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This was something that came to me as I was sitting on the can earlier, pondering the causes of genital herpes. Would the rebellion have tried to destroy the empire, if they would have known that the Vong would have come 30 years later to nearly destroy the galaxy. It's an interesting thought. The fact that the Vong knew they couldn't stand up to the empire. I mean would Luke really have overthrown the emperor, knowing that he would be basically picking the lesser of two evils. A lot of you would disagree with me when I call Palpatine the lesser of two evils, but the Vong just decimated everything in their path, while the Empire let society basically exist. It really is an interesting thought though. I would have stopped the rebellion from undermining the Empire, and let it continue, thereby saving the 365 trillion lives lost during the Vong War.. Lets have opinions from those of you who have a brain(minority on this forum).

Good thought, actually.

Emperor Palpatine was aware of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion well before it happened, that was why he sought to stop Outbound Flight. Grand Admiral Thrawn was aware of it as well, hence why he did Sidious's bidding and joined the Empire. Nom Anor, a Yuuzhan Vong agent, secretly helped the Rebellion weaken the Empire, and facilitated the warlordism, because the Vong feared the Empire so deeply.

As for the "lesser of two evils", the writers of the Yuuzhan Vong agreed in an interview found in the back of TUF that the Emperor was undoubtably the more evil of the two, since he operated purely on ambition. But yeah, the Vong were just chaotic.

Probably not, if I was the republic and knew that the vong were coming in 30 years.Which would be before ANH (and the empire didn't know) During the war I would take a few steps to make sure the empire won because like you said they kept the galactic society/economics in tact. Then after the war I would rage war with a weakened empire.
But there is a problem with waiting with Sidious I would say it is remotely possible for him to form some type of treaty with the vong. Also you have to take into account that Thrawn will be alive with a bigger fleet at his command. By 30 years after ROTJ Sidious would be using clone bodies and he would be basically DE Sidious with control of the galaxy. But Luke could spend his time training(for instance if they know prior to ANH Kenobi would alive as well as yoda to for a while to train Luke properly) However they porbaly would less Jedi since Sidious and Vader could probably sense them.
Now I'm gonna change my mind as say I would let the events fall into place as they do now because you would know there coming and take precautionary measure, there is no DEish Sidious alive,Thrawn would be dead, Vader would be dead, and you don't know if the Han would have met Leia(=no solo children) if Ben and Luke didn't need to travel to Alderan.
Either way the alliance has one hell of a fight ahead of them.Bottom line I would defeat the Empire and take my chances with the Vong.

Would Lucasfilm have concieved the NJO series, if they realised how badly written they would be? Probably.

I actually like this topic. I mean, you had me at herpes. Anyway, I think had they known, they being Luke and the Rebellion leaders, I think they would have done the same as they did. The majority of people in Star Wars, save for a select few, seem to rank about a level 2 on Kohlberg's morality scale, so I think they saw the Empire as a more immediate threat (which they were) and maybe thought if they could handle the likes of palpatine and Vader and all the rest, they could overcome anything.

But I'm in a hurry to go to Winghouse to watch some UFC, so I'll reply more later. But in hindsight, i'm sure they were kicking themselves for destroying their would-be protector. Ya know, one of those "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of thing.

Well I'll be back. Again, good topic. And lay off those herpes, otherwise Escape will always have an advantage over you with Advent.

Originally posted by Gideon
Good thought, actually.

Emperor Palpatine was aware of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion well before it happened, that was why he sought to stop Outbound Flight. Grand Admiral Thrawn was aware of it as well, hence why he did Sidious's bidding and joined the Empire. Nom Anor, a Yuuzhan Vong agent, secretly helped the Rebellion weaken the Empire, and facilitated the warlordism, because the Vong feared the Empire so deeply.

As for the "lesser of two evils", the writers of the Yuuzhan Vong agreed in an interview found in the back of TUF that the Emperor was undoubtably the more evil of the two, since he operated purely on ambition. But yeah, the Vong were just chaotic.

Well my point with the lesser of two evils idea is that Palpatine didn't just kill everything he saw, like the Vong did, so while his regime was corrupt as hell, they were a hell of a lot better than the Vong, and if they weren't destroyed, the Vong would have never showed up. I'm not too familiar with what Nom Anor did to help the Rebellion. However, it would have saved those 365 trillion lives.

I am familiar with a little bit of what Palpatine knew about the Vong. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Anakin and Obiwan travel to Zenoma Sekot? And I'm assuming they reported their findings of "Extra galactic" species to Palpatine? I wonder if was too arrogant to believe it. Furthermore, didn't the prophets of the dark side warn him of these travelers?

Also you're right hord, the whole "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or my enemy" philosophy comes to mind in this discussion.

This situation now reminds me of Revan's a little after the madalorian wars. Traya said that Revan may have fell willingly so he could take over the galaxy turning it into an empire ti make it stronger or make the republic stronger to fend off the true sith. Either way the true sith would have a harder opponent. Here the alliance knows that the Vong will be coming but they know empire is stronger but there is the possibility the empire could end up coming out stronger of the conflict. Whether its the vong serving the empire or something else. Plus you would have the scenarios I mentioned above.(like about Sidious,Vader,Thrawn,possibly No solo kids) The alliance should try and defeat the empire now and spent the time in between the two wars building up its military and doing whatever it can to make the galaxy better defended. The question is how many lives are the alliance willing to lose so they can end up being the domanint force in the galaxy after the two wars.

Comparing the Vong and Palpatine is hard to do; the Vong did what they did because they were warriors. They're the SW version of the Spartins. Hell, they were just following the orders of a megalomaniac (Shimrra). On the other hand, Palpatine manipulated, tortured, and murdered for his own benefit, on pure ambition, and as the DSSB says "to squeeze the life out of the galaxy that spawned him" like a cloaked parasite.

But, yes, you have a point. Palpatine didn't butcher senselessly as long as people did what they were told, whereas the Vong had this hatred for all non-Vong things.

Nom Anor was up to his balls in subterfuge involving the Empire. He helped facilitate numerous betrayals and warlords, which, as you know, depleted the Imperial Starfleet and the Imperial military's reserves and weaponry. Anor was well aware that a unified Empire would curbstomp the Yuuzhan Vong, as did Grand Admiral Thrawn, which was why he tried to help the Empire. The truth was: Thrawn had no real love for the Emperor or the Empire as a whole, but understood that they stood the best chance to protect the galaxy from the Vong.



All right. There was a Republic project called "Outbound Flight" led by Jorus C'Boath during Palpatine's tenure as Chancellor . C'Boath was a Dooku-type Jedi, arrogant and proud, and wished to expand the Republic and the Jedi Order to the far reaches of the galaxy, the Unknown Regions.

However, Darth Sidious was well aware of the Yuuzhan Vong scouts active in the Unknown Regions. We're never told how he found out, but Palpatine is usually ten steps ahead of everyone as far as information is concerned.

Anyways, Palpatine reasons: if Outbound Flight makes it to the Unknown Regions, they could bump into the Vong invasion force. And if that happens, C'Boath would likely get captured and the Vong would have prisoners to interrogate. But more importantly, if that happened, the Republic would be screwed, since - at this time - they had no standing military force.

...So, when Outbound Flight takes off, Sidious sends a Trade Federation mini-fleet to intercept it and destroy it. However, before he can, a Chiss striketeam intercepts them and WTFpwns them (despite having vastly inferior weaponry). Who is leading this Chiss strike team...

Effin' Thrawn.

One of Palpatine's agents who survived the Chiss attack, Kinman Doriana, persuades Thrawn to destroy Outbound Flight, and puts Thrawn in contact with Sidious. Sidious tells him the reasons why he tried to destroy Outbound Flight, so that he would have time to prepare a military strong enough to stop the Vong .

Long story short, Thrawn curbstomps Outbound Flight, and Sidious secretly has C'Boath cloned into the insane Dark Jedi we all know and love from the Heir to the Empire trilogy: Joruus C'Boath.

Whew.

Anyways, we know that Palpatine obviously didn't create the Empire to just stop the Vong, but it was one of the reasons why he put so much emphasis on the military, hence why Thrawn later signed up with him.

Yea something like that except Revan did canonically fall to the darkside, as mentioned by POD. However that doesn't change the fact that he still fell to the darkside to defend the Republic.

Originally posted by Darth Sexy
Yea something like that except Revan did canonically fall to the darkside, as mentioned by POD. However that doesn't change the fact that he still fell to the darkside to defend the Republic.

Yea that was the basic point I was trying to make and Kreia comment just popped into my mind.

If this were to be looked at from a Thinktank's POV:

As of ANH, if the Rebellion, or at least key leaders in it, knew of the Vong, it'd still be beneficial to overthrow Palpatine.

No Alliance personal as of the OT would have known of Palpatine's clones, hence if the aged Palpatine died before the Invasion, the Empire would have splintered, giving the Vong advantage.

And many would believe that there's still time to get rid of the Empire and build up a powerful Navy under a democratic Republic.

Yea but at the same time, the Vong would have never invaded if the Empire was still there. You're saving 365 trillion lives so why take out the only regime tough enough to destroy these outsiders?

The Empire was still there when the Vong invaded, just much less powerful. If Alliance leaders believed they could take down Palpatine and install their own government with a powerful enough military to combat the Vong... I'd think they'd go for it.

The Chosen One would attempt to bring balance to the Force. And since the Vong are "outside" of the Force, does that fall in the equation?

If Luke held back, he would only delay the inevitable. Palpatine will initiate galactic purging of other species. Quite the equivalent to the Vong invasion. And the Vong would never set direct foot into the galaxy because they would be staring into the face of Death Star, Star Destroyers, Sun Crushers, and World Devastators.

And with the power of the Force, Palpatine may even initiate the extra-galactic invasion himself. AGAIN not forgetting he will find Zonama Sekot.

Since the Chosen One was Palpatine's right hand man, i don't think he'd be attempting to much in this case.

The difference was, Tangible, that the New Republic had a military force as well, but the Galactic Empire was simply vastly superior. The Republic could not put as much emphasis on the military without looking like hypocrites.

Ok so some of you are saying they should have done what they did and build up a military themselves correct? What guarantee is there that they would do it to the extent the Empire did it, in the next 30 years. There simply is not enough man power in the Rebellion to come close to what the Empire did, nor is there a genius on the level of Palpatine to orchestrate it all. You already had a superior military in tact, so it's either living under a dictatorship until the Vong eventually did attack or didn't, or taking your chances with democracy and losing what, like 80% of the galaxy's population?

The military disparity between the Empire and the New Republic is vast. It puts it into perspective that the Empire ceaselessly fought amongst itself and the Republic for ten years, and even then, it still controlled about half of the galaxy. Add to the fact that the Empire had thirteen Grand Admirals; tNEC confirms that only Admiral Ackbar was the only remote competition in terms of military genius to the Admirals.

Hell, if you just put Thrawn in charge of the Imperial Remnant, he would have kicked Vong ass.

Originally posted by Gideon
The military disparity between the Empire and the New Republic is vast. It puts it into perspective that the Empire ceaselessly fought amongst itself and the Republic for ten years, and even then, it still controlled about half of the galaxy. Add to the fact that the Empire had thirteen Grand Admirals; tNEC confirms that only Admiral Ackbar was the only remote competition in terms of military genius to the Admirals.

Hell, if you just put Thrawn in charge of the Imperial Remnant, he would have kicked Vong ass.

Just to add to your point Escape, the Empire was so big that from the end of the battle of Endor, to somewhere around what, 120 ABY, the empire was still around and even THEN it took over the galaxy once again. That shows you the incredible size of the empire. The Vong wouldn't stand a chance against something like that. I'd rather be ruled by a dictatorship, than see the galaxy be destroyed.

Pretty much. If you minded your own business or proved to be a valuable asset, there was at least a 80% chance that Palpatine would leave you the hell alone. But, yes, the Vong were scared shitless of the Empire (at its height).

I'm impressed that at certain points, Star Wars unintentionally brings up ethical, moral, and logical questions.

the only thing the rebellion did that i think was dumb was destroy every super weapon they found. Luke even said he whished they hadn't destroyed the galaxy gun cause it would be a great weapon to use for their advantage.

Originally posted by Darth Sexy
Ok so some of you are saying they should have done what they did and build up a military themselves correct? What guarantee is there that they would do it to the extent the Empire did it, in the next 30 years. There simply is not enough man power in the Rebellion to come close to what the Empire did, nor is there a genius on the level of Palpatine to orchestrate it all. You already had a superior military in tact, so it's either living under a dictatorship until the Vong eventually did attack or didn't, or taking your chances with democracy and losing what, like 80% of the galaxy's population?

There is no way that in 30 years the rebellion could build up a military to the extent of the empire. The empire has access to way more materials,resources and man power. Plus they would most likely have most of their superweapons around. Plus Thrawn would not be dead so he will have many more ships under his control which is extremely bad for the vong and rebellion. Vader would still be alive (since Luke would be training and the rebellion would not have done anything but build up their force or take part in a few battles so the battle of endor would most likely not have occurred) and loyal to the emperor. Finally Sidious would still be alive whether it is in a clone body or his original. This Sidious could possibly be equal to the DE Sidious which is very bad thing for the vong and Luke. I would even think it is possible for Sidious to make some type of treaty or pact with the Vong to join the empire. Which definitely means the rebellion is screwed.

Originally posted by Darth Hord
There is no way that in 30 years the rebellion could build up a military to the extent of the empire. The empire has access to way more materials,resources and man power. Plus they would most likely have most of their superweapons around. Plus Thrawn would not be dead so he will have many more ships under his control which is extremely bad for the vong and rebellion. Vader would still be alive (since Luke would be training and the rebellion would not have done anything but build up their force or take part in a few battles so the battle of endor would most likely not have occurred) and loyal to the emperor. Finally Sidious would still be alive whether it is in a clone body or his original. This Sidious could possibly be equal to the DE Sidious which is very bad thing for the vong and Luke. I would even think it is possible for Sidious to make some type of treaty or pact with the Vong to join the empire. Which definitely means the rebellion is screwed.


I HIGHLY doubt Sidious would make a treaty with the Vong. Not only are they on another level of the force, which would scare the shit out of Sidious, but they also pose a major threat because they want to command and conquer, which is what Sidious does. That conflict of interest alone is enough to disprove that theory. Furthermore, Sidious created this empire with a dream of having a all human league in terms of high ranking officials. Why in the WORLD would he sign a treaty with extra galactic aliens? I suppose you could use the logic that the Vong and Sidious have the same hatred for the Jedi, but Sidious is just as much of a force user as the Jedi, so he would be an enemy as well.

Originally posted by Darth Sexy
I HIGHLY doubt Sidious would make a treaty with the Vong. Not only are they on another level of the force, which would scare the shit out of Sidious, but they also pose a major threat because they want to command and conquer, which is what Sidious does. That conflict of interest alone is enough to disprove that theory. Furthermore, Sidious created this empire with a dream of having a all human league in terms of high ranking officials. Why in the WORLD would he sign a treaty with extra galactic aliens? I suppose you could use the logic that the Vong and Sidious have the same hatred for the Jedi, but Sidious is just as much of a force user as the Jedi, so he would be an enemy as well.

I had a thought that if Sidious would send Thrawn at the head of massive fleet before they invaded, then the empire could get a big victory and make the vong somewhat like military slaves or something so he could he advance the galactic empire to other galaxies. But you do have a point with vong hating force users. But Palpetine kept his sith identity hidden from the galaxy for decades and then even as the supreme chancellor he kept it hidden from the jedi right under their noses until it was time for the sith to come out of hiding. I'm not saying it will happen it probably wont but it given his history it wouldn't surprise me if he could. But it wont most likely happen but if it could then rebellion is definitely screwed.

Yes, Palpatine could have sent a force out with thrawn, but the Vong had HUGE numbers... So Palpatine would have to do more than send one force out, he'd have to commit the majority of his empire to destroy the Vong. THEN and only then would the victory be quick and destructive.

That was was trying to get at but I guess I didn't explain it good. I would have Thrawn as the leader of the fleets that will most likely lead to a victory in the war. And I would probably say that a war between the empire and the vong would end faster than the war between the republic and the vong did.

Nom Anor told the Supreme Overlord point-blank that the Empire at it's height would easily curbstomp the Vong in their first engagement. How much of the Starfleet Palpatine would have to commit remains a mystery.

I think Palaptine may have actually ended up doing more damage than the Vong did. I mean, we need to remember, Endor was a "Do or Die" thing for the Rebels. If they hadn't seceded, the Empire would have crushed the Rebels, leaving the Imperials completely unchallenged. Then Sidious would wreck the majority of aliens, and live out his dream as an immortal ruler of the Empire for the next ten thousand years.

Also, revealing the information (in a non-crazy way) would probably only make the people rally around Palapatine to protect them. Even the oppressed races maybe. I mean, a wookiee would rather live as a slave and maybe have the chance to escape over seeing his entire race demolished (save for Hanharr).

I don't think Palpatine would have ever been respnsible for 365 trillion deaths.

i agree but then again i disagree because unless Lucas went back and changed the script we wont find

You guys are awesome. I love just reading what you guys post about your speculations.


Is 365 trillion 80% of the galaxies inhabitants? I thought that it was close to 50%? I could be mistaken. I would suspect Sidious of only crushing rebels of his empire had the rebels not succeeded. Despite his negatives, he seemed to tolerate if not like his supporters. Then again, he could have turned on the people and committed a religious wipe i.e. galactic genocide.

Also, are Sidious' clones filled with his spirit? (that sounds funny but spirits run around all the time on both the dark and light side.)

If I recal, the galaxy has 400 trillion inhabitants, so yes its very damn close.

Um... I don't know if the galaxy lost 80% of its population. That number would be huge - the death toll is staggering - and I haven't heard about that at all. If it were that large, you'd think it'd be a covered issue.

no doubt 365 trillion is one major assload of a number...

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/astro.html

Originally posted by Darth Sexy
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/astro.html

Lmao, I am not reading that whole thing. It says there's 100 quadrillion beings.

that's a lot of beings, they give sources though..

Originally posted by Gideon
Lmao, I am not reading that whole thing. It says there's 100 quadrillion beings.

How did you come up with 100 quadrillion or 10^17?

I could not directly derive that number based on the information provided.