What Would You Do?

[Matt Richard]

The videogame, Rebellion puts you smack in the middle of the Galactic Civil War. Imagine you are now in command of the Empire, what is your first action (remember, this is right after the Battle of Yavin)?

Me, I would personally start a capital ship building project. Build all the ISD's that I can. This would eventually lead into a DS2 construction project.

Unfortunately, if we are going to get technical, Im sure the economy of the Empire dropped greatly after DS1 was destroyed. So this construction project might not work as well as planned.

But if it did work, the Empire would still be able to swollow the brick of knowledge that the DS1 was destroyed.

So, what would you do?

[Armadious]

Is the question actualy about the game??

If it is then my reaction is to almost totaly ignore the capital starships except for carriers and star-fighters, and concentrate much more on the economic and diplomatic side of things.

If you are talking about in other terms not as limited as in the game, generaly what the Empire did was not so efective beacuse of the massive amounts of ISDs. IMO, more, and smaller vessels would have worked much better to counter the rebel threat then a large fearsome ships ever did.

Second I thought DS1 was built somewhere out of the way - where not a lot of people knew that it existed. If that is so, its construction, and destruction did not have that huge of an impact on the economey of the Empire. But again that is my opinion.

[Skwoz]

From memory, the Death Star was actually constructed on Tarkin's homeworld of Eriadu with the aid of prisoners, though its knowledge would have been prevalant due to the fact it destroyed one of the Core Worlds. Historically after this event, the Super Star Destroyer 'Executor' was built and almost bankrupted the Empire.

For the matter of 'Rebellion' though, I would personally send some capital ships to Yavin to try and capture some of the rebels (possibly reducing their effect on R&D), and concentrate defending my planets with starfighters and smaller capital ship, plus creating probe droids to do some recon wthin the outlying worlds.

[BrianDavion]

Executor didn't bankrupt the empire... IIRC the exact wording was "it almost bankrupted several systems"

[Matt Richard]

No, im not talking in terms of the game, but in real life.

But even if DS1 was built in secret, doesnt mean the money came out of nowhere to fund it. There was a lot invested in it (the ability to destroy a planet doesnt come cheep, you know), so it probably drained the Empire when it was constructed, and drained even more when it was destroyed. Im sure DS2 was harder to construct mainly for the fact that investors were wary of putting money into a proven vulnerable space station.

[The Admiral]

Just to clarify;

DS1 was constructed over the penal colony of Despayre (Not Eriadu, one of the most populus and prominant core worlds) Despayre was destroyed by the Death Star as asoon as it was activated, thereby silencing the constructors, eliminating pesky prisoners, and testing the main gun.

There's no evidence that the loss of the Death Star was a significant economic set-back. It's greatest significance was political.

Executor was constructed in the stardocks of the Fondor system. Subsequent vessels were constructed in the Kuat stardocks. That it's pricetag could have bankrupted several systems is at best a tad vague. (Which systems? Inhabited ones? Several Tatooines? Several Corellias? Their net value, or GNP during construction?)

As to what I'd do after Yavin, well, I reckon I'd probably assemble a fleet of 5 ISD2s centered around the brand new Executor, and present it to my most trusted agent with orders to seek out the Alliance and destroy it.

[Matt Richard]

One, I thought Alderaan was the first planet to go by-by simply for the fact that the Death Star wasn't fully operational enough to destroy other planets, until shortly before entering the Alderaan System.

Please clarify, what is your source.

[hotten2]

i hardly believe any of the big projects would disrupt the economy...
not even a system (maybe the cost would bankrupt a system... but hey, the empire is capitalist... they spread the cost)

[The Admiral]

Source? Er, well, lesse, there's gotta be fifty SW source books on this 'ere shelf, lets pick one at random, SW encyclopaedia, oh, page 69, there it is,,,

(apologies if this seems overly sarcastic, I've just had a very bad day, no insult intended,,,)

[Matt Richard]

None taken (must have been a pretty bad day, Im sorry).

[Ash DuQuennes]

The thing you must understand about the "hierarchy" of Star Wars Canon (what is and what is not) is that the Movies are primary, the movie novelisations are second, the novels are tertiary, the games and everything else come in a distant fourth.

The continuity problem comes in when novel authors begin quoting game material.

By the movies, the Death Star first fired its BFG on Alderaan, since no previous firings were shown. I would, however, agree that it is very likely that the BFG on the Death Star was tested at some point prior to Alderaan getting snuffed. Imagine the embarassment if Tarkin gave the order to fire...and nothing happened. DOH!

Of course, I'm projecting both the Murphy and Peter Principles into the SW Universe (also not unreasonable, IMHO), but it wasn't dramatically appropriate for Lucas to have his uber-weapon malfunction at that point. Hence my agreement that the BFG was tested, probably several times, before it fired upon Alderaan. Was it built around a planet called Despayre, which it then destroyed? For now, officially: yes. Until George Lucas decides to contradict it with direct on-screen evidence to the contrary.

What would I do?

Revise my strategic and tactical doctrines to the realities of the technologies available to my opponents, political consideration be damned. Have X-, Y-, A- and B-Wing equivalents in my arsenal, and let my highly trained and experienced ship commanders exercise their command discretion out on the Galactic Frontiers, where they are likely to encounter the Rebel. Training and doctrine are only "baselines" upon which to build operations, tactical and strategic. They should never become the be-all, end-all of a commander's options.

Because they rely too much upon the preconceived notions of my opponents capabilities (both of material and operational).

And Murphy's Laws of Combat (#8) states quite clearly: "No plan survives contact with the enemy."

[Emperor Xanderich II]

From a military point of view, the tactic I would have used to defeat and capture the Rebel forces in the field is known as 'driving'.

Basically several columns of highy mobile and responsive (ie fast carriers with lots of starfighters and speedy escorts - the Rebs never had anything large enough to threaten the big ships) and sweep suspected Rebel forces towards a series of 'blocksystems' the Rebels would find hard to pass due to the large number of garrisons and watch units placed there which would include Interdictors. Speed would be the essense against these guerillas.

Any large Rebel units (Mon Cal cruisers et al) could be singled out for desturction by large Imp ships (ISD's) who would use a variety of smaller ships to hem them in and starfighters to launch molesting attacks (this reminds me of the hunt for the Bismark).

The only effective way to fight guerillas in the long run is to destroy their supply bases and information sources ie the mines, refineries and people. Whislt direct destruction usually results in unpopularity, undercover agents could be used to great effect. Whilst burnt out systems may not leave much for the conquerer, it hardly matters when you already have a large power base and the enemy does not.

Initaial political subversion should be used to ensure that neutrals don't go to the Rebel cause (thus giving them more resourses), then focusing on you own people, uprisings and strikes can cause you to expend a great deal of resourses when they could be used much more effectively on the front line. Only then would I start to subvert Rebel territories (whilst still secretly destroying their manufacturing capability).

[reliant]

Wasn't the Death Star built at the Maw Installation? Or was that just the second one?

What would I do if I were emperor after Yavin? I would start bribing the heck out of all the worlds so that they would LOVE me. Also I would work on more ships, but not on the size of an ISD. Probably more like VSD's and dreadnaught sized vessels. Plus loads and loads of ties. Then I'd hire all the bounty hunters in the galaxy to bring me the heads of the rebellion (literally). Keep Joe Average happy, while torturing anyone who supports the rebellion.

[Ash DuQuennes]

reliant: IIRC, from the Jedi Academy Trilogy we were told that the initial super-laser concept testing and prototype development took place at the Maw installation. They built a prototype Death Star that was essentially nothing more than a small super-laser, a power core just large enough to run it, and just enough structural support to hold it all together.

Emperor Xanderich: not a bad idea, but I think that the Rebels are wily enough to see that coming and simply "disperse" and go to ground for a while, maybe regroup outside of the Imperial's Zone of Operations.

You'd undoubtedly have some success with your method, especially if the Imperial Operational Doctrines were loosened up in the manner I described, as what you propose would require fast thinking and flexibility on the Imperial's part, to take swift advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

If the Imps. stick to the same-old/same-old, I think their chance of success, of a crushing defeat against the Rebel, would be quite diminished.

Good analogy, vis-a-vis the Bismark, though I'm not sure how similar tactics wold play out on a 3-D Galactic scale. Might look a bit more like the Battle of the Jutland, which arguably was a win/lose for both, though in the long run it hurt the Germans more (strategically). Again, I'm not sure how it would play out on a 3-D Galactic Scale field of engagement.

[Emperor Xanderich II]

Yeah fighting the Rebs is tough, the 'driving' techniques main purpose would be to keep the miliary occupied and make sure the Rebels sisn't have much time to themselves to plat more of their hit and run attacks.

The most effective policy would be the destructoin of civilian property. eg Kitchener's strategy during the latter half of the Boer War.

3D always imposes problems and trying to apply real life tactics to the void is tricky...