Is the Empire really driven that far back?

[Uvirith]

Well, we all know that ultimately te Empire will lose and fall to pieces. And there will be nothing left then ashes. Even the memory of it will be whiped completely (since Darth Sidious calls his Empire the First galactic Empire).

 

As an imperial, this makes me sad too

 

/edit

Oh, and I blame Darth Bane and his idiotic Rule of Two for that. He ultimately destroyed the Power of the Sith.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Uvirith

[zzoorrzz]

Well, we all know that ultimately te Empire will lose and fall to pieces. And there will be nothing left then ashes. Even the memory of it will be whiped completely (since Darth Sidious calls his Empire the First galactic Empire).

 

As an imperial, this makes me sad too

 

/edit

Oh, and I blame Darth Bane and his idiotic Rule of Two for that. He ultimately destroyed the Power of the Sith.

 

No, we don't know that. It's very well possible they flee again to hide for ceturies or thousands of years just as they already did in the past.

[Beniboybling]

Oh, and I blame Darth Bane and his idiotic Rule of Two for that. He ultimately destroyed the Power of the Sith.

Oh the irony.

[jovianus]

Well, we all know that ultimately te Empire will lose and fall to pieces. And there will be nothing left then ashes. Even the memory of it will be whiped completely (since Darth Sidious calls his Empire the First galactic Empire).

 

As an imperial, this makes me sad too

 

 

To be fair, that could just because the Republic has a terrible education system. Or at least one that doesn't seem to think that 'History' is a subject at all worthy studying.

[stormdrakelord]

Yes, isotope-5 is ours and Republic has no clue about it.

 

 

We'll be fine. With a guy like Darth Marr in charge, I have no worries about the future.

 

Really? Because where I am at right now, I blew up about a good portion on the Imps on Balmorra with my Smuggler, a girl who has no military training whatsover, and canon has the trooper

defeating General butthead after he declared war on the republic for the trooper blowing up top secret pet project.

and

Jedi knight defeats voice of evil, Jedi Consular forms Rift Alliance, And Smuggler, from what I hear, unites the criminal underworld behind the republic

 

 

seems like the republic has a higher chance of victory to me.

Edited April 16, 2013 by stormdrakelord

[Beniboybling]

Really? Because where I am at right now, I blew up about a good portion on the Imps on Balmorra with my Smuggler, a girl who has no military training whatsover, and canon has the trooper

defeating General butthead after he declared war on the republic for the trooper blowing up top secret pet project.

and

Jedi knight defeats voice of evil, Jedi Consular forms Rift Alliance, And Smuggler, from what I hear, unites the criminal underworld behind the republic

 

 

seems like the republic has a higher chance of victory to me.

Well 'the key to the Empire's victory is close at hand'... so there.

[stormdrakelord]

Well 'the key to the Empire's victory is close at hand'... so there.

 

Talking about the Isotope-5 here? because that won't save your droids and ships from getting obliterated.

[Beniboybling]

Talking about the Isotope-5 here? because that won't save your droids and ships from getting obliterated.

I would call you a heretic, but your a Rep. So instead I'll console myself with the knowledge that you are your peace-loving democracy will soon be destroyed and the Empire shall rule the galaxy!

[stormdrakelord]

I would call you a heretic, but your a Rep. So instead I'll console myself with the knowledge that you are your peace-loving democracy will soon be destroyed and the Empire shall rule the galaxy!

 

Just being logical. you do not neeed to be a jedi or superhero to destroy a iso-5 powered machine, just know wher and how hard to hit.

[zzoorrzz]

Just being logical. you do not neeed to be a jedi or superhero to destroy a iso-5 powered machine, just know wher and how hard to hit.

 

Personally I take Marr's word above yours and since he says we will retake the galaxy, I have no reason to believe anything else

[stormdrakelord]

Personally I take Marr's word above yours and since he says we will retake the galaxy, I have no reason to believe anything else

 

Well, I trust the Devs more than a virtual character, so there.

[ReiKai]

Yes of course. "We" will retake the galaxy.

[Darth_Wicked]

I think people are blowing the all Makeb victory out of proportion...

 

The fact the Empire was able to secure a new energy source won't change the fact that the Military is broken, aliens are still seen as a blight on the Galaxy by some and the Sith and Military are still infighting. Prime example of such is the coming, sooner or later, Titans of Industry flashpoint. On the other hand, the Republic Military are still united and despite the fact it's not entirely accurate, Saresh announced that the Sith Emperor was dead in order to demoralize imperials and rile up the Republic.

 

Doesn't look THAT pretty to me still.

[zzoorrzz]

Saresh announced that the Sith Emperor was dead in order to demoralize imperials and rile up the Republic.

 

Her speech gave me a good laugh, I give her that. But demoralize? That didn't even come to my mind.

[Astarica]

Looking at the weekly in Makeb the Empire is unable to actually mine Isotope-5 in any meaningful quantity even though every random group of mercenaries has several kilo of this stuff stocked up ready to sell to the highest bidder so it'd still be a stalemate, because it's clearly implied if Darth Marr (another Force user with a brain) got his hand on a workable amount of Isotope-5 the Republic is going down again.

 

The Empire is simply better at fighitng a war and if you look at the way the fights are depicted, resources are basically a joke anyway. A single ship or a squad can often devastate an entire planet. A random warship (Dorin's Sky) not carrying any experimenetal technology set on self destruct was supposed to be enough to take out an entire fleet. It's amazing how there can even be fleet battles at all because you'd think you'd accidentally hit a ship's reactor causing it to explode and then blowing up every ship and that'd be the end of that engagement, since there are way too many missions that involve 'you must stop this ship from self-destruct or every ship gets blown up!'

 

A space battle in this era probably involves two ships shooting at each other and then one side losing, and then a guy stands up and say, "Time for you to see how Jedi/Sith/intelligence/Havoc Squad/Mandolorians do things", and that guy goes on a shuttle and boards the opposing ship and either takes it himself, or he fails and then he sets his own ship on self-destruct, and then a guy on the opposing ship gives the same speech and either disarms the ship or everyone dies anyway.

 

Corellia joined the Empire because they do not think the Republic can win. The popular opinion doesn't matter. The leaders of Corellia felt the Republic was going to lose the war agaisnt the Empire, and that's a very strong statement on the relative strengths of the two factions. The Empire was never supposed to be the people's choice.

[stormdrakelord]

Corellia joined the Empire because they do not think the Republic can win. The popular opinion doesn't matter. The leaders of Corellia felt the Republic was going to lose the war agaisnt the Empire, and that's a very strong statement on the relative strengths of the two factions. The Empire was never supposed to be the people's choice.

 

Once again, only the government joined the empire, just like Balmorra, the citizenry was still anti-imps and when the Republic showed up, they mostly joined the "republic scum."

[Projawa]

Saresh announced that the Sith Emperor was dead in order to demoralize imperials and rile up the Republic.

Doesn't look THAT pretty to me still.

 

Thee Emp is still alive so if/when he returns in a future xpack, this announcement will probably blow up in her face.

[Darth_Wicked]

Once again, only the government joined the empire, just like Balmorra, the citizenry was still anti-imps and when the Republic showed up, they mostly joined the "republic scum."

 

The balmorran government didn't join the Empire.

 

Thee Emp is still alive so if/when he returns in a future xpack, this announcement will probably blow up in her face.

 

Never said otherwise. Fact remains that other than the Emperor's Wrath and the Emperor's Hand, no one exactly knows where he is or what he's doing. +1 for Saresh and the Republic in the meantime.

 

And my Jedi Sentinel.

 

Edited April 16, 2013 by Darth_Wicked

[ReiKai]

Ya know, saying someone is dead doesn't mean anything without a body or evidence. And if Darth Marr or the other DC members don't confirm his death, all it does is leave some people confused or more likely ticked off that the Republic would say such a thing and act like their victory was near. And while Vitiate's body may be dead, doesn't mean he's gone for good. Since he exists as essence, he can wait indefinitely for a new body, and as we know from the Sith Warrior storyline, after the events on Voss the Hand were already looking into acquiring a suitable vessel for the Voice.

 

Wouldn't matter if he died if his spirit is still around. The Hand can just do a ritual and call him back into a new body. And this time around he may not be weakened considerably. Perhaps back to full strength, enough to backhand the entire Jedi Council.

[Euphrosyne]

This is Star Wars. The Force is your resource. A transport ship (Black Talon) can board and take over a warship if the guys you sent are strong enough. In the Balmorra story line when you attacked the Balmorran Arms Factory on the Empire side, you were warned that the Republics are sending several squads each led by a Jedi and that was a common tactics used by the Republic that can take over an entire planet, and it's clearly implied the Jedi is the part that makes the strategy work at all. Since SWTOR appears to predate the concept of planetary shields, the concept of war of attrition is meaningless. As the history of Taris shows, a single ship that gets into low orbit can fry an entire planet. The Republic should never have been able to retake Balmorra or Corellia because if a single ship can bomb Taris so that it's uninhabitable for the next 300 years you can just do the same to Balmorra and Corellia before you leave too. Of course for story purposes you got to have this back and forth and vague concept about supply lines, but having more resources is not really that important when you're fighting at a level where a single ship can often fry an entire world. Darth Angral would've been able to fry 2 worlds, including Tython, if he wasn't miraculously stopped by a level 30 Jedi Knight, on a single ship.

 

Of course the Republic has a huge resource advantage, but having more resources don't mean much when you're looking at planetary devastation if a single ship or a ground strike team slipped through. We know the Empire has an advantage on this at the beginning, and if 3 guys can randomly burning a planet to the ground you don't really care if the other side has more resources than you do.

The Force is limitless, nuff said. Really when people try and compare Star Wars with real world happenings, it makes me cringe. They are incomparable.

You're both missing the point.

 

I'm explicitly not trying to explain the way the story has gone so far through comparisons to real-world events and logic. I'm highlighting how ridiculous it is to complain about the way things have gone so far for the Empire by bringing up these sorts of things when it's blatantly clear that any comparison to the real world would indicate that the Empire shouldn't even have gotten off the starting blocks.

 

So if you're unhappy with the way that the war's been going for the Empire, it makes no sense to complain about it on logical or factual grounds, because logical or factual grounds would have the Empire getting its butt kicked back into the Stygian Caldera within a few months of the first Great Galactic Civil War starting. Complain all you like, but be clear that you don't like it because you like the Empire and bad things are happening to it, not because it doesn't make sense for things to happen that way.

 

Me, I'm more or less fine with however the story goes, one way or the other. I don't really care who wins, who loses, and so on, although I expect the Republic to come out on top eventually because explaining an Imperial victory would tear a giant hole in the EU's extant canon. I'm just interested in experiencing fun stories and gameplay along the way. I don't need the promise of my chosen toon having had a crucial impact on the course of galactic history to enjoy the game.

[Beniboybling]

You're both missing the point.

 

I'm explicitly not trying to explain the way the story has gone so far through comparisons to real-world events and logic. I'm highlighting how ridiculous it is to complain about the way things have gone so far for the Empire by bringing up these sorts of things when it's blatantly clear that any comparison to the real world would indicate that the Empire shouldn't even have gotten off the starting blocks.

 

So if you're unhappy with the way that the war's been going for the Empire, it makes no sense to complain about it on logical or factual grounds, because logical or factual grounds would have the Empire getting its butt kicked back into the Stygian Caldera within a few months of the first Great Galactic Civil War starting. Complain all you like, but be clear that you don't like it because you like the Empire and bad things are happening to it, not because it doesn't make sense for things to happen that way.

 

Me, I'm more or less fine with however the story goes, one way or the other. I don't really care who wins, who loses, and so on, although I expect the Republic to come out on top eventually because explaining an Imperial victory would tear a giant hole in the EU's extant canon. I'm just interested in experiencing fun stories and gameplay along the way. I don't need the promise of my chosen toon having had a crucial impact on the course of galactic history to enjoy the game.

And I'm saying that your failing to take into account the fictional factors which don't exist in the real world. I'm not saying 'it's Star Wars, stuff happens', I'm saying 'it's Star Wars, your not taking everything into account.' If you look at events from logical and factual grounds and take into account fictional factors, it is perfectly acceptable from a logical perspective.

 

And I don't really see how it's illogical anyway, it's not as is the Republic were getting ROFLstomped for 30 years. The war swung in both sides, at one point the Empire were pushed back to Ziost. The Mandalorian blockade was set up, then knocked down. It just so happened that the Empire won, and someone has to. Although if anything it was a stalemate, as the Sacking of Coruscant was seen as more of a desperate attempt to achieve some kind of victory rather than a final, unconditional triumph.

 

As for my standpoint, I'd like to see the Empire win. Nor do I see it as impossible. Given the fact it would answer the question of who exactly Sidious was referring to when he said the the following. And there's a gap of about 600 years before anything happens in Star Wars Canon and over 1,000 years before the Sith truly return. A time when the Republic are in a dark age and are strangely backward and technologically inferior to the Republic of the Great Galactic War. Curious, no? So how it rips a giant hole in non-existent canon I don't know, in fact it fill holes and answers burning questions. A Republic victory would actually make less sense, given the state their in in 1,000 BBY...

[Astarica]

I noticed a huge problem with the argument for Empire is losing is that you assume there is supposed to be a 'right' side to the story. In truth both sides are lying about their status of the war effort because there is no 'right' side. For example let's look at how Hoth unfolded.

 

Imperial objective - Use a relatively small amount of people to keep a large group of Republic troops occupied.

Republic objective - Find the Null Cannon technology.

 

Now from the player's perspective your faction is always outnumbered 10 to 1 and everything would've been lost if you didn't happen to stop by this ice rock. At the end of the both faction's quest your side claims total victory thanks to your actions. And, since people here seems to assume that the Republic is supposed to be the 'truth', this implies the Republic has the Null Cannon and people say they clearly are ahead.

 

But since there isn't an official canon of what actually happened on Hoth you've to use some critical thinking here. First, the Republic MUST outnumber the Empire on Hoth, unless the guys in charge of the Empire side are just insane for thinking they're outnumbered 10 to 1 while it was the other way around. So the Empire's objective of drawing the Republic into wasting resources must have worked. Now, did the Republic objective succeed? The answer is that it doens't matter because we're never told whether the Null Cannon played any role in the future, so we can assume there's 3 possible scenarios:

 

1. Republic didn't actually found the Null Cannon.

2. It was found but they couldn't salvage it (light side option)

3. It was found in a working condition and then it went to the graveyard of where superweapons go to die.

 

For the same reason this is why although Republic won in Balmorra you can assume they do not have the Barrager, and that the Empire does not have the Devastator or whatever Darth Nox was building that was supposed to wipe out a fleet in one hit. For that matter the Empire also don't have Firestorm Lasers the JK faced in the Battle of Corellia anymore, even though that sure would be a useful weapon to have on your side.

 

So overall Hoth would be a strategic victory for the Empire because the Republic objective, the Null Cannon, was a non-factor in the future wars.

 

Now let's go to Corellia which is actually important. After all it's not like having a strategic victory in Hoth or Quesh or Tatooine is going to turn the tide of the war.

 

The Empire invaded Corellia, and was backed by the government, who said they joined the Empire because they do not think Republic have what it takes to defeat the Empire. This is coming straight from the Republic's side of the story (the former leader says that when you ask him why did he betray Corellia).

 

CorSec presumably did most of the fighting amongst Corellians, while some less notable elements of Corellia sided with Empire. The Republic mounted a defense. Several legendary figures, including Jun Seros, was killed in the defense of Corellia.

 

The Republic eventually retook Corellia (CorSec again seems to be doing most of the heavy lifting). Several members of the Dark Council was killed.

 

The civilian support is propaganda on both side. In truth it's probably half of the Corellians didn't like Empire and the other half just want to be on the winning side. CorSec is obviously the strongest faction in Corellia so the anti-Empire forces are stronger than the pro-Empire forces but like the Empire had no support from Corellians.

 

At any rate just review the initial dilaogue of Makeb, this is roughly what happens if you select the 'how can we possibly be losing?' choice:

 

Darth Marr: I need to tell you something very few individuals are aware of, but we're totally doomed.

You: How can we be losing when we just won Corellia and Ilum?

Darth Marr: Our victory was glorious but Sith infighting and military incompetence doomed us.

 

Note that Darth Marr never denied the fact the Empire won (rather convincingly) in the two last major engagements. He's saying that the inner problems of the Empire more than makes up even the two decisive victories, and thankfully the Republic does not know the status of the SIth Empire's internal struggles. Otherwise the fact the Empire is losing badly wouldn't be 'something very few individuals are aware of'. Indeed in the ending scene for Makeb storyline, I think it was Satele Shan who said something like 'Although the Emperor is defeated, there is still the Dark Council.". Any SI/SW Empire player can tell she has no clue what is going on inside the Empire because the Dark Council, minus Darth Marr and Darth Nox, are pretty much the last guys you need to worry about. This implies the Republic is likewise unaware of them winning the war because they actually think the Dark Council is supposed to be some kind of credible threat.

 

The Republic leadership is generally incompetent, as in they'd be unable to tell which side of the lightsaber to point toward. But the Sith leadership would always have their lightsaber pointed at themselves, which is worse than a guy who will point the lightsaber the right way 50% of the time. The battle of Makeb isn't so much over yet-another-superweapon, because if you look at the Empire weeklys, for whatever reason the Empire is still unable to obtain meaningful amount of Isotope-5. It's also about a consolidation of power and keep power out of hands of guys whose lightsabers are always pointing the wrong way. The fact that Darth Nox turned over his command of the imperial fleet to Darth Marr and eventually formed an alliance is something unheard of for the Dark Council.

[Lurtzello]

Yes. We are losing this war but the devs are just making things the way that really are. In the end we Sith kill each other, we are the "bad guys" . Now I feel like we are losing too fast... It should be like on the movies making the bad guys feel like winning til the end. Just my opinion.

My guess is that we've just started a long series of ups and downs. After all, if they bring out an expansion every year and a half, and considering that SWTOR could last about a decade, we'll probably get to see a lot of turns of tides along the road. And it seems the Empire's recuperating thanks to Makeb - I don't know the Imperial story, but in the Republic one:

 

The Republic gains the remnants of the Hutt Cartel as allies (bets are open on when they will turn against us once again) and forces them to fund the resettlement of Makeb's people, most of which aren't trained soldiers. That's basically it: we gained a bunch of refugees and a frail alliance. While I guess the Empire got at least a bit of Isotope-5.

 

[Kuloksssssssssss]

All we can do is wait for the eventual merger. Since apparently imperial culture becomes "core culture"

[Astarica]

My guess is that we've just started a long series of ups and downs. After all, if they bring out an expansion every year and a half, and considering that SWTOR could last about a decade, we'll probably get to see a lot of turns of tides along the road. And it seems the Empire's recuperating thanks to Makeb - I don't know the Imperial story, but in the Republic one:

 

The Republic gains the remnants of the Hutt Cartel as allies (bets are open on when they will turn against us once again) and forces them to fund the resettlement of Makeb's people, most of which aren't trained soldiers. That's basically it: we gained a bunch of refugees and a frail alliance. While I guess the Empire got at least a bit of Isotope-5.

 

The Weekly missions from Makeb on the Empire side says due to some technical difficulties we're still having problem mining any Isotope-5 even though the mercernaries are probably drinking this stuff for fun because they've way too much of it. In terms of story significance it's not so much as Isotope-5 is going to be the uber tech that finally works while all the other superweapons went to die but that in the process of securing Isotope-5, Darth Marr also actually rallied the champions of the Empire under one cause (Wrath, Darth Nox, Grand Champion of the Hunt, and Cipher Nine). That's a huge improvement over having to worry about which Dark Council member is going to try to stab him in the back.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Astarica