some spoilage

The Warrior is about saving the Empire. The Inquisitor is about changing it. Put those two together and you have an Empire which could one day be absorbed into the Republic.

 

This will likely happen as Emperor Vitiate's main goal is the extinction of all life in the galaxy, a revelation that could certainly shatter the Empire.

 

 

 

 

You are correct, they are all roughly concurrent. The Warrior battles Baras while the Knight battles the Emperor. The Bounty Hunter and Agent get to Corellia and do their thing a little before everyone else.

Lol, the idea that even a small number of loyal sith joining the republic is terrible. You really think that the devs would allow that kinda thing happen to us imperial players? "Oh, yeah, the imperial players are BEGGING to play with the republic guys!" More than likely there will be a future operation that will have the emperor has the final boss, then at the end the empire would just have a new emperor (not a player, of course). I think the goal is to keep both parties still functional and relevant in the story, so don't expect any side landing a real "killer blow".

After finishing the class storylines (all through Ilum) with the Agent, the Inq and the Warrior, I'm feeling a bit more hopeful for the Empire's prospects. Sure, they had their rear-ends solidly handed to them in Act 3, but the circumstances going forward are slightly rosier:

- The Dark Council has its first (potentially) alien member, the Wrath is (potentially) an alien as well, and if you click option 2 in the final dialogue, Darth Ravage says that the DC has 'taken note of some of the traitor's ideals'. If I was the DC, the steps I would take are: blame elements of the unproductive Dromund Kaas aristocracy for funding Darth Malgus, strip them of their life and fortune to replenish the Empire's coffers, 'arrange' for their alien slaves to do some of the overthrowing, laud them and all aliens wearing Imperial colors as heroes, and use that event to shake the Imperial citizenry out of complecency, get the cash flow going again, and surge the military's numbers with fresh alien recruits.

- Darth Jadus's and Baras's power plays were defeated. Darth Malgus's rebellion didn't last long enough to inflict any irreperable damage to the Empire, and it did have the effect of drawing the warring Sith elements closer together. The Dark Council should be more guarded against Sith ambitions from now on.

- While the Core is lost, the Empire's grip on the Outer Rim is stronger than ever, while the Mid-Rim is still up for grabs.

- In the Hutt Cartel trailer, the new Chancellor says that they can't allow the Cartel to expand into the Republic, implying that the Hutts are targeting Republic space. This would give the Empire a much needed reprieve, while also giving it an opportunity to play the two sides against each other.

- The Imperial military seems to be changing tactics from costly occupations to raids and mobile engagement. So while the Republic has to dig in, rebuild and secure worlds, all the Empire has to do is to inflict sufficient military damage to the Pubs, blast worlds that the Pubs need to spend good money for rebuilding, while taking only advanced staging areas for new assaults. Smart.

- The Black Codex. Blackmail everybody into doing your bidding. The end .

All in all, yes, I think that the Empire will emerge from these fiascos much stronger than it was, provided they take these steps .

There's about 3000 years between the TOR timeframe and the events of the movies. That's a lot of time for the war to seesaw back and forth between the Empire and the Republic before the Empire falls.

This. Just look how the momentum changes in the few years of the Clone Wars later on. Things are going against the Empire in general at present, but that doesn't mean it will continue to go against them indefinitely.

After finishing the class storylines (all through Ilum) with the Agent, the Inq and the Warrior, I'm feeling a bit more hopeful for the Empire's prospects. Sure, they had their rear-ends solidly handed to them in Act 3, but the circumstances going forward are slightly rosier:

 

- The Dark Council has its first (potentially) alien member, the Wrath is (potentially) an alien as well, and if you click option 2 in the final dialogue, Darth Ravage says that the DC has 'taken note of some of the traitor's ideals'. If I was the DC, the steps I would take are: blame elements of the unproductive Dromund Kaas aristocracy for funding Darth Malgus, strip them of their life and fortune to replenish the Empire's coffers, 'arrange' for their alien slaves to do some of the overthrowing, laud them and all aliens wearing Imperial colors as heroes, and use that event to shake the Imperial citizenry out of complecency, get the cash flow going again, and surge the military's numbers with fresh alien recruits.

- Darth Jadus's and Baras's power plays were defeated. Darth Malgus's rebellion didn't last long enough to inflict any irreperable damage to the Empire, and it did have the effect of drawing the warring Sith elements closer together. The Dark Council should be more guarded against Sith ambitions from now on.

- While the Core is lost, the Empire's grip on the Outer Rim is stronger than ever, while the Mid-Rim is still up for grabs.

- In the Hutt Cartel trailer, the new Chancellor says that they can't allow the Cartel to expand into the Republic, implying that the Hutts are targeting Republic space. This would give the Empire a much needed reprieve, while also giving it an opportunity to play the two sides against each other.

- The Imperial military seems to be changing tactics from costly occupations to raids and mobile engagement. So while the Republic has to dig in, rebuild and secure worlds, all the Empire has to do is to inflict sufficient military damage to the Pubs, blast worlds that the Pubs need to spend good money for rebuilding, while taking only advanced staging areas for new assaults. Smart.

- The Black Codex. Blackmail everybody into doing your bidding. The end .

 

All in all, yes, I think that the Empire will emerge from these fiascos much stronger than it was, provided they take these steps .

But you're not wrong to say there will be a momentum shift thanks to the Hutts getting cute and trying to, you guessed it, take over the galaxy (OF COURSE!). So the Empire WILL Strike Back.

Well Darth Bane's Rule of Two does not kick in until about 1000 years before the movies. So theoretically the Empire can and probably does come back in the intervening 2000 years.

 

 

 

Look at the Sith imperial ships and tech in this game along with the imperial emblem. Then look at the Republic ships and tech and emblem in the PT. Finally, look at the Imperial ships and tech and emblem in the OT. They are more than vaguely similar. In fact, the rebel alliance emblem from the movies more closely resembles the emblem of the Republic in SWTOR.

 

That being said, all those similarities are more probably the result of the PT set designers and the SWTOR game

designers looking to the OT movies for inspiration. The PT set designers wanted the Republic ships and tech to resemble the Imperial ships and tech of the OT so make the transition that much more plausible - why would the new Emperor (Palpatine) re-tool all the Old Republic shipyards? The SWTOR game designers wanted the game's Sith Empire ships and tech to resemble the OT Imperials in order to better associate their ships and tech with already known "bad guy" ships and tech.

Actually Palpatine implemeted those logos and ideals of an "Empire" after studying the various documents and texts he DID recover from the era (one of which was Vitiate's tome and Malgus' war journal) and continued the logo of the Sith by branding it as the symbol for the Republic, but modified just so slightly that the Jedi wouldn't go into the archives and go "wait just a minute here!" Plus it was also to distinguish this was HIS Empire and not a SITH Empire.

If you read the book Annihilation, which is set after the class stories end, there is more expansion into this idea with the Ascendant's Spear and both Master Gnost-Dural and Malgus' former apprentice, the Fallen Darth Karrid, gaining a seat on the Dark Council and killing Darth Gravus (the guy from Taris, Thana's Master) but she was soundly defeated as well, effectively taking away any trump cards from the Empire and putting them in a purely defensive position, plus Imperial Intelligence had been dismantled and disbanded in this time.

 

 

But you're not wrong to say there will be a momentum shift thanks to the Hutts getting cute and trying to, you guessed it, take over the galaxy (OF COURSE!). So the Empire WILL Strike Back.

Ah, a fellow NC fan, I see .

You're right on the money about the

Ah, a fellow NC fan, I see .

 

You're right on the money about the

Imperial intellgience going down the poop pipe, but the Imperial Agent or the Sith now have the Black Codex. That baby had even such secret information as the identities of the Children of the Emperor, and it was already mentioned that you could black-mail half the galaxy with it. So if BW gives this idea more than a passing thought, it could give the Empire a huge advantage, much bigger than II could've given in the past. But I'm willing to bet all my credits that they will hand-wave it away by saying something like: "Oh noes! The Codex's most secretest secrets are locked and we can't crack them, zomg!". Bleh . And I hated Annihilation for the idea of the Ascendant's Spear. Stop me if you heard this before - a top secret war-winning piece of hardware is pointed at the heart of the Rebellion/Republic/Disneyland and after a bunch of battles set up to prove how unstopable it is, it is blown up by a team of unlikely heroes? Bleh, I say, bleh !

You guys are right on the credit about the Black Codex. If BW DOES actually use this in a future exspansion, it could make the story REALLY entertaining. It could even star in a FP or Op, at the least, and does not deserve a simple dissmissal with a wave of BW's collective, gigantic hand. So Bioware employees, if you actually read this stuff, (and I believe you do) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put the Black Codex into a future story arc or mission!

You guys are right on the credit about the Black Codex. If BW DOES actually use this in a future exspansion, it could make the story REALLY entertaining. It could even star in a FP or Op, at the least, and does not deserve a simple dissmissal with a wave of BW's collective, gigantic hand. So Bioware employees, if you actually read this stuff, (and I believe you do) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put the Black Codex into a future story arc or mission!

That could be even worse - it would be like Revan, you spring him out of jail, he barely has time to give one hackneyed speech and bam! He'd dead...or something along those lines. If the Black Codex is placed in a mission/ops/fp, chances are that the end result will be "Raaargh! Me Force Smash puny box!" .

The only proper way to use it is as an extension/catalyst of Chapters 4 and 5 for the IA, maybe even as a big plot point which frames the actions of another character, either an Imp or Pub. Maybe it could create the very turn around the Empire needs! That would be artful and masterful storytelling.

Is BW up to the task? Weeeeell...I heard that IA's writer (God bless him) left BW. Can you imagine if the writer for SI or JC took over ? (Shudders).

That could be even worse - it would be like Revan, you spring him out of jail, he barely has time to give one hackneyed speech and bam! He'd dead...or something along those lines. If the Black Codex is placed in a mission/ops/fp, chances are that the end result will be "Raaargh! Me Force Smash puny box!" .

 

The only proper way to use it is as an extension/catalyst of Chapters 4 and 5 for the IA, maybe even as a big plot point which frames the actions of another character, either an Imp or Pub. Maybe it could create the very turn around the Empire needs! That would be artful and masterful storytelling.

 

Is BW up to the task? Weeeeell...I heard that IA's writer (God bless him) left BW. Can you imagine if the writer for SI or JC took over ? (Shudders).

Ok, first off, you know revan is not dead right? Because multiple people have said they have plans for him. Secondly, your point about adding the Black Codex only for a single character story arc is a really bad idea. You just don't have an item that can change everything in the story of a game and only give ONE class the option to see how the changes take place. No, it should be treated more on the lines of the rebels on Ord Mantell, where you finish them off on the FP "cademimu", even though only the smuggler and the trooper actually saw how the organization worked at first.

Well, do keep in mind a few things:

1. Every victory the Republic has scored so far is to win back territory or positioning they lost in the first part of the war. Coruscant, Alderaan, Corellia, Balmorra... these are all things they had at the start of the war and lost. The Republic lost a LOT of ground. Even now, Alderaan remains neutral, Corellia and Balmorra are bombed-out messes that will take years to get their industrial might back in the game, and Belsavis is a huge, messy nightmare, both tactically and PR-wise.

2. With the exception of the Jedi Knight storyline with the attack on Dromund Kaas, NONE of the battlefields are on Imperial worlds. Looking at the in-game Galaxy map is deceptive, because it only shows Kaas and Korriban, but there are many more Imperial worlds, the Chiss Ascendancy, etc that are utterly untouched. This may change, but for right now, the Empire CANNOT be truly defeated as long as the fight remains in Republic space.

3. The Emperor is not dead, though he is rather comatose for the moment. This might not, in fact, be a bad thing, as his objectives weren't necessarily to WIN the war. However, those that now hold power very much DO hold that objective. The Empire has lost most of its heroes from the last war, but the thing about the Empire is they ALWAYS have replacements waiting in the wings.

4. If Revan DOES come back, he won't necessarily come back this time as a Jedi.

Well, do keep in mind a few things:

 

1. Every victory the Republic has scored so far is to win back territory or positioning they lost in the first part of the war. Coruscant, Alderaan, Corellia, Balmorra... these are all things they had at the start of the war and lost. The Republic lost a LOT of ground. Even now, Alderaan remains neutral, Corellia and Balmorra are bombed-out messes that will take years to get their industrial might back in the game, and Belsavis is a huge, messy nightmare, both tactically and PR-wise.

 

2. With the exception of the Jedi Knight storyline with the attack on Dromund Kaas, NONE of the battlefields are on Imperial worlds. Looking at the in-game Galaxy map is deceptive, because it only shows Kaas and Korriban, but there are many more Imperial worlds, the Chiss Ascendancy, etc that are utterly untouched. This may change, but for right now, the Empire CANNOT be truly defeated as long as the fight remains in Republic space.

Eh.

Exhibit A for "wars that can totally be won without actually invading enemy territory" is the First World War. Nobody - outside of Ludendorff and Hitler and the Dolchstoßlegende crowd - would seriously dispute that Germany had lost, the army was in a shambles, and further resistance was effectively impossible and would lead nowhere. Yet the Entente powers had not occupied German territory at all, save for a sliver of effectively useless ground in Alsace for prestige purposes. The Americans were preparing to attack the Metz-Diedenhofen Moselstellung at the end, but it didn't actually happen, and if one is French one wouldn't consider that "German territory" anyway.

The fact of the matter is that Germany's armies were completely and utterly exhausted by the Kaiserschlacht and by the pressure of maintaining order in the corpse of the Russian Empire. German industry had slowed down to a crawl and could no longer keep up with the demands of war. The Entente blockade had already nearly starved Germany's people into submission (and its morally indefensible maintenance during the armistice did starve them into submission, but that particular war crime is a bit superfluous to this conversation). And all of this without occupying Essen or Frankfurt, let alone Berlin, and all this while Germany still controlled vast non-German spear-won territories as well.

So the Republic's current run of victory is wholly congruent with a narrative of Imperial collapse. That doesn't mean it has to be so; as I think I've said elsewhere, the Empire can't be on its last legs for story purposes if nothing else (and there is a fair amount of "else"). The most I would be willing to say is that the Republic's latest run of victory mostly confirms what we already know, namely: the Republic is not about to lose the war anytime soon. The Empire has been badly beaten, and its already-obvious status as the secondary galactic power confirmed. But that's been going on since the start of the war: since the defeat of Angral/whatever particular crisis one wants to highlight as the outbreak of war, the Empire has conquered precisely zero territory and has relied entirely on spoiling attacks, grind-'em-out battles of attrition calculus, and the like. That most of these operations have turned out badly doesn't really tell us anything new about the Empire's ability, or lack thereof, to make war.

Eh.

 

Exhibit A for "wars that can totally be won without actually invading enemy territory" is the First World War. Nobody - outside of Ludendorff and Hitler and the Dolchstoßlegende crowd - would seriously dispute that Germany had lost, the army was in a shambles, and further resistance was effectively impossible and would lead nowhere. Yet the Entente powers had not occupied German territory at all, save for a sliver of effectively useless ground in Alsace for prestige purposes. The Americans were preparing to attack the Metz-Diedenhofen Moselstellung at the end, but it didn't actually happen, and if one is French one wouldn't consider that "German territory" anyway.

Granted, and the Empire very nearly entered that situation in the first war, just before the Treaty of Coruscant. Supply lines are IMPORTANT, and the Empire was burning their resources faster than they could acquire them.

Most of the Republic work to this point has been cutting off the supply routes of the Imperial Offensive into the Core, which did succeed in forcing them off Corellia and Balmorra, and the Empire has once again burned too many resources trying to grasp the Core Worlds.

I don't think this is a defeat, though. I don't think the Republic has the resources yet to throttle the Empire, or to deliver a killing blow. They've got WAY too many messes to clean up domestically, with Alderaan still undecided, the Separatist wars flaring up all over, Belsavis and all it's dirty laundry being aired out and such. It means things are going to settle back into a back-and-forth struggle for contested systems, like Hoth, Tattooine, Ilum, etc. while both sides regroup and probe the other for weakness.

We'll be just about ready for a major campaign, one way or the other, when the Hutt Cartel knocks things completely off the rails.

I AM hoping that we eventually see some Imperial planets... actual Imperial worlds... and maybe see each side making some real gains into the others' territory (Maybe the Empire gets Alsakan? They're jerks anyway)

The Sith are going to be running around for a few thousand more years, and a lot of Imperial culture and, specifically, the 'pure Dromund Kaas' accent, gets threaded into the core worlds, even nearly 4 millennia later, so I doubt the Empire goes away in anything as neat and tidy as a resounding defeat. More likely the saner parts of the Empire just get sick of Sith madness and side with the Republic to drive them to the margins.

Granted, and the Empire very nearly entered that situation in the first war, just before the Treaty of Coruscant. Supply lines are IMPORTANT, and the Empire was burning their resources faster than they could acquire them.

 

Most of the Republic work to this point has been cutting off the supply routes of the Imperial Offensive into the Core, which did succeed in forcing them off Corellia and Balmorra, and the Empire has once again burned too many resources trying to grasp the Core Worlds.

 

I don't think this is a defeat, though. I don't think the Republic has the resources yet to throttle the Empire, or to deliver a killing blow. They've got WAY too many messes to clean up domestically, with Alderaan still undecided, the Separatist wars flaring up all over, Belsavis and all it's dirty laundry being aired out and such. It means things are going to settle back into a back-and-forth struggle for contested systems, like Hoth, Tattooine, Ilum, etc. while both sides regroup and probe the other for weakness.

 

We'll be just about ready for a major campaign, one way or the other, when the Hutt Cartel knocks things completely off the rails.

 

I AM hoping that we eventually see some Imperial planets... actual Imperial worlds... and maybe see each side making some real gains into the others' territory (Maybe the Empire gets Alsakan? They're jerks anyway)

 

The Sith are going to be running around for a few thousand more years, and a lot of Imperial culture and, specifically, the 'pure Dromund Kaas' accent, gets threaded into the core worlds, even nearly 4 millennia later, so I doubt the Empire goes away in anything as neat and tidy as a resounding defeat. More likely the saner parts of the Empire just get sick of Sith madness and side with the Republic to drive them to the margins.

I dunno if we can really highlight the importance of supply lines in either conflict. In 1918, the German military was effectively destroyed in force-on-force battles; it was expended unnecessarily against poor objectives and then annihilated in the Hundred Days. And the Empire's most salient and obvious defeat, the Corellian campaign, supposedly cost the Imperial military a staggering ten percent of its overall forces. That's worse than Stalingrad, or Gettysburg, or Kovel-Stanislav, or Leipzig. It's a very real, very serious defeat. And the numbers the Empire lost during the civil war with Malgus, or to the Dread Masters, or whomever, are unknown, but they would only pile on even worse. This isn't a case of supply problems limiting operations with a basically intact army, this is an army that can no longer be reasonably considered to be 'basically intact' at all.

I think that this is a 'defeat' is pretty hard to argue. Magnitude is something else. An enemy can absorb a defeat and keep going. It took a year and a half of extremely hard fighting - including the aforementioned Leipzig campaign - to put Napoleon down after he lost the Grande Armée in Russia. The Eighth Route Army was unquestionably defeated in Manchuria in 1945 and 1946 and bounced back within two years to conquer all of China. Both of the World Wars saw stunning German victories - Entente/Allied defeats - at various points in the conflict that ultimately did not prevent Germany from losing both wars. That this phase of the war so far has been a series of defeats for the Empire does not mean the Empire is in its death throes. And, as the new expansion's storyline clearly shows, even an Empire with a badly attenuated military, political confusion, an absent Emperor, and the usual asinine Sith fratricide is capable of seizing opportunities when and where they exist and causing problems for everybody.

And about the accent business - ugh. I can't even begin to describe what a canonical-linguistic mess that is. Shoehorn the Episode V and Episode VI implied canon into a completely different Empire at a completely different time period because...I don't even know. Drawing conclusions about the viability of the Sith Empire from that would be reaching.

Point is...

We dont know how this war ends. Maybe Empire wins but then later on Jedi make a rebellion or something like that. We know what comes hundred of years later.

This war can go one way or the other.

We have a History PhD in our midst, it seems ! I need to start reading about the Eight Route Army, I never heard of them...

Here are my two historical cents . The Empire is very much like the Soviet Army in 1941, badly depleted, badly led (the Dark Council is very reminicent of the Military Council of Soviet Russia pre-1940; Inexperienced, politically powerful men with a penchent of culling their own ranks, rather than that of the enemy) with a significant manpower problem. However, unlike Soviet Russia, the Empire doesn't have the numerical superiority which allowed the Soviets to swallow defeats like Kharkhov or Kiev while learning to adapt to their own deficiencies.

The Empire can compensate by, firstly, taking a page from Stalin's playbook. After 1941, the command structure of the Army was significantly flattened, allowing, ironically, for the Soviet juggernaut to act with unheard of operational flexibility. I.e. curb the power of the Sith in the army or assign special tacticians that could advise the Sith generals without fear of reprisal.

Second, reform. The Empire needs to institute a reform of its military along the lines of Gaius Marius in 107 BC and loosen its racially discriminating guidelines for conscription. Marius drafted his legions from the poor citizens. the Empire has slaves and aliens. They can either do it now, or use it as a desparate last resort, like the Spartans or the Confederate South did (Spoilers: didn't go over so well).

Third, strategic reimagining. The problem with the Empire is less about its manpower problems, and more with its antiquated way of imagining war and, as a result, can be fixed by learning and adapting to their new reality. The only two campaigns that were even remotely succesful by today's standards were Hoth, where the idea was to tie up crucial Republic elements with misinformation and deception, and Ilum, where ground way gained, then progressivly given to secure a tangible resourse, while suffering relativly light casulaties. In contrast, the Core Worlds Campaign was very much Germany circa WW1. Balmora was for the Empire what Russia was for Germany in 1918 - a stretch of land you needed a million men to secure, while keeping those men from being mobile and effective elsewhere. Corellia was like Germany's Michael offensive, an impressive and succesful land grab with no clear long-term strategic objective except to hold as much ground as possible (Spoilers: didn't go over so well either ).

If the Empire adopts these three changes, then it will have a chance to continue fighting the war on equal footing. Win? Probably not, but fight? Definately.

And the Empire's most salient and obvious defeat, the Corellian campaign, supposedly cost the Imperial military a staggering ten percent of its overall forces.

Forgive me, I haven't completed any of the class story lines yet, but just wanted to point out, that for every battle, there are losses on both sides. I don't know the method used by the Republic to defeat the Empire at Corellia, but I would imagine that they suffered heavy losses as well to take out 10% of the Empire's.

Forgive me, I haven't completed any of the class story lines yet, but just wanted to point out, that for every battle, there are losses on both sides. I don't know the method used by the Republic to defeat the Empire at Corellia, but I would imagine that they suffered heavy losses as well to take out 10% of the Empire's.

Finish any of the Imp story lines all the way through Ilum, but if you can't wait:

We have a History PhD in our midst, it seems ! I need to start reading about the Eight Route Army, I never heard of them...

 

Here are my two historical cents . The Empire is very much like the Soviet Army in 1941, badly depleted, badly led (the Dark Council is very reminicent of the Military Council of Soviet Russia pre-1940; Inexperienced, politically powerful men with a penchent of culling their own ranks, rather than that of the enemy) with a significant manpower problem. However, unlike Soviet Russia, the Empire doesn't have the numerical superiority which allowed the Soviets to swallow defeats like Kharkhov or Kiev while learning to adapt to their own deficiencies.

 

The Empire can compensate by, firstly, taking a page from Stalin's playbook. After 1941, the command structure of the Army was significantly flattened, allowing, ironically, for the Soviet juggernaut to act with unheard of operational flexibility. I.e. curb the power of the Sith in the army or assign special tacticians that could advise the Sith generals without fear of reprisal.

 

Second, reform. The Empire needs to institute a reform of its military along the lines of Gaius Marius in 107 BC and loosen its racially discriminating guidelines for conscription. Marius drafted his legions from the poor citizens. the Empire has slaves and aliens. They can either do it now, or use it as a desparate last resort, like the Spartans or the Confederate South did (Spoilers: didn't go over so well).

 

Third, strategic reimagining. The problem with the Empire is less about its manpower problems, and more with its antiquated way of imagining war and, as a result, can be fixed by learning and adapting to their new reality. The only two campaigns that were even remotely succesful by today's standards were Hoth, where the idea was to tie up crucial Republic elements with misinformation and deception, and Ilum, where ground way gained, then progressivly given to secure a tangible resourse, while suffering relativly light casulaties. In contrast, the Core Worlds Campaign was very much Germany circa WW1. Balmora was for the Empire what Russia was for Germany in 1918 - a stretch of land you needed a million men to secure, while keeping those men from being mobile and effective elsewhere. Corellia was like Germany's Michael offensive, an impressive and succesful land grab with no clear long-term strategic objective except to hold as much ground as possible (Spoilers: didn't go over so well either ).

 

If the Empire adopts these three changes, then it will have a chance to continue fighting the war on equal footing. Win? Probably not, but fight? Definately.

Hah. Just a graduate student. But still.

I think that the Sith Empire's military is hard, if not impossible, to compare to a modern army in an institutional sense. The most obvious reason is that the chain of command is, ah, boned. Even if the Emperor were some sort of oberster Kriegsherr, he was notably absent even when he wasn't in his supernatural Palpatine-after-Endor shade state. Who is left to exercise supreme authority? The Dark Council, which frequently fights civil wars with itself, and which seems to be in some sort of collegial authority-sharing position. Apparently Sith of any stripe have authority over Imperial officers of any rank or grade, although this is presumably mitigated at the highest levels by Moffs and general officers enjoying the patronage of powerful Sith of their own, and if one is the player character, then one can be ordered around by even lieutenants, Sith or no. All sorts of random Sith apparently give the War Ministry its "marching orders". Even Alexander's generals didn't come up with a "system" this dumb when their king died.

"Flattening" this whole mess out is arguably impossible, because it is a natural and even necessary consequence of the idea of the Sith. Supposedly, Sith only take orders from those they perceive to be more powerful than themselves, and only do this to bide their time until they themselves are the ones with the greater relational power. Personal-political connections, not specific rank or clear lines of authority, dominate inter-Sith relationships. Imposing a concrete organization chart on the Sith would be denying the validity of the structure of their entire military-religious order. Its very fluidity is what makes it so appealing to many Sith. It enhances their freedom to be sociopathic lunatic murderers, and at least offers the possibility of rapid advancement toward the levers of power. Limiting Sith control over the military would run into a similar problem, apart from violating the chauvinistic preceptions of ostensibly "pure-blood" Sith (and don't get me started on how dumb Sith racism is - Palpatine's Empire's High Human Culture shoe-horned into an entirely different context in which it makes less than zero sense) of the intrinsic superiority of Force-users and their right to rule over the Force-blind.

Militarily, of course, these steps are emphatically necessary, I agree. But removing the fratricide and establishing a rational chain of command would basically entail removing the Sith from the Sith Empire. It's like the apologists for Napoleon Bonaparte, who claim that if he had managed the Spanish campaign differently, or if his foreign policy wasn't so spectacularly incompetent at the end of his reign, that maybe his empire would have survived. But Paul Schroeder and others have shown that Napoleon's empire's problems with foreign policy and with the Spanish ulcer and so on were intrinsic to Napoleon being its leader, and removing them while keeping everything else about the empire would make no sense. So it is with the Sith.

I am almost tempted to argue that Malgus' civil war was aimed precisely at doing just this: creating an Empire at least temporarily reorganized from the top down in a more objectively rational way to provide the institutional framework for a more powerful war machine that could fight the Republic on better terms than the old Empire ever could. But regardless of the player's conversation choices with Grand Moff Regus at the end of the civil war, the Empire that won the civil war is not going to fundamentally change any time soon. The story arc with Malgus' civil war was probably the best chance to implement a radical reform scheme for the Empire, but subsequent content seems to indicate that it's just as bigoted and that its hierarchy is just as byzantine as before the Battle of Ilum. One Nautolan officer - not even a field-grade officer - in temporary command on Denova does not even come close to stacking up with Malgus' Empire. As before, what successes the Empire can win for itself will be a product of individual genius, more often than not stymied by Imperial institutions rather than being facilitated by them.

Widening the manpower base for the army seems inevitable in the aftermath of such grievous defeats, but it's not a be-all end-all and it certainly isn't going to confer the Empire any sort of real advantage. It's a stopgap measure, indicative of the severity of the Empire's losses and its relatively parlous manpower situation compared to the Republic. I'm not totally sure what you were going for with the specific Marius reference; tying wider conscription to political reforms, as Marius tried to do, seems like a flat-out fantasy for the Sith Empire. And it's not clear that the regime even needs to care about popular support or lack thereof. The population of the main Imperial worlds does not seem to be particularly agitated or prone to rioting or opposing the war. Compared to the labyrinthine power struggles of the Force-users at the upper levels of government, the great mass of the population of the Empire is effectively invisible.

Finally, I'm not sure if the Imperials are even capable of implementing "new" strategic paradigms. As noted before, institutionally, the Empire is an unholy mess. The chain of command doesn't really exist. Doctrine seems to be out the window, although with Sith in command, "lots of dying" is probably written into the Imperial equivalent of FM 100-5. If there is a general staff organization, a war board, or whatever, it is summarily ignored at the whim of the Dark Council. To be fair, it seems like the Republic doesn't really have much of an equivalent either; General Garza's personal doctrine seems to be "committing war crimes = winning". But still. It seems like the Empire's ability to even conduct a meaningful overall strategic (re)evaluation doesn't really exist.

So far through the course of the war, it's possible to reconcile Imperial operations with a "policy" of low-ante operations with relatively certain payoff. The invasion of Taris scotched a massive Republic base practically at the doorstep of the Stygian Caldera and was absolutely necessary if the Empire wanted to survive the first few months of any war with the Republic; the fact that it was also a propaganda victory was icing on the cake. Operations on Quesh relied in large part on the resources of the Cartel instead of large quantities of Imperial troops, and before Dracen's ultimate defeat the Empire managed to keep things running relatively smoothly and 'on the cheap' there. The aforementioned Hoth campaign was an effort to drag the Republic into an attritive contest in which the math did not favor them; it's not clear, unfortunately, if this actually succeeded, because while the Imperial leadership seemed to think that it had led the Republic into a deadly quagmire, the Republic forces saw the Clabburn plateau as an end in itself and didn't recognize it as having been purchased at a particularly steep price. Still, the intent on the Imps' side was there. Then there was Belsavis, which amounted to little more than a reinforced raid with an extremely high payoff, and Voss, which didn't come down on either side (a defeat for the Empire) but towards which the Empire did not devote many resources.

So by and large, before Corellia, one might argue that the Empire was already trying to conduct operations with an economy-of-force mindset, insofar as anything can be generalized across the entire Imperial political-military landscape. Of course, one could look at the same evidence and argue that the entire Imperial war effort was disparate and led in lots of different directions with no real endpoint to any of them, and that clear successes when they were scored, e.g. on Taris or Belsavis, were less the work of Imperial policy and more the work of convenient geniuses like the Wrath, Darth Nox, the Grand Champion, and Cipher Nine.

Still. Even Corellia, as initially construed, fits into this framework. The Empire went for co-opting the Corellian leadership, not a general force-on-force engagement, and could reasonably have believed that promises of Corellian autonomy would make the whole campaign relatively cheap; even if the attack failed, it would suffice to derail any impending Republic offensive and provide a breathing space. That went for those who saw Corellia as something to conquer, obviously, like Darth Decimus and his coterie; the Emperor simply went after Corellia because there were lots of people there and they were prospectively easy to kill. In neither case was the Empire necessarily committed to a long, slogging, destructive quagmire and eventually a comprehensive operational defeat that rivals Endor and Ebaq 9 as a decisive battle of galactic history. The failure on Corellia was not necessarily caused by a failure to pay attention to the economy-of-force role that the Empire had to play now. I think that it was more a result of the intrinsic weaknesses of the Sith Empire and its way of making war. Too many cooks spoiled the soup (and, frequently, committed fratricide at the behest of the Star Cabal). Even native politicians could not successfully co-opt Corellian society, probably exacerbated by the high-handedness of the Imperial administration. Yes, it was a problem that the Empire even committed a tenth of its entire military to the Corellian campaign after it had started out as a low-ante endeavor. But that sort of thing happens: a combination of mission creep and reinforcing success. That's not necessarily the kind of problem that can be solved by an institutional overhaul; the institutions that are most problematic are the ones that can least be touched, and contingency played an enormous role anyway.

Anyway. Lots of rambling. I do that. Sorry.

Incidentally, the Eighth Route Army was one of the two field armies that the Communist Party of China maintained within the framework of the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army (the other field armies were Guomindang, or Nationalist, ones). Its sister formation, the New Fourth Army, mostly operated along the Chang Jiang during the Second World War, but the Eighth spent its time fighting the Japanese in the northwest and eventually established the bases in Manchuria that would prove vital in the campaigns waged against Jiang after the Americans and Soviets defeated Japan. The People's Liberation Army that would win the Chinese Civil War was basically formed out of the Eighth Route Army, and some older scholars still referred to the PLA by the name "Eighth Route Army" during the phase of the Civil War that saw the decisive actions in the Three Provinces. Sorry if that was unnecessarily confusing. I do believe that "Eighth Route Army" is a much cooler name than the PLA, much like "US Army" is not nearly as awesome as the "Grand Army of the Republic".

EDIT: Of course, my belief that the Empire cannot and will not meaningfully conduct institutional reforms that will improve its ability to resist the Republic didn't take account of Rise of the Hutt Cartel, so yeah.

There's about 3000 years between the TOR timeframe and the events of the movies. That's a lot of time for the war to seesaw back and forth between the Empire and the Republic before the Empire falls.

Very true but doesn't change the outcome.

The question is... Has the Empire lost the war? Totally?

The answer is Yes.

The Empire lost the war the moment the story was made because it's a prequel game. The Empire loses, and we already know this. I doubt they are trying to mollify the imperial players because our characters are not living in the time where the Empire is defeated which may be in 100 years. However it doesn't matter to us because we will all be dead in 50 years. So the story takes place in those 50 years, of when our characters are alive and fighting for what they believe in unknowing that they are totally doomed to fail.

If only more people rambled like you on these forums . Honestly, I really like both the style and substance of your writing - informative, well-argumented and fluid, which only helps me agree to your points .

I'll be going into spoiler territory a bit here, but Darth Marr says pretty much what you said at the beginning of the Hutt Cartel . The Empire is crumbling, it's being eroded on the inside, with outside pressure only enlarging the cracks. He even recognizes that the Empire's salvation can only be achieved through an 'unforeseen or miraculous' intervention (Which means that the writers probably don't have a firm grasp of what that something can possibly be. They should your posts, for a start. ).

Obviously, any reform of the Sith Empire would have to come internally, rather than be a product of external factors, because, again, as you said, there is no friction between the different social aspects of the Sith Empire. Rather, the friction is expected and, indeed, encouraged within ONLY ONE aspect, the Sith, to the point of genocidal frivolity, while the rest are expected to blindly follow whoever comes out on top . And for some reason, to a man, that is exactly what everybody in the Empire does. The power sharing structure within the Empire is less reminiscent of any single modern of even proto-nation state, but of a feudal fiefdom which, for some reason, has managed to seriously threaten a functioning pluralistic and integrated super power, i.e., the Republic. Granted, the Republic is shown as being rife with corruption, usury, crime and decadance, but at least these are qualities taken in one form or another from actual societies!

The developers try to give reasons as to why the Empire remained a cohesive force, For example, the constantly rephrased 'fear of the other', which can be effective in maintaing cohesive public opinnion (insert War against Terror' reference here). Then there is the belief in the God-like presence of the Emperor, which matches the many cases of deifying power figures in earth's own history. But without those two elements, the Sith Empire has no mechanism of ensuring cohesion. You mentioned Alexandar the Great, and yes, I can imagine a far, far worse scenario than the Sith just dividing the Empire as with the Partition of triparadisus. Each Sith would probably just claim a patch of land and start sending waves of saps to die against his nastiest and most cartoonish rival.

In the end, as the Sith Empire is little more than a dramatic construct made so that the game could have an unambiguously EEEEEEEVIL faction, then the hope for the Empire isn't in any one real politik example you've been giving, but rather in the writer's decission to suddenly make this completely unreasonable society open to reasonable change. Which brings me back to my three points .

So, goooooo Darth Marr, be the change. Yes, we can !

P.S. Thanks for all the new things, especially for the Eighth Route Army and Napoleon in Spain ))!

One more thing (now you have me rambling ) - you actually made me go over the strategies that the Empire had for every world:

1) Balmorra - occupation achieved through a peace agreement. Objective: policing action in a local insurgency. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good.

2) Tattooine - just be there and try to find diamonds in the rough. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good.

3) Nar Shadaa - be there and use the urban jungle to kick the other side in the shins. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

4) Alderaan - use proxies in the form of compicit nobles. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

5) Taris - use special forces to destroy a resonstruction effort, forcing the enemy to bleed credits and lose face. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

6) Quesh - a limited, but specialised task force co-opting local crime syndicats. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

7) Hoth - use misinfomration and raw recruits to tie up elite Republic forces. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

8) Belsavis - strike against the Republic with specialized forces by recruiting amon their own prisoners on a prison PLANET. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

9) Voss - use diplomacy to try to secure an ally. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

10) Corellia - use diplomacy and blitz-krieg tactics to overwhelm any opposition. Cost-to-benefit ratio: good

So, all in all, the beginning of each planetary engagement by the Empire was actually strategically well conceived, with the equal use of political, diplomatic and military muscle. That they were so soundly defeated in so many instances is due to the fact, IMO:

1) That the Republic used overwhelming or specialized countres to Imperial forces, like on Balmorra or Corellia,

2) The lack of a Grand Strategy - each planet seemed more like the love child of an auteur tactician, rather than a chess piece in an overall plan with comprehensive goals,

3) The Empire chose the wrong time to stand their ground, like on Corellia, instead of gradually retreating and denying the Republic vital objectives, such as fuel (scortched earth policy, corrected in Black Hole when it was already way too late),

4) The in-fighting, oooooh, the infighting. So many levels of pointless, asanine fighting. The Sith are, honestly, a hard faction to take seriously when it comes to the way they use the resources entrusted to them. They remind me of Roman Emperors in the first century AD, where you had generals taking their legions, marching them against their political rivals and being king of the hill until the next guy gets the same idea. This is why I stopped leveling my Inquisitor, I felt like my character had tunnel vision and all he could see at the end of the tunnel was more dead Imperials. Urgh. Needless to say, this was teh worst problem by far.

Honestly, after seeing how little the Empire invested into these conflicts, I kinda feel sorry they were so brutally savaged for those oversights .

I don't think the Empire is out of the fight just yet. There are many factors still to play. Sploirers ahead

Trueth be told this war can still swing either way in my opinion