17 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

1 Repulsorlifts derive their power from the gravity well they are in. That's why land speeders function the same on every planet regardless of the gravity of each planet.

2 As long as the Repulsorlifts are active, no other power is needed to keep it "hovering".

3 Mass, that is still several hundred pounds of weight, but I have seen evidence that going from park to moving on a speeder is at least a 2 step process. The first is probably releasing the gravity brake, that holds its position in the gravity well.

This appears to make the most sense. Essentially, the speeder is in geostatic orbit, quite a low orbit, but something is keeping it fixed to a location. A gravity brake, or some other mechanism, would prevent the ground from moving beneath it as the planet rotates if it were not fixed to the ground beneath it.

22 minutes ago, Thrindal said:

Phew, I thought you were going to make a reference to Midichlorians. The second worse thing about the Phantom Menace in many folks eyes. It's close but I'd say they were the worst thing about TPM.

Ok, for the record, I try very hard never to use that word.

32 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Ok, for the record, I try very hard never to use that word.

Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together. Obi-Wan Kenobi

For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. - Yoda

Lucas was so lazy...

12 minutes ago, Thrindal said:

Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together. Obi-Wan Kenobi

For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. - Yoda

Lucas was so lazy...

I do agree. From such profound sounding lines like the above, to microbes in the blood. It's just so sad, that move alone took much of the wonder out of the whole thing. Alot of the stuff in star wars was already basically magic, and we accepted it. I don't know why he decided to shakily attempt to rationalize that aspect., Really removed that kind of 'everything and everyone is connected' aspect of the force. Thus taking away the thought that all in the universe (SW) could by training become more attuned to it, and turning it into that there must be some kind of chosen thing. I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

On 9/12/2017 at 0:16 PM, ripper998 said:

Good god, lighten up folks. He is making a movie to sell tickets, not appeal to star wars diehards. I for one think is a decent director that provides alot of action. I like TFA, I thought it was well done, but that's just my opinion.

Who says you can't do both?

12 minutes ago, Warlord Zepnick said:

Who says you can't do both?

Star Wars Diehards.

I completely agree with Mark Hamill's take on what the final script should have read like.

Leia should have gone herself to starkiller base (an unoriginal copycat of the death star, only bigger) in order to rescue the gang. Given that Leia is force sensitive, she inevitably would have gotten into trouble at the base and then contacted Luke using the force. Luke would have arrived at starkiller base and saved the gang using his sweet Jedi skills.

Now, we have Luke, Leia, Chewie, and Han all together. Some of the best scenes in the original trilogy were when all of the characters were together on the Death Star.

To make things even worse/more emotionally gripping, you have Luke and Leia witnessing the death of Han Solo!

Instead, we have these new characters, who the audience has know for five minutes, witnessing the death of one of the biggest characters in the universe.

This was a huge missed opportunity which would have redeemed what was already an unoriginal, cut and paste, re skinned version of A New Hope. I could feel corporate's presence during my first viewing of the movie in the theater.

I don't know how much involvement JJ had with the script for TFA, but I imagine he sad very little say. In fact, he says in the Rolling Stones article released shortly before the movie that he was working with a vastly different script, and that Luke had more of a role than he did in the final version.

I am extremely pessimistic about the franchise moving forward, especially with Disney at the helm. I really do think TFA was hot garbage.

23 minutes ago, Warlord Zepnick said:

I could feel corporate's presence during my first viewing of the movie in the theater.

It's palpable. For all his flaws, Lucas is truly an artist. But now the corporate boardroom is in charge.

What the Force Awakens did wrong was Starkiller Base, everything else was absolutely fine for a first movie. I mean i've read so many complaints about underdeveloped characters and plot points and i'm sitting here thinking that people don't understand this is a trilogy of films? The movie is a setup, give the other two a chance to finish the story.

The Last Jedi will determine what Episode IX is going to be regardless of whose writing it. Hopefully TLJ shakes things up so much a rehash of Return isnt even feasible and I feel TLJ will do just that. I also think TFA's quality will be determined by the other two films in the trilogy, on its own its a bit shaky but it could be a really strong foundation.

Lets look at Disney and Lucasfilm's record so far:

• Star Wars Rebels - Mostly Meh but many awesome additions to canon.
• The Force Awakens - Mediocre but not awful (No its not trash, taste is subjective but quality of film making is relatively objective and this is far from trash)
• Rogue One - Absolutely fantastic.
• New EU and Books - While many of the individual components are somewhat mediocre imo the overall story being woven is far stronger then the old Legends EU.

Thats not bad, thats not bad at all.

21 minutes ago, Forresto said:

What the Force Awakens did wrong was Starkiller Base

I really have a tough time with this line, even if it's likely true.

I mean, there were mentions of why it was bad in terms of lore, hyperspace lasers, being able to see planets in a system billions of miles away explode as it's happening... and so on, which all make sense, but the complaints I don't get are the ones centered around it being "another" death star or a "bigger better" death star, like that isn't a perfectly plausible or even likely outcome from an Imperial remnant.

You're the Empire. Your star fleet is mostly scattered or destroyed. You have limited funds, are out numbered, out gunned, and have been pushed to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

How do you proceed?

-You don't have the money to rebuild a star fleet powerful enough to challenge the republic directly.
-You don't have enough ships to retake or hold vital ship yards.
-You don't have an abundance of highly skilled troops or pilots to draw out republic forces and win small skirmishes.
-You don't have developed supply lines


What do you have?

-Time
-Imperial engineering
-(limited) outside funding (snoke?)
-A planetside base hidden in the unknown regions
-The element of surprise

So what can you do?

A.) Well, you can spend your years building up a fleet that might be able to challenge the republic ship to ship, but likely be unable to both staff and maintain an entire fleet for the type a of prolonged fight a civil war would require.

B.) Invest in training and small groups of highly specialized guerrilla fighters to try to drain republic resources but never truly regain power because of the imbalance of resources.

C.) Use the limited supplies and resources you can gather to convert your hidden base into a weapon of mass destruction. Using the remainder of your resources to slowly grow and specialize troops and ships to prepare for an attack that would instantly destabilize your enemy, scatter their forces, eliminate their power structure, interrupt their supply chains, and demoralize their troops.

I'm sorry, but Starkiller makes sense to me.

A massive show of force was about their only option, and to be fair, it worked.

Even with Star killer gone, with the actual republic vaporized, as well as most of their fleet (according to Hux anyways), the First Order can hold vital areas with the limited fleet they have. Especially considering they built those dreadnoughts. Designed, not to be a fleet combatant, but to hold worlds hostage with massive twin orbital canons. Meanwhile they keep their main forces moving alongside the Mega-destroyer.... deploying as necessary to regain power and build their forces further.



Sure in terms of imagery, maybe a little too reminiscent of the original, but in terms of story telling, they're definitely not retelling the same story.


Lol sorry if this came out as a rant, really just some free floating thoughts I had about starkiller and the common complaints against it.

2 hours ago, Noosh said:

I do agree. From such profound sounding lines like the above, to microbes in the blood. It's just so sad, that move alone took much of the wonder out of the whole thing. Alot of the stuff in star wars was already basically magic, and we accepted it. I don't know why he decided to shakily attempt to rationalize that aspect., Really removed that kind of 'everything and everyone is connected' aspect of the force. Thus taking away the thought that all in the universe (SW) could by training become more attuned to it, and turning it into that there must be some kind of chosen thing. I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

You are.

Quote

Anakin: What are midi-chlorians?
Qui-Gon Jinn: Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells.

Nothing in TPM invalidates anything in the OT. The Force is an energy field that connects all living things yes because all living things have midichlorians (in the Star Wars galaxy).

It's true that it means some can become more powerful in the Force more easily than others - but everyone is still connected, everyone can still sense the Force whether you are a Guardian of an abandoned Jedi temple or a freighter pilot trying to eek out a living smuggling.

6 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I really have a tough time with this line, even if it's likely true.

I mean, there were mentions of why it was bad in terms of lore, hyperspace lasers, being able to see planets in a system billions of miles away explode as it's happening... and so on, which all make sense, but the complaints I don't get are the ones centered around it being "another" death star or a "bigger better" death star, like that isn't a perfectly plausible or even likely outcome from an Imperial remnant.

You're the Empire. Your star fleet is mostly scattered or destroyed. You have limited funds, are out numbered, out gunned, and have been pushed to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

How do you proceed?

-You don't have the money to rebuild a star fleet powerful enough to challenge the republic directly.
-You don't have enough ships to retake or hold vital ship yards.
-You don't have an abundance of highly skilled troops or pilots to draw out republic forces and win small skirmishes.
-You don't have developed supply lines


What do you have?

-Time
-Imperial engineering
-(limited) outside funding (snoke?)
-A planetside base hidden in the unknown regions
-The element of surprise

So what can you do?

A.) Well, you can spend your years building up a fleet that might be able to challenge the republic ship to ship, but likely be unable to both staff and maintain an entire fleet for the type a of prolonged fight a civil war would require.

B.) Invest in training and small groups of highly specialized guerrilla fighters to try to drain republic resources but never truly regain power because of the imbalance of resources.

C.) Use the limited supplies and resources you can gather to convert your hidden base into a weapon of mass destruction. Using the remainder of your resources to slowly grow and specialize troops and ships to prepare for an attack that would instantly destabilize your enemy, scatter their forces, eliminate their power structure, interrupt their supply chains, and demoralize their troops.

I'm sorry, but Starkiller makes sense to me.

A massive show of force was about their only option, and to be fair, it worked.

Even with Star killer gone, with the actual republic vaporized, as well as most of their fleet (according to Hux anyways), the First Order can hold vital areas with the limited fleet they have. Especially considering they built those dreadnoughts. Designed, not to be a fleet combatant, but to hold worlds hostage with massive twin orbital canons. Meanwhile they keep their main forces moving alongside the Mega-destroyer.... deploying as necessary to regain power and build their forces further.



Sure in terms of imagery, maybe a little too reminiscent of the original, but in terms of story telling, they're definitely not retelling the same story.


Lol sorry if this came out as a rant, really just some free floating thoughts I had about starkiller and the common complaints against it.

I like your logic. I think my main reason that I am one of the ones that are being ranted against, is that while the core concept of terror weapons working. They don't work forever. My point is this if you start a war you had better be able to finish it.

My thought process is this IF you had the time, resources, and capabilities to keep a planet sized weapon secret (enough). Why not rebuild infrastructure, rebuild forces so you can win a prolonged conflict, and THEN get to work on your terror weapons. Terror weapons historically function better when you are also conventionally strong.

BUT, I think you make a compelling argument. I like it. I would like to hear more.

1 minute ago, Noosh said:

I like your logic. I think my main reason that I am one of the ones that are being ranted against, is that while the core concept of terror weapons working. They don't work forever. My point is this if you start a war you had better be able to finish it.

My thought process is this IF you had the time, resources, and capabilities to keep a planet sized weapon secret (enough). Why not rebuild infrastructure, rebuild forces so you can win a prolonged conflict, and THEN get to work on your terror weapons. Terror weapons historically function better when you are also conventionally strong.

BUT, I think you make a compelling argument. I like it. I would like to hear more.

I don't think Starkiller was designed to be fired more than twice. I think the First Order had planned on hitting the Republic, then hitting the resistance and gliding in unopposed as a best case. Worst case, they'd at least take out the resistance's source of resources and the republic's main military. From there it's a planet grab. Take the ship yards, mining planets, find crewers, kidnap more storm troopers, in 5-10 years time the FO could easily reign in the core regions and develop a centralized command structure as powerful or more power than the Empire.

I also don't think Starkiller cost as much as a death star either. They were retrofitting a planetoid (celestial drawf by our standards? It's 1/4 the size of pluto). No life support systems, gravity systems, blah blah... they basically just dug a really big hole and installed a really big gun. That's how they could afford to upgrade weapons and ships. Their fleet is probably still relatively small, but use unconventional tactics to maintain power (IE the dreadnoughts... Go ahead, attack it... they'll kill billions on the surface before you can sink it). While using that power they can build up a real war fleet.

41 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I really have a tough time with this line, even if it's likely true.

I mean, there were mentions of why it was bad in terms of lore, hyperspace lasers, being able to see planets in a system billions of miles away explode as it's happening... and so on, which all make sense, but the complaints I don't get are the ones centered around it being "another" death star or a "bigger better" death star, like that isn't a perfectly plausible or even likely outcome from an Imperial remnant.

You're the Empire. Your star fleet is mostly scattered or destroyed. You have limited funds, are out numbered, out gunned, and have been pushed to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

How do you proceed?

-You don't have the money to rebuild a star fleet powerful enough to challenge the republic directly.
-You don't have enough ships to retake or hold vital ship yards.
-You don't have an abundance of highly skilled troops or pilots to draw out republic forces and win small skirmishes.
-You don't have developed supply lines


What do you have?

-Time
-Imperial engineering
-(limited) outside funding (snoke?)
-A planetside base hidden in the unknown regions
-The element of surprise

So what can you do?

A.) Well, you can spend your years building up a fleet that might be able to challenge the republic ship to ship, but likely be unable to both staff and maintain an entire fleet for the type a of prolonged fight a civil war would require.

B.) Invest in training and small groups of highly specialized guerrilla fighters to try to drain republic resources but never truly regain power because of the imbalance of resources.

C.) Use the limited supplies and resources you can gather to convert your hidden base into a weapon of mass destruction. Using the remainder of your resources to slowly grow and specialize troops and ships to prepare for an attack that would instantly destabilize your enemy, scatter their forces, eliminate their power structure, interrupt their supply chains, and demoralize their troops.
I'm sorry, but Starkiller makes sense to me.
A massive show of force was about their only option, and to be fair, it worked.
Even with Star killer gone, with the actual republic vaporized, as well as most of their fleet (according to Hux anyways), the First Order can hold vital areas with the limited fleet they have. Especially considering they built those dreadnoughts. Designed, not to be a fleet combatant, but to hold worlds hostage with massive twin orbital canons. Meanwhile they keep their main forces moving alongside the Mega-destroyer.... deploying as necessary to regain power and build their forces further.
Sure in terms of imagery, maybe a little too reminiscent of the original, but in terms of story telling, they're definitely not retelling the same story.
Lol sorry if this came out as a rant, really just some free floating thoughts I had about starkiller and the common complaints against it.

Disclaimer, I have not read very much at all of the new fiction, so this is hearsay/wikisay. But, as I understand it, after the Battle of Jakku a ceasefire was signed between the New Republic and the Empire. Among other stipulations were wholesale disarmament on both sides. The Republic fleet chose to stay with the capital world (I don't remember if this was rotating or not), and it's left somewhat unclear where the Imperial fleet is. Given these facts, I am totally going to build a fleet to challenge the Republic ship to ship. I clearly have a technological edge (confirmed in the fluff for the merchandising everywhere the writers can fit it), so even matching the Republic fleet could be enough if my opening strikes arrive with sufficient force and speed. I can't imagine either side accepted decommissioning as the same as disarming (definitely not the same IRL), so however powerful the Starhawk whatchamacallits are, the Republic can't have more than a handful available, and for a crash construction program will need additional time to retool civilian shipyards to build warships.

4 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I don't think Starkiller was designed to be fired more than twice. I think the First Order had planned on hitting the Republic, then hitting the resistance and gliding in unopposed as a best case. Worst case, they'd at least take out the resistance's source of resources and the republic's main military. From there it's a planet grab. Take the ship yards, mining planets, find crewers, kidnap more storm troopers, in 5-10 years time the FO could easily reign in the core regions and develop a centralized command structure as powerful or more power than the Empire.

I also don't think Starkiller cost as much as a death star either. They were retrofitting a planetoid (celestial drawf by our standards? It's 1/4 the size of pluto). No life support systems, gravity systems, blah blah... they basically just dug a really big hole and installed a really big gun. That's how they could afford to upgrade weapons and ships. Their fleet is probably still relatively small, but use unconventional tactics to maintain power (IE the dreadnoughts... Go ahead, attack it... they'll kill billions on the surface before you can sink it). While using that power they can build up a real war fleet.

I definitely accept that first point. It's not a plan I would use willingly, but it's a reasonable(ish) plan. Regarding the second, IIRC from the film, Starkiller Base stored its energy inside where the planetoid's core used to be, so I'm not sure it's any less expensive than a Death Star. Definitely still an engineering project of a titanic, almost unimaginable scale.

Finally, those hyperspace lasers are definitely acceptable as an (almost) unforgivable sin. What is this, Spaceballs?

oh no.

I know many people disagree here, but TFA was such garbage imho that not only once I was like "oh pls dont" in the cinema.

I have not much hope, and the little that is left is that they force his hand by a good script of TLJ. Then again, I have no hope for TLJ, anyway. May the Force prove me wrong.

6 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

I am totally going to build a fleet to challenge the Republic ship to ship. I clearly have a technological edge (confirmed in the fluff for the merchandising everywhere the writers can fit it), so even matching the Republic fleet could be enough if my opening strikes arrive with sufficient force and speed

"Didn't the empire have 25,000 something Imperial class star destroyers and still lost?" -First Order Planning Engineer

lol

Jokes aside, the empire had a massive fleet and the technological advantage over the rebellion, that's why I think they chose the path they did. I just don't think fleet to fleet would be a long term win from their view. Not without hitting the republic REALLY hard first....

In a way I think the Empire learned from it's mistakes that way.

-Giant superweapon is not the end-all only the catalyst
-We lose in conventional warfare so use unconventional tactics
-target the republic/resistance's weaknesses, (are they willing to sacrifice billions of innocents to retake a single world?).

2 hours ago, Forresto said:

What the Force Awakens did wrong was Starkiller Base, everything else was absolutely fine for a first movie. I mean i've read so many complaints about underdeveloped characters and plot points and i'm sitting here thinking that people don't understand this is a trilogy of films? The movie is a setup, give the other two a chance to finish the story.

The Last Jedi will determine what Episode IX is going to be regardless of whose writing it. Hopefully TLJ shakes things up so much a rehash of Return isnt even feasible and I feel TLJ will do just that. I also think TFA's quality will be determined by the other two films in the trilogy, on its own its a bit shaky but it could be a really strong foundation.

Lets look at Disney and Lucasfilm's record so far:

• Star Wars Rebels - Mostly Meh but many awesome additions to canon.
• The Force Awakens - Mediocre but not awful (No its not trash, taste is subjective but quality of film making is relatively objective and this is far from trash)
• Rogue One - Absolutely fantastic.
• New EU and Books - While many of the individual components are somewhat mediocre imo the overall story being woven is far stronger then the old Legends EU.

Thats not bad, thats not bad at all.

While Starkiller base was definitely the elephant in the room (particularly the entire blowing up 5 planets sequence), the whole First Order vs the Resistance political situation is also pure nonsense and sounds like somone's fan fiction that's trying to be original fiction.

Especially compared to the political situation from Legends (which it replaced in canon) with a diminished but still existing empire centered in a large part around the worlds that actually liked the Empire vs the New Republic built around the former rebellion leadership and the worlds the Empire was more overtly oppressing.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I really have a tough time with this line, even if it's likely true.

I mean, there were mentions of why it was bad in terms of lore, hyperspace lasers, being able to see planets in a system billions of miles away explode as it's happening... and so on, which all make sense, but the complaints I don't get are the ones centered around it being "another" death star or a "bigger better" death star, like that isn't a perfectly plausible or even likely outcome from an Imperial remnant.

You're the Empire. Your star fleet is mostly scattered or destroyed. You have limited funds, are out numbered, out gunned, and have been pushed to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

How do you proceed?

-You don't have the money to rebuild a star fleet powerful enough to challenge the republic directly.
-You don't have enough ships to retake or hold vital ship yards.
-You don't have an abundance of highly skilled troops or pilots to draw out republic forces and win small skirmishes.
-You don't have developed supply lines


What do you have?

-Time
-Imperial engineering
-(limited) outside funding (snoke?)
-A planetside base hidden in the unknown regions
-The element of surprise

So what can you do?

You organize insurgent cells and stage hit and run raids from your secret base. You compartmentalize all information so compromising a single cell doesn't compromise the whole organization, you steal weapons and supplies form the enemy enricing yourself and weakening them, and you hit targets without warning or berthing to try and hold territory forcing your enemy to expend even more resources rebuilding and defending the targets you juts hit without being able to lessen their guard against anything else you might attack later.

You know, us the tactics your enemy proved were effective by defeating you with them rather than doubling down on those you proved were ineffective by losing the war.

25 minutes ago, Turtlewing said:

You organize insurgent cells and stage hit and run raids from your secret base. You compartmentalize all information so compromising a single cell doesn't compromise the whole organization, you steal weapons and supplies form the enemy enricing yourself and weakening them, and you hit targets without warning or berthing to try and hold territory forcing your enemy to expend even more resources rebuilding and defending the targets you juts hit without being able to lessen their guard against anything else you might attack later.

You know, us the tactics your enemy proved were effective by defeating you with them rather than doubling down on those you proved were ineffective by losing the war.

Which, in theory, sure, why not?

Except, there's no end game there.

The FO, known for the brutal tactics of it's predecessor is not going to win alliances. The mon cal aren't going to devote every vessel they had to reinstate oppression. The alliance had more than just their tactics, they had a noble cause. Freedom. The FO would not be able to inspire the kind of insurgents the rebellion did. There's no way the FO would be able to over throw the Republic the way the alliance over threw the Empire. The Republic didn't dump all it's resources to world destroyers, there no major victory to be had... only many small victories. They'd never regain power.

This was option B in the same quote

2 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

So what can you do?

A.) Well, you can spend your years building up a fleet that might be able to challenge the republic ship to ship, but likely be unable to both staff and maintain an entire fleet for the type a of prolonged fight a civil war would require.

B.) Invest in training and small groups of highly specialized guerrilla fighters to try to drain republic resources but never truly regain power because of the imbalance of resources.

C.) Use the limited supplies and resources you can gather to convert your hidden base into a weapon of mass destruction. Using the remainder of your resources to slowly grow and specialize troops and ships to prepare for an attack that would instantly destabilize your enemy, scatter their forces, eliminate their power structure, interrupt their supply chains, and demoralize their troops.

2 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Which, in theory, sure, why not?

Except, there's no end game there.

The FO, known for the brutal tactics of it's predecessor is not going to win alliances. The mon cal aren't going to devote every vessel they had to reinstate oppression. The alliance had more than just their tactics, they had a noble cause. Freedom. The FO would not be able to inspire the kind of insurgents the rebellion did. There's no way the FO would be able to over throw the Republic the way the alliance over threw the Empire. The Republic didn't dump all it's resources to world destroyers, there no major victory to be had... only many small victories. They'd never regain power.

This was option B in the same quote

The Republic has to protect it's citizens or they will call for a government that can. One that will being security to the galaxy, one with a firm enough hand to defeat the terrorist. Perhaps some sort of empire.

The end game is that you destabilize the new republic, discredit the former rebellion leadership and then offer peace safety and security to the people who care rather a lot more abut not getting blown up than they do about what banner flies over Corescant.

8 hours ago, Turtlewing said:

You organize insurgent cells and stage hit and run raids from your secret base. You compartmentalize all information so compromising a single cell doesn't compromise the whole organization, you steal weapons and supplies form the enemy enricing yourself and weakening them, and you hit targets without warning or berthing to try and hold territory forcing your enemy to expend even more resources rebuilding and defending the targets you juts hit without being able to lessen their guard against anything else you might attack later.

You know, us the tactics your enemy proved were effective by defeating you with them rather than doubling down on those you proved were ineffective by losing the war.

So, you use Thrawn's tactics from the Zahn books? Nah, no one would ever want to see that.

10 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I don't think Starkiller was designed to be fired more than twice. I think the First Order had planned on hitting the Republic, then hitting the resistance and gliding in unopposed as a best case. Worst case, they'd at least take out the resistance's source of resources and the republic's main military. From there it's a planet grab. Take the ship yards, mining planets, find crewers, kidnap more storm troopers, in 5-10 years time the FO could easily reign in the core regions and develop a centralized command structure as powerful or more power than the Empire.

I also don't think Starkiller cost as much as a death star either. They were retrofitting a planetoid (celestial drawf by our standards? It's 1/4 the size of pluto). No life support systems, gravity systems, blah blah... they basically just dug a really big hole and installed a really big gun. That's how they could afford to upgrade weapons and ships. Their fleet is probably still relatively small, but use unconventional tactics to maintain power (IE the dreadnoughts... Go ahead, attack it... they'll kill billions on the surface before you can sink it). While using that power they can build up a real war fleet.

1) Such massive cost in resources to create disposable WMD's? Absolutely asinine! Then taking the Republic's Fleet in one fell swoop, again asinine! There is not a fleet commander in any universe, stupid enough to put all their eggs in one basket like that.

2) Considering the size difference of DS1 and DS2 compared to the planet (though it may have been a small planet), you are talking about 120km diameter ramping up to an estimated 1,000km+, then you factor in the actual work done to create the base, the resources would have exceeded that of DS1 by many times, easy.

It's just ridiculous in the most absurd way possible.

9 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Which, in theory, sure, why not?

Except, there's no end game there.

The FO, known for the brutal tactics of it's predecessor is not going to win alliances. The mon cal aren't going to devote every vessel they had to reinstate oppression. The alliance had more than just their tactics, they had a noble cause. Freedom. The FO would not be able to inspire the kind of insurgents the rebellion did. There's no way the FO would be able to over throw the Republic the way the alliance over threw the Empire. The Republic didn't dump all it's resources to world destroyers, there no major victory to be had... only many small victories. They'd never regain power.

This was option B in the same quote

The method that would have worked and been much more plausible would be to use a similar strategy the Sith used to take over. A long term plan, use the already fractured morality of the age to destroy the New Republic from within. Stretched out over say, 50 years, they could have then built a proxy army to fight whatever threat they concoct, then swoop in like saviors to seize power with the added bonus to gaining the galaxy's trust and admiration. That would have been a truly diabolical plan and truly mark the villains of the story as true galactic threats that need to be dealt with.

If you think that this isn't plausible? Turn on the news and pay attention. It's being played out for us in real time, right now.

Boy, I don't know where to begin with this topic. Suffice to say that I gave away my copy of TFA. Heir to the Empire is episode VII in MY Star Wars universe. I've placed my hopes for new Star Wars movies in the spin-offs. Looking forward to the new Han movie to be as good as Rogue One!

also.. loved Chewbacca walking right past Leia after Han dies. Sooo "true to character" yech.

also, also.. Leia not even looking at Chewie so she can grieve with Rey?

12 hours ago, Turtlewing said:

The Republic has to protect it's citizens or they will call for a government that can. One that will being security to the galaxy, one with a firm enough hand to defeat the terrorist. Perhaps some sort of empire.

The end game is that you destabilize the new republic, discredit the former rebellion leadership and then offer peace safety and security to the people who care rather a lot more abut not getting blown up than they do about what banner flies over Corescant.

"Dear England, Germany, France, Spain and others. Your governments have failed to protect you from us. Surrender to an Islamic regime under our control and we promise to keep the peace". -ISIS

Real world example of how silly that would be. It would never happen. Not in our world or in a galaxy far far away.

6 hours ago, Woobyluv said:

1) Such massive cost in resources to create disposable WMD's? Absolutely asinine! Then taking the Republic's Fleet in one fell swoop, again asinine! There is not a fleet commander in any universe, stupid enough to put all their eggs in one basket like that.

There's a good deal of uncertainty involving resources involved, but this is a WMD that can destroy entire systems. The republic fleet patrolling and protecting the core republic system isn't that asinine to me.... especially after 30 years of peace and a disarmament treaty ... it actually makes a lot of sense.

6 hours ago, Woobyluv said:

2) Considering the size difference of DS1 and DS2 compared to the planet (though it may have been a small planet), you are talking about 120km diameter ramping up to an estimated 1,000km+, then you factor in the actual work done to create the base, the resources would have exceeded that of DS1 by many times, easy.

Again, because it wasn't built in space the production costs could have been much less expensive, there's a good deal of uncertainty surrounding costs here. The canon wiki puts the DS2 at 200km and star killer at 660km. It's about 3x bigger. That's not a huge jump considering all they did was install a weapon system and a bunch of surface bases....

All estimations aside, until they release an actual cost, there's no real way to know.... and no way to know how much snoke bankrolled into it. I'm guessing the books released after TLJ will expand on all of this.

6 hours ago, Woobyluv said:

The method that would have worked and been much more plausible would be to use a similar strategy the Sith used to take over. A long term plan, use the already fractured morality of the age to destroy the New Republic from within. Stretched out over say, 50 years, they could have then built a proxy army to fight whatever threat they concoct, then swoop in like saviors to seize power with the added bonus to gaining the galaxy's trust and admiration. That would have been a truly diabolical plan and truly mark the villains of the story as true galactic threats that need to be dealt with.

If you think that this isn't plausible? Turn on the news and pay attention. It's being played out for us in real time, right now.

I agree with this one, mostly, anyways, I don't know about more plausible. Ole Papa Palpatine had the advantage of being an unknown. No Sith had ever tried to take over from inside before. He came from a backwater planet. It all seemed very real... I think there would be a lot of scrutiny on any senator that tried to rise to power like that again. As for building a proxy army, they'd have to build one heck of a force, easily just as expensive as a super weapon, and even then, the Empire signed a treaty to disarm. I'm fairly sure the republic would just rebuild their own fleet to fight the proxy then swat the empire with sanctions for having weapons at all...

That being said, it is plausible.... but I think if they did that I'd be here defending how TFA wasn't like the prequels instead.... because again....

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