Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

I thought kleptocracy refers to a corrupt government stealing from its own citizens, as opposed to stealing or looting from occupied territories. Anyway, we're getting off-topic, lol.

 

Does anyone remember our debate about the size of the imperial fleet?

 

Fraid not. Though I wonder if in the new canon, having initally stated the number of ISD's as 25,000, will revise the figure to 2,500.
I prefered the 25,000 figure having gone with it in Legends, though given were lost within a year I think the figure may become lower and may make more sense.


In regards to Imperial ships ending up in the New Republic, I think.... Nah, mostly for a visual reason, rather than an in universe one, and the same reason you don't see the heroes with red lightsabers. Otherwise you could also argue why the Rebels wouldn't use TIE's in their forces at all, since they are more plentiful and Rebels need to use anything they can capture.

In universe explanation, I guess more imperial equipment either gets destroyed or self destructs before it can be captured. Any imperial equipment captured was the first to go when they underwent demilitarisation given its a symbol of the Empire. And/or perhaps a fair number of ships was captured in various conditions, but the rebels did not have the numbers to crew them effectively, and the demoralised Imperials not have enough manpower to retake them so they sat in storage before being dismantled. Total guesses!

 

I never thought it believable that the empire had more than 500 or at most 1000 ISD's. It makes little sense for a peace time empire to have such a war-sized force. After a war you lower your war production.
Secondly, if there were 25,000 ISD's why at the battle of Endor did we only see 25-30 Imperial Warships? or at any rebel engagement?
I don't think a bureaucracy with only 20 Moffs (with say each 20-25 ISD's to their sector) plus 100 or 200 (in the core or among other expansion fleets) extra ISD's is only about 500-700 ISD's in total

 

That is a major flaw in TLJ- it goes far too minimalist. in a lot of ways. Ships move at the speed of plot, the entire Resistance is apparently a couple hundred people (less than we see in the throne room scene in ANH) and the bad guys just take over in a matter of days/weeks.

Yet at the same time, there are mentions of multiple dreadnoughts floating around, the Supremacy and Starkiller base exist, and the Resurgant class is relatively common.

In a galaxy of a million worlds, 25,000 ISDs is a small number, not an excessive one.

 

Which one? Haha.

I never thought it believable that you could maintain control of a galactic empire with less than 25,000 star destroyers. I will admit that light-speed can drastically lower the amount of patrols needed.

In some respects I understand why they go with a minimalist point of view as it's really hard on stories/plots to imagine the magnitude of forces that are realistically required, not to mention watering down the importance of any one officer, ship, or engagement. Also, the new super-light-speed of Canon where you can get anywhere in less than a few hours makes it so the Empire would only need one fleet!

Except that the Empire in peace time was still a totalitarian regime with an iron-fist hold on the galaxy to maintain control via the Tarkin Doctrine while at the same time fighting various uprisings, rebellions, subjugations, and potentially preparing for an inter-galactic invasion.

IT'S A TRAP!

We're the Imperials drastically outgunned at any engagement?

 

At Jakku. The NRDF was able to field 3 times as many ships as the Empire at this point, per Empire's End.

As a self-described "moderate" in the endless minimalist/maximalist debate, I try not to overthink numbers. Ultimately, they will always serve the purpose of the story. Of course, after watching these battles for 15 years here on the boards, I'm far less inclined to fight these battles again.

RE: Imperial ships being used by the NR, there is definitely less of that in the new canon. I think this is partly due to the fact that the new canon took the angle of having the New Republic build new warships during the year between Endor and Jakku. We have MC85's, Starhawks, Bunkerbusters, and Starfortresses all being built during that year. That is actually quite a feat during war time, especially when you consider that the New Republic was literally stitching itself together at that point.

Of course, they have the advantage in the new canon of having the Galaxy literally rise up enmass against the Empire and large swaths of worlds joining them out the gate. Hell, having Corellia alone in the NR's camp by 3-4 months after Endor was a HUGE accomplishment. That's a lot of shipbuilding capacity that it lacked in the old canon until much, much later.

--Adm. Nick

 

It's funny, one of the numbers that was debated in the EU was the number of Executors in existence... and then with Aftermath, we're flat-out told there were 13 Executors in service at the time of the Battle of Endor.

 

This is one of the bigger missed opportunities of TLJ, and one that I hoped the novelization would help us wiggle out of. Somehow, every ship in the Resistance fleet had less that 24 hours of fuel left when operating at full flank speed. That seems like a calamitous failure of logistics - if you can't keep ships fueled up enough to avoid even a minor inconvenience, then you're fielding too many ships. Sure, the novel gives some explanation as to why the fleet was running so dry - fuel supplies never made it off D'Qar, despite seeming like the kind of thing one would grab first - but it still strains credulity. A longer chase would give our heroes more chances to fray at the seams as their machinery slowly broke down around them (and give time for Luke and Rey's plot to unfold roughly in time with the fleet plot). I guess I can understand them not totally wanting to make a Star Wars version of Battlestar Galactica's "33," but there's a reason that episode is on every short list of the best episodes in the best sci-fi show ever made.

Considering that the galaxy is leaderless and without an organized defense, I think the First Order could take most of the most vital systems pretty quickly. Kuat and most of the major shipyard worldsk n will probably join voluntarily. Maybe Coruscant, too - they might sell their souls for becoming the capital again, a bit like Virginia did during the Civil War. I could see big battles shaping up around Corellia and Mon Cala, but elsewhere... sure, places like Virgillia and Galatena are not going down without a fight, but they don't have the industrial capacity to really last on their own.

 

I think the hyperspace tracking goes a way to explain it. They had enough fuel to get to where they needed to go.

 

When it came to the sector I developed for my own means (I will never actually release any content relating to my characters fyi), their shipbuilding facilities allowed for light cruisers and frigates to be built at a fast rate with subsidies. The Empire feels the loss of them because it meant that their Star Destroyers now lacked the support ship numbers they needed to successfully hold off the smaller ships of the New Republic easier. This is all by Aftermath: Life Debt as well. Meanwhile, the New Republic finds themselves with the additional firepower of the light cruisers and frigates the sector natives have relied on in their support of the Alliance but three new 800-meter-long assault cruisers to back up the two of the three original ones stolen from the Empire just before Yavin though were not tested against the Imperial Navy until after Cymoon-1 (the third ship I might add was a victim of the Death Star II alongside the Liberty and Nautilian - it "died" offscreen after the fleet began making their way into the Imperial Fleet).

 

I don't know how we'll ever survive this loss.

Well, yes, they fuel reserves lasted as long as plot dictated. In-universe, I suppose they would have had enough fuel to jump into "deep space" (but really, the outer reaches of the Crait system), then cruise in at a less strenuous speed without completely running out of gas.Still, if the Resitance had gotten to Crait and found the base invested with hostile pirates, or destroyed by a natural disaster, they might not even have enough fuel to enact a plan B.

I liked what the chase plot did for the characters in TLJ - and the novelization significantly improves on some already-good moments - but I still strain to accept the mechanics that caused the chase to happen in the first place.

If we ever get a canon 3.0, I hope they'll stretch this a little bit. +1 ABE is SUPER busy, even without cramming Leia's pregnancy and Kylo's birth in there. Then again, maybe the nearly-literal overnight transition from Rebellion to Republic is one of the reasons why the government seemed to be on such poor footing. Looking again at the example of the American Civil War, how Reconstructed were worlds that the Rebellion/NR did not liberate directly?

I'm very glad this got corrected. If Corellia was the home of the freewheeling Han Solo and the independent-minded Wedge Antilles, along with a host of other smugglers, pirates, and explorers, it never made much sense that they would be a longstanding Imperial (or Imperialish) holdout.

 

I have to say that despite generally preferring to avoid the topic altogether, I think some of the complaints about "ST minimalism" do miss that the Resistance is supposed to be small in-universe. They're not the Rebel Alliance with multiple bases and fleets that, when fully assembled, are large if not a direct match for the Empire. I suspect the end of TLJ and the pre-IX time jump most people expect are partially about changing that.

(It's entirely fair to say that the 'infrastructural' aspects of TLJ are generally its weakest point, though, which is why Jason Fry was a good choice for the novelization).

 

How is there a debate at all? Either the 25,000 number is (or was) canon, or it isn't...right?

 

Oh yeah. As JABoomer said,

I think it cropped up every time people ran out of steam on the Super Star Destroyer size debate.

I think Rebels is pretty good at showing that the simple Gozanti-class cruiser is sufficient for most of the Empire's needs in low-conflict areas. They probably have an ISD show up once every so often just to remind the population of what will happen if they become uncooperative, but those visits would be few and far between in pacified systems.

I do wish the movie had set it up that they were rendezvousing with a refueling vessel at their first jump, only for the Empire to show up and have it be the first thing to go in the ensuing firefight (in a big spectacular explosion that would make Michael Bay proud).

Well, there were a handful of Saxtonites who disputed the canonicity of that number, claiming that since the movies are higher canon than the EU, since the movies show a GALACTIC Empire, and since (by their allegedly indisputable math) 25,000 ISDs are insufficient to carry out the task of maintaining such an Empire, then the EU's count of ISDs should be disregarded. They never got much traction either here or at the old StarWars.com Message Boards, but I would imagine they had a better standing at StarDestroyer.net, which was the preferred online venue for Maximalists.

Here, both sides of the fleet size debates generally accepted the 25,000 number for Imperial Star Destroyers, but debated either the definition of "Imperial Star Destroyer" (i.e., only Imperial-class Star Destroyers vs. any Imperial vessel that could be called a Star Destroyer), or debated the number of other vessels in Imperial service. Minimalists envisioned a Navy composed almost entirely of Star Destroyers of Imperial-class or smaller, with a tiny handful of Super-class Star Destroyers rounding out the top end of the fleet, all accounted for in that 25,000 number, supported by a small but reasonable number of lighter designs like the Carrack-class and Strike-class cruisers. Maximalists envisioned a Navy that included a variety of ship designs larger than the Imperial-class (which served primarily as escorts for those larger ships), and that those larger ships, as well as other Star Destroyer types like the Victory-class and the then-still-unnamed Tector-class, weren't counted in that 25,000; and that this fleet was supported by a far larger number of the lighter designs than Minimalists envisioned.

ETA: Note that these are the archetypal versions of both postions; there was plenty of variety in the viewpoints of individuals within each side. For instance, while I generally wound up on the Minimalist side of the debates, I firmly believed in the "Imperial Star Destroyers means Imperial-class Star Destroyers" interpretation of that 25,000 number.

 

Star Wars Rebels shown that planets like Ryloth only got a light cruiser and a light carrier to make up a blockade, and it also made it clear in one episode that ships of this kind don't count as star destroyers. Even some planets with extreme strategic relevance, such as Scarif, only got a few.

 

Star Destroyers are usually shown as formidable ships that are pretty tough to destroy. And IIRC correctly there's lots of flavor text about how a few Star Destroyers are all that's needed to keep a planet in line.

At the last count in 2015, the Essential Atlas Appendix had 5,085 planets. Counting Star Destroyers alone, none of the frigates or dreadnoughts or any other vessels, 25,000 means the Empire can put **five** BDZ capable Star Destroyers in orbit over almost every planet of significance ever mentioned in over 40 years of Star Wars stories.

The question isn't "how does the Empire control the galaxy with only 25,000 Star Destroyers?", it's "How does the Rebellion have a chance when the Empire has 25,000 Star Destroyers?"

But either way, I think it's a mistake for them to give hard numbers for things like this in the first place. Everyone is always going to have their own interpretation on if the number is too large or too small, it serves no story purpose, and just causes confusion and imposes a limit on your story. Also it risks that whole "informed attribute" thing, like how the Stormtroopers are apparently only a "small part" of the Imperial army, yet are the most common type of Imperial soldier we see.

 

dp

 

Indeed.

Which is important. The Empire is supposed to be overstreched.
"How are they supposed to maintain order in the galaxy with so few" Well, they didn't, they lost, which probably owes a lot them not being able to project strength everywhere the rebels strike.

Admittedly, 25,000 ISDs plus who knows how many other ships means that the New Republic had to have produced tens of thousands of Mon Cals and other capital ships - and trained crews for them - in under a year to beat the Empire in a conventional fight, which is quite the industrial feet no matter how much of a maximalist you are, but canon is canon in the end...

 

Forty years is barely enough time to scratch the surface of the planets of significance in an Empire of this size.

In a toe-to-toe fight? They don't. That's why their fleet was always on the move, avoiding engaging the enemy until an opportunity to cut off the head of the Empire presented itself.

Which seems to be the approach the current canon is taking for a lot of things.

 

25,000 is a good number if we are talking only about ISD/ISD-II class ships.

There would still be maybe hundreds of thousands of Cruisers, Frigates, Corvettes, etc....and a handful of SSDs/Dreadnaughts like the Executor-class, Praetor-class, etc...

While the Imperial doctrine tends to be bigger is better you would be able to dominate an area of space better with multiple smaller ships. A task force with 6-8 ships like the Vindicator class cruiser with maybe a couple Vics thrown in would give you more flexibility that simply putting 1 ISD in the area. Not to mention how support ships like the Arquitens, Gozanti, and Quasar Fire would be able to stretch that operational area.

 

I may be miss-remembering, but didn't Aftermath point out that post-Endor there were a Imperial commanders turning over their ships and fleets to the New Republic in return for pardons? Or is my memory making that up?

And in any case, the New Republic wouldn't have to face 25,000 ISDs because a huge portion of those would not be under the control of warlords or sector commanders going their own way.

 

Hmm, I'm' looking at Wookieepedia (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer/Legends) where it says "A single Imperial-class vessel cost the Empire more than twenty times the cost of a EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate, which was the equivalent of several star systems' annual economic output". which sounds vaguely reminiscent of the ISD's description in the old Starwars.com Databank. Anyway, I can't be bothered to do any math or anything, but if the idea is that a Star Destroyer is so obscenely expensive, then could the Empire really have had 25,000 of them?

 

Considering what they spent on Death Stars....is it really too hard to grasp being able to build that many SDa??