6 hours ago, mithril2098 said:This is only a year before TFA, so i doubt they were all that much smaller in manpower. But they are, in general, smaller than the Empire ever was, so they go for quality not just quantity. and they definitely were trying to look like a small organization at the time. keeping their new Star Destroyers hidden away in the unknown regions, and not even sending their older Imperial Class ships into the wider galaxy often either, relying more on heavy and light cruisers, frigates, etc. same as the majority of the New Republic. sorta like japan after WW1. played along with the naval restriction treaties publicly, while working on a lot of treaty breaking hardware covertly until they had the right moment to reveal a powerful force.
the First order, prior to the events of TFA, were trying to convince the wider galaxy that they were just another small imperial remnant, and relatively harmless. and their presence outside the Unknown Regions, in the areas of the ex-imperial splinter groups and such, pretty much fit that narrative. potent gear, but not all that publicly large, and they were very careful to try and keep their more oppressive imperial style activities covert, to make a better impres sion in the new Republic. you see a lot of this in the Poe Dameron comics and the sequel trilogy related written works.
one thing that stands out to me is that i'd almost swear that the FO interceptor feels older than the TIE/FO and TIE/SF.. something about the mix of the interceptor and V1 features. probably just because it resembles the TIE/V1 so much, and that is an older design relative to 34 ABY. sticking interceptor style panel shapes seems like something that would be the next step after the V1.. and something that obviously would have been tried well before 34 ABY. probably just a perception thing on my part.
i have reconsidered my thoughts on the weapons it used though.. the white blast things. i am no longer sure those are meant to be concussion missiles.. mainly because the gunports that fire them look too small to be missile tubes. and it obviously wasn't carrying them externally like the TIE Defender Elite did. so now i'm wondering if that wasn't the "mag pulse warheads" weapon that was part of the TIE/SF's arsenal according to Poe, and which got mentions as a weapon the T-70 and TIE/SF could use in the cutaways book. such a weapon might not be a missile, but rather more like a cannon. and having a magnetic field effect could help explain the way the blasts went into a helical spiral. presumably they'd disable the target in some fashion, or perhaps mess up certain systems, resulting in major damage to the target.
I think they'd changed their mind so that The Resistance takes place 6 months before TFA, I think one of the writers even said something about the show going to explore that point when they get to it, so that should be interesting.
And I guess either way, we will be getting a new missile upgrade then either in that Tie Interceptor/FO expansion or the TIE/SF on for the mag pulse, so again that will be good.
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