Imperial LAAT: The Best Ship the Empire Never Used 

Disney couldn’t ever compete 😂

Why compete when they'll just gank it off him without attribution? It wouldn't be the first time

@@Winter_Of_Civilisation *looks at the Ship in Mando, Rogue One, Rebels* come on, just say you don't want to like the new stuff out of "principle"

The U-wing looks really cool. I don’t like the Police gunship in Rebels because it doesn’t make sense for stormtroopers to be using the equivalent of a swat van. While I think that the sequel trilogy is often nitpicked, it feels like they are trying to hard to be the same while looking like bad imitations. Like the new x-wing the resistance uses which has smaller engines that look worse and mess up the four engine design. I don’t think anyone was impressed yet the triangle shaped tie fighter.

Somebody told him “don’t mess with perfection” and he responds “hold my beer”

Unlike the Republic, the Empire was occupying territory instead of invading. So bringing a heavily armed LAAT like this to a occupation is like using a Apache gunship in a SWAT raid. Utter overkill and the media would have a field day on the optics of it.

I could see it being used by Fel Empire in Legacy

@@mrzirak792 This gunship should have been used by the First Order instead of the AAL.

@@zachhecita doesnt fit FO/Sequels design philosphy. They either take Galactix Empire vehicle from OT and makes it "bigger and badder", or they make original bt nonsense vehicle like that oke walker that was made into Lego set but wasnt even in movie, or that gorilla-AT. And sequels act as if prequels never existed

​@@mrzirak792 That's kinda strange argument to make, considering EC Henry demonstrates how his fan designs could plausibly fit into canon. He even addresses the conflicts in design philosophy. The LAAG didn't really fit the Empire's military doctrine, after all. I don't see how we couldn't adopt a similar approach and project how the LAAG could evolve into a First Order craft. The only limit is imagination. That said, the LAAG would actually fit into FO's design philosophy, as it has that brutalist aesthetic found in AT-M6 and a focus on overwhelming firepower. I find that the movies contradict the FO's design philosophy. According to the cross-sections and visual dictionaries, the FO was supposed to perfect old imperial design, even drawing on Old Republic designs. The Resurgent-class Star Destroyer is one of the few successful examples of this design philosophy. Not only is the Resurgent a successor to the Imperial II but also the Venator, serving both as carrier and battlecruiser. Unfortunately, the Resurgent seems to be the exception that follows the rule. So you're half-right. The show runners deemphasize the Clone Wars lineage of the FO, so the faction's design philosophy is butchered by poor execution. I would think, for instance, that the First Order would resurrect the TIE/D Defender project, as the FO supposedly has a greater commitment to pilot survival than the Empire. Instead, we get the same, fragile TIE fighters with a new paint job.

In one of Aftermath novels in the new canon, a similar vehicle is described as being part of a Imperial holdout’s forces. Lucasfilm / Disney really needs to hire EC Henry yesterday. ✌️

​@@Maphisto86that would lead to weeks or months of it being suggested before it gets approval from all ranks inside corpro.

I could see the Imperial Remnant in Legends increasingly turning to these gunships as their stock of other war machines dwindled, belatedly realizing that they had been neglecting a gem of a design this whole time.

Works better for EU Imperial Warlords, since they actually had territory, resources and man-power - and didn't destroy it all because a dead man said to do it.

@@sinisterisrandom8537 No not really. A Star Trek showrunner Terry Matalas saw a fan design and he had his production design hire the artist for the show and they used the design almost exactly as it was. EC Henry has been hired to do designs for Star Trek Online (they're fantastic btw). Maybe Star Wars just doesn't pay as much attention to fan designs? Dunno.

give Disney a few months to steal the design.

If you liked that you should check out the LAAV by Fractalsponge

I can imagine nearly 500 of these gunships as Vader's hidden airforce,waiting for calling into combat in a secret base on Mustafar,far away from Vader's fortress.

0/10 trash design

I'm surprised how all of us could right away recognise it! More iconic entrance than I thought

i mean, if youre gonna do something awesome, make it the right way!, and there is only TWO ways you can make an EPIC entrance for the LAAT, Geonosis Arena sequence, or Hypori entrance into Acclamator ruins. and it was awesome!

Shocking that EC Henry would acknowledge the EU at all. He's all in on Disney slop

This is the reason I am watching haha

​@@RichardHunslet1963 He did sequel stuff while it was coming out, but it seems like since then he's stuck pretty much to the OT and the Prequels.

A much larger composite laser system was used by the B-Wing prototype in Rebels. That was one underrated ship.

But it’s not an evolution it’s a step backwards. If the design is prone to malfunctioning it’s useless. I’d rather go for slightly less powerful lasers that actually work when you need them then powerful lasers that break and can’t be used when you need them

​@@darwinskeeper421 Yeah, cause the original B-Wing is just a more interesting ship. Rather than Super Turbo Death Ray 5000, it's an assault bomber with cannons, ion guns, and torpedos. It fits the universe far better, and is a much more intriguing design as opposed to "we made the deathstar again, but its a fighter this time"

​@@Matt-yg8ub I mean to be fair. The AT-TE did turn into the AT-AT, I wouldn't put it past the empire for them to take a step backwards

@@idioticed4379 a lot of what the Empire did was a step back. Now realistically that’s because the original trilogy was filmed in the 70s 70s and that’s what the technology was limited to, but the Canon explanation was that Palpatine needed jobs programs to keep people busy and so they intentionally downgraded the technology so that it was more manpower intensive.

And it starts with that homage to a heroic entrance, and then the ship kind of descends into fire and darkness and imperial tones. It was a really great scene.

you should see what happened to the german fleet after ww1, the entire fleet was scuttled in scapa flow by their crews, as the british were going to take the entire navy post surrender, they scuttled 10 battleships, 5 battlecruisers 8 cruisers, and dozens of destroyers, figured it might be kinda a neat parallel between real life and movies

The Empire was run by idiots.

It’s INSANE how wasteful the military is… regardless of country or planet. My army roommate told me about his experience in being in the army right around when they all started switching from digital to the new camo, as well as a bunch of other stuff being “upgraded” and how they were told to dispose of everything… everything. The army just scrapped vehicles, weapons, special equipment, those big huge tents they use… all just tossed. I was mortified and he explained how much food they waste, how they just leave guns, ammo, vehicles and everything behind when they left the Middle East because it was too expensive in fuel to bring back… it’s cheaper to just buy new stuff than fly everything back and sort through it and maintain it all. He told me a true story which I’ve since learned about that’s fucking psychotic and horrible… the US just dumped all of our munitions out of planes when leaving Vietnam to save weight and fuel.. those mines, mortars, and shells are still blowing up innocent people all over Asia to this day. Innocent farmers hitting land mines that were just dumped to save a bit of hassle and money… War is a never ending nightmare… even for people who aren’t even involved. It sucks up our resources, pollutes and destroys the planet, kills innocent people and leaves behind mountains of waste and devastation… that’s just earth. I couldn’t even imagine this on a scale like the empire! That’s insane to even consider!

​@DanteYewToob It's crazy how much of this destructive nature is reflected in Star Wars. One example would be how Cassian Andor's Homeworld of Kenari is said to be uninhabitable & toxic from an Imperial Mining disaster which killed every inhabitant. Which was AFTER the Republic assessed that the world had no more mining potential, so the Empire clearly poked around for no real real reason. Another would be Anaxes which was a neighbor to Coruscant & was a major Republic military base for tens of millenia before the Clone Wars. In the Clone Wars show we saw a lively base there, but decades later in the Rebels TV show the same, empty base inhabits an astroid field, seemingly implying that the entire planet was destroyed under the watch of the Empire. It has never been definitively stated what happened to Anaxes, but it tells us that the Empire was in business of destroying whole planets before the 1st Death Star in negligent military or uncaring industrial operations. This nightmarish mirror with the Empire & the US does make sense, since the whole Original Trilogy's premise of a small force fighting a large, technologically superior empire was inspired by the Vietnam War.

Let him "cook"

Or.... a alternate reality of Star Wars or Trek, where the powers in charge went into very pragmatic designs. e.g. A Star Wars where Thrawn was made Grand Moff instead of Tarken (and Tarken was disposed of so he couldn't stab Thrawn in the back). Or a Clone Wars Republic where Palpatine got eaten by that Zillo Beast. And my own favourite trek spin-off.... where Starfleet Engineering put out a Directive to bring back new tech for reverse engineering. Star Trek: Pragmatic.

Star Trek Pacific: 🥲

Could probably also carry a single AT-DT as well.

Not to mention the speeder bike stowage under the wings. That was pure flippin' genius!!

Thrawn: It's ugly but beautiful at the same time.

Tarkin was a mistake.

The amount of damage that the Internet, echo chambers, and influencers have done to most fanbases within the last decade is a tragedy.

frankly, I think the efficiency of this thing to get forces where the empire wants them would strike fear into actual rebels... except Headhunter, X-wing pilots. They would be tasty air kills.

Until rebels use any AA gun or rocket which will one shot LAAT :/

Yeah, maybe it’s designed to shut itself off when it’s pointed too close to the wings

Maybe thats among the reasons why its stated to be only used sparingly.

if you loook at it closely at least forward there appears to be some kinda gun looking thing with the hole in the back for the beam to shoot in. its even gimbled up front so you can shoot the dish straight forward into that and have it not blow upt eh ring. Forward is the only direction tho where it can do that it seems so no backwards shooting with that.

A lot of weopons in our world are designed to cut off if they endanger the aircraft. For example, before planes could fire from fuselage they would be placed above the pilot or be equipped with rear gunners. The Italians eventually developed a synchronization gear so that the gun wouldn’t fire while the propeller was in the way. I see no reason why this same principle couldn’t be applied

@@chuckbuck5002 To add to that, in WW2, heavy bombers with defensive turrets would have mechanical linkages that prevented gunners from accidentally shooting their own rear stabilizers or wings.

Nice

Heck, at the very least I just want a model kit of this to sit on my shelf!! 😁

LA-AGs vs U-Wings in chopper dogfights let’s gooo!!

Beats me dude. We’ll never know

The Heck is "Canonical Legends"?! Are they like a majorly accepted order of Legends content? Are they Legends that are games? Like, really, what is Canonical Legends? I'm genuinly curios! I hope it's not "this Legends content should be *The* Canon"-type of stuff...

@@Taron_HaiTar The Imperial Dropship Transport was created for star wars unleashed but a air speed that looks very similar to it, and has the same name, appears in the star wars commander mobile game. Which is in a sort of grey zone for cannon seen as it is part of the disney canon in the sence that was made by them. Many obscure legends vehicles are "canon" because of this game.

@@rickvrieling Ah, so it's either semi-canon, could fit right in with minor or no modifiacations and "similar vehicle appeared on screen, let's stretch it to fit this vehicle" situations, got it. Thanks much for telling me this, I'm so happy to learn this fact, and the fact that it's NOT "Legends should be *The* Canon" stuff!

@@Taron_HaiTar I worded it badly IDP got created originally for original canon (now Legends) in 2008 but immediately upon buying Star Wars by Disney in 2012 it was included in new Disney canon as used by Galactic Empire as an successor to LAAT.

He did briefly mention that in the video, but like he said it doesn’t exactly fill the same niche as the LAAT. It’s more focused on being a dropship for deploying troops and not the gunship role that the LAAT filled.

Ironic, considering the Empire is known for overkill. Base Delta Zero and Missile Boat, anyone?

yea, Im tryna reconstruct this one too.

Cheers

considering how much of his stuff ends up stolen and used in Star Wars media I wouldn't be surprised if it were intentional.

Bar not set very high.

Excellent observation

Let us know!