........

I suppose you have an exact listing of Mon Calamari's defenses? Because without knowing the strength of the Mon Calamari defense forces we can't make an educated guess what it would take to overwhelm those defenses or what kind of causalities the attacking force would take.

And while the Empire definitely could overwhelm the Mon Calamari defenses it would need to divert enough ships to do so that Imperial High Command didn't consider worth the effort and resources that would need to be expended. Death Squadron could do it but Vader had no interest in doing so and Palpatine didn't care enough t step in and order Vader to do the job.

I suppose You don't have exact listing of Empire available forces too. All we have are estimations.

We can safely assume, that 1 planet cannot hold against the might of the Empire.

We can assume the Empire Command don't mind to fight MC cruiser from time to time. After all, every dictator needs enemy to keep his people focused on that enemy instead of internal problems.

We can also assume that hevily fortified position is always hard to break unless You commit overhelming force to do it. What does "overhelming force" means in this example, we can only speculate, but considering this particular planet have one of the biggest shipyard in galaxy, they have the means to have one of the strongest defense in the galaxy too.

We can speculate a lot, but they might have a lot of tech that have not been shown anywhere before or just a big shield that can stop imperials from landing at all.

This would force the Empire to sige the distant outer rim planet with some very significant force (to keep this force safe against rebel counterattack). And this means less forces elsewhere, logistics issues and so on.

Exactly. The Empire could overwhelm Mon Calamari but it apparently doesn't feel that doing show would be worth the effort it would take to pull a fleet together, pulling ships off other duties in the process, and supply it

While I'm not extremely well-versed in the Extended Universe stuff, my general understanding is something like this -

The Empire "owns" territory like the Old Republic did; planets owe the Empire their allegiance, pay it taxes, and agree to certain uniform laws and trade agreements. In return they presumably could call on the Imperial Navy for defense if necessary. The presence of a senate indicates that they still had elected leaders initially, only completely replaced by Moffs during A New Hope. So they still had some form of representative leadership during the early years of the Empire, even if it was just a figurehead. There were sector fleets for defense and intimidation, but most planets wasn't subjugated.

So long as these systems weren't giving active and visible support to the Rebellion, or shirking their duties (Corellia, despite its independent nature, was still abiding by Imperial law during this time, even if some of its bigger companies were secretly aiding the Rebels), the Empire didn't care much. Mon Cal was probably the same way; many people might not have liked the Empire, but presumably they were still doing their duty as citizens, paying taxes, rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's.

By the time that they were actively rebelling, the Emperor already had his ambush at Endor planned. Why waste time taking attacking a single rogue planet when you can crush the entire Rebellion instead?

So I think that prior to Endor, most "liberated" planets were still loyal citizens. Maybe Rebel operatives had good smuggling routes off-planet, and maybe some of the companies on that planet had a few more things fall off the back of the space trucks than usual, but I don't think that complete, black-and-white liberations happened until after Endor. If anything, operatives helped Rebel sympathizers to escape the planet, or set up means and methods for them to funnel supplies to the Rebellion, but the planet as a whole almost always remained "loyal" to the Emperor - and if some of its citizens were caught red-handed, then they were promptly dealt with, and the Empire started keeping a more active garrison around the planet.

In the EU/Legends the Mon Calamari revolted before A New Hope but didn't declare their allegiance to the rebellion until almost a year after A New Hope.Between the revolt and the declaration they were officially neutral even though they were secretly giving some ships to the rebels (Probably by allowing rebels to steal them. At least in the early days.purchasing ships through front companies or stealing them from Alliance friendly worlds were listed as ways the Alliance obtained ships)

I think another big reason why the Empire never got around invading Dac is because of its military culture. The only fleet storng enough to single-handely breach Dac's defenses and have a convincing victory is Vader's personal fleet.

Any other fleet action would require a joint strike combining elements of multiple fleet elements. And there happens the politicking, which delayed the invasion phases.

The Empire most likely decided to institute a blockade of Dac. Since its an isolated system, its probably easy to seiEze its.hyperspace lane and thus denying further reinforcement from Dac.

There is probably.a few stories to do for players to try to create an opening in the blockade to allow a half-dozen MonCal cruiser through...

However, the Civilian MonCal fleet was probably extremely vast and spread across the galaxy; thus unaffected by the blockade.

In Legends the Mon Cal didn't just liberate Dac they liberated the space that was considered theirs before the Imperial invasion. They also heavily mined the known routes into their space, leaving the routes known only to them open, declared themselves neutral until a little over a year after Yavin, and actually established a second MC80 capable shipbuilding center in an uninhabited system within their space which the Empire didn't find out about until shortly after Endor.

Though the defense fleet they gathered after liberation was strong enough to stand up to anything short of Vader's fleet, which had other issues to deal with rather then hitting Dac, what makes you think they had a strong military culture before the imperial invasion? most sources say they were mostly peaceful before the Empire enslaved them.

The Empire's military culture, i meant. Not the MonCal's.

The Empire's military is pretty decentralized, and its operation is very similar to Napoleonic regimental politics. Its a politics tools used by the Empire's leaders to control their power base, act as glory-gatherer. No commander would volunteer its forces as the frontline assault group of what would essentially be a costly campaign.

So the Empire's culture is what holds it back. Only someone without the need to keep itself above its peers politically (like Vader) would be able to create an assault force strong enough to overwhelm Dac's defenses.

The Empire's military culture, i meant. Not the MonCal's.

The Empire's military is pretty decentralized, and its operation is very similar to Napoleonic regimental politics. Its a politics tools used by the Empire's leaders to control their power base, act as glory-gatherer. No commander would volunteer its forces as the frontline assault group of what would essentially be a costly campaign.

So the Empire's culture is what holds it back. Only someone without the need to keep itself above its peers politically (like Vader) would be able to create an assault force strong enough to overwhelm Dac's defenses.

Amazing comment. I was thinking Napoleonics the entire time I read this thread and then got to this.

I would also point out that Dac is fairly isolated, perhaps it was a cost/benefit analysis of "let the rebels have their world, we know where it is and can get it when we want" and then just an operation to contain and counter Alliance operations in other sectors.

I think folks are missing what keeps a government going and the citizens from revolting. A government is at heart a service oriented business. Services are provided such as education, military protection, police protection, a justice system, in some cases health care, elderly care and higher education. These services are paid for by taxes, levies, fees, import and export tariffs. Some governments own property and even industrial facilities others contract with civilian property owners and industrial businesses to get the gehaws and thingamadingles they need. Governments continue to hold power because the majority of the citizens believe in that governments right to rule. When those who think the government is in the wrong the majority of the time are a minority the dissatisfied are the criminals. Right thinking citizens report their activities to the government and rejoice in their arrest and failure. Think Timothy McVeigh. Serving time in a federal prison for attacking a government he thought was in the wrong at Waco Texas. (If you are under 30 look it up on Wikipedia) Now, as a government looses credibility because of scandals, lies or criminal activity being shown the light of day by reputable press sources the public support may start to wane. Lie about enemy activities to get involved in a war, get caught in a spice for arms deal or just get caught with a Tief'ling slave girl when you are a married Goff. Also failures to provide basic services can erode the public support in a government. Fail to stop piracy in a region of space, sit still for seven minutes on camera after the destruction of Aldearon by rebel scum or fail to provide health coverage for a significant portion of your population. Being seen as incompetent in the face of a challenge may be enough, simply allowing the media to show images of stormtroopers bodies being shipped home could decrease support.

Now obviously the Empire isn't the only "legitimate" government, there are planetary governments that can screw up and, often unfairly, the blame winds up at the foot of the Emperor. So the incompetence of the local Goff or puppet governor may rub off on the Emperor eroding the public support of the Empire. When enough of the people in the galaxy stop supporting the Empire the planetary politicians know which way the wind blows and they will start angling for independence, as long as enough of their neighboring planets agree of course. At that point the military power of the Empire is irrelevant. Taking on a whole set of neighboring systems, who most likely nationalized the Empires assets including any ships in orbit, isn't a good plan.

So in the end it wont be X wings that take the day, it will be the rabble rousers making the Empire look like boobs to the people.

Totally agree...afterall, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Think Timothy McVeigh. Serving time in a federal prison for attacking a government he thought was in the wrong at Waco Texas. (If you are under 30 look it up on Wikipedia)

Minor point of information. McVeigh was executed in 2001, 6 years after conviction.

I've seen this question discussed in other SW forums, despite the effort it doesn't seem anybody can come up with a great answer. It'd be a PR disaster, or the Empire was busy, or Darth Vader had the sun in his eyes, they're all nice fanfic stretches, but they're all really weak justifications. I've also seen some where they talk about EU sources making it seem like planetary defenses are incredibly strong, though that's not exactly what it looks like in the movies. I mean, it's not an unreasonable idea that you could outfit your planet with ground to space weaponry and satellites aplenty which could smash any regular sized fleet, but they didn't ever do that on screen. Really it just seems that the rules bend to favor the storytelling; when you need to present tension and drama the Rebellion is small and on the run, and when you need to justify how they are able to do all this stuff it's because the Rebellion is formidable and dangerous. They can't really be both, but the fictional picture has already been painted.

Well the WEG Rebel Sourcebook does say that the Mon Cal defense fleet is strong enough to hold against any standard Imperial fleet which means they would have to organize something special like Death Squadron for the attack. I could also easily see Palpatine forbidding any attack on Mon Calamari so he can use the Death Star II on it.

And the rebel fleet was strong enough to exploit any gaps the Empire would leave by pulling together a major attack force to deal with Mon Calamari. In Legends the rebellion had 17.5 percent of the Imperial Starfleet's strength and the Empire had far more worlds and bases that it needed to defend. In an excerpt from one of the canon novels there is a reference to a rebel campaign in the aftermath of Yavin involving thousands of rebel starships. In either example the Rebel fleet is clearly much stronger then ROTJ the movie implies. The novelization made it very clear that the Rebel fleet was much more then we saw on screen in the movie as well for that matter. .