Saga How did the empire fall in one year?

Ok in the old EU the empire slowly crumbled over nearly 20 odd years. Breaking off into warlords with infighting and civil war chewing up the bulk of the imperial fleet allowing the new republic to gain power.

That seems pretty believable. The empire had a massive war machine. It would take a long time to wear it down.

Now we have the new cannon. Chuck Wendig (I hate his books) puts the defeat of the empire at less than 1 year after return of the Jedi.

How is that possibl? How did the small ragtag band of rebels with there tiny fleet suddenly destroy the empire in one year?
I know jakku was costly but still! The imperial fleet was massive. One or even two decisive battles will not be enough to destroy the imperial fleet, only a war of attrition.
The empire had 25000 imperial star destroys ( A figure readded into new cannon) plus countless other ships. How did that sort of military might fall in less than a year? Even with in fighting it is going to take a while.

It makes no sense! It seems like wendig pulled the idea of 1 year out his butt to tie things up in a "happy ever after" without thinking on the absurdty of it.

They had 30 odd years between return of the Jedi and the force awakens, plenty of time to have the empire fall in a more believble way.

 

Well, perhaps the world-building kinda got beat up with the PT, don't you think? Of course the point in ROTJ originally was that the Emperor in his persona and with his rule of fear was the ONE thing that held the Empire together.

I guess there's some kind of historical scenario, where an underground rebellion eventually toppled a autocratic government by more or less removing a dictator, that GL related to.

Then the PT made the Empire something else and we're led to believe (but never shown...) that the Old Republic is no longer functioning and Palpatine is able to orchestrate the rise of the Empire.

And the early ANH-story depicted the current Emperor as one of many rulers in succession - and perhaps only a puppet actually.

But I haven't read Wendig's book and also find the backstory created by TFA to be somewhat weak. I prefer my own old interpretation that the dark side of the force clouded the minds of all the Imperial officers - and with the Emperor and Vader gone they kinda lost the will to fight.

 

Originally, as detailed in the prologue to the ANH novelization, the Emperor was meant to be a wily politician (later described as Nixonian) who took office, declared himself Emperor, and was largely controlled by his inner circle. It was later on that Lucas reversed the situation to where the Emperor was the one who was really pulling the strings.

And the idea of the Emperor being the true motivator of the Empire itself was, I believe, first referenced in James Kahn's ROTJ novelization. There, the Emperor is said to be able to direct and control all of the Dark Side currents surrounding the him and the Empire. And, once he's dead, the Dark Side is so diffuse and disorganized that the Imperial forces just fall apart, giving in to empty rage and fear, making them easy targets for the Alliance at Endor. Beyond there, though, it's a bit more complicated.

I haven't read the new-EU post-ROTJ books yet, but I have to admit that the whole Empire falling and being replaced with the New Republic in one year seems hard to accept. Just as I have a problem with the First Order totally defeating the New Republic and taking control of the galaxy in a matter of days, but that's another story. The original EU idea of a longer, more difficult transition seems much more reasonable an idea.

 

Short version: It was supposed to, it was killed by Fleet Admiral Rax under orders from Sidious as the Contingency. Rax literally says "The Empire is dead, I have killed it" Palpatine's big order to Rax is thus:

"If an Empire cannot protect its Emperor then that Empire must be deemed a failure. It collapses not only because its central figure is gone, but because it must not be allowed to remain!"

This wasn't in Legends. Maybe because Palpatine had his Clone Scheme for Eternal Life. So it fell into years. But Palpatine doesn't have a clone backup sceheme in canon so his final order is to kill his creation and Rax is the guy running the Empire and he does so. Just basically burn the frickin' galaxy to ashes. Or cinders. Like Operation Cinder which is another scored Earth Imperial post-Endor scheme. It's a rigged system that collapses. The guy running the Empire is is actively trying to destroy it. (And kill a bunch of New Republic people too and, well, everyone.)

 

Indeed, the Empire's fall was expedited because the Emperor ordered it. That's what the First Order is, the legacy of the Loyalist Imperials who carried out Palpatine's final order to destroy his Empire and begin anew.

 

In The Essential Guide to Warfare, Isard is portrayed as acting on orders from Palpatine - and she does things like abandon Coruscant.

 

Still a slow destruction as portrayed in the EU is far more believable than one year.

You don' just lose 25,000 star destroyers and God knows how many other ships in just a single year.

 

A chunk of them did disappear to the unknown regions and other ones were captured and Rax is sending the Empire on suicide missions that are basically designed to destroy all resources.

Another reason why the First Order is so nasty, all of the Imperials leftover who started it were ones who were actively trying to destroy everything.

 

It would also assume that the vast majority would go along with Palpatine's "burn it all down" order, rather than see it as the pointless, spiteful act that it was. I figure only the most fanatical ones would agree, while the others would see sense and ignore it.

 

Palpatine's Operation Cinder order only went out to the most zealous officers whom he personally entrusted. The rest were sent on suicide missions sent down from the chain of command, which was topped by Rax.

 

But even with suicide missions how can you get rid of a fleet consisting 25,000 imperial star destroyers , hundreds of thousands of other capital ships and likely trillions of troopers in one year!

Hell the rebels didn't even have enough of a military to send such suicide missions againt! You would literally have to order fleets into black holes!

Anakinfan edit: No author bashing dropped a massive clanger (among many in his aftermath books) to say that the empire could be mostly destroyed in under a year. Its a ludicrous joke.

It would take 5 years of constant fighting among warlords at LEAST more likely 10 years.

 

They didn’t. They were suffering mass defections, splinters, and surrenders. Some Moffs, sensing the way the wind was blowing, surrendered their sectors and forces to the New Republic without putting up a fight.

The Rebel Alliance and the New Republic didn’t destroy the entire tower. They knocked down the support columns, and the rest crumbled without them.

A good analogy here is the fall of the Soviet Union. Ostensibly one of the most powerful nations in the world, it was in reality a house of cards, held together mainly by fear. Once the first card was pulled, and people realized how weak the Soviet Government really was, it all came tumbling down in a year.

 

Yah there's quite a stacked deck against the Empire continuing (and also the defections, systems surrendering, mass population revolutions, escaping to the Unknown Regions). I go with a slightly more gruesome analogy that the head was lopped off at Endor, the Imperial body spent a year flopping around headlessly and without a command structure that was designed to sustain it. Until it fell over dead. Dictatorships tend to collapse rather rapidly once they're ousted. And this Empire was not allowed to survive on the final order of it's Emperor.

 

That's why the EU is better

 

...

K.

 

I was kind of joking, but I also wasn't. There's lots of flaws with the EU for sure but there's just as many flaws with the new canon if not more.

 

"K" is just my default reply to anything I see that makes a very firm statement and comes completely out of left field.

You're free to believe whatever you'd like, but just jumping into a thread and saying "The EU is better" gives me pause.

 

People don't give the EU enough credit, SW wouldn't be SW without it, but SW would definitely be SW without Rey and Snoke and all these new people

 

Then say that.

We don't gain anything from people jumping into threads with the sole purpose of posting one line vaguely decrying the new stuff without any actual reasons why that is. You've literally done it three times in three different threads in the last hour.

There are legitimate problems with both Legends and the NuCanon. I'd love to have people talk about and discuss them. But these "anti-Disney soundbytes" don't do anything for anyone, and lead to things like this being necessary.

 

I'm not trying to vaguely decry anything, nor am I trying to start an argument. It was more like a sarcastic comment that shows how I feel, but I'm not going on a crusade like you're implying. I simply stated my opinion by replying to the thread.

 

Yah sarcastic "this sucks!" posts is what is getting the forums locked down, y'know. Probably should avoid that.

 

I expect the vast majority of the Imperials were loyal to their pay packet. Once there was a change of management, they didn't care who was in charge as long as they could still bring home the bacon. I doubt many were fanatically loyal to the Imperial ideology, but were willing to turn a blind eye if they had families to feed.

 

Operation Cinder is the reason why it is possible. Palpatine did not want the empire to continue if he were to die so he created operation cinder which was the purposeful destruction of the empire. He only wanted those truly worthy to start something new. That’s how the empire fell so fast.

 

Thinking about I am going to bet a big part of the Imperial navy where not exactly fans of the the genocide stuff and probably would of switched loyalty's given the chance.

Most of the Imperial military probably joined up wanting to do go or just to escape crap hole planets. Only a minority where likely psychopaths and those would likely be assigned to things like the death star.