33 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

I'm a simple man; I see a point that can be summed up in a meme, I make a meme

Yes you are hey.

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

1 minute ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

My guess was he was part of a cleanup sweep. Find survivors for rescue craft, accept surrender from enemy pilots left behind, and such. The entire exchange likely wouldn't have happened if Captain Grey hadn't gone for the ambush. The rebel pilot went off book trying to put the fleeing squint down rather than calling in backup and paid the price.

2 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

His family may have been killed by dirty Imps and he vowed never to leave any alive. The only thing better than a dead Imp is a dying Imp who tells you where his mates are. His thirst for vengeance gave him tunnel vision and numbed his awareness to his surroundings, blinding him to the cliff screaming up on him.

On 9/16/2020 at 4:59 AM, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

I mean, it's not unheard of at all.

Rogue One shows a couple of extremely ruthless Rebels in Cassian Andor (who doesn't hesitate to execute his informant) and Draven (who orders an assassination). Then there's the entire subject of Saw Gerrera and his renegade cell...

Regardless of Star Wars being a fantasy, painting one side of ANY war as being entirely "good" and one side being entirely "evil" is buying in to propaganda. It's a postcode lottery. If you were unlucky enough to have been born in Germany or Japan in the early 1900's history has painted your generation as "evil". If you were born in Russia in the 1940-50's, same. Meanwhile, the only countries to have detonated a nuclear weapon (two, in fact) over a civilian population centre have historically been considered the heroes. The truth is, there's very few career soldiers when it comes to large scale engagements, just a lot of people desperately trying to keep themselves, their friends and family alive.

"What about the cooks, engineers, cleaners on the Death Star?" is a meme at this point, but that doesn't mean it is without merit. The Empire conscripted soldiers, pilots and ancillary staff from a huge number of worlds. If you were unlucky enough to have been born there, you would would have likely ended up in the Imperial military without much in the way of a choice.

****, if it wasn't for a one in a million chance (which, as we all know, Jedi have calculated come off 9 times out of 10), Luke could have been an Imperial cadet. One of his fears was ending up being drafted into the Imperial starfleet.

7 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

Have you seen The Mandalorian? An X-wing kill team vipes out a space station, when they where called out for a prison transport, no questions asked. I guess a few innocent people where on that space station, the x-wing pilots took like another day at the office.

5 minutes ago, Dwing said:

Have you seen The Mandalorian? An X-wing kill team vipes out a space station, when they where called out for a prison transport, no questions asked. I guess a few innocent people where on that space station, the x-wing pilots took like another day at the office.

I suppose the other thing to remember - in this post-Empire timeline, at least - is that after Endor, a lot of the New Resistance pilots will have been recruited from the Imperial Navy. *gasp* TRAITORS!!

The entire Rebel fleet was in action in the Battle of Endor, and - despite winning the battle - suffered huge losses. So if they're continuing to fight against the Imperial remnant - and trying to install a new ruling government - then they're going to have to rebuild and expand their fleet. A lot of those new recruits will be defectors, or academy pilots, or militia, or pilots otherwise formerly affiliated with the Empire.

This short does a good job with adding more nuance to imperial characters same as other canon material like the novels (Twilight Company, Alphabet Squadron, Inferno Squad) or some of the comics. Fascist extremists and power-hungry officials should be displayed when portraying the empire, but so should be sympathetic idealists and all the shades between those ends. Same goes for the rebels where even Rogue One as one of the new movies showed ruthless and fanatical rebels. This surely is a departure from the simple black-and-white moral of the mainline movies but ultimately aimed a different audience.

Squadrons seems to follow the same narrative in having you play both sides and adding depth to the factions.

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Luke could have been an Imperial cadet. One of his fears was ending up being drafted into the Imperial starfleet.

He was trying to get into the imperial starfighter academy at the start of a new hope, I doubt he was scared of it.

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Luke could have been an Imperial cadet.

That's an Alt History I would love to read/watch.

This whole thread paints a great picture of why I am philosophically a Scum main. As DJ says, "Don't join." There's good and bad on both sides all right; just leave me the **** alone. But it all falls apart, doesn't it, when the fascists start coming for you and your family.

That aside, I do still occasionally fly both Imperial and Rebel. Because the way they look and move and synergize makes Scum sad.

*ALL* of that aside, this video and the gameplay videos almost make me want to give in and buy a game system to allow me to play this, The only thing truly holding me back is that I already have too many hobbies and demands on my time. Woof.

52 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

He was trying to get into the imperial starfighter academy at the start of a new hope, I doubt he was scared of it.

The deleted scene with Biggs from A New Hope gives a bit more context for this (see 3:30+). He was looking forward to joining the academy, but he did NOT want to be drafted to the Imperial Navy.

3 hours ago, Dwing said:

Have you seen The Mandalorian? An X-wing kill team vipes out a space station, when they where called out for a prison transport, no questions asked. I guess a few innocent people where on that space station, the x-wing pilots took like another day at the office.

That's such a bizarre, out of place scene though.

It doesn't make any sense. The writers just wanted a neat and tidy wrap up to the bad guys who betrayed Mando.

If you're tracking a personal sized distress beacon that you know (or at least, they should have been briefed) is being carried by the one living person on your prison transport.... but that distress beacon isn't on the prison transport and is instead on a space station... wouldn't you assume your dude from the transport has been captured?

This is one of the recurring problems with the Mandalorian, actually. I know that tech in Star Wars has always been a bit magic, but the tech in Mandalorian operates on another level. Things magically change function depending on the needs of the plot, and the characters seem to automatically understand when and why this happens. From a plot perspective, the beacon was meant to all in the reinforcements to put a time limit on Mando's mission and add tension, but by the end of the episode its purpose is now to point out where the bad guys are. But how did the pilots know the beacon had switched from "help I'm being attacked mode" to "here are the bad guys" mode?

The bounty fobs are another great example. How does a simple intensifying beep and light tell you where someone is? How do they know which planet to even start the little game of hot or cold on? And how do the fobs even know where the target is? How are they remotely connected to the target? Do they home in on specific life signs? From halfway across the galaxy? In real time? Hooowww!!?

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I suppose the other thing to remember - in this post-Empire timeline, at least - is that after Endor, a lot of the New Resistance pilots will have been recruited from the Imperial Navy. *gasp* TRAITORS!!

The entire Rebel fleet was in action in the Battle of Endor, and - despite winning the battle - suffered huge losses. So if they're continuing to fight against the Imperial remnant - and trying to install a new ruling government - then they're going to have to rebuild and expand their fleet. A lot of those new recruits will be defectors, or academy pilots, or militia, or pilots otherwise formerly affiliated with the Empire.

You've pulled this entirely out of your ***.

That hasn't been stated anywhere in current canon media, other than the fact a couple of NR Senators by the time of the sequels are former Imps.

And wouldn't it make way, way more sense to assume that the fledgling New Republic's would be swelled with people from the planets they liberate, rather than former Imps? Like when the Allies began the push to Berlin, they weren't adding captured or defecting Wehrmacht to their ranks, they were liberating French and Belgian POWs and getting help from French resistance members.

14 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

That's such a bizarre, out of place scene though.

It doesn't make any sense. The writers just wanted a neat and tidy wrap up to the bad guys who betrayed Mando.

If you're tracking a personal sized distress beacon that you know (or at least, they should have been briefed) is being carried by the one living person on your prison transport.... but that distress beacon isn't on the prison transport and is instead on a space station... wouldn't you assume your dude from the transport has been captured?

This is one of the recurring problems with the Mandalorian, actually. I know that tech in Star Wars has always been a bit magic, but the tech in Mandalorian operates on another level. Things magically change function depending on the needs of the plot, and the characters seem to automatically understand when and why this happens. From a plot perspective, the beacon was meant to all in the reinforcements to put a time limit on Mando's mission and add tension, but by the end of the episode its purpose is now to point out where the bad guys are. But how did the pilots know the beacon had switched from "help I'm being attacked mode" to "here are the bad guys" mode?

The bounty fobs are another great example. How does a simple intensifying beep and light tell you where someone is? How do they know which planet to even start the little game of hot or cold on? And how do the fobs even know where the target is? How are they remotely connected to the target? Do they home in on specific life signs? From halfway across the galaxy? In real time? Hooowww!!?

The Bounty Fobs/Pucks and the Guild overall are a really strained premise for me in Mandalorian. Combine with the flat out cheat you described and hand-waving away the New Republic and they've got a bit of a mess. I worry how much messier it will get trying to avoid undermining the premise of the sequels whatever that was exactly.

21 hours ago, Ebak said:

I'm perhaps the only one who kinda dislikes the whole "Oh...the Empire are the real good guys idea." I'm sure there are, but Star Wars' basis is heavily in mythology with clear good and bad heroes.

Darth Vader wears black armor (associated with death in most cultures) and has a helmet that has skull like motiefs. When I look at him my first thought isn't "yeah...here comes the hero in this story."

That being said, I fully admit there are good and bad people both sides if we get into the nitty gritty of it, but in general: Empire bad, Rebels good.

Personally, I also felt this way watching this.

11 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

Within the lore of the universe, I imagine Imperial pilots did think this way about Rebel pilots. As to why he seemingly stayed behind without the NR fleet, seems like there is tactically good reasons to sort of clean up after an engagement. While the TIE might not have a hyperdrive, there's the possibility of another vessel surviving in the wreckage of one of the crashed ships having a hyperdrive. (Like the TIE Scout that Kylo finds in TROS that definitely wasn't an oversight by the writers of the film that got a retcon later to explain it, I promise I'm not salty. Or more likely, a surviving lambda shuttle.)

32 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

That hasn't been stated anywhere in current canon media...

*cough* Iden *cough* Versio *cough* *LOLOLOLOL*

Literally, an entire new canon story dedicated to an Imperial pilot who defected from the Empire post-Endor and became a valuable member of the New Republic. Amazed you weren't aware of this.

The Rebellion always, always, ALWAYS -recruited pilots and officers from the ranks of the Empire, whether Legends or Canon. Biggs, Wedge, Tycho, Crix Madine, Jan Dodonna, Alexsandr Kallus, Han freakin' Solo - all former Imperials.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Imperial_defectors

Once the Empire's leadership collapsed, you'd be seeing more conscripted military pilots and officers defecting, not less.

11 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

And wouldn't it make way, way more sense to assume that the fledgling New Republic's would be swelled with people from the planets they liberate, rather than former Imps?

This. Each planet had it's own governance that the Empire took it's resources from. Bail Organa and Mon Mothma were outwardly members of the Imperial Senate but were both secretly (eventually openly) rebelling against it. With the Emperor and a large portion of his fleet gone, formerly autonomous planet forced into the Empire likely went back to being autonomous.

23 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

But how did the pilots know the beacon had switched from "help I'm being attacked mode" to "here are the bad guys" mode?

Just spit balling here, perhaps they originally tracked the beacon to the prison ship which is why the heist crew had so much time to , found the dude dead, then continued following the beacon to the space station, and when they saw the fighter spooling up, decided attacking was the correct course of action.

26 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

And how do the fobs even know where the target is? How are they remotely connected to the target? Do they home in on specific life signs? From halfway across the galaxy? In real time? Hooowww!!?

I'm curious about this, as well. I'm not certain of the range of the fobs, as Mando thought he was safe-ish on the forest planet. So presumably some actual hunting work needs to be done to get into range, and then the fob takes over when you get closer. It's possible they are DNA linked, so if the bounty has had their DNA on file at any point, they can be tracked.

I find it infinitely easier to explain the tracker than a lightsaber. They are much more magic than the fob or the trackers.

1 minute ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm curious about this, as well. I'm not certain of the range of the fobs, as Mando thought he was safe-ish on the forest planet. So presumably some actual hunting work needs to be done to get into range, and then the fob takes over when you get closer. It's possible they are DNA linked, so if the bounty has had their DNA on file at any point, they can be tracked.

I find it infinitely easier to explain the tracker than a lightsaber. They are much more magic than the fob or the trackers.

Fundamentally they do not have an concept of "Space" in Star Wars in the Disney era.

Any sorts of restrictions on tech by any minuscule acknowledgement of astronomy is "nerd" stuff. Star Wars is now "cool." Besides Star Wars is "space fantasy" anyway. It isn't science fiction with "rules" for its tech. Come on space wizards and laser swords don't exist! Why do the creators need to bother with rules for tech that doesn't exist? Especially if rules get in the way of getting to the action or some cool visual the director wants. Rules confuse the normal people who don't understand this stuff anyway.

So the bounty fobs work however the plot needs the fobs to work and don't ask questions. Just "coo" and "awwww" at Baby Yoda. This is the way.

6 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

*cough* Iden *cough* Versio *cough* *LOLOLOLOL*

Right, okay.

Two people. Her and Del.

It's not exactly the open, public recruitment drive you seemed to be alluding to. I was referring more to the absence of any media or statement to the effect of "after Endor, the New Republic accepted the defections of dozens of former Imps to fill out their ranks blah blah"

Or for that matter, any acknowledgement to your assertion that they suffered huge losses at Endor. In canon, the Alliance has been able to steamroll the Empire after Endor. Battlefront 2, Squadrons, Aftermath... all seem to show the Alliance at their absolute peak after Endor wiping the floor with the Empire system by system. Seems kinda hard to do if you've lost the bulk of your fleet. If anything, it seems like the Alliance was already stuffed full of eager recruits and was only lacking the resources to put them to use. The Starhawk is the best example of that. They were able to successfully crew three 2km long vessels within months of Endor. They needed ISD hulks to build them with, but that's my point. When it came to salvaging things from the Empire, it was material the Alliance needed, not people.

12 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

The Rebellion always, always, ALWAYS -recruited pilots and officers from the ranks of the Empire, whether Legends or Canon. Biggs, Wedge, Tycho, Crix Madine, Jan Dodonna, Alexsandr Kallus, Han freakin' Solo - all former Imperials.

A list of names is a difficult thing to assess when the members of that list don't belong there concurrently.

Wedge was only an Imperial in a world where Tycho doesn't exist.

Biggs was never a commissioned Imperial in either setting. He jumped ship while still at the academy and basically always intended to . He's far more an example of someone who wanted to use the Empire for their training than a loyal member of the navy who had a change of heart. That also applies to Wedge in canon.

Han didn't defect in either universe. He was kicked out of both long before there was even an opposing side to make a Galactic Civil War because he wasn't really an Imperial.

The only true defectors in that list - actively serving members of the Imperial military who served while being aware of the Rebellion's existence and who only later had a change of heart before actively switching sides are Tycho, Madine and Kallus.

And the Alliance accepting defectors is a totally different premise when they're an underground guerrilla faction who need all the resources and inside knowledge they can get. Everyone who defected to the Rebels at this point had to really mean it because they were going from the massive, controlling faction with all the resources to the rag tag bunch of dissidents being actively hunted. It was basically going from the winning side to the losing side, so you had to really believe in what you were doing.

By the time of Endor, they're basically a full blown galactic power and accepting defectors into their rank becomes dangerous politically and militarily. They're the 'winning' side now. You don't just blindly accept new recruits from the enemy you've suddenly routed because the odds are they're only doing it to protect their own skin.

And like I said, why look for defectors and people who previously fought against you when you're now liberating millions of grateful people every day? The early Rebellion took in defectors because they had no choice. The post Endor New Republic absolutely has a choice.

On the "why did the X-wing turn back?" thing.

It's most likely to me that by luck that X-wing pilot may have been the only ship to pick up the "sci-fi magic" energy signature of the Interceptor just before the pilot clearly tried to get it shut down to hide. Or one of the capital ships detected it and sent the X-wing to investigate. This would play into the game theme of energy management, maybe you can shut everything down to run silent in some scenario of the game? Obi-Wan does similar to this in Ep2.

Why they would want to investigate is debatable, but certainly there are some good reasons we can infer. Simple rescue seems unlikely if they recognized it as a hostile from the battle, when compared to capture of a prisoner who may have valuable intelligence. They could have no idea it was even a fighter and thought it was a failing escape pod, maybe even one of their own for all they know, and wanted to recover it. They could have believed it to be a Probe Droid too, which they would surely want to shoot down before making a jump or staying and consolidating either way so they don't reveal anything to the Imperial forces.

What the X-wing pursues alone is the more odd question. Except for just sheer rule of cool cinematic reasons. We could just interpret that others couldn't catch up.

2 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

On the "why did the X-wing turn back?" thing.

Looking for salvage, looking for Imperial stragglers, and looking for damaged friendlies all fall under the "reasonable reason to turn back" to me.

13 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

I think a couple of music and atmospheric cues change him into "the hunter," whereas without them he's just conducting typical after-action clean up. Sure, TIEs don't have a hyperdrive, but a lone TIE Defender waiting in the rubble, a suicidal TIE Bomber left behind with nothing to lose, or even a smuggler a la Boba Fett hiding the debris can really ruin your day if your command ship drops its shields and everybody goes for coffee literally 60 seconds after the battle ends. Also, note he is the pilot who took down the TIE Bomber. He likely saw the TIE Interceptor get clipped and remain under power. You gonna leave a live and functional enemy ship, backed into a corner with nothing to lose or else surrender, just hanging out behind you? Plus, the battle is winding down and you saw him just smoke 2 A-wings. What if one of those A-wing jockeys owed him money? Now you're ticked. Lol.

But honestly, it's just cinematography to endear us to the Imp pilot for an interesting change of pace and to make playing as an Imperial more palatable. I'm sure the Germans who kept getting gunned down during the Battle of Britain didn't look at the Spitfire as a symbol of heroic national pride. You can fight for the right side and be an ***, the wrong side and be heroic, at least in the microcosm of a life and death battle in the moment outside the wider ideological context.

On 9/15/2020 at 11:59 PM, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, but lets discuss the bloodthirsty nature of the x-wing pilot.

To me, he seems to have stayed behind, after the rebel fleet left, to what? Hunt down TIE pilots? That seems a bit harsh and uncalled for. Barring the fact that most TIEs don't have hyperdrive, does it make sense to worry about a few TIE pilots that clearly cannot get very far. Was this glory seeking? Vengeance? Something more?

The way I see it is this:

Trying to make the Imps overall the good guys, or the rebels 'terrorists' is deeply missing the point of both how narratives work and requires you to deliberately ignore a lot of systematic enactment of atrocities. If you want a Star Wars war that is more morally gray, your looking at the Clone Wars (which was a lot less of a black and white conflict despite having a narrative 'protagonist' side, and had a lot of great stuff in the EU like how many of the seperatist citizens felt shocked and betrayed by the Jedi taking a side, or the entire episode 'Heroes on Both Sides' of Clone Wars that details how the seperatist government was no more or less evil than the Republic one because both sides ultimately served the same master), but for The Galactic Civil War, this ain't it. "Justification" is not the same as "Justified." Tarkin blowing up Alderan wasn't 'a pragmatic prevention of more death' even ignoring the fact that his stated motivation for doing so had nothing to do with, you know, casual mass murder of non-combatants.

It isn't a super interesting thought experiment and I tend to associate it with people who are overly edgy, just looking to get a rise out of you, or are kinda low key secretly fascists themselves and can't read the room that no one sincerely agrees. You know how many times I have played a Star Wars pen and paper and the GM tried to really sell us on space fascism actually being the good guys and then accidently show their entire butt some time down the line about their real world beliefs? Its been happening to me ever since D6 was printed. It is an old as time take that is actually way less interesting to examine than you might think it is, which is why people tend to react pretty coldly too it. Those space contractors and arms dealers knew what they were getting into with the Empire and who they were helping, Palpatine only rose to power through endind an era of peace so long that war was a forgotten old whisper in the galaxy and plunging literally everyone into endless war, and did it explicitly just to have power for its own sake because he belongs to a cult of evil fascist space wizards. Lets not go down this road.

However, that doesn't mean dimensionality isn't allowed or good, and a lot of great stories can be told about how individuals within the Empire might see The Rebellion, or how a rebellion character may not be a paragon of purity: You can be a **** who is on the 'right side' of an issue, and you can be someone who was swept up into something awful and can't make their way out. It doesn't change the quality of the sides until it actually changes the side's goals and methods as a whole, but it allows you to humanize everyone involved.

Grey is still a die hard member of a regime of space fascists who overthrew the government, installed a president for life, committed mass murder and mass enslavement, and is refusing to surrender. But we get to see signs that he has qualities we might consider noble that put him at odds with his own space millitary: A concern for the life of those he fights alongside, which the empire in both the old EU and new one canonically didn't care about at all. He is super clearly on the wrong side, but he has elements about him that mark him as different from said space facists that allow us to care about where he ends up and hope things work out for him, despite the fact he is defending the Empire: We might want to see him redeemed, to realize how wrong he was, wonder if something will push him further over the edge. There is tension there which is why stories about these 'moral imperials' like Steele or Iden are popular (even if Iden swapped sides way too early).

Trying to evaluate logistics and literal reasons for stuff misses the point of what this short is actually about, which is to get you into the mindset of the Imperial Remnant. Its a similar mistake in analysis to asking 'why didn't the separatists just use their capability to make droids that make more droids to create a Von-Neuman war machine?'You can out out-logic most stories by rejecting its premise entirely and refusing to engage with it in good faith. By doing so in Star Wars you miss a decently compelling story about right and wrong, and about how we relate to our enemies and try to overcome evil without losing ourselves. It can be fun as a thought experiment (Though maybe the thought experiment should be better with a more interesting question than 'what if the genocidal space fascists were not just morally complicated, but the good guys?'), but it shouldn't be used to try to 'override' what the story is actually about, and what a story is 'about' can be intentional or unintentional. It just depends on what the narrative frames as important and what it supports.

So think about what this story is about , rather than what it is about. The Hunter is a good way to show how the Imperials see the Rebels, and while he acts 'out of character' for how we see them, he still is believable. Most rebels probably aren't bloodthirsty monsters who would hound you just for the sake of it and not contact you over the radio except to tell you that your about to die and everything you believe in is worthless, but it probably is what the empire believes about them, and you could see many justifications for why a rebel might act like they did in this short: Maybe the guy was trying to rescue survivors, or scout for probes or whatever, and got mad that the Imperial tried to murder someone preforming humanitarian aid. Maybe the radio was busted till that moment. Maybe the guy lost family to the empire and wanted revenge. But it doesn't really... matter? What matters is we see why someone like Gray, who clearly has way more empathy than his Imperial commanders, way more concern for the people in the empire, is willing to fight to the bitter end to resist the Rebels despite it feeling hopless: He feels like he is being hunted, that his comrades are being gunned down and the people doing it are acting smug and morally superior, and it doesn't really matter that they ARE morally superior. He can't see a reality, at least in this point in time, where he gives up fighting for the Empire and his wingmates, he expresses anger and agitation that they keep retreating, he talks about how it 'isn't over.' We get a really good look into the psychology of a 'true believer' who has qualities we admire that would make us question why he is there, and which make him a great 'badguy protagonist.'

Which we kinda need because we know pretty decisively what is going to happen to the Rebels, so the story has to find a tension other 'are the rebels going to live/win?' And that generally means a character based tension. So now the tension is 'What is going to happen to Onyx squad, who we like but know are on the wrong side and the side that is going to lose?' And the stakes are very real here because it could go in any direction.

18 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

Right, okay.

Two people. Her and Del.

It's not exactly the open, public recruitment drive you seemed to be alluding to. I was referring more to the absence of any media or statement to the effect of "after Endor, the New Republic accepted the defections of dozens of former Imps to fill out their ranks blah blah"

Not dozens, probably millions.

I suggest you to read the Alphabet Squadron book.

Traitor’s Remorse was a frost-bitten shantytown of an outpost. Once a nameless rebel base built to harbor a handful of desperate insurgents, it had evolved into a sprawling maze of improvised shelters, security fencing, and duracrete bunkers housing twelve thousand would-be defectors from the crumbling Galactic Empire. Under an ashen sky, former Imperial military personnel suffered debriefings and scrutiny and medical examinations as they waited for the nascent rebel government—the so-called New Republic—to determine their fate.
Most of the defectors occupied the outpost only in passing. They were infantry and engineers, com-scan officers and admirals’ aides.
Designated low risk and high value, they received an offer of leniency and redeployment within a week, then shipped out to crew captured Star Destroyers or to join orbital minesweeper teams. Meanwhile, those less fortunate—the defectors designated high risk and low value by whatever New Republic interviewer they’d annoyed—were stuck trying to prove themselves reliable, loyal, and of sound moral character without going mad from tedium.

52 minutes ago, Odanan said:

Not dozens, probably millions.

I suggest you to read the Alphabet Squadron book.

I’m glad someone posted this. Defection is definitely represented in canon post-Endor.