The Mandalorian Official "The Mandalorian" Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

10 years ago who would have imagined we would have so much Star Wars stuff going on ?
It's a great time to be alive.

 

I wonder if we might get some new republic in this series. We will probaly get some turf war going on.

 

Hard to say, it'd be pretty early-on in the NR though, not sure they'd have their own fleet livery and uniforms and stuff just yet, probably still in that transition period from the Rebellion even though they're not called the Rebellion anymore. Probably still those Jedi type troop uniforms and red X-Wing paintjobs and stuff, don't know they'd be quite far along enough to look like Kaz in Resistance just yet.

 

The show's set in the Outer Rim territories with little NRDF influence, so I wouldn't bet on them appearing. At most it'll be a handful of X-wings, and maybe an MC85 or Starhawk if we're lucky.

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Pretty much. If the original Republic didn't give a damn about Tatooine, hard to think the new one would have a footprint there either.

 

We know it's not just Tatooine we visit so maybe they one of the other planets.

 

I bet we'll see some slight evidence of the NR. Mostly in dialogue, and also in a few visual touches. Perhaps a poster advertising a new and better world with the NR. And then in later seasons, I bet we'll see their influence slowly increase.

 

The Empire still seems quite prevalent, and this is four years after they were supposed to have been Jakku'd. I wonder if they are far enough out in the Outer Rim maybe we see a Stormie questioning why his payslip's employer is stated as 'First Order' rather than 'The Empire'.

 

The Empire's not "prevalent" though, they're defeated. Given as you say this is after Jakku, they don't just have the head cut off the snake like right after Jedi with the Emperor & Vader and the superweapon gone, this is like full-on the Empire's back is broken, they're done. A few thousand chosen elite have made a beeline for unexplored space to reorganize into the FO, but they're just that, a small elite, sounds like mostly the youngest & the most hardcore.

But that basically leaves your Average Joe lion's share of the Imperials left behind, in the main civilized part of the galaxy, defeated. Probably some defecting to the New Republic, yeah, some imprisoned or whatever, but the guys still running around doing their bad guy thing like Herzog are going to be the dregs by this point in the timeline. Smalltime, even if he did used to hold significant authority/rank in the Empire. A former colonel type of guy with 15 or 20 troops still loyal to him and a handful of ships is still pretty powerless, outside of pushing around civilians on some nowhere planet.

About the payslip (heh) thing, doubt the name "The First Order" is around just yet, at least not among those who weren't chosen to go off into the boonies. Your average stormtrooper probably isn't even aware there's some hard core of Otto Skorzeny analogues out there plotting an eventual comeback, these Empire guys you'd have to figure aren't even remotely in the loop regarding all that. They're just like post-Civil War confederates fleeing out west to work as cattle rustlers & stagecoach heisters off-the-grid because it's about all they have as far as prospects. Thugs, but pretty smalltime and pathetic in the face of any actual opposition should any New Republic troops ever show up.

 

A solid take on the set-up situation for the Mandalorian.

There are a couple of things I will add and then ask a question as I’m new to this thread.

Firstly, though most of those who are ideologically married to the Empire and maybe Palpatine have managed to join up with those who will eventually become the First Order. But let us not forget many spies and those at least sympathetic to the Empire may remain behind under the New Republic. Some hedging their bets, others remaining on orders from Higher Ups.

Second thing, I do recommend reading Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath books, as they do remain Canon and are our only most thorough description of the state of the Galaxy directly following ROTJ & the Battle of Jakku (other than the Battleground 2 Game, Shattered Empire Comics, Bloodline and some other books I don’t remember offhand).

Though, I do predict some other things may be retconned over some parts of Aftermath. Like young children--”the ankle biter brigade”--taking the nominal Emperor, Mas Amedda, hostage in the Emperor’s office on Coruscant. Just silly. I think it more likely that Doctor Aphra would be able to do it, as a means to ingratiate herself with important members of the New Republic and for cash.

Now, my question:

Who do you think is the 50 year-old Werner Herzog sends the Mandalorian to capture and hand over to the remnant of Imperials? And who thinks this is a person that is meant to be sent on to Imperials to help them build Starkiller Base and other weapons or Ship Tech? Or is it someone else and do we have any hints in the footage that I might have missed?

 

Plenty of speculation going around about the "50 year old" when the footage hit. Could be anything from some clone or important baby with slowed ageing, to something as simple as an actual, regular, non-altered 50 year old of some stratetic value. *Shrugs* We don't exactly have anything to go on with that other than the vague line of dialogue.

As for spies, well yeah, no doubt there are still a few ISB types out there posing as New Republic types. That's all great for information, sure, but pretty useless without the actual troops/grunts to back up any sort of coup attempt. Post-Jakku, the Empire's done, there's no comeback on the cards other than from those chosen to **** off to the boonies plotting the longgame. The First Order appearing back in civilized space, what, 26 years later in the timeline? Herzog's guy's dead by then, maybe Esposito's guy too. Not many OG Empire guys are going to exist by the years just prior to TFA, other than people who were really young and unimportant during the OT, the grunts and junior officers.

This period though, soon after Jakku and decades away from the First Order being even a blip on anyone's radar, seems it's going to be "the good times" at least on the core words. Tatooine and all of these Old West analogues are a different story of course, chaos out on the fringes, but that just kind of goes with the whole "whatever Imperials are still holding out by now are pretty neutered/impotent in any actual political sense" notion. They've just become criminals, Star Wars-equivalent cowboys. Camping out on nowhere planets and pushing around the little people, because that's about the extent of whatever power they have, they're not exactly going to be coalescing and mounting a grand coup offensive on Chandrila or Hosnian Prime or whatever the capital is now in the timeline.

 

Well, yeah. That’s the story. Is anyone claiming that the Mandalorian will feature Imperials credibly threatening the New Republic? I don’t think so. These Imperial remnants have become criminals, war lords or gang lords, that’s clear. And that’s great. A nice layer of realistic world-building which convinces me that the future of Star Wars is on TV.

 

Even though I highly doubt the empire will pose any threat to NR at this point in time, I imagine character's like Herzog's and the average stormtroopers believe that hiding out is strictly temporarily, even after the defeat at Jakuu, and whatever a schemes they're doing in this show and elsewhere are simply plots to take over one little world at a time until eventually they become strong enough to retake the galaxy. After all if they didn't believe the empire was going to come back, why would the stormtroopers stick around?

 

Lots of possible reasons why stormies would stick around. Payment. Avoidance of NR courts. Petty power opportunities (before they were lowly grunts, now they are senior enforcers for war lords). From little fish in a big pond to big fish in a small pond. Etc.

 

Yeah, it's just loyalty. Especially if guys like Herzog were more special forces or intelligence or whatever, if these are more the elite battalions or whatever. Soldiers in those groups tend to develop pretty personal loyalties to commanders, if the Empire's done-and-dusted then their next allegiance is probably going to be to their direct boss.

The uniforms/armor and stuff are probably just a good theatrical show of fear, it works psychologically on whatever backwater peasants they're pushing around. Plus all the equipment's pretty tried-and-true over a couple decades, the blasters and TIEs and all, probably better off using what they already have than whatever probably-inferior stuff they could buy at the local civilian armorer.

 

That may very well be part of it, but I wouldn’t say it’s likely “just” loyalty. Historically, authoritarian regimes have low levels of loyalty among grunts in the armed forces, in comparison to more free societies. Particularly after defeat. But as I said, there could be so many reasons for them to stick around and maintain their uniforms.

 

The First Order is like Boys from Brazil and if the project was successful.

The core of the hardliner military refitted and reformed as the First Order following Palpatine's/Rax's scheme. The Empire was designed by Sidious that no one rules it but him.

Most of the Imperial Forces are indeed loyal to the cause and probably insurgent forces and imperial cells spring up to act against the Rebel Alliance/New Republic. If Imperials go rogue and independent then they arent really anything but traitors. I wager some Imperials still probably don't believe their Emperor is even dead, and we've seen that too. Levying soldiers probably would not be hard or keeping them paid, since the Empire(now First Order) always seemingly had unlimited funds and the Empire was often little more than big budget thugs. The Imperial military including Stormtroopers were little more than mercenaries and conscripted/drafted fighting force its quality of soldiers depended on a number of factors. Its doubtful that much of their army was good for front line duty and those that were would've dwindled down following all the wars and battles the Empire waged to take control following ROTS and well into SOLO,. Probably their most party loyal and well trained soldiers would not of been wasted on the front lines unless called in, I would presume the hardliners would be more centered around the Emperor.

Guys like Krennic had their own private bodyguard security , so something like that I think would occur on a larger scale. Imperial security forces could easily control planets and systems and even be independent of the First Order and allied to it, or against it. But without a source of income, Imperial remnant forces would have either look to the First Order or other means including criminal fiance their sustain existence or even war effort and their livelihood.

I think it more probable the remnant forces would have to covet and control of rich resources, like sit on nest eggs and stuff in order to survive and maintain a cold war and independent sectors wich was what the First Order did. But Galactic Empire, split and what remained of it either became the illegal fanatical and militant First Order or remained the Imperial remnant in the core and inner rim. The latter was under the watchful eye of the New Republic and had treaty of Versailles-like sanctions against it. But still had a good sized fighting force of Star Destroyers and Army Troopers(Mudtroopers) to protect itself. With the New Republic fleet destroyed its unclear whats going on with this faction.

 

I don't know about that, not among the hard-core. Conscripts, sure, but from what we see of Herzog he seems pretty shady, probably had some high-level clearances/access or whatever in "the good old days". Esposito's dude also seems pretty hardcore, given he has death troopers and specialized flame-troopers and stuff he's probably not your garden-variety ****-kicker nobody-officer.

Those types tend to indoctrinate their pawn soldiers up-and-above even the usual. I'd agree that if stormtroopers were forcibly conscripted on the whole in the Empire then their loyalty's going to only go as far as a paycheck and whichever way the political winds are blowing, but seems like a) a lot of troopers are volunteers, and b) given we have death troopers in the mix at least assigned to Esposito's character these probably weren't your average schmuck battalions guarding your space shopping mall or whatever. If they're more intelligence/special operations type of thing, then that loyalty's going to be pretty deep, that doesn't just come with democracies. Plenty of SS holdouts way into 1945 (even to the extent of regular German army teaming up with Americans and French to go hunt them down in the alps), plenty of Soviet spetznaz types resisting the new ways well into the 90s. It happens.

Still figuring it'll be limited to that though, personal loyalties to commanders, rather than these little former-Imperial cells trying to coalesce into anything serious. That won't come for another 20+ years when Sloane & Hux Sr's little experiment comes back with the brand-spanking new name and fanatical space-ISIS manifesto.

 

Sure, that could absolutely be it. Just saying that there are a melange of all kinds of possible motivations that could be driving them. Loyalty, power, money and safety. Not hard to imagine why they’d still be around even if the Empire’s days are considered over.

 

@Pons who do you think the character in your avy is? he looks amazing!

 

Now, there's a name...