Maybe I'm just sleep deprived, but I don't understand how the Rebellion can liberate ANY worlds while the Empire is still in power (I.E. Before the battle of Endor). When were the Mon Calamari liberated and how could they stay that way long enough to use their orbital shipyards to construct vessels for the Rebellion?

Also, does anyone know of any good, condensed timelines that list events between 0-4 ABY that can be used as a good backdrop for adventures?

For the most part, the Rebellion *couldn't* liberate entire worlds. With the notable exception of Mon Cala/Dac, the worlds that were liberated successfully were unimportant and out of the way, with the Empire unwilling to commit more resources to retaking them (you know, fighting a larger war with a large, but still not unlimited pool of resources).

Mon Cala was unique partially because of it's location. It's on the outer edge of the outer rim, connected to the rest of the galaxy by not-well-known hyperroutes with names like "Overic Griplink" and "Giblim Route". It was a simple matter for the Mon Calamari to mine the approaches. Even then, a real, concentrated attack by the Empire would have dominated the Mon Calamari Defense Fleet; but, for reasons unknown, the attack never came.

Couple of possibilities;

Either the approach to their system was either heavily mined or thoroughly filled with disputed territory so it made it very tough to maintain an open route for the Empire to fortify and control.

The other possibility is that their shipyard was only openly revealed there as a diversion from the real shipyard meaning the Empire knew it was a bluff and were actively searching for the true Mon Cal Shipyard seeking to eliminate that before securing the system since they had little or no idea of its scale requiring resources of the scale of the Death Star used properly to thwart that tactic.

Had Tarkin gone after Mon Cal instead of targeting Alderaan it would have ended the Alliance's hopes of defeating the Empire both capital shipping and their morale since the Mon Cal wasn't viewed as pacifistic or unarmed causing a lot of unnecessary aggression against the Empire.

Can you think of other reasons?

Most Alliance worlds are only loosely held and are not meant to stop a determined Imperial attack. These worlds fall within the 90% of the galaxy that is not under direct Imperial control (this is from both the Edge and Age books), and their primary defense rests in not attracting attention. This means that these worlds typically have sparse industry and few high-tech resources, and too much development of either risks the attention that would render the world useless to the Alliance. Other defenses are typically aimed at delaying any Imperial attack, so things like mines (both in space and on the ground) and other area denial are going to be common, as are hidden assets and support for mobile elements (like starfighter wings). Simply put, Alliance worlds are far less likely to be glorious rocks of resistance and more likely to be dispersed grains of sand.

The Mon cal cruisers were openly developed as luxury liners, but designed so they could quickly converted into cruisers.

The weapons and fighters would have been built in secret, they would not require an orbital shipyard to make.

When the time came to publicly rebel the Mon cal fleet would have been assembled very quickly so the empire wouldn't have had a chance to strike first.

Being openly independent of the empire isn't the same as being at war with the empire, if the Mon cal fleet was attacking the empire then they would have been crushed. I think the empire was happy to leave them independent knowing that the death star was almost complete.

I just read through the entry on Wookiepedia. Does anyone know when the Mon Calamari forced the Empire to withdraw from their system? I found a couple interesting lines..

A few years before the Battle of Yavin the Alliance to Restore the Republic leader Mon Mothma negotiated a deal with the planet, gaining access to the famed shipyards. Yet, the Mon Calamari did not formally join the new Alliance. Fears over Quarren outrage over an alliance with Human resistance groups led the Calamarian Council to avoid becoming full members. However, many Mon Calamari ships and crews entered Alliance service. Warships from the Rebel Alliance Fleet were dispatched to protect the sector, while the famous Ackbar became an unofficial member of the Alliance High Command.

Following the major Alliance victory at Yavin, the Calamarian Council decided to become full-fledged members of the Alliance. The world became one of the few openly Alliance worlds in the Galaxy. Ackbar rose to the rank of admiral and became the Supreme Commander of the Alliance Fleet Command. The world's massive starliners and exploration craft were converted into warships. These Mon Calamari Star Cruisers became the backbone of the Rebel fleet. The devotion of the Mon Cals in particular to the cause of the Rebellion earned them the nickname "Soul of the Rebellion".

So they only joined the Rebellion after the first Death Star was destroyed, but how long were they independent before that?

Much like HappyDaze said, most "liberated" Alliance worlds do so by NOT drawing the Empire's attention to them.

For those few worlds that are within Imperial-controlled space, it's probably one of two scenarios. First one is that the Alliance keeps their "liberation" of the planet fairly quiet, and ensure that the Empire's higher-ups have no reason to take a closer look at the planet; as long as things seem to be running smoothly and the necessary export quotas and tax payments are being made, the sector Moff probably isn't going to be too worried.

The other is probably similar to Mon Cal/Dac, in that it would take a concentrated military effort since the world is so well defended. This same sort of thing showed up in the Legacy comics, where the Sith Empire knew that Emperor Fel's Empire-in-Exile was centered on Bastion, but Bastion was literally a fortress world to the point that taking it would leave the Sith Empire's forces severely depleted. The New Republic in the EU/Legends found itself facing a similar quandary in regards to the Imperial Remnant, which were a series of fortress worlds (centered on Bastion) that would require an extreme and expensive military effort to overtake; the New Republic decided that forging a peace treaty with the Imperial Remnant was the best solution (especially when the Grand Admiral and leader of the Imperial military was the one offering the treaty in the first place), thus finally ending the Galactic Civil War with no serious loss of life or resources on either side. For most sensible world/galactic leaders, a peaceful resolution is frequently the best one, but then the Empire's running pretty short on sensible leaders, given the top two are Sith Lords and the first Grand Moff (now deceased) was pretty much a warmonger that favored control of the masses thru fear.

The Mon Cal homeworld is probably also very well defended, and while the Empire could certainly retake it, it'd be a question of "is it worth the effort in regards to what it'd cost us in terms of resources?" True, the Empire does favor "quantity over quality" in many cases (TIE fighters, stormtroopers), but even then their battle plans likely only account for a certain threshold of "acceptable loses," and it's likely that military actions that grossly exceed that threshold aren't pursued or simply deemed a waste of operational resources. To say nothing of holding the planet once it's been conquered; unless the Empire's willing to glass the entire planet (which will certainly draw similar amounts of outrage as Alderaan's destruction), they've got to dedicate resources to ensuring the native populace don't just rise up again once the siege is done.

So to get back to the original point, the Alliance's main tactics are "don't let them knew we've got this planet on our side" and "make sure it's not worth the Empire's time and effort to take this planet back." Being what amounts to a large-scale guerrilla force, the former tactic is employed far more often since it's far more cost-effective on the resource-strapped Alliance.

The empire was constructing the death star, a weapon that would ensure that no one would ever dare to resist the empire again. Which would only work if the empire could show that it works and they had the will to use it against a populated planet.

The emperor was probably happy when Mon cal rebelled because it gave him a target to test the death star on. The empire might have deliberately left them alone.

Like others have said assembling a force to retake Dac swiftly and certainly would take a lot of forces that were needed elsewhere while launching a smaller attack and failing, or even getting bogged down in a long campaign would be a massive loss of face for the Empire which could encourage other worlds to rebel.

Like others have said assembling a force to retake Dac swiftly and certainly would take a lot of forces that were needed elsewhere while launching a smaller attack and failing, or even getting bogged down in a long campaign would be a massive loss of face for the Empire which could encourage other worlds to rebel.

Probably also a reason why the Rebel Alliance had so many active cells spread across the galaxy. It not only stirred greater unrest amidst the populace, but also kept Imperial forces busy so that they couldn't just pool together for one big offensive.

The Battle of Endor was a special case, as the Rebel Fleet had finally massed for a major offensive, and Palps was easily able to pull strings to get a sizable enough force to detain the Rebel Fleet and let the new Death Star do its thing. On paper, his plan should have worked like a charm. Main problem was that he got over-confident and overlooked a number of minor details that added up to a massive Imperial defeat.

Prior to Endor, the alliance did not liberate worlds, period. They established covert bases on out of the way planets and waged an intelligence war against the empire. The places you would find larger alliance outposts were places with no civilisation intact. Yavin, Hoth, the main fleet congregating well outside the actual galaxy itself, as we see in the end of ESB? That's the alliance MO. The empire has almost total control over its territory and there are no "independant" planets outside a very few exceptions, the depiction of which is grossly inconsistent throughout the EU. One of these is Mon Calamari. In some sources, it states the Mon Cals are waging their own war against the Empire, in others, the Mon Cals were enslaved until shortly before Endor. Personally, I find the latter more likely, given we see absolutely zero planets under full alliance control in any of the movies. Imperial strike groups take very little time to cross territory and holding it against a military that churns out star destroyers on a per day rate and has a virtually endless supply of troops is implausable. We even see the alliance on the run every single time the imperials actually find them. The only place they are safe to actually gather in force is well outside the galaxy, where they're impossible to find.

When Imperials speak of "rebel" worlds, they mean planets hiding a substantial enough amount of rebel operatives and equipment, of which the planet's population and government itself may not even be aware. Neither Alderaan nor Dantooine were formally members of the alliance. The existence of an internal threat like that is an imperial fiction to justify the use of excessive force right down to destroying planets and crack down hard on dissidents. It also keeps people off balance and afraid, to the point they'll agree to anything to make the terrorist threat go away.

Currently I don't think that the Mon Calamari, and Dac, were ever subjugated by the empire. perhaps we will see soon how the Mon Calamari join the rebellion, but in the new canon, Admiral Ackbar is right there just after Yavin.

Perhaps after the invasion of Dac during the clone wars, they l started producing a blockade fleet, and the empire didn't want to deal with them yet. Perhaps they were loyal imperials until the destruction of alderaan?

What we see in the beginning of A New Hope, curiously enough, is the only 'legal' security force that isn't stormtroopers, and they're promptly gunned down. Everything else is stormtroopers, or immediately replaced by stormtroopers (see Cloud City) once the Empire learns of its existence. From this, I conclude the empire systematically decomissioned security forces and replaced them with its own indoctrinated legions. As we see, the dissolution of the Senate is met by no notable resistence, and right up until Endor, the Rebel Alliance's strongholds cannot even hold out against a fairly small Imperial battlegroup. Moving on with this, it is likely the Mon Calamari were ordered to decommission their military, and did so officially, only to store it at a safe location until it could be properly utilised. Mon Calamari alone, or even with the full support of the much weaker Rebel Alliance, could not realistically hold against the Empire. So, they hid their ships off the radar (and the galactic disc), until they could be properly used to take out Palpatine himself, while individual operatives proceeded to aid the alliance directly (Ackbar included). This kind of plausible deniability would keep the Mon Calamari homeworld safe and free of civil war, while isolated "terrorists" aid the Rebels, and the Quarrans ramain happy because the Mon Cals aren't getting them all bombed to death.

Well we see a Mon Calamari helping the rebels with the B-Wing Project in the Rebels season 2 trailer. And Mon Calamari was an Imperial world in Tarkin. IIRC some of the early components for the Death Star were manufactured there.

However we have no idea how many independent planets there are. In the OT we see exactly 6 planets. Two Rebel HQs (Yavin IV and Hoth), two Imperial worlds (Alderaan and Tatooine) one secret Imperial outpost (Endor), and one Independent world which is invaded by the Empire during the OT. (Bespin) Also early in ESB Ozzel mentions that there are many uncharted settlements, which are unknown to the Empire and thus independent by default. And the Alliance in Canon is much larger then most people give it credit for. An excerpt from an upcoming canon novel refers to the rebellion launching an operation in the aftermath of Yavin involving thousands of starships and hundreds of battle groups.

Got a link to that excerpt, per chance?

I'm afraid not. The only place I've seen it so far is in the back of the paperback release of Tarkin. Sorry.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they gave an official cannon timeline of events for us to work with in the era where all the current RPG's are focused...

I would have little use for such a timeline and I'd be afraid that too many products would be straight jacketed if such a work were made.

It didn't work that well for White Wolf in the old World of Darkness, and I doubt it would be any better for FFG.

-EF

I'm afraid not. The only place I've seen it so far is in the back of the paperback release of Tarkin. Sorry.

Alrighty, no probs. Means I'll have to wait considerable time before being able to discuss it, mind! The books aren't out here, yet.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they gave an official cannon timeline of events for us to work with in the era where all the current RPG's are focused...

Wouldn't it be awesome if that already existed?

http://www.starwarstimeline.net/History.htm

I was wrong about there being Death Star Components manufactured at Mon Calamari but there were components of Tarkin's personal corvette manufactured there.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they gave an official cannon timeline of events for us to work with in the era where all the current RPG's are focused...

Wouldn't it be awesome if that already existed?

http://www.starwarstimeline.net/History.htm

That's not exactly what I had in mind when I said "official cannon," but I do find those timelines interesting.

So I think this is a great question, and a difficult one to answer. As a former military guy who saw how stuff like this sort of worked in the real world, let me try and offer some perspective.

1.) The Emperor still had to deal with the senate until he dissolved it around the Battle of Yavin. The news is a surprise to Tarkin's Death Star council, so it either had just happened, or was about to happen. That means he only had 4 years between ANH and ROTJ where he could just order a planet with the notoriety of Dac to just be invaded and taken over without repercussions and a big fuss being raised by the senate. This may have slowed his hand on moving a large scale invasion fleet.

2.) Even if he wasn't concerned about the senate, he had to be concerned about the populace. If he moved to soon or too harshly at the wrong time, he might incite more uprisings. I think the Emperor's plan was to unleash the Death Star so as to cull any thought of resistance, and then send that bad boy straight to Dac and give them 24 hours to surrender their rebels or face planetary annihilation. This can explain why he didn't bother to move against them before Yavin.

3.) When you are talking about organizing the resources needed to invade a system like Mon Cala, where there are shipyards, staunch defenses, potential mines, and the rest, it takes time and resources. Months of planning might be required to organize the logistics alone for the fleet size determined necessary. Then you have to make sure that what ships you spare for the attack aren't crucial to the defense of other areas. Otherwise, sure, you take Dac, but the Rebel Fleet isn't nearby, because they're too busy taking Coruscant, or Denon, or some other important world. The Empire trading planets with the Rebels is a bigger black eye than just ignoring them for the time being. The Empire might have been waiting for evidence of Alliance High Command, or the bulk of the Rebel Fleet to be at Dac so it can crush the entire Rebellion with "one swift stroke".

4.) It is hard for the Mon Calamair and Quarren to keep the peace between each other, as seen in the Clone Wars cartoon and other spots of the EU. The two might have been more galvanized at times, and the Emperor could have been waiting for intelligence to indicate they were fractured, making an attack easier.

5.) I do believe there were invasion attempts, they were just rebuffed because the Empire didn't send enough ships. You can also argue these were merely probing attacks by the Empire to accurately gauge Dac's defenses.

So basically, there are a lot of reason the Empire might not have attacked Dac, or any other planet. There's also a philosophy of, if you know where your enemy is, you can collect intelligence on them, and prepare an attack. Once you attack and scatter them, you don't know where they are, and have to start all over to locate them. This suggests it is better to wait to launch an attack until you know the attack can finish the opponent. They might have even considered it too small a fish (puns!) to bother with, and just hope intelligence missions could lead them to the real Rebel Base or Rebel Fleet.

An upcoming book, Strongholds of Resistance, is about Rebel allied worlds. I imagine there might be some information in there about what those planets do to address this problem. You'll have to pick it up and check it out!

Of course, how accurate strongholds of resistance turns out to be is circumspect, at least in terms of the canon.

I imagine that the entirety of Dac is loyal to the empire, and there is only a Mon Calamari rebel cell. The Alliance is made up of different cells, and I imagine that they operate mostly independently, but share Intel and some resources. The leadership is really just coordinating the cells.

Perhaps Admiral Ackbar is the leader of the Mon Calamari cell, the king of Dac could be afraid to openly defy the emperor, but gives the admiral the occasional ship to build the fleet.

Given the fleet size we see in RotJ on the imperial side, especially in relation to the Alliance battlegroup, I somehow doubt lack of resources was a reason to spare Dac, especially if they were openly rebellious. Dito on minefields; they're something you can simply toss droids at to disarm them, be it by triggering or destroying the mines if they're keyed only to capital ships. The only reason the Empire would ignore these worlds after dissolving the senate I can see is not due to military inefficiency, but because the Imperial High Command, after all those Admirals died, is Darth Vader and his priorities are not military. He wants to find Luke Skywalker and stage a coup. He is, at that point, actively, if covertly, working against the Emperor. Dac, as a place Skywalker could run to if herded enough, may have simply been left alone because Vader was leaving it, and similar worlds, as "havens" to finally trap his primary objective.

At least that's my take on it, and it fits Vader's frightening megalomania to use an entire galaxy's military and the rebellion to fulfill his goals, because to him, these worldly matters are secondary concerns, if at all. He wants his family back together, and he wants to be in charge, and as long as the Rebellion is alive to keep the Emperor thoroughly distracted he has the justification to operate with impunity.