fair enough. I dont know Lothals per se status and importance.

I do know that an Emperor approved, Thrawn sponsored project was running there, Tie Defender development. A priority target for anyone wanting to curb future Empire power. Worthy of protection.

On the Greek topic, only because I am fascinated by the period, the Greeks as Athens or Sparta didnt have an Empire proper...but surely colonies and spheres of influence. Macedon had an Empire (although Alexander’s heart wasnt in solidifying for power and glory’s sake). The troops he left in Macedonia to „garrison“ and protect the home country were fighting also.

Brundisium, guess we agree ?

27 minutes ago, NebulonB said:

On the Greek topic, only because I am fascinated by the period, the Greeks as Athens or Sparta didnt have an Empire proper...but surely colonies and spheres of influence. Macedon had an Empire (although Alexander’s heart wasnt in solidifying for power and glory’s sake). The troops he left in Macedonia to „garrison“ and protect the home country were fighting also.

Brundisium, guess we agree ?

I meant local cities' forces, since only Spartans had a professional army. They were armed, and drilled for battle, but not constantly since they weren't always at war and because they needed to tend to their fields. In which case the quality of the garrison varied city to city.

absolutely

9 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Well technically this happened before that, since Hera was at Scarif. So he didn't have any major losses, nor did he know of Luke. He could have popped an ISD over to blow up the (seemingly only) city, and landed a few thousand troops to kill any survivors.

No, but it happened basically right before Scarif. It was likely Hera returning Rex and Kallus back to Yavin-4 after the Lothal mission that even had her there when the Battle of Scarif kicked off, after all. Otherwise, as this episode had ended, she'd seemed pretty much done with the Rebel Alliance for not helping with the Lothal liberation. But in taking Rex and Kallus back to Yavin-4, she's there when the Death Star is revealed and the plans are found and ends up getting roped back in...which basically sounds like Hera.

20 minutes ago, xanderf said:

No, but it happened basically right before Scarif. It was likely Hera returning Rex and Kallus back to Yavin-4 after the Lothal mission that even had her there when the Battle of Scarif kicked off, after all. Otherwise, as this episode had ended, she'd seemed pretty much done with the Rebel Alliance for not helping with the Lothal liberation. But in taking Rex and Kallus back to Yavin-4, she's there when the Death Star is revealed and the plans are found and ends up getting roped back in...which basically sounds like Hera.

Why would they want to return? They all seemed pretty done. I think, rather, that they were not done with the Rebel Alliance per se, but with waiting on them to help Lothal. Rebels still ends within a year of Scarif. So there can be anywhere from days to a full year between those two events. Even a day is enough, since all the Emperor has to do is say 'Send an ISD to destroy Lothal.' It's in transit for a while. Given current movie representations, it can't be long, say at max a day. Then Scarif happens, and no major fear yet. Vader's on the case. The ISD blasts Lothal to pieces. Then Episode 4 happens. OK, the Death Star was destroyed, hunt down the Rebels. The ISD has now spent around 24 hours turbolasering Lothal from orbit. Even with the current representation of ISD turbolaser impact, 24 hours is more than enough to destroy the city. And if it deploys bombers to help it? And lands troops and walkers in the rural districts? Many people would die, to say the least. Then , a few years (maybe one?) later, the Emperor learns about Luke. Now the Emperor is looking for him. No major victories had been won by the Rebels in those few years. I think by the time the Death Star was destroyed, which happened at least two days after Scarif (we see two nights on Tatooine), that ISD could have been stationed over Lothal for 3 days. And that's at least. If Rebels is set any earlier, the ISD could have had weeks, if not months, to blast Lothal to smithereens. Heck, before Scarif, he could have sent multiple ISDs.

Even if you are correct about the time line, it leaves the ISD two days to blast Lothal before the DS dies. More than enough time to be catastrophic.

Well there is still hope that Paelleon will be in Armada yet!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/that-fan-favorite-eu-character-name-dropped-on-star-war-1823592926

On 3/6/2018 at 9:41 AM, Indy_com said:

Captain Paelleon has entered canon!

<three seconds later>

Captain Paelleon has been killed by a space whale!

Very good chance that if Thrawn and Ezra survived even with all the windows blown out of the Bridge that the rest of the 7th fleet is also alive.

So odds that Paelleon is actually alive are pretty good.

I just watched it and.... Arrrgh! I know it's a kids show but this was just stupid.

And shows my point exactly why I hate the Disneyverse. There are some great stuff in the EU and in the movies, they pull them out for a short while only to make something ridiculously stupid with them. Completely dishonoring. Paelleon, Wedge, Hobbie, Lando, B-Wing... The list goes on. Thrawn is the only exception.

Plot armor also reached a new level now. And they say I should be excited about the Solo movie...

On 3/6/2018 at 11:08 AM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Uh, they did kill him off... he was getting strangled by a tentacle, and even if that didn't kill him he was standing 6 inches from a bunch of open broken windows right before his ship entered hyperspace across the galaxy. I'm no Chiss biologist, but I'm pretty sure spending a few moments in deep space, especially while at hyperspace, would kill one.

Yep and they also killed Maul off when Obi-Wan cut him in 1/2 and he fell down a crazy long shaft, right? And Ashoka was literally trapped in a room with a pissed off Vader so no chance she's alive, right? A force user is literally sucked into space when the bridge is destroyed, so she's dead, right? This is Star Wars - you aren't dead until they show it on screen. And even that has exceptions. Writers can take any wiggle room and turn it into something unexpected in future stories. I have no problem with anyone assuming Thrawn is dead, but since that never actually happened on screen, I'm betting Disney sees that a popular character like Thrawn is valuable and they'd allow a writer to use him in future stories post Rebels timeline.

On 3/6/2018 at 1:08 PM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Uh, they did kill him off... he was getting strangled by a tentacle, and even if that didn't kill him he was standing 6 inches from a bunch of open broken windows right before his ship entered hyperspace across the galaxy. I'm no Chiss biologist, but I'm pretty sure spending a few moments in deep space, especially while at hyperspace, would kill one.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rebels-finale-ezra-thrawn-survive/

5 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rebels-finale-ezra-thrawn-survive/

Thanks for the link, I didn't know that.

10 minutes ago, Ken-Obi said:

Yep and they also killed Maul off when Obi-Wan cut him in 1/2 and he fell down a crazy long shaft, right?

Yes, they did kill him off, but then Filoni and the Clone Wars team decided to bring him back. Personally, I think bringing Maul back was one of my own least favorite parts of the Clone Wars through Galactic Civil War storylines. Perhaps also doesn't help that he's now a very problematic (read: potentially broken) new card in X-Wing, heh.

13 minutes ago, Ken-Obi said:

I have no problem with anyone assuming Thrawn is dead, but since that never actually happened on screen, I'm betting Disney sees that a popular character like Thrawn is valuable and they'd allow a writer to use him in future stories post Rebels timeline.

Oh, yes I was just being playfully facetious. I know Thrawn is still alive and that he will return to Star Wars stories again (probably in Filoni's new animated series, and possibly some Zahn books). In fact, I'd even be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Thrawn will, at some point, become a "good guy," either outright or through "enemy of my enemy" logic, not unlike many villains that writers end up falling in love with.

On 3/6/2018 at 5:20 PM, Undeadguy said:

After season 3, I got over the kiddy element where the Rebels will always win. That said, I'm really ******* tired of the plot armor. There was no explanation on how or why the whales showed up, or what that kids mission was when he took the Ghost. At least explain they had some biological transponder that attracted them, or give some other excuse. Or even the force of Lothal reaching out, since the planet has force wolves. I'm happy the show is finally over and we can get a better story (hopefully).

That said, I really enjoyed how Rebels ties into all the other Star Wars content, which made it much more enjoyable. I love when all the pieces come together.

I'm not coming after anyone for having an opinion, but I'd like to point out there was absolutely an attempt at an explanation for the whales - in fact it was foreshadowing a few minutes before the whales showed up. The kid's mission was also clearly laid out. The kid was there to pilot the Ghost to rescue the group from the Imp ball. He also clearly says Ezra gave him a secondary mission, which was to activate the hyperspace transponder channel 0 (or something like that), which Vizago remarks that nobody uses that channel - turns out Ezra knew that would attract the space whales.

I do agree that the plot armor and Imp incompetence is tiring, but that's just part of SW. I completely agree with you at how the story group has ties from different SW content all interwoven through each other. I completely missed the whole "hyperspace tracking" project Jyn mentions in connection to TLJ. Chopper in the background and an audio reference to General Syndulla in RO was also fun. Stuff like that is cool.

Just now, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yes, they did kill him off, but then Filoni and the Clone Wars team decided to bring him back. Personally, I think bringing Maul back was one of my own least favorite parts of the Clone Wars through Galactic Civil War storylines. Perhaps also doesn't help that he's now a very problematic (read: potentially broken) new card in X-Wing, heh.

Oh, yes I was just being playfully facetious. I know Thrawn is still alive and that he will return to Star Wars stories again (probably in Filoni's new animated series, and possibly some Zahn books). In fact, I'd even be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Thrawn will, at some point, become a "good guy," either outright or through "enemy of my enemy" logic, not unlike many villains that writers end up falling in love with.

Sorry, I didn't get that from the post. No worries, again I'm not trying to come at anybody for having an opinion. Apologies if it was taken that way.

One of the reasons why I, and I think a lot of others, loved Thrawn in his original trilogy was that he certainly wasn't a good guy, but he also wasn't a cookie cutter standard evil bad guy either - he was his own bad guy. I hope they don't try to turn him into a good guy - the Thrawn from the EU and the Thrawn from Zahn's new book "Thrawn" have good explanations for why Thrawn is the way he is and why he wouldn't see himself as a bad guy and that makes for a very interesting villain. I hope they don't throw that complexity in a villain away to try and shoehorn him into being a good guy. But I guess we'll see.

And I agree entirely about Maul (except the part about his XWing card as I stopped playing that when my own little Luke and Leia were born... then I got into Armada and had no desire to go back to XWing).

Palleon will have to come with the Dreadnought. I'm guessing he will have some type of ability that could apply to him being in charge of a blockade?

Increased forward firepower? (Imperial Ackbar but only 1 die, since it's forward?)

Rewarding Formation Flying? (Ships get a bonus for each friendly ship at range 1 - 2?)

I re watched the final episode with my second eldest last night (10) and she loved it (even though she could not understand why the storm troopers could not shoot anyone). She was already asking when the next season would start

7 hours ago, jamie nasmyth said:

She was already asking when the next season would start

Too soon!!!!

23 hours ago, Crabbok said:

Palleon will have to come with the Dreadnought. I'm guessing he will have some type of ability that could apply to him being in charge of a blockade?

Increased forward firepower? (Imperial Ackbar but only 1 die, since it's forward?)

Rewarding Formation Flying? (Ships get a bonus for each friendly ship at range 1 - 2?)

I've thought for a long time that they could do interesting things with one of the keywords they've had from the beginning: flagship. Thrawn was giving the orders and Pellaeon was relaying those orders to whoever needed them, on the ship or off, so I'd make his ability something around those lines.

Maybe Pellaeon, Officer slot, Imperial Only, Must equip to flagship - when you activate, you may change 1 other friendly ship's 2nd from top command dial. Or your formation flying idea - at the start of the ship phase you may choose 1 other friendly ship in close range of a friendly ship, if you do, that ship gains a nav token (keep the formation together). Of course in his brief Rebels cameo he wasn't on the flagship but we'll call this the Legends version.

If you do that, I think the Rebels should have a flagship officer too, but I'm not sure who's a good candidate other than perhaps Hera or another Leia officer card...