Because Tarkin was like “muh Tarkin doctrine an stuff, gotta have big scary starships and deaff stars to scare everyone innit”.

I think the image issue goes deeper than the Republic image, it was specifically associated with the Jedi, even being called the "Jedi Cruiser" on occasion. Every time you see those dual bridges is a reminder that there's no Jedi on either.

The idea of it being used as a training ship is actually a good idea. I never thought of that myself.

Still one of the coolest ships in star wars

"And does working in Imperial shipyards make you more loyal to the Empire?" Sir, I think you just triggered several species worth of PTSD patients.

EckhartsLadder did show off his idea of the perfect Imperial battle group and he included a Ventor having the rear, proving TIE craft support.

The Venator was known across the galaxy as the “Jedi Cruiser” throughout the Clone Wars. And Emperor Palpatine wanted all indications that the Jedi Order never existed so he decommissioned the Venator months after the Clone Wars ended and the Tarkin Doctrine didn’t help the Venator.

Related to the "war runs them ragged" theory, I think that given the sheer speed at which most of the Venator fleet was assembled, it is entirely possible that a lot of them were relatively shoddily built. Obviously they were durable enough to pull through in the war, but it's easy to imagine that an enormous number of corners were cut in the name of getting the things out the door faster, and this may have made their long-term operation and maintenance very difficult or expensive. The ISDs may have been built with the expectation of decades of service rather than the necessity of nearly-instant deployment.

The Templin Institute is about to produce Clone Wars related videos at the same rate that Kamino produces Clone Troopers.

A beautiful ship. I wonder if the empire has museum ships. I know palpatine considered it too much a symbol of the jedi. To the point, it was known as the jedi crusier.

I think another aspect of why they were scrapped is that lots of venators were destroyed in the war, with many people in the confederacy and elsewhere (who might later become prominent rebel leaders) learning how to destroy them. Learning what their weaknesses are and how to exploit them. The star destroyers were brand new and had seen no major combat against any potential enemies, meaning their unknown abilities were themselves advantages the empire could use against its enemies

Finally a realistic assesment instead of just comparing ship stats.

One of my favorite takes I've heard on the Empire Vs. Republic militaries, is that Clone Troopers were soldiers, while Stormtroopers were militarized police officers. One ship was designed for engaging near peer foes in large fleet engagements, while the other is made for long patrols, and occasionally enforcing a blockade while it's onboard garrison stomped out some insurgents and insurrectionists on some random world. The Empire probably also chose to dismantle their Venerators because they didn't want a bunch of top of the line warships running around: they wanted the vast majority of their ships to only be capable when punching down, and then only kept a relatively tiny contingent of top of the line warships around to keep the others in line, who in turn were only crewed by the most loyal of troops to the Emporer. Even within the Imperial military, there were checks put in place to disempower everyone, and make them afraid, and the only way to gain more power, was to further prove one's loyalty to the Emporer.

Have to keep in mind that the Venator and the Imperials were designed for different purposes. While sure Venator could be a multi-purpose ship it's main role was as a fleet carrier/battleship. Acclamator was used to carry and land the troops en-masse. Inperials were designed to have everything they need to carry out all kinds of missions including limited planetary assaults. And sure they could have kept the Venators and added Imperials but Venators were a symbol of the Republic and Jedi in particular. So they had to go.

I always assumed because of at least two reasons. First, Venator was too closely related to the Jedi. Sometimes called Jedi Cruisers. Second, the Tarkin Doctrine which saw large warships had no place for the Venator. And as you said, the Destroyer made a lot of jobs. The idea of selling the ship was probably never thought of because the idea was the Empire ruled the galaxy. The Empire would provide defense, not provide the means of defense. You don't have a Naboo fighter core, you have the imperial fighter core stationed on Naboo. They wouldn't want to sell a warship, that was basically the symbol of the republic, to anyone. Rather scrap them down into brand new star destroyers. The empire can afford it.

Excellent work on all this. I don't think the Empire would have completely retired their Venator force by the time the Death Star was completed, mostly because we still see the Arquitens class (Refited) and even the ancient Dreadnought Heavy Cruisers (In SW Rebels) still being used then. However, it can be easily assumed that the Empire just stopped making more. With no refit and parts wearing out, many of the surviving Venators that weren't scrapped immediately were obviously thrown to the scrap yards. With ISDs being produced in bulk, it wouldn't have taken much for the Empire to utterly overwhelm whatever they had of the worn-out Venators.

An important thing to remember about refitting ships is that changing a flight deck and changing a powerplant are separated by orders of magnitude in complexity. Replacing power plants can result in the deconstruction of large portions of your full and internal bulkheads, force you to run new piping and electrical lines, or perhaps force you to rearrange the entire layout of your crew compartments, hanger, or storage space. Changing a flight deck may force you to limit the ship's speed, shift its ballast, or drop the height of your hanger and build new elevators, but that pales in comparison to working on a ship's drive and power system. Refitting a starship would be much the same and, like the recently damaged USS Bon Homme Richard, bringing back into service at a modern standard could well eclipse the cost of building a new ship as, at the end of the day, your hull's age may also dictate time and mission limitations upon your ship.

I'm just surprised that the Rebel Alliance were never seen using them... if for nothing else than as a mobile outpost for refuel/resupply between missions, using it like that would hypothetically just need a skeleton crew to maintain while also having somewhere to store starfighters long term during periods when the Alliance had no bases.

I wonder what a Venator with more weaponry would look like.

As well as the "hard use" angle (and yes, the rule of thumb is one year of war = ten years of peacetime) there's also the fact the Venators were built very quickly. I would speculate that that like how navies would build wooden ships out of unseasoned wood in wartime - accepting short service life for cheaper and quicker construction - there may have been signifant corners cut in its construction that meant staying in service was unviable.

There's little economic or military reasoning to it, but there is a lot of political reasoning. Can't have the famous 'Jedi Cruiser' stick around after the whole Order 66 situation.

I can't believe you forgot to mention that they kept the Acclamator, a ship that was present at the start of the clone wars, but Scraped the Venator

Generation tech has done videos on this and concluded that not only was the Venator an objectively superior warship to the Imperial classes that succeeded it, but it was an objectively poor decision to retire the entire ship class with the man reasons being the Emperor and Tarkin as Palpatine knew that, while objectively good ships, they were heavily associated with the Republic and Jedi-with them even having the nickname 'Jedi Cruiser' so he wanted them gone. Tarkin was big on the 'Rule through fear' ideology and the Venator didn't fit into that as it didn't invoke that fear he wanted like how an Imperial class could, despite the fact one Venator could cover a much larger area of responsibility or patrol thanks to is massive starfigher wing which even a half decent commander could use to destroy 2 or even 3 Imperial classes if they ever had to fight.

There are alot of reasons they scraped the Venator and I also understand why it was never used by the Rebellion either. It was a symbol of a long lost time in the republic that was quickly buried. The ship did inspire that feeling of rising up against oppression for most and this is what the Emperor didnt want in his Empire in its early days

Been thinking about making a rebel call that fits in the universe of Star Wars, but a group of ex-republic navy veterans, and CIS veterans getting ahold of many old starships including the Venator from scrapyards or from other battlefields and then operate at the very edge and going where the Empire wouldn't dare to go.

I love this ship so much, the design and looks is just beautiful.

I'd argue that the Venator wasn't replaced by the Imperial, but the Victory Class Star Destroyer. I flew many fighter sorties during the Clone Wars, and if memory serves me right, the Venator was being supplemented and supplanted by the Victory toward the end of that conflict during the outer rim sieges. The Imperial class was designed to embody the Tarkin Doctrine. The Victory was designed to win fleet engagements.

This looks like a video that should've been made years ago! So I'm glad you got around to anwser it. And I especialy love the point that ships in wartime just gets put under huge stress, not to mention the ones that got outright destroyed. Excellent video. I hope to see your further discussion video on the matter

I would have, in Palpatine's position, used the Venator as a support ship for the Imperial. Like another comment said, Eckharts Ladder did a formation where the Venator was used in larger formations as a dedicated carrier. Smaller units could swap the Vemator to the main ship with an Escort Carrier like the Quasar Fire or Ton Falk as support for even more TIE fighter variants in space.

I think that using the Venator as a carrier for Imperial battlegroups would have helped the Empire a lot. The biggest weakness of the Imperial class was a lack of starfighter capacity and having a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="121">2:1</a> mix of Imperial and Venator Star destroyers would have helped a lot.

I think what happened was that with the Imperials the Empire took the lessons of the Clone Wars to heart. Reducing the fighter complement, because even 400 starfighters can't really compete with the sheer mass of Vultures the CIS could stuff into their hulls. Increasing the firepower to be both able to quickly smash lighter armoured CIS ships like the Munificent or Recusant and go tow to tow with the bigger ships, like Lucrehulks, Bulwarks and the odd dreadnought like the Malevolence. There was just the tiny problem that the next war wasn't fought that way and the Venator would have been the better counter to the guerilla tactics of the rebels.

In legends it answers this by that Palpatine was preparing for a war with the Yuuzhan Vong. A large powerful fleet would be needed.

At the end of the Clone Wars, the Republc's fleets were depleted of starships in operation. Tarkin wanted a new fleet of ships capable of striking fear in its enemies. This was also in line of Emperor Palpatine's vision of controling the masses through fear, a Sith concept. It also introduced new technologies that were incompatible or not economical into refitting on the Venator as they were hastily designed for the Clone Wars. Or at least, that was my understanding of it. This was stated by Grand Moff Tarkin, and thus it was known as the Tarkin Doctrine.

Just a thought: The mass decommissioning and scrapping of the Venators could have also been used as a cover operation by Palpatain (as part of his contingency program) to relocate quality military hardware into the unknown region, until industrial capacity could have been built out there.

The republic was already begging to introduce victory and even imperial star destroyers towards the end of the clone wars. Essentially they were already being phased out, also no one knows just how many venators were produced, i suspect it's not as many as we think

Any chance when Rampart was shown using them to bombard Kamino, that, in part, was one reason the Venator was given public stigma and helped contribute to its disuse?

According to the Thrawn series books, the older republic warships were less efficient and more manpower intensive (though there they were called Dreadnought class). It makes sense when you have an unlimited supply of clones to man the navy in wartime. But the new empire turned to drafting troops from occupied worlds, and likely wanted more efficient ships with smaller crews and more automation to help spread the imperial presence wider.

I like taht these types of video essays portray the Templin Institute not just as a research institute, but also as a think tank

The Venator may have also been built like the Liberty ships of WW2. It may have been built for reliable service for only a few short years, after which it would be relegated to low intensity duties before scrapping. Refitting and overhauling the ship may very well have cost nearly as much as building a new one from scratch, and it still wouldn't be as capable as a brand new warship. By the end of the Clone War, Palpatine and Tarkin were probably well aware that the remaining Venators, much like their clone crews, were unsuited for the long game that they were planning, so they immediately began producing new ships that would both out-preform and out-last the Venators by years or even decades.

Would be cool to see one in use with the Rebellion

That is a Damm good question!

I always assumed it was to address the glaring issues that cost the Republic during the war: Lack of firepower. The CIS consistently outgunned the Republic in fleet engagements and while the fighters were useful, it only had 16 heavy turbolasers compared to over 70 on the ISD. The Empire quickly retired both the Venator AND the Victory due to insufficient firepower. Considering the numbers of CIS capital ships still floating around the galaxy, a handful of Munificent frigates could possibly defeat a Venator, whereas an ISD would crush them easily.

Because Palps said I want all grey triangles... Also you gotta remember without that decision we wouldn't have got a mongol band creating a song called "Sugaan Essena".

It's worth noting that in SW Legends Grand Admiral Thrawn employed the Victory class, an interim design between the Venator and Imperial mk1 (if I remember correctly) to great effect in the Imperial Remnant. One possible technical justification for a larger hull design could be that larger engine blocks provide more efficient fuel-thrust ratio making it cheaper to have a smaller number of "do everything" ships like Star Destroyers instead of dedicated Battle Groups like Carrier Groups from Earth Navies.

Clone/Venator stans inbound.

I think some of Palpatine's fleet in Rise of Skywalker should have been mostly these. Like the secret fleet was made of things that where supposed to be mothballed...but the emperor was actually tucking away for his back up plan.

The Venator would have really given the Empire the edge against the Rebels, especially since the Imperial class kept getting destroyed by Rebel starfighters. So Venators, with their massive anti fighter capabilities, would have been a great counter to Rebels and their heavy use of starfighters. The Venator really was the greatest capital ship of the Republic, and the Empire were fools to replace them with the Imperial in mainline service. Imperials would have been better served as a flag ship with a Venator or two to serve as the mainline warship alongside the Victory Class Star Destroyer.

I usually find it odd that most videos about Star Wars, and more specifically factions that have Palpatine in it somewhere, it usually tried to portray both the faction and the man as misguided but reasonable rather than what they truly are, Sith. The Sith are the polar opposite to The Jedi (ok not completely but they're defiantly open to their shortcomings rather than The Jedi), they value strength and power above all else, even basic connections, and that thirst for power always leads towards massive armies and navies waging war upon The Galaxy and The Republic. But ever sense Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor and later Emperor of The Galaxy, the Sith has won and can now openly make a comeback without resistance poppin up as strongly as it has before. I think the actual reason why The Venator Class was sent to the scrap yard is because Palpatine wanted any trace of The Republic gone so that his brand new oddly Sith style Star Destroyers can enter the show.

Thank you the Video and the English subtitle.

This video inspired my Space Junker campaign for Star Wars TTRPG. I have a bunch of players who made a team of salvagers and I think i just found what the Rebelion is going to recruit them for as they found a space storage dock full of Venators to repatriate for the fights ahead. Now only if they had a crew experienced in getting old broken ships running again

Sacred Cow Shipyards did a wonderful breakdown on why the venator was honestly not *that* great of a ship. But to summarize: Huge dorsal hanger. Two broadside hangers. One ventral hanger. That big hanger door is just begging for a torpedo to hit the flight deck and explode inside the ship. Side guns aren't super firing, unless you tilt the entire ship "down". Meanwhile, the ISDs are much more focused on ship to ship firepower, but still carry a sizable tie fleet. The angle of the ship is likewise steeper, allowing more of the guns to be fired at a "level" target. The twin bridge is likewise, pretty silly and offers no real redundancy. (Anything big enough to take out one will likely take the other.) As for refits: Looking to the real world is actually helpful. Because WWI battleships we're modernized instead of replaced. But this is because the nations of the world decided, by treaty (London and Washington Naval treaties) to stop production of new ships. Had the treaties not been made, it's likely those refits would not have occured. British shipyards we're always SCREAMING for more capital ships to build even during peak build rates.

I was wondering this too, but after the ships are scrapped the raw materials are used to construct new ships, i can imagine that the level of technology allows almost all of the scrapped raw materials to be reused and recycled resulting in very little loss of materials in the process. Another thing is, that the only real cost here is the energy required to scrap and remake the raw material and the labor costs, both which are probably a drop in a bucket for a massive galactic nation such as the republic or the empire. And let's not forget that most of the "dirty work" is probably done by droids of various size, all of these would also stimulate the economy and increase purchasing power.

You've been watching Perun videos lately I see, nice I might not agree with everything he says, but he does a great job in explaining the logistics sides of the military industrial complex.

In a way, I would say the Venator's frontline usage demise was sound since the Empire was more focused on quashing small scale rebellion and Seppy holdouts. Analogous to that, I would argue that the Empire would have been quite shrewd to maintain the Venator alongside the Imp Star Deuce as a matter of precedent and forward thinking defensive readiness. In our own world, The Essex class operated alongside the Super Carriers well into the 70s, 30 years after their construction and commissioning. The only real hinderance to these ships was the consideration of operational range and more importantly, heavier laden aircraft that took up more room. The Venator did not either of these concerns to contend with. Quite the opposite considering just how much smaller the TIE was to Republic starfighters. These ships were perfectly suited to act as CAP command vessels to properly contend with Rebel starfighters. 400 TIE's vs a dozen or two X and Y Wings from 1 or 2 Mon Cala warships, even with better craft to work with, make exceptional use of the "Quantity has a Quality all its Own" facet of reality. Even if the Mon Cala warships could destroy the Venator, all those agree little bees would eventually be able to overwhelm them. Beyond the numerical superiority, refitting these ships to carry more fighters or to serve as Auxiallary command cruisers or even as backwater picket ships, the Empire could have stretched out their service lives and still be able to entice Industry/Fabricators/Shipyards to continue their support. This would satisfy military contractors with the guarantee of continued income and the possibility of being subsidized by the Empire to produce parts and new warships simultaneously. And even if this were not the case for all, their would still be the aspect of hiring additional laborers/technicians to operate and maintain these ships for the forseeable future. Loyalty through economic incentive still accomplished. All in all, suplanting the ISD lines with the Venator, even if only until the events of the OT (almost 20 years) would have been a far greater use of materiel and manpower.

The vendor was, to me, a warrior that now has passed, but it would be so cool to see the rebels were able to get their hands on some and then use the capable legendary warship against the empire

the same reason the Grand Fleet was largely scrapped after WW1, and the entire Royal Navy battlefleet was destroyed after WW2. Firstly, they were desiged before the war, and so include none of countless inevitable lessons learned during the war about ship design. Secondly, war service is incredibly hard on a warship of any kind, and by the end of the clone wars, most these ships would be worn completely out. On the training point, that only works if the weapons systems and mechanical components are updated to actually reflect the conditions of the modern fleet.

The example that comes to mind in my country is the F111, we did away with a strike capable bomber and got the f35...

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="259">4:19</a> "But wars have the tendency to advance military sciences in sudden leaps and bounds as state of the art gun, tank, plane, or ship at the start of a conflict can easily be obsolete after just a few years or even months" A perfect real world example would be the Mitsubishi Zero used by the Empire of Japan in World War 2. It outclassed virtually all allied fighters at the start of the war but by its end they were shot down by the dozen. This was due to a combination of all of the following: 1. The inability to keep up with the new classes of planes the Americans came up with (Hellcats and Corsairs). 2. Improvements to the American fleet's anti-aircraft capabilities (more accurate guns on the ships and proximity fuses in the shells). 3. The training of the pilots (Americans had 400 hours average flight training vs Japan's 120 hours average flight training late in the war). 4. The vastly changing tactics used to counter the Zero (American aces were sent home to help with the training of new pilots and they captured an intact Zero in the Aleutian Islands in 1942 to study for weaknesses).

A good and thorough look

The perfect KDY fleet would include; Venators, Aquitans light cruisers, Raider corvettes and the Nebula class star defenders. Anything outside those 4 would probably be a waste

To be fair it's a big galaxy and even though we see a lot of Venators being scrapped that could just represent a fraction of the total number out there in all the non-frontline roles or ships sold to other powers like what was mentioned in the video. This line of thought would give writers some leeway if they ever wanted them to appear in future stories.

The Senate: Decommission the Venator, all signs of the Jedi and Republic must be removed from my Empire! Also The Senate: But keep the Secutor, Victorys, Gozantis, repurpose the Gladiators, and rename the Imperator into the “Imperal-1”.

I like this format of "conventionally IC-presented episode" followed by "OOC opinion piece on the subject"

I love these star wars videos

Excellent content as usual! I would add that the Empire was maintaining a police/subjugation force more than a navy capable to fight another large navy as they had no major rival. As such the Imperial class was significantly better at deploying garrisons, mass troop movements, and orbital bombardments. Even the now canon lore points to the fact that many systems when faced with just one Imperial star destroyer opted to surrender rather than continue revolting because they knew it was a lost cause at that point. Venator class just wasn't large enough to carry personnel and equipment to quell rebel movements and protests alone as the Imperial class could.

Thanks for sharing! I would add a key central doctrinal change: the move towards larger capital ships and less reliance on starfighters. Without any remaining large foe, the Empire didn’t see the value that small starfighters may bring. Imperial doctrine wanted something imposing, powerful, and destructive. This over-reliance on large weaponry would end up becoming a critical weakness exposed by the Rebel Alliance, but Imperial-class Star Destroyers remained a formidable foe.

I like the idea the Venator was scrapped for materials to be used on the Death Star. It's a bit more discrete than diverting billions of metal from ISDs and civil construction for a "secret project." Scrappers probably wouldn't care where the junk goes as long as they get paid. They may even want the junk moved so they have room on their planet to live or keep scrapping.

If the empire kept the venator maybe they could have won endor

Hi, excellent content. Can you please tell which games and movies you use to show here? Thank you

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="456">7:36</a> And thus, the Templin Institute has in a few sentences explained the concept of pork barreling...

I love Venator Class! I remember seeing it for the first time in Episode III and was insanity became my favorite star wars ship!

Another reason they were scrapped was the galaxy knew them as Jedi cruisers. And they were trying to wipe all things Jedi, so a line of ships called Jedi Cruisers would be discarded as soon as they could.

The last point about the military-industrial motive is really good. We see time and time again that steady work was one of the biggest carrots the Empire would offer to those who were seen as loyal and useful, and it would make sense that a program like that would be very effective at keeping manufacturing heads and investors happy, if nothing else. Plus it plays to the Empire's other strength of fostering factionalism and destructive competition, setting quotas for different parts and adjusting contracts to reward those most loyal would turn more ire and attention to groups within the Empire rather than the Empire itself.

God that large red stripe does something to me. I dunno what it is but it's just so awesome.

There is another reason as well, the Venator was built with old Republic Military Doctrine which focused on Starships being able to carry other smaller ships from Starfighters, to troop transport, tanks, walkers, to even smaller warships like Frigates. To this end the Venator main attribute was its huge hanger space to accommodate all these smaller vessels. A single Venator could carry over 400 Starfighters while a Imperial Class SD could only carry 80. Imperial Doctrine was based off Sith teachings...rule by fear. As such the Victory and Imperial Star Destroyers were designed as terror weapons (as was the Death Star), and their main attribute was to turn enemy ships, based and planets to slag by the sheer number of turbolaser and ion cannons they carried. While they did have a hanger too, it was nowhere near as large as a Venators. When extra starfighter support was needed the Empire preferred to carry extra TIE fighters in smaller warships like the Gonzanti Cruisers. So you see the reason the Venators were scrapped was because they simply did not fit with the military Doctrine of the Empire.

Star Wars uses WW2 as its operating model, so scrapping or selling war time (especially war built) vessels matches what actually happened, perfectly. Many ships were wrecked internally, desperately needing huge machinery refits after having been worked mercilessly for years. The newer ones, or thise which had experienced easier wartime service, could be upgraded and kept for 5 to 10 years (but technology moved fast in the 50's, and most becsme obsolete, again) or sold to smaller countries. This theory of Venator disposal works fine in a historical comparison.

The problem with the Venator is that it was made ad hoc by a company that had never made a capital ship before and is extremely impractical. The engine design alone costs more fuel than 2 ISD's. The entirety is extremely weak with the hollow hangar hull and makes the entire ship weak to frontal attacks because of it. It also suffers from having two bridges instead of one which makes coordination difficult since both sides need to be in constant communication with each other, and there is no connecting elevator or bridge to the other side. The big guns are pretty weak in reality as well. It was easier to just make a new ship than to completely redesign and re-manufacture the Venator. It is kinda like the M4 Sherman. A design which won the war but had a ton of issues and did not see much continued use in the USA after the war, being scrapped for the Pershing and Patton series instead.

Finally, a video about this that's not just all the reasons the Venator was a great ship.

Loving the Clone Wars content of late

The biggest reason it was a mistake to scrap the Venator was that the Venator would have been a great combat partner for the Imperial. Her carrying capacity would have mitigated the Imperial’s vulnerability to fighter attack while still being able to keep up with the Imperial

I think the reasons as outlined here are more then enough reason for the Empire to have cast aside the Venator. The scrap itself would have been a boon to those producing the Imperial and Victory classes. The job creation and economic boon would have been seen very favorably. Palpatine was not worried about nostalgic symbols but rather creating the foundation for his empire, regardless of the cost.

Venators also had a special alloy needed for a certain construction project.

There's the often ignored fact that by the Battle of Yavin the Venator class was over 40 years old. Even the newest examples would be 20 years old. Add to that a change in doctrine and it makes perfect sense that by then any surviving examples would be doing rear guard duty. Even in real life the expense of maintaining a major vessel means that one which no longer fills doctrine will either be scrapped, sold or mothballed. Just look at the original HMS Dreadnaught. A ship that drove forward warship design immensely, but became obsolete so fast it went from commission to scrapping in less than 15 years.

It’s be neat to see in some sort of Star Wars media a venator that got turn into a museum ship

It's also a good way to gain and ensure the loyalty of officers who had hoped to be assigned to, or command of a Venator class. "No, you will not be wasted on an old ship like that. You will be commanding something larger, something faster, something vastly more powerful, an Imperial class. Do not dissapoint us."

One important point was only tangentially touched on here: The Empire's objectives and strategic situation are very different from the wartime republic. Fundamentally the Venator is build with symmetric large scale conflict in mind, whereas the Empire only has to worry about asymetrical warfare and occupation, being a boot on the neck of systems.

Yesss, an imperial Venator II-ship would totally make sense, particularly when the galactic civil war started ramping up! The Ventator II could have had even more hangar-space, and forgo the original Venator's lackluster turbo lasers completely. Instead it could have an emphasis on anti starfighter-laser guns and point defense-systems. As well as missile launchers resembling those on the Victory I star destroyer. I think this would have made for a long range firesupport/carrier-ship that would complement the Imperial Star Destroyer nicely and rectify many of the disadvantages the empire faced during the galactic civil war

"Why scrap the Venator?" Palpatine: "F*ck the Republic. That includes its symbolism. Lmao." I'm not even joking, to be blunt - it was the first thing that came to mind, aside from the obvious lore complications that could've been formed if George Lucas and his cohorts at LucasArts said "these were the same Star Destroyers, we just remodeled them" or such. Immersive worldbuilding requires good attention to detail - both in terms of the powers at play and in terms of recognizing what's important and what isn't, imo. In this case, I think the Venator was scrapped, aside from the "Tarkin's Big Dick Energy Dakka" Doctrine, because he saw it as a strong symbol of the Galactic Republic. As such, that's a big no-no. He wants the Republic gone in favor of his Empire, so it has to go. In fact, I heard you acknowledge this point late into your video, as I was typing this out on my phone, funnily enough!

I do agree with most of these comments proposing the theory that the Venator was designed with corner cutting. Everything made for the clone wars on both sides was designed with cheap and rapid deployment as a priority. It might also be worth mentioning that at least in legends canon the Venator was already being supplemented by the Victory Class (I think they were Victory class) and the process of replacing then began before the clone wars were even over. I am also of the opinion that the ISD might have worked in its "primary ubiquitous warship" role and be a near unstoppable ship if it just had better point defense, guns on its underside, and either better starfighters or more of them.

I think a large factor could be the technology - consider that technology development ramps up during war, there was probably a large capability difference between the pre and late war Venators. Compare the early WWII carriers to those of late war, and even the early war survivors were fairly quickly decommissioned and broken up for scrap, though they had received many upgrades during the conflict, they just weren't as capable as new designs. Then post war technology improvements continue at a more pedestrian rate, so those late war ships were still seen 10-20 years later, though not so much for front line operations - there's only a finite level of upgrades you can install, before space and power requirements are just too inadequate for the new toys.

I would love to see at some point either the empire or a privateer use the venator as a cargo ship. I made a post about this on reddit once about how its large hangars can hold a large amount of cargo like in tcw when the separatists loaded one full of probably thousands of barrels of explosive fuel probably worth millions if not billions of credits. and I can imagine they make perfect long distance heavily armored freighters

The Venator does have two immediate descendants that individually exceed it in all roles. The Vindicator is just as armed and can bring 72 fighters to the fray. The secutor is huge, heavily armed, and can carry WAY more fighters. As the clone army aged out the empire would no doubt have a shortage of pilots, and thus be much more stringent on where it deployed it's fighters. A medium cruiser/carrier is thus rendered obsolete for not specializing enough.

"A NEW HOPE" was actually a Stormtrooper catch cry because they were getting decimated when on board Venators😆

My fav thing in the star wars movies is when the old skool retro ships with 60s flashing buttons replace the 'old' ones

Remember that the Entire “Clone Wars” was a manufactured conflict with one individual playing two sides off one another , each using tactics and equipment that were significantly different , while the emerging EMPIRE unveiled both tactics and equipment different from both factions. Ive often wondered if Palipatine was undecided on which faction should be victorious, to the point i wonder if his plans for Luke Skywalker to turn would have been not to join the Empire, but defeat it and rule as a Sith lord

Everyone always misses the Imperial Star Destroyer's greatest strength: It was highly capable of transporting, deploying, and supporting ground operations. To this point, it even carried prefabricated garrisons with attached forces. The republic seemed to used more dedicated troop carriers like the Acclamator class. The role that the Venator excelled at beyond the ISD was as a carrier. To this end, the Empire commissioned ships like the Quasar or Ton-Falk classes. Politics and the necessity of supporting large ground operations to keep systems in line beyond normal supply lines (can't be seen having remote systems succeed right after preventing that very thing in the Clone Wars) caused a heavy reliance on the ISD. Really, the ISD is less a warship, and more a mobile fortress.

At the end of the clone wars Ventnor Class Star destroyers were being phased out in small amounts as the Empire was replacing them with the prototype of the ISD and Victory Class prototypes. The Venator had served its purpose being used to deploy large amounts of star fighters in a short period of time but as the clone war was over and the fighting stopped (well almost most of it) the Empire was switching over to a police force which needed more firepower to reinforce itself than more than a fast deploying one.

It wasn't the ship that "won the clone wars". Palpatines own insights did. The Venator was underamred and its hull would have been an easy breach for the superheavy turbolsaers on the recusant or munificent not to mention that a luckerhulk carried more than three times as many fighter as the venator while being much better armed and armoured while smaller ships that could alsp carry hundreds of fighters like the captor were avaliable to the CIS

Also, I could think over another use for it: Support, freight and repair Missions. I mean, maybe you need to upgrade the Hyperdrive a little so it can hold up with the ISDs, but than you could pack this thing full with all kind of Cargo Movers, Worker Bees and so on, for Repairing ISDs in the Field or building complete Outposts. The ship would be armed enough, to hold off Pirates and Rebels for as long as needed or, after a refit, could be used as a mobile Anti Fighter Plattform too. Even for some rich Merchants and after a demilitarisation, this ship would be interesting... even if it would be very costly to maintain it and on some point, you wouldn't get spare parts for it anymore and have to modernise or scrap it. But maybe the Design will survive the Empire, like the Hammerhead Corvets. The Design is nearly Ancient, compared to some others and they still exist.

Imagine being a tycoon entrepenour who sees the storm comming behind the empire and deciding to buy those old venators to "scrap them" and used the ones in worst shape as spares for the ones who can be saved