Fellow GMs:

I could use a hand in figuring out how to portray the Rebels in the time of Edge of the Empire. In particular, I'm not familiar enough with the lore to understand how openly in rebellion some planets are.

The main fact I can't reconcile is this: the Mon Calamari were in open revolt and building capital ships en masse for the Rebellion. This implies an effort that isn't secret at all and involves potential planetary mobilization. However, the Alliance is also widely documented as fighting a guerrilla war and having things like secret bases at Hoth and Yavin.

As such I don't really know how to portray the rebellion and its struggle against the Empire. Is there a frontline of the war that prevents the Empire from gathering at the Mon Calamari homeworld and obliterating it? That implies a nearly evenly matched struggle of open force versus open force - but if so, it makes more sense to gather at these openly rebelling worlds rather than secret bases for further guerrilla actions. It's hard for me to make sense of.

I'd be curious to hear how other GMs are approaching this. I am unfamiliar with the EU and poking around Wookieepedia hasn't helped much, so apologies if this is basic information.

Thanks

SP

Something to note (as I see it):

The Core is the "stronghold" of the Empire. It can't just "mobilize the Fleet" in strength to go after the Mon Cal, they have a Fleet as well, and doing so would leave the Core vulnerable to the many "Fringe" systems in the Middle and Outer Reaches that aren't under the Empire's thumb.

I haven't read any of the specific lore that deals with the Mon Calamari situation, whether it is novels, comics, or whatever. One way you could look at it is that the Mon Calamarians could have enough resources that the Empire would have to commit a considerable force to put down their rebellion and retake the planet. They may have determined the investment needed is more than they're willing to expend. In fact, they'd been in the process of developing the Death Star which was designed to even the odds in that sense.

As powerful as the Empire is, it's important to remember that waging a war or controlling an entire Galactic Empire requires resources in the form of currency, raw materials, labor force, etc. The Empire may have access to a lot of resources but they still have a finite amount.

In our games the only Rebels that our PCs have met so far were small cell of less than 50 people on a planet where the Empire is attempting to establish a foothold, but does not yet have absolute control. They could commit a lot of ships and manpower to the task, or they could try to convince the local government to side with the Empire politically. I imagine this kind of thing is going on all over the galaxy.

Oh, but if the Empire determined that the Rebellion was indeed operating out of the Mon Calamarian system, with their leadership headquartered there, and their main fleet centered there, it would no longer be a question. It would absolutely be worth the Empire's investment to invade the Mon Calamarian system and wipe out the Rebellion.

So as it is, the Rebel Fleet moves around through space and they look for secret base locations to stage attacks from, because that way there's not a clear specific target for the Empire to focus on.

That could be a way to answer the question of why they don't attack Mon Calamari.

Well much of what is giving you trouble is the conflicting nature of the EU. Some authors like to show the Alliance as a loose organization of guerrilla forces fighting toward a common goal, others like to show them as a well unified organization with a relatively formal military. Some say the Yavin/Hoth group was the majority of the Alliance at those times, some say it wasn't.

This is really a general problem across the EU as each writer was trying to tell a specific story (theirs) and wasn't especially worried about how it stacked up to the others beyond what was needed for approval by lucasfilm. So you end up with stuff like Mon Cal not making tons of sense...

In the end it's really up to you as the GM to define this. Doing so is pretty easy, just say to your players "OK, I'm not into the EU, so the only thing I'm worried about is the films. If you go somewhere or see something that doesn't match what you read in a novel or comic or whatever, just go with it because I'm worried about your story, not the story some novelist wrote."

You could look at the Mon Calimari as a Neautral system is willing to provide weapons to both sides. I am thinking of the USA during the early parts of WWII before we got involved. Officialy we were neautrual, though we were providing large amounts of equipment to England and France on credit. Germany didnt want to invade because they did not want to bring the USA fully into the war. There could be a similar situation happening with the rebels here.

The Mon Calamari specifically get away with what they do becuase of a combination of factors. Their system is fairly remote, and after they revolted they seeded the known hyperlanes in the area with asteroids and mines, essentially interdicting themselves in a primitive fashion.

Also, they rapidly built up a capital ship force; most of their Star Cruisers were originally constructed as luxury liners, but modular weapons compartments were developed in secret for a quick mobilization (similar to what the Trade Federation did with their freighter-battleships).

The existence of the Alliance Fleet, and the Empire's inability to locate and destroy it, also discouraged the Empire from undertaking an offensive against Mon Calamari. Although in a pitched battle it would certainly have been destroyed, it's continued existence meant the Empire could not risk uncovering the Core.

While an Imperial attack would probably have eventually succeeded, the cost and risk would have been high. The appearance of control was more important than actual control, and even a partial failure would compromise the Imperial Navy's aura of invincibility, encouraging more star systems to revolt.

Mon Calamari's declaration of neutrality gave an "out" to the Empire, a way to avoid a costly (although likely victorious) battle that would hurt them in the long run. They underestimated the Mon Calamari, though, but probably didn't realize it until it was too late.

There weren't any other major systems who (EDIT:) successfully openly defied the Empire, although there were plenty of places where Rebel sympathy was an open secret (i.e. Alderaan). Since many of these didn't have the same factors working in their favor that the Empire did, they often suffered heavily (i.e. Alderaan).

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Tons of awesome suggestions here.

The "two fleet" explanation from Joker Two is pretty lucid. The description of the mysterious main Alliance Fleet as a fleet-in-being is very similar to a historical precedent I was just reading about, the problem posed by the main Spanish naval fleet in the Atlantic Ocean at the onset of the Spanish-American War. The Americans had a superior navy but had to remain extremely cautious and defensive as long as the location of the invading Spanish fleet was unknown.

This was great, thanks again!

I have little doubt that Mon Calamari/Dac would have been among the first stops on the Death Star's pacification tour if it hadn't been destroyed at Yavin.

If you want more confirmation, the Dac situation is explained in parts of the AOR Corebook, but JokerTwo pretty well covered it.

There are several aspects of the Rebellion

First you have Allaince high command which operates the overall strategy of the rebellion. Using it's active forces in retaliation based on intelligence of rebel cells and dissidents. they are the ones that we called on to defeat both death stars.

The Space command operates under the strategy of space denial. hit and run tactics against shipping and soft targets to spread the Empire's superior fleet.

The actual rebel cells operate on a system or sector cell to find dissidents, intelligence, recruiting, and sabotage.

Except for planets in open.. and often short lived ... rebellion, there is no active "Front" for the war. But all and any aspects can occur and are possible. From a four person cell operating in secret on Glare peak. A squadron of fighters. a squad of commandos operating raids. a hidden base like Hoth or Yavin coordinating sectors and sending out troubleshooters, A privateer independently targeting shipping. or fleets of ships interdicting space lanes and even systems.

I'm really want to see Rebels this October to get some important clarifications like that

I'm really want to see Rebels this October to get some important clarifications like that

Rebels is set 5 years before A New Hope, so the Rebellion isn't really going to be up to its prime yet.

Right, but maybe the first days of Rebellion will show off and give us some tips about its "nature" and also the true face and "modus-operandi" from the Galactic Empire.

Almost all my games are in that era, and I want to learn the real backgroud

I'm so nervous like when I was a child in Christmas XD

I still have trouble believing the Rebel Alliance wasn't existing in any shape or form until 5 years before A New Hope.

Once Bail Organa witnessed the Jedi temple Massacre that should have been the beginning of the rebellion even if it takes a few years even a decade to get it off the ground given the need to hide their build up of forces as well as insure the Empire doesn't take action against them in the meantime.

With the Force & Destiny beta we're left wondering out how do these surviving Jedi/Force Users fit in?

I really need to pick up a copy of the A New Dawn book and see if it helps explain some of this!

I can see early efforts stamped out by the Empire forcing them to become more secretive and careful since Mon Mothma had to go into hiding because of that list of 100 senators who tried to get Palpatine to return the emergency powers he used to create the Empire.

I could see the Quarren getting involved to help protect their world and using their wiles to keep the Empire away, but why was Ackbar enslaved by Tarkin?

That's a story I've yet seen explained.

EDIT: My English teacher is probably crying over the mistakes i made in this post!

I really need to pick up a copy of the A New Dawn book and see if it helps explain some of this!

It doesn't really. You can get that Hera is an operative of 'something' but it doesn't give you any sense of size or degree of organization. Of course, if she gave those away too easily, she wouldn't be a very good operative.