Governor's Gambit - Star Wars SI into Imperial Governor

[Watching]

Also, I've been thinking. The ISD is kinda not great for the situations the Outer Rim needs. Both the ISD 1 and 2 are almost completely chock full of turbolasers and ion cannons, which is great for brawling with other capital ships. It's a beast in battle, of that there is no doubt, especially with a competent commander and its TIE's running interception.

The thing is, the Outer Rim doesn't need that. But it still has a fuck ton of them. I've been thinking that Las might eventually offer refits of the ships, to expand on their functionality. More efficiency, more adaptability. Hopefully cheaper to run. I have ideas, fairly fleshed out, but I want to hear yours. You guys out-nerd me at every turn, so I figure y'all have this one in the bag. Also, you guys get real hot and bothered when ship theory comes up(at least on SB), so I figure why not

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Ehh… personally, I think it might just be better to have 1-3 ISD's in a fleet to act as command/capital ship and have other roles fulfilled by a bunch of smaller escorts than use refit kits to change your battleships into something else but if there's an over abundance of unneeded ISDs floating around I guess you might as well do something with them to make them atleast somewhat more viable, or mothball them until they're needed.

 

[Ironwar4321]

Anyone else realizes that this means that we got our own catachan jungle fighters for him to use after Endor? Death world? We just call that home!

 

[OrderedOrb]

Also, I've been thinking. The ISD is kinda not great for the situations the Outer Rim needs. Both the ISD 1 and 2 are almost completely chock full of turbolasers and ion cannons, which is great for brawling with other capital ships. It's a beast in battle, of that there is no doubt, especially with a competent commander and its TIE's running interception.

The thing is, the Outer Rim doesn't need that. But it still has a fuck ton of them. I've been thinking that Las might eventually offer refits of the ships, to expand on their functionality. More efficiency, more adaptability. Hopefully cheaper to run. I have ideas, fairly fleshed out, but I want to hear yours. You guys out-nerd me at every turn, so I figure y'all have this one in the bag. Also, you guys get real hot and bothered when ship theory comes up(at least on SB), so I figure why not.

Feedback and commentary appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

-Freefaller

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Forgivr the incredulity, but.... you're only realizing it NOW? Sorry for the tone, but I'm pretty sure at least half of the chat has actually alluded to or outright said that. Yeah, the ISD is VERY poorly suited for controlling the Outer Rim, it's a blunt object made for the explicit purpose of destroying other capital ships.

Now, if you want a perfect ship for the likes of patrolling the Outer Rim, the Gladiator would be your best choice. It doesn't have the heaviest personal firepower, but it's still considerable, especially with a small escort. More importantly, it can hold a very large number of fighters and last long enough on its own to be excellent for patrols across large stretches of territory and is decently fast to respond to crises. Truth is that the Empire doesn't really have any enemies to make the ISD necessary, even at its height the Rebel Alliance rarely had anything above a Cruiser, and the ISD is so unwieldy that a flight of well armed Starfighters, or even smaller cruisers or Frigates, became their BANE. There's an in universe term, Trench Run Disease, for ships of various sizes, starfighters in particular, being able to fly in so close that the ISD couldn't even defend itself without its own fighters. And their Captains were so obsessed with victory by overwhelming firepower that they didn't even bother deploying them.

If you want deeper explanations on all this, look up videos by Generation Tech on YouTube, dude really knows his Star Wars shit. He even has a video dedicated to the Gladiator and how it would've been perfect for the Outer Rim and enforcing Imperial control.

 

[Sanguine]

Chp-65: Negotiations(Threats)

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Shout out to Myr'thos for continuing to be a Sith icon.

Myr'thos: I'm bored and I need attention! *flashbangs the room with Force Fear.*

 

[MorbiIIionaire]

Great job negotiating, excellent use of force. Just as Tarkin *shudder* would want.

On the note of refit, honestly the biggest thing ISD's need is AA capabilities. Maybe just maybe expanded hangers (fielding upgraded tie fighters) but then that feels like stretching a ship class. Then again, this is scifi so why not. If you want a super carrier/battleship that can do damn near everything by itself lol.
If you are not going that direction, just stick with proper AA defence and have proper fleet composition like having a dedicated carrier or two (depending on the size) that are protected by the appropriate vessels. ISD's can police a system but a carrier with hyperactive capable star fighters can police entire sectors. This will however piss off your ISD captains due to making their precious ISD's second to carriers.

Edit: i saw someone say automation and upgraded sensor suites. Those are also very good additions to a basic upgrade refit. Kinda like how the US upgraded the IOWA battleship post WWll.

 

[maxxus0923]

They are lucky he didnt bring the sith... or else they would be so screwed

About ISD? Reduce the turbo lasers and increase AAAs a cost effective method I say together with streamline, automation and efficiency, should bump an ISD cost by a fair bit at the same time increasing its viability as a all rounder capital ship

 

[Faralis]

Shout out to Myr'thos for continuing to be a Sith icon.

Myr'thos: I'm bored and I need attention! *flashbangs the room with Force Fear.*

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Worse, he is a sith with the most strange superpower!

Common Sense!

BEWARE!

 

[Mistroz]

excellent chapter, wonderful job.

 

[AldariSiradla]

Las should have a personal ship one of these days.
A personal warship...
Named...
The Biggest Stick.

And maybe a sister ship too.
A spare...
Named...
The Sweetest Carrot.

Together...
He shall wield The Carrot and Stick.

Nice, very nice.
The natives are pacified.
And all is good in the world.

 

[Evaris]

I mean, while the ISD could see some of its heavy armament swapped out for anti-fighter defense, for the outer rim, Venator components and refits may make more sense; if I remember the lore right, Venators were still being built up till 2BBY, and mostly sold to outer rim systems in the first place - but spare parts were limited and only really being produced in small numbers, largely being centralized.

So a Venator spare parts / refit program would probably go a longer way for Minda than an ISD refit program, honestly - it also better synchronizes with Minda's improved TIE variants.

As others have suggested though, if you are refitting the ISD, the best refit is simply swapping out a handful of turbolasers for significant point defense, and swap the mobile forward base and ground-walker bays for more hanger space for fighters.

 

[Sanguine]

Worse, he is a sith with the most strange superpower!

Common Sense!

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Dude, rational Sith are one of the most dangerous groups in Star Wars. Ruthless enough to do anything but reasonable enough to have restraint. In SWTOR if you play a neutral or light side Sith the Republic and Jedi just fall apart because they don't know how to deal with you.

 

[Crixxis]

"Governors who delegate too much, who aren't willing to get elbow deep into the work of it all, tend to fail or become corrupt. I don't want to be corrupt, and failing means death, so I work! Its the Empire after all. Failure is not tolerated."

They all seemed a tad worried about that.

Honestly? Mood.

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I do wonder if any one of the natives tribe are brash enough to try and start trouble in hope of getting Las executed. Of course at best it'll only be a minor issue and said tribe is going to get the tar beaten out of them by all the other native tribes because no one wants a rain of death on them.

 

[Yacov]

. . . How the fuck does anyone mix up Yavin and Endor? Like, seriously, have you ever actually seen the movies or were you just dropped on your head as a child?

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Eh, I blame the heat. It was a scorcher yesterday and I was still sweating despite the AC. I was mostly focused on getting those ridiculous noble names right every time since autocorrect was no help at all.

Finding an entirely new source of farm tools and refusing to use them? Truly N'wah behavior.

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Glad someone got the reference.

Specifically, a report on the Verndari. The species native to Minda-2.

They reminded me somewhat of the Na'vi, but shorter on average, though still tall. 7-8ft seems to be common.

Green skin with some varying hues, prehensile feet, hair with varying colors, two eyes, four fingers, and odd crystal growths along their forehead.

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Overall not dissimilar to a lot of near-humans in the galaxy. Should make it easier to give them rights.

As for culture, it varied greatly. The clans in the jungle valleys rarely had more than a thousand people, with few city-states existing within the harsh conditions.

The northern part of the continent contained a large amount of volcanoes that created conditions ideal for farming, leading to larger nations.

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The jungle clans I can see maybe forming a commercial relationship for rare plants. Pharmaceutical companies always love interesting plants to poke.

As for the volcano clans, new markets to access and disaster proofing aid could help make them sweet.

As expected, the cultures varied as well. Clans and tribes from the jungles had their own traditions, but generally stuck to a culture of survival due to some event of some kind a few centuries ago that is ill defined. The jungle is not a god to be made peace with, or an enemy to defeat, but a challenge to be overcome.

On the other side, the northern nations have more varied cultures, but curiously follow a similar cultural ideal as well. Of course, theirs is more on the side of growth and the like, seeing the world as a place to conquer and learn from.

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Hopefully that survival mentality will make them pragmatic in the face of an overwhelming show of force by the Empire.

"Sir. We've gotten into contact with the major native nations and tribes in the area. Their representatives are waiting for you."

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"So when do we send in the Stormtroopers to shoot them all?"- if this was a more typical Governor-native populace interaction.

"Good." And it really was. I was half expecting to be forced to meet them halfway in the jungle or something. Thank god for the small mercies.

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The city folk would probably revolt if they did that. They too have experienced the miracles of conditioned air.

As I understood it, negotiations with the locals had amounted to giving them their princess back, flying some TIEs around to discourage violence, and meeting a few times with protocol droids to get the language down pat.

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I mean those TIEs were specifically designed to make that distinctive scream when they flew overhead. So that probably added to the intimidation factor.

Honestly? Paperwork sounds better.

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Another difference from the normal governors. Most governors would see lording over the natives as the highlight of their week over boring paperwork.

He seemed to be on the verge of drawing his weapon, when a pressure fell over the room. A dark thing, like death itself, was looking into your eyes. It lasted only a second, and only Mugwuffin's power saved me from it.

Gotan, on the other hand, fell back into his seat like he had just stared into the eyes of God, and feared what he saw. The rest were clearly shaken, though they maintained decorum fairly well. The Lumina-Seer seemed to be quietly muttering what might be prayers.

Of course, there was no God here. Just Myr'thos, bored out of their minds and deciding to mess with the locals a little bit.

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Ah good. Introduce the locals to the Dark Side of the Force as their first taste of outside force users. Makes them paranoid of any Jedi would feel the need to come later.

The envoys could do little but stare in awe as the Heavy Judgement floated above the facility, the dagger shaped battleship stretching farther than the base itself.

Their body language seemed on the verge of breaking, as I similarly broke their worldview.

The last straw? When the ship started to fire its weapons.

Aiming at the nearest mountain, avoiding any jungle so as to not burn it down, the mainline batteries fired.

And fired.

And fired.

Enough to leave notable damage on the mountain side. Noticeable from miles away.

As parts of the mountain crumbled into the valley below, the shades started to retreat back into their previous position, and the envoys stumbled back into their seats. They were all shaken, breaths quick at a display of more power than any empire of theirs had ever had.

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Getting to see the city sized might of a Star Destroyer is definitely going to put the fear of the Empire into the locals. Tarkin's Doctrine finally being useful for something. Now for Las' light touch to make the obedience stick.

The thing is, the Outer Rim doesn't need that. But it still has a fuck ton of them. I've been thinking that Las might eventually offer refits of the ships, to expand on their functionality. More efficiency, more adaptability. Hopefully cheaper to run. I have ideas, fairly fleshed out, but I want to hear yours. You guys out-nerd me at every turn, so I figure y'all have this one in the bag. Also, you guys get real hot and bothered when ship theory comes up(at least on SB), so I figure why not.

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I think the main focus should be on reducing the logistical footprint of the Star Destroyers. That may be an exercise in futility, but a necessary one if you want those walking fortresses around long term.

For all they are big and powerful, most Star Destroyers don't last more than a decade past this point. That's around 30 years max of service life. Meanwhile some other ship models last centuries and keep going. Most of that is due to supply lines collapsing, internal Imperial infighting, and the dwindling amount of fighter coverage as the Civil War went on past Endor.

Automation and swapping out premium parts for lesser, but more easily replaceable variants should be the name of the game. Sure it might reduce the Star Destroyer's overall capabilities. However those frustrated captains will be less so when they can actually maintain their ships once supply lines crumble.

 

[paxus22]

if you want a ISD refit why not re-design to make a mobile patrol base/resupply base essentially a mobile battle station to defend the sector just need corvette/frigate docking rings and more hyperdrive fighter bays.

being a mobile fortress/garrison/response force is kinda the ISD main role anyways.

 

[Andrew1993]

Venators imo work better for the rim as a warship, they have potent guns but not a lot of them strong shields and they have enough fighter capacity to patrol a large swath of territory, Victory I SD work amazing as Planetary defense but arent great at pursuit engagements
Edit venators are also apparently pretty damn fast

 

[Inbredmartian]

Why do I get the feeling that Las just made space Japan by accidentally insinuating that the empire kills people for being inefficient and lazy so 12 hr workdays are the norm

 

[Doombringer]

Why do I get the feeling that Las just made space Japan by accidentally insinuating that the empire kills people for being inefficient and lazy so 12 hr workdays are the norm

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Considering his own work behaviour do you think he'll notice?

 

[Rogue-eL]

I see that the good old American gun boat diplomacy is in effect.

 

[Sam I Am]

I see that the good old American gun boat diplomacy is in effect.

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Nah, I think it's more like Big Stick diplomacy, I think.

Unless Gun-boat diplo and Big Stick diplo are one and the same.

 

[OrderedOrb]

Nah, I think it's more like Big Stick diplomacy, I think.

Unless Gun-boat diplo and Big Stick diplo are one and the same.

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Yeah, they basically mean the same thing. Big Stick diplomacy is just a reference to a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt who summed up Gunboat Diplomacy as ' Speak softly and carry a big stick'.

 

[BaronNoir]

Gun-Boat Diplomacy is a British thing. Where they will literally ship the parts of a ship to a location and build it on site to make a point and sailing it up river to prove how impotent your military is and shelling your ports while having tea and crumpets.

Big-Stick Diplomacy is the US equivalent. They prefer dropping a carrier strike group into an area and bombing it to hell, then dropping off the material to pop up a FOB into your backyard that will be fully operational in less than a week.

As for the ISD problems. Not sure if there's much point fixing the ships that are currently in existence honestly. Pulling them now for refitting will weaken the current force projection they currently have which would allow for the Rebel Alliance to get more of a foothold. Add to that, if the refit is extensive enough that ship would be out of action for months. Plus the whole ISD design is based off the Tarkin Doctrine and Palpatine's powertrip, so they need to be addressed anyway since Tarkin's Doctrine has obviously failed.

The best way to handle the ISDs is a three step process. The first is to create more escort ships to help cover for the glaring weaknesses the ISDs currently have. The next is to create a mark 3 ISD that is designed to help handle both the ISD's primary combat role while also balancing it with necessary upgrades, maybe even specialized ones like one geared more for fleet carrier tactics and one for battleship tactics. Finally once the Mk3 ISDs come into service slowly recall ISDs for refit to better handle their duties.

That's what I'd say. There's really nothing you can do about them in the immediate short term as they just are too deeply embedded into Imperial Naval Doctrine to replace outright at the moment, and with the ongoing issues with the Rebels pulling them now is not an option. You'd need to start production and design on a replacement now if you were going to get them ready for the road ahead and ensure there's enough for post Endor to at least hold the line, but good luck on trying to get that ball rolling because I can't imagine KDY letting a new upstart try and alter their profitable ISD designs without a lot of pushback.

Overall I'd say you would want 3 basic specialized designs. One being a fleet/battle carrier which has less large scale turbolasers and more smaller armaments with greater hanger space and less heavy armor and better speed. One that fills out the battleship role better with better lighter armaments and other essential upgrades. The final one being more designed to act like a mobile military base that can carry large amounts of troops and their equipment for long periods of time while also acting as direct support for ground operations. The current ISDs are trying to do all three, but not very well.

 

[None of your bee wax!]

I'm wondering what those crystals do, as there has to be some evolutional reason behind them.

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Wouldn`t put it past them being a type of Kyber crystal or another force-adjacent mineral. It is Star Wars after all.

 

[NavigatorNobilis]

You know, I see two possibilities for why the Empire put so much effort into battleships - sorry, "star destroyers" - over more efficient and cost-effective carriers;

1. Dictator Disease. Palpatine is many things, but he's not actually a general. A politician, a schemer, a powerful force wielder, but I don't think he has any actual experience as a tactical leader. But arrogance is very much in his MO, so he would absolutely overrule his subordinates and impose what he knows is the best doctrine. "Unlimited power!" Isn't just a quote, it's a lifestyle.

2. Evil Genius. The above is the excuse for Darth Sidious intentionally crippling the Empire's navy, in order to keep the Rebellion kicking and fighting. This serves the dual purpose of continuously justifying his ever-harsher policies, and more importantly, keeps him entertained.

 

[averagejoe32]

You know, I see two possibilities for why the Empire put so much effort into battleships - sorry, "star destroyers" - over more efficient and cost-effective carriers;

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You missed one or two I think. The big advantage of carriers on earth, or any planet really, is their ability to stand off over the horizon and just send planes out to bomb enemy ships till they sink. That advantage mostly doesn't exist in space.

Adding in its ability to preform in a limited way as a troop transport and carrier then you have the Swiss Army Knife of battleships. One the Empire could send pretty anywhere and have good odds of success for variety of mission profiles.

Which on the scale of galactic scale probably seemed pretty appealing to Palpatine. Unfortunately, what looks good on the galactic scale simply runs into trouble in the sector or planetary level.

 

[paxus22]

yeah palpy made too many .
made the whole fleet ISD'S rather than 20% ISD max

also since tie fighters did not have hyperdrives they were useless outside single systems.

therefore reduces strike range and increased Danger to the mothership.