The "new republic collapsed in 2 days" really ruined ST setting

[ChrisIII]

The Disney continuity seems to be a bit vague on the senate during the OT (After ANH that is), since Palpatine's dissolution of the senate was done as he assumed the Death Star would be there.

Instead, he lost not only that but one of his most powerful moffs.

Then again, he had the other DS possibly already under construction.

[Slowpokeking]

The Disney continuity seems to be a bit vague on the senate during the OT (After ANH that is), since Palpatine's dissolution of the senate was done as he assumed the Death Star would be there.

Instead, he lost not only that but one of his most powerful moffs.

Then again, he had the other DS possibly already under construction.

In RO, he still had to hide the experiment and make a cover story.

[Jokerz79]

I've never read any of the Disney Era books so going off the films and tv shows alone I understand the buildup of the First Order and fall of the New Republic and have no issue with it especially given the world of the Prequels.

When I saw TFA I immediately got what the First Order was and why there was Resistance and why the New Republic seemed almost unphased by them. I assumed after the fall of the Empire and the battle of Jakku the remnants of the Empire retreated into some quadrants the New Republic conceded to get rid of them and saw them as a broken force and thus no longer a threat. While in reality the Emperor returned but, with the proxy known as Snoke and rebuilt the former Empire into the First Order.

The Resistance formed because there were still worlds under the rule of the former Empire forces.

As for the New Republic with the threat over and oblivious that Snoke was actually a puppet leader for the very much alive Palpatine. The New Republic relaxed and seeing that there was no threat and given the history of the Old Republic and what happened when they allowed a "Grand Army" to be formed. How that said Army was then turned on them I could see the New Republic wanting the Army and Space Navy heavily reduced seeing them as wasteful spending in a time of peace and potential threat at worst.

I don't see the raise of the First Order or fall of the New Republic as taking away from the victory of the Rebellion the raise of Hitler and WWII doesn't make the Victory of WWI less, we just could have managed the fallout better and same can be said here.

[Slowpokeking]

I've never read any of the Disney Era books so going off the films and tv shows alone I understand the buildup of the First Order and fall of the New Republic and have no issue with it especially given the world of the Prequels.

When I saw TFA I immediately got what the First Order was and why there was Resistance and why the New Republic seemed almost unphased by them. I assumed after the fall of the Empire and the battle of Jakku the remnants of the Empire retreated into some quadrants the New Republic conceded to get rid of them and saw them as a broken force and thus no longer a threat. While in reality the Emperor returned but, with the proxy known as Snoke and rebuilt the former Empire into the First Order.

The Resistance formed because there were still worlds under the rule of the former Empire forces.

As for the New Republic with the threat over and oblivious that Snoke was actually a puppet leader for the very much alive Palpatine. The New Republic relaxed and seeing that there was no threat and given the history of the Old Republic and what happened when they allowed a "Grand Army" to be formed. How that said Army was then turned on them I could see the New Republic wanting the Army and Space Navy heavily reduced seeing them as wasteful spending in a time of peace and potential threat at worst.

I don't see the raise of the First Order or fall of the New Republic as taking away from the victory of the Rebellion the raise of Hitler and WWII doesn't make the Victory of WWI less, we just could have managed the fallout better and same can be said here.

PT has nothing to do with it. If so, PT showed that how hard it is to dismantle the corrupted and weak old republic.

Actually it's clear that most of the Empire were actually the old republic, they just switched the name, but still ruled by the same ppl. And Palpatine didn't even have the guts to disband the senate before EP4. Most of his loyal troops were with the 2 Death Stars.

So it makes a lot of sense that these imperial ppl got no loyalty to Palpatine once his power was gone, all they got to do is change their name back again. That's why the Empire collapse to quickly.

Even in WWII, we don't see the allies die in 1 day, far from it.

[Jokerz79]

PT has nothing to do with it. If so, PT showed that how hard it is to dismantle the corrupted and weak old republic.

Actually it's clear that most of the Empire were actually the old republic, they just switched the name, but still ruled by the same ppl. And Palpatine didn't even have the guts to disband the senate before EP4. Most of his loyal troops were with the 2 Death Stars.

So it makes a lot of sense that these imperial ppl got no loyalty to Palpatine once his power was gone, all they got to do is change their name back again. That's why the Empire collapse to quickly.

Even in WWII, we don't see the allies die in 1 day, far from it.

While not one day Hitler took over Europe in quick succession and those countries had their governments and militaries. The New Republic lost their seat of government and all their heads of state and what little of a fleet they had in one attack and was now facing a large Fleet with a trained Army. The New Republic was essentially in the same place as Carthage after the final battle of the 3rd Punic War in 146 BC except for them it happened in one attack.

[Slowpokeking]

While not one day Hitler took over Europe in quick succession and those countries had their governments and militaries. The New Republic lost their seat of government and all their heads of state and what little of a fleet they had in one attack and was now facing a large Fleet with a trained Army. The New Republic was essentially in the same place as Carthage after the final battle of the 3rd Punic War in 146 BC except for them it happened in one attack.

How quick? Hitler took years to prepare and conquer the majority of Europe, and got his ass kicked in UK/USSR. Hitler never ever took Europe.

What are you talking about? Even in the OT, the rebels could take out a fleet to fight the Empire. It makes no sense the NR had little fleet beside one of their capitals. The NR was in control of the galaxy for years.

It makes no sense to compare them to Carthage, which had fought years of bloody wars VS the powerful Rome. And they still lasted 3 years during the 3rd punic war. Why didn't it happen in 1 attack? Because 1 attack could not do that. It took so many battles for the Rome to defeat and conquer Carthage, this exactly proved how stupid the NR's downfall is.

[ChrisIII]

The Old Republic didn't really have much of a fleet/army either apart from the Jedi and kept control for far longer.

I think it was kind of up to the individual worlds to have their own security, such as Naboo's militia. The Seperatist army was also largely composed of the private forces of several corporations banded together in addition to planetary militias.

It's possible the NR was counting on a similar arrangement?

[godisawesome]

A few thoughts:

- As a criticism on my part, I don't think the "OT was WWI, and the ST was WWII" is a good comparison to go with, either in terms of what real world conflict aligns to which fictional one, or in terms of taking the sting out of what happens to the OT characters and their ROTJ victory. The Clone Wars, with its huge scale, moral ambiguity, and failure to prevent the next war, fits WWI better, while the Empire in the OT was always Nazis with arbitrarily carried out atrocities. Plus, WWI's end WAS a failure to prevent the next, arguably worse tragedy, with no real victor, while ROTJ *does* show a heroic triumph, with the better post-ROTJ material trying to coach it as preserving that victory, and playing the Empire's remnants and successors as terrorists or plotting Neo-Nazis launching an assault without a real world parallel - which is what, in my opinion, the ST should have stuck to, instead of trying to

Second, though, there is actually a distinct confusion and contradictory portrayal going on between the Abrams ST material and the Johnson ST material - arguably the first MAJOR contradiction and retcon attempt in the Disney era:

- In TFA, it's sourcebooks and expanded material, the First Order is a small, fanatical group of mostly young and brainwashed fascists (thus why they've got a "kid" like Hux as a General, Jojen Reed as a bridge officer, and a rookie Stormtrooper like Finn marked out as officer material before he even engages in combat) under the command of a smaller number of OT veterans, explicitly striking from the Unknown Regions and far enough away from Galactic eyes that they can be genuinely confused for a tiny band of die-hards. They are also heavily implied to fear a direct conventional war with the Republic fleet, and are shown to lack the personnel to actually defend the most important structures of Starkiller Base sufficiently. The implication is that with SKB, they can carry out a decapitation strike and become the superior military force in the Galaxy, but without SKB, don't have a stick big enough to corral the Galaxy. Its implied that secrecy is their greatest asset at this time, and that they seek to be of better quality than the Empire to make up for having nowhere near the quantity of the Empire's resources. Its thus suggested that even a disarmed New Republic is probably still logistically superior to the First Order, and simply not mobilized for war if their fleet was lost. It's even shown that the tiny Resistance is considered a serious threat to the First Order.

- Then, TLJ has a supplementary book (Bloodline) that explicitly contradicts all that as it tries to retcon in a scenario that could make the First Order automatically an Empire substitute, complete with a large public presence and significant numbers of systems aligned to it after the Centrist V Populist split. The First Order fleet is also made much larger, but correspondingly written as parodies of the OT Empire's least impressive elements, and are then how crushing a Resistance that is also much larger than it was before, while having it insisted "the First Order reigns" and showing that the Galaxy seemingly doesn't give a damn about the "return of the Empire." In general, the idea seems to be to COMPLETELY reinstall the OT paradigm with zero nuance or believability, and make the scenarios identical even when they logically shouldn't be.

(...At least until Johnson's preferred type of hero, a sad white guy version of Luke doing the bare minimum with a somewhat deceitful final appearance, can be given all the credit for inspiring rebellion instead of the more diverse group of heroes + Han Solo from the previous film who accomplished substantially more - and over the OT's legacy as well...)

(...Sorry, I just really think Johnson's priorities and cynicism were screwed up given the context of his film...)

- Then, TROS comes in and seem to try to synthesize the two opposing portrayals - the First Order now apparently once again lacks the resources to actually seize the Galaxy in spite of their supremacy and needs Palpatine's fleet of superweapons and more warships to actually conquer the Galaxy, and that apparently there's enough planetary defense forces and mothballed warships to force a near-even battle with the Final Order fleet (made up of both Sith and First Order forces. It's also apparently shown that once word gets out that the Final Order is defeated, the rest of the First Order goes down with it.

...So I think what would be smart to settle on is that Mon Mothma and other were actually accurate in their assessment of what size of main fleet to keep to prevent a conventional fight, and that individual planets managed sufficient fleets for their own protection, but no one was ready for another super weapon, or a hidden fleet of super weapons.

But I've got no idea where Filoni will go with Thrawn vs the New Republic - he's got an inconsistent record with regards to military fiction.

[Jokerz79]

How quick? Hitler took years to prepare and conquer the majority of Europe, and got his ass kicked in UK/USSR. Hitler never ever took Europe.

What are you talking about? Even in the OT, the rebels could take out a fleet to fight the Empire. It makes no sense the NR had little fleet beside one of their capitals. The NR was in control of the galaxy for years.

It makes no sense to compare them to Carthage, which had fought years of bloody wars VS the powerful Rome. And they still lasted 3 years during the 3rd punic war. Why didn't it happen in 1 attack? Because 1 attack could not do that. It took so many battles for the Rome to defeat and conquer Carthage, this exactly proved how stupid the NR's downfall is.

Years look at the dates from invasion to occupied it usually too a few weeks and again these were countries with militaries and government. Never took over what do you think occupied meant? If the Nazi didn't take over those countries than the French, Dutch, and other Resistance movements didn't get the memo.

My point to the fall of Carthage wasn't the time to fall but the state of Carthage once the city fell. The city was in ruins, the military gone, the government gone, and a lot of the people bonded into slavery after that there was no fight just like how as I mentioned before the New Republic in one attack lost their seat of government, heads of state, and what military they had. What was left to fight with or for? It was all gone and then it becomes every world for themself.

Also, the outer rim worlds wouldn't care No matter Old Republic, Empire, or New Republic very little ever changed for them since they were almost lawless territories run by criminal organizations. As for the Mid Rim and Core some worlds would have welcomed the Empire back while others would have been apathic given no matter the form of government or name little ever changed for them. That was Luthern's point in Andor they needed to make the Empire start cracking down on the average citizen to create resistance before the Empire's power was absolute. This has a real world parallel in Ireland during the fight for Independance in the early 20th century a lot of the populace were apathic to fighting thinking not much in their own lives would change but it was the British cracking down on everyone over the actions of the Republicans which radicalized many of the average citizens to the fight.

After the Starkiller Attack you have no Government, no Military, a mix of Apathic and Welcoming Core and Mid Worlds and an Outer Rim who have no real horse in the race. Add to that Ahsoka and Mandalorian Season 3 showing the Bureaucracy that hindered the Old Republic had very much taken root in the New Republic. Why is so hard to believe the New Republic fell so fast?

[Slowpokeking]

Years look at the dates from invasion to occupied it usually too a few weeks and again these were countries with militaries and government. Never took over what do you think occupied meant? If the Nazi didn't take over those countries than the French, Dutch, and other Resistance movements didn't get the memo.

My point to the fall of Carthage wasn't the time to fall but the state of Carthage once the city fell. The city was in ruins, the military gone, the government gone, and a lot of the people bonded into slavery after that there was no fight just like how as I mentioned before the New Republic in one attack lost their seat of government, heads of state, and what military they had. What was left to fight with or for? It was all gone and then it becomes every world for themself.

Also, the outer rim worlds wouldn't care No matter Old Republic, Empire, or New Republic very little ever changed for them since they were almost lawless territories run by criminal organizations. As for the Mid Rim and Core some worlds would have welcomed the Empire back while others would have been apathic given no matter the form of government or name little ever changed for them. That was Luthern's point in Andor they needed to make the Empire start cracking down on the average citizen to create resistance before the Empire's power was absolute. This has a real world parallel in Ireland during the fight for Independance in the early 20th century a lot of the populace were apathic to fighting thinking not much in their own lives would change but it was the British cracking down on everyone over the actions of the Republicans which radicalized many of the average citizens to the fight.

After the Starkiller Attack you have no Government, no Military, a mix of Apathic and Welcoming Core and Mid Worlds and an Outer Rim who have no real horse in the race. Add to that Ahsoka and Mandalorian Season 3 showing the Bureaucracy that hindered the Old Republic had very much taken root in the New Republic. Why is so hard to believe the New Republic fell so fast?

What a few weeks? Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and didn't beat France until later 1940, even before that he used diplomatic way to take part of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

When did Hitler take over UK and USSR? Are you saying they are not part of Europe?

Carthage didn't go with "the city fall", dude. It took years of bloody war to weaken them, take out their army, reduce their territory, especially 2nd Punic War. Only after Carthage was greatly weakened, Rome started 3rd Punic war and it still lasted 3 years. I don't think you understand how it works. Carthage wasn't "we are all good but suddenly beheaded so we lost".

Same with the old republic and empire. Many planets don't care about it. Yet Palpatine took decades to change it into empire and the empire lasted for years and wars for the new republic to defeat. They are bad example of government and none of them are as weak/bad as NR.

What no government? Any reasonable power would have state/star system government spread to manage (even the empire got moffs to manage the star systems, and even the old republic senate doesn't all stay in the capital all the time), and would have military split all over the galaxy. Unless they are utter idiots.

[godisawesome]

Yeah... there's a lot of badly applied and incorrect pop-culture "history" applied to trying to justify the New Republic being bad - and it often all ignores how much emotional drama was going on at the time. Like... yeah, much of Europe did nothing about Hitler's rise to power, but it was because they were emotionally shell-shocked from WWI and terrified of repeating it and thus desperate to see if they could maneuver out of a repeat, while Nazi occupations were often bitter affairs when the war did happen; Carthage died slowly over years in bloody-minded defiance of their fate, not simple capitulation, because they knew they were doomed.

People don't just forget trauma automatically, or ignore warning signs; the way they react to it might be ineffective, but, for example, Chamberlain wasn't actually sticking his head in the ground for appeasement in the 1930s, but trying to buy time and avoid doom at the same time.

There's an element of dubiously underplaying the horrors of the Empire and how it would have traumatized much of the Galaxy that I don't like about how they try to write some of the post-ROTJ Galaxy - especially since they tend to then love playing up and embracing the horror in material set during the OT.

Apathy and even tacit support makes sense for some of the elite of some worlds... but the OT and its related material often make sure to show that even the elite in the Core are still in danger and far from being universally distracted by breads and circuses, with Alderaan's destruction being the most prominent and often being played as the dystopian nature of the Empire becoming terribly clear to everyone. Meanwhile, just about every Mid-Rim and Outer Rim world seems to objectively catch a much worse deal under the empire than they did previously and then everything ends with Operation: Cinder adding salt to almost every wound and even striking against hardcore loyalist worlds.

It's only whenever the writers want to feed and addiction to portraying the heroes as always underdogs and rebels that they ignore all the stuff they were doing before, and always in the most frustratingly shallow and unchallenged way... and it still always ends up being matched with not writing the villains as intelligent or capable of anythign beyond overwhelming their opponents, and often writing lackluster wars as well.

It's like they go "If it's the OT, then the Empire is kicking a dog every second on every planet and only ruling through naked force and fear of naked force, and everybody is catching **** and defined by it... but if we're past the OT, than we need to pretend that wasn't happening because, dammit, I don't like having to write clever villains who have to be resourceful and I just want to be formulaic!"

It's not a coincidence that when we have effective and dangerous villains with solid war stories (The Empire in Andor and Rogue One, the First Order in The Force Awakens, the second season of The Mandalorian, and even just solid episodes of Rebels, Ahsoka, or The Mandalorian Season One) they don't feel the need to portray the New Republic as idiots... but its like whenever they feel the need to write the villains in a bit of a lazy and stupid way, then we have to see them caricature the New Republic as a bad parody of politics to excuse why the villains don't just get wiped out.

When its implied the Galaxy gives a crap, its when Hux is an effective, no-nonsense villain and First Order Stormtroopers are badass enough to be meme-worthy (TR-8R); when the writer wants Hux and the Resistance to both be morons, the Galaxy is written as not giving a crap. When they've got Moff Gideon set-up to be a decent and effective antagonist lurking in the shadows of the Galaxy and staying hard to find, the New Republic isn't smeared as worthless; when they have a lazy idea for Gideon that is all flash and no substance, they need the New Republic to be clearly labeled as idiots.

...and my mild fear is that because Filoni is not naturally inclined towards Zahn style clever conflict writing, we might get a Thrawn who does obvious but boring tactics he just tries to sell with Lars Mikkelsen's performance while he just makes Xiono saying dumb things and SNL actors cameoing as idiot bureaucrats the New Republic's thing... partially cause he already did that in Ahsoka's finale, with "Send in the canon fodder the way any other imperial would, but let me explain it in a way that's pretending other imperials wouldn't also do this" as Thrawn's main tactic.

[Slowpokeking]

Yeah... there's a lot of badly applied and incorrect pop-culture "history" applied to trying to justify the New Republic being bad - and it often all ignores how much emotional drama was going on at the time. Like... yeah, much of Europe did nothing about Hitler's rise to power, but it was because they were emotionally shell-shocked from WWI and terrified of repeating it and thus desperate to see if they could maneuver out of a repeat, while Nazi occupations were often bitter affairs when the war did happen; Carthage died slowly over years in bloody-minded defiance of their fate, not simple capitulation, because they knew they were doomed.

People don't just forget trauma automatically, or ignore warning signs; the way they react to it might be ineffective, but, for example, Chamberlain wasn't actually sticking his head in the ground for appeasement in the 1930s, but trying to buy time and avoid doom at the same time.

There's an element of dubiously underplaying the horrors of the Empire and how it would have traumatized much of the Galaxy that I don't like about how they try to write some of the post-ROTJ Galaxy - especially since they tend to then love playing up and embracing the horror in material set during the OT.

Apathy and even tacit support makes sense for some of the elite of some worlds... but the OT and its related material often make sure to show that even the elite in the Core are still in danger and far from being universally distracted by breads and circuses, with Alderaan's destruction being the most prominent and often being played as the dystopian nature of the Empire becoming terribly clear to everyone. Meanwhile, just about every Mid-Rim and Outer Rim world seems to objectively catch a much worse deal under the empire than they did previously and then everything ends with Operation: Cinder adding salt to almost every wound and even striking against hardcore loyalist worlds.

It's only whenever the writers want to feed and addiction to portraying the heroes as always underdogs and rebels that they ignore all the stuff they were doing before, and always in the most frustratingly shallow and unchallenged way... and it still always ends up being matched with not writing the villains as intelligent or capable of anythign beyond overwhelming their opponents, and often writing lackluster wars as well.

It's like they go "If it's the OT, then the Empire is kicking a dog every second on every planet and only ruling through naked force and fear of naked force, and everybody is catching **** and defined by it... but if we're past the OT, than we need to pretend that wasn't happening because, dammit, I don't like having to write clever villains who have to be resourceful and I just want to be formulaic!"

It's not a coincidence that when we have effective and dangerous villains with solid war stories (The Empire in Andor and Rogue One, the First Order in The Force Awakens, the second season of The Mandalorian, and even just solid episodes of Rebels, Ahsoka, or The Mandalorian Season One) they don't feel the need to portray the New Republic as idiots... but its like whenever they feel the need to write the villains in a bit of a lazy and stupid way, then we have to see them caricature the New Republic as a bad parody of politics to excuse why the villains don't just get wiped out.

When its implied the Galaxy gives a crap, its when Hux is an effective, no-nonsense villain and First Order Stormtroopers are badass enough to be meme-worthy (TR-8R); when the writer wants Hux and the Resistance to both be morons, the Galaxy is written as not giving a crap. When they've got Moff Gideon set-up to be a decent and effective antagonist lurking in the shadows of the Galaxy and staying hard to find, the New Republic isn't smeared as worthless; when they have a lazy idea for Gideon that is all flash and no substance, they need the New Republic to be clearly labeled as idiots.

...and my mild fear is that because Filoni is not naturally inclined towards Zahn style clever conflict writing, we might get a Thrawn who does obvious but boring tactics he just tries to sell with Lars Mikkelsen's performance while he just makes Xiono saying dumb things and SNL actors cameoing as idiot bureaucrats the New Republic's thing... partially cause he already did that in Ahsoka's finale, with "Send in the canon fodder the way any other imperial would, but let me explain it in a way that's pretending other imperials wouldn't also do this" as Thrawn's main tactic.

Not just real life, both the old republic and the empire, which were BAD examples of ruling body, showed that it's really hard to dismantle them, it would take years and more than 1 war. And not all their forces assemble in the capital.

It makes no sense when the New Republic collapse much easier than that , it isn't even functional.

[ChrisIII]

The Phasma novel pretty much still has Hux's father in control but Hux, using a lifeform from the freshly recruited Phasma's homeworld, uses it to kill him and pretty much give more power to the newer generation of FO.

Although we still do see Canady in TLJ, Terrex and Pryde in the sequels who are all supposed to be from the OT era period. Pryde I think is actually supposed to be a mole/scout for Palpatine's group although I think this is made clearer in the novels.

[Slowpokeking]

The Old Republic didn't really have much of a fleet/army either apart from the Jedi and kept control for far longer.

I think it was kind of up to the individual worlds to have their own security, such as Naboo's militia. The Seperatist army was also largely composed of the private forces of several corporations banded together in addition to planetary militias.

It's possible the NR was counting on a similar arrangement?

Again, if we use the example of the Old Republic.

Did Palpatine say "hi I take it over, done?" in 1 day?

No, Palpatine used such effort to sway worlds to his side, build his own moff powerhouse, build Death Star. He only declared to bring "new order" when Death Star is done. It's easy to see that the old republic had such strong power that he needed to deal carefully, even after EP III.

Even the rebel's fleet mostly came from the old republic.

So how come the New Republic got NONE of it other than the Resistance? It makes no sense.

[Jokerz79]

Battle of France May 10th to June 25th 1940.
Fall of Belgium known as the 18 Day Campaign May 10th to June 25th 1940.
Luxembourg was invaded May 10th and taken in 1 day.
Netherlands May 10th till they surrendered on the 14th of May.
Poland invaded September 1st ended on October 6th Russian helped with that one.
Norway April 9th 1940 to June 10th of 1940.
Invasion of Yugoslavia April 6th to April 18th.
to name some.
Once invaded it never took longer than a few weeks for an official surrender to happen and occupation and annexation to begin.

Again, yes Carthage fought and defended their city for years but once it fell it was over their empire was gone.

Even the Old Republic put up no fight they transitioned into the Empire with "Thunderous Applause".

The best Sci-Fi comparison to what happened to the New Republic is BSG and the Fall of the Twelve Colonies which resulted in the Galactica and Civilian Fleet running to find a new home. They weren't the hunters after that they were the hunted.

After the attack of Starkiller Base the New Republic for all purposes was gone. The Captial Gone, The Senate Gone, The Senators Gone (As in DEAD), the Chancellor Gone, the Military Gone. It was all destroyed in one fell swoop there was no New Republic counterattack because there was no New Republic anymore it was gone. All that was left was Independent Worlds that lost their central government, and these Worlds had no major independent Armies or Navys.