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Finn has some leftover brainwash residue from being brainwashed in the First Order. That's why he gave Poe such a hard time about being a former spice runner.

 

It's more about their similarities then if they would get along, honestly; IMO in a lot of ways C'Boath retroactively seems redundent, IMO, when Dooku exists.

I'm curious...how do you account for all the other Hands?

Keep in mind that 25,000 thousand would be spread out across the entire Empire, with some ships assigned to specific tasks, and not all would be operational at the same time (even a "full" sector fleet is'nt likely going to be able to concentrate all of it's 24 ISDs in one location at any given time or have all of them operational and "at sea" at once).

The Empire did'nt need a huge fleet at Endor; they only needed a fleet large enough to block the Rebel's escape (and they could'nt contrate a large number of ships their anyway becuase that would give away that it was a trap).

There's more then one kind of proton torpedo. Aside from different models, they come in different sizes (Acclamators in Legends have absolutly massive torpedo tubes as seen in Republic Commando)

She'd try to avoid it, but given that one of her known covers was that of a seductive palace dancer, and given that Palpatine would'nt care about what made her comfortable, I have a hard time imagining she made it through her entire service with the Empire without having to have sex with someone over the course of a mission.

That's what I've always assumed; it's *all* Star Destroyer-class vessels (minus Super Star Destroyers), from Secutors all the way down to Gladiators.

That seems to...clean (for lack of a better word) to me. After decades of war and the reformation of the Empire from disparate warlord factions they'd specifically have large numbers of just two types of SDs?

Nah; IMO it makes more sense for the 200 Star Destroyers" to be like...52 ISDs (I and IIs), 70 VSDs (I and IIs), two Secutors, 30 Venators, six Interdictors, twenty-two Gladiators and eigtheen Tectors - or something along those lines.

I doubt Iron Fist was in optimal condition either; Zsinj had a lot of territory but he was still a warlord who lacked the resources of the Empire proper and was engaged in constant warfare since the death of Palpatine.

It almost certainly is; in TOR when you change the music in the Balmorra cantina to "something more patrotic" the jukebox ends up playing the KOTOR theme.

Did she actually care about her kid in the end, though? IIRC by the time the case was resolved she was to busy with the holodrama about her story to comment.

I can see the Empire using her (and her movie) to help further their anti-Jedi narrative. I can't see them making her an agent (let alone an Inquistor)

 

Relevent to the SSD conversation, I never got the hand-wringing over the size contridictions with the Executor-class; it's 19,000 meters, and some (mostly older) sources either estimated it wrong or used numbers that have since been retconned.

It does'nt need to be explained away with their being different sized ships of the class; no more then any other scaling issue in SW (or sci-fi in general) needs to be; like, nobody is watching ST and arguing that Starfleet made the Defiant-class in sizes ranging from 50m to 170, and I've never seen an argument for why, for example, the Marauder-class incorrectly appears as a tiny little one-man fighter in the old Darth Maul comic from 2000.

Like I get that saying this is against the spirit of the thread and I'm not trying to put anyone or their ideas down; but IMO at some point their comes a moment where you just have to accept that writers don't always get the sizes and appearences of things correct and the intended response is to ingore when they do.

You really are minimilistic; just four Tectors and two Secutors? Only thirty Venators?

Personally I subscribe to the idea that *most* of the 25,000 SDs were always either older (Venator/Victory) or smaller (Gladiator) variety; I would not be suprised it it was like, 5000-ish ISDs and 20,000 of everything else (or something like that).

Well, I was noting the I/IIs for the ISD/VSDs to mark that the Empire at this point would have been reduced to such table scraps that the fleet would have been a hodgepodge of older and newer ships (most ISDs were probobly either Is or Is that had been refitted to reflect the designs of IIs, IMO, if only becuase the Empire likely built far, far more of the latter model then the former).

 

So was Roan Fel's father referred to anything other than... Roan Fel's father, as in was there ever a confirmation that the Fel Dynasty had three monarchs that I'm just misremembering now? Because I'm starting to get a headcanon of, what if Jagged isn't Roan's grandfather, but his father?
Nevermind, checked my copy of Legacy #0 and he is indeed mentioned as the third Fel Emperor.

 

In my headcanon, Roan’s father was Davek Fel. As seen in the incredible HandofThrawn45’s epic quadrilogy Legacy’s Edge.

 

Oh I have read and liked that, but my thoughts were on 60 being the new 40, which I whole-heartedly support IMO it makes the most sense in a sci-fi setting like Star Wars, and I think Kol could be Ben's son directly, with no intermediary line. I suppose this theory could work if Soontir is posthumously made Fel I. Not sure if there's any historical precedence for that. Its also possible that, as in Legacy's Edge, Fel II had a short reign and Jagged was post-factum Emperor... also works in a non-straightforward way.

 

8km SSDs will always feel more right to me than 19, but I'd much prefer one size than separate-but-otherwise-identical classes at 8, 12.8, and 19km.

My SSD sizing headcanon is that the decoy Super-class Star Destroyers approved by the Senate at 8km. When the SSDs arrived, some bought the official 8km line, while others insisted that they were at least as big as the 12km Sarlacc Project prototype, if not larger. Eventually, the Empire acknowledged that they were 19km Star Dreadnoughts, but the confusion over length (and Super/Super-class Star Destroyer nickname) stuck.

 

Fact: The Executor could withstand three Imperial vessels, probably Stardestroyers, dropping out of hyperspace right into it, shields raised, like it was nothing. Atomized against its strong shields. (source: Classic Star Wars Comics of old)



Headcanon: So, The Last Jedi's Holdo Maneuver ONLY worked, because the Surpremacy had its shields down feeling too confident in its superiority over the fleeing Resistance ships unable to fight back! That explains nicely why it could not be used more often to win, given most ships and even Death Stars keep their shields up.

But, when DJ approached the Surpremacy for infiltration and hacked it to lower one segment of shields only temporarily like a blib nobody would notice, the shields were actually up! Guess he lied and never hacked it like the Codebreaker might have but rather contacted the Surpremacy to let them in and take them later on which had them lower their shields for them.

If so, the entire mission of Finn and Rose to Canto Bight that failed epically with no Codebreaker and no disabling its hyperspace tracking from the inside given their capture, was not for nothing but actually the key that enabled the Holdo Maneuver to later work!!! Coincidence or the Force at work? I like that this gives destiny-style meaning to their mission even if the obvious objective failed.

 

Let's not forget, the Empire has a lot of smaller ships too, and in real life is any guide they should heavily outnumber the "battleships" (Star Destroyers). On the other hand, I didn't realize there were a thousand sectors either. (I had figured maybe 1-200.)

Time to do some math!

I figure an "typical" sector fleet (realistically there would be a good deal more smaller ones than bigger ones) as,
5 Star Destroyers, a mix of Imperial-I and II's and Victory types.
1-2 Vindicator class cruisers. (Not that many were built).
About maybe 10 Strike Cruisers (usually on independent assignments, leading small task forces, and less time hanging out with the Star Destroyers.
About maybe 20 Carracks.
On Paper, 1-2 Interdictors - in reality, they're lucky to if they even have a single one, only the bigger and most powerful sector fleets can count on having the actual full-time use of an Interdictor, so let's count it as 0, or about 80-120 total in all sector fleets galaxy-wide.
On Paper there should be 2 or so Lancers, in reality you're got one most of the time, or none. Maybe 700? galaxy-wide in sector fleets.
Perhaps a single Escort Carrier, maybe more, it seems there's not a lot of reason to have starfighters around that aren't of much use other than Space Superiority - Just about any situation where you would need these you'd need a capital ship as well. Probably sees the most action in Carrack-heavy strike forces.
A few dozen associated smaller things, many of which would be easily taken out by 4 Y-wings firing torpedoes, often barely outgunning a typical smuggler or pirate, many or most of which are not under the command of the Imperial Navy, but Intelligence, the ISB, or Imperial Customs (the latter having the largest component.)
Not nearly enough Escort Frigates. If there's more shipping you have more, if there's less shipping you have less, but short of the most important sectors in the Core you don't have as many as you actually need, meaning ships waste time waiting for convoys to assemble waiting for an escort to show up, or not running all ships in convoy. (Probably not all that many convoys in the Outer Rim.)
Not enough Star Gallons to make any real difference to above problem. Only the absolute most important or valuable shipments merit one of these.
Possibly in more backwater sectors a Dreadnought or two, maybe three, although officially there shouldn't be any.

Moff/Oversector commends, let's say about 20:
A Super Star Destroyer. Enough of them should be completed to fill this demand c. 9-12 BBY...
(Read: Zenji might have been the only oversector command with one, or one of maybe 2-3.commands to actually get one at some point.)
On average I'd say about 30 or so Star Destroyers (Again counting both types of ISD and Victories in the total.)
About 8? Vindicators
About 4-5 Interdictiors.
About 75? Strike Cruisers, with the biggest and most Important commands generally having more Star Destroyers compared to Strike Cruisers.
About 120-150 Carracks (These commands get preference for bigger ships, meaning they have relatively less smaller ones.
About 3 Lancers, On Paper there should be 6-7, but they stopped building them before there were enough due to not being quite as good an idea as they thought.
About 4-5 Escort Carriers
All convoy escort jobs are not my problem, deal with with it with your own ships, sector commander! So no Escort Frigates, and only a half dozen Star Gallons mostly for fleet supplies. Oh, and if I need convoy escort sized ships for some reason, Sector Commander, I'll just borrow a few of yours.

Do Grand Admirals actually have their own dedicated ships, or are the meant to be placed in command of Oversector task forces? If they do, I would figure about two "typical" sector fleets, but always with 2-3 Interdictiors, much of which would be with his flagship most of the time.

The Death's Head fleet, Vaders personal fleet.
A Super Star Destroyer
30-35 or so Star Destroyers, mostly Imperial-II's with the rest Imperial-I's.
Either no Vindicators (Vader gets the Big Ships,) or about 10? 15? of them.
5-6 Interdictors.
Maybe 1-2 Escort Carriers, if any. (See above, he's probably got enough fighters already.anyway. on his Star Destroyers.)
About 40 Strike Cruisers.
About 50 Carracks.
No Lancers, which turned out to be a mistake at Endor, but their need was not anticipated.

If it seems like this is actually smaller than an Oversector command, it is, but is often concentrated as a single force and has no local responsibilities tying it down, and no fixed area of operations.
This actually explains the (relatively) small size of the fleet at Endor - it's was simply Vader's personal fleet, judged to be enough for the operation, and ships from other commands disappearing to join it would raise too much suspicion.
About 5% would be scheduled to be in dock at any given time. Often much larger is the number of ships in a dock for battle repairs. Also, this doesn't count any recent losses not replaced. Escort Frigates are small enough and on their own enough they suffer a noticeable attrition. Strike Cruiser are sufficiently easy to kill with torpedoes, they also have a high attrition rate. The designers really should have traded off other stuff for a sturdier hull.

Adds up to: (grabs calculator)
About 5250 Star Destroyers of all types.
Around 1700 Vindicators
Around 220 Interdictors
Around ~11750 Strike Cruiser. With their high loss rate it would probably be lower.
A little over 23,000 Carracks.
Around 800 Lancers
A little over 1300 Escort Carriers.
Smaller ships, Escort frigates and Star Gallons we don't have enough raw data on convoys numbers/sizes/routes/etc for there to be any point actually giving a number, other than not enough.
Perhaps a thousand or more Dreadnoughts still hanging around in Imperial service.
Well there's my new personal Cannon. Enjoy!

 

I like the idea of Nat and Kol being the sons of Ben and Vestara, born relatively late in the latter's lives (let's assume Nat is 68 when he died, so he would have been born in 70 ABY, when his parents were 44/43), while Fell II is Jagged and Jaina's grandaughter, Empress Elliah and Hogram Chalk are either the grandchildren of Allana Solo via a son who married off into anouther Hapan family (hence the surname) and Ania Solo is descended from an illigitimate child Jacen had while he was running around exploring the Force.

The "Yage Family" to which Rulf and Gunn belong is almost certainly Arien Yage's family, and Antares's Inquistor ancestor was definatly Valin Draco.

(while were on the subject of Legacy; Empress Jaina was the one behind the formation of the Imperial Knights, and Tahiri Veila and Kir Kanos were two of the first members of the order).

I go with that the 12km Project Sarlaac Executor was the protoype, and the later models were 19km (as that is the offical number for the class). 8km is, if one needs and in-universe explanation, the result of seasons making flawed mesurments or people eyeballing the ships from affar and making incorrect mesurments.

Those IDS were also all much smaller then the Executor relative to where the Raddus hit the Supremacy.

In Legends a "standard" Sector Group was (IIRC) 24 ISDs and 1600 smaller warships, but "smaller warships" is a really nebulous term.

It's worth pointing out the Empire also has an armed customs service with it's own starships and sector defense forces still exist in some areas.

 

Essentially, by assuming they don't exist. As far as I'm aware Lumilla is the only hand to get any actual billing, and that can be explained away by making her some other category of force user in Palpatine's service. There's a couple IIRC. And even Mara Jade at the time wold be aware she and Vader weren't the only force users working for Palpatine. I'm merely saying she was his only Hand. There's a forum post on that coming.

That would be categorized under the "Assault Concussion Missiles" I mentioned, and even then ~95 of them just coupled with 56 X-wing proton topedos isn't enough to take down a fully operational SSD of even 8 km. And the other major case in the Second ambush in the Graveyard, where the only torpedoes were from X-Wings. Just a single salvo from a squadron was enough to knock down a Victory's shields in one arc. (I would put it at around ~50-60, and 72 might just barely be enough to known down those on an Imperial class, assuming they were all launched in 2-3 simultaneous salvos), but worse is the text stating that just a single salvo of 24 would be enough to destroy a Victory-class! (Personally I would hew to that all starfighter torpedoes could do is destroy weapons emplacements, damage engine nozzles, or a lucky or precise hit to the bridge that would cripple it. (Or more accurately the bridge window, detonating against the front wall would kill the senior command crew but emergency control arrangements elsewhere would be able to do enough to navigate it to a shipyard, and the gunners and guns are elsewhere so it could still keep shooting, quite possibly with no accuracy loss just with no coordination between batteries. It's the main computer and vital command circuits behind the bridge that need to be destroyed to knock the ship out of action.)

There's a few things you're forgetting. First, she's given complete freedom on how to accomplice Palpatine's objectives. Palpatline wouldn't be able to put her in such a situation, since he doesn't have enough operational control to do it. He gives her his objectives, and then Mara reports back when she's done to receive new objectives. If she doesn't want sleeping with somebody to be part of the plan, then it isn't. Second is her (apparently unique) to aim and fire a blaster several meters or more away using the force and be able to hit with it. Plenty of Jedi/Sith in far into the Old Republic did it with lightsabers so it's not that it's impossible, it just that nobody else has decided to learn the (admittedly far more difficult) skill for a blaster, since they didn't use blasters in combat to begin with. She's also a superb unarmed combatant and it seems has little difficulty disarming (not overly good) opponents. And if even silently eliminating somebody hand to hand isn't enough, choking somebody to death with the force may be the path to the dark side, but she's certainly able to do it.

Since there is (unfortunately) a bunch of "Jabba's Palace" fanfiction involving plenty of non-consensual and highly explicit stuff, at one point I had the thought of writing an "anti-Jabba's palace" story about Mara Jade's time infiltrating it, and numerous active avoidance of that happening. (Never got past the "a couple vague scene ideas" stage, which is probably fine since pretty much everything in that X-rated genre is no longer online anyway. Good Riddance.)

Since that would be her most vulnerable time in terms of being, - forced upon- , examples of what she could do include force usage to "who knocked that thing over" "what just broke" and drawing a blaster from goon B's holster, shooting it from right against goon B and hitting and killing killing assaulting problem goon A with it, and then shoving it in goon B's hand. Everybody will think goon B just shot goon A, and will focus on dealing with goon B. Nobody will believe any "I don't know how but it just shot itself" story, assuming goon B isn't immediately shot dead by goons C and D, leaving nobody the wiser. Although after several such incidents Jabba would get suspicious of course...The same tactics would work equally well in just about any other mission, and if the assaulter is important she could simply incapacitate him in unarmed combat, and she does have a "License to Kill Unlimited." After all, in Allegiance she was perfectly willing to kill a planetary governor on her own authority after discovering he was a traitor, without seeing any need to consult Palpatine first.

Personally, my opinion is if in Jabba's palace Mara ran out of ways to avoid assault with nobody the wiser, she would have fought her way out, (in Cannon she 'did' escape from the entrence to a detention block after all...), probably going to lengths to hide her force usage. Then resort to Plan B, involving a lot less sneaking and a lot more stormtroopers. (Such as "monitor to see when Luke arrives/enters the Palace, then quickly bring in a company or two of stromtroopers that were waiting reading on transports, then surround and assault Jabba's Palace, disqising herself enough Jabba wouldn't recognize her (hopefully.) Or something completely different involving waylaying Luke on the way to/from the Palace.

 

Just saw this. It certainly does in real life! The gun brig Enterprise was pretty much the only American one in the War of 1812 to accomplish anything, and the CV-6 of WWII is an example if there ever was one.
(Will be bitter for life that she wasn't preserved, as well as a few other ships.)

 

Regarding proton torpedoes, Stackpole bases them mainly straight off of the X-Wing video games, where they each do 100 points of shield damage apiece. Advanced torpedoes do 120 points damage, by contrast, but more powerful versions yet, may exist (right up to the 'space bomb' doing 600 points damage)
A Lancer frigate has 576 shield points in X-Wing Alliance, whilst an ISD III is ten times that much, with an ISD I at 4800. A possible lower limit for the Executor-class is 288,000 shield points, but that's rather open to debate - and probably way lower than Saxton and Fractalsponge imagine it to be.

It'd be nice to see all the reactor/power ratings, in yottajoules (YJ) for the battlecruiser and dreadnought scale vessels Fractalsponge envisions. Still, Saxton implies a Recusant would be lesser than many frigates, in contrast to a Mandator - that or the Mandator's shields are stupidly powerful, at 1000 times higher, perhaps.

Further evidence of Stackpole using the games as a primary source is the constant reiteration of torpedo range at 2.5 km - although this is actually the range limit for TIEs and shuttles. Warships can be targeted at 6 km, maybe more. And we have much longer ranges, like in Shield of Lies, or with Luke's targeting computer, easily implied.

Fractalsponge lists separate reactor and shield output values, but the scaling is via reactor output, so far (7.73 YJ for the ISD matches to 9.276 YJ for the ISD II, in terms of shield output comparison, in the games. Ditto for the VSD II at 5.15 YJ)

 

So, to cope with there being three generations of Fel Emperors, and to stick with my beloved 60 is the new 40.... None of the Fel Emperors died of old age. It was either down to being big damn heroes vs another resurgence of Abeloth in the case of Jagged I, or some sort of starship accident in the case of his son.

Or yeah, HandofThrawn's version also works. Technically none of the Fels died of old age in that, either.

 

That’s definitely my favourite interpretation of events. Particularly since it doesn’t make Jag as an actual Emperor. Because there’s really no way Jaina would stand for that.

 

A long time ago, I was cooking up an alternate version of the Denningverse where, after Jacen comes back from his long journey after the Vong War, Jaina had become Empress of the Galaxy; I wanted to lean into her dark streak and possibly make Jacen redeem the Fel Empire to set up its appearance in Legacy as being (normally) fair and just.

 

Someone please draw that!

 

I had a much darker interpretation myself. After LOTF/FOTJ and the plot points set up there, the Galaxy just naturally leans towards autocracy. Its a very dystopian setting, where Jagged and his family simply embrace autocracy, Jaina included, basically becoming an autocrat to prevent another Caedus and to knock down galaxy-scale eldritch threats like Abeloth. 'Sword of the Jedi' entails a militaristic sect of Jedi that wounds up forming the Imperial Knights. While Jagged and Jaina are still moderate, enlightened despots, Jagged's son wholesale embraces the image of Palpatine as to erase the contradiction that comes with being an Empire that allegedly despises its founder. Instead, it embraces Palpatine, reduces mentions of him being a Sith at all and pins atrocities on his underlings. Similar to how Russians interpret Stalin today, I suppose.

Of course, this causes tensions with the Galactic Alliance, which keeps losing worlds to the Neo-Imperial movement. Holdouts like Eriadu and Senex-Juvex decide to join the much stronger Empire, which has now embraced the entirety of its past. Even Naboo ends up joining, hence its mention in the Legacy Campaign Guide as apparently being part of the Empire for a long time, and relatively supportive of the Fel Dynasty. By the time of the Sith-Imperial War, the Fel Empire has expanded big time from its time as the Remnant, and even from its territories circa 40s ABY in LOTF. Its almost a full equal to the Alliance in strength.

When the GA falls on the battlefield, the choice becomes Sith heavy-handed dictatorship versus Force-neutral, hands-off autocracy. The latter wins out with the Galactic Triumvirate being formed, but eventually the disagreements are too much and the Imperials win, with Marasiah either surviving or not. If not, the galactic government becomes the Pellaeon-era Imperial Remnant writ-large. The 'Galactic Federation Triumvirate' might even echo the United Citizens Federation, where service guarantees citizenship.. and the executive cabinet is made up of Moffs. Eventually influential individuals will claim the title of Emperor once more, continuing the tradition set up by Palpatine and continued by Jagged Fel. Some of them might have dynasties they leave behind, others will be plain military autocrats. Think Roman succession. One of these individuals down the line will be Cos Da****.

But the Rebellion's dream isn't dead forever, eventually what's left of the GA Remnant will reverse their fortunes and form a new Republic, though once again an equal to the Empire. The Jedi will have been biding their time. With Imperial domination, they get an agreement that they'd be left alone, though as the Imperial Knights have taken up most of their police work, the NJO has embraced their role as diplomats with a heavy leaning towards a restored Republic, which they ultimately end up serving again.

 

@Sinrebirth

2,525,000+ ships (not including planatery defense forces, Imperial vassel states and starships not belonging to the navy) seems quite resonable for the Empire, IMO.

Twenty hands but only one Fist

I think I perfer the idea of Sly Moore being the Emperor's Voice, not Amedda (the title is supposed to have been held by a Force Adept, after all)

I meant to qoute this the other day, but personally I have a hard time imagining a ship that's famed for it's speed taking days to transit between Tatooine and Alderaan. Not just becuase of the information that's in the film, but also becuase of what we see of hyperspace trips elsewhere (for instance, why is Han taking days to get to Alderaan when Palpatine is getting from Coruscant to Mustafar in a few minates and Finn and Rose can get to Cantonica and back - with time for an adventure on the planet in-between - within the span of, what, sixteen hours?)

There's a difference between concussion missiles and proton torpedos, though. Anyway, the bigger torpedos I was referring to are massive; far to large to be carried by an X-wing.

Anyway, IIRC the Corruptor was'nt destroyed by the torpedos; it was destroyed by the asteroids after the ship was heavily-damaged by Rogue Squadron *and* the Valiant.

Mara was'nt just an assassin, though, she was also a spy and an infiltrator (and one whose main cover identity was as a sexy dancer at the Imperial Palace who, evidently, was avaliable to give "private dances"); personally I always pictured Mara as someone who would do anything necessery to complete her goals, and was so loyal to Palpatine that she'd set aside her personal comfort in order to achive his goals.

That being said, complete autonomy aside this is Palpatine we're talking about; there's going to be times were he wants/needs his servents to follow specific instructions and he's not going care any more what Mara thinks in those situations then he did Maul, Dooku or Anakin.

I like the idea that Jagged lived to old age but Jaina died in battle, and Fel II either came to the throne fairly old and died after a few years or otherwise did'nt reign long for whatever reason.

I always assumed Jaina was a big part of why the Fel Empire became what it was; we don't really see it, but I always assumed Jagged was elected as a consitutional monarch, and that the Diet of Planatery Governers was revived as a legislature made up of elected governers* (the unelected Moff Council then became a purely executive body made up of High Moffs and headed by the Grand Moff, and the High Moff in charge of the diplomatic corps served as the liasion with the diet).

*regular Moffs, appointed by the Emperor, continued to oversee sectors, but largely as purely military officals.

 

I'm actually unsure if Torpedo Spheres, being battlestations and not starships, would be included in the count (I doubt stationary space stations are).

I'd go with the SSD/dreadnought numbers being lower (that's one of the places where I'm minimilistic) and instead put star battlecruisers (Allegience, Praetor, ect) as being in the low hundreds.

Oh yes, of course; as the apprentice of Darth Jar Jar /s