, if Russian military is full of incompetence, the overwhelming number Ukraine brought with their multiple waves of nationwide mobilizations and overwhelming support the west brought should've been enough to kick them out of Ukraine, besides, the original comment sound more like US and their puppets terrible defeats in southeast asia in 1970's
Except the Empire was also good at logistics and special tactics. They even had specialized units like Desth Troopers and Storm Commandos which were able to level the playing field or even do their own hit and run attacks against the Alliance.
@@HolyknightVader999 The problem is commanders wanted to hoard their special units so they'd never be where they were needed.
@@edwardcalvo4047 Actually, they were there when they were needed. They were decimating rebel bases (Legends) or stopping rebel offensives. (Canon)
People really need to understand that in a lot of the shows/games/movies, we see basically the elite forces of the Rebels, vs the general troops of the Empire.
Also that the Imperial tech was functional and dangerous, but the people in charge of it often used it's strengths poorly.
That is why Thrawn was such a huge threat.
He knew the strengths and weaknesses of the forces under his Command and used his forces to this advantage.
Exactly. If we got the mid-tier Rebels there would not be a show because they'd be dead within a season at most.
Except we disproportionately see the Rebels fighting stormtroopers who are supposed to be the elite.
@@101Mant Stormtroopers vary in quality. But when we are constantly looking at a group like the Ghost Crew or Luke and pals, they are above stormtroopers.
@@101Mant Death troopers are the elite not the stormtroopers, and in most cases we see Jedi fighting them not the average Rebel. Death troopers actually gave Ezra problems in season 4.
I love how you showed Darth Vader’s rising when you said “high-tech killing machines”.
ironic given vader is an extremely low tech killing machine
I remember hearing a while back that the Yuuzhan Vong ships blasters torn through shields like those shields weren't even there. So even if Sidious didn't *know* about that with this threat he vaguely knew was coming, his TIE fighters would have done a much better job in dogfights as they're trained to be more agile and not rely any on shields, since they didn't have any.
There was a Legends theory that the Vong was a massive reason the Empire was the way it was. Massive super weapons, starfighters without shields. All of it makes sense when you add the Vong.
TIE fighters are quite good for their price. Their central sphere with reactor and engines is vulnerable but it's quite small. Large panels could be badly damaged but the fighter would be still operable. Deflectors of that size are not so good and X-Wings are not invulnerable to TIE's lasers (blasters?). Long rounds of laser shooting destroys X-WIngs like they have no deflectors. But X-WIngs cost 2.5 times more then TIE.
After watching the Andor series, they really hammer home how most of the Empire's effectiveness relies on intimidation and terror tactics.
I adored how much it made clear: we vastly outnumber them, and they know it. They lash out not from a position of authority but from fear.
Fear is inderd the path of the darkside
“The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.”
-Karis Nemik, Andor
Hard to believe that’s a Star Wars quote the writing is so good 🤩
The Star Wars galaxy didn't have a Machiavelli running around to give this most important bit of wisdom: Above _all else_ never be hated. Palpy ensured that would happen.
@@TheTrueAdept To more accurately paraphase it is better to be love than feared if possible. What's werid is that Palpatine could have been loved ending a war and ending all politcal oppostion within a week is a great boon that Palpatine failed to act on and fell to his lack of foresight. He could have tried for a octavian having a thin veil of republican legitimacy.
@@DM-mi4je The thing is, Machiavelli stated that it is best to be _feared and loved_ but that's extremely hard to achieve, so fear is the most practical (note, he states that love alone isn't viable). Above _ALL ELSE_ you should ensure _NOT_ be hated.
The problem with ruling with fear is that when the people realised that there is nothing to fear what's going to stop them from rising up?
For example when some farm boy from Tatooine blew up the first Death Star the galaxy realised that the Empire could be beaten and support for the Alliance skyrocketed, so the Tarkin Doctrine was soon shown to be massively flawed and was made even worse by how much the Empire relied upon it.
Or the person who realizes they have nothing to lose, but their oppressor has everything to lose. When an oppressed person realizes they have nothing to lose, they become the most dangerous opponent.
Anything built on fear is really built on sand
The Jedi lost because they were still fighting the last war (they didn't adapt to the rule of two), so why was the Empire still fighting the Clone Wars (overwhelming numbers) over adapting to the tactics of the Rebel Alliance? It seems that the Jedi and the Sith had trouble adapting overall. This is especially surprising since the Sith waited one thousand years for the grand plan to come to fruition.
Huh, that's an interesting perspective and synthesis of facts. And as far as my gut says, you seem to be right.
Interesting point!
Two of the oldest foundations of good and evil has to go, Kreia was onto something. It is like the Force is a threat to the galaxy itself, birthing both Jedi and sith regardless. Though you had to give a little props to the Jedi for keeping peace a thousand years.
@@StateOfTheMind11225The old Republic before the more recent Republic lasted *25,000* years.
“Throughout most of its history as the dominant galactic power, the Republic did not style itself as a strong centralized government, but rather as a union of sovereign planets for the purposes of collective security and economic prosperity.”
Huh, kinda sounds like what a certain group of independent systems wanted for the galaxy
I totally agree with you. Though it should be said that in legends, the Imperial military was set up the way it was because Palpatine foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong threat, and was gearing up to defend the galaxy from it.
@@Engine33Truck That is a fair point, however I would counter that the knowledge of an existential threat to the galaxy could have brought everyone together. Had Palpatine not been an evil power hungry dick, the galaxy could have prepared for the threat collectively.
How much of that is wishful thinking idk but it’s a nice thought :)
It would be hard for the Imperial army to set up a perimeter defense. Each person has to trust the other soldiers to their back and sides.
Unlike between the higher echelons of Imperial leadership, trust between the grunts is probably fairly common. Simply because hardships like combat forge people closer together.
@@ddshiranuithe navy officers on the other hand where the issue
Whenever nameless rebels fight Imperials they're wiped out.
Every Star Wars show/movie approaches the world with a different level of seriousness. We can't interpret Rebels and Andor the same way.
For most of us Star Wars fans, were still here because the universe is one we’ve been visiting since we were children, and I don’t mean just the media. The worldbuilding that Lucas managed to achieve has laid the groundwork for us to see past the plot points and appreciate the universe any time we have the privilege of visiting it again, or have context added to our own versions of it. Granted it has to be good narratively and feel like Star Wars to work, but I think Rebels and Andor do both of those things.
I also think part of it is what parts of the rebellion it's portraying, in most of the games and shows we see only the most elite of the rebels against average or below average imperials, but in Andor we are mostly seeing weaker rebels so it's a lot more dire, whereas in Rebels yeah it's a kids show, but also the main group is all highly trained and skilled fighters with the exception of Ezra, who (realistically) makes a lot of mistakes and gets his butt kicked for the first few seasons.
It was never designed or intended to fight a war on equal terms with a near-peer opponent. It was built to support Palpatine's personal rise to power and oppress anyone who might get ideas about peace or freedom.
The Lion once thought he was king until Man showed up…
@BOS_Sentinel or we can grow their muscle tissue in a lab using stem cells so you don’t gotta rip it away from its natural habitat and kill it for a bit of personal sensory pleasure.
actually part of the reason palps wanted a huge military was the impending invasion by the yuzhan vong, at least in legends
I remember reading in a legends book about "salvagers" that would hang around as ISD's resupplied as they'd toss out particul cases of materials before jumping and these people would collect them, repack them as full cases and resell back to the empire
Scavenger: Stonks
I wish they would make a show completely from the empire's prospective. You see their from childhood and the rest of their life all the way to the destruction of the deathstar and beyond. And not just one person but multiple families. From the lowly grunt to the officer.
Then people would complain because they couldn't pay attention to anh and know there are highly skilled imperial forces lol.
Though Andor does a good job of stormtroopers stomping regular people who aren't rebel heroes and elites.
@@daefaron Ya I don't understand why there were people that didn't like Andor. It was really good; very well written.
@@kitslagle6296 It probably pre-emptively lost points for being Disney Star Wars, modern Disney tends to have that effect on people.
@@vegeta002 I so agree and in this case, it is very unfair. IMO the only thing in all of Star Wars that tops the Andor series is The Empire Strikes Back. And I am not even 100% certain of that.
@@daefaron they missed on purpose in ANH because they needed to put a tracker on the Falcon which led them to the rebel base on Yavin IV.
Man, your channel is the best.
No one quite breaks down the lore and logistics quite like you do.
You're like a cool history teacher.
It was said that Palps knew about the incoming threat of the Yuuzhan Vong galactic invasion and that he spent decades building and arming up an entire imperial military force to counter it. Yet if the military of the Galactic Empire was nothing more than a paper tiger, then what chance did it even have against the galactic invaders? 🤔
The bong were anti technology, I think? In the sense of materials, as in their tech was biological. From their guns to their ships. This included stuff like terraforming worlds into factories for biological weaponry. Some1 else in comment section said their stuff pretty much ignored shields. Wanna know what’s useful for fighting that type of stuff? Planet killers, chemical / disease weapons, and fighters focused on dodging rather than tanking shots with shields. All stuff the empire focused heavily on. Palpadick lost because he was so focused on making sure the empire could survive the war of the future he neglected the war of the present. Funnily enough, he was right in the end to try to focus on what he did. The war killed 300 to 365 TRILLION BEINGS. Tons of sapient species were wiped out by the bong, they reached coruscant. Fucking, CORUSCANT! The middle of the galaxy! From the literally outside border of said galaxy!
@@EternalDawnbong 💀
@@theempire3141 bing bong its the ving vong
Yeah but them disney said no.
No chance. It would've had no chance at all.
It seems like even from a "Tarkin Doctrine" standpoint, the Venator-class would've still fit the Empire's "looks scary" needs by simply replacing those twin mini-towers with a more imposing-looking superstructure while retaining the huge starfighter hangars.
Plus, the size of a TIE Fighter swarm it could've launched would have its own fear factor. A Venator carried 420 fighters, with all of them parked on the hangar floor and all of them ranging from slightly to a *a lot* bigger than a TIE Fighter. Adding the typical ceiling racks for more TIEs, you could easily fit a thousand in a Venator. And having your sensor scope completely blacked out because that many fighters are approaching is going to be a lot scarier than merely seeing one big ship and 72 small fighters.
Common Venator W
My favorite Star Destroyer, bar none.
I always thought that the Venators were phased out, not because they didn't fit into the Tarkin Doctrine, but that Palpatine was obsessed with removing any symbols of the Republic.
@@trashmammal9562 It still seems like a Venator with an ISD-style single bridge tower would've done the trick.
@@RedXlV I'd love to see that honestly
Tbh Seeing how many times and how easily Venator goes down in Clone wars, I think it just wasn't the ship fit for Republic tactics. The Imperial class is much better fit to the way you actually see Venators utilized. Of course, this is more of a problem with tactics, than design itself.
I mean the cis put out giant super weapons nonestop and the republic couldnt rely on a jedi with plot armour to board it everytime
Originally the victory was supposed to be the capital ship but was not ready so the venator was put first
You’re right it was a problem of tactics. The Venator was a carrier that was heavily armed/armored/shielded enough to drop in the hot zone, spit its fighters out, and defend itself while it pulled back behind the battle line. The Victory class was the battleship best suited to front line combat. But the Jedi don’t like fighting battles like that, so thus wasted lives and materiel by overusing the Venators in situations they had no business being in.
The Venator was the ship the republic had for the clone wars. They developed the ISD to fight the CIS battleships and lay siege to their systems across the vast outer rim which needed a moving fortress to do. Then the droid armies got shut down. Reducing the outer rim seiges from what might very well have been a ten year campaign to one several months long. Then the empire needed the venator but the emperor had decommissioned them over a decade before the Rebel Alliance really showed its power. Its a case of the pragmatic realities and shifts in need causing issues people don't see coming.
Oh it was for sure not meant to be utilized as a main battleship
It sucks that the Imperial Military are treated as butt monkeys to the Rebel Alliance in every battle where they get always beaten and humiliated and always miss their shots.
They don't get beaten in every battle?
People keep comparing scenes with the rebels elite forces vs general imperial troops.
Its only the fans and comic writers having to come up even more stupid excuses to make the heroes achieve impossible tasks
The empire won the battle of hoth
The empire won almost every battle we see lol
Watch Andor, you will be presently surprised at how menacing they make the Empire out to be.
Gotta say, you've improved a lot over the years and become a lot more knowledgeable than you used to be. You're now fun, logical and engaging to listen to. :)
You know what the irony is? Both thrawn and Vader rewarded competence, recognized it, and utilized it in it's proper manner. However one would reorient talent to a direction where it was better serve the empire if it didn't work for him The other choked them to death
Oh the irony?
Thrawn wpuld have been a good designer for the imperial doctorine
@@AlechiaTheWitch agreed, however that wouldn't align to sith philosophy.
Tarkin Doctrine did align with Sith ideology, so it is small wonder it took hold.
@@AdmiralStoicRum palpatime seemed reasonable but yeah..
@@AlechiaTheWitch exactly he seemed reasonable, but that is all he seemed that way. Dude would have you lowered into a vat of molten copper as an execution if it suited him.
The problem with the Imperial Military (particularly the stormtrooper Corp) is that is was ment to DETER a galactic wide war. Not fight one.
The problem is exactly the opposite LOL
@@elpinguinovolador4114
How?
@@underworldguardian704 the following way, troopers meant to emulate the clone trooper quality level and act as faceless enforcers commiting crimes all the time against civil population is the opposite of what you would want to deter a civil war,
the optimal ideal would be a cheaper and therefore much bigger law enforcement group recruited from local populations and therefore better regarded by the civilians, also eliminate the full facemasks and the crimes and boom, the first is the stormtroopers corp who seem to be made to provocate resentment and revolts and the second is a actual police force meant to ensure security and try to blend as much as posible with the locals.
The empire underestimated the will of the people and thought that pointing guns at the civilians was enought to hold power indefinitively but as history has shown many times that is not a good strategy, anyways this channel is pretty biased and sometimes emulate many missconceptions about the franchise like the idea of the stormtroopers not being actual soldiers, a idea that could not be further from truth.
@@elpinguinovolador4114
Hmmm 🤔
An interesting perspective
Palpatine has also done a lot of the same things that Putin did in his regime set up. Put underlings loyal only to him in positions they are vastly under qualified for and pitted them against each other for his favor, only to dispose of them when convenient. Which is strange cause Lucas modeled Palps after Nixon, initially. But the parallels between Palpatine and Putinare vastly more fascinating.
What? What are you talking about? It's not like Monke is obsessed with making wunderwaffe projects... Or ensuring people's loyalty through specific fixed social benefits... Or hiring mercenaries... Or allowing abusive practices on his military... Or having entire shadow operations to promote distrust, hatred and, and... Eh...
Look, we have never seen him force lightning Prigozhin or force choking Shoigu, right?
Right?
@@commandermcnash5137 That we know of.
I would say that Palpatine is much more like Hilter himself. The failure of the Operation Barbarossa can be blamed directly to his inteference, such as the disaster in Stalingrad, the failure to capture Moscow and etc
Imagine waking up being an Imperial who's late to work and you remember your boss is literally a 200 year old serial killer who shoots lightning from his finger tips....
he is a mass murderer and genocidal war criminal, not a mere serial killer.
During the Age of Sail, the greatest range of a cannon with gunpowder was about a mile at most and the further away you were from the target, the less effective it was so the battlelines were VERY CLOSE indeed
The reason I believe line-of-sight engagements are so popular is because no one really had the experience of long range smart munitions.
Think about it, most of the galaxy was enslaved by the Rakatans, when they fell the galaxy used their technology. They didn't have to evolve their technology like we did, going from LOS combat to Firing Smart Munitions absurd distances from the enemy.
Without evolving like this they never made highly effective long range smart munitions and consequently never made effective technology to counter smart munitions. It ofc doesn't change the fact that it's stupid to not use Smart Munitions, but it could be a good explanation as to why they're not widely seen.
When I think of paper predators, such as the paper tiger, I like to think of origami predators/tiger…
Your discussion on how a civilian like Palpatine interfering in the development of military technologies and strategy reminds me of some real world parallels. Both Hitler and Stalin interfered in the manufacture of warplanes. Hitler insisted that the Me-262 be a bomber while Stalin initially insisted that the Il-2 bomber not have a rear gun compartment. Their interference caused lives and hurt their militaries’ ability to fight.
Like the current US administration
@@yaya_is_reallike most administrations, really xD
In all fairness, the Galactic Empire would have been more interesting had it lasted a bit longer than it did. It was a generational Empire but it wasn't exactly around for centuries or millennia. Had it survived longer, it would have stood a much better chance of solidifying and crystallising into something more terrifying. Even as much as a _relative_ flash in the pan that the Galactic Empire was, in relation to the vast spans of Galactic History, the groundwork was still there (during the Imperial Expansion Era etc) for something far more difficult to fight. Even after a couple of decades they had the Death Star and 25,000 ISD's they were upgrading and eventually converting into _Imperial II_ 's (from _Imperial I_ 's)
Without falling apart or being changed too much from what they were supposed to be about, look at it this way: imagine if Palpatine _was_ Galactic Emperor over an even larger Empire than we know he had post-Imperial Expansion Era, and imagine if that amounted to 200 years, or 250 years, or more. Think about it. His grasp on people's lives would have been so resolute as so to be almost unbreakable at that point, multi-generationally (at least for most species)
The level of knowledge and expertise he'd have had by then with crushing and quelling rebellions on countless backwater planets and wayward star systems, would be horrifying. It was on the cards as well, as we know that some form of his cloning efforts did succeed _even with his OG body being atomised over Endor_ so no, this isn't impossible. He'd definitely have been living quite a while longer than he did in ROTJ in that body, in spite of how worn out it clearly was getting. But he was technically never stronger than that, at least, until the sequel abominations happened. Especially the Palpatine we see in Episode IX whom is basically Super Palpatine to all intents and purposes (until Rey turned out to be Giga Palpatine out of nowhere, before identifying as a Skywalker. Logic!)
Imagine if the Empire had been doing it's thing for 200-300 years rather than about 30. It'd be festooned with artefacts of an elder age, it will have all but conquered the entire galaxy and it will have already long dispensed of the Hutts and other criminal syndicates, only needing their own horrific might of arms. Their indoctrination would be multigenerational to the extent of being three or four times longer, maybe even five times longer, than the entire miserable story of the North Korean regime going back to Kim Il Sung. Imagine North Korea or the mid 20th century Germans being around for 300 years, rather than how long they have and had been around. It's genuinely quite unnerving if you think about it at length.
There'd be multiple game-ended planetary systems from across the galaxy, reduced to asteroid fields for Imperial mining operations to come in later. You'd see multiple further genocidal purges and the obliteration of countless rebel cells. Battering the resilience out of the populations of the galaxy with Coruscant acting like the overseer of a giant panopticon. And Palpatine's military would be beyond staggering. Not just quantitatively massive, like what you're calling the so-called 'Paper Tiger' already was. But also qualitatively masterful. It'd be a genuine nightmare scenario making the OT GE and the ST FO both look like chump change armies (especially the latter)
The Final Order - according to sequel logic, at least; but we can just ignore that, go right ahead I don't mind lol - would rise and rise long before it did in Episode IX. Palpatine would not only annex, conquer and subjugate the rest of the galaxy, probably in time to do it all with his original body (albeit, by then starting to literally and figuratively fall apart), but he'd then be able to use the Clone body we saw in TROS. And, with better technology, because Moff Gideon would not be a rogue actor in the Imperial Remnant, but still just a part of the Empire with everything he could want from Mandalore, in the scenario that Imperial hegemony _never ends at all_ (which leaves not only Mandalore screwed, but also pretty much everyone else in that sector of space)
A youthful replacement clone Palpatine body would allow Palpatine - at immense power now, stronger than ever before, matching youthfulness of body with an increasingly elderly and expert mind, his youthful visage belying the nightmarish, walking force nexus of the dark side within - to then make plans for the cloning tech to be improved. Doubtlessly as he'd get so much stronger, the clone body would get more rapidly deteriorated and age faster. But with a practically limitless supply of clone bodies in storage on ice or in some biochemical gel or something, then it would be possible for Palpatine to reign supreme for essentially, all time. Only the Will of the Force, and Skywalkers, prevented this in truth.
You wouldn't want to see what the Imperial military would have become 200 years plus into it's regime (or even just 100 years, maybe even 75 years) Although of course, even more so if we're talking about 200 plus years. And the notion of looking at where they are after 500 years or 1,000 years, really starts to get interesting. Because at that point, maybe they are so advanced, and so powerful, even trying to question them would be as futile as it could ever be in Star Wars. Worse, if we remember SW Rebels, Palpatine could have been on the verge of controlling time travel options, possibly from Lothal.
The Imperial Navy would probably have a couple dozen times more capital ships (as it should), and very impressive ones at that. The Imperial Army would be several trillion strong. There'd be things we could scarcely imagine. Comparing a 30 year long flash in the pan to the idealised Galactic Empire all could be considered unhelpful, though imagine 200 year in their prime Stormtroopers with SAS levels of combat skill. It'd be seriously scary. We just got to quick fieldnotes version of that potential.
Beskar Stormtroopers would be common except alone they'd be Clone Troopers again from a reliable template and they'd possibly clone a Praetorian Guard for that. Speaking of which, there'd be a lot more of them, too. The Inquistorious would have morphed into part of the Praetorian Guard (unless Palpatine just, killed them all, then, like housekeeping the Empire) for lack of Jedi to kill. New force sensitives would go to an expanded, legion sized Praetorian Guard.
At least in the sequel logic timeline, Rey would never have been an orphan and raised her entire life in the Imperial Citadel on Coruscant. She'd likely have been a Sith Lord herself and extremely powerful in the force much like her grandfather. But she wouldn't have cringy sharp teeth or a questionable folding hilt dual lightsaber that would make an Inquisitor blush. Rey would essentially be the new Vader. And the only chance anyone had of getting rid of creamy Sheev. But unless Sheev had truly lost his marbles, that wasn't going to be happening. He'd have her under control. At least for a while (maybe not letting _her_ have clone bodies to outlive her or something) And in that super grim scenario, then Palpatine outlives his own granddaughter and just, keeps chugging along like Vitiate come again...
P. S. - Kylo Ren wouldn't exist, Luke and Leia would be long dead and the Jedi BTFO'd to the Netherworld. So, in this absolute worst nightmare scenario, it'd be all the more reason for both Sheev and Rey to be unimaginably powerful. Maybe either verging on Chosen One Anakin's true potential or essentially being just under that _individually_ for a time. And if I was being really mean in how I wrote this, I'd have Sheev murder Rey, absorb all her power TROS style and then just become a Force God of some kind, stronger than even Anakin was supposed to be as the Chosen One. _Midichlorian Count_ 50,000 or something lol because frick everyone else I guess. And if you think about it, could he not spend centuries in that line of thought, perfecting how to increase his clone bodies' per cell midichlorian count, to artificially make himself way stronger than Anakin had ever been anyway? Maybe that is the direction the sequels should have gone in, with Palpatine trying to be a better, stronger Anakin all along. Oh well.
Anakin was >20,000 per cell aged 9 years old and at least ~25,000 per cell aged 22 ish (before the fateful duel on Mustafar; the first one, I mean) I've seen some suggestion Lucas even thought 40,000 ish was possible for the Chosen One if he reached full-potential, but I dunno about that. Working on the basis of 25,000, then sure, maybe. But the implication is that Palpatine was usually around 20,000 if not approaching 21,000 in later life, as his mastery of the dark side became consummate. If he reached a level of skill where he could make up for the shortfall and stay ahead of Rey even if she was technically stronger than him (which, don't get me wrong, I 100% don't think she should be, but Kathleen's Disney would want her to be of course), he could bide his time and then, maybe when Rey was elderly, try and kill her and absorb all her power. He could still finesse her on skill (ask ROTS Kenobi) That way, he'd transcend to a higher state of being perhaps.
At which point, he'd be stronger than the Ones and about twice as strong as Anakin in Episode III prior to losing to Kenobi, and maybe 20% more than Anakin's very highest potential estimate by Lucas (again, can't remember where I heard 40,000 but if that is true that is mental because Kenobi is about 14,000) To be honest the entire way midichlorian levels were worked out makes me grumpy. I know some people loathe the very existence of midichlorians and I get that. But it is what it is. Personally I'd have someone like best lad Dooku be at about 18,500, but I think his given midichlorian count was about 17,000 which I find stupid. He was very close to Yoda whom was more like 19,000-19,500.
[couldn't fit it on the main text] Again, it does stray into DBZ Saiyan Saga to Namek Saga scouter power levels territory, but it's still true that it's part of the actual Skywalker Saga. Kenobi discussed Anakin's midichlorian count in Episode I TPM and that ain't changing folks. We therefore should at least have a way of comprehending it better. And if Palpatine wanted to be a real dank farrik (never saying that again) or mudscuffer (never saying that again) then I'm quite sure he'd deliberately aim to be the dude with the biggest midichlorian count ever. Starting with ~20,000 was cool yes, but he'd want his new clone bodies to be 'upgraded' on a cellular level and have the most midichlorians possible, and zealously guard how they were produced.
He may even only need one good replacement body to live for decades at least, or maybe a few after his OG body to get the process right with his crazy potential. But if the cloning tech got better in tandem with that research into making himself stronger each time, then he'd be unstoppable. Just unstoppable. And that is before we look at him controlling the new time travel options SW Rebels controversially brought along. Palpatine living for millennia has very dark implications for the entire story, at which point he may as well be the God-Emperor. Wait a minute...what I described was him literally becoming the Sith Lord version of the God-Emperor of (Nabooan) Mankind lol
I mean sure if people didn't rebel there would be no rebellion, the way Palpatine ran the empire was a huge part of the problem.
Even without a rebellion there would always be discourse in the ranks because the best way to get ahead isn't being the best but taking out more competent competition, to be honest the longer the empire lasts the korenlikely Palpatine is successfully assassinated.
@@edwardcalvo4047 No you are missing the point (no need for the smug reply?) Yes, I am well-aware, there was a rebellion. I'm saying that had the Empire defeated the rebellion, this could be the outcome. My point was about the longevity of the Empire, not the existence or non-existence of the rebellion. Nice try though.
And wow great observation, the longer something lasts the longer it has of going wrong. Wow. Yes. And if Palpatine became so powerful as I'm saying, the chances are, nobody could stop him. Not one. Not even Rey (even the Ma-Rey Sue herself) I thought everything through and I'm not just saying this stuff at random. I am aware, there was indeed, a rebellion.
You're not getting my point, you're awkwardly patronising, and you're also completely ignoring the false equivalence you just made between the rebellion (or 'a rebellion' that is of any kind later on than the Galactic Civil War era one) and the _ascended_ Empire if it had lasted longer.
My contention here is that the Empire was cut down far from it's prime in what was a fairly young form. While I do not fully-agree with Generation Tech on this one, about the Empire having a paper tiger power, I will use another expression to better explain my take on the Empire; it had a house of cards. Some keystone strongholds and strategically vital linchpins, but then it could all come tumbling down due to it's relative newness and shallow roots.
Had the Empire been around for a few centuries in the same territory and beyond, it would be a completely different animal and people should understand that when asking the kinds of questions Generation Tech is. Of course, it never lasted even anywhere near 200 years (about 30-35 years) It was destroyed relatively insanely quickly. Of course it had splintered off remnants and successors, though these were marginal and had to keep a low profile (as seen in The Mandalorian and the sequels) The fact of the matter is, we could subjectively argue all day about if a rebellion would succeed in this or that iteration or not. But the by far most likely outcome if Palpatine turned into a Force God/Demi-God and had a centuries old Empire, would be that he'd be able to consolidate that power indefinitely.
As much as I do like the comparison I made to Vitiate in general, the problem is, prior to Vitiate, there wasn't someone quite like Vitiate at that kind of scale and ambition, and I'd argue that Palpatine had the benefit of knowing about Sith (or just, plain monsters) like Vitiate, and could see things coming that Vitiate might have had to learn the hard way.
Don't get me wrong though, Palpatine's major flaw was overconfidence, as Luke Skywalker insightfully observed on the Second Death Star in ROTJ. However, Palpatine was still phenomenally intelligent and his writing can be wildly inconsistent anyway. It was fair to call him overconfident, but Luke may not have truly understood the depth of subtlety and knowledge in Palpatine.
And I'm not just talking about him failing to have an answer to Palpatine's force lightning (to me, that was always somewhat trite and superficial; of course, given the time, he could stop that; and in retrospect with the prequels in mind, Kenobi held off Dooku's - albeit weaker - force lightning on Geonosis as a Jedi Knight) What made Luke's observation even more powerful was the broader ramifications it had and the way he was never going to fall for what Palpatine was trying to do.
At least, until Vader got involved (at which point, it was a close-run thing if he would or wouldn't turn to the dark side, until his father's own vulnerability in defeat, and the realisation of the similarities - maimed limbs - between them, stood out) And then, Luke's will and resolve was untouchable. He was convinced of the way of the Jedi in that moment. It's what makes the sequels even more heinous in retrospect, with how they (especially Rian 'Ruin' Johnson) mistreated Luke.
Again, to reiterate, the contention is not that there would have been no rebellion. If anything, I'd spelt out that I thought Palpatine would be crushing many rebellions. And good luck assassinating him if his power and the power of his military is even greater. You're not seeing it how I am explaining it. You don't get it.
@@ThePalaeontologist The problem with the empire is the ideology it is based on, the best people don't get promoted they probably die so only the most cutthroat ascend the ranks, given more time and it gets worse and we get more infighting. Palpatine was creating a system where he was making people who would more want to and be better at trying to assassinate him and seize power for themselves.
Somewhat doubtful since the emperors plans with the death star would ultimately be his undoing in unraveling the cultural philosophical synthesis he created during the end of the clone wars.
Pretty sure the ISD's primary anti fighter defense was the entire wing of 72 TIE fighters that defended it...
Those Ewoks certainly handed the imperial military a big bag of FAAFO!
It was actually the Rebel Commandos and Chewie highjacking that AT-ST that saved the day. The Ewoks were getting demolished
@@homer6292 The ewoks were getting slaughtered by stormtroopers and walkers both until they got the walkers taken out and the stormtroopers spread out enough they couldn't cover each other.
@@homer6292 until chewie steals the at-st, and the stormtroopers pushed too far, they were destroying the ewoks.
Why the Imperials didn't have a 100 meter dead zoned perimeter is beyond me.
@@shanehudson3995 IIRC in legends, unsure if in canon they had actually wiped out the Ewok tribe in the area of the structures they built, which is what caused they rest of the Ewoks to start organizing and setting up traps/etc around the place in preparation for an attack.
I've just discovered this channel and these videos are great, very clear, concise and unbiased. Just straightforward information. They're great, thank you for making them.
The Empire was designed for one thing and one thing only, from the military to the bureaucracy: Oppression. It wasn't meant to face challenges and find solutions but just stomp the jackboot harder and harder in the deluded hope that it would somehow fix things. Imperials weren't even immune from this as everyone from the admiral to the office worker to the stormtrooper was expected to backstab each other to get ahead and then oppress everyone even incrementally beneath them.
Heck even the vaunted jobs that the Empire promised and hoped would sastify the populace just became another liability for the Empire as they just couldn't help stamping down the jackboot and curtailed worker rights and pay into unlivable conditions whenever they didn't just outright enslave the workers and their families.
If it wasn't for the clone wars basically destroying any meaningful force in the galaxy the Empire shouldn't have lasted five years much the less the decades that it did.
Hey Alan! Love your work. Big fan!
Star destroyers relying on fighter screens isn't necessarily a problem in itself. The problem is the fighters they choose. ISDs would be unstoppable mobile fortresses if they had a permanent swarm of Droid fighters around them. And an appropriate compliment of support ships.
The reason that both sides didn't use droids was because they didn't want to be associated with the "separatists"
I always thought the Empire was doing like most militaries do, and training, building up and generally preparing to fight the last war.
The Clone War saw huge capital battleships with supporting fighters, like over Coruscant.
The battles against the Rebels was small scale skirmishes, mostly featuring fighters and the huge improvements in small scale bombs, torpedoes etc, not to mention the ability of fighters to ignore shields (or so it seems).
On the ISD vs Venator arguement.
Templin Institute made a good point about how the Clone Wars was brutal, and would have taken a toll on the superstructure of serving Venators, so scrapping or selling off would make sense. What doesn't make sense is completely ditching their tactical niche and discontinuing the line.
A carrier task force of 1-2 Venators loaded with hyperspace capable fighters and dropships, paired with Arquetens escorts, or even a Victory Class SD for heavy firepower would have been optimal for tactical flexibility.
As for being inspired by ancient Sith designs, even the Harrower class from the old Sith Empire had greater capacity for carrier operations than an ISD.
Personally, I blame the simple character plot armour from the original Star Wars trilogy, which was fine for the original SW trilogy as said plot armour wasn't that obvious and did not detract from the original trilogy's story-telling and enjoyment.
It became too much and too obvious when that was carried over to other SW titles like the family-friendly SW: Rebels series and SW titles with named characters (like the Mandalorian and Kenobi series) which demanded heavy character plot armour.
I guess that was why I was so interested in Rogue One, the Andor series and even Solo as the character plot armour and Imperial School of Marksmanship tropes are not so obvious in those 3 titles and blended in very nicely.
I think this argument has some merit, but I’m not sure how much since life or death stakes can be projected onto other characters, or even aspects of the character with plot armor themself.
A metaphorical death of the phoenix in storytelling where the character goes through a great change, and in the case of Andor we saw his radicalization process. We saw the death of Andor the civilian factory worker, and the Birth of Andor the rebel who would shoot an ally in the back if it meant not compromising the rebellion goal.
Also, almost every main character in the prequels had plot armor.
@@breakingboundaries3950 only the ones we knew survived (palps, yoda, obi-wan, anakin) really had plot armour, the rest effectively had the opposite theyreprobablygonnagetmurdered-armour
Many people always talk about power struggles being what brought the Empire down but praise the Mandalorians for their warrior culture that brings the same problems with consecuences that are ten times worse. Not saying the Empire is perfect but that there are some that don't see the same problems on other sides like the mandalorians or the incredibly corrupt New Republic.
This is easily one of my favorite Star Wars channels. I listen all the time. Your breakdown and interpretation of worldbuilding is amazing and aligned with my own. Love it!
For anyone who wants some more Imperial/Galaxy-wide content akin to Andor with worldbuilding and politics, here is some good books imo from Legends and Canon: Darth Plagueis(Legends), Revenge of the Sith Novel(Legends), Catalyst(Canon), Tarkin(Canon), Thrawn(Canon), Heir to the Empire(Legends), Bloodline(Canon)
The 2nd season of Bad Batch was really good too.
That’s a good list for sure
People shouldn't be afraid of the government the government should be afraid of the people it's not just relevant in star wars but the real world
I wouldn't use seven year's war logic on them because the military did do more than be show boys, but they are an interesting topic.
I really like these longer videos 😁
Thanks for all the hard work you guys do
Thank our editor Congo he really puts a lot of work in the edits :)
the more of these videos I watch, the more I think Alan is not talking about the Galactic Empire, but is actually talking about the American Empire.
You're not wrong....
As an American... it breaks my heart what our nation has become 💔 😢
Russian empire
i think Imperial equipment actually makes complete sense for the intended goal of the Imperial Military: maintaining order. most of the time, the Empire doesnt chose where or when fights take place; its the Rebels who have the flexibility and freedom to strike on their own terms.
small corvettes and frigates in place of Star Destroyers would be easily overwhelmed by a determined Rebel assault, so a Star Destroyer is probably essential for being the hard outer shell of a fleet or battlegroup and maintaining the situation until reinforcements can be dispatched to help in the event of an ambush or raid.
the main issues with the Empire are all plot based: their *anti-ship weapons* cant penetrate Mon Calamari cruisers shields? they dont use Interdictors because racism? the Star Destroyers have no corvette support and a small fighter compliment because...reasons? theres just so much plot-armor in the Star Wars universe that it becomes downright silly once you think about it.
I totally agree. The Empire basically loses because they're essentially forced to lose. I think the writing is flawed in this regard.
We also need to remember that their methods and reasonings are different in both Legends and Canon. Because In legends Palpatine whole plan was predicated on outer galaxy threats, hence the need to control through fear and consolidating WMDS
The one problem with the Venator-class is that it doesn't have as many destructive hardpoints as other ships of similar size. The Providence-Class from the same era definitely outclassed it in firepower. It also wasn't equipped with ion cannons, which would give the ISD a nasty advantage over the Ven's antiquated shield systems. There were also only about 2-3000 of these, while at the hight of the Empire there were 25000(!) ISDs, plus Dreadnaught and Arquitens cruisers.
I appreciate the level of analysis in this video, but I think sometimes people have a tendency to analyze Star Wars with a viewpoint looking at our own military, and as much as Star Wars is inspired by certain military practices, I think doing direct comparisons can be misleading. The closest thing and ISD can be compared to are aircraft carriers, but ours don’t have shields and hyperspace capabilities. They also work as mobile FOBs as well. To say they are only used for broadside tactics is an oversimplification
The true weakness of the Imperial Star Destroyers was the complete lack of tactical blueberries. The passion that tactical blueberry brings to the table can not be denied.
Is that a reference to the Chiss?
@@dreademperor2094 It is a reference to a certain member of the security force in Andor.
@igitaq ah ok it's been a while since I've seen Andor
The comparison to the Russian military is striking
Some of thrawn's ideas were rejected for semi-logical reasons. The cancellation of the TIE defender project happened because a single TIE defender would be as expensive as like six TIE fighters or some ridiculous number. In the long term, TIE defenders WOULD HAVE bolstered the strength of the empire due to their projected success rate, however the emperor was not interested in long term strength. He wanted as many fighters as he could get on the field. A tyrant like him thrives on creating war, not stopping it. The more low-quality fighters in the world, the more death and destruction whilst having the least loss. TIE defenders would cut down on death and destruction, due to there being less of them AND due to the more often surrenders that would have happened, and losing a single defender would be extremely costly compared to losing a single fighter. Two things he wasn't interested in.
Thrawn's vision for an empire would absolutely be much more stable than Palpatine's, but it would definitely be smaller, and it would DEFINITELY be less oppressive
If you study history, you can sort of see what's going on here, fighters beat battleships, WW2 was where Lucas got the idea from, then he used assault carriers in the in the prequels and messed up the time line, meaning people would have to invent a way for the Empire to go backwards to massive battleships and point defence interceptors (another dated idea). Still makes more sense the the sequels, less said about them the better.
When you actually think about it the imperial army was not battle tested.
It’s foundations may have been the GAR but clone wars veterans that rose in the aftermath of that conflict to lead the new imperial military especially tarkin learned the wrong lessons from the war.
Quantity vs quality merit/critical thinking vs absolute loyalty/incompetence,maximum military presence across the galaxy vs a tactically flexible force able to move from battle zone to battle zone. Fear and intimidation vs smart battle tactics and parasitical weapon/vehicle designs.
For 20 years the empire did not have any major conventional conflicts to actually test their weaponry and tactics then perfect as the GAR had it was army in peace time more accustomed to anti smuggling/piracy patrols garrison duty and policing. So when war finally broke out the glaring issues ignored years before come to the surface.
Gotta disagree with you on the imperial navy. The ISD was a massive improvement over the Venators, primarily because the ISD’s were mutli-role ships with the capacity to operate independently. Venators were meant to operate in fleets.
True, ISD’s sacrificed fighter capacity for firepower, but that’s actually to make up for the Venator’s biggest weakness: should an enemy lure away/destroy its fighter complement, the Venator can be taken down by a handful of smaller warships. That’s not the case with an ISD, which can outmuscle almost anything in ship-to-ship combat.
In practical terms, a single ISD with escorts (ideally both Quasars and Raiders) can carry as many fighters as a a Venator with escorts while still possessing greater ship-to-ship firepower. Of course, the Empire rarely utilized ISD’s this way, partially out of complacency and partially because it was usually unnecessary. The former reason highlights the biggest issue with the imperial navy; incompetent command. Even the biggest, baddest ship can only be so effective if it’s not utilized properly. It’s a sad case of a good design falling victim to user error.
Agreed
I fully agree with you, pal.
In most cases deploying an ISD was an overkill. IT was the state-of-the-art warship, not the underarmed Venator- (compared to ISD) lightly armed and armored carrier pushed into front line warfare
Also in The Clone Wars you also see Venators used with it's turbolasers engaging other capital ships as a battleship, and this often ends up with destruction of the ship. This was after all, the Ship that made that famous Broadside with Invisible hand in Episode III. Venator is just too fragile as a ship-of-the-line, but it just ended up being used for that anyway. Imperial Class is a much better fit for the kind of fighting Venators were actually used for.
You would have thought that with 1000 years of planning the actually ruling of the galaxy would have been considered.
Could you do video on what it would look like if the Jedi coupled the Republic
I hope you make a video on a theoretical Thrawn Doctrine.
Others have pointed it out but I really agree that the Empire's biggest weakness was the dictator at the top of it. I always remember the scenerio (I'm not sure if this one is still canon or not) where Admiral Thrawn personally objected to the idea of the Death Star, believing that a much better use for the resources would be to build more ships, advance both ships and fighters as well as equipment, and maintain order in the galaxy through a strong foundation of a mighty imperial fleet that's everywhere and a well equipped military. His objections fell on deaf ears though, because Palpatine was obsessed with his giant symbol of absolute power and terror (especially the terror part probably.) in the Death Star and for reasons only comprehensible to a Sith, keeping the individual members of the military with the cheapest options the Empire can muster.
Its true to life, even the most formidable militaries have a tendency to fall apart with an unstable despot no one wants to challenge or even question at the top. Andor showed that there were hella competent members of the empire, but even they themselves had to put up with stupidity straight from the top. Poppa Palpy might have been able to shoot lightning out of his hands but he was a shitty ruler. (probably intentionally so but nonetheless.)
Even when you step back and think about it, the Empire is at its most frightening when the rebellion is dealing with a huge, unstoppable military with a red saber wielding death wizard at its tip. The sheer, humbling reality of how big, established, and resourced the Empire is. That's when its scary. When they made the Death Stars though, they basically made a big single boss for the good guys to concentrate all of their efforts on destroying. Is it a coincidence that the Death Star like weapons tend to be featured in the more "fun" movies as opposed to ESB or Andor which dealt with more of the former?
Whatever happens to him at the end of Ashoka, Thrawn just constantly proven right.
How much was Palpatines age an issue? he was 88 by the time of the battle of endor, sith lord or no age will begin to effect anyone when the time come add in the ravages of the darkside on the mind and I begin to question just how lucid Palpatine was at any given time. also on a side note it wouldn't surprise me if most people didn't rebel simply because it just felt easier to wait for him to die and hope his replacement was better
It is possible that Palps wasn't lying about the secret of immortality he told Anakin about, as the real Eternal Emperor of the Eternal Sith Empire in Wild Space had already been around sinxe the time if Revan, at least in the Legends timeline (which is the only one that matters).
@@tendracalrissian8820 true, but Palpatine would hardly be the first deranged emperor searching for eternal life, its why he put endless resources into his cloning program which produced mixed results at best, he knew it was possible just not how
11:11 - One of the parts I liked in Mass Effect was pointing out that one reason why the Reapers were so dangerous wasn't just because of their technological advantage but because they didn't rely on supply lines for fuel, power, support, etc. Logistics is a major if not overwhelming advantage, especially on defense.
It also goes with a quote from a TTRPG Game Master who ran superhero games like HERO and MnM that always stuck with me -- 'It doesn't matter how powerful your ability is or how big of a number you can roll, if you can't explain how you are making it work in this situation then you may as well not have it.' So as it goes with your point. It doesn't matter how many naval officers and SSDs and turbolasers the Empire has, if they can't reliably get these things to the relevant theater of conflict then do they really even have any power?
So the Empire being screwed over by faults in its logistical train, which is really being screwed over by faults in its military doctrine and economy, makes so much sense.
That’s what happens when you focus on shiny world destroying orbs and not a legit military ran by proven clones. Would’ve saved a lot of people headaches and heartaches. If the clones were in the fight the rebels would’ve been screwed unless Luke were in every single battle.
I love how u tie in current u.s. political and economics in with the star wars empire.
Loving it.
I think its inaccurate to say they are a Paper Tiger. They are more then an on paper force. They are more of a Garrison force type military - with the Star destroyers essentially mobile forts/Garrisons. This begets a certain limited set of responses that doctrin tryes to overcome. The Star destoryers provide a huge force multiplier and deterent factor but it can only be in one place at a time.
As for the effectiveness if the troops in the field; In episode IV old ben explains the Stormtroopers are pin point acurate when at the Jawa sandcrawler. On the Deathstar the Stormtroopers are diliberatly bad shots? Huh diliberate? Yes they had a tracker on the MF to reveal the locataion of the Rebel base. Therefore the troopers were letting the "rebels" go to bag the bigger win of Yavin. Go watch it again with this in mind.
Most Rebel cells in lore get destroyed by the Empire. Only characters with plot armor and their friends escape the Imperials. For me this means that most Imperial officers dont lack competence (except idiots like Konstantine) but rather that the producers/directors lack the necessary skills to make a conflict believable or remotely realistic (in the context of the SW universe). Against overwhelming odds, the poorly equipped and hastenly recruited Rebels win via some plot-contrieved method .. it gets kind of boring really fast. Some vehicles used by the Empire are definitely more form than substance but that is not alwalys the case.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the ISD was a good ship that was deployed poorly.
The ISD would have been a perfect complementary ship to escort a fleet of venators(and later interdictor cruisers)
A squadron of 2 or 3 venators, supported by an interdictor, with a single ISD as the flagship would have given the Imperial fleet every tool they needed to deal with pretty much every situation: Venators provide long range patrols and strike capability, as well as a fighter screen for the fleet, the ISD would provide close range firepower to protect the fleet from other capital ships, as well as ground strike ability to support planetside forces(or take out "terrorist" settlements as needed) - with the shields and natural protection of her hull able to soak up damage that would otherwise cripple the smaller ships, meanwhile the interdictor would prevent rebel strike groups from approaching(or fleeing).
Smaller escort ships could be added to the fleets as-needed, such as dedicated AA cruisers that could provide much needed starfighter cover for the larger ships, which seem to always be horribly under-armed for starfighter attacks
I wish Star Wars as a brand wasn’t so inconsistent. I like to analyze the logistics behind the wars fought but there’s not a great way to make sense of things in a consistent way.
Well, the Sith doctrine tends to create a lot of backstabbing. Palpatine battle meditation was also split watching over Luke and Vader (you can see it in the scene when Luke and Vader blades cross in front of him and then moves to the Rebellion gaining the upper hand).
I don't know what you mean about turbolasers. They have incredibly long ranges and are the standard capital ship weaponry in the starwars universe....Turbolasers have ranges of tens of thousands of miles. If not hundreds of thousands. It just looks different on screen because people don't wanna watch a battle that takes place off screen.
*cue screen showing a bunch of light show and nothing else with epic battle music theme playing*
""...ancient Sith drawings and childhood trauma" Absolute poetry.
It's important to note that Palpatine's goal WAS the form. He wasn't interested in a stable empire, he was interested in Palpatine's empire. That's why Operation Cinder was a thing. His empire, without him, didn't deserve to live.
He was a man with a galaxy sized dollhouse. George Lucas literally wrote him to be analogous to the devil. Completely of the self and just enjoying the chaos and the suffering of others as they pretend to be like him.
I miss the days when I was Generation Tech
Kinda reminds me of Germany in ww2. Many of those over the top or huge weapon and tank designs were things Hitler wanted. Problem was a lot of those designs (like mauser and Schwerer Gustav) were either impractical or came too late. By the end of the war fuel and man power were dwindling and all those crazy ideas were wasting resources.
they didn't have the darkside of the force tho just meth
@@GenerationTechThe Darkside is a hell of a drug.
@@GenerationTech Well, a lot of the German soldiers were genuinely on drugs to keep them going.
Also, the V rockets were outright terror weapons that silly moustache man thought would actually be a 'gamechanger' (at the expense of a credible and fully-extended jet fighter production line; they did have them, just not enough, and too late in deployment, as it turned out)
The Germans lobbed V rockets indiscriminately at England, killing thousands of people, but all it really did was make the English even angrier than we already were. It just didn't work. He wanted to break morale with it but it was proven on both the Allied and Axis sides in WWII, that contrary to the pre-WWII, interwar years belief that 'the bomber will always get through!', it still didn't mean they'd stop fighting.
I mean, sure, the Atomic Bombs did contribute heavily to Japan surrendering as the final persuader, but that still took two and the real fear was that the USA casually had dozens more ready to drop on other cities (in truth, the USA _did not_ have lots of nukes ready to go in 1945, though more were being built; the USA and the Allies in general gave the Japanese the impression, very deliberately via direct implied threats/warnings of further attacks of that nature, that the USA had plenty more just on hand in the short-term)
Bluffing and posturing helped to get the Japanese Empire to believe that (it's kind of moot because given less than a year a few more probably would have been rushed through and dropped on Japan had they not surrendered when they did; it is just fortunate that the Japanese didn't call the bluff of the USA at that exact juncture, as it saved millions of lives)
The terror tactics of the Axis in WWII - from the V rockets to the horrors of Japanese war crimes in the Far East - ultimately failed. The Allies did bad things too, however, the desperation of trying to break Britain or Russia's morale with conventional bombing raids and later just lobbing V rockets at Britain when they were BTFO'd out of British airspace, was very telling. The V rockets - especially the V2 - were very scary but short of them actually achieving V3 (the first ICBM, theoretically, also able to have a nuclear warhead; not possible, for a variety of reasons, including British and Norwegian Commandos with RAF Bomber Command support constantly stopping Germany from producing enough Heavy Water for that work; and it was work Hitler wasn't massively interested in for most of the war, thankfully)
Entire streets' worth of houses could be flattened by a V2, scores of entire families killed in a single impact. It was a terrifying weapon for the time. But it was achieving pinpricks in comparison to the much more effective area bombing of conventional bomber wings, and yet, even that failed to break people's spirits. WWII proved - in Britain, Germany _and_ Japan for three directly obvious examples - that area bombing, while upsetting and distressing, was not a deal breaker for the population. It just pissed them off.
British resolve grew all the stronger for every bomb or rocket hitting our lands. Germans, in turn, while ravaged by both the RAF and eventually the USAF/USAAF as it was known then, still just kept going, believing it would be a temporary setback. The Japanese literally took a second nuke to surrender and that was _after_ they'd lost most of their Empire in the Pacific post/during-Island Hopping Campaign and _after_ the levelling of other Japanese cities using incendiary bombs on what were mostly wooden and paper houses (see Tokyo firestorm; not caused by first gen atomic bombs, but by the tried and tested incendiaries)
There is quite a lot to draw from that in terms of the comparison to Star Wars. You can see how even with massive losses like the millions killed on the Death Stars and the billions killed on Alderaan, that the Empire and rebels alike were more or less never going to stop until defeated in the war. Alderaan was completely destroyed but that just made Leia even more determined to avenge it's loss. That just about says it all.
paper empires wash away quite easily in the rain
I have been following and watching your videos for years. This channel stopper being solely about fandom and more about life lessons a long time ago and im here for it.
Venators were used long after the Empire establishment. Some Venators were scraped on Bracca because they were highly damaged in battles and their repairments deemed inappropriate.
The shaggy look couples perfectly with the casual delivery of the "...dead Jedi babies..." line.
Perfect.
How would a tie fighter do against Buzz droids
Imperial military strategy was heavily influenced by Zapp Brannigan. Throw wave after wave of your own forces against the opponent and eventually the opponent would hit their limit and shut down.
Tie shields were replaced with the side peices, making them considered indestructible, with the core a more difficult target, and their extra speed and flexibility still made them viable weapons
Talking about the equipment that got replaced because of the Tarkin doctrine, don’t even get me started on the AT-TE and how they replaced it for a bigger, unstable, lower visibility, target. Seriously all the AT-TE needed was for its gun turret to be enclosed like on those hover vehicles the Empire had, and maybe just a little more armor on the front a little less glass and it would have been the best walking tank the galaxy had ever seen . Setting aside the ineffectiveness of walkers in general for the sake of the setting.
Something I'll never understand is why if the Empire was willing to adopt the CIS's general strategy of overwhelming numbers when developing the Tie Fighter why they didn't just go all the way with it and rather than getting pilots killed outfitting each fighter with a droid brain, costs would of stayed roughly the same barring a lack of a time investment as there wouldn't be a reason to train pilots, they'd lose no man power, and linked droid intelligences usually have better situational awareness which in a dogfight is a must have.
Theres an excellent channel named "Media Zealot" that does critiques on stupid villain factions. Not only did he mention the glaring flaws in the Imperial military. But he pointed out what you said in this video aswell. How Palpatine pretty much grew very complacent once actually forming the Empire. (something he pretty much admits to in one of the novels I believe.) And how the rule of two is pretty much incompatible with two Sith at the top of the galaxy. Highly recommend you give that video a watch.
Thanks for bringing the paper tiger concept to Star Wars
The ISD was not slow in sub-light speed. It was able to catch the Tantive IV, which is a Blockade Runner.
Was I hearing super fast build mode in the background😂
But regardless of the song
You are my go to channel for star wars info
Thank you for uploading vids ❤
Another Excellent video and lesson! Thank You. Great Socio-Economic Military Industrial Complex integration overview. Be Safe out there. Peace & Health to Us All.
TIEs had the Honda K series of Ion Engines. VTEC and all.
What about the Republic and Separatist militaries? What are their strengths, flaws, and culture?
This reminds me of a certain real life nation.
Can you do a what if video where you could build the imperial military, like you got the job instead of tarkin
"Have you ever seen an imperial fleet hovering over a city?" No, and you haven't either buddy 😂😂😂😂
In legends. The vuzong vong invasion from beyond the galaxy.. inter galactic invaders. Were scouting old republic space and the outer rim. The chiss warned the chancellor who was palpatine off their encounter with a scouting fleet. With horrific losses. They kept it secret to avoid panic. But thee death star and super star destroyers make a lot more sense when the enemy has world ships just as big as the death star coming forr everyone in a crusade to claim their prophesied holy land
hey G-Tech, i like the lid in the background XD
A sociological explanation of Star Wars is so great to get. Keep up the good work.
5:20 you missed a "from a certain point of view" reference. ;)
The imperial millitary had its weaknesses but was overall still one of the best millitaries in galactic history. And if there was no plot armor the empire would have massacered the rebels in most encounters
It is not about quantity:
The TIE Fighter was supposde to be replaced with the TIE Interceptor which was really effective.
The Stormtroopers were literally an elite force that was capable of defeating its enemies even when outnumbered 1:100
Ships like Raider II or Lancer Frigates were a good solution to the Starfighter problems the Empire encountered.
The Empire developed amazing technology like Dark Troopers, TIE Defenders etc.
The lack of shields from the TIE Interceptor is not so important because when a starfighter has shields they are very weak except maybe Defenders shields which could take a lot of hits. It was more important to let good pilots fly the ships and make sure you get the superior position in a dog fight. If you shoot with 4 laser canons at an X-Wing he won't be able to do much about it. The lack of hyperdrive was a problem but vor example the V-19 of the republic also had no Hyperdrive.
Star Wars played straight would be rather brutal - grim and dark. In all eras, there seems to be someone who is oppressed or otherwise at the mercy of someone else.
The writers needed to bend a lot of stuff to make it so that the protagonists could have even the slightest chance to win against otherwise insurmountable odds. The parallels of things in our own world are evident influences as well, sometimes imagined by writers to the point of fantasy fulfillment.
Palpatine did hear the needs of his people, even going so far to say "I will make it legal." Of course, that was in support of his own agenda, which was apparently: rule + immortality = rule forever.
It is an interesting thought: What if it were a Jedi who rose to the top in a way similar to how Palpatine did (except all the war casualties and such)? Perhaps the stuff after ReY SkYWalKEr would be such an era, unless the galaxy gets Vong'd in Disney canon too.
another example of the failings of the tarkin doctrine was the AT-AT walker, which couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a battle tank or an APC, and so was suboptimal at both- in particular the head-mounted weapons give suboptimal firing arcs compared with a full turret setup, and the height imposed by the legs makes the loading and unloading of infantry take longer than in a vehicle with a hull closer to ground level
If you look at the leg setup on the AT-AT, you can see that, unlike the little screen time they got, they appear to have the capability to kneel, get down like a horse letting an injured rider climb on.
just imagine how many injuries were suffered trying to rappel off of that thing, could be optimal for a zombie apocalypse though
@@Dragon_Werks perhaps it can kneel, but that will still take more time than is needed for troopers to board/disembark a conventional troop transport