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Has the bad guys ever won with a smaller force than the good guys?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by burninganimefan357, Aug 21, 2007.

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  1. burninganimefan357

    burninganimefan357 Jedi Youngling

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    Aug 21, 2007
    It seems that the enemy forever outnumbers the good guys.And they still lose almost every time.There's always a Wedge Antilles or Han Solo or Admiral Ackbar who can turn the tide of battle against the worst odds.Has the bad guys ever had anything like that?Not unless you count Thrawn and he seemed to use overwhelming odds as well.

    So is there any instance in which the bad guys beat the good guys with a smaller force
     
  2. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2000
    Darth Revan vs. the Republic.
    Grand Admiral Thrawn vs. The Republic (as you mentioned it)
    Darth Maul vs. Black Sun.
    Stark vs. The Republic in the Stark Hyperspace Wars
    General Grevious was fighting with the equivalent of 20 Sectors vs. the Republics 980.
    Palpatine vs. the Entire Jedi Knighthood
     
  3. 000

    000 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 18, 2005
    Um, did you watch the same movies I did? They always manage to win with some pithy force.

    see: Yavin, Endor, etc. etc. etc.
     
  4. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2000
    So, when did you turn to the Dark Side anyway 000?

    It was after they named a Stormtrooper book after you, wasn't it?
     
  5. 000

    000 Jedi Master star 4

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    Oct 18, 2005
    Ooooooh...

    Not cool, Charles, not cool. [face_plain]
     
  6. burninganimefan357

    burninganimefan357 Jedi Youngling

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    Aug 21, 2007
    OK,OK.In that case,has Wedge Antilles or Han Solo or any of the other great tacticians lost any battles in which they outnumbered the enemy
     
  7. Carnage04

    Carnage04 Jedi Knight star 5

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    Mar 8, 2005
    Are there actual numbers about Revan's forces? Star Forge (I think it's hinted it was running at least partially before the betrayal by Malek) + Mandos beating on Republic forces + Revan taking parts of the Republic force could = fairly matched forces.

    Thrawn in TTT won some battles and wrecked havoc but in the end he only earned the Empire some feel good moments before it's slow slide to surrender. Thrawn's victory over Outbound Flight may have been impressive, but it was hardly just his small picket fleet vs. the Dreadnaughts. He had the help of a bunch of disposable Kamakazi droid fighters...not to mention there was practically a Civil War going on because the strongest Jedi and ultimately the leader of the Republic Forces had gone certifiably insane.

    Darth Maul vs. Black Sun...well.....Maul may just have been the "Good Guy" in that one.

    Stark caused a lot of problems but ultimately lost.

    Grievous wasn't really fighting a fair war. "Ah, Master Yoda, can you move Jedi Falguy's Forces to the planet Ambushi? Intelligence Reports a minor CIS incursion is about to happen there." - Palps "General....Move Eight Full battle fleets to the planet Ambushi. The Jedi will be waiting with their Fleet at coordinates X,Y,Z...the Artillery will be at 36 Long, 20 Lat. The Brunt of their undersized force will be dug in 2 Miles behind the artillery. Kill them. All of them." - Sids Grievous probably wasn't quite the genius he was made to appear to be.

    Palpatine. Yeah. His victory was wild.
     
  8. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

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    Jul 30, 2000
    Are there actual numbers about Revan's forces? Star Forge (I think it's hinted it was running at least partially before the betrayal by Malek) + Mandos beating on Republic forces + Revan taking parts of the Republic force could = fairly matched forces.

    I sincerely doubt that half the Republic fleet joined Darth Revan in treason against the Republic. No matter how charismatic the man was, it was implied that the Forces that joined Revan were solely those beating on the Mandalorians in the Outer Rim territories.

    Frankly, I've always been surprised people assume the Mandalorian Wars was this Epic Struggle between two evenly matched powers. I saw it more like the Yuuzhan Vong (adjusted for expansion of the Republic) where this very powerful race of conquerors invades a much larger force.

    MUCH larger.
     
  9. TalonCard

    TalonCard •Author: Slave Pits of Lorrd •TFN EU Staff star 5 VIP

    Registered:
    Jan 31, 2001
    Darth Bane. Two Sith, one galaxy. Took a thousand years, but he did a great job. And Palpatine deserves kudos for positioning himself in order to take over the good-guy Republic. The clone troopers were on the side of good once, don't forget. Winning against a huge army is good. Taking control of the other guy's huge army is better.

    TC
     
  10. Jedi_Jason5001

    Jedi_Jason5001 Jedi Master star 3

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    Nov 30, 2001
    Is it possible to think of Thrawn as an equivalent of sorts to General Rommel? Both guys didn't have a lot of material to work with (as compared to whom they were facing at the time); both were brilliant strategists; both used hit and runs and even end runs to cause/create damage/sow confusion; both were stabbed in the back: Thrawn literally and Rommel by ingesting poison b/c Hitler didn't give him any reasonable choices.

    I'm sure there might be others, but this thought just occurred to me.
     
  11. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2000
    I believe GAT has been stated to be a combination of Julius Caesar, Sherlock Holmes, Erwin Rommel, and Napoleon.

    Also, the Grand Admiral and taking over the Reich is an obvious reference to Karl Donitz.

    (Except for the fact Thrawn turned it around while Donitz surrendered)

    Sort of like Lucas admits the Galactic Empire is based on the Roman Empire's transformation from a Republic crossed with the Third Reich
     
  12. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    The only one I can think of other than Palpatine is Kaiser Soze..........oops He's not from Star Wars.
     
  13. Jedimarine

    Jedimarine Force Ghost star 5

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    Feb 13, 2001
    Now I thought somewhere in the game they allude to the fact that the majority of the veteran officers of the Republic fleet joined Revan...and this constituted the bulk of the Republic's standing force.

    Now certainly the Republic was still much larger...but in terms of standing forces, Revan had a significant advantage...when you add in worlds like Taris, that were Sith occupied, I don't imagine Revan being on the short end...plus with the advent of the star forge...he would certainly have overwhelming numbers.

    I don't anticipate that the Republic Navy was all that considerable in the KOTOR era...even in the wake of Exar Kun and the Mando Wars...likely the bulk of the expeditionary forces the Republic had were lost to Revan.
     
  14. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Nov 7, 2000
    Battle of Orinda.

    Speaking of Revan, sure he had the Star Forge, but where did he get the people to crew the ships the facility was building?
     
  15. SephyCloneNo15

    SephyCloneNo15 Jedi Knight star 5

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    Apr 9, 2005
    Sunber vs. the Amanani
     
  16. DarthSanctimonious

    DarthSanctimonious Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 18, 2006
    They were clones, obviously. I mean, there are about ten different faces in the Sith army.

    In all seriousness, that's a good question. I suppose the Star Forge ships could be highly automated. For a 600-meter vessel, there didn't seem to be very many people aboard Leviathan. That's of course assuming everyone aboard was sent after Revan and friends, which is really the only reasonable thing to do.

    Either that, or I'm reading too much into a game mechanic and Revan was pretty damned popular. We do know, for instance, that the Sith Academy on Korriban was not exactly strapped for Force-sensitive students.
     
  17. SephyCloneNo15

    SephyCloneNo15 Jedi Knight star 5

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    Apr 9, 2005
    It's certainly possible, given the probability of other loyal Sith Academies besides Trayus and Korriban, and given that the Star Forge could churn out droids like no other, that the Ships it produced may have functioned with a reasonably small crew of organics operating a large number of machines, and coordinated by a Sith or two.
     
  18. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    Fair war? What's that?
     
  19. LtNOWIS

    LtNOWIS Jedi Master star 4

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    May 19, 2005
    Arguably, he was the good guy. He was certainly the protagonist. Just like how Fett and Maul can be the protagonists of their stories.
     
  20. Pelranius

    Pelranius Jedi Master star 5

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    Apr 25, 2003
    The Legacy Sith using the Empire to beat the Galactic Alliance could count, I think.
     
  21. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

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    Apr 25, 2004
    Hmm, this topic got me thinking about real-life examples instead of Star Wars ones. Nazi Germany overran France even though the latter had better tanks and equally good aircraft, and larger quantities of both. North Vietnam also conquered the South with a force that was one-fourth the size of their adversary's.

    As for GFFA instances....I'd say Thrawn looks like the only one. The Yuuzhan Vong were probably smaller in size too and managed to pick apart the overstretched New Republic.
     
  22. Sikon

    Sikon Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Mar 29, 2006
    "Good guys" and "bad guys" only exist in the biased minds of fans. Star Wars has historical figures and not-so-historical figures, and nothing else.
     
  23. Kidan

    Kidan TFN EU Staff star 5 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2003
    do what? Star Wars has ALWAYShad a good/bad mentality to it - especially where Force users are concerned. While there has been some graying of the lines between good/evil in regards to the Empire, that does not undermine the fact that there are bad guys in the narrative.

    Palpatine, Vader, Tarkin, Isaard, and so on against, Luke, Leia, Mon Mothma, Padme, Wedge, Corran, etc

    There is a definitive good versus evil theme which ran through SW movies & EU until the NJO's attempts to shift to the Potentium theorem of Force usage. A shift that was quickly knocked back to the traditional Dark/Light view of things.
     
  24. TheSithGirly

    TheSithGirly Jedi Master star 4

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    Apr 26, 2007
    o_O

    Well . . .

    Revan has lost the war. He himself was ambushed, his Sith went down after him . . . through himself, strangely. But he won a lot of Battles. But the Jedi Civil War was won by the Jedi in the end. Same for Thrawn. He wins Battles and ends toast, because he hires his assassin as his bodyguard o_O.
    And well . . . I don´t accept Black Sun as good guys :p Grevious (more likely Dooku) against the Republic is a good point. But Republic isn´t that good anymore, lead by a Sith. And the two war-parties cooperated. And actually . . . Grevious lost. As did Dooku. Winner of the war was the Republic. For a few minutes before turning Empire.

    Palpatine did it. Even as he had clones to help him. He did it. Outsmarting them.
     
  25. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

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    Jan 27, 2000
    I think he means from a GFFA denizen's perspective, there aren't really definitive "good guys" and "bad guys", for the most part, since it depends on the person's perspective. By contrast, since we the fans have a larger view of things, we see such delineations.
     
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