[Star Wars] What if the Empire Won?

[Fallen Seraph]

Ooh, that's a cool idea.

Thanks, I think too it could create some interesting relationships with the Rebel Alliance as well. You know a Imperial officer of one sector slips some info to a Rebel about his rivals secret factory on such-and-such a planet. The Rebel Alliance could be a thorn used to prick each sector, without being "directly" involved.

This could also give the Rebel Alliance time and resources to rebuild a bit after the defeat on Yavin 4. They of course will be trying to amp up the tension as well. You know stealing Imperial uniforms and ships to raid other Imperial forces.

 

[Ghostwind]

The Death Star could become something of a production model. Since it succeeded at Yavin 4 it would be a "proven concept" so you could have like 4-5 Death Stars roaming about. Perhaps there is inner-tension in the Empire with each section that has a Death Star vying for more control. The borders between these zones could be very tense, perhaps areas where smugglers could make runs avoiding the main territories.

Hmmm, this could possibly lead to two Death Stars duking it out as different Moff factions wage war upon each other to fill the power vacuum left when the Emperor dies.

 

[Particle_Man]

Hmmm, this could possibly lead to two Death Stars duking it out as different Moff factions wage war upon each other to fill the power vacuum left when the Emperor dies.

Would that be a form of MAD or would the quickest draw and best shot win, like in the old Westerns?

I imagine a successful Empire might have less non-humans as any worlds that contributed significant members of their race to the Rebel Alliance would be destroyed utterly.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Would that be a form of MAD or would the quickest draw and best shot win, like in the old Westerns?

I imagine a successful Empire might have less non-humans as any worlds that contributed significant members of their race to the Rebel Alliance would be destroyed utterly.

The Rebel Alliance may move entirely to non-planet operation. The memory of both Yavin 4 and the risk of the Death Stars being too great. I could see in the borders between territories or the Outer Rim the Rebels would build hidden hyperspace able ships in debris fields and such. Perhaps the idea of capital ships will be even more important as simply base of operations.

Hmm... It could almost have a BSG feel to the Rebel Alliance with their bases and fleet staying hidden and always on the move.

As for Death Star vs. Death Star I imagine sabotage would be more often the means to doing damage. They know how they are built afterall. Perhaps the secret development of anti-Death Star weapons are developed by Moffs but outside the view of the Emperor. I could see Darth Vader and the Emperor having new superweapon development programs because of their mistrust of other officers.

 

[fireinthedust]

I did a campaign based before the Clone Wars broke out (but expanded with d20 modern cybernetics rules, ftw!). The Emperor was confronted by Qui Gon, everyone died. Life continues


My immediate questions:

1) how many sessions? (not ever, I mean for a specific "arc") This will give you an idea of what you want to cover. For one arc you may want to follow the 3 planets rule, or something. Many encounters, 3 strange locations. Also the kinds of different "events" you can do at each one. The rest will be backdrop, basically, with a pre-yavin story; the difference is the Death Star, and no cavalry army at all.

2) What are the aims you want to throw at the PCs? Like, are they trying to build an army? They could use Droid manufacturers or even Cloners from Cameno. Heck, they could also go after the Katana fleet, or some other missing fleet of ships they download. Bam, army and fleet. Done. Find another location, either to get the information from, or the final battle at, and you've got the arc. Off-hand: smuggler's den on Coruscant; Droid factory on Bespin (or a similar gas giant); Katana fleet on, er, Hoth (celebrities are fun, leave me alone )


3) How "Force-Sensitive" are you aiming for? Is the Emp dead? Is Darth Vader around? Is Yoda an option? Sidious is sort of "evil Yoda". No one expects him to die of natural causes. He's the evil wizard, the necromancer; the lich! If he's the showdown in a Force campaign, that's one thing.
If you're ignoring the Force, then maybe he's really just a dude. Like Tarkin.
So here you'd want to pull a Skywalker: PC discover's he's a force-user; crash-land on Degoba, learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like Luke's father before him; fight the BBEG.
One section of one arc could be this. Or it could be getting into an ancient Jedi/Sith temple that's being used as a smuggling operation, and steal the plans to a weapon that could neutralize a Death Star with one shot. Or both.

The question is who the major FU villain/challenge for any section of the campaign is going to be. Or the melee/kung fu villain.

4) Finally: take a Japanese classic, like 7 Samurai, and make it Star Wars. Lucas did it with (I think) "the Hidden Fortress", right? Well, that's your session, with "the empire won" as the backdrop.

 

[Orius]

I'm not deeply familiar with the Expanded SW Universe, but having Thrawn as major player possibly even against Vader in a power struggle for control of the throne would be interesting. Also seeing how the Empire reacts to the Yuuzhan Vong could be fun.

From what I understand of the SW EU, the Empire was in part a reaction against the Yuuzhan Vong. Palpatine was trying to knock off the Jedi and establish a Sith Empire, but supposedly he also knew the Yuuzhan Vong was coming. The Old Republic and Jedi Order as portrayed in the prequels were growing weak, so Palpatine booted them out of the way to prepare for an expected invasion.

I don't think there would have been a serious succession problem with Palpatine dying. He had his clone out there, and his former master, Darth Plagius, had researched anumber of ways of cheating death. Palpatine was probably planning to still be around when the Yuuzhan Vong invaded. The only people who had any realistic chance of overthrowing him were Vader and Luke.

Thrawn also apparently knew about them. The way I understand, his homeworld was in the path of the Yuuzhan Vong and he joined the Empire because of the threat they posed. Supposedly, before he returned and took control of the Imperial remnants in Zahn's trilogy, he was out beyond the Empire's borders preparing for their invasion. I don't think he would get into a power struggle with Vader over the leadership of the Empire because there were bigger things at stake.

 

[wingsandsword]

One would think that the Empire would have much less difficulty fighting the Yuuzhan Vong.

I never actually read the NJO stuff, but the d20 stuff that I read seemed to portray the New Republic as having so tiny a military that they weren't able to render an effective defense against the Yuuzhan Vong fleets. Contrast that with the Empire and its endless armies of Stormtroopers, TIEs, and Star Destroyers.

I can also see a lot of political intrigue, up to and including small wars between Moffs that the Emperor instigates to head off challengers and relieve his own immense boredom. What would be interesting would be if, say, someone opposed to the Emperor got their hands on the Death Star.

It was more of political strife in the New Republic with factions wanting to appease the YV and underestimating the threat, until it was far too late and the tide of battle had swept well into the Core Worlds. Thanks to front groups like the Peace Brigade, they had a lot of typical galactic citizens thinking that the Vong were the good guys and the New Republic were needlessly being aggressive to these extragalactic visitors that have come seeking a new home, and the Jedi were amoral meddlers that made the galaxy a worse place. It took Coruscant falling and the New Republic government collapsing for the galaxy to really take the Yuuzhan Vong seriously, because for a few decades before they invaded they had been putting spies in the galaxy gaining information and sewing disinformation and making the political stage more suitable for their assault.

Now, some revisionists have put forth the idea that the Vong were the "real" reason the Empire was building superweapons like Death Stars (and World Devastators, Sun Crushers, ect.), to be able to defend against the Vong with overwhelming firepower and that's why Palpatine "really" was militarizing the galaxy, because he knew about it as one of his deepest secrets. Now, there is nothing canonical about it that I know of, pure speculation even within the setting (i.e. characters sitting around saying "maybe this is why he was doing it after all"), but it could make for a fine alternate-history campaign.

The Yuzzhan Vong were as ruthless as Palpatine or Vader, and were just as prone as the Empire to blowing up or ruining planets. They literally dropped moons on some worlds to destroy them by manipulating gravity (Canonically, that's how Chewbacca died, he couldn't get offworld when a planet was pulverized like that), they also were fond of using bioweapons to annihilate all life on a planet (like they did to Ithor, because there was a plant there that could have been used as a weapon against them). A war between the Vong and a more-or-less unopposed Empire would have been even more destructive to the galaxy, as both sides had world-ruining superweapons and weren't afraid to use them.

The problem is, in the end the Vong weren't destroyed by overwhelming firepower, they had numbers, they traveled in death-star sized biological worldships stuffed full of warriors, they were overcome by discovering why their leaders were terrified of Jedi even though they seemed immune to the Force, and starting a revolution from within that toppled their social structure through the Jedi that could see the truth of how hollow their false religion was and how they were being manipulated by their leaders. Now, there were a couple of occasions in the NJO storyline when they could have used a terrible biological weapon against the Vong, like the "Alpha Red" toxin developed by the Chiss that could have been genocidal against them and anything using their biotech, but it had serious side effects. . .it wasn't exclusive to Vong biotech and was jumping species to be able to wipe out other life.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Now, some revisionists have put forth the idea that the Vong were the "real" reason the Empire was building superweapons like Death Stars (and World Devastators, Sun Crushers, ect.), to be able to defend against the Vong with overwhelming firepower and that's why Palpatine "really" was militarizing the galaxy, because he knew about it as one of his deepest secrets. Now, there is nothing canonical about it that I know of, pure speculation even within the setting (i.e. characters sitting around saying "maybe this is why he was doing it after all"), but it could make for a fine alternate-history campaign.

Kinman Doriana appears to believe it, according to Outbound Flight, but all we can really tell is that Sidious/Palpatine knew about the YV threat. Personally, I think the only thing that it really impacted was methodology--without that threat, Sidious may have preferred a less militarized Empire to rule over, since it would reduce the number of threats to his control.

And can I say how refreshing it is to see a SW thread that doesn't devolve into "EU stinks, the Vong stink, the only real canon is Episode IV where Han shoots first (and shoots up the entire Mos Eisely cantina)!"

 

[Bumbles]

And can I say how refreshing it is to see a SW thread that doesn't devolve into "EU stinks, the Vong stink, the only real canon is Episode IV where Han shoots first (and shoots up the entire Mos Eisely cantina)!"

Well, he did! That's just plain common sense. But I don't see how that matters to any of the rest.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Here are a few ideas:

• Civil War: With the Death Star surviving, and thus Grand Moff Tarkin surviving, the Emperor has a new threat to his power—the ambitions of Tarkin and his allies in the Imperial military. The galaxy still faces civil war, but between two ruthlessly evil forces. Tarkin makes an allegiance with Thrawn (who introduces the ysalamiri), giving Tarkin's forces an edge against threats like the Emperor and Vader. The Rebels try to rebuild their strength, and do what they can to bide their time and strike when the survivor is weakest.
• The Hutt Star: The Hutts invest their criminal wealth in building their own Death Star, and make a play for outright conquest (or, at the least, maintain their sovereignty over their systems).
• Windu Survived: In a "what a twist" sort of moment, it's learned that Mace Windu survived (though badly burned & sporting a prosthetic hand). He forms a insurgent faction bent on destroying Vader and the Emperor. Perhaps he falls to the Dark Side himself, fueled by anger at the destruction of the Jedi Order.
• Obi-Wan Survived: Sensing that his death would not play as good of a role as it should, Ben escaped the Death Star with the rest of the heroes. He continues to train Luke, and proceeds to train Leia as well (though potentially hiding the fact of Luke & Leia's relationship until the twins determine it on their own). The two go to Yoda for further training.
• More Examples: More planets and moons suffer under the Death Star. In addition to Alderaan and Yavin 4, other worlds are destroyed. Perhaps Bothawui (due to their SpyNet), Nal Hutta, and other problematic worlds. The Empire could even efficiently use the Death Star, making problematic worlds into prison planets, then destroying the planet with the Death Star when there's no more room.

Just a few ideas. Hope it helps.