Did the Yuuzhan Vong ever have a chance?

Could they have destroyed the GFFA and remade it in their own image? Or did the greater production potential of the GFFA and sheer numbers on the side of the defenders make the good guy victory inevitable? Was it just bad tactics that lost the war for the Yuuzhan Vong, or was their entire strategy flawed?

 

The Vong haven't lost yet. They still control half the galaxy. Sure they lost some small battles but there hasn't been any big victory for the GFFA.

I think the Vong tactics were smart. The Peace Brigade worked well and getting some of the citizens to turn on the Jedi helped them eliminate some of them.

Obviosly they will have to lose. Although with only two books left in the series to get back half the galaxy, I don't see how its going to happen.

 

I think the Vong had a very good chance of winning if they had struck harder than they did. I'm glad they didn't though.

 

I think the different weapons and technology helped them at first but now that the GFFA have learned to deal with them and they are back to being about equal the Vong are having a harder time.

 

The Vong always had a chance, they just needed to not make as many mistakes. The Vong weren't aware of Star Destroyer's ability to bombard planets from orbit, and they also did not know about the potential of Centerpoint. They often wasted resources on inherintly flawed campaigns, such as Shedao Shai's vendetta at Ithor, sending the Praetorite Vong in as a vanguard, the blunder at Ebaq, the Black Bantha ambush, the commitment of such a large number of forces for the relatively insignificant targets at Borleias and the invasion of the Imperial remnants and the unknown regions while they were impossibly outnumbered.

The commander at the Black Bantha allowed a large portion of his fleet to be disabled or destroyed before he even took action to stop the slaughter. The hostage incident at Talfaglio was practically an invitation for disaster. Also, the assault on Coruscant was much too costly compared to what it gained. The use of some bio-weapon, like the one used against Ithor and New Plympto, could have easily whittled down the defences of that planet. Once they learned about the incapacitation of Centerpoint, they should have assaulted the shipyards at Corellia instead of going after Cal Omas at Ebaq. The Vong also wasted precious resources trying to pacify Hutt space, a feat which had never been accomplished, instead of using the Hutts to assist them in the conquest of the New Republic. They also should have tried to use the Ssi-Ruuk and the Imperials, instead of inflaming them.

The Vong also wasted too many resources on insignificant targets like Arkona, Vortex, Garqi, and Hapes instead of devoting those resources to the necessary campaigns against shipyards.

If the Vong had chosen their targets more carefully, not thrown away resources on relatively minor quests like the capture of the Jedi children and the Hutts, and used their proven strategies more often (like the moon-dropping dovin basals, the viral weapons, sabotage, Peace Brigade infiltration) they could have kept the tide of the war turned in their favor.

Even in the FH trilogy, the Vong are still considered to be capable of total conquest of the New Republic/GA. If they had not wasted half of their fleet in blunders and tactical mistakes, then they no doubt could have taken the galaxy for themselves.

 

I don't think they ever had a chance- they never had the man power, resources. And quite frankly, I don't think they had the will to do it. Firstly, at least the Romans made conquered peoples citizenship, the Vong happily were in the process of genocide, captured millions (bilions?) of slaves, and let's not forget the illogic of the religeous fanatic.

No matter how the authors have crippled the New Republic over the past 25 or so years of history with never ending political turmoil, villain flavor of the month, etc. the Vong simply could not have overcome a galaxy under the spell of righteous indignation of having millions of slavering religious maniacs pissing in their pool water.

I always got the impression that if the Vong didn't take the galaxy, they were pretty much a dead race, not that they wouldn't have died out anyway- they're society not being conducive to survival- they probably would have gone back to kiling each other.

 

Maybe the Vong were fated to lose. I'm still waiting for a decent explanation of how they fit into the force. Maybe the force doesn't like them, that could be it.

 

Well, the NR not only had their existing fleets (New Class), and shipyards to build new fleets (NJO new ships), but they had older Imperial, Galactic Republic, and Alliance vessels that could be reactivated (Y-wings, Carracks, Lancers, Dreadnaughts, MC80s). Once these resources were all called upon, the NR had a fleet worth speaking of.

The NR also had the benefit of fighting on their homeland--familiar with the "terrain."

The NR also had the advantage of diversity. They had multiple races, cultures, manufacturers, etc., each with their own strengths and weaknesses for the YV to deal with, while the NR only had to learn to deal with two races (YV and Chazrach--a puppet race) and one culture and one type of "technology."

 

I think they had a chance, but they made too many mistakes (not enough intelligence, ie Centerpoint,; too much sacrifice, Coralskippers running kamakazi (sp?) missions) and they TOOK TOO LONG. Every day longer the war takes gives the defenders another day to build more weapons (which the Vong can also do), and train more warriors (which the Vong can't do, at least not nearly as fast as the GFFAers. Flight training took 6 months as of Rogue Squadron, 4 if it's rushed. Infantry training would take less (point the d*** gun and shoot), and fleet training probably about the same, It would take the YV at least 15 years to train replacements, assuming YV and human growth are similar.).

There trillions of people in the GFFA, and, what, a billion, 10 billion Vong? At least 100:1 people overall in favor, and, taking away the Shamed Ones, workers, Intendents (sp?), and Shapers from the YV, and the too old, too young, and other people who can't/won't take up arms against the Vong, the ratio is probably much higher in favor of the GFFAers. Even if each Vong warrior takes out 50 combatants, there are at least another 50 to kill that Vong.

What the YV should have done is find some clusters, maybe in the UR, that are unpopulated and unmonitored. Then consolidate their ships and people, then, when they're ready, launch an all-out attack. If they had their entire fleet at their disposal in the begining of the war, instead of being brought in piecemeal (sp?), they could have taken much of the galaxy before the NR could adapt to their tactics.


Whew, hope that made sense, it's getting pretty late here.

 

Militarily, I honestly think the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion was more or less dead on arrival.

If they had totally reworked their strategy so as to allow for a mad dash to the Core Regions with overwhelming force, they could have pulled it off. As it went, though, they methodically pushed forward and seized vast swaths of strategically useless territory, which they had to expend resources conquering, pacifying, holding, and patrolling. Their religious conviction that they needed to 'convert' or 'purify' the entire galaxy rather pre-empted any real shot at a genuinely effective offensive. And the sad part is, it didn't really need to.

It is now fairly obvious that the Yuuzhan Vong didn't come into the galaxy with anywhere near the number of forces that the New Republic had at its disposal, and that their initially overwhelming numbers only appeared that way becaues they had yet to be tied down defending anything.

Follow all that up with their consistant habit for failing to finish off opponents (the Hapans, the Chiss, the blood Empire) and the poignant weaknesses that Admiral Ackbar exploited, and you have an enemy with formidible initial strengths, but no long-term stamina of which to speak.

 

Tough question. Again, I find myself finding comparisons between the NJO and WWII's Pacific Theater. In this case, the comparison gets a little more precise because I see comparisons between the NR/GFFA's industrial base finally kicking in, out producing the Vong's industrial base, and the US industrial base during the war. Look at the output of war material at the start of the US's involvment compared to the output at the end of the war. It seems like a good comparison with the NR/GFFA output.

Is this why the NR/GFFA are probably going to win the war? Prehaps. Certainly there have been bad stratigies and tactics on behalf of the Vong. But the Vong rely on war material that is grown. Some of it can be grown quickly, while others take time. Coralskippers and capital ships in particular, especially the latter. Most Vong ships, particulary their worldships, are old and dieing. Coralskippers may be able to be grown in a few weeks or a month, but it takes longer to grow a cap ship.

Yet the NR/GFFA's shipyards have the potential to turn out several capital ships in less time than it takes for the Vong to grow their cap ships. Same thing goes for fighters, though we may well be talking turning out wings of fighters in the same time it takes the Vong to grow a single squadron of coralskippers. We have to remember that these shipyards, at the start of the Vong War, are going to eventually be facing a greater work force than they faced when hostilities began. During the war with the Empire, the urgency for turning out warships wasn't on most people's minds. The New Republic was the government and the Empire had a smaller fleet. Not to mention fewer available shipyards. Most would have been looking at how many ships, total, the Empire could turn out in the same time. Which is why most people did not think about the urgency of turning out new warships.

But with the Vong War, as it becomes more and more apparent to most of the people of the galaxy, and as more and more people loose their homes and their jobs, folks begin to realize how urgent it is to produce warships. And not just warships, but war material in general. The Vong would seem, to most, to have more ships, more weapons, and the fact that they could grow them would only seem to emphasize the idea that the Vong could turn out an unlimited supply of weapons and ships. Which might also lead them to realize the fact that it takes time to grow such things. Yet the larger a work force a shipyard or weapons factory had, the less time it would take to produce such things. So if it were to take a work force of a thousand people to turn out one capital ship at a time over the course of three months, including having to stop work in order to rest, folks would realize that more folks means continous work could be preformed on that capital ship. Plus you could turn out several more at the same time. And it's not just living folks helping to work on warships and weapons, but also droids. So that would mean that there would be no reason to stop production.

Yet a potential threat arises for the NR/GFFA's production of war material. That being resources. Shipyards can be enlarged if needed to facilitate even more ships being produced. Weapons factories can also be enlarged, or they can add additional warehouses to store their greater production output. But without raw material, none of that matters.

So we should expect that more mining operations are occuring to meet the demands for resources. Yet unlike the Vong, the NR/GFFA has the advantage of being able to scavange material when, and if, possible. This can then be recycled and used to produce other war material.

And none of this takes into account the eventual contributions to the war effort by the Empire and other nations. Because most nations in the SW galaxy may eventually allied themselves with each other, hence the GFFA, their combined industrial base would be likely to outstrip the Vong's industrial base. So all of that would lead to a greater production of war material in less time than it would take the Von

 

Well stated, Knight.

 

Thanks. Though I suppose it was a bit lenghty.

 

Verbose but still well thought-out.

 

Logically, realistically, in universe, they never had a chance.

Out here where editors and writers can and frequently do, put in whatever they'd like many of the factors are skimmed over, downplayed or just plain ignored.

I thI think the reference to the Pacific war of WW2 was an accurate one, but there are shades of the Eastern European front as well.

As always in the GFFA, anything that happens offcamera doens't have to make sense. The Vong would capture a single planet on screen and hundreds of sectors offscreen. The NR production advantage is definately a factor, but if you consider the huge swath of galaxy lost you have to think that should have effected them in some way.

In reality the military complexity of the Vong invasion is on par with Risk. The Vong took a huge swath out of Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, but the NR still had Asia so it out produced them.

An incredibly superficial understanding of the military and economic factors involved.

 

Thought out about like how I write stories. Get a central idea and build from there, thinking up elements as I go. But then I suppose in a forum one really doesn't have the time to come up with multiple drafts of their posts before posting the final post. Well, at least something there folks can chew on.

 

Even if the NR/GFFA could outproduce the Vong, that wouldn't have meant anything if the galaxy wasn't united and couldn't coordinate massive fleets to bring to bear against the Yuuzhan Vong.

If the Vong had managed to destroy the leadership of the galaxy before the increased production kicked in, then the Vong would not have been a strong but small power standing next to a more powerful, larger opponent, they would instead have been a large, strong power surrounded by countless tiny, weak powers.

In the weeks after Coruscant, the Vong had the ability to take virtually any system that they wanted to because there was no cohesion in the galaxy. By destroying the beurocracy, each individual planet and system became an independent body with no leaders to integrate them with their neighbors and allies. Suppose that there was one planet that produced turbolasers, another that made hull plates, another that made electronics, a fourth that put them together, and another that supplies food to all of the above, and these five planets worked faster than the Vong in the creation of capital ships, then the Vong would be at a disadvantage. But these five planets can only produce their capital ships when there is an overseer to direct work and to make sure that resources are delivered where they are needed. If the Vong were to eliminate the overseer, then the production planets would not be able to get their materials to reach the assembler, and the farming planet would not get their food to anyone. This would bring construction to a halt and make all five planets vulnerable to a Vong invasion.

Another example: When the New Republic was in power and had high ranking admirals administering to multi-planetary and multi-species fleets, then the galaxy could bring large numbers of ships to bare against the Vong at any time. When those admirals disappear and there is no NR left to replace them with other admirals, then there is no one who can assemble large fleets from various planets to bring into conflict against the Vong. Each planet would need to be completely self-reliant for its own defence (as was seen in the EL duelogy) This self-reliance would allow the Vong to amass their own fleets to pick off each of those planets individually, instead of having to fight them as a whole.

If the Vong could have effectively wiped out the NR leadership and beurocracy, then they would not have been fighting against a single, powerful, united foe. It would not have mattered how great the potential industrial capability of the galaxy was, because the producers would not be able to work together to organize their products into armies and fleets to fight against overwhelming Vong fleets, and would definately not have been able to mount offensives to retake lost territory.

If the Vong had assembled their might in the corner of the galaxy around Helska and Sernipidal where no one visits anyway, then jumped straight for Coruscant, the New Republic would have been shattered in one move. Image how long Coruscant would have been able to put up a defence for if several dozen worldships suddenly appeared in orbit. Instead, the slow, plodding progress of the Vong warfleets gave the Republic time to disperse their leadership and create backup plans and contingency plans and send senators and beurocrats into hiding and disperse the fleets so that not even a total collapse of government would have been immediately fatal.

Also, if the Vong had moved a little bit faster, then they could have smashed each fleet they came up against. With the help of the yammosks, the Vong were incurring multiple kills for every loss, and were whittling away at the galaxy's fleets and armies. It wasnt until the Vong halted their advances and allowed the GFFA time to gather their stregnth and bring their production capabilites up to full speed that the galaxy had a shot at victory. Even though they were horribly over-extended for most of the invasion, the Vong still managed to defeat every fleet that came up against them and were on the verge of destroyin

 

The Vong were doomed from the start

* They are one race against the entire galaxy

* They are acting on a time limit

* They are so incomprehensibly brutal to subjugated races there's no reason to surrender

* They are so anti-technological that they have very little chance of actually benefitting from captured worlds

* The Force is not with them

 

I think they should have handled matters in the way Nom Anor pondered in the FH trilogy; like the rust - rotting the NR, little by little, attacking from the shadows until it crumbled and was incapable of defending itself. A smart strategy, BUT as Nom reflects, the Vong are ill-suited to patience.

 

I think Denning, Luceno and Stackpole's books were the only real time when the Vong weren't written as barking mad hounds, all hot-rage and no even-tempered thinking. And that makes a whopping difference. Military, political and religious leaders guiding---with DR's sanguine's direction---the nature of the conflict.

Essentially, the first half of this tedious serious "had" to have the Vong winning one stunning victory after another, till SBS. Just so they could get to where they were in that last book. Every book was dark, destructive, and dastardly predictable in their endings.

Balance Point, as one example. So Duro had to fall; but it was the way it could have fallen that makes it credible. It fell simply because the Vong lauched massive numbers, and the New Republic sent no military assistance. So how to make an ending that had to be more exciting? Simple! Have the heroes winning up until a point, at the last moment, when they unexpectedly make a mistake and lose. Duro still falls, but the reader never saw it coming, and it was a plot twist.

Okay, as a counterpoint, you have the New Rep's stunning victory in Destiny's Way. You basically knew they were going to win it big time right from the start---even when just the synopsis was showed months before release.

Predictability is what's killing the series in quality, that's all. There's some good stuff out there, and some not very good attempts. But who knows what could happen in The Unifying Force?

That's just some out of many examples I could offer. It's not a matter of did the Vong ever have a chance, but how it was presented to us.

Just my thoughts . . .

 

I thought the Vong were quite well presented in EoV1 too, actually, Excellence...

 

How could they have had a chance? They were created to be defeated!

 

What is the call of the question?

Did the Yuuzhan Vong ever have a chance to destroy the galaxy and remake it in their own image?

OR

Did the Yuuzhan Vong ever have a chance to "win" the war? (What does "winning" mean?)

Are we speaking from the perspective of the Warrior Caste, the Intendent Caste, the Priest Caste, the Shaper Caste, the Shamed Ones, Supreme Overlord Shimrra and/or the Yuuzhan Vong Pantheon of Gods? Do all these castes and Gods define "win" the same way? Do all the Yuuzhan Vong subscribe to the same "goal"? Are Yun Harla and Yun Yuuzhan after the same goal? Are the Yuuzhan Vong "as a whole" "worthy"?

Well . . . Del Rey described this SW ERA as Epic Myth . . . so I guess we'll find out, in some way or another, whether any of the above questions and issues are relevant to whether the "Yuuzhan Vong ever hav[ing]a chance."

Raising more questions than answers,

Ana V

 

I agree, Dart. A rare book when they weren't screaming every sentence.

 

No. For the GFFA's ally is the writers. And a powerful ally they are.

But seriously, sooner or later the Vong's total inflexibility would have caught up with them.

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002