Yeah, the issue was in demilitarizing before the Imperial forces were 100% wiped out, but their incompetence was not in breaking down hardware, it was in not paying attention to the First Order and Imperial remnants under their noses.

I like the working excuse that, in Star Wars Legends the slow conquest allowed the New Republican Government to be an independant and new government. With Operation Cinder, it was pretty much ‘Out with the Moff, in with the Senator,’ which left the inherent corruption of the Old Republic/Imperial system untouched

What's weird is we rarely seem to see these planetary defense forces actually on patrol - they seem to hang out planetside and only deploy once alerted, which seems like a really bad way to deter piracy...

"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs.

The New Republic was much better written in Legends

One of my personal main gripes with the New Republic demilitarizing so rapidly after being established is that it makes no sense in situational awareness terms right after the end of a bloody civil war. Especially with their fleets still having plenty of stuff to do (-cough outer rim cough-) in the meanwhile. Demilitarization as an eventual goal would have been a waaaaay better move over immediate hat drop decision-making. This whole plot point just feels so incredibly dumb it's awfully hard to see it in any other way than being dumb. And it wouldn't even be too hard to think of several potential credibly reasons for the New Republic to HAVE to cut down on its fleet and demilitarize. Economics, for one. The Empire sank enormous amounts of it's budget into Death Stars and other secret projects/programs. This would no doubt have massive ramifications on the galactic economy, and the Empire being replaced by the New Republic would inherit these issues. No money to keep that fleet a running, and forcing demilitarization would work as a valid plot point. Which could lead to too stingy behavior (not responding to First Order attacks), and there we go: the rest of the script writes itself (it's very hard to find exciting ways to spin this whole demilitarization business due to it just being so dumb.) The Clone Wars did though have an episode centered around this sort of plot point. Padme fighting to defeat the bill to order more clones, which woulda been funded with money meant for providing citizens with basic public services that were already wavering due to the Republic funneling it into war efforts. A whole host of banking clan episodes to come to mind, so economics could easily have been utilized in writing a reason for demilitarization. Would have created an interesting situation to discuss, too, rather than the New Republic just being dumb for dumbs sake.

I think the writers want the canon NR to be incompetent or no better than the Empire, and I'm all for that if that's how they want to go, but they make them so dumb that it comes off as cartoonish and completely unrealistic. Moff Gideon goes missing while on his way to trial and somehow no one notices? He's assumed dead then suddenly turns up alive with a whole army and is captured, but no one asks how he came by this army? He then shows up again with another army coming out his ass and still no one cares. Same happens in Ahsoka when they rescue Morgan but for some reason it's ignored by both the writers and the characters past episode 2. A whole ship is massacred and for some reason the Senate doesn't care to know why and/or ignores the real threat Thrawn poses if he is alive? The Imperial reprograming from mando s3 also sends up red flags out the ass to anyone with a functioning brain. Did no one think to question why the NR is using Imperial brainwashing machines to "fix" ex-imp officers? These are huge, high profile individuals & incidents that had the capacity to harm the NR's newly formed government, and it feels like no one cares and everyone just assumes any remaining imperial faction is just weak warlords and bandits except the obvious main & side characters or a few background side characters. It's really frustrating to watch. I'll just stick to Legends for post ROTJ stuff, for all its faults at least that felt like a real system in place run by actual people and was a credible form of government to counter the Empire and its remnant factions.

The galaxy was saved more by the power of Lando's friends list than anything else. Now he was an influencer! Leia couldn't even get those same systems to answer her calls when she stranded her Resistance survivors on Crait with no way out!

The new Republic in legends had its moments but at least made sense as a logical progression from episode 6. Disney's New Republic is irrationally stupid in behavior to the point of questioning what child wrote this big picture background?

So in the end it all comes back to Spaceballs: Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

I’ve gotten into SWTOR and been blown away by how much more Star Warsy it is than anything I’ve seen Disney release since Andor.

Templin Institute did an excellent video of the ineptitudes of the Republic, specifically Hera’s interactions with the senators.

Eck you should do a video of the perfect “police fleet” A fleet that a system would have to protect itself from pirates, smugglers or small enemy fleets You could have multiple episodes one for each faction from the Republic to the New Republic

The problem with planetary, or system, defense forces is that once you face a threat large enough to need to commit multiple forces you are opening up an organizational nightmare. Without a unified command structure you can't coordinate multiple forces. Each force has a command structure and fighting doctrine that focuses on the defense of their interests.

#AskEck What do we know of the development of the Venator? Was it ready at the outset of the Clone Wars or did it enter service sometime after it began? And what did the Republic Navy have before it came into service that could stand up to Seperatist capital ships? Lore ship Versus video request: Resurgent vs. Starhawk Tie Striker vs. New Republic V-Wing World Devastator vs. Vong Worldship Tie Silencer vs. X-83 Twintail Tie Silencer vs. Tie Defender (legends version) Keldabe vs. ISD II MC90 vs. Nebula class star destroyer Nebula class vs. Pellaeon class Majestic class vs. Bothan Assault Cruiser EAWX: FOTR’s Mandator II portrayal vs. Subjugator Praetor vs. Subjugator EAWX: TR’s Mediator portrayal vs. Resurgent Starhawk vs. Bulwark MK III Gargantua/Aratech 520 Battle Platform vs. A6 Juggernaut

Legends at times was inconsistent with certain technical and tech specifications in the lore via differential narratives and writing styles. But we can all agree it's way better than what we are seeing now. Even with all Filoni is doing the Empire/Old Republic falling apart in the space of a few years makes no sense. With the examples of real world empire the metropolis of the empire usually compartmentalizes and consolidates to create a smaller but still powerful sphere of influence. Or a new metrople is crafted elsewhere; even the possibility of satellite states become hubs of power in their own right. Even with operation cinder large systems and their fleets and some sectors should have the resources and expertise to remain autonomous. And the NR shouldn't have had the time, resources or power to force a decisive battle when the Empires reach should have prevented an all out collapse with some mid and outer rim areas already autonomous and out of the immediate fighting. All in all Legends handled the Imp Remnants and the NR wayyyyy better. This was also a good vid as always. Sorry for the ramble

Yup In both Legends and Canon. It’s literally the only thing Disney kept accurate. The NR should’ve had a target goal of 25% of the Imperial Navy stationed in the Outer and Mid rims while the Inner Rims relied more on Planetary Defenses.

Still the First Order only lasted for about a year, unlike the Empire that came before it which lasted 30 or the Sith empire which I think lasted for thousands. I wonder what faction will take over the galaxy in a Post-Ep 9 era, will there be another New Republic?

#AskEck: What are your thoughts on Operation Domino and how the Galactic Civil War would've gone if it was successful? I wish we could've gotten more lore about the "Secession Worlds" mentioned in The Essential Guide to Warfare that the Empire crushed early on.

Couldn’t agree more with Eck on this one. Demilitarization isn’t dumb by any stretch, and this policy would have worked for the NR, but a strong outside threat that was able to decapitate this inter-system alliance proved too great a challenge.

When the books say that the New Republic intends to scrap 90% of its fleet, that's 90% of it's Jakku-era fleet, which is fighting conventional war across probably hundreds of systems at once. That fleet is MASSIVE, and would be extraordinarily expensive to maintain, especially since it is not remotely standardized. 10% of that would be an extremely potent force, especially if the 10% they keep is the more modern and advanced purpose-built warships. A lot of the 90% would be hastily-armed civilian ships that have no place in a peacetime military, and whose crews don't want to stick around anyways. That's an important thing people forget - a lot of the personnel signed up to stick it to the Empire, not to spend the rest of their lives as soldiers. Folks want to go home once the crisis is over. For comparison, after World War II, the United States' armed forces decreased by almost 90% as the army demobilized, because that's what happens when you go into a state of total war and then win. The New Republic is also working in a specific in-universe historical context. The Clone Wars Republic gave the Chancellor emergency powers and an army with the expectation that it would demilitarize again at the end, but it didn't - the old Republic won the war and kept bulking up anyways. That is the defining sin of the Empire in the view of many people, so it makes complete sense that the New Republic would take active, public steps to differentiate themselves. Declaring demobilization before things are fully wrapped up is a political promise, not an immediate policy. I also suspect that a lot of the "decommissioned" warships were not scrapped, but rather sold off to form the core of the new planetary defense fleets. Again, to use a history example, late into the 20th century there were tons of third-world navies were using ships the United States built for WWII and then sold off afterwards. It's pretty clear that the canon New Republic has a defense strategy of a relatively small (on a galactic scale - still big in any one battle) central fleet of highly advanced ships that can call on a large number of planetary fleets that are individually big enough to fight pirates but small enough not to menace each other. That seems like an ideal way to make a navy that can defend the Republic but cannot be used against its own planets, which would have been a top-priority design concern for a post-Empire government. It's basically the state militia theory of the early United States. And I think it would have worked, even with all the First Order's firepower, if not for Starkiller Base, which allowed the FO to decapitate the Republic leadership, cripple their central fleet and then blitzkrieg before the PDFs could get activated and organized. Even there, the NR's strategy arguably played out successfully - all those Mon Calamari ships at Exegol are probably Republic-funded PDF ships that hadn't been able to unite and fight back until then. The First Order's strategy was very good, but if they'd done anything else, they probably would have found themselves in an unwinnable war of attrition almost immediately. TL;DR: New Republic demobilization and postwar strategy makes perfect sense in-universe, and only faltered (not failed) because of a superweapon with capabilities unlike anything ever created.

A big problem with the Disney material is they dont show us anything they tell us. Why is it in the sequels theres no New Republic fleet? They tell us (and not even in the movies) that the fleet has been destroyed. Its the same with Sabine and her apparently being trained as a Jedi. Since when in Rebels did she ever show any knack to be force sensitive? Well they tell us off screen Ahsoka took her in... Its all rushed amd nothing is planned properly.

When legends was written was the 80's and 90's. This was during the fall of the Soviet Union and also before modern academia took any mainstream interest in de-colonization. Therefore the New Republic in legends is depicted, I feel, as almost sickening good. It's the restoration and improvement of the Old Republic that succeeds and is peaceful until the writers decide a crisis needs to happen for the main characters to overcome. But the real world doesn't operate like that. When governments are overthrown. The stooges and pencil pushes don't just disappear. Often they take jobs in the new government. Militaries that seemed invincible collapse suddenly without clear leadership. The new government often struggles with competing interests and balancing self-defense with maintaining a peace, and they often fail. Obviously writing quality plays a role. But at it's core It seems "dumb" only because we in the west have never experienced the chaos of such events (yet). But ask a Syrian, or a Congalese. And you may get a more interesting answer. Because good guys and bad guys only exist in fantasy.

as someone said with no ememy to fight they turn on themselves with corruption

#AskEck Will we ever get to see anymore Versus match-up videos, or Battle Breakdown videos in the future? I would love to get your opinion on some versus battle ideas that I have; plus see any new battles in Canon, or old battles in Legends get hyper-analyzed by you, again.

Personally I think the New Republic in both Legends and Canon should've used their captured ships as bargaining pieces. They were both in an economic hole by the time they captured Coruscant, and as the war was coming to a close it would've made more sense to hold auctions for many of these ships so that local Governments could defend themselves, the New Republic would receive an influx of capital and cut the costs on their part in terms of ship maintenance, and it would also be a good incentive to join the New Republic, seeing as many system governments would've loved to get their hands on ships for a defense fleet.

Eck trying his best to start of the new year on a high note. Thanks man.

The New Republic should have Kept 3-4 good sized fleets, these would be used to keep peace and reinforce any planetary systems under attack. In exchange for a guaranteed response from the New Republic fleets, member worlds would be required to have expeditionary forces avaible to reinforce the Republic fleets.

6:00 I think it's important to note, vis-à-vis the Trade Federation, they didn't set up to build a military force for conquest, they started arming their ships because they kept being raided by pirates and freebooters and the Republic was either unable or willing to do it for them. They morphed into being an aggressive force themselves, but they didn't begin that way.

Happy new year, Eck! I hope your baby didn't get that virus

I think if the new republic decreased their fleet to 50% after the empire was 100% defeated and still had system defense forces that could easily and quickly integrate into the main republic fleet to make it larger, they would have been way better off, but also reacting to the first order as a real threat instead of trying to ignore them and keep their peace

The way canon seems to be treating it is that demilitarization is the goal, and (as seen in Ahsoka) it is gradually reaching that. I would say the fleet would be fully demilitarized by 15 ABY based on what we’ve seen, but the NRDF still always remained the dominant active force in the galaxy until 34 ABY.

The philosophical question about military policy in the known galaxy is therefore centralization versus decentralization? This is not unknown from our own world where there are many countries that have a history where the centralized military was reduced in relation to other military branches as with the army and navy in Great Britain, and as with the federal army and state militias in the United States. The galaxy consisted of several thousand self-governing planets with their own laws and practices and thus had to be busy maintaining order within their domains in the face of pirates, lawbreakers and potential threats from other powers. It is possible that the Republic simply consisted of small political units - thousands, so that there will be many small "self-defense fleets" which together will constitute a very formidable force as witnessed in the last Star Wars movie. But from a military point of view, these will have limited capacity, and that is where a centralized and specialized military came into the picture. Star Destroyers are a good example of this, these are multi-role warships that functioned primarily as mobile bases with a strike force on board, reconnaissance machines and then strong firepower that will overwhelm any local opposition. From our own history it has been seen many times that better equipped and trained armies can overcome much larger militias with their professionalism and specialization in the use of military force. In several countries, this has been regarded with skepticism and even perceived as a latent threat because such a concentration of power in a few hands enables the abuse of power and dangerous threats to the established system of power based on institutions such as the Parliament in England. Considering the historical background of Star Wars history with many wars followed by centuries of relative peace, it will not be surprising that the idea of having a large central military power was unpopular for a long time. Moreover, this is expensive; to wield power on thousands of planets requires considerable resources, and Palpatine had built on the military armaments of the Clone Wars to enlarge the Imperial military. We have seen, as with the TIE fighters, that economy and simplicity in mass production were essential to have a large military apparatus that must be able to have several tens of thousands of ships with millions of soldiers and professionals in operational condition. This took a lot of time and considerable resources that the New Republic did not necessarily have, as much of the responsibility fell to the local forces at a time when there was no major military threat. Moreover, the self-defense capability with armed civilian ships, armed civilians and unrestricted arms trade is very common in the Star Wars galaxy where large parts of civilized space are characterized by lawlessness and social tensions. This, in my opinion, put limitations on military technology because far too many times we have seen large ships armed with "small" weapons like turbolasers on Star Destroyers while these same weapons were well suited on smaller ships and fighters. It is as if a Man-of-Arms from the Napoleonic Wars had 5-pounder guns instead of 24-pounder guns. A central military force could create a huge imbalance with its large ships and endless resources. It is no wonder then that this was unattractive to both the Old Republic and the New Republic.

unfortunately that leaves the Outer Rim problem unresolved. the demilitarization wont resolve the pirates, the evil plots, and general crime.this is a constant failure on the Republican and they keep getting bit by it.

#AskEck do you think there will ever be a Star Wars “What If” show? What are your thoughts on that?

#AskEck Still interested in exploring the relationship between the Jedi Order and the Clone Troopers in both Canon and Legends. Why are the Jedi and Clones more positive and friendly with each other in Canon while they’re colder and more antagonistic between each other in Legends? As for the New Republic in Canon, it feels like it would be foolish to call demilitarization a stupid move given what we see with the Galactic Republic before the Clone Wars, even if I do love the Clone Troopers. At least with the Galactic Republic, they demilitarized after the fall of the Sith Empire while the New Republic started in the months leading up to the Battle of Jakku when the Galactic Empire was still around. To be fair, the Empire was full of infighting as we see in Squadrons and there was also Operation Cinder turning the galaxy against the Empire like in Battlefront 2. After the war, the Imperial Remnants were scattered and no longer had Star Destroyers or legions of Stormtroopers, but they made sure to hide their reforged unity and of course there was the First Order. If anything, the New Republic’s flaw was more arrogance and an extreme desire for peace, even more so than the Jedi Order and Galactic Republic. At least in their case the Sith Empire had been totally wiped out and they had peace for 1,000 years while the New Republic only had peace for 30 years and didn’t even wipe out the Galactic Empire.

#AskEck can you please give Star Wars Legends novel recommendations for those who have read the bigger stories. I have listened to basically everything on Audible that is unabridged besides a few old Republic and the ones releasing later this year for the first time in unabridged form (which I have pre ordered) and am about half way into the New Jedi Order and am planning on Dark Nest and Legacy of the Force after it. I also picked up the Corellian and Jedi Academy trilogy yesterday and want recommendations beyond those. No comics either I have most of the collected editions from the New Republic era.

No, they werent as dumb as we think. They were far, far dumber than we think. We could probably write numerous white papers/a doctral thesis on why a massive governing body like the Republic need a standing military. My biggest issue with the demilitarization (in the new canon) immediatly following the defeat of the emperor was that Mon Mothma and her buddies learned NOTHING from how the original republic failed. The later shows seem to shift the focus from this as Eck mentions, but its still a major factor the background lore keeps pushing. That is why so many folks like the EA NR so much better. They werent perfect, they failed too, but the continuously evolved and tried new ways until they got to one that worked.

The biggest thing that annoys me about the deescalation of the New and Galactic Republic is that for the large part, it's a Tell not shown situation. Particularly in Cannon there has been near zero instances of large defense forces being shown on screen doing things or even existing. On top of that, whenever a big threat shows up, the respective governments revert back to a large centralized military anyway. Legends at least tried, but in both cases, it seems like a massive oversight with the writing. I'd love to see a galaxy teeming with all these influential independant defense forces and all the mayhem that would come about because of them, but I just don't see it.

At some point in the 30 years the new Republic did invest in the fleet or military. Hux in his speech mentions thier cherished fleet.

What people seem to forget is an army needs to be financially maintained, ad infinitum depending on your governing policies. This logically must come from taxing the people you just liberated from the people savagely taxing them. Good luck convincing them of paying those taxes when you just promised they no longer have any enemies to combat. We see the struggle of even convincing other senators of the threat of remnant forces so it honestly makes sense why things went the way they did.

That lines up with my assessment as well. That Aftermath trilogy did no favors for the new canon, I'd argue that it did more harm than good to the sequel era. The movies lost their way quick enough on their own, but material like these books & the Resistance show attempting to fill in the gaps just made everything even worse. Ok, I have to admit that Resistance had like... maybe three interesting episodes that focused on the First Order stuff. I recall one of them dealt with some destroyed proto planet that was basically the testbed for the Starkiller project, or something to that effect.

@askEck can you do a rundown on the difference between Legends Clone Jedi relations and The Clone Wars slash canon Clone Jedi relations. I find the differences I glimpse interesting

I mean, it's sort of the same logic with the American military. The colonies had militias, but Washington had an army established through Congress, but was demobilised and mostly stood down after winning. But because of subsequent events, it kept expanding. Then the world wars happened, which led it to increase in size compared to 'militia' troops.

I think the biggest issue and plot hole of the New Republic traces its routes back to the Clone Wars which really was a civil war more than anything. Star Wars and the New Republic fails to address that there were countless hard line CIS citizens that would likely oppose the recreation of the Empire. It really doesn't help that the New Republic had quite a bit of the same old issues that the Republic had during the Clone Wars as well.

#AskEck What's your opinion on the new Star Wars Battle of The Heroes fan film put out by "Hello There"? Also, have you seen this fan film by Fan Film (The channel is called that) about Darth Caedus' final duel with Jaina Solo in Invincible? What's your opinion on that? The fan film is called "Star Wars Legends: Legacy of The Force" if you don't know.

The New Republic has to be incompetent in order for the rise of the First Order to be believed. What bothers me most about this is that the First Order doesn’t have to be portrayed as a worthy adversary, they just need to be better than a bumbling New Republic. The whole premise sucks.

#AskEck How well was the Empire held together between Endor and Thrawn’s return in Legends? Who were the ruler(s) and primary fleet commander(s) during this time period?

#AskEck like you did with the ISD, if you could redesign the Venator to fix most of its flaws, how would you fix up the Venator to preform better than it could have personally, one of the main changes I would make is having overhead racks like on the Quasar to store ships on top to essentially double the ship capacity without adding any length to the ship

It's so jarring to compare Mon mothma in ahsoka to Mon mothma in andor

In new "canon." yes. The New Republic is completely and totally inept. In Legends, they were smart enough to recognize that though the destruction of Death Star 2 and the Emperor's death at Endor was a massive blow, the Empire yet remained. Damaged, yes, and weakened as a result of the loss of so much, but by no means was it finished at Endor. That was just wishful thinking.

it must have economic reasons too. Can you imagine the financial strain of supporting such a huge fleet ? I guess after the civil war it made sense to divert money toward rebuilding the State and the economy rather than keeping the Imperial boot people fought so hard to get rid of. Having said that all the NR depictions don't shed a good light on them. Every time it's so underwhelming.

Missed opportunity to put "yes" in the thumbnail. Maybe too low hanging fruit I guess.

#askeck Was rewatching Star Wars movies over the holidays, and something that always bugged me from Attack of the Clones was the creation of the clone army, not the clones I get how that can be done in secret. Who paid for the ships, weapons, tanks, armor, the stocking of the ships? All of that military infrastructure done in total secret is baffling.

Even during the republic standing fleets were the norm. Yeah, they limited the max size of ships with the ruusan reformation, but planetary and sector defense forces were still needed.

Disney sure does a good job at taking what legends did and trying to adapt it but failing at it

I think a much better way of doing the demilitarization would be that while system fleets would return there would be an military that would exist which should be equal to 5 or better yet 10 times the system fleet limitations. As a result those system fleets would be more of stop-gap/slow down forces, focusing on if they are overpowered to impede the enemy forces rather than wipe them out, but when dealing with pirates they are by far adequate and don't need any micromanagement by the main government of the galaxy. This would have made it so that when the Separatist's kicked off their war it would have been more difficult for them to freely act as the Republic would have had a force to respond to them at the start while building up an bigger force, same with the First Order coming around too. In addition to simply having a force, it would come with a clear command structure for said force, experience too with that since it's training could be set much harsher since it would have been the SWAT of the Police (system forces) of the galaxy.

It also makes no sense that the nEw oRdEr could make SO MANY MASSIVE warships and no one noticed or cared

The problem with the New Republic is it adopted a lot of Old Republic policies, like a decentralized military, and it inherited a lot of Empire problem, like wide spread corruption, poverty and billions of slaves that had to be dealt with. Not to mention towards the end of the Empire organized criminal syndicates had grown in power. And all three had the same major problem, major division between core and outter rim planets. It never stood a chance, it was too big from the outset, and there was no way for it to have the economy of the tyrannical Empire to support everything it needed to do to secure it's border, weed out corruption, fight organized crime and deal with Imperial remnants. Usually when a large Empire collapses you get a lot of break off states, and the edges are left to fend for themselves. The New Republic tried to prevent that collapse from happening, but it never really stood a chance.

Honestly, demilitarization on a galactic scale never made sense to me, ngl. Why? Well, on earth, if all governments came together to form a unified government, all countries could disband their militaries. Sure, you're going to need some weapons to deal with criminals, pirates, cartels, insurgents etc. But for the most part, the military could be disbanded. Because, on earth, the only threat comes from other countries. So if all countries work together, there's no big threats left. Only small groups or individuals. But, on a galactic level that's just not true. Yeah, the republic saw decades of peace, but, that was never a guarantee. Because, at the end of the day, the republic doesn't control the entire galaxy. There are various areas outside of republic control, like Hutt space, as well as completely unexplored regions. So, this means there are still tons of threats out there, some not even known to the republic. Sure, you still have the sector or system fleets. But they rely on cooperation. So, what, for example, if the Hutts decided to expand their empire a little bit. Attack some systems with only light defenses. Who'd be there to stop them? The republic itself isn't. And if the various defense forces don't want to react, the attacked systems are helpless. Or what if some threat emerged from the unknown regions? Strong enough that the various defense forces decide that it's better to sacrifice other systems to buy time to prepare themselves. Or what if a specific system or sector got some....aspirations. Say, Kuat decides they want to take over Correlia. Who'd be there to fight for Correlia? Sure, they have a large fleet themselves, but if Kuat had build up their Navy in preparation, well.... Point is, even in a decade of peace, there are still tons of threats out there and the government should be fully prepared to face them....

#Ask Eck What would a vong invasion look like at the time of the Kotor era/ Swtor era? We had hints of Canderous and his mandalorian alies tracking and attacking a vong ship at one point so I’m curious what your thoughts are if this came to fruition.

3:30 what capital ship is that? I’m not entirely well versed in Halo, but it looks like a halo ship

"Si vis pacem, para bellum" - "If you want peace, prepare for war"

I just wanna see more large scale ground battles

I love this channel but it must be so hard to keep creating content when the lore and the stories have become so bad. I admire your tenacity.

I was under the impression that the Galaxy Fleet was not made up of organized defense forces or military craft. It was every possible ship that had some kind of gun bolted on coming in to do whatever they could to help.

If you think that is stupid, think about the fact that we have radar and tracking for things now, but repeatedly in the newer star wars stuff, even the animated stuff I love, they seem to just slip onto planets and dodge being detected through writing. Does the empire not have radar? We control air space relatively well as is. The main issue is things flying lower to not be picked up. There is no lower when it comes to landing from space. The legends were just better written. Having to sneak in on ships, or with meteors, etc, like in the Rogue squadron series. If i remember correctly

First ? Answer : Yes , Legends NR: Sorry about my cousin he's Adopted and lost Me : Look at my 770m Thrawn Remnants Arquitens class Family , strike cruiser with a long Double delta frame ,Based on Arquitens Family and Strike class Medium cruiser ,with exceptional Smart advanced Ordnance tubes and Starfighters bays and a single Adv Launch Tube for both of them

Don't forget about the Imperial sympathizers that helped to lead to disarmament.

Almost any piece of SW Legends was better fleshed out and more polished than Canon, the problem was always of coherence between the different series and arcs, because they were written fully independently. Disney solved it by simply not caring whatsoever for any continuity, regardless of the central franchise planning. It's not just the supplementary material, the movies themselves were anything but coherent with one another.

#AskEck What if Quinlan Vos had discovered Anakin on Tattooine, before Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi did? What if Quinlan decided to train Anakin as his Padawan? What sort of Jedi would Anakin turn out to be had Quinlan Vos been his master, instead of Obi-Wan Kenobi?

I seriously wish Disney would just bite the bullet admit they are wrong about Star Wars. They had an entire built in universe that fans who read books expect. I mean I understand they changed Harry Potter movies a little bit, but it didn’t change the twins and Luke into useless. I am a huge fan of legends and I know my boy filoni is as well but fuck me. They ruined my books by having reymund

i feel like it was written to be a parallel to the post cold war peace dividend

I don't really understand why so many went over to the NR after Cinder when the empire still had that massive numerical superiority. Shouldn't it become more aand more difficult for the rebellion when they change to the NR because now the empire had real targets?

I remember thinking the New Republic completely demilitarizing was completely and utterly stupid even when it was first introduced. Like it was clearly a dumb attempt to make Leia’s “Resistance” the underdog faction to replicate the Empire vs. Rebellion dynamic whether it made sense or not. It’s also why the whole “First Order reigns supreme” quote in The Last Jedi made absolutely no sense either. Wait, so the New Republic capital got destroyed and even though Starkiller Base is gone, the entire galaxy just capitulates to the First Order? The hell? That’d be like if Washington DC got bombed by ISIS, so the entire US suddenly decides to join the caliphate. It makes no sense. It’s really clear Disney wanted to re-do the Empire vs. Rebels dynamic and therefore came up with all the stupidest possible choices to make that happen, as opposed to organically evolving the story like what Legends did. That one actually changed the dynamic to now the New Republic being in charge with the Imperial Remnant being out of power but still a threat to watch out for, as would be the case post-Endor. And many stories would be about stopping their scheme of the week, which allowed for a large number of cool stories without always re-doing the same thing or undermining the accomplishments of the OT.

As a massive New Republic (both universes) and GFFA fan, thanks for covering my favorite factions, even if the GFFA only got a small part. Also, I'm happy you pointed out that demilitarization was not inherently bad or 100% to blame for the fall of both Republics. I used to be one of those "oh, the NR was nerfed, what the heck?" people until I started reading the books and realizing, "Oh, the space n@zis ruined everything again..." As far as the rate of demilitarization goes, I think Aftermath had it happen too quick, but I'm glad the shows are supplementing/fixing that by showing a more gradual demilitarization. I rationalize it like the almost immediate 70% decrease was a campaign promise of Mon Mothma to a Galaxy that just wanted to move on from a horrific civil war, but the realities of government and peacekeeping meant that it had to be a more gradual process. Also, I still get freaking chills when I see that galactic fleet coming in to kick Sidious' ass lol! It's inspiring seeing the Republic remnants, sector security forces, and regular civilians band together to basically say, "Never again, you fascist pigs!" That might be overexaggerating, but it's what I think. Edit: Also, to address the "why did they think the Empire would just disappear?" thing at the end: like what @Theology.101 pointed out, I think Operation Cinder might have made the New Republic more confident that the Empire was truly dead.

#AskEckharts what was the net worth of Darth Plagueis by 34BBY? Sith apprentices inherited both knowledge and wealth from their masters and in 980BBY Bane net worth was in the tens of millions and with inflation would be roughly $3B credits. Publicly Demask would’ve been worth billions but as a Sith his access to funds could’ve been in tens of trillions 😮

#AskEck What do you think would happen after the Battle of Naboo if the Trade Federation won?

It's almost like the sequel era is a total mess because it was made without a plan And started by a man who has killed more beloved franshises than any other all because he wanted to undo what George did because he wanted to tell the original star wars all over again

Hope you get better, Eck "Virus" doesn't sound good at all, and I hope it isn't another strain of "Said thing(s) and Stuff,(s)" if you get what I mean with brand new strains of "It". Also, in game of D&D never try to fight and or kill the character they are very hard to kill through different means of life and or different concepts of "Immortality" or what not in game universe Homebrew stuffs or non-cannon whatever's. As well as I praise you Eck for powering through this and your RL stuff, being a father and hanging a family, I applaud you for all that. Love you uploads among ohter SW content channels actively ignoring Halo Infinite even if "Halo" is a thing the channel uploads for doesn't because of "things" and "stuff" respectively. I veery much appreciate your uploads and content among other channels. My "Wishes" and "Prayers" actually goes out to people and entities because Wicca and so called, "The Belief", not Religion per say but Spiritualism in its own thing.

You realize how a decentralized military affected the Republic? It left large parts of the Galaxy, the poorer parts, unpoliced. Piracy and Slavery thrived there while the rich Core systems just got richer while still taxing the poor systems. The Separatist movement was inevitable after that.

The demilitirization is really a case of people trying to explain why they think something is written badly; if it was done better no one would have noticed.

To be fair demilitarizing has a precident. The US Navy went from 3.38 million personnel in 1945 to 0.48 million in 1947. Throughout history the bulk of fighting forces often came from vassals and levies. The King often only had a small professional military.

Well the Galactic Republic did the same thing after the Ruusan Reformations yet things work out just fine for them not only you have 1,000 year peace but also the High Republic Era. I guess different contexts despite being essentially the same thing with the canon New Republic?

"This is some old imperial credits" "Ew no!" "Then you wont want this old imperial torture device..." "Ill take your entire stock!"

A central military will always be stronger than federated systems fleets

I'm glad someone pointed out that the military hardware cut from the federal military was given to planetary security forces and not just poofed into nonexistence. I could be wrong but I seem to recall a scene in Aftermath: Empire's End where Mon Mothma discussed this with her aid, saying that the task of galactic defense would be transfered from the federal government to the individual systems to prevent what the Empire got away with. Either I'm wrong about that passage being in there or a lot of other people forget it's there, hedge your bets here XD

#AskEck why was the executor deployed to endor when it was known that it had an engine problem? Why was the entire Seventh Fleet assigned to Lothal (I know Thrawn made a deal with pryce but you’d figure only a task force would suffice)

In the short term, the new republic's policy of near total disarmament seems like a very sensible policy after the quick and speedy defeat of the empire at the battle of Jakku, while keeping a small modified and updated modern fleet to deal with any remaining threats top their regime. However, the main flaw in their policy, was the failure to ensure that the empire was ended as a true threat, allowing for the rise of the first order in the shadows of the unknown regions to a military superpower that the new republic couldn't match with their military strength at that time.

I like to think the NR navy was larger than people give credit for, roughly between 200-300 cap ships and a number of frigates/corvettes, with ships bigger than 2.5km in length getting less and less weapons, and those below that number getting a decent number of weapons but still a slight bit less than an ISD. for example; the mc 95 liberty ship type would have smallest increases to its armaments to remain proportionally similar to its rebellion era predecessors, remaining a very much durability over firepower type vessel, while increasing its size noticeably to have a slightly-moderately increased star fighter capacity. I’d elaborate more but I’ve just woken up 😅

I can understand where that's coming from. It makes a lot more sense to let member systems defend themselves, instead of relying on a council of different people who need to determine if your system is worth the trouble of sending ships to. It also allows different systems to tailor make their ships to match the threat, instead of being stuck with ships that are unable to do the job you need them to. Again, the issue I ultimately have with the canon is that I find it extremely unlikely that the First Order was just able to spring up with dozens of star destroyers and dreadnaughts while being a 'heavily sanctioned' group with scattered sympathizers. What makes it even more frustratingly unreasonable, is how they managed to make another Death Star, and somehow no one noticed, or if they did notice, they didn't do anything. Like... I'm sorry... but I would think that hearing that the faction that takes a great amount of inspiration from the Galactic Empire you fought to free yourself from is making another Death Star clone *may* just elicit a more extreme response than "Eh... whatever".

The reasoning is obvious. The people writing the sequel movies wanted to magically reset things to the original-trilogy state, so the empire immediately came back despite having been defeated, and the New Republic is immediately reset back to being a rag-tag bunch of rebels, instead of a galaxy-spanning republic.

Yes

#AskEck were there any cloning facilities of the Republic outside of Kamino? How an invasion of Kamino influenced the Republic's strategy regarding cloning/securing Jango Fett's DNA?

For me, the New Republic demilitarizing is frustrating because their is no fundamental reason for it. It feels like they just went “military bad, we good, so we get rid of military.” I really wish their was a more realistic reason for demilitarizing, such as a galactic economic crisis or a New Republic fleet shown to be overly aggressive/imperialist, then it would make sense that the people would call for demilitarization as a response to that crisis.

The GA could have left the decision to militarize up to the individual systems. If a system didn't want to build, administer, and maintain their own fleets, they would still have to contribute logistically and/or financially to the central military. Systems such as Corellia that decided to have their own home fleets could do so and pay a reduced tax to the central military budget, but with the understanding that during a time of war the GA would have the right to call up any ships they've built. The idea would be to have a set level of military readiness for the GA as a whole to respond to outside threats. "Readiness" would be determined by the Senate, most likely in total fleet power. It would also be wise to have these individual "home fleets" periodically rolled up in fleet maneuvers during peacetime so they can train working inside the GA command structure. Most of the time, thought, these fleets would be at home in their own systems.

You know, you mentioning Planetary Self-Defence Forces makes me a bit upset that we didn't see them much (or at all?) in action during Clone Wars.

tbf about all the planets coming together at the end of TROS...i don't think they would've won in an actual fight...they pretty much stop them before they got started

I can’t wait for Thrawn to humble New Republic

The New Republic does need a central military force of it's own. One that that's large enough to come in and settle inter system disputes, it also needs to patrol hyperspace lanes between systems and smaller systems that can't build their own defence forces to stop piracy becoming a problem. In The Mandalorian S3 we literally see them junking Star Destroyers and at the same time saying that don't have enough resources to help out with a single pirate corvette on Navaro. So yeah the ST, particularly Aftermath and the Mandoverse have done a great job of showing the New Republic being utterly dumb.