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ST First Order's Strength

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by Slowpokeking, Dec 25, 2017.

  1. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Fine:

    1. Cuban Revolution
    2. Haitian Revolution
    3. The First Italo-Ethiopian War (culminating in the battle of Adua)

    Etc

    More power opponents losing to local insurgents has happened many times in history.

    What would be unique is a conquered power somehow having the funds and secrecy to do research and development that surpasses even the current state of knowledge of the sitting powers. Then to have the funds to build an applied version of such technology. To successfully test it without arousing suspicion. To fully staff and train the thousands of people required for it use and to carry out the massive movement of material necessary to transform an entire planet into a weapons system. All while continuing to be entirely under embargo and without arousing the slightest suspicion that anything amiss was happening.
     
  2. BLemelisk

    BLemelisk Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 19, 2003
    The galaxy is a big place though, isn't it plausible enough that the First Order are Imperial sympathizers that hook up with whoever Snoke and his people are in the Unknown Regions? And those regions have the resources to do everything you're saying?

    I know it's very streamlined and convenient, but it's not nonsensical.
     
  3. Darth_Accipiter

    Darth_Accipiter Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2015
    this is exactly what happened. They aren't even Imperial sympathizers, they're the hardcore remnants of the Empire rebranded who had 30 years to fester over the loss of their order. The Galactic Empire was Palpatine's Empire. The First Order was supposed to be Gallius Rax's, but he was killed.
     
  4. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Yes, but that's what makes is strange. After World War II, there were certainly Nazi sympathizers that dispersed. They didn't manage to regroup, find a secret island, develop more advanced nuclear weapons than the United States, detaonate said devices simultaneously in Moscow and Washington DC, and re-declare the Third Reich. Because, you know, at least tried to keep track of known criminals.

    Or again, yes, North Korea and Iran have had illicit weapons programs. But they were A)not decades ahead of the most advanced programs in better resourced nations and B)known about and monitored by the international community precisely because of their reputation as aggressors. What's implausible is not that they tried. It's that they succeeded so wildly, with the New Republic supposedly entirely blind-sided by the whole thing despite the decades it took to maintain such a massive conspiracy.
     
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  5. BLemelisk

    BLemelisk Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 19, 2003
    Uhhh, aren't you familiar with the historical documentary Iron Sky? ;)

    The Unknown Regions are just vague enough to allow this space Fourth Reich to accomplish everything that would undermine your (valid) points.

    The First Order's greatest strength is a writer's keyboard.
     
  6. Bacbacca

    Bacbacca Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2011
    Like i said before, you cant compare 1 to 1. This was a drafted army in the real world, that's not the same in SW world, right.

    BTW, in that link it states that by the military ended up with 3 times the power their originally started with. So it did lose most of what it had to fight the war but it ended up with way more folks anyway.

    Apparently from what we saw in TFA the Republic fleet was not enough to cover the territories it had, it only covered one solar system. And thats tremendously goofy.
     
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  7. LordDallos

    LordDallos Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2016
    Well eventually the small force grew bigger and was able to slowly dismantle the Empire’s foundation. Desires of freedom and liberation spread like a virus.
     
  8. MasterPrince713

    MasterPrince713 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2017
    Yes, but after seeing the 'freedom and liberation against tyranny' formula again and again it gets old. Hence my main complaint for the ST. TLJ especially feels like something I could've seen out of Rebels. In fact I've noted quite a few similarities between the ST and the Rebels series that it makes me wonder.....

    Moving on, I've been looking at the ICS scans of FO equipment and it's clear these guys have got all this weaponry to dominate any opposition. Manufacturers are waiting for the day when TIE Silencers can be mass-produced (replacing TIE Fighters as a whole maybe?), AT-M6 guns are supposedly meant to pack the power to punch through orbital defense shields and the Dreadnoughts are fleet killers and can annihilate land structures pretty easily.

    I'm also under no delusions that the hyperspace tracking tech was lost just because the Supremacy got wrecked.

    JJ has his work cut out for him. To me, it's obvious TFA was strictly meant to be nostalgic while Ep. 8 and Ep. 9 were to come into stuff on their own, that obviously didn't pan out, now we just have episode 9. And frankly, I have no idea how the 'Resistance' is supposed to contend with the FO. Not with all the state-of-the-art tech they have.

    With Kylo at the reins, I'm hoping when he says to 'let old things die' he means the FO's worship of the Imperial aesthetic and we can get something new. Perhaps the First Order will call itself a new name.

    And hopefully Resistance/Rebellion can band back together to form the NR again.

    Actual new factions instead of an extended GCW.
     
  9. vong333

    vong333 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 18, 2003
    This is interesting, because when you look at TFA and TLJ, the First Order has taken some serious losses. Even though they won at the end of TLJ, they have lost the Starkiller base with all there personal, they lost that super big dreadnought with that cannon busting laser weapon of theirs and Hold's last minute lightspeed was reminiscent to the Vong book where Centerpoint Station wiped out like 40% of the fleet. Holdo's lightspeed trick took out a big portion of the fleet and Snoke's ship. So what kind of numbers do they really have? The resistance, well, yeah they are kinda of toast for now, but the First Order took some heavy damages.
     
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  10. CakeThiefPro

    CakeThiefPro Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2015
    While I completely agree with your assessment, I can practically guarantee that their losses will have no practical effect on their strength in Episode IX.
     
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  11. The Legions of Lettow

    The Legions of Lettow Jedi Master star 5

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    Oct 14, 2015
    You said victors don’t demilitarize. They do. And the New Republic also had more than the Republic had.
     
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  12. Bacbacca

    Bacbacca Jedi Master star 3

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    Nov 26, 2011
    They dont demilitarize to the point they cant protect anything, man. That's the point of this.
     
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  13. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    They didn't. They still had a navy and it was wiped out with the attack on Hosnian Prime.

    You ever hear of a kill shot? That's what the SKB attack on Hosnian Prime and the NR was.
     
  14. Bacbacca

    Bacbacca Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2011
    Oh sorry, they had enough to protect ONE solar system. Thats does change everything, doesnt it.

    No, it's still silly.
     
  15. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    You still don't understand. The navy was in port at the NR capital world. They werent protecting one system. They were stationed there. There was no war so why wouldn't they be in port or drydock?
     
  16. Bacbacca

    Bacbacca Jedi Master star 3

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    Nov 26, 2011
    Do you know how big was the new republic? Cause im thinking it has to be a good chunk of the GALAXY. Or was it just the aliens we see in the movies? Humans, the furry ones, the new fish faces, the Mon Cal, and Sullustians. Is that the size of the NR? Cause if that's the size then i understand.

    But if it's anywhere close to the size of the Empire then the idea that the whole fleet being in one system is straight up ridiculous.
     
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  17. Darth_Accipiter

    Darth_Accipiter Force Ghost star 6

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    Feb 2, 2015
    holy straw man, batman.
     
  18. JMaster Luke

    JMaster Luke Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    May 7, 2000
    Yea that what bothers me. Everything was destroyed? Even when Pearl Harbor was hit the u.s. Was able to bounce back and make more ships and what not.
     
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  19. zackm

    zackm Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 22, 2015
    I'm assuming the New Republic was much smaller than the Empire. You have to imagine that a lot of systems preferred to remain independent after being under the Empire's rule for a few decades.
     
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  20. Jedi Knight Fett

    Jedi Knight Fett Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2014
    Something to consider. According to the Aftermath trilogy what would become the first order had 25% of all the imperial fleet that was left just before the battle of Jakku.
     
  21. The Legions of Lettow

    The Legions of Lettow Jedi Master star 5

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    Oct 14, 2015
    You might want to reread what I quoted. And you’re trying to spin it another way only leads to more errors.
     
  22. Avnar

    Avnar Force Ghost star 4

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    Sep 20, 2007
    I would like to know who is in charge of their various fleets... Do the First Order have any Admirals...?
     
  23. stellarmagic01

    stellarmagic01 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I hope the captain of that Dreadnought was an Admiral, otherwise there hasn't been a single Admiral in the First Order with spoken lines.
     
  24. Tan-Wessel

    Tan-Wessel Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    May 31, 2001
    If the New Republic lost their real fleet in TFA, and the new Rebellion is like 9 people, and the First Order just lost the Starkiller Base, Snoke, AND their main ship...and the FO and Rebels are preoccupied with their own BS in the Outer Rim...

    I don't see why someone/anyone else wouldn't take the opportunity to take over the New Republic in places that actually matter now. The same goes for all the investors, peoples of influence, institutions and governments.

    It helps that the US has an abundance of natural resources, the Industrial Revolution just happened, Germany and Japan were the only other places that could manufacture at that scale and were busy, and that the US dammed up all the rivers so that the residents in the mountains that never wanted to leave would be forced to move for water and jobs creating the Middle Class.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2017
  25. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    Yeah, but there you run into the issue that a decentralized and less United Galaxy would then have some relatively significant system-specific security fleets, though perhaps not capital ship based forces; probably a lot of cruisers and Starfighters. All the work they did to try and downplay the New Republic's armed forces had a logical outcome of at least some decentralized armnament, particularly in a Galaxy that Aftermath showed had a space pirate kingdom, and when TFA and other films showed that other criminal organizations and belligerent organizations still exist. And even as much as SKB will have wiped out most of the bureacracy and infrastructure of the Republic, any remotely realistic approach to politics is going to show member systems carrying the banner if for no other reason than sheer intertia.

    There's also the fact that, thank to all the atrocities, attempted (and sadly successful) genocides the Empire committed would make the First Order's onslaught catalyze a United resistance even from planets not associated with the Republic; even if the Nazis suddenly emerged from the forests of Brazil, nuked every single major US, Chinese, and Russian military base and fleet, and launched its own fleet, there's whole countries that would decide that nope, those guys need to die. Especially if the Nazis then had their nuclear stockpile blow up.
    Really wanted to quote this, and add to it, to help explain why I really can accept the Empire being effectively dead a year after Endor while still finding the Republic's total death. Part of it is the point @Jedi Knight Fett just made; a quarter of the remaining Imperial forces jumped into the Unknown Regions, which is a huge amount of men and material to not have to deal with. The other big things that I think are worth evaluating are the Contingency and Operation Cinder: two major pan-Imperial operations designed to sabotage and fatally wound the Empire. Cinder is effectively setting fire to the logistical apparatus that would keep the Empire alive and allow it to support and supply its fleet, and doing so in a way that will only encourage desertion and defection. The Contingency is *literally* about ensuring the rest of the Empire falls in the regular Galaxy. And it still takes one whole year for this to actually put the Empire down, on top of warlordism and popular revolt.

    Cinder alone feels to me like it would be a poison pill to end the Empire after Endor. The Contingency simply makes it neater and quicker.
     
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