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Issue #4 is out. It's okay. It progressed the story. The most interesting moments involved Vader's interaction with his new lackey.

Well, I finished Tarkin. I understand the objections I've read about the Joint Chiefs, but the novel itself seems oblique enough to leave some wiggle room:
Spoiler Still not seeing how what happened in this novel makes the Empire any more totalitarian than I believed to it to be prior to reading it.

As for that objection about Vader having to go to the Hutts to secure resources in the comic, I just started reading A New Dawn and this caught my attention:
Spoiler Like I said before, it's possible that not every resource that the Empire needs is abundant enough for even them to obtain easily.

Irbis wrote:

Elheru Aran wrote:It's not impossible that the staff of admirals and whatnot that were meeting with Tarkin were there for... the meeting... and simply left on their business afterwards.

No, read the passage again. The meeting was six years after RotS. 14 years before ANH. This means Empire's military was commanded exclusively by 8 guys we see in the movie, 8 guys who despite being Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Galactic Empire also had to take time 15-20 years later to personally command Devastator, DS I, Executor, and DS II. Singular, low ranking posts.

This makes no freaking sense whatsoever!

I mean, fucking Poland has more higher ranging admirals, and our fucking fleet is one leaking corvette and two junk ex-frigates, not millions of starships!

To be fair, a Death Star is not a low ranking command. You don't give it to just any captain. It might very well be assigned to one of the most senior and politically reliable officers in the entire Imperial Navy, being as how it probably outweighs and outguns the rest of the Navy combined.

Executor likewise is supposedly the flagship and headquarters of the Imperial fleet's mobile fighting forces, and has firepower and protection that supposedly made it nigh-immune to rebel attack. It would actually be a fairly sensible place for a massively senior officer to make as his mobile headquarters.

The others... yeah, that part is dumb.

Simon_Jester wrote:Executor likewise is supposedly the flagship and headquarters of the Imperial fleet's mobile fighting forces, and has firepower and protection that supposedly made it nigh-immune to rebel attack. It would actually be a fairly sensible place for a massively senior officer to make as his mobile headquarters.

I think the Executor's significance is overblown, to be honest. And I've theorized before that every admiral in the fleet might have one. Remember, "there are a lot of command ships."

Where did the "Executor bankrupted some star systems" claim come from? If it was taken out by the Glorious EU Purge, then the claim of there being many of them becomes way more feasible.

Gandalf wrote:Where did the "Executor bankrupted some star systems" claim come from? If it was taken out by the Glorious EU Purge, then the claim of there being many of them becomes way more feasible.

It was an EU thing. And given that we (allegedly) see a crashed one on Ep7 Desert Planet, we know there was definitely more than one in service.

Galvatron wrote:I think the Executor's significance is overblown, to be honest. And I've theorized before that every admiral in the fleet might have one. Remember, "there are a lot of command ships."

Well, the Executor herself may be rather important, since it's Lord Vader's flagship, and when it isn't at the start of RotJ, it was apparently ferrying the Emperor himself to the Death Star II.

As for the ship-class, well that remains to be seen how much of the old EU stupidity gets brought back in. Still, as I said above, we can (probably) point to at least one other that was around the Desert Planet for some battle or another.

There are a lot of nimitz class carriers too. And those would certainly bankrupt many states...he'll even a modern destroyer, of which there are many would bankrupt some smaller states on earth.

RogueIce wrote:Well, the Executor herself may be rather important, since it's Lord Vader's flagship, and when it isn't at the start of RotJ, it was apparently ferrying the Emperor himself to the Death Star II.

True enough. Moreover, I wish Jim Luceno had seized the opportunity presented by this reboot and changed the Executrix to the Executor for his Tarkin novel. I could easily see the Executor having started out as Tarkin's flagship first.

Speaking of which, the novel does some long overdue justice to Tarkin and presents his relationship with Vader (and Palpatine) as well as I could have hoped for, under the circumstances.

Simon_Jester wrote:To be fair, a Death Star is not a low ranking command. You don't give it to just any captain. It might very well be assigned to one of the most senior and politically reliable officers in the entire Imperial Navy, being as how it probably outweighs and outguns the rest of the Navy combined.

It might be important post, but it's still big downgrade to someone who led entirety of the military. If you need full half of your Chiefs of Staff to command one ship, something is wrong. Who exactly commands the rest of Empire when they are playing with their newest toy?

Okay, if you're generous, you might classify DS I as fleet in itself, probably rivalling the fleets of Core oversectors in terms of personnel. That still doesn't warrant your highest officers, in fact, if SW military is anything like WW II ones (as then we had largest armies) then DS I grade post would be at best 2-3 grades from the top, IMHO...

AniThyng wrote:There are a lot of nimitz class carriers too. And those would certainly bankrupt many states...he'll even a modern destroyer, of which there are many would bankrupt some smaller states on earth.

Well, the quotes were around the lines of it nearly bankrupting the entire Empire which would be about as silly as saying the USS Nimitz alone nearly bankrupted the US.

Irbis wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:To be fair, a Death Star is not a low ranking command. You don't give it to just any captain. It might very well be assigned to one of the most senior and politically reliable officers in the entire Imperial Navy, being as how it probably outweighs and outguns the rest of the Navy combined.

It might be important post, but it's still big downgrade to someone who led entirety of the military. If you need full half of your Chiefs of Staff to command one ship, something is wrong. Who exactly commands the rest of Empire when they are playing with their newest toy?

If the military never contained anything like a Death Star before, it might be a simple matter of rotating posts, with the Death Star being a separate command outside the normal naval chain of command.

Thus, going from "Chief of Naval Operations" to "Admiral responsible for the Death Star and ancillary forces" could be seen as a step down. But bureaucratically, it's a step sideways. And if (like Tarkin) you are a strong advocate of the Death Star you might not see it as a demotion at all, more like getting the job you always wanted while someone else steps behind your old desk commanding the (now somewhat obsolete) conventional naval forces.

Okay, if you're generous, you might classify DS I as fleet in itself, probably rivalling the fleets of Core oversectors in terms of personnel. That still doesn't warrant your highest officers, in fact, if SW military is anything like WW II ones (as then we had largest armies) then DS I grade post would be at best 2-3 grades from the top, IMHO...

Again, it depends. An installation like the Death Star certainly could be commanded by a relatively junior Imperial flag officer, in the grand scheme of the Imperial hierarchy.

But it's such an incredibly important strategic position that given how the Empire works, I suspect it would be at most one level in the chain of command down from the seniormost commanding officer of the imperial fleet. Maybe not even that, as Palpatine might want to keep it under his direct command.

I mean... There is nothing like it in the galaxy, it is not just another ship in a big fleet. It has capabilities that make it a threat to literally everyone, especially if it is misused.

Thus, it is a position of supreme trust and importance, and arguably more sensitive than a nominally higher ranking post like "Chief of Naval Operations."

Of course, none of these arguments apply to a single star destroyer, or even a single conventional fleet command. Going from Chief of Naval Operations to being the senior naval officer of Death Squadron is a major step down, for example.

FTeik wrote:Well, Tagge could have pulled an Oberstein and left the battle he - rightly - considered to be lost. Or he was recalled to Coruscant prior by Palpatine to report why there are no news from Alderaan. Both assuming, that in the new contuity Tagge was still a department-head aboard DS1.

Or he could have personally led a band of stormtroopers to Dantooine to see if there was a Rebel base there...

Irregardless and for all intensive purposes, Tagge wasn't on board the Death Star when it sploded. I'm actually glad about it too. He was one of the only movie Imperials who really seemed to have his shit together.

Galvatron wrote:So far, I'm enjoying it quite a bit, if for no other reason than because this new canon vindicates a longstanding and unpopular theory of mine that the Death Star's destruction was a crippling blow against the Empire...

Well, it seems that Princess Leia disagrees with me in issue #4 of the main series...
Spoiler I used hyperlinks this time so my posts are less big and hopefully less obnoxious.

Galvatron wrote:

Galvatron wrote:So far, I'm enjoying it quite a bit, if for no other reason than because this new canon vindicates a longstanding and unpopular theory of mine that the Death Star's destruction was a crippling blow against the Empire...

Well, it seems that Princess Leia disagrees with me in issue #4 of the main series...
Spoiler

http://i62.tinypic.com/xkyxis.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/2rco0me.jpg

I used hyperlinks this time so my posts are less big and hopefully less obnoxious.

If an invader got their hands on a single megaton nuclear device and nuked the Washington D.C, it would be a crippling blow to the United States only if the advantage were quickly pressed.

Hey look, Dodonna made it off Yavin.

Good. It never made sense in the old EU that the rebels didn't evacuate Yavin immediately after ANH. The first Imperial ships that showed up on the scene should have found the same sort of remnants that they found on Dantooine.

Galvatron wrote:Good. It never made sense in the old EU that the rebels didn't evacuate Yavin immediately after ANH. The first Imperial ships that showed up on the scene should have found the same sort of remnants that they found on Dantooine.

well the thing is that even if they started the very second the Death Star exploded it's gonna take alot of time to evac a base like the Yavin IV one, hell even in Hoth they had to leave most of their hardware behind cause there wasn't time to disassemble and pack those for transport and the rebels don't have the resources to simply dump everything and rebuild at the next location like the empire has.

Galvatron wrote:

Galvatron wrote:So far, I'm enjoying it quite a bit, if for no other reason than because this new canon vindicates a longstanding and unpopular theory of mine that the Death Star's destruction was a crippling blow against the Empire...

Well, it seems that Princess Leia disagrees with me in issue #4 of the main series...
Spoiler

http://i62.tinypic.com/xkyxis.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/2rco0me.jpg

I used hyperlinks this time so my posts are less big and hopefully less obnoxious.

The thing that made the loss of the Death Star a crippling blow is that, without it, the Empire can't do anything about worlds turning against it because of the Senate being disbanded. I doubt many worlds would be instantly turning against the Empire. I expect that most worlds would take some time to decide that they want to aid the Rebellion. Consider that the Death Stars destruction, or the fact that is there was only one Death Star, would be a lot harder to verify than Alderaans destruction. I can easily see worlds being afraid of the Death Star for a while, until other Rebel worlds remaining intact convinces them that the Rebels are telling the truth about its destruction.

So the only people in the Rebellion who might see anything happening immediately after the Death Star explodes would be those working at getting planets to join the Rebellion. People focused on blowing up military targets, which sounds like it would include Leia, aren't going to see much until worlds start defecting.

Lord Revan wrote:

Galvatron wrote:Good. It never made sense in the old EU that the rebels didn't evacuate Yavin immediately after ANH. The first Imperial ships that showed up on the scene should have found the same sort of remnants that they found on Dantooine.

well the thing is that even if they started the very second the Death Star exploded it's gonna take alot of time to evac a base like the Yavin IV one, hell even in Hoth they had to leave most of their hardware behind cause there wasn't time to disassemble and pack those for transport and the rebels don't have the resources to simply dump everything and rebuild at the next location like the empire has.

Yes, but the old EU showed us that they hadn't even started preparing for an evacuation. In fact, they were still using Yavin IV as a staging ground for new missions against the Empire.

Was there ever any indication in the older novels that the Imperial High Command would have at some point shifted its HQ off of Coruscant and to the Death Star itself? If so, it may make some sense that some upper echelon officers were already present there during its maiden voyage.

Galvatron wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:

Galvatron wrote:Good. It never made sense in the old EU that the rebels didn't evacuate Yavin immediately after ANH. The first Imperial ships that showed up on the scene should have found the same sort of remnants that they found on Dantooine.

well the thing is that even if they started the very second the Death Star exploded it's gonna take alot of time to evac a base like the Yavin IV one, hell even in Hoth they had to leave most of their hardware behind cause there wasn't time to disassemble and pack those for transport and the rebels don't have the resources to simply dump everything and rebuild at the next location like the empire has.

Yes, but the old EU showed us that they hadn't even started preparing for an evacuation. In fact, they were still using Yavin IV as a staging ground for new missions against the Empire.

This is largely from the old comics, but yeah, they fended off Imperial assaults for some time and didn't evacuate for a few months at least. They weren't completely evacuated until the Executor was finished, IIRC, which was like a year or so after ANH.

NeoGoomba wrote:Was there ever any indication in the older novels that the Imperial High Command would have at some point shifted its HQ off of Coruscant and to the Death Star itself? If so, it may make some sense that some upper echelon officers were already present there during its maiden voyage.

Not that I know of.

Elheru Aran wrote:

Galvatron wrote:Yes, but the old EU showed us that they hadn't even started preparing for an evacuation. In fact, they were still using Yavin IV as a staging ground for new missions against the Empire.

This is largely from the old comics, but yeah, they fended off Imperial assaults for some time and didn't evacuate for a few months at least. They weren't completely evacuated until the Executor was finished, IIRC, which was like a year or so after ANH.

Yes, and that has been rectified in the new EU with this (from Marvel's Princess Leia #1)...

http://oi61.tinypic.com/259h6cx.jpg

Issue 5 came out on Wednesday, I just read it now.

Spoilers?? Spoiler

I don't necessarily see the shadow of Yuzzhan Vong here (making all tech organic), rather the opposite: a more logical extension of the cybernetics (merging organics with technology) we saw some glimpses of in the Star Wars universe.

It is interesting also in that it shows it being at least a capable threat/alternative to a Sith as strong as Vader.