Rogue One [Spoilers] Inconsistencies with the rest of the saga

We don't know how many Star Destroyers were at Hoth. We only saw a fraction on-screen, so it's conceivable that the Empire had a lot (and not just SDs, but other ships as well, albeit smaller).

 

Thought had crossed my mind and it is a good counter argument.

All I can go on is that when I watch it, you can see the space around the SDs and there is no one there. The way it was filmed, felt like it was deliberately trying to give a boxed in feel, but in doing so made it feel like there weren't many there, they just were in the evacuation flight path.

 

I can understand how someone calculating fleet size from the number of systems in the Republic could get some of these insane numbers, but to actually believe that the Imperial Starfleet has 25 thousand Star Destroyers (which are quite a bit larger than the Republic capital ships you see in the Coruscant battle in ROTS) you kind of have to disregard everything you see in the OT itself, where we see relatively small fleets of rebel ships facing off against what are fairly modest numbers of Star Destroyers. Usually, even in Vader's fleet in ESB, you see only a handful in one place at a time, and even for the purposes of the Emperor's trap at Endor we see he has only managed to summon somewhere around 30, plus the command ship. Of course, the fleet he brings to spring this trap can only be a fraction of the entire Imperial Starfleet, which has the burden of having to defend and maintain control of systems across the galaxy, but at the same time it must be a fairly substantial fraction since this is intended to be the death-blow for the rebellion -- a conservative guess would be one-sixth, which would put the total Starfleet at around 200 capital ships.

Now, it's perfectly reasonable to argue that the movies were limited by the visual effects of the time and that more ships were intended to be there than we actually are shown, but even if we imagine that to be the case, and that there were supposed to be twice or three times as many, we're still well under a thousand Star Destroyers galaxy-wide. To get the 25,000 number you have to either imagine that the visual effects are off by several orders of magnitude or that the Emperor and Vader inexplicably only used 0.001% of the ships at their disposal in some of the crucial battles that we were led to believe determined the outcome of the civil war, like Hoth and Endor.

It's not just really about the visual effects, either. If the fleets involved really number in the tens of thousands of capital ships, it becomes hard to justify how the actions of any individual or even any particular battle would really affect the outcome of the war. In our own reality, naval battles often are determined by the decisions and actions of individuals because there are a relatively small number of vessels involved. For example, how all it took was a single stray torpedo to cripple the Bismarck, or how a few dozen U.S. bomber pilots were able to turn the Pacific war in the Allies' favor at Midway. What we see in the OT is a similar balance between the agency of individuals and and the sheer weight of numbers. But haphazardly throwing on a few orders of magnitude would guarantee that that balance would be shifted far more toward a numbers game, a kind of attrition-based warfare akin to something like World War I infantry combat, but involving ships instead of soldiers. The closest we come to seeing something portrayed like that in Star Wars is the Coruscant battle of ROTS. But then that makes sense, because the Clone Wars were the galaxy's equivalent of a World War.

Or to argue this another way, we can look at it from the Rebel side. We see in ANH (and now RO) that the Rebel Alliance base at Yavin has a few dozen fighter craft present. To be conservative, we could imagine that there are plenty more Rebel ships spread out in different places, so that there could be several hundred or (generously) even a couple thousand rebel fighters active across the galaxy at this time period. But even if we take the highest number there and compare it to the 25K number for Star Destroyers, that still points to a situation where for every single X-wing or Y-wing that exists, there are supposedly 12 active duty Star Destroyers! The rebels never could have held their own at Endor for as long as they did (and with an active death star targeting their cruisers) if they were outnumbered to this degree.

 

Matthew Trias wrote

You obviously have a preference for a teeny Imperial Fleet. I have a preference for a big and meaty one.

I resent the implication. Preference or "headcanon" has nothing to do with it. In my forty years of pseudoscientific Star Wars research I've always and first and foremost examined the actual onscreen information, the screenplays and other information from the people that were actually involved in the production of the Star Wars films. I can see no reason whatsoever to challenge the credibility of Solo's statement in ANH, emphasized by the Imperial fleet size in ESB and ultimately in ROJ.

The first duty of any EU contributor, IMHO, should have been to examine rationalizations why the Imperial Starfleet is as small as George Lucas suggested throughout the OT, unfortunately that didn't happen, and now we are stuck with a popular myth that tries to replace the true intentions of Mr. Lucas and ultimately true canon.

PCCViking wrote

We don't know how many Star Destroyers were at Hoth. We only saw a fraction on-screen, so it's conceivable that the Empire had a lot (and not just SDs, but other ships as well, albeit smaller).

But we DO know, the ESB screenplay (and the novelization) name the numbers explicitly:

EXT. SPACE - IMPERIAL FLEET
Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, larger and more awesome than the five
Imperial Star Destroyers that surround it, sits in the vastness of
space. The six huge ships are surrounded by a convoy of smaller
spacecraft. TIE fighters dart to and fro.

 

I suspect they wanted to show the information to Obi-wan as soon as possible, so he could take a look and use the Force to predict their chances of success. I also think they wanted to put him in the starfighter that would shoot the proton missile because Jedi veteran of the Clone Wars...

But you are right that they should have tried some evasive manouver... Take Leia and the data away in a starfighter and send the ship somewhere else, to make sure they weren't followed...

About the Death Star not being operational, I have often wondered... What if the station's defensive shields weren't still operational? It doesn't make sense that such a big ass space station didn't include a shield. Even if the shield generator had to be stapled to the side of the Death Star, it would have been worth it.

 

It never made sense to me those battles were fought by so few ships... I mean, the Galaxy is supposed to have nearly a billion of inhabited worlds and over one hundred quadrillion sentient beings...

I always have the feeling that only a few worlds really matter in Star Wars... Like, Dac and Corellia alone were bearing most of the weight of the fight against the Empire... the Empire should have been able to deploy at least one hundred to one thousand Star Destroyers per each Mon Calamari Star Cruiser...

 

On the one hand I half agree that if the galaxy is supposed to have that many worlds the ship numbers do seem small. But on the other hand that could easily be the equivalent of trying to use the number of towns in the US (about 19000) to guess the number of active carriers in the U.S. navy (10) -- it could just be that the vast majority of inhabited worlds have little to no ship-building capacity whatsoever. Plus, I think ANH gives us a few clues that the Imperial navy IS quite small compared to the number of worlds under their control: "Impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?" Tagge's immediate response on hearing of the dissolution of the Senate is one of disbelief: no one in that conference room argues that the Starfleet is large enough to maintain control -- hence the need for the death star. Leia likewise offers a similar view when she talks about more systems slipping through Tarkin's grip.

The indication is that the Empire functions less like a modern nation-state where power is very centralized and instead more like an empire from ancient times -- think ancient Persia or Rome -- where as long as local regions paid their taxes and didn't cause trouble they would be able to keep a certain degree of autonomy in local matters. It never would have been anywhere near feasible for these empires to pay for garrisons or police in every town and village -- the state was simply too small in relation to the size of the empire to support that kind of centralization. Instead, strategically placed garrisons and armies kept these empires together by threat of swift retaliation in the event of a rebellion (sound familiar?). And while the above is mostly speculation on my part, there is some evidence to support it: Han Solo talks dismissively of "local forces" when he's bragging about outrunning Imperial ships. The mere existence of "local forces" does imply a certain amount of decentralization that fits this view and suggests that the Empire is relying on local system cooperation in enforcing laws, preventing smuggling, and so forth.

 

Dac...that was the official name for the Mon Calamari homeworld back in 1983, it's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

 

This may be old news already but I just read this: http://www.cinemablend.com/news/161...leia-was-at-the-battle-of-scarif-in-rogue-one

As predicted they had to have someone explain outside the movie why Leia was at the Battle of Scarif...

 

I don't think it's JUST that, although I understand what you're saying. I think the first reaction people have is, "Oh, well the rebels destroyed the Death Star, so other systems and people were thinking, hey, this is possible to do damage to the Empire after all." Yeah, that's nice, but remember the context here. The Death Star isn't the U.S. Army. Nobody knows about the Death Star. Everyone knows about the U.S. Army. They're completely different things. Citizens across the galaxy wouldn't be thinking FIRST, "Wow, go Rebels, they pierced the Imperial invincibility!" Uhh no, they would first be thinking, "What?! A Death Star? What's a Death Star? Oh my god, the Empire built a DEATH STAR that can destroy entire planets? Wait, they actually DID destroy Alderaan? Like completely? Oh my god that's awful! They really ARE evil. The conspiracy theorists were right!" It's not the Rebel victory in ANH that would have swayed systems to their cause, it's the true evil of the empire coming into light. The Death Star was somewhat of a disaster for them actually. You could argue the Death Star itself was the beginning of the end for the Empire.

Look at the attitudes in Rogue One, even by Jyn Erso. Plenty of people see the Alliance as a fringe group, a bunch of radicals who are unhappy about the New Order. There are probably countless companies, people, and systems that have no real issue with the Empire. Maybe their taxes went up, maybe they didn't, I don't know, but maybe some systems that were loyal to the Separatists because of the Republic's repeated failure to intervene in security matters and act on basically anything a government should do probably made plenty of systems frankly happy for the increased oversight the Empire provided. Plus, I bet a lot of systems were more or less left alone by the Empire, or at least it wasn't much meddling they cared to make a big deal of. Also, there's a common mistake among Star Wars fans that also happens among movie watchers -- they forget they have an almost omniscient viewpoint, but the characters DO NOT. So when you say, "What?! Everyone hated the Empire, because they killed the Jedi and made the Republic into a dictatorship!" No, they didn't kill the Jedi. The Jedi rebelled against the Republic, they went AWOL, they tried to seize power for themselves, and they even tried to kill the Supreme Chancellor! He had no choice but to institute an Empire to assure security and peace. Remember, that's the official line and what most people probably believe. Sure, I bet if you lived on Coruscant, you have a friend of a friend who knows the truth, but even then, you may think he's just a crazy conspiracy theorist. There are always those nutters around who swear 9/11 was an inside job, and in the galaxy far, far away, you have someone who swears the Jedi were murdered and massacred at the behest of the Supreme Chancellor / Emperor, but you don't really believe it. It sounds like crazy talk. Besides, why would Palpatine do that? He just brought peace to the galaxy.

As you get further from the core worlds, those people truly have no idea what happened in Revenge of the Sith. They heard in a local news source that the Jedi rebelled and a Jedi rebellion was thwarted on Coruscant, but that's just part of the crazy end to the Clone Wars. Everyone kind of rejoices that, well, I don't know what's going on there on Coruscant, but at least this horrible war is coming to an end. Sounds like Palpatine has delivered on his promise to bring peace back to the galaxy, at least. Sure, there may be some reservations about him being "Emperor" but at the same time, you know your planet is under local control with elected officials, and you don't see how this really affects things much. Maybe having an emperor makes sense for a while, the Republic sucked so badly. That's probably what a lot of people think.

I think some people here just assume it's obvious to everyone how evil Palpatine is, but that wouldn't be obvious to 99.9% of the people in the galaxy. The Alliance has, at the top, some people who actually DO know better, like Bail Organa, he saw first hand exactly what happened. He knows the truth. Saw knows the truth. Most people in the Rebellion probably had some negative impressions of the Empire from smaller incidents. Jyn was content to ignore the whole political "thing" because "it's not a problem if you don't look up," as the movie soon cuts to a shot UP, ABOVE HER, of the Death Star. The message from Director Edwards is clear: It doesn't matter if you choose not to look up, evil is still above you, you can't escape it, a foreshadowing to the character arc that Jyn undergoes. She soon realizes that you can't ignore this level of evil.

 

Bowen

I wholeheartedly agree that the average Imperial citizen had no real idea what exactly this "rebellion" was doing, but according to George Lucas canon (the deleted Anchorhead scene in ANH) probably noticed how free commerce was slowly but surely vanishing as the Galactic Empire took private property for public use:

BIGGS
What good is all your Uncle’s work if its taken over by the Empire… You know they’re starting to nationalize commerce in the central systems… it won’t be long before your Uncle is merely a tenant, slaving for the greater glory of the Empire.



IMHO, in his original prologue (3 months before the final screenplay) Lucas suggested that the first victory was merely something that helped the Alliance to be noticed on a much larger, public scale:

Striking from a fortress hidden among the billion stars of the galaxy, rebel spaceships have won a crushing victory over the awesome Imperial Starfleet. The EMPIRE knows that one more such defeat could bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control over the galaxy would be lost forever.

Simply put, the Alliance did need another "crushing victory" to make a considerable amount of Imperial star systems join their side, and the destruction of the Death Star ultimately accomplished that. I'd say it was the combination of both, i.e. the fact that the Alliance established itself as a serious opponent of the Empire and, of course, the fact, that the Empire was seriously considering destroying its own member worlds (following Alderaan, who'd be next?).

How much the average citizen was aware of these events remains somewhat unclear, but I'm certain that the political leaders had a good idea what was going on, though they wouldn't announce it in public. According to the original, very close to final screenplay from January 1, 1976, Motti originally suggested during the Death Star conference to have every planet destroyed suspected to support the Alliance (the Imperial Senate hadn't been dissolved yet at this stage), which IMHO clearly reveals that the Empire had no idea which planetary leaders actually did support the Alliance.

 

Well, if we were to go by what we see in the OT, there's only a handful of planets in AGFFA as well.

The Imperial Fleet has to cover A LOT of territory... It's kinda spread a little thin.

 

MeBeJedi wrote

The Imperial Fleet has to cover A LOT of territory... It's kinda spread a little thin.

And how exactly do we know that? Torib provided a reasonable explanation in his last post:

Han Solo talks dismissively of "local forces" when he's bragging about outrunning Imperial ships. The mere existence of "local forces" does imply a certain amount of decentralization that fits this view and suggests that the Empire is relying on local system cooperation in enforcing laws, preventing smuggling, and so forth.

That's pretty much in "sync" or continuity with what Lucas told us through Solo about the Imperial Starfleet (upon their arrival in the Alderaan System) and showed us in ESB and ROJ, and ultimately in the best or better tradition of Occam's razor.

I'll go one step further and claim that because of that "decentralization" the Emperor knew the day would come where he couldn't rely any more on that decentralization, hence his order to construct the Death Star (and the second one) as the ultimate WMD to keep the systems in line.

With 25,000 Star Destroyers I couldn't help but wonder why the Death Star was even necessary in the first place.

 

Well, the fact that Solo and the rebels were able to get past blockades is a strike against relying solely on an Imperial Navy.

Rather than having to set up an unwieldy planetary blockade, you can just threaten an entire planet with complete destruction of they displease you in any way.

Much more effective...

 

Nothing in the OT tells us anything one way or the other about the number of planets in the GFFA. However, there are numerous contextual clues throughout the movies about the size of the Imperial navy. We have multiple trustworthy and well-informed characters (Tagge & company in the briefing room, Han Solo, Leia, to name a few) who all explicitly contribute to the idea that the Imperial Navy is not large enough to maintain control of the galaxy without local system cooperation (and that it's well under a thousand ships according to Solo's remark). And indeed we see in ROTJ that Tagge's concerns were justified as the Rebels find a way to muster a fleet capable of winning a pitched battle against a significant portion of the Imperial Starfleet (remember, it was a trap by Palpatine, he wouldn't have used less than 0.0015% of his fleet in such a trap) and an active death star at the same time. If the 25K number were accurate, Endor wouldn't have even been a blip on the radar for Imperial officials.

Anyway, you'd be surprised what a seemingly small number of ships can do. The British ruled the greater part of the planet Earth for a hundred years with only 150 ships-of-the-line -- which are merely 200 foot-long wooden ships. No one could really challenge them for that time.

 

...add to this we don't even know how many of the inhabited planets under Imperial rule were capable of interstellar spacedrive, the amount of seats / pods in the Senate in the PT appears to be an indicator how many were actually capable.

According to the ESB screenplay Vader waited with 5 Star Destroyers to learn about the new location of the Rebel base and according to the novelization only arrived there with 5 Star Destroyers, but still several Alliance ships got through (they would have needed more to catch them all).

Once Vader had convinced the Emperor of the importance to capture Luke Skywalker, I'm confident he would have gotten more ships, especially since the Alliance wasn't a thread to the Imperial Starfleet as far as we can tell at this point in time.

Yet, according to the screenplay he "only" ended up with 20 Star Destroyers at his disposal to watch the asteroid field. But when the fleet prepares to jump into hyperspace there is just a total of 6 Star Destroyers (including the two from the Falcon's point of view) next to the Executor - which later above Bespin looks rather lonely without any escorts at all.

 

If this isn't the thread where this question should go I will try to find it but this seems like the best place for it; I googled and couldn't find any post-Rogue One release answers to this...

Now that we've seen Rogue One, what is the ultimate answer to who stopped Vader last time given his ANH utterance of "There will be no one to stop us this time!"

I'm torn between thinking he means the heroes of Rogue One and thinking he means the Imperial Senate.

Thanks!

-T

 

Tanjint

Very good question, I can only offer this explanation:

LEIA
Lord Vader, I should have known.
Only you could be so bold. The
Imperial Senate will not sit for
this, when they hear you've attacked
a diplomatic...

So Vader has apparently done some "bold" illegal things before that perhaps got him invited for a hearing in the Imperial Senate to justify his actions. Leia invokes the Imperial Senate right away, perhaps suggesting he'll receive another invitation to answer for his actions.

His aide later on, too, respectfully and cautiously suggests that this time he's really gone too far:

COMMANDER
Holding her is dangerous. If word of
this gets out, it could generate
sympathy for the Rebellion in the
senate.

Finally Vader states

VADER
She must have hidden the plans in
the escape pod. Send a detachment
down to retrieve them. See to it
personally, Commander. There'll be
no one to stop us this time.

I believe he is referring to the Imperial Senate, yet only him knows that the Emperor is about to dissolve it.

The later scene on the Death Star could be taken as a hint:

TARKIN
The Imperial Senate will no longer
be of any concern to us. I've just
received word that the Emperor has
dissolved the council permanently.
The last remnants of the Old Republic
have been swept away.

The part that interests me would be from whom Tarkin learned the news. All the Imperials that will later provide Tarkin with information, i.e. Admiral Motti, Cass and Commander Number One ('Chief Bast') are already sitting at the table, they are not at their stations, but Vader accompanies Tarkin on the way to the conference room.

To me that looks as if Vader might have personally received word / confirmation from the Emperor en route to the Death Star and informed Tarkin immediately upon his arrival.

 

UPDATE:

The original screenplay from March 15, 1976 had him say "There will be no one to save them now." instead of "There'll be no one to stop us this time."

The way I interprete that reads "There will be no one (in the Senate or elsewhere) to save them (Leia and her Rebel friends) now", especially after he had just given the order to have the ship and therefore any proof of his illegal actions "vaporized".

Of course, as the story unfolds, Vader is proven wrong.

 

What I wouldn't give to see footage of Vader's hearing in the Imperial Senate. There's a Robot Chicken Star Wars sketch we never got!

Helpful input, thanks all!

-T

 

I don't remember all the details clearly, but is it possible that the ship was actually on a diplomatic mission and had just taken a little detour to pick up the plans, and the captain would technically have plausible deniability if some of the men on his ship had taken a disk with the plans on, as he could say that he had no idea that any of his men were involved with a rebellion, if he had gone to trial rather than having his neck crushed by Vader? Any reason why this couldn't be the case?

 

The plan was always to take the stolen plans to present to the senate. Is that not exactly what a diplomatic mission is? Once the plans were in the possession of a senator (presumably Leia) its not unreasonable that immunity would exist.

"A permanent diplomatic mission is typically known as an Embassy, and the head of the mission is known as an Ambassador, or High Commissioner. The term "embassy" is commonly used also as a section of a building in which the work of the diplomatic mission is carried out, but, strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy, while the office space and the diplomatic work done is called the Chancery. Therefore, the Embassy operates in the Chancery.
The members of a diplomatic mission can reside within or outside the building that holds the mission's chancery, and their private residences enjoy the same rights as the premises of the mission as regards inviolability and protection."

 

If they are setting up a blockade of the planet, the space between each Star Destroyer would be roughly equal. This means if Rebel ships try to leave at a mid way point between the ships they would be equidistant to four Star Destroyers who would all be equally capable of attacking the escaping ship. Assuming the blockade is at all effective there is little chance a ship would be able to get through without being attacked. So you would essentially have to disable four Star Destroyers in order to guarantee escape.

Heading directly towards a single Star Destroyer means you will only be in effective range of a single Star Destroyer instead of four Star Destroyers. This limits the amount of Star destroyers needing to be disabled in a short period of time from 4 to 1. Once that single Star Destroyer is disabled, the nearest Star Destroyers most likely would not be within range to do anything before the escaping ships get to hyperspace. Your odds of conflict go from essentially 100% to nearly 0% (percentages made up on the spot, not meant to be taken as literal).

 

WE had just witnessed that slaughter. Capt. Antilles wasn't in the audience watching the movie. He was probably captaining the ship.

 

It's pretty simple. They claimed diplomatic immunity as a legal means of trying to protect the plans. Vader ignored them.