Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Hence why there would be such desperation to find the last of the living Skywalker line, as they were trained in the old styles like forms II and III as opposed to the more flashy and impractical forms like Ataru.

Which is comically ironic considering Anakin Skywalker was all about the flashy.
 

AspblastUSA

Well-known member
Haven’t been involved thus far but for my $0.02 I think villainous. IMHO Star Wars as a setting isn’t about complicated morality. The good guys may struggle, may fail to live up to themselves, but they are in the end, good.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
True. Do you think this hypothetical faction should be straight up evil like The Zakuul Empire or just very expansionist?

In my opinion, the most interesting way to do it would be to have them being an expansionist power that is nonetheless peaceful and even idealistic. They believe in expansion by mutual consent, and thus represent something of an existential threat to the Republic because they're carving off border sectors by voluntary and lawful means. I wouldn't want to portray the Republic as now being the bad guys, but I like the idea of showing that there's more than one way to be the good guys, and I think having some elements of political intrigue and maneuvering would make for richer stories.

(As I recall, there were *very small* hints along such lines at a couple of points in the EU, with certain border systems straddling the fence and certain New Republic hardliners blowharding that these systems should be forced to join, but it never went further than talk and there was never any overaraching plotline connected to it.)

On a larger scale, I like the idea of this storyline forcing the Jedi to do some serious self-reflection about how tied they are to the Republic, because that was a ctually a big part of the fall of the Jedi in the Old Republic, it's explored *a little bit* in the NJO stories but not really to my satisfaction. To give credit where it's due, Disney's new High Republic series *does* actually do an interesting job of presenting the Jedi of a couple centuries prior as having a substantially different relationship with the Republic. They're still post-Russaan Reformation so they're not ruling entire sectors as benevolent overlords, but they are *much* more independent from the Republic, much more proactive about *doing things*, and the common vernacular in that era is that Jedi are an ally of the Republic rather than being *part of it* the way prequel trilogy Jedi were.
 
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Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
Writers have no sense of scale in space. Let's face facts....the Galactic Empire may have been under gunned with only 25,000 Star destroyers at its peak. The New Republic only has 10 Nebula class? Someone did not think that through.

I always like to see that as "25000 capital ships", which allows innumerably more light vessels. The Imperial Navy could have well over a million warships at its disposal.

Edit: Come to think of it, there's no reason the number couldn't be even higher. Given the industrial might of the Empire exceeds much of sci-fi, crapping out Gozantis and Arquitens should be quite straightforward.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
I'm almost imagining like this very militaristic meteoritic society sort of like the mandalorians except more organized as opposed to scattered tribes. like legionaries.
Space Sparta.


if we are doing the whole "The galaxy has been at peace for hundreds of years" plot. It's possible that much like before the Jedi have sort of rested on their laurels, and have once again become more of a political and ceremonial caste as opposed to a truly warrior caste. They have more of a ceremonial style because it's designed to be more of a show of majesty than practical fighting and then this extragalactic threat shows up and the initial custom serves as a wake-up call.

To be honest, that sound like a bit too much of a repeat of the Prequels. I'm all for cyclical patterns in galactic histoyry, but narratively, having the Jedi fall to the same error twice isn't a smart move.


I'm actually a fan of making them more Roman-Expansionist than pure curb-stompy evil.
Probably best to avoid Sith-with-the-serial-numbers-wiped-off, yes.


Writers have no sense of scale in space.
I always like to see that as "25000 capital ships", which allows innumerably more light vessels. The Imperial Navy could have well over a million warships at its disposal.

Edit: Come to think of it, there's no reason the number couldn't be even higher. Given the industrial might of the Empire exceeds much of sci-fi, crapping out Gozantis and Arquitens should be quite straightforward.
Not only do sci-fi writers have no sense of scale... SW in fact has no scale. The "official numbers" on how many inhabited worlds there are, how many people live there, and how vast the population of the whole galaxy is all differ ludicrously. Like... some sources take Obi-Wan in ANH literally and say Alderaan only had 15 million people on it. That's less than the population of the Netherlands! Other sources list Alderaan as having billions of inhabitants. What's true? We're not entirely sure.

Same with ship numbers. Some people use low-ball figures, others cite high-ball figures, and some people deliberately cite low-ball figures for one side and high-ball ones for another side. (And the same thing happens with crew numbers, which vary wildly by source, and power stats, which vary even more ridiculously.)

Even hyperspace is outright admitted to just work "at the speed of plot". We have contradicting explanations on how it works, and on how it scales ("point-five past lightspeed" means 150% lightspeed to some, but on the logarithmic scale Zahn uses, it literally means "half-way to infinite speed").



The galaxy could just be... like... 20 planets total. There's gotta be some reason every iteration of the Franchise winds up on Tatooine at some point, maybe there's just not enough planets for that to be mathematically unlikely.
We are supposed to accept that this is the Force guiding events. And as Stover outright said: "the Force" is in fact "the Plot".

In that sense, SW must be taken on faith. The premise is that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, sentient energy field that is produced by all life and binds all life together. Given that premise... things don't really have to be statistically realistic. The Force wills it, you see?
 
To be honest, that sound like a bit too much of a repeat of the Prequels. I'm all for cyclical patterns in galactic histoyry, but narratively, having the Jedi fall to the same error twice isn't a smart move.

that's fair. How would you handle it then? my initial idea was that the Skywalker in this story had a falling out and left the order, so they have to go find him/her (for me it'd be her)

There's gotta be some reason every iteration of the Franchise winds up on Tatooine

because Star Wars for some reason likes to flirt with the outer rim and hutt politics but doesn't have the grit to actually explore it. Closest thing we got even in the EU was the Forces of Corruption video game. (RIP Star Wars 1313)
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
that's fair. How would you handle it then? my initial idea was that the Skywalker in this story had a falling out and left the order, so they have to go find him/her (for me it'd be her)
One potential angle is to examine the consequences of Luke's chocies in the post-RotJ EU (I'm assuming pre-NJO, since if you're doing an 'outside threat' saga set in the further future, you're presumably nixing the NJO series first). This means we're mostly looking at the '90s EU, which was pre-prequels, and therefore didn't have a rigid conception of the Jedi Order.

That has interesting effects. Luke accepted Dathomirian witches and all sorts of people into his order, and the whole thing seemed much more loose than what we got in the prequels. Back then, writers seem to have imagined the Jedi Order as being mostly a training institution. You get taught how to be a Jedi by the wie masters... and then you go out into the galaxy and you're a Jedi. But, like Luke, you can be a Jedi and also a general. Or a policeman. Or a doctor. Et cetera. "Jedi" wasn't really seen as "full-time member of a monastic order" but more as "person thoroughly trained in the ways of the Force, and imbued with the noble values of the Jedi tradition".

Extrapolate from that for a few centuries, and there may be a galaxy with multiple "schools" of Jedi, influenced by various outside influences that Jedi took into the order, and by various interpretations of the Force. They all still agree on the basic tenets, and they all see themselves as Jedi, but some really are monks, others are pacifists who spend their time healing the ill and aiding the poor, others are like bands of roaming samurai (some seeking out injustices, others... more mercenary in outlook, and asking for at least some pay). Some have turned to rigid traditions and stringently uphold the "no attachments" rule, others eagerly celbrate marriage and family.

This all fits very well into a galaxy that has been at peace, that has little centralised government, and that is not very ready (or willing) to whip itself into a coherent fighting shape.

And the Skywalkers? Take a leaf from the sequels; that idea was orginally from Lucas: "Skywalker has vanished". But in this case, it really makes some sense. At the outset, Luke and his immediate heirs believed in "let all ideas have their say", and this did indeed enrich the galaxy. But over time, it has dissolved a lot of (perhaps too much) unity. And an uncertainty crept in. The lineage of the Skywalkers withdrew, and is now believed by most to have died out (at least in the main line).

But it hasn't. The Skywalkers still live, in secret, in hiding -- waiting for a time they knew would come.

(Have they removed themelves to give the galaxy the freedom to choose its own course, free from the all-to-powerful Skywalker name weighing in? Or have they set out to prepare for darker times in a hidden location? Many angles to take with that sort of thing.)
 
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Batrix2070

RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Writers have no sense of scale in space. Let's face facts....the Galactic Empire may have been under gunned with only 25,000 Star destroyers at its peak. The New Republic only has 10 Nebula class? Someone did not think that through.
I always like to see that as "25000 capital ships", which allows innumerably more light vessels. The Imperial Navy could have well over a million warships at its disposal.
e "official numbers" on how many inhabited worlds there are, how many people live there, and how vast the population of the whole galaxy is all differ ludicrously.
There must be more to it that I wonder if any of these writers just did some calculations with a calculator.

All you would have to do is take some country A, multiply the population by a billion, you have the population of the planet.

Now for ease of doing it with different countries with different population levels. After that, each of them is a template for the corresponding type of planet.

Then as you create the armed forces, you simply divide the population of the planet, country by the true ratio of civilians to soldiers. For example, in Poland it's 380 civilians per one soldier.

I did it that way and it came out that my invented state, should have trilliards of soldiers already on the peace footing alone. And yet to such a Republic can not compare territorially*!

And it puzzles me, if I, after very simple calculations based on the real world, came to the conclusion that a "small" state must, for the very security of its territory, have trilliards of soldiers, why such a Galactic Republic in the clone wars or Empire have only millions** of them?
In particular, the Empire is expected to have unimaginable numbers of soldiers in stock, which only when converted to a ratio of civilians to soldiers can prove to be truly meager.

*It is barely 300 light years long from the designated center of the State.
**As for the ships, I will not compare, in my book universe the country does not have a convenient superluminal drive capable of traveling around the system. Only from system to system. Hence the fleets are much, much larger.
 
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One potential angle is to examine the consequences of Luke's chocies in the post-RotJ EU (I'm assuming pre-NJO, since if you're doing an 'outside threat' saga set in the further future, you're presumably nixing the NJO series first). This means we're mostly looking at the '90s EU, which was pre-prequels, and therefore didn't have a rigid conception of the Jedi Order.

That has interesting effects. Luke accepted Dathomirian witches and all sorts of people into his order, and the whole thing seemed much more loose than what we got in the prequels. Back then, writers seem to have imagined the Jedi Order as being mostly a training institution. You get taught how to be a Jedi by the wie masters... and then you go out into the galaxy and you're a Jedi. But, like Luke, you can be a Jedi and also a general. Or a policeman. Or a doctor. Et cetera. "Jedi" wasn't really seen as "full-time member of a monastic order" but more as "person thoroughly trained in the ways of the Force, and imbued with the noble values of the Jedi tradition".

Extrapolate from that for a few centuries, and there may be a galaxy with multiple "schools" of Jedi, influenced by various outside influences that Jedi took into the order, and by various interpretations of the Force. They all still agree on the basic tenets, and they all see themselves as Jedi, but some really are monks, others are pacifists who spend their time healing the ill and aiding the poor, others are like bands of roaming samurai (some seeking out injustices, others... more mercenary in outlook, and asking for at least some pay). Some have turned to rigid traditions and stringently uphold the "no attachments" rule, others eagerly celbrate marriage and family.

This all fits very well into a galaxy that has been at peace, that has little centralised government, and that is not very ready (or willing) to whip itself into a coherent fighting shape.

And the Skywalkers? Take a leaf from the sequels; that idea was orginally from Lucas: "Skywalker has vanished". But in this case, it really makes some sense. At the outset, Luke and his immediate heirs believed in "let all ideas have their say", and this did indeed enrich the galaxy. But over time, it has dissolved a lot of (perhaps too much) unity. And an uncertainty crept in. The lineage of the Skywalkers withdrew, and is now believed by most to have died out (at least in the main line).

But it hasn't. The Skywalkers still live, in secret, in hiding -- waiting for a time they knew would come.

(Have they removed themelves to give the galaxy the freedom to choose its own course, free from the all-to-powerful Skywalker name weighing in? Or have they set out to prepare for darker times in a hidden location? Many angles to take with that sort of thing.)

Is it possible that with all of these different sects of Jedi with varying extremes of beliefs, in-fighting start to occur? Like the more zealous groups start viewing the other less rigged groups as heretics? The light side crusaders for example accuse the secs that allow Dathomirian witches/Nightsisters (even the books couldn't seem to make up their minds as to whether these were different factions or not) of allowing themselves to be corrupted by the darkside and letting it's agents freely walk among them The Celibate monks give their whole "Attachment leads to fear" spill against those that openly celebrate attachments. ect ect...?

You'd still see shades of that falling into zealotry and decedents from the prequels, but I don't think it'd be a retread.
 
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Batrix2070

RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Is it possible that with all of these different sects of Jedi with varying extremes of beliefs, in-fighting start to occur? Like the more zealous groups start viewing the other less rigged groups as heretics?
Looking at how the Sith got started, yes. Only here the battles and disputes could be more diffuse with more actors instead of pure light vs darkness.

There might even be a kind of 30-year war but on a galactic scale in which different sides get mixed up and sometimes fight on not very expected sides.
 
But what is the threat?

A romanesque empire who's swordsman train like this:



more details on the empire itself can be seen in this quote:

my opinion, the most interesting way to do it would be to have them being an expansionist power that is nonetheless peaceful and even idealistic. They believe in expansion by mutual consent, and thus represent something of an existential threat to the Republic because they're carving off border sectors by voluntary and lawful means. I wouldn't want to portray the Republic as now being the bad guys, but I like the idea of showing that there's more than one way to be the good guys, and I think having some elements of political intrigue and maneuvering would make for richer stories.

(As I recall, there were *very small* hints along such lines at a couple of points in the EU, with certain border systems straddling the fence and certain New Republic hardliners blowharding that these systems should be forced to join, but it never went further than talk and there was never any overaraching plotline connected to it.)
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Writers have no sense of scale in space. Let's face facts....the Galactic Empire may have been under gunned with only 25,000 Star destroyers at its peak. The New Republic only has 10 Nebula class? Someone did not think that through.

To be fair, they had ten *at that time* and were continuing to build them, but only at a rate of one per year up to an unspecified total number desired.

As far as EU canon goes, it's mentioned that the Nebulas continued to exist into the Yuzzhan Vong War era, but saw *very* little action as there were few of them and they were hoarded as reserves, because while they were no longer brand new, they were still among the best ships the NRDF had. Which I would argue *explicitly* supports my argument for a relatively small and weak NRDF.
 

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