How the HUGE Imperial Military Collapsed in Just ONE Year 

meh

Always good to see you homie.

What if people voted that 2 people named Allen must die every tuesday is that a democracy worth being loyal too? A democracy that ignores the Non Aggression principle is a tyranical mob rule.

You're doing powerful work supporting the people of Ukraine and getting the word out Allen! Keep it rolling

The Ukraine tractor platoon. God bless Ukraine

Just a shot in the dark, but a rapid collapse causes more chaos as the power and support structures crumble. One minute, you have a savings and passport, the next minute you don't. Then people get desperate and violent. An example of this would be the break up Yugoslavia in the 1990's. In the Star Wars universe, that would also put more dark side energy into the galaxy.

@Peters6221 that’s why i like Legends in some aspects more

@Peters6221 I'm pretty sure millions are made every month or so

Continuous war?

Maybe thats how it collapsed so quickly?

Yes, EU Imperial Remnant makes a 1,000 times more sense than Disney Remnant...

Indeed The xwing series is one of my favorite and does a great job showing thia part of the war

@@albionflux Yes, fleshing out Wedge and the gang was fantastic.

Blooming disney....

1000%, the old EU made a ton of sense, it sounded like actual history where massive empires didn't just die in a year, but lingered on in some form for centuries some even a millenia. The fact all the self-seekinf Imperial warlords scrambled for power since Palpatine had no succession plan perfectly mimics the fracturing of Alexander's Empire, which coincidentally was also built by him and died with him just like Palpatine's.

That's the funny thing about logistics. To have a soldier fire a gun, you don't just need a person and a gun. You need to take care of every single thing a person needs to live, then ship it out into the middle of nowhere for them. Like, toilet paper. How can a soldier shoot their gun if he's too busy scratching an ass rash? X'D An army is a city sized group of people. So you need the amount of amenities a city provides for them.

I was in the Marines for 6 years. We had a saying "bullets don't fly without supply" Trust me being in 120+ degree heat and having no potable water or food will take you out of action fast. You can't fight without a supply line, that's been the bane of Hitler, Napoleon, and many other leaders throughout history

@@Captain_Insano_nomercy exactly.

It always depends on the level of corruption in the military structure as well. If people see positions of power as mere stepping stones then they are more concerned about promotions and authority over a specific cause or even the well being of their nation or unit, then the foundation of that military will usually be shaky at best. When the leadership falls apart they are too busy trying to profit and leverage their own position rather than actually trying to save day.

_That's why the Battle Droids where better..._

Yes but to keep that power you would want to stay with ur part of the military especially if their loyal then hide and be captured by the rebs because of war crimes. That’s exactly what happened in legends and took a while until the Empire died kinda.

@@MrHattley Yeah, because Palpatine was preventing the Separatists from working effectively. Without him stopping them from making obvious improvements to command structure and tactics like a mental droid blockchain and _just never ceasing advancement forwards to really press the advantages an endless robot army has, the Republic would be fucked._ It's not really a fair comparison when one side is being actively hindered by a conspiracy of evil space wizards.

@@eddapultstab2078 I think you perfectly explained why the Nazi themed empire of a literal cult of greed and selfishness was doomed.

Thats objectively false. Most militarys have a very CLEAR "Line of succession." The US Army for example had very robust officer corps and NCO Corps so much so that the highest enlisted ranks have more responsibilities than alot of commission ranks. If someone was to behead the US military. More heads would grow back in its place and business returns to normal almost immediately. The empire fell so quickly because palpatine designed it to be solely dependent on him. There was no "heir." To the throne. The line of succession didn't exist. And I paraphrase "If the Empire is unable to protect its emporer then it should not exist." All of palpatines contingency plans were punishments for failing to protect him.

@@kingandros4819 Except at the Battle of Endor. The Rebellion destroyed most of what was left of the Imperial fleet stationed there.

@@roger632 well obviously. But that's not what I mean. The loss of a military "Supreme commander." Should never constitute a total loss. Palpatine designed the empire this way. Regardless of if the imperial fleet wasnt destroyed. The empire would have and did fall into chaos and disarray as moffs and warlords vyed for power in a galaxy where only one man had the power.

@@kingandros4819 Ah, I see.

@@kingandros4819 that lore was partially retconed. Its how some of the Empire and Rebels saw it. What was really happening was, the Elites were being pulled back to the Unknown. The rest was setting in motion a conflict that would lure Luke Skywalker too Jack, and kill him with a massive explosion via setting off tons of Sith artifacts in the center of the planet. With next to no Imperial Force Users to fight Luke, the Empire was easy pickings.

Holy spelling batman!

Collapse* dosent* make* where* civil war* technically* continues*

Can you try reposing this with your hands and not headbutt the keyboard ?

Agreed completely

It's funny people always assumed in the Wahammer 40k universe that the greatest strength of the Imperium was its soldiers or weapons or religious zelotry. I've always seen the true power of the Imperium to reside in its logistical capabilities.

Having worked in a military logistics unit before, y'all have the right of it. I'd rather have an army of a thousand men with a year's worth of supply than a million men with a week.

Yeah both a perfectly feasible outcomes but I think it's more of the Empire is differnt in both canons... In lenegds and A New Hope it's like the US of A in Diney Canon it's like the Russian Federation/ Late Soviet Union.

@@GreenBlueWalkthrough not really In the cannon version and in legends both leadership is a "me first" system Very few of the ship commanders are great commanders Also even in the US military history there are times when supply chains are long and fragile

Disney Canon supplemental material has also depicted the Empire as struggling much more in the period between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The Death Star's loss (both in terms of resources and talented officers) was a serious blow, which was followed up by an extensive ground war in which the Rebels briefly overran the Mid Rim. The Empire was victorious in a counter-offensive there, but it was still a costly distraction. Then the push to speed-build the second Death Star while fighting the regular war pushes the Imperial budget to its limit, to the point that Vader had to personally go beg Jabba the Hutt for a loan of resources. With all that context, it's not difficult to see how immediately losing the Death Star again AND the Emperor would send the Imperial military into logistical collapse. I actually prefer this interpretation to the Legends Empire, which seemed to have infinite money and an endless supply of WMDs and super-ships with no apparent maintenance costs. Losing the Death Star really HURT the Canon Empire. It mildly inconvenienced the Legends one.

Mickey Skaven sucks

Yes

Th war ended in the year 19 after yavin , but that was 15 years after endor and palpatine (first) death

What can you expect, Legends was written by a bunch of random writers with no cooperation while Disney has dozens of skilled writers and millions of dollars. Oh wait...

@@chheinrich8486 I'm counting the Second Imperium and holdouts that took until 22-23 ABY to be pacified completely. The Pellaeon Gavrisom Treaty/Bastion Accords did take place 15 years after Endor, but a chunk of Imperials refused to acknowledge it and split off for the Deep Core where it took a few more years to fully root them out.

Nah operation cinder was there to retcon and foreshadow Palpatine in rise of Skywalker. It was pretty dumb as it basically took away any humanity left in the imperial military by literally burning their own pro imperial worlds.

@@eddapultstab2078 foreshadow Palpatine in TROS?? How? There was never any kind of foreshadowing whatsoever for that

@@rcdune7132 eas Battlefront 2 tie in

Bad Story Telling spreads and corrupts like the Dark Side... Disney is the REAL Empire...

Thanks Disney. Thanks EA.

With Palpatine, vader, and most if not all clone wars heroes and staff officers gone at the point of endor, it was all downhill from there. The smart ones either grabbed everything fungible in arms reach and fled to make a new life or changed flags to the Victor's who had an established chain of command and has the clear upper hand. There was practically no decisive figure for remains to rally around, almost all the competent ones with clout and authority died between yavin and endor with yavin killing off practically all of high command in one torpedo. The rest were usually too dump, violent, cruel, and or scheming to do the latter and even with legends they were all too happy to stab each other in the back to get ahead. It's rather easy to fall apart from there, theirs real world equivalents.

@@eddapultstab2078 even so there is still 8 grand moffs still after endor? Entire fleet commands admirals, battlegroups, planetary moffs, ISB , and not to mention fantical COMNOR. only a fraction of the top brass died on both death stars. Yes there would be some massive internal infighting, but now you are fighting dozens instead of one enemy. It turned a two player civil war into a 20-30 player civil war match. At some point imperial leaders or warlords will rise to be the faction lesser imperial officials and officers will join; pentastar alignment, zsinji, zero command, Eriadu authority, and teradoc union.

@@soontir_fel1816 but look at their sith based culture they are built upon! They are encouraged to stab each other in the back. And not just the grand moffs, every isb agent, ship captain, tie pilot and storm trooper captain is looking for their next big break. Not only that when you divide the empire you also divide their resources. As it was pointed out that a star destroyer needs monthly resupply, three months is the latest to even think it will still be combat effective. The rebels most of the time are targeting their weakest link anyway, their supply. The empires doctrine in force projection requires unlimited supply to their massive ship fleets. Now here's the reality of the situation, Palpatine is dead Vader is dead Endor was a high stakes gamble that pitted the cream of the empires crop against the rebels in ambush that failed miserably. Atleast 1 super stardestroyer was lost as well as multiple isds are lost and damaged. Most of the galaxy secretly hates them, aside from loyalist worlds, and are now being more vocal about it. Manufacturers and suppliers, who were nationalized at gunpoint, now have to decide which side to lean on: one has Atleast 2 major victories and has put the opposition on the run and the other run, or the side that's pure brutality, fiscally irresponsible and would nationalize them at gunpoint again at first opportunity. Operation cinder is initiated which is making even some hard-core imperials on changing sides while burning away any olive branches to maintain power, resources and revenue that's left for them. They are close to dead broke at this point, the banks have left them and they probably have terrible credit considering all the lost deathstars and star destroyers, moff Gideon got away because he had the foresight to rob mandalore for a war chest. The list goes on, including the number one rule: you got to make payroll! This is mountain's of issues and real life empires have collapsed for alot less.

@@eddapultstab2078 that just proves my point as why canon empire doesn't make sense anymore. They have made them weaker and easy for failure. Like if the empire was that backstabbing then it wouldn't have lasted as long as it did... 20 years later til endor? No way...it would have shattered much sooner In legends; The empire had millions of highly trained and battle hardened clones and some PDF forces, a restructured military academies, and fought not only the clone wars but also they reconquest campaigns against separatist holdout for another 3 years. Plus imperial fleet at endor was tiny....there is still thousands of ISDs, 11 more executor class star destroyers,hundred thousand more support vessels. Countless more depots,storage facilities, and other infrastructure. This is why even after crumbling and civil war so many imperial factions lasted for YEARS until they were unified under admiral Daala and later pallaeon.

Well, they did flee to Exogal.

Good guys

Yes that's exactly what palpatines contingency plan was.

@@redjellonian8126 in the Mandalorian there is a scene where the setting goes in the hydroelectric plant.

@@eddieram435 that’s not a hydroelectric plant, it’s a rhydonium processing centre

@@caesarspeaks to produce energy for sure.

The dialogue of that game is so superb.

It will be the terrible watered-down version of it, sure, maybe... I mean, Thrawn was carried off by Space-Whales for Gods sake... so...

Ah yeah if I remember obi wan kenobi was a desk clerk when he fought in the mog

@@GenerationTech Yes he was.

That's exactly what happened in EU version of the Imperial Remnant, that's why it makes more sense. It took the New Republic years to stop all of the new Warlords, and in many cases, some were never found, and they re-established the Empire on the world of Bastion, out near the Outer Rim/Unknown Regions. Disney Imperial Remnant is just lazy, and makes little sense...

The regional governors did survive. Both in Legend and in Disney wars. In both they have influence and forces left, the Empire, albeit greatly reduced, still existed as an entity decades after the death of Palpy.

@@echos5823 YES, But the Pre-Disney version of that whole thing is composed 1,000 times better than the jackanapes at Disney have done...

Yeah--I am sure that was where they got the idea.

It is nothing like the nero decree.

Bane definitely died

It is a general theory due to the attempted transfer into Zannah and her hand did shake a bit after but then you wouldn’t get some of the good guy sith that happened

It could easily be a yet unnamed Sith from somewhere down the line who became obsessed with Sith Alchemy and immortality.

@@SamGray Cough Cough Darth Plagueis Cough

I like to think that, in this theory, Plageus was just another incarnation of this mythic 'Darth Eternal.' He did initiate the Anakin Plan to craft the perfect host, though.

It's not without precedent. E.g. a superpower like the USSR disintegrated in just a couple of years.

Well they didnt bother to explain how palpatine "somehow" returned. They care much less about background detalles like this.

The Qin Dynasty only lasted for a few years after the death of its first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. The Qin at the time still had the biggest, most powerful army in all of China, but it only took a couple of staggering defeats against a weaker rebel army, coupled with rebellions igniting all over its conquered territories that the infant Qin Empire collapsed quicker than it was formed.

Hey, the Republic collapsed in a single 5 minute sequence...

@@barbiquearea Then there's the Wehrmacht which collapsed rather spectacularly within a couple of years after their failure to invade eastern europe.

Correct, it had multiple imperial remnant factions and wars for years til the last groups were defeated nearly 22-24 years after the victory over Yavin.

@@NinjaTyler the first galactic civil war ended with the Palleon-Gaverston treaty, being signed by grand admiral Palleon, which was the leader of the imperial council, and a New Republic diplomat named Gaverston, with many other important people being present to witness it!

@@nickpapadopoulos9978 Treaty was Signed 19 Years after the Battle of Yavin. Gavreston was the Leader of the New Republic.

Beautiufl

Ironically...well Disney is much more realistic, sure the Imperial fleet as 20-30 thousands ships but for an entire galaxy and that's an extremely pathetic number for a such enourmous space; add the collpase of the command chain, the overall fact that the imperial armed forces were never good and basically a mix of poorly trained and equipped occupation troops (thughs in uniforms) with many of them cut off from supply and reinforcements and being dealt by the locals (apparently the main imperial politics was to send a light garrison and if there is trouble call the fleet and reinforcement and use overwhelming brute force...a politics no more appliable widespread after Endor) and poorly equipped good troops the logistic chain severly impaired and Palpy final f..k you to the galaxy aka Operation Cinder (a plan totally in character with him) and you have something out of the italian collapse after the surrendering and the clusterfuck of the current russian invasion of Ukraine. The US navy example is not apt, the USN is a professional service manned by well trained and well motivated men and defend a goverment system that had contingency in case a decapitation strike happen; the imperial armed force is your run of the mill dictatorship army formed by corrupt officers that don't give a damn about their men and it's kept together by fierce indoctrination and abject fear and many many pray, his objective is not be truly combat capable but scare the population in submission. Hell one must look only to the tie fighter, it's a death trap and it's basically considered a feature only after having their ass handed to them so many time by numerically inferior but better trained and equipped forces they have decided to upgrade them but it was always a too little too late thing. Not considering that between Yavin and Endor there are only 4 years and during this time the imperials had lost the bulk of their best officers with the destruction of the first and second Death Star and the defeat of Thraw at Lothal.

@@lukedalton In the books they were preparing to fight an invasion from a neighboring galaxy. The invaders were far superior.

@@Vaioplayer88 it was more or less fanon that the Empire was preparing to fight the Vang, in reality Uncle Palpy had give Thraw some lip service about it but never really done anything about it...and thraw himself while a gary tz...ehm a brilliant tattician was a political illetterate that was really duped by him

@@lukedalton Only one mention 20000 - 30000 ISD not ships at all

@@tomaskops7119 it's more or less the same, the ISD are the type of ships that the entire Imperial fleet is build around...unfortunely are extremely costly in both term of men and supply and are the wrong type of ships. Sure if you must wage a conventional war or terrorize a planet into submission this are your type of ships but as counterinsurgency? it's like using the USS Nimitz to catch somali pirates but instead of the horn of Africa it's the entire east african coast your zone of operation. The rest of the entire fleet seem composed by a relatively small number of lightly protected transport and light cruiser and carrier. As example, the finale of Rebels see the entire 6 ISD (plus support) fleet of Thraw disappear and this mean the loss of at least 300.000 men in a single battle and the next week they have lost another million in the death star. With this kind of ratio, the Empire need many small and easily to build and replace ships and not megaubersuperduper capital ship that lack the versatility and the sufficient numbers

That was a part of the EAW imperial campaign. an admiral went to the rebels side and took a contingent of imperial forces with him that vader had to hunt down as they were hitting planet after planet.

@@theliato3809 ooo cool

That's EXACTLY the Idea Lucas sold to Disney for the New Trilogy that they threw out lol. Lucas wanted to show the Hutts and other Cartels moving in to fill the void of the Empire, and show the various Imperial Factions, trying to unite the Empires territories, while having the New Republic scramble to try to stop everything from going to shit. He wanted to show Luke and the Jedi restarting amongst all this turmoil as well. But... Disney thought they knew better... and just did a terrible remake of A New Hope first, and then descended into two consecutive Dumpster-Fires... Should have gone with Lucas's stories...

That would be amazing, a choice to either crack down and embrace the brutality, or reform the empire into something new

@west of whatever The Sith style of ruling pretty much guarantees that.

One of the things that is glossed over a lot is that the Galactic Civil War, both in the new canon and especially in Legends, is a very bloody and destructive war. How the New Republic dealt with worlds that had strong sympathies for the Empire? And the desire for getting even by the more hot headed rebels?

The problem is that in DisCan the Empire ISN'T nearly that oppressive. It lets women and aliens serve in the ranks equally unlike Legends. It has far fewer atrocities than Legends too. Compared to Legends, the DisCan Empire is significantly more liberal and lenient on its subjects so it actually makes even less sense that it's so unpopular.

@@grandadmiralzaarin4962 I feel as though it became more apparent to Lucasfilm / Disney that a lot of people actually liked the Empire despite the whole blowing up Alderdaan thing. It therefore became neccesary to ramp up the atrocities and make the Empire to be an explicit Third Reich expy. Nuance went out the window in favour of a more simplistic interpretation. I much prefer Timothy Zahn's interpretation which I feel was more realistic without white washing the negative aspects. Disney however prefers things less... "grey".

Not really when you consider how real world Empires take years to decades to collapse and that's just a regional or planetary Empire. An Empire across a galaxy would take significantly longer than a year to fall. The Qing Empire is a perfect example. When it fell, Warlords took over and there were external invasions. It took nearly five decades for peace to return.

Yes. Disney is great at that... See; Book of Boba Fett as definitive proof...

That trilogy sucked what are you talking about

Hit the bell thingy

The Executor was heavily damaged at that point. In ROTJ Admiral Akbar orders all craft to attack it. When it does nose dive in the DS2 it's trailing a large plum of flame from the side of its engines.

Technically 4 or 5 years, yavin was the beginning of the end for them as they previously mentioned the destruction of the first deathstar most definitely started a recession and a security crisis in one swoop.

Basically, they were bankrupt before Endor, having poured everything they had into building a new Death Star while also fighting an ever-bolder Rebellion. Then they have mass uprisings, a breakdown in coordination and constant battle without resupply that ground them to a pulp. For a real-life comparison, the Pacific Theater of WWII saw, in a single calendar year (December 7, 1941-1942), the Japanese military conquer the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, and half of New Guinea (most of that in about 5-6 months) and then be torn to pieces by constant battle (including four carrier battles and at least as many surface ship fights) that left it basically incapable of offensive operations. A modern military can fit a LOT of fighting into a year.

Same with his Ukraine propaganda

@@anyoneseenmybicepilostitin2727 well, he got the general gist of it right. some of the names were wrong. that's really it. I'm a little nitpicky on details. I gotta force myself to not fixate on other's mistakes if it doesn't damage the overall point.

@@anyoneseenmybicepilostitin2727 also LMAO at your name.

Actually iron sky but close enough

What about squadrons the imperials won the campaign?

I personally think that Palpy really don't choose a successor for the real reason many dictator do it only very late in life or if you are NK you designate a member of the family early on (after all it's basically an absolute monarchy). Because once you name a successor you create competition and someone who can legitimate take your power once you are removed and if you add the SIth ideology that permeated the Empire due to Palpy actions, choosing of people and method of governance it's easy to image why he had left no heir...except Vader naturally as by Sith creed if he is killed by him or survived it mean that he is stronger and so he has the right to power but is a rule appliable only to him

That's a lot of words for "We wrote a bullshit story and didn't know how to write ourselves out of it."

@@scoutman66 that could be said about many franchises that continue beyond their usual scope. Legends, aka the old canon, had a lot of contradictory bullshit, some good, some bad. And if you played the Battlefront 2 and Squadrons campaigns, its not a bad story. And it works in the context of the sequels and Mandoverse. It explains why the big bad is only a Moff of the remnant and not someone higher

God damn this makes me realize Star Wars should not have had sequels. Or if they did set them a few hundred years later. The sequel trilogy seriously fucked canon up

@@kotyissocool not defending the sequels quality, just accepting their story and how it is fleshed out in further media, such as the Mandoverse, Bad Batch, etc. going forward. And the prequels also had issues with the canon of how they tied into the oridge tridge. Its a problem of any sequel or prequel. How can you perfectly fit more into a story AND recapture the lightning in a bottle of the first one

@@DantheGif except that those expansions directly and indirectly contradict the Sequel Trilogy. But then, the Sequel Trilogy contradicts itself so...

And it will be possible...if the Empire armed forces was something akin to a professional forces instead of the corrupt 'all glitter and zero substance mess that basically is forced to strip everything from the mid and outer rim planets and it's hated fiercely by everyone that's not the corrupt higher up'

Not only that, the New Republic LOST Coruscant to Thrawn for a while, then came back. I know, WHAT!? THE GOOD GUYS LOST FOR A BIT! It's truly shocking I know. EU is the True Canon.

Agreed.