Rogue One Admiral Raddus Discussion Thread (and Fan Club)

Raddus of the Lost Rebels: A Star Wars Story

 

to add the reveloutionary war motif im bizarrely putting to it, both the companion book 'rebel dossier' and the novelezation show that some members of the alliance are seeking 'a peacful resolution'......much like originally some of the rebels in the U.S. colonies were seeking reunification with england with more representatoin in parliment and less taxes from the king.

of course a peacful resolutoin there was never gonna happen either.

 

This guy was awesome!

 

He was like an SF George Patton!

 

I think you missed the conclusion of the Council scene. Mon Mothma DID NOT give in to those members of the Council who called for the Rebel Alliance to surrender/ disband. The only thing Mon Mothna did, because it required a consensus, was not approve a military action on Scarif. At the end of the Council scene, the Rebel Alliance was still 100% intact.

Think of it this way. Imagine that the Empire is Russia and the Rebels are an underground Russian opposition movement. They receive intel regarding the plans for the country's entire nuclear weapons stockpile, which for the sake of this analogy, all exist in a heavily fortified facility in the middle of a major city. The Rebels debate the wisdom of immediately attacking that city, and risking the full wretch of Moscow. They decide it's too risky, and wait for a better opportunity. Seems quite reasonable to me.

It's easy to judge people's actions when you know the ultimate outcomes. But at the time, people were making decisions in a haze of deep uncertainty. In this context, all Mothma did was acquiesce to delaying any overt military action against a major military site.

 

they had info they needed to act on. their base wasnt gonna stay secret forever, and the falcon intentionally leading them to it wouldnt help them without having the plans. and then they would have been annihlated.

while a bunch of whining babies scream about surrendering and 'the rebel alliance is finished!" mon mothma didnt have the authority (or guts?) to overrule them and launch an attack thats cause she's a politician. play the middle ground to make everyone happy.

not acting on info that critical is suicide. if washington hadnt launched the trenton assault on christmas night 1776, his army was on the verge of collapse and desertion., even he admitted in his own letters 'the game is almost up'.

washtington actually had one of his spies convince the hessiats the rebels had no intention of attacking trenton and were in fact about to withdraw from the area. the total surprise they caught them off guard. 'they have no idea where coming. they have no reason to expect us' as jyn would have said..

washingotn truste dhis spy that the info got thru and the result was a victory. not as major as the one the rebels had at scariff but instead of an army collapsing the soldiers whos enlistements were about to run out re upped. and it brought a whole new bunch of recruits into the fold

the decision of the R1 team and admiral raddus lead to a victory that pretty much ensured a second one (the battle of yavin) and the growth of the alliance as a whole.

if they had sat on their rear ends and debated what to do it would have been the end of them eventually.

 

I think you're significantly underestimating the impact of a planet-killing superweapon on the political and military landscape. Think of it this way. What non-nuclear armed nation, in their right mind, would launch an attack on the military facilities of a nuclear armed nation? It would be a near-suicidal act. Indeed, the entire planet of Alderaan was obliterated as a result of Leia, who was part of the Scarif operation, being caught.

In hindsight, yes. It's clear that Jyn and the Rogue One sympathizers made the right choice, because their actions led to the destruction of the Death Star, and the beginning of the end of Imperial power.

But that's because we have the benefit of hindsight. There's absolutely nothing cowardly about deciding not to directly attack an entity that has weapons of mass destruction that present an existential threat to civilization. It was quite a rational approach that some of the Senators held.

That said, it was obviously a good thing that the risk-takers like Jyn and Raddus won out in the end. But let's not pretend that it couldn't have been an awfully disastrous decision.

 

In my head canon he survived. Someone needs to have survived Rogue One, and I loved him.

 

Matthew Hansen ‏@MatthewHansenUT 2h2 hours ago
@pablohidalgo Do we know the fate of Admiral Raddus & his crew? Also did the Tantive IV jump to Tatooine or how much time between films?
Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo 2h2 hours ago
@MatthewHansenUT I wouldn't hold too much hope for Raddus and friends. And it's not been said how much time but doesn't seem like much.

 

told ya.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked him.

 

i was under the impression the alliance were idealists. but it seems to be run by a bunch of politicians instead.

they actually thought a political solutoin was possible. as if the senate had any real power.

they were also foolish to think that surrendering or fleeing or begging for mercy would work. if they exposed their alliegence it would lead to nothing more then their execution. and poltiicians fleeing would just end in their own demise anyways.

at this point there was no other choice but to fight.

 

Because you've seen ROTS and ANH, YOU know that the Senate is no longer a legitimate or useful place to fight. Yet the Senators in Rogue One may not fully appreciate that yet. And even if they do, their intention (particularly in regards to bringing Galen to the Senate for testimony), is to try to rally planetary systems represented in the Senate to the Rebel cause. Even in ANH Princess Leia sees value in climate continuing to present herself as a Senator, and appealing to it. Heck, in ANH even senior military officers in the Empire (such as Tagge) are concerned about the Rebel Alliance gaining support in the Senate.

It's only after Tarkin announces that the Emperor has dissolved the Senate that its 100% clear that the form is dead.

Lastly, why is being a politician and an idealist incompatible? Mothma and Leia were both. And they fought as Senators until the last shreds of democracy were tossed away by Palpatine. Indeed, continuing to argue in the Senate as politicians was evidence of their idealism.

It's their ultimate decision to turn to a military solution that's the pragamatic decision.

 

"I say we FIGHT."--Admiral Raddus

 

In regards the Senate it's clear that Bail and Mon Mothma and the other Republic era senators still are hoping to impeach the Emperor, or undertake some form of action that has constitutional legitimacy.

 

They would be fools to believe that and they knew it.

 

Constitutionally legitimate senatorial resolutions are built on hope.

 

which is just plain ridiculous. he's the emperor. the only one who can impeach him is himself.

idealists arent interested in compromise or backroom deals or begging for mercy or surrendering.

idealists get elected to 'poltiical' positions. it doesnt mean they become politicians.

and if mon and bail and any of the senators who saw palpatines 'new order' implemented back in the day think that they have any sway in reality in the senate then they are fools. and i think bail realizes more then anyone that they are not gonna peacfully overthrow palpatine thru a politcal solution. and neither does mothma......but she doesnt have the guts to authorize a strike against the empire, cause again, she's too much of a politician and not a miltiary leader.

raddus isnt interested in political solutions. obviously, the empire building a planet destroying weapon isnt interested in dealing nicely with its opposition, so the only reasonable reaction is to respond in kind and bring the fight to them.

 

It's not a question of Mothma having 'guts' or not, she's the de facto leader of the Rebellion but the Rebellion is supposed to be democratic. So if she puts an attack on Scarif to the vote, the vote is against it and she then overrides that then she's going against the very principles she's fighting for, she's taking the exact same route as Palpatine did. It's not as if she's afraid to make tough calls, she must have been part of the decision to boot out the Partisans when they got too extreme, but if she starts making decisions without consulting the others (or just ignoring their decisions) then many, even most of them, are just going to walk away and go it alone.

In the same way, she probably knew (or at the very least suspected) that Jyn and Raddus and others were probably going to go ahead and attack anyway and was not about to stop them - she just couldn't afford to alienate one faction over another.

 

True, but the more appropriate analogy is probably the English Civil War.

Plus Bail and Co want to at least show the galaxy that they have a political mandate to overthrow the Emperor.

 

Exactly. And that's not even mentioning how incredibly risky the Scarif attack is. It's like being in the Russian opposition movement, and deciding to take out all its nuclear weapons. And lest we forget: the operation led to the complete destruction of Alderaan, and had Luke not succeeded, would have led to the destruction of the Rebel Alliance's HQ at Yavin IV. It's easy to judge the reluctance in hindsight, because you know that they ultimately destroy the DS. But it all easily could have led to the near annihilation of the Rebel cause.

 

Yes, knowing the end result makes it much harder to fairly evaluate the decision in a vacuum, but when you look at it, even though Scarif was successful they lost a LOT of resources (Raddus seems to be amongst their best military leaders not to mention the number of ships/pilots/money they would have lost) and despite that even with the plans and even with their best minds analysing the data, it took a kid with incredible force sensitivity (who was still stuck on Tattooine) pulling off an INCREDIBLY improbable shot, and even then he only managed it thanks to intervention from Han Solo (who wasn't even part of the Rebellion at that point), and with moments to spare before the entire Rebellion would have been utterly atomised, literally. In fact, what with Leia being the one who received the plans and then being captured and tortured, you can directly tie the Scarif attack into the Empire even knowing where the Rebel base actually was.

The attack was an absolutely gigantic gamble that very nearly went incredibly wrong.

 

He survived. He underwent expensive plastic surgery to become Max Von Sydow's character in TFA.

HAHAHAHA NOW HE'S DEAD YOU FOOLS!

 

Love that moment when he says "She did it!" after they receive the transmitted Death Star plans.

Also love how he solemnly and respectfully says "Rogue One, may the force be with you" after he sees the super weapon has fired on Scarif.