"How does the Empire maintain control?" Topic

Been catching up with Star Wars: Rebels and the heroes frequently make the Empire look like chumps. Half a dozen Stormtroopers get taken out by one man. Stormtroopers can't hit someone standing 6ft away. TIE fighters can't seem to hit anything!

Just how does the Empire maintain control?

Just how does the Empire maintain control?

Sheer weight of numbers …

Most people just want to get along…. go to work, keep out of trouble

Their chief weapons are fear, surprise, a ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Emperor.

On a more serious note, it could be argued that the only rebels that survive are the ones that make the Imperials look like chumps. All the others are destroyed quickly and quietly. Remember also that the stories are told from the rebel point of view. You almost never hear of the failed rebel actions.

Exactly

All the good stormtroopers are puttin' rebels in their graves – and dead men tell no tales

"Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Emperor and and nice white battle suits—oh damn!"

Also could be that to show the show to young children no killing is allowed. So children grow up not knowing that people die in rebellions.

Plus of course no one expects…

Two of the five are Force users too.

But for a number of reasons the Empire no longer exclusively relies on Jango Fett's DNA and even allow plain ol human volunteers to enlist and fill out the ranks. They use alternate clone sources too of obviously inferior quality to Jango derived soldiers.

That doesn't explain how the crack 501st Legion gets out matched and destroyed by the stick-armed, bipedal teddy bears in RotJ. Purportedly they enjoy "crack" status because they are derived from Jango.

Well, the failure of the "elite" imperial forces at the battle of Endor has always been a matter of speculation. The only weakly official answer I recall was mentioned in one of the EU novels.

In this novel, it is explained that among the reasons the 501st was so spectacular was that one of the powers of a Sith general was to use a sort of Force Bond on his troops. This allowed them to function at peak efficiency for longer periods of time.

Now in RoTJ the Imperials are actually sort of having their way with the rebel fleet and the Ewoks. It isn't until Vader pitches the Emperor into the reactor (and is incapacitated himself) that the Executor is destroyed and the Ewoks and rebel troops make a resurgence on the forest moon.

Take it for what it's worth, but I kinda like that explanation. Of course we all know that there really is no explanation other than GL wanted to build tension for the climax of the movie and the good guys had to win in the end. Well, that and it was originally written with Wookies in mind, which, frankly would have been a heck of a lot more believable.

As above, for the vast majority of the galaxy, 'The Empire' is just another change of government.

The rebels are just a few malcontents who don't appreciate the need for peace and order. But as noted above, the films focus on a handful of particularly skilled rebels.

The rebel are not a credible threat to the empire.

The Emperor himself come out to fight the rebels – he's bored being emperor and need a little diversion.

The rebel are not a credible threat to the empire.

First of all, they're movies created by a man with little to no understanding of military strategy or tactics. So there's that.

But, setting that aside and just going with what the movies reveal, I disagree. The Rebel Alliance is made up of a diverse body of troops from numerous planetary systems around the galaxy. It is able to afford, design, build and maintain an full fleet of interstellar spacecraft ranging from shielded, hyperspace capable fighters (superior in most respects to any Imperial craft) AND a variety of heavily armed capital ships. Indeed, the Rebel's industrial base, which must be significant, is apparently secure enough to rapidly design, develop, test and build new classes of fighters in large numbers, as is evidenced by the introduction of the A-wing and B-wing fighters during the middle of the war, and during a period when the fleet is apparently operating without a dedicated home base. Note also that the Battle of Endor began as a dedicated, full-out offensive by the Rebel fleet. Only the fact that the bulk of the Imperial fleet was also secretly there and prepared for the assault turned the fight into a desperate one, though still apparently winnable by the Rebels using the Rebels own original battle objectives!
I'd say these elements mean that the Rebel Alliance was indeed a "credible threat" to the Empire. The Emperor's own arrogance blinded him to this reality.

The series is a pulp novel set in space. All the real rebel victory's are when Luke gets involved. He was the one who actually brought balance to the force. The real question is why is Darth Vader so popular? He does dance routines at Disney. Doesn't everyone realize he is a psychopathic murderer? He killed children, blew up a planet, cut off his son's hand, committed spousal abuse on his wife, yet we buy his figure and give it to his kids to play with. How many of us would buy a Hitler figure for our kids to play with or want to go see Hitler on ice? I know it's not real, but the horrors are.

DsGilbert, that's a good question, but honestly, it could be applied to a lot of things. Why do we like Pirates? They were murderous thieves who raped and plundered where and how they want. Yet we have talk like a Pirate Day and buy kids lego pirate ships and ride the rides at DisneWorld.

Why do we like Vikings? They killed, raped and plundered to the point that all of Europe was terrified at the sight of a sail, yet we have more than one comic book strip dedicated to them and named a football team after them.

Time heals all wounds, and later generations, far removed from the horrors, they develop a different view. I dare say, 500 years from now, Hitler won't be as horrific a figure to the people of that time than he is to us now. There might just be a cultural trend to see Nazis in a more comical, and acceptable light. That sounds awful, and I shudder at it, but it's human nature to caricature things we fear over time.

We have Halloween and the Day of the Dead coming up- a whole holiday dedicated to the caricature of all the things we fear and glorified for our kids to enjoy.

With Darth Vader, he's a fictional bad guy, and he's darn cool looking- but everyone knows he's make believe. In that way he's no different putting a fake headless corpse on your porch with a bowl of candy in his lap and thinking nothing of having your kids take a piece out.

We make fun of what we fear.

And to answer the OP- I believe Grand Moff Tarkin answered that in the original Star Wars. 'Fear will keep them in line.'

Actually Parzial hits on another peeve. How come Rebel ships especially fighters get to have shields? I know it's in the script, but does the Empire have a bottomless pit of pilots that they have no interest in protecting their existing pilots?

DsGilbert – I would add another question, what about all the 3rd party contractors press-ganged into finishing the Death Star Mk 2? No attempt was made to save them?

If I have an infinite number of Stormtroopers with an infinite number of blasters, will one of them eventually fire and hit something?

'Fear will keep them in line.' – but a battle station can only be in one place at a time. Raises another question, can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? If not, it will take a long time getting anywhere.

It'd be a real short series if the Empire showed up with fifteen star destroyers and wiped all of the malcontents out. Actually, just once…I'd like to see that. Picture if you will: A Nebulon-B frigate orbits a small remote planet on which the rebels have a secret base. All of a sudden…BOOM! Fifteen star destroyers jump in system. Fizzat (or pew,pew,pew…whichever you prefer)! The focused fire of said destroyers outshines the local star. The Neb. goes boom. The star destroyers then focus their fire on the planet below leaving nothing but miles deep craters where the rebel base used to be. They then proceed to jump to hyperspace heading to the next target singing merry Empire Naval Academy ditties…Total movie time, 15 minutes.

I know it's not real,

And there is your answer. Darth Vader is a "safe" villain, like Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, etc., because we know inside that he isn't real. Humans love to "pretend hate" imaginary villains. Kids know they can stand up to Vader, because Luke does, and Luke is their entrance to the world of the films (assuming their parents do the correct thematic thing and start them on the original film, aka SW IV:A New Hope, and not the moronic travesties that are the "prequels."). Every kid likes to stand up to the dangerous (if it's not too dangerous) and triumph. Darth Vader is a safe way to do this, as Emperor Ming was in his day, and Grendel in his, and on and on and on.

Ironically, back during the era of Hitler and post-WW2, Hitler himself was treated as a bit of a stock villain (even though he actually was one, and not safe at all), with audiences loving to boo and hiss at caricature portrayals of him. Boys pretended to fight and kill Hitler as active play even while their fathers were off facing real peril trying to accomplish that very act So it's not all that unusual for even very evil individuals to wind up being elements of entertainment and play, despite the serious nature of what they've done.With Vader we have the solace of knowing that at every level it's all just make believe.

Vikings, pirates, etc. portrayed are of a generic brand. Usually when we see Blackbeard portrayed, it's as villain. Vader killed children, tortured his daughter, cut off his son's arm, choked out his wife, and killed countless millions yet we see him dancing at Disney. Granted he is a fictional character, but the evils are real world. Hitler does get portrayed in movies as a villain, buffoon, etc. but you aren't going to see Hitler on ice anytime soon. It's just strange to me to portray a villain doing what by today's standards as heinous villainy, and make him into a light hearted dancing bear character. It's not like we see the child catcher from Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang showing up at children's hospitals handing out candy. Back to the original topic :)

Norrins, to answer your question, " can the Deathstar travel at lightspeed?" It can and did travel through hyperspace in the first movie. It went from Alderaan (after blowing it up) to Yavin in hyperspace. So, Grand Moff Tarkin's statement about the Deathstar keeping the local systems "in line" was a credible threat.

It's not like we see the child catcher from Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang showing up at children's hospitals handing out candy.

Because nobody really remembers that character.

But you do see Captain Hook, Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Jason of Friday the 13th, etc., etc., handing out candy every Halloween. It's make believe. And it also happens to be a healthy human way to deal with the reality of evil and darkness in the world, to teach ourselves that we can overcome the darkness. We aren't celebrating evil, but rather celebrating our victory over it.

How does the Empire maintain control?

"Fear will keep the local systems; fear of this battlestation."

Along with being not real, Vader is just a far more interesting character than 2D Luke. All that doing wrong while trying to do right, and his eventual redemption. He also gets lots of good lines.

Just a comment going back to the 501st failure at Endor…

This is only the remnant of the 501st. The Legion has suffered attrition over time. The 501st was Fett clones only.

Don't forget that the 501st was Spartii cloned which means that they grew in a year instead of 10. We don't know how much aging was accelerated. Don't forget that it was 25 years between Knightfall and Endor. Even without accelerated aging and assuming a mature clone is the equivalent of 18, these guys are 43 years old. The US military cuts off volunteers at 42 unless a couple waivers are cleared.

When Fett dies he is 44. The clones appear to be nearing his age by the end of the Clone Wars. The 501st members (keeping in mind we don't know the long term impacts of Spartii cloning) could very well be in their 50s or 60s.

Short version: these guys might have just been getting old and becoming far less effective.

Wasn't there fluff about the cost of cloning being the reason they switched?

Don't over think it, that's all I can recommend

THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!! Mwahahaha

"Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise…"…hahahaha!

I didn't expect that …

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

Death Star baby!

"but you aren't going to see Hitler on ice anytime soon"

Haven't you seen the closing credits for Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part 1"?

^^^
Or The Producers?

Here you go, Hitler on Ice:

YouTube link

The joke around the Rebel watercoolers is that the Empire built the Death Star because Stormtroopers can't hit anything smaller than a planet.

The real, but boring answer, is that the galaxy is huge, and most of the population probably never sees a Stormtrooper on the street. They just quietly pay their taxes and and get on with their lives. All of those horrible atrocities, slave labour, yadda yadda? Not happening here, man. The Rebellion are either folks with the personal bone to pick with the Empire or are actually dedicated/crazy enough to oppose the Empire on principle.

-Will

My understanding of Roman history is that the Romans had a limited number of legions along the Rhine-Danube border. What stopped the barbarians for hundreds of years? The absolute moral certainty that, if they broke in and attacked Roman territory, the Romans would come for them. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week. Or next year. But they would come. And when they did, they'd kill everyone and everything. I could see something similar operating in the Star Wars universe.