Concepts for Imperial Characters after RotJ

By Vader is Love, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

The Alliance/New Republic is winning the war and has taken back Coruscant.

The players are Imperials, who fled into the lower levels of the planet, before they could get imprisoned. NR troops and Coruscant Security Forces are on the hunt for them (and for many other former Imperials, who are stuck on the planet).

Will the players seek revenge for their fallen empire, maybe even become some sort of terrorists (the thing they swore to destroy)?

Will they get along with the local underworld or be betrayed?

What is with their permanent fear of secret agents and potential traitors?

And so on. That's the kinda setting my group is facing.

Everyone is up for it, but some are still pondering about fitting character concepts.

Maybe you have some intriguing ideas :)

If these people are still loyal then they have been indoctrinated quite heavily, consider why they are still loyal.

What training(conditioning) were they given?

Why do they want the empire back?

Did they ever question orders?

The Order 66 podcast had a episode about this topic recently, it's pretty good.

As for more specifics...

One options is to be idealistic: the Empire brought order and peace to the galaxy and that's still worth fighting for. Maybe that means they want to join up with an Imperial remnant, maybe it means they want to wait and see what the NR does with things and are in any way a worthy successor to the Empire, etc. It can go a lot of different directions. In the Star Wars comics there's an elite squad of Stormtroopers whose leader reveres the Empire because when they took over his planet they saved him (and many of his people) from the depraved government/system on his planet so he lived the ideal example of the Empire bringing justice, order and peace. So it can be very personal too and not just philosophical. Maybe they aren't so concerned with confronting the NR as much as mitigating the effects of it - bringing order, peace, justice to small corners out of the chaos. A lot of the character ideas and motivations from the books can play into this - just add Imperial too it, whether it's a gunslinger or marshal, or soldier or mechanic helping out a system/village deal with bandits or shortage of necessities, etc.

Maybe an Imperial character who was fairly corrupt (more of an Edge of the Empire than Age of Rebellion based PC) but used the Imperial bureaucracy to hide and frame their activity and even give it a guise of legitimacy. And now their plan is to slide into just being more "open" about it and joining the scum and villainy as it were.

Interesting idea . . .

There are going to be a couple of issues that you can play with.

1) the Battle of Endor did NOT end the war. And a quick turnover on Coruscant would be possible only if the Alliance had key resources in place to make a local uprising possible. So certain bureaucracies may still be operating "under the original" mandates or management. Or there will be enclaves of pro-Empire groups still operating to "maintain order" on Coruscant.

The other possibility is that, sure the 'locals' may have had a party about the death of the Palpatine, but what about the next morning? The security apparatus is still in place, the government hasn't changed, the Imperial Navy is still in Orbit, ISB & Compnor are still open an operating . . . :o A PC could play a 'spy' and just go "Dark" for a bit until the time is right.

2) And in your typical National Socialist society (like the Evil Empire in Star Wars) truth is rarely disclosed to the general public. Most people in the Empire may not even be aware that Palpatine is dead, (unless or until his successor stands to gain from his death[!]), the Battle of Endor may be propagandized as an Imperial victory, regardless of the fact that it was a resounding defeat. So even if there IS a minor setback and the rebel scum have taken over Imperial Center through chicanery, "surely the Imperial Navy will be marshaling a retaliatory force." So resistance (though futile) will be ongoing.

3) Wolverines! Odd fact from history. The German National Socialists during World War II were hunted down to extinction. Those German Youth who had grown up and were brainwashed into National Socialism ALL refused to surrender and all were eventually systematically slaughtered by US Troops. All because they wouldn't quit fighting. So there's no reason to believe that die hard Imperials would act any differently ('cause Space Nazi's)!

4) The Core Worlds are all Imperial. Things in the "Core" are actually pretty good still and the Imperial Infrastructure is still in place. They're still making Star Destroyers, TIE Fighters are still coming off of the factory floors in lot batches, and the Imperial Academies are still graduating crews systematically. Why would anything change in the Core? So Pals is dead. Someone's going to step up, right?

And even if there isn't a ready successor, another possibility is that the Empire fractures into civil war until a powerful successor can achieve universal support. So the PC's could become embroiled in a civil war. However, each regional Imperial entity will also be on the lookout for their universal opponent (those Rebel scum)!

5) A PC could also go with the moralistic approach that the Empire was still better than the corrupt republic.

I think that's all I've got for now. Others have looked at the self serving aspect of personal nature and the PC's may also devolve and become opportunistic refugees too.

Well, Palp's did have Mas Amedda as his Grand Vizier, and ruled Coruscant after Palp's death. He was also the one to officially surrender to the New Republic a year later. To quote:

Quote

In the aftermath, Amedda was the highest ranking political leader in the Empire. With no control over the Imperial Military, the Grand Vizier was helpless as the New Order fractured and the recently established New Republicseized large parts of the galaxy. Amedda attempted to hold the regime together from Coruscant, but as the throneworld was roiled by civil war, military leaders like Counselor Gallius Rax and Grand Admiral Rae Sloaneeffectively took control, leaving the Grand Vizier stranded. After attempts at surrender and suicide Amedda was confined to the Imperial Palace by order of Counselor Rax until 5 ABY, when he escaped Coruscant and formally surrendered the Empire by signing the Galactic Concordance, thereby ending the Galactic Civil War. As part of the agreement, he was afforded continual rule on Coruscant as the leader of a provisional government, but under the surveillance of Republic overseers both Amedda and his administration were rendered powerless.

On ‎3‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 5:21 AM, Vader is Love said:

before they could get imprisoned.

My initial thought here is... why are they afraid of getting imprisoned.

If they are rank and file they'll probably get interned and processed to make sure they are just rank and file, and then cut loose.

...so the implication here is this is very much a "Lets be bad guys" campaign and the players already have a lot of blood on their hands.

Thanks for your answers.

On 3/20/2019 at 12:57 PM, MrTInce said:

If these people are still loyal then they have been indoctrinated quite heavily, consider why they are still loyal.

What training(conditioning) were they given?

Why do they want the empire back?

Did they ever question orders?

Most of them witnessed the empire as a Force of necessity. Fighting organized crime and stuff.

Also, in addition to indoctrination, they experienced aliens as a threat due to personal encounters.

On 3/20/2019 at 3:08 PM, Jedi Ronin said:

The Order 66 podcast had a episode about this topic    recently, it's  pretty good.  

I agree, just listened to it, thanks!

On 3/20/2019 at 3:08 PM, Jedi Ronin said:

It  can go a lot of different directions. In the Star Wars comics there's an elite squad of Stormtroopers whose leader reveres the Empire because when they took over his planet they saved him (and many of his  people) from the depraved government/system on his planet so he lived the ideal example of the Empire  bringing justice, order and peace. So it can be very personal too and not just philosophic   a  l   .  

Yes, I think it would not be understandable to support a system like the empire, if a characters had not been exposed to circumstances, that significantly influence their decision to do so.

On 3/20/2019 at 3:08 PM, Jedi Ronin said:

Maybe an Imperial character who was fairly corrupt (more of an Edge of the Empire than Age of Rebellion based PC) but used the Imperial bureaucracy to hide and frame their activity and even give it a guise of legitimacy. And now their plan is to slide into just being more "open" about it and joining the scum and villainy as it were.

Interesting. We also figured, if we could combine some eote background with aor.

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

Interesting idea . . .

There are going to be a couple of issues that you can play with.

1) the Battle of Endor did NOT end the war. And a quick turnover on Coruscant would be possible only if the Alliance had key resources in place to make a local uprising possible. So certain bureaucracies may still be operating "under the original" mandates or management. Or there will be enclaves of pro-Empire groups still operating to "maintain order" on Coruscant.

The other possibility is that, sure the 'locals' may have had a party about the death of the Palpatine, but what about the next morning? The security apparatus is still in place, the government hasn't changed, the Imperial Navy is still in Orbit, ISB & Compnor are still open an operating . . . :o A PC could play a 'spy' and just go "Dark" for a bit until the time is right.

2) And in your typical National Socialist society (like the Evil Empire in Star Wars) truth is rarely disclosed to the general public. Most people in the Empire may not even be aware that Palpatine is dead, (unless or until his successor stands to gain from his death[!]), the Battle of Endor may be propagandized as an Imperial victory, regardless of the fact that it was a resounding defeat. So even if there IS a minor setback and the rebel scum have taken over Imperial Center through chicanery, "surely the Imperial Navy will be marshaling a retaliatory force." So resistance (though futile) will be ongoing.

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

4) The  Core Wor  l  ds are all Imperial. Things in the "Core" are      actually pretty good still and the Imperial Infrastructure is still in place. They're still making Star Destroyers, TIE Fighters are still coming off of the  factory floors in lot batches, and the Imperial A  cademies are still graduating crews systematically. Why would anything change in the Core? So Pa  ls is dead. Someone's going to step up, right    ?  

And even if th  ere isn't a ready successor, another possibility is that  the Empire fractures into civil war until a powerful successor   can achieve universal supp  ort. So the PC's could become embroiled in a civil wa  r. However, each regional Imperial entity will also be on the lookout for their universal opponent (those Rebel sc  u  m)!

Well, maybe I should have been more specific. It's not a few days after rotj, it's after the empire was defeated (new canon). Coruscant capitulated.

To 3): Maybe one or more of the characters will become some kind of "wolverine". Perfectly possible.

But...

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

     The   German National  Socialists during World War II were hunted down to extinction   .

Not true. Some fled, many could live their lives untroubled in the new federal republic, even being active in political parties or become high rank government officials.

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

Those German Youth who had grown up and we  re brainwashed               into National Socialism ALL refused to surrender and all were eventually  syste  m  a  tically  slaught  ered      by US Troops.   All because  they wouldn't quit   fighting   .

Not true at all.

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

5) A PC could also go with the moralistic approach that the      Empire was still better than the corrupt republi  c   .      

Good idea. I think the sessions will include a lot of in-character discussions about the political occurrences.

Vader/Love,

I have been studying WW-II and have read too many books and seen too many documentaries to be dissuaded by a one line rejoinder of "No it didn't!"

While the fall of Germany isn't a clean corollary to the fall of Coruscant, there are obvious similarities which may be of some benefit.

The situation for the PC's is certainly an interesting conundrum to deal with.

You're on a occupied planet in the middle of a Galactic war and the opposition has made a handful of decisive moves . . . but is it enough? Is it worth going forward? If you continue to resist, what would be useful and what would be a waste of effort?

Anyrate this campaign sounds very interesting and has the potential to put the PC's in a lot of moral quandaries.

Nicely done and I hope this campaign works out for your group.

May the Force be with you on this one!

On 3/22/2019 at 3:49 PM, Mark Caliber said:

I have been studying WW-II and have read too many books and seen too many documentaries to be dissuaded by a one line rejoinder of "No it didn't!"

Yeah, me too. I even work in that field.

I don't want to expand this any futher, but I just want to say, that your statements "hunted down to extinction" and "ALL refused to surrender and all were eventually  syste  m  a  tically  slaught  ered      by US Troops" are simply not true on many levels, as you will know, when having studied the subject.

Concerning the actual topic, I maybe will leave a few notes how this all turned out. Thanks for your comments.

Peace and may the Force be with you!