Star Wars: Republic and Empire (OOC thread)

Characters Thread
IC Thread

Sometimes, when you kill the evil overlord, the evil empire goes on. Sometimes the hero dies. Sometimes when a legend falls, no one is there to pick up their star. But sometimes someone is.

Luke Skywalker was one of the first group. Leia Organa had only learned Luke was her brother, and that she was Force sensitive, just before his death in the destruction of the second Death Star. It took a long time of searching the galaxy for any clue of Jedi lore and the slightest clue on how to use the Light Side of the Force before she was ready to try and build a new Jedi Order.

But Admiral Ackbar was one of the second. Vice Admiral Istara Kandorian Serrano's task force had been sent to reinforce the Republic's 3rd Fleet, under Ackbar's direct command, when the legendary Mon Calimari Admiral was killed. She took command, and managed to destroy Darth Pauran's flagship and break his fleet, killing the Sith Emperor.

But for all of her efforts, twenty years after that victory, the Empire still controls more of the Galaxy than the Republic. There has never been a lasting truce, let alone peace. And in the wake of the assassination of Leia Solo, a new dark Empress is on the move.

* * * * *

I'm seeking 4-6 5th level Star Wars Saga PCs. The game won't start before the weekend afer Thanksgiving (11/29). Recruiting closed at the end of the day on Saturday 11/22. PCs will be members of the Republic military or working closely with them (Jedi, some civillian contractors, or be creative). Please note that starship combat will be at least as common as character-scale combat in this game.

Timeline

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5 ABY - Battle of Endor; 2nd Death Star destroyed - Darth Vader, the Emperor, and Luke Skywalker killed; Alliance to Restore the Republic makes major advances in the immediate aftermath
6 ABY - New Republic declared; Leia Organa Solo withdraws from politics to seek out Force lore, as there are no known living Jedi, Padme Solo born to Leia Organa Solo and Han Solo, Eryk Serrano born to Istara Kandorian Serrano and Waric Serrano
7 ABY - Mon Mothma elected President of the Republic with only token opposition
9 ABY - Darth Pauran seizes control of the Empire, makes significant gains with Adm. Thrawn as his principal Naval commander in the field; Luke Solo born
11 ABY - Adm. Ackbar killed in action over Anaxes; Adm. Istara Kandorian Serrano takes command of Republic Fleet and defeats Thrawn over her homeworld; Darth Pauran killed
13 ABY - Leia Solo establishes a Jedi academy to build a new Jedi Order with the help of other force-sensitives she has found over the last 7 years
14 ABY - Adm. Serrano moves her flagship to the Kandorian Heavy Industries Battleship Freedom; KHI becomes the primary source for Republic capital ships (though Mon Calimari designs remain prominent as well)
16 ABY - After several failed attempts to take Courscant, the New Republic decides to permanently establish its capital on Anaxes
17 ABY - Grand Moff Ardus Kaine takes control of the Empire, begins major new offensive on the Republic (which controls about 15% of what was the Old Republic at this point); Thrawn reappears
19 ABY - Gaven Marinikar elected president of the Republic
21 ABY - Grand Admiral Thrawn captured and his fleet destroyed over Mon Calimari, ending Grand Moff Kaine's offensive
22 ABY - Padme Solo, Eryk Serrano formally enter Jedi training
26 ABY - Leia Solo assassinated by a Sith agent; Padme Solo takes over the Jedi Order despite her youth
27 ABY - Darth Giada becomes Empress
28 ABY - Present day
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Rules
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- characters are 6th level Star Wars Saga characters, built with a 30 point buy + stat bonuses from 4th level; droid PCs must use one of the templates from Scavenger's Guide to Droids
- all Saga Edition sourcebooks are allowed
- characters must be capable of speaking basic [droids must have a vocabulator]
- characters must be active members of the Republic military, or otherwise closely working with them, to the point where they can reasonably be aboard a warship involved in active military operations (members of the New Jedi Order, for example, though serving officers and enlisted personnel can be Jedi). Alternatively, you can play someone currently on Ruusan who's willing to join the Republic military, though this will mean you'll be a low-ranking enlisted person.
- although some PCs can be Republic Marines, your character should have a role in starship combat (whether as a pilot, gunner, tactician, or engineer)
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Conflicts Within the Republic
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- a small, but growing faction in the Senate believes the Anaxsi have too much influence in the government (President Marinikar, War Minister Serrano, Fleet Admiral Serrano, and three other ministers are from Anaxes, as is the chairman of the War Committee in the Senate; also, because the Republic capital is at Anaxes, a great many low-level functionaries are Anaxsi, and for cultural reasons they are overrepresented in the officer corps of the Republic military); this attitude is more common in worlds that were in open rebellion before the Battle of Endor (Anaxes openly joined the Republic only in 8 ABY, when the Admiral commanding the Star Destroyer Whelm and his task force defected)
- some of the more idealistic founding members of the Republic, including retired former President Mon Mothma, are concerned that Republic society is overly militaristic
- there is widespread concern that Padme Solo was too young and inexperienced to take over for her mother as head of the New Jedi Order (though no one else was seriously proposed as an alternative)
- some factions tired of decades of war want to negotiate a peace with the Empire
- planets whose goods compete with Correllia (which is not a member of the Republic) dislike the free trade and a mutual defense agreement with the Republic (though both President Marinikar and former President Mon Mothma support the policy as a long-term strategy to draw Correllia into the Republic peacefully)
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Special notes for Jedi
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- The New Jedi Order founded by Leia Solo's knowledge of Jedi lore is incomplete, largely derived from fragmentary records and contact with groups that splintered from the Jedi long ago, such as the Jensaarai. With the death of both Darth Sidious and his Apprentice Darth Vader, the Sith are in much the same state. As such, neither the Jedi Master prestige class nor the Sith Lord prestige class are available.
- Because the Leia's Jedi order is relatively new and its formal training methods are still developing, members of the Jedi order with levels in classes other than Jedi -- and even with no levels in Jedi -- are very common, and maybe even a majority; frex, Padme Solo is a noble/Jedi/Force Adept/Force Disciple
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Big Things That May Not Be Obvious From The Timeline
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- The Emperor had no clones
- The Yuuzhan Vong do not exist; the enemy the Chiss were dealing with (and which brought Thrawn to the Empire's notice) was someone else
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Notes on EU stuff
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- anyone born after the battle of Endor has been butterflied out of existence; shortly after the battle of Endor, the same parents may have had a child on the same day with the same name, but he or she is an entirely different person. A few moths later, conditions have changed too much.
- it's quite possible that characters that were alive in 28 ABY in the canon timeline are dead, and that characters that died before 28 ABY are alive (though if they died at a relatively old age, they're almost certainly still dead)
- most of what I know about post-Return of the Jedi events in the canon Star Wars universe has been drawn from Wookieepedia
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Notes for new players
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The PCs are currently on Ruusan, chasing after a mysterious figure from Darth Giada's entourage, who seems to have sacrificed a frigate in an attempt to divert them (and their superiors).

In this time line, there's a small smuggler's port on Ruusan, but it is otherwise uninhabited; neither the Republic nor the Empire claim the world.

I'm looking for 1-2 new players; you can either create a new character from scratch or 'promote' an NPC to PC status if you find him or her interesting (though not the PC's frigate's captain, Commander Cyn, or its fighter wing commander, Lt. Gellian).

If anyone who dropped this game last year wants to reprise his or her character, that's okay too.
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A bit of backstory...

Comments from the journals of Fleet Admiral Istara Kandorian Serrano

- On Grand Admiral Thrawn
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"I've often been asked why I had so much success against him -- we faced each other five times before he was captured; I clearly won three times, clearly lost once, and once it was indecisive -- while others did not. A glib answer to why I had success against him would be that Anaxsi devote very little effort into art. But in truth there are a lot of reasons. He was, to be a sure, a brilliant tactician, and a better than fair strategist. But it always seemed to me that he was concerned with beating the other Admiral, while my goal was always to beat the other fleet.

"What he said -- and I spoke to him in person after we captured him -- was that he had made an extensive study of both my personal background and Anaxsi culture after he found out who the admiral was who faced him the first time my fleet faced his. And he didn't think I fought entirely like a protege of Ackbar's, or an Anaxsi, or an engineer, or an economist, or a fighter pilot's wife, or an industrialist's daughter, or a mother. So it was difficult to predict me.

"My answer is that I tried something different every time. By the time my task force met him the first time, I'd captured every strategic point for resupply, picked off his light forces, and forced him to retreat.

"The second time, he knew who I was, and caught me outnumbered; I was lucky to escape with most of my fleet intact. Ackbar told me later that he didn't think many admirals would have gotten out that mess alive, but I still count that as a loss. The history books -- at least here in the Republic -- call it a draw, since I didn't lose any capital ships, and my overall campaign was successful.

"The third, I'm sure he had been expecting to face Ackbar, not me. But my task force arrived just before he destroyed Home One, and command fell to me. More importantly, my task force were the MC90 prototypes with the first proton missiles; with the combined fire of every missile launcher from all six, we destroyed his Super Star Destroyer, and Darth Pauran with it. For a long time, I thought Thrawn had died then, too.

"The fourth bothers me the most; we had been making great gains in the aftermath of Darth Pauran's death when Thrawn re-appeared with three squadrons of new Imperial III class Star Destroyers with proton missiles of their own. Somewhere along the lines I forgot that the technology behind them was pretty straightforward; I wasn't used to seeing technical innovation from the Empire, and lost a quarter of Third Fleet for it. I offered Mon Mothma my resignation after that battle; she wouldn't take it.

"And the last time -- when we finally captured him -- there wasn't a lot of finesse involved. I had a larger, more modern fleet with more experienced and better-trained people. And he never really seemed to consider that someone might spend as much effort studying him as he put into studying his opponents; I was determined not to give him any opportunity to pull off something clever. Everyone was expecting some brilliant maneuver, but what we ended up with was basically a slugfest. And I had more slugs."
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- on new technology

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"I'm credited with far more than I actually did, I think. The basic concept behind proton missiles was mine, but it was a great many Kandorian Heavy Industries engineers that made the idea real. All I did was run some basic equations that led me to question why capital ships used snub fighter sized missiles. And when KHI turned that into an actual design and prototypes, I argued for modifying the MC90 prototypes under construction to field test the idea.

"I wrote up the design requirements and reviewed the concepts for the Freedom class battleships and Alderaan class cruisers, but I didn't design them myself. I knew committing the Republic Navy to capital ships that used missiles as their primary armament was a serious logistical risk, but the advantages seemed so big I thought we had to take them.

"When the Empire started deploying their own proton missiles, I thought we just might be able to manage a bomber that could handle enough proton missiles to be useful, and that idea became the P-wing. Waric had more to do with developing that concept than I, and neither of us were starship designers.

"The one thing I will take credit for was the upgrades in defensive fire targeting systems we developed in response to the Imperial proton missiles. That was largely software, and I've always been an excellent programmer. More than that, there were some underlying similarities with financial modelling in the routines I used to predict how to best defend against mass missile attacks."
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*raises hand*

I want in.

I'd like to make a Jedi, one of the young force-sensitives discovered by Leia and who's been in the Academy since she was quite young. She's hit hard by Leia's death, and though she has nothing against Padme, she has doubts about her readiness to lead the Order. Doubts she keeps to herself...mainly because there's no one else who could claim to be more ready.

Even so, in the two years following Leia's death, she's been seeking assignments out in the galaxy wherever possible...particularly interested in seeking out and ending the danger that the Sith clearly still pose, and in uncovering more Force lore to aid the Jedi Order in gaining the strength it needs to survive.

Shayuri said:

*raises hand*

I want in.

I'd like to make a Jedi, one of the young force-sensitives discovered by Leia and who's been in the Academy since she was quite young. She's hit hard by Leia's death, and though she has nothing against Padme, she has doubts about her readiness to lead the Order. Doubts she keeps to herself...mainly because there's no one else who could claim to be more ready.

Click to expand...

Looks like a good concept.

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Doubts about Padme's readiness to lead the Order are not at all uncommon, though Jedi know she is in many ways the most gifted weilder of the Force in the order, after her mother's death. She's certainly extraordinarily skilled with farseeing, though her skills with a lightsaber are not among the best of the Jedi.
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We don't serve their kind here. Your droids – they'll have to wait outside."

Why the anti-droid prejudice?

Ambrus said:

Why the anti-droid prejudice?

Click to expand...

It's not very straightforward to determine if someone's got their droid constructed right.

But Star Wars is all about the heroic droid characters; slicing imperial computer networks, smuggling data on secret rebel missions, space combat, rescuing hapless masters, saving the galaxy... Why tell a story if you're not going to include the hero?

[sblock=Varin (rough concept)]

Varin had been at the new Jedi academy since it opened. He was honored enough to of been on of the very first accepted to learn it's new teachings. Though he felt the force as strongly as anyone, he had a hard time learning to control it.

He had never been interested in building his power too rapidly, as he had been told greed would quickly corrupt him and bring him to the Dark Side. It wasn't until the Sith Lord had been chosen as Empress that he felt the calling to become stronger, to become closer to the Old Jedi Masters.

And so for the last year he had been training. Twice he had pushed himself past the point of exhaustion, and had to be told to slow down. Varin could tell that some of the other Jedi at the Academy were worried about him. He knew he seemed obsessed and that they thought he was lurking near the path to the Dark Side.

Truth be told, he wasn't sure anymore. He knew that someone had to oppose Darth Giada, and would rather it be him than to lose one of his friends. Somewhere during training, he wasn't sure if he had put anger and emotion into his actions or not. All he knew was that he was walking a very fine line. [/sblock]

Belloc "Bel" Sinde--a Naboo soldier drafted at a young age to serve in Darth Sideous's Imperial Guard. At age 14, before he had been completely corrupted by the training, Emperor Palpatine died, and Bel, loyal Imperialist that he was, was surprised: not at the death of his leader and soon-to-be master, but at the fact that he was so relieved to never have to serve such an evil man. Within a year Bel had defected to the New Republlic, using his military experience to aid their war against the Empire.

I'll be a Scout 2/Soldier 3 with some piloting skills who specializes in melee combat.

I so definitely would like in on this and since I'm fairly sure we'll have an influx of Jedi, I'd like to go for a Corellian "contractor", which is new Republic speak for a smuggler who works for them, be it smugglin' arms, munitions, or operatives.

Rough Concept Outline:

Working as an Independent Military Contractor, the Corellian Pilot, Wes Colton, is a privateer smuggler for the Republic, moving goods and sentient beings, as well as providing recon, for the military's more clandestine operations. Colton was born on the day that the Second Death Star was destroyed, which many feel is quite a lucky day and accounts for some of his skill at getting out of a tight situation.

Several years ago, in a negotiation to secure his contract with the Republic, Wes agree to the note that represented the loan for his ship being transfered to the Republic, thus securing exclusive rights for the Republic for a term of seven years, of which he is only halfway through. While the move may have seemed, to some, as reckless and a bad business decision, Wes knew it was his best bet as the crime lord who held the note was getting very intense, with respect to the payment schedule.

Anyhow, that's just a rough idea of my pilot, if you're interested.