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Okay, those of you don't know, this is going to be a tie in novel that's going to be released to set up what happens between Episode 7 and Return of the Jedi. Its just one of a host of comics and other items of media designed to build hype for the new film.

Now, I have read some EU (expanded universe) books. But I never really got into them the way I really bought into, say Knights of the Old Republic, (which I consider to be the best Star Wars story ever ). I always felt like Return of the Jedi was meant to be a definitive ending and that an attempt to drag out the Empires demise was simply milking the series for all it was worth rather than a story actually worth telling.

That said, I thought ideas like the formation of the New Republic, the New Jedi Order and the original characters having children were natural evolutions of the story. As a sequence of events this made a lot of sense to me and as an aside I kind of feel like episode 7 is doing away with that more because of a desire to get the original actors back and avoid certain things in the prequels like the senate and the jedi order.

But I digress. Basically I don't like that Disney is trying to sell me this new book/comics, which BTW has artwork very reminiscent of a lot of EU books after they just canned and devalued 30 years work of their own lore. I mean, why should I buy this. These are clearly products aimed at the exact same market as the EU books were. I mean for one thing, I am not even sure this new book is considered canon with the films. They could very well just be rewriting the EU for all I know. So to me, I see something that Disney or another company could just say isn't "real" Star Wars a few years down the road or might label as non canon. I mean if they're going to maintain that only the films are canon then this naturally devalues any non film Star Wars product that they make.


Also, the premise of the book, really reads like a heavy handed retcon of the EU rather than an original take. Its says that the New Republic has been formed (which implies BTW that its destroyed by Episode 7 since we know its not in the film) and that they're facing severe challenges from Imperial Remnants and that people are unsure and even apathetic about the Empires fall. Now, theres a few retcons there. Firstly, the New Republic is not destroyed by the Empire (it is destroyed by the Vong but that's another matter) and whilst I am glad that they're acknowledging that this is the stated goal of the Rebel Alliance and what they would do; it feels like a very unnecessary way to rewrite the lore to have something quite central to the EU storyline strangled in its cradle. They could just have had them rebranded as whatever they're called in episode 7 and carried on being rebels. I mean its nice that they're explaining why things turn out differently; but it just feels very unsubtle.The second big retcon is the implied apathy and even support for the Empire. Now, outside of the military and the Sith; nobody supports the Empire. I find it very difficult to take this idea seriously given how black and white the morality of the original series was. In the EU, everybody is glad the Empire is gone and they rapidly get together to form a new government. They have huge disagreements, yes. But they don't sympathise with the Empire for the most part and the ordinary people certainly don't. So I just find the plot a little weak in this regard and it feels like they're inventing reasons why the rebels are not able to defeat the Empire 30 years after Endor. I suspect the primary reason is "theres actually an entire Sith Order we oh so secretly kept on the sly for this eventuality". But, well, retcons.

Plus, I mentioned about the artwork being almost identical to a lot of EU material. I know a lot of people are going to say that because this book and other material is tied to the film that it IS canon and is also going to be much higher quality than the EU stuff. Well, I am not exactly convinced by that. They're probably hiring the exact same type of run of the mill sci fi writers and people to make this stuff. JJ Abrams films haven't exactly been brilliant, thinking of Star Trek here. I don't see any reason to believe that the films will be better than the prequels or that the books/comics they bring out for it will be better than the EU or any other film tie in for that matter. There is a bit of a hype train going on with episode 7 and I think people are setting their expectations extremely high considering the last three films were at best okay and at worst terrible.

But yeah, I am not buying any of their stuff. If they want to rewrite another semi canon expanded universe then that's Disneys choice.




edit This website has a summary of the books synopsis http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-aftermath/

The EU was completely unrealistic.

A galaxy spanning Empire isn't going to just dissolve like the EU had it happen. At worst there is a few years of infighting among the surviving leadership before another strong leader takes over. The only way this results in the collapse of the Empire is if the Rebellion is strong enough to take advantage of the momentary lack of leadership, which they unquestionably were not. The process would take decades, or more likely centuries, before the Empire actually loosened its grip and the New Republic could actually fight it on an equal footing.

Also, they have only declared that stuff that came out before they acquired Lucasfilms is no longer canon. Stuff that is coming out now will be in line with the films.

And frankly, most of the EU was garbage anyway. True, the Old Republic stuff was pretty good, but if it means getting rid of Han Solo punching a space Otter I'll burn all the copies myself.

I'm expecting that im not going to like the new film all that much so will probably keep the current EU as cannon personally for my own sanity. The stuff with the Yazang Vongh I found interesting. Chewbacca certainly met a suitably epic end being crushed by a moon.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The EU was completely unrealistic.

A galaxy spanning Empire isn't going to just dissolve like the EU had it happen. At worst there is a few years of infighting among the surviving leadership before another strong leader takes over. The only way this results in the collapse of the Empire is if the Rebellion is strong enough to take advantage of the momentary lack of leadership, which they unquestionably were not. The process would take decades, or more likely centuries, before the Empire actually loosened its grip and the New Republic could actually fight it on an equal footing.

Also, they have only declared that stuff that came out before they acquired Lucasfilms is no longer canon. Stuff that is coming out now will be in line with the films.

And frankly, most of the EU was garbage anyway. True, the Old Republic stuff was pretty good, but if it means getting rid of Han Solo punching a space Otter I'll burn all the copies myself.

1. It doesn't dissolve overnight. It takes 25 years. Even then they don't destroy the Empire completely and it goes on to reconquer the galaxy 75 years later. So you're right, they don't just take over.

2. Grand Admiral Thrawn takes over and then after that Admiral Daala. Both are very successful but are ultimately thwarted by the original heroes. These are just the two most prominent that I can think of.

3. You're ignoring historical examples of great empires that have dissolved with a whimper almost overnight despite seeming invincible or having a vast army such as the British Empire and in particular the Soviet Union.

4. Technically it was never canon and as far as I am aware they haven't said this new stuff is canon either. Hence my comparisons to the EU with the cover design and some of the basic premise. Even if they do I am sceptical since they could just change their minds again. If you devalue your own lore and your own products I am not going to take anything else you sell.

5. You're really making a massive presumption that the Empire had "millions" of worlds and "thousands" of fleets. For all you know, every world in the galaxy had joined the rebels and the Imperial fleet only consisted of what we saw at Endor.

6. Go back and watch the ending scene for Return of the Jedi. That is a definitive ending; theres no reading between the lines or hinting at things to come. Disney is trying to milk the original trilogy by retconning the Empires destruction.

7. I don't see any justification for this new stuff being "better" than the EU stuff. A lot of the premise feels shaky and contrived. Luke not refounding the Jedi Order is the big one for me. You can just about hand wave the New Republic not being founded for one reason or another. But Luke not going on to bring back this order that he immensely respects and has nothing but admiration for. I can't buy that and from what rumors I ve heard JJ Abrams knows this and has had to resort to Luke being captured for 30 years to explain away why this doesn't happen. I really hope that isn't the case because that's a really contrived plot point. .

Taking only 25 years is just taking over. It should really have been more like 75 to get even nominal control over certain areas of space, and then another 2-3 centuries to actually be able to face the Empire down.

No Empire has ever dissolved overnight. The British Empire is technically still around, and it still took a long time. The Soviet Union also just changed its name and lost some territory.

Alexander the Great's is probably the fastest true break up in history, and even then it really just split into 3 smaller empires which themselves all claimed to be the heirs of Alexander.

And I am not presuming anything. The Empire controlled over a million planets(because the Republic did and all indicators show that as unchanging). If the Rebels had control over much of the Galaxy when the Death Star II was blown up they would have seriously outnumbered the Imperial Fleet defending it. They would have just gone with a frontal assault on Endor, blown up the shield generator with overwhelming force, and then just blasted the Death Star to pieces. After all, their information was that it wasn't operational yet, so a frontal assault would have been perfectly viable.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Taking only 25 years is just taking over. It should really have been more like 75 to get even nominal control over certain areas of space, and then another 2-3 centuries to actually be able to face the Empire down.

Again, you don't know how big or small the Imperial fleet or its army or the number of planets is. These things are never stated in the films; they're only implied.

Nor do you know how powerful the Rebel Alliance is. In the EU they can call on an endless number of volunteers from rebel worlds and have access to the best starfighter in the galaxy as well as capital ships from advanced worlds like Mon Calamari. By Return of the Jedi, the Rebels are a major military threat to the Empire and do possess the power to challenge the Empire.

The Soviet Union collapsed in two years. Thats a pretty good real world comparison. Had one of the biggest armies in the world, whole regime toppled with a whimper. Just because a state has a big army does not mean it can't implode.


It takes only two years to defeat the Seperatists in the prequels even though they have a far larger army than the republic and control most of the galaxy.


Go watch Return of the Jedi. That is a definitive ending. George Lucas main reason for shunning the EU was that he considered Return to be the end of the Sith and the Empire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiM5zEEI_Jo


You're also making a huge assumption that every Imperial soldier and citizen will remain loyal to the regime.

Why?

The Sith are evil. They control the population by fear and terror. When the Sith are dead (which is being retconned to explain the Empires survival) then they have nothing the serve. The Empire exists as an extension of the Sith; it has no other purpose or any other form of legitimacy. Its portrayed as a completely evil and broken government whose army consists of either brainwashed stormtroopers and immoral power hungry Nazi officers. Its despised by ordinary people, who flock to join the rebel alliance, never mind that it oppresses and actively persecutes non human races; ie most of the galaxy. When the rebels kill their leaders and kick in the door the whole thing comes crashing down because its got nothing to keep it up.

I suppose you think Lucas was some genius script writer too

In the Prequels, I am sure there was a scene where it was mentioned there was over a million worlds in the Republic. Given the Senate existed up until the beginning of New Hope we can safely say the Empire still has roughly the same number of worlds.

It would be impossible for the Empire to control that many worlds and strike fear into the entire galaxy if they didn't have a military to match it. if they only had a few thousand ships they'd be utterly laughable, running from system to system clamping down on rebellion after rebellion and nobody would take them seriously.

Yet, we know they struck fear into the entire galaxy.

You are also making the mistake of saying just because the Soviets fell in 2 years that the Empire, which is exponentially larger on a much much larger scale, only fell apart in a marginally slower amount of time. That is what you call reaching.

Is it time for another "TotalWar doesn't like the new Star Wars and wants to make sure we all understand just how much he doesn't like the new Star Wars by starting a thread where he rants about it" thread?

How time flies.

3. ... The British Empire dissolved overnight?

I'm American, and even I think that's a bit of an overstatement.

The cover art is a weird thing to be mad at a book about. I've never seen a cover that affected the quality of a novel.

As to #2.... sure, before Clone Luke came after himself, and Kyp Durron learned how to pilot a starfighter that shoots supernovas from a holo-ghost Sith Lord, and used it to take out a Hutt who had the El Camino of Death Stars. Oh, and then the whole galaxy was invaded by Tyranids, and at some point Luke's mom was a grey force user, white force user, and possibly some other variant of ghost.

My point being that good or bad, the EU was a bloated sprawling creation with no coherent mythos, other than all film characters were immortal. Now, granted, this was fun and had some absolutely amazing material in there- I still love Rogue Squadron, and would rather see that turned into a Top Gun style Star Wars movie than see Boba Fett's tale of vengeance. They couldn't have stayed true to all of the old EU if they had tried- they needed to start fresh to maintain the world's coherency.

I'm not saying this novel is better than all of the old EU- I read the sample chapter, and really, really hope the rest of it is not in that immediate, choppy style. I do not look forward to slogging through a novel written like that.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
3. ... The British Empire dissolved overnight?

I'm American, and even I think that's a bit of an overstatement.

It's also completely different, as the dissolution of the British Empire was a very long process, and one willfully started by the Empire itself.

A better analog would be the Roman Empire. It was plagued by internal and external forces. Yet it actually survived till 1453 AD. Nearly 1500 years, and that isn't including the 500 or so years it was a Republic. A galaxy spanning empire on the other hand, assuming one could actually manage to establish itself, would last for far longer.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I suppose you think Lucas was some genius script writer too

In the Prequels, I am sure there was a scene where it was mentioned there was over a million worlds in the Republic. Given the Senate existed up until the beginning of New Hope we can safely say the Empire still has roughly the same number of worlds.

It would be impossible for the Empire to control that many worlds and strike fear into the entire galaxy if they didn't have a military to match it. if they only had a few thousand ships they'd be utterly laughable, running from system to system clamping down on rebellion after rebellion and nobody would take them seriously.

Yet, we know they struck fear into the entire galaxy.

You are also making the mistake of saying just because the Soviets fell in 2 years that the Empire, which is exponentially larger on a much much larger scale, only fell apart in a marginally slower amount of time. That is what you call reaching.

Size is irrelevant if the same process takes place on multiple planets at the same time. You're also talking about a galaxy where communication and travel is instant across such vast distances meaning that scale becomes, again, meaningless.

They killed the last of the Sith (until they retconned this) and without the Sith the Empire has nothing to hold it together.

Dude if you want to be a Disney fanboy then fine. But come on, this is a retcon of the ending of Return of the Jedi. The rebels win. You see this at the end of the film. Duisney just wants to make money of its franchise.

If you were so knowledgeable you'd know that communication and travel are NOT instantaneous in Star Wars.

The portion of the Holonet which enables instant communication is not something everyone has access to. Only the exceptionally wealthy or government agents have access to it. Everyone else has to make so with the rough equivalent of Email. Travel also takes days or even weeks, and that is if you are using the main Hyperspace lanes(and Class1-2 Hyperdrives)

I'm not a Disney fanboi, just a Lucas hater

Totalwar do you mean the original ending, where we see some fireworks and an Ewok kegger, or the Special Edition where Lucas shows us the galaxy celebrating? Because it sounds like you're mad at a retcon of a retcon.

This is what I think of as the canon ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np6vAuS0KNs

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Totalwar do you mean the original ending, where we see some fireworks and an Ewok kegger, or the Special Edition where Lucas shows us the galaxy celebrating? Because it sounds like you're mad at a retcon of a retcon.

This is what I think of as the canon ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np6vAuS0KNs

Nah that's more filling in the blanks rather than a retcon. The tone is very much the same and the Sith are defeated.

BTW, beating the Sith is a big deal. Its like saying that after Return of the King the Free Peoples would have huge problems with all those orcs. Well, no, their master is dead and the evil of Sauron fades from the world. If you kill the Sith, then the evil of the Empire fades from the galaxy. Star Wars is a story of the same mein as LoTR its very much about magic metaphysics and an almost biblical light vs darkness. Its not supposed to be a story about two huge armies grinding each other down over several decades in a conventional war. So you shouldn't let the sci fi setting obscure that fact. Killing the Emperor is exactly like killing Sauron.

I just feel like it almost approaches a parody that you go from the scene we see of Coruscant with all the people celebrating, to Stormtroopers gunning everyone down.

I would disagree- the Empire is a militarized beauracracy. They accomplish just about every task set before them, and can overcome leadership assassination- except when they're being commanded by the Sith.

The Death Star is personally commanded to be built by the Emperor. It is also, militarily speaking, a phenomenally bad idea. It's a walking planetary nuke, which is not efficient at eliminating a rebellion- as someone who had just won a civil war would know. Star Destroyers can interdict and oppress a planetary population much more efficiently- and outside of the battle of Endor, the rebels don't kill them onscreen.

Had Vader not meddled, Grand Moff Tarking would have stopped the Millennium Falcon from escaping- and that would have been that. Admittedly, his arrogance prevents him from enabling the Death Star's full defensive complement at the battle of Yavin- but would he have been worried about his pride without Vader choking out his crew and throwing his big swinging lightsabre around?

Moving on to Empire Strikes Back, the Battle of Hoth is an unequivocal Imperial victory- despite losing the element of surprise, and having the commander executed hours before the battle. This really is the best example of Imperial efficiency. The Admiral is killed, and it hardly impairs the landing or interdiction efforts. Only the presence of a planetary ion cannon allows any Rebels to escape.

Sith kill more Star Destroyers than the Rebels do in the entire trilogy by commanding the whole fleet into the asteroid field, a pursuit that is broken off and made futile because they had to stop so the Emperor could tell Vader about his new cloak, and chat about their secret, not at all military goals.

The bounty hunters, and the whole cloud city arc are just more Sith pet projects, which should have been used to pursue Rebel transports. Imagine if several transports worth of supplies had been pursued, and the location of the Rebel fleet discovered instead of luring one fighter pilot to Cloud City. One Star Destroyer could have secured the whole Bespin system, without a need for the SSD.

Then in Jedi- Admiral Piett, the man who kicked the rebels off Hoth his first day on the job, holds back his fleet, and forfeits surprise because another Sith commanded him to. Had the Imperial Fleet come at them immediately and at full strength, the Rebels would have had to break off or suffer unacceptable casualties.

Wow, this got way too long. In conclusion, the Sith suck as military leaders, and are really good at throwing away nice, objective victory because they want to personally stomp on their enemy's force choked necks. The Empire is way better off without them.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A better analog would be the Roman Empire. It was plagued by internal and external forces. Yet it actually survived till 1453 AD. Nearly 1500 years, and that isn't including the 500 or so years it was a Republic. A galaxy spanning empire on the other hand, assuming one could actually manage to establish itself, would last for far longer.

You could also look at Iraq, or Egypt for parallels....

External force kills off the uber-strong "head of state" with no real plan of action for afterwards other than "Freedom", meanwhile forces loyal to the ideals of the former rulers, or extreme forces with their own ideology spring forth and seize power of what areas they can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gitzbitah wrote:

Spoiler:

I would disagree- the Empire is a militarized beauracracy. They accomplish just about every task set before them, and can overcome leadership assassination- except when they're being commanded by the Sith.

The Death Star is personally commanded to be built by the Emperor. It is also, militarily speaking, a phenomenally bad idea. It's a walking planetary nuke, which is not efficient at eliminating a rebellion- as someone who had just won a civil war would know. Star Destroyers can interdict and oppress a planetary population much more efficiently- and outside of the battle of Endor, the rebels don't kill them onscreen.

Had Vader not meddled, Grand Moff Tarking would have stopped the Millennium Falcon from escaping- and that would have been that. Admittedly, his arrogance prevents him from enabling the Death Star's full defensive complement at the battle of Yavin- but would he have been worried about his pride without Vader choking out his crew and throwing his big swinging lightsabre around?

Moving on to Empire Strikes Back, the Battle of Hoth is an unequivocal Imperial victory- despite losing the element of surprise, and having the commander executed hours before the battle. This really is the best example of Imperial efficiency. The Admiral is killed, and it hardly impairs the landing or interdiction efforts. Only the presence of a planetary ion cannon allows any Rebels to escape.

Sith kill more Star Destroyers than the Rebels do in the entire trilogy by commanding the whole fleet into the asteroid field, a pursuit that is broken off and made futile because they had to stop so the Emperor could tell Vader about his new cloak, and chat about their secret, not at all military goals.

The bounty hunters, and the whole cloud city arc are just more Sith pet projects, which should have been used to pursue Rebel transports. Imagine if several transports worth of supplies had been pursued, and the location of the Rebel fleet discovered instead of luring one fighter pilot to Cloud City. One Star Destroyer could have secured the whole Bespin system, without a need for the SSD.

Then in Jedi- Admiral Piett, the man who kicked the rebels off Hoth his first day on the job, holds back his fleet, and forfeits surprise because another Sith commanded him to. Had the Imperial Fleet come at them immediately and at full strength, the Rebels would have had to break off or suffer unacceptable casualties.

Wow, this got way too long. In conclusion, the Sith suck as military leaders, and are really good at throwing away nice, objective victory because they want to personally stomp on their enemy's force choked necks. The Empire is way better off without them.

Ironically, I think you can use almost that same exact explanation for Hitler

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Wow, this got way too long.

And, you know, that it is a metaphor for good versus evil and not a reflection of reality.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
...after they just canned and devalued 30 years work of their own lore.

They haven't 'devalued' anything. The EU material was ultimately only ever a 'what if' situation, since Lucas was always ready to ignore it at whim.

This people who enjoyed reading the EU stuff (myself included) can still do so, and they'll still be exactly the same books as they were before Episode 7 was announced.

I mean, why should I buy this.

For the same reason you might have bought EU books - Because you want to read a story set in the Star Wars universe.

I mean for one thing, I am not even sure this new book is considered canon with the films. They could very well just be rewriting the EU for all I know. So to me, I see something that Disney or another company could just say isn't "real" Star Wars a few years down the road or might label as non canon. I mean if they're going to maintain that only the films are canon then this naturally devalues any non film Star Wars product that they make.

The official word from Dysney was that to start with only the films would be canon, but everything released from Aftermath onwards woud tie into the canon as well.

Which, IMO, is a really great reason for ditching the existing EU. There were just too many inconsistencies and downright errors written in for it to ever be feasible to include all of the existing material if they wanted to create a cohesive, all-canon-all-the-time universe.

So, the EU is dead. Everything released now will be canon. And that's exciting as all heck.

 insaniak wrote:

So, the EU is dead. Everything released now will be canon. And that's exciting as all heck.

And even then, if it just so happens that an element that previously existed in the EU gets re-written into this new "canon universe" then it's all the better.

As it stands, there are even some things in the canon that I absolutely hate, and have been vocal about those things (midichlorians... Fething Boba Fett is NOT a fething clone, I don't give a feth what those prequels say!)

If Disney retcon communicators that are not made from Gilette lady shavers they can go hang!

If there was a species or planet that was able to hide force-attuned people, and that person was able to somehow attune himself to the dark-side, then that's a perfectly acceptable way to bring a Sith back in to the story.

I for one can't wait for this.

I loved the Thrawn Trilogy, The Yuuzhan Vong War was awesome. But I can still enjoy these! What I'm getting is IMO a more realistic carry on.

The new comics are quality, and I say that as someone that has far too many of the old Dark Horse stuff. And those characters I loved as a kid, Han and Fett, are getting a bigger back story, in a format I dreamed of. The story behind the aquiring of the Death Star plans? It's own film? Awesome! That struggle, not from a hero, but from those determined to battle oppression no matter what the cost.

These threads will always turn into a 'I'm a fan' 'No, I'm a bigger fan' arguments. And I feel for those that have decided that they won't enjoy something no matter what comes out. Because that thing I fell in love with as a kid, and still love just as much now? I'm getting a chance to fall in love all over again, and see the next generation do the same.

Plus Sith can arise by themselves so to speak.

An individual discovers he has force powers and decides to use them for his own purposes. The dark side leads him to an ancient Sith temple where he learns from a Holocron.

In a way, I think the force actually ensures new Sith/Jedi arise to create balance.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

So, the EU is dead. Everything released now will be canon. And that's exciting as all heck.

And even then, if it just so happens that an element that previously existed in the EU gets re-written into this new "canon universe" then it's all the better.

And that is the thing that so many people seem to miss.

Disney said that the EU is no longer canon, they never said that anything EU will never be canon again.

Truly, we are living in the age of Schrödinger's Star Wars: Every storyline in the EU is potentially dead/alive, we won't know what is canon until the next book or movie is coming out.

 d-usa wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

So, the EU is dead. Everything released now will be canon. And that's exciting as all heck.

And even then, if it just so happens that an element that previously existed in the EU gets re-written into this new "canon universe" then it's all the better.

And that is the thing that so many people seem to miss.

Disney said that the EU is no longer canon, they never said that anything EU will never be canon again.

Truly, we are living in the age of Schrödinger's Star Wars: Every storyline in the EU is potentially dead/alive, we won't know what is canon until the next book or movie is coming out.

I mean, technically they've already started doing that. Star Wars: Rebels is considered canon, as is Star Wars: The Clone Wars (not to be confused with the Gendy Star Wars: Clone Wars series, which is ambiguously not) and both have featured characters previously introduced in the EU.

Why would an Empire that didn't least 20 years take longer than that to collapse?

The Empire was an Empire, meaning it was a collection of semi-soveriegn states. In the second Thrawn series, Zahn actually makes the really valid point that the Imperial Military mostly concerned itself with active rebellions and keeping constiutient nations from warring with each other.

I see the Galactic Empire less like the Roman or British empires, and more like the Empire of Alexander, which splintered immediatly after his death.

 Polonius wrote:
Why would an Empire that didn't least 20 years take longer than that to collapse?

The Empire was an Empire, meaning it was a collection of semi-soveriegn states. In the second Thrawn series, Zahn actually makes the really valid point that the Imperial Military mostly concerned itself with active rebellions and keeping constiutient nations from warring with each other.

I see the Galactic Empire less like the Roman or British empires, and more like the Empire of Alexander, which splintered immediatly after his death.

Pretty much this. The Emperor pretty much set up conditions for the whole thing to fall apart without him. Right at the beginning of the Empire (i.e., A New Hope) the Emperor dissolves the Senate, removing the last bonds that tie the various areas together. Power was given to the local governments because they had a shiny new Death Star: "Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." Then that battle station blew up. And the next one ALSO blew up, taking the Emperor with it. There was pretty much nothing left at that point to keep the systems from fracturing and returning to local control. The Imperial Navy had just taken heavy losses at Endor; including losing the Super Star Destroyer Executor. Sure, they'd be able to hold onto areas like Coruscant, which had heavy Empire presence already. But fringe worlds would fall away pretty easily.

 streamdragon wrote:

Pretty much this. The Emperor pretty much set up conditions for the whole thing to fall apart without him. Right at the beginning of the Empire (i.e., A New Hope) the Emperor dissolves the Senate, removing the last bonds that tie the various areas together. Power was given to the local governments because they had a shiny new Death Star: "Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." Then that battle station blew up. And the next one ALSO blew up, taking the Emperor with it. There was pretty much nothing left at that point to keep the systems from fracturing and returning to local control. The Imperial Navy had just taken heavy losses at Endor; including losing the Super Star Destroyer Executor. Sure, they'd be able to hold onto areas like Coruscant, which had heavy Empire presence already. But fringe worlds would fall away pretty easily.

I think he was "planning" on there being an obvious and direct "heir" to the title/throne of emperor (Vader), and didn't count at all on both of them being removed at the same time. According to some stuff out there, the Executor was one of six or seven total "flagships" of its type that had been built, though I think only three had entered service.

The Galactic Empire is actually much, much older than 20 years. It has always existed as one of several rivals/alternatives to the Galactic Republic (which is, itself, thousands of years old).

Palpatine's Empire lasts 20 years, but that's only following the his coup that unseats the Republic and allows him to take Coruscant basically overnight. The actual seat of the traditional Empire is in the galactic north-east, Ziost, later relocated to Dromund Kaas.

And then there's Korriban, the birthplace of Sith power in the galaxy.

So what Palpatine did was basically, through treachery and guile, achieve victory where scores of Dark Lords of the Sith (Revan included) had failed: he captured Coruscant and toppled the Galactic Republic.

Plus the Empire was really the same entity as the Republic. They just changed the stationary, renamed the position of Chancellor, and made that position a lifetime appointment. But in all other respects it was the same entity. It took decades for Palpatine to begin making major changes, like getting rid of the Senate.