Well, if the Empire is as stupid and well, stupid, as portrayed in the movies, games, novels etc. it's not strange how the rebel alliance won against it. **** i don't like this simplistic Good VS Evil and Good always wins over the über-stupid bad-guys.

Well, Star Wars is fairly unapologetically a fable but it isn't a bad fable.

The Rebel Alliance is inclusive and meritocratic, while the Empire expends its effort on disposing of undesirables. As such, a Rebel starship captain is the best starship captain around, while an Imperial captain is probably the son of an imperial bigwig and chosen more for having the correct political beliefs than his ability to fight a starship.

The Rebels are honest and determined, while the Empire is corrupt and selfish. Hence, much of the Imperial military budget is syphoned off in to the pockets of bent officials, and imperials are more interested in syphoning off bribes in to their own pockets than they are in doing their jobs.

Innovation. Flexibility, Hope, Respect. Not narrow mindedness, fanaticism and Fear. Not a bad way to live your life.

Well if anyone stated that Star Wars was bad, I don't think they would be here to begin with.

I do feel though that the movies and most of the canon at large makes Star Wars into a simplistic view of Good VS Evil, which is a completely boring setting that provokes me as a player. It is impossible to live into the setting and be a member of the Galaxy if the main conflict is between the red-shirt, oh sorry, white armored galactic empire of evulz for the lulz, versus the good guy Greg rebel alliance.

The Rebels are surely both meritocratic and inclusive in some way. They don't have the bureaucracy and manpower to have it another way really. They need all the people they can get and promote the few smugglers and scoundrels they have to Generals because of a little combat experience. But yes most likely they have the best pilots and captains for their ship they could have access to.

The Empire's fleet and armies consist of billions of men and women serving to the empire by free will, many if not most of them defending the ideals and values on which the Empire founded itself. The Empire fights for a cause as much as the rebels and their cause is legit and democratically elected in the final days of the republic. I believe and get the feeling that the lower levels of imperial bureaucracy works mostly fine and their military and fleet consist of able men and women fighting their cause and works very much like a meritocracy whereas the upper government from governor, moff and up is the wholeheartedly corrupted empire with great nepotism in where the emperor puts his personal favorites on those roles.

On the whole, i picture my Empire a lot more like modern day United States, if they where more global ( yes, more global) mixed in with the Roman empire with the foreign policy of the British Empire. They are bad yes, but not evil.

The Rebel alliance on the other hand are modern day terrorists and freedom fighters, that actually seems to be able to found their alliance on democratic values and ideals, but their ideology does not cover the extent of their enemies.

/Poseur, not actually sure what I wanted to say

An entire legion of the empires best troops, defeated by teddy-bears.

Biggest most bad-ass battle station guarded by nothing but a few TIE fighters and turbolasers.

Second ever bigger and more bad-ass battle station with an even bigger design-flaw.

Emperor gives the rebel alliance the info about the battle station, and info that he himself will be there, and shows up getting himself killed.

Highly advanced walking tanks that withstand anti-armor lasers gets put down with a bit of rope.

Elite stormtroppers that are very precise, misses everything and dies in waves.

Well, if the Empire is as stupid and well, stupid, as portrayed in the movies, games, novels etc. it's not strange how the rebel alliance won against it. **** i don't like this simplistic Good VS Evil and Good always wins over the über-stupid bad-guys.

/Rant off

As they went down in defeat, there was a massive cry of, "**** you Plot!"

bicycle helmets.

For long time, such as during the Black Hawk Down incident, special forces dudes wore honest to god plastic skateboarding helmets rather than the heavy and uncomfortable ballistic helmets then available. They needed to move fast, and so were more concerned with bashing their heads on something than with getting shot.

The Delta snipers are wearing bike helmets in this clip here:-

Hockey helmets. Years back SF wore hockey helmets when they wanted something to keep them from bumping their head on something but wanted speed and increased perception versus protection . They've since been replaced by "Bump" or "Speed" helmets in the military and law enforcement made specifically for this.

Years back SF wore hockey helmets when they wanted something to keep them from bumping their head on something but wanted speed and increased perception versus protection.

Aye, and it is that kind of initiative and unorthodox thinking that allows the Rebels to repeatedly best the hidebound forces of the Empire.

As far as Ewoks go, a long time ago on the D20 Radio forums, user FULONGAMER did a brilliant thread describing Ewoks as terrifying furry little savages as opposed to the cute teddy bears we got introduced to them as in RotJ. Sadly, that thread seems to have been purged due to inactivity, but in short it treated them as pint-sized Wookiees rather than Care Bears in Space.

I'm sure many of us are aware that Ewoks WERE originaly going to be Wookiees. Lucas originaly planned on Wookiees and the one and only Death Star both only at the end of his trilogy. The Wookiees were going to be introduced on Endor as primitives that helped the Rebels defeat the Empire and the Death Star. They were even going to be natural pilots, flying starfighters against the Death Star. Lucas didn't think he would ever get a chance to do any Star Wars movies other then the first one, so the climatic Death Star battle and Wookiees got moved into Episode IV during many rewrites. This was fine until Episode IV was a huge success. So, we had a Death Star 2 and Wookiees of Endor were decreased to the small loveable version for a young audience.

It would have been cool if Lucas could have known how successful Episode IV would have been and didn't care about PG ratings. Discovering Wookiees for the first time upon Endor would have been badass as we got to see hordes of Wookiees overwhelm Stormtrooopers ripping their arms off, bashing them against trees, and impaling them with huge spears and crossbows.

Ant Lucia has some really impressive Rebellion pinup art on his site