I need some clarification on the requirements for Imperial Victory. The rulebook says that the Imperial player needs to capture the rebel system, i.e. "if there are Imperial units in the Rebel base’s system and there are no Rebel units in the system."

My confusion comes from the situation when the imperial player has control of the ground but not space in the rebel system. For example, I manage to reveal the rebel system, destroy all the ground units, and still have living ground units in the system, but my opponent has a single ship (in my situation, a harmless transport). Would I win, in this case? Or do I need to destroy every ship in the system as well? The rules seem to imply that a living ship would keep the imperial player from winning, but articles about this game and everyone talking about it seem to imply that I only need to capture the ground half of the system. Anyone know for sure? Anything hidden in the rules somewhere that clarifies this? Or is it exactly as it says in the rulebook, i.e. I need to destroy both the ground AND space theater.

Having just reviewed the rules myself it appears you need to destroy all ground and space units. RAW a system includes the planet artwork and "space" area around the planet. Imperials win if the rebel base is revealed AND there are no rebel units in the system.

The rule book requires "The Imperial player wins the game immediately if there are Imperial units in the Rebel base’s system and there are no Rebel units in the system." So yes you need to wipe out both ground and space and have one of your units in either ground or space.

The confusion is that one of the preview article stated, "This means that the Imperials need to destroy all the Rebel Alliance's ground units at the Rebel base, and that means they need to win one ultimate, decisive ground battle." But thats not in the rules, just a preview article and is where all the confusion comes from.