Analyzing where the SW "resistance" went wrong and how we ended up with SW 7

So, if you haven't guessed, i'm actually referring to Star Wars. It's taken awhile i will be frank.... that is awhile to digest and accept Disney's new Star Wars Universe and reality. I won't go into what i make of Disney's ham fisted approach to the fans and the universe's canon as a whole. I'll save that rant for another time. what i want to do is now, is offer some plausible theories on how we got to the intergalactic mess that is the story of episode 7.

30 years is a long time for anything to happen and if anything, in this sense, actually makes accepting the episode 7 story even more plausible. you would actually have time enough during those 30 years to cram in at least another sextology or quintology of episodes.

Let's start with the glaring topics, break them down and then try to assemble a chronology of likely events.

We'll start with what we know so far at the end of episode 6. Episode 6 should have in fact, been the last in the series but those of us who have researched and or continued on with the written universe are aware that the universe expanded and introduced the Solo family, the expanded Skywalker line and even more new aliens and crises. But regardless, that'll have to be a footnote for now. What we do know is that there would've been very few Rebel Alliance ships left in fighting condition after the battle. We also know of Han's relationship with Leia that blossomed into marriage. We know that Luke, according to Disney, would not have married Mara Jade. We know that Darth Vader was burned at Endor, his helmet would've likely been left on the Death Star 2. We know the Emperor has fallen into a very deep hole. We also know that the Millenium Falcon was still with the heroes at the time. We do know that based on the ending of episode 6, there appears to have been no immediate attempt to reform the government off the bat. Finally, we can also plainly see that because the Death Star 2 was built as a trap for the Rebel fleet, that there would have likely been a large chunk of Imperial forces remaining.

With all this in mind, let's try and tie it up with what we know of episode 7.

Let's start with the Rebel fleet and the name change to Resistance. The absence of the Rebel fleet in episode 7 was very telling. I mean, we've not seen any large or even small Rebel capital ships at all throughout the movie whereas off the bat, we immediately get to see a First Order star destroyer. We do know that the Resistance seems to like repurposing their X-wing fighters to become interplanetary espionage and warfighting fighters. That, and we know that the Resistance seems to be down to some kind of space skip looking garbage....troop hauler. So, what's the deal?

Simple answers being best, it would have to have been that there was some kind of cataclysmic series of battles that simply extinguished all known Rebel fleet elements. We must also consider that all ship building capabilities have been lost to the Rebels although it appears they were somehow capable of at least buying new X-wings. The new generation X-wings indicate that at some point, the Rebels must have had enough resources to have upgraded all their fighters to the current spec. This shows that the Rebels were either at status quo with the remaining Imperial forces at the time, or possibly superseded them in power. The name change to Resistance is a bit of a give away in that sense. We can therefore assume that at some point, the Imperials became weak enough that the Rebel Alliance was able to reinstate the Galactic Alliance and become the galaxy's de facto government. This would at least explain the new X-wing fighters, though it doesn't really explain why the Resistance seems to have maintained their generally lower quality equipment for their ground forces.

I think then, it becomes rather impossible to not believe that the new government the Rebels installed seems to have been rather corrupt and incredibly incapable. A micro example seems to have been the entire Skywalker-Solo family line. While Han Solo, Leia and Luke were excellent rebel leaders and war fighters, it appears that in their newfound positions as key figures of government and family, they were incredibly inept. Han, Leia and Luke appear to be directly responsible for the creation of Kylo Ren. There must have been some case of negligence somewhere that resulted in Ben Solo assuming the Kylo Ren identity. Additionally, if Kylo Ren's skills are anything to go by, it is indicative that he likely never completed his Jedi training at all under Luke. Kylo Ren created a defective lightsaber, could not outfight Rey or even Finn, lost to Rey in a mental force duel and despite being able to stop a laser bolt in mid air, could not do anything more than stab Solo in the gut in the most deceptive manner.

I think the most tellingly obvious part of how ineffective the Rebel Alliance government was how ineffective they were at trying to expunge and destroy the Imperial remnant. It cannot be that after knowing how hellishly effective the Empire was at creating new armies and weapons, the fledgling Galactic Alliance simply ignored them. So, there have to be 2 possibilities.

the first possibility is that after Vader and the Emperor's death, a new leader rose from the Imperial Remnants. This could be a Grand Admiral Thrawn kind of figure, in fact, it could be Thrawn. Thrawn could've led a highly effective Civil War, General Lee types of campaigns against the Rebels. This would have kept the 2 sides at status quo sufficiently that the Imperials could have rebuilt all of their lost capability and then allowed them to build the Starkiller base. Of course, this means that the Rebels needed to have several McClellan type leaders at all levels of the Rebel government and armed forces. The rebels would need to have been hamstrung several times to have come to almost zero fighting capability by the time of episode 7. It is also indicative that either Leia inherited the entirety of the current situation or else all other Rebel leaders were highly incapable.

the second possibility is much like the first but has more to do with likely degradation and corruption within the Rebel government. as 30 years is a long time. It is possible that the Skywalkers retired from active duty and allowed the Rebels to install the new government on their own. It is likely that they were able to mostly neutralize the Imperials down to almost nothing and when they thought they were secure enough, ushered in peace. In this case, it is highly probable that corruption and ineptness of the systems allowed a resurgence for the Imperials. The name First Order is most probably indicating that there are other Imperial factions. The strong showing of humans in the forces possibly also show that humans were likely treated unfairly in the Rebel's government enough that a number of them decided to support the Imperials. Therefore, in this scenario, Leia could be forced into the general's position by the sheer necessity of needing to restore some strong leadership in the Resistance.

In either case, the Rebels likely degraded from a fully functional government to a tiny band of resistance fighters due to the complete destruction of any and all fighting forces. The presence of Starkiller base is also another strong mark of the lack of strong Resistance capabilities as a facility that big, should have been easily spotted and destroyed if a fleet of any size was available. This likely shows that the Resistance have been on the losing end of the fight for a long time. We can probably place the starting point of Starkiller base about... 10-20 years before the events of episode 7. We can round it to 15 to make it easier. This is based on the amount of time needed to have built a fully operational Death Star 1. I'd be happy to change this number if i'm found to be off the mark.

Kylo Ren and Snoke have an interesting relationship. It in fact, could be linked to how Kylo Ren came into possession of Darth Vader's helm. My theory is that it likely came from Snoke. Snoke is the main leader of the Imperials at this stage and we are also aware of Ren's highly tumultuous relationship with his parents and perhaps even Luke as well. In either case, we do know that Kylo Ren is seeking power for some reason. Power was the same reason that drove Anakin to the dark side. Ren must have likely been convinced by Snoke that the dark side has power and that he could achieve great things similar to Darth Vader if he became a Sith. Which sort of leads to the question of what on earth did Luke forbid Ren to do? Of course, i suspect Ren must have been desperate enough as well to have overlooked the fact that Vader, despite turning to the dark side, was ultimately killed anyway.

So, who is Snoke? My hunch is that it is the Emperor, disfigured and still alive. As we have seen with Darth Maul, despite being cut in half and falling into a bottomless pit, it is possible to survive. Snoke maybe ugly as sin, but the Emperor falling into a pit and surviving therefore seems highly possible. This is in addition to another fact. If anyone has played the earlier Star Wars Battlefront 2, you would note that you can play as the Emperor in the Death Star map. The Emperor has the uncanny ability to float and hover in mid-air, alongside moving incredibly quickly. So, the Emperor should have been able to survive his fall. But why rename himself to Snoke? I feel the likely reason is that it might have been prudent for the Emperor to have laid low, assumed a new identity and then return to power when it was time. I suppose another question that comes to mind is how was the Emperor able to keep alive all this while? We'll need to go back to the story that turned Anakin to the dark side in episode 3, the Darth Plagueis story. It is highly probable in this case, that the Emperor actually does know how to stop people from dying by using the force and would have used this to extend his life.

Ok, so just to wind up, let's take a final look at Rey, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. The likely theory so far as to why Han Solo and Chewbacca went back to smuggling work is linked with why Luke decided to take an extended vacation: the realization of their failure with Kylo Ren. We know that there was some kind of amazingly bad crisis with Kylo Ren but that is never expanded upon in episode 7. Fortunately, it isn't that important. Kylo Ren went bad, Han Solo and Chewbacca leave. Skywalker walks out and finally Leia must have been a wreck for a time with C3PO and then eventually got over all of them to assume command of the Resistance. How did Han Solo and Chewbacca lose the Millenium Falcon though? They likely sold it off. It would have traded hands several times until it eventually ended up in Rey's home planet. How do we know Han and Chewie sold it? The apparent desperation for money in episode 7. Han had made several bad deals and was now forced to smuggle a kind of monstrosity. He was also so badly in debt that 2 kinds of space yakuza and irish mafia came after them.

But what about Rey though? I think without a doubt, Rey is a Skywalker. This is hinted a lot throughout her flashbacks and random force powers activating after she gets her mitts on Luke's lightsaber. Apparently, if the theories are to be believed, anything and everything that falls through a bottomless pit will be eventually caught by someone. Which explains how the lightsaber ends up with Maz; she just so happens to have found it and there was only 1 person well known enough in the galaxy at the time with a blue lightsaber, apparently. Aside from that, how did Rey end up in Jakku? I strongly suspect it was because of whoever was Rey's mum. Being of Skywalker lineage and on the losing side of the fight with the resurgent Imperials, it is possible that Rey's mother dumped her on the planet while she herself was being chased down by Imperials; Rey's mum acted as a decoy to allow Rey to live. Or... if the story structure of all the various different Star Wars episodes are to be believed, Rey was given to somebody else to raise. That person died and was of so little significance to Rey that she doesn't remember or care. That person might've also been abusing Rey, which meant Rey would have run off into the desert and ended up in her current predicament. Again, the person dumping Rey on the planet would've been the mum. Why? Because Luke would've been stewing in his own juices on that far off planet that he thinks no one else would reach.

Actually, i also have another idea. Rey would actually be a Skywalker for the simple reason being that the piece of the map that shows where Luke Skywalker is, is also on Jakku. We know this because Poe was on the planet looking for the map piece that someone on Jakku just so happens to have. Luke clearly must have meant for Rey to have the map piece so that she would come to him. There doesn't seem to be any other reason other than strange deus ex machina coincidence for the Rey and the map piece to be on the same planet. Which means that first, Luke is a terrible father and second, he was the one who dumped Rey and the map piece on the same planet.

i still have a lot of questions with regards to the writing of episode 7. for instance, why was the rebel government so weak and ineffective? why did luke do the things he did? but for now, my theories will have to do. all that i can see with episode 7 is that people are trying to say that all of the heroes and their efforts in episode 6 were pointless and that the original trilogy heroes are flawed to quite a large degree when it comes to things that are not fighting an evil empire.

feel free to leave comments. i'll gladly update this entry with more accurate information if you're able to provide them and if they make sense.

observations on some of fiction's bigger names

Politics, drama, messy love triangles, large scale warfare, class discrepancy and quirky characters; the primary ingredients of most science fiction and fantasy titles that have big fights in them. It is interesting to note how the masses in general these days respond when you say Star Wars or Game of Thrones. However, throw at them other names like Dune or Terry Pratchett and they'll probably be stumped. Why is this? Wasn't Dune an epic tale in its own right? Wasn't Pratchett's wit a refreshing breath of air in the grim, leather-clad and axe-wielding fantasy novels? 

My suspicion is that people read and know these titles because they're probably easier to digest. While mass-media has been a boon to many of these books, these books must have had a following massive enough in the first place to have attracted Hollywood. Lord of The Rings is no doubt a story on an epic scale. However, if one looks carefully at the characters, it is no more than a seemingly glorified game of Dungeons and Dragons in a way. We ultimately do not know the reason Sauron wants to control Middle-Earth other than the fact that he wants to and will do it. Sauron is evil because he wants to conquer everything. He is also presented as such. All his buildings, armies are grotesque, slobbering, harsh in every way and dress primarily in black; a colour most often associated with the unclean and evil thoughts. The key word here is appear evil, it is as simple an answer as is logically explainable. With this set up in mind, the heroes seem much more colourful and deeper in comparison to a mindless automaton of an archenemy. 

In a similar set up, Star Wars in its original trilogy and subsequent trilogy, we have the main villain called Darth Sidious or Palpatine. Sidious's overall plan is to win and wrest control of the galaxy from the powers that be, making the Sith reign supreme. It does sound similar to LoTR in this sense. Sidious is evil because he chooses to present himself as such. Again, he dresses in black though his minion stormtroopers use a seemingly pious and pure white, or when presented in this manner, sterile and surgically precise white. His motivations are terribly simple in this sense. The more iconic Darth Vader was created to be as terrifying as possible as well as inhuman. Vader is ironically a deeper character in comparison because he views the Sith's power as strong enough to overcome death and protect his loved one, sadly this character development is only shown in the prequel trilogy in Episode 3. Here, Anakin is corrupted into Vader so that he may have the power to preserve the life of his wife, whom he ironically kills later due to his corrupted nature. A much better story than simply uniting the galaxy under Sith rule, and we have no idea why the Sith have to control the galaxy other than it is the evil thing to do.

With that last bit in place, what LoTR and Star Wars have in common then are an enemy that is designed to be hated and loathed on automatic instinct by even children. The enemy's overall objective is the continuation of their evilness and complete control over their worlds. However, there never really seems to be any deeper rationalization as to why complete control over the world is necessary. 

However, there are other works out there that while are better in my opinion, seem to have faded from the memory of the masses in general. Dune is one such piece of work. Arguably, the early portions are the best whilst the later half being written by Herbert's son and his collaborator make it seem more like an effort to forcibly stop the expansion of Herbert's Dune universe. Otherwise, Dune's characters are indeed deeper than that of Lucas'. If we compare major antagonists to one another. Dune's Vladimir Harkonnen is everything that a person might hate immediately and yet, paradoxically we like him at the same time for who he is. Vladimir is presented as the morbidly obese Baron of Giedi Prime. He is hedonistic in his lifestyle, brutal and ruthless in his execution of schemes, he is much more cunning than any old fox and he ultimately has a flair and style. While Vladimir is seemingly inherently evil, he does evil things not just because it pleases him, but because he can and ultimately he also does said deeds for the betterment of his House. Vladimir willingly grinds his populace into slaves not just because he is evil but because he is greedy for more money and prestige. Even his feud with the Atreides is written to have occurred millenia ago when each of the houses' ancestors were to engage another foe together and the Harkonnens were not present during the battle, forever earning the Harkonnens the Atreides rage which turned into a tit for tat whose original meaning became lost to their descendants. There is a logical reason for each of Vladimir's actions as opposed to just being evil.

In comparison to Palpatine, Vladimir feels more organic, more of a person one would be able to relate to. Thus, making Vladimir a stronger character in comparison. On that level, he is comparable to Darth Vader, though Vladimir will still emerge a stronger character because he is able to come into his own as a character and drive the story as opposed to being driven by it. For the purpose of this post, we'll see  Vader as he appears in the movies due to the differences when other author's attempt to use Vader in other works. As a pawn to Palpatine, Vader does not seem to show much character, until after he discovers Luke is his son. Vader appears as a twisted father figure to Luke Skywalker and attempts to corrupt him to the dark side. While at some point we see this father figure side of Vader attempting to convince his literally rebellious son Luke to joining the Empire, other aspects of Vader appear to be more robotic. Vader becomes a cog in the machine called the story; he does certain things simply because it moves the story along as opposed to the story moving because of what the character does.  For example, his interrogation of Leia and the subsequent destruction of Alderaan is designed to show how evil he is, which feels like a rather shallow reason. 

Taking this into consideration the immense success that Star Wars has over Dune currently, one could easily assume that simplicity always wins out complexity. Dune's overall story in the initial parts revolve around Houses Corrino, Atreides and Harkonnen as their plans and schemes intertwine and cause considerable drama to the Dune universe. Star Wars ultimately does not have politics so much as it has battles. Dune has a fair mixture of political intrigue, espionage, drama and warfare. Warfare in general then it seems, is far easier to do. A clearer example of how mindless warfare wins out would be the influential board game turn computer game and novel series Dawn of War. Here is a franchise about as old as Star Wars and has lasted longer than Lucas had control over his own and is still going strong. The universe of Dawn of War has an incredibly simple premise: war and only war. There will be no alliances between factions, no parlays and no quarter given. War, war, war. If it is anything, Dawn of War is simplicity done at its finest. While not as mainstream as Star Wars, it has made its echoes in the halls of time, as Dune once had. 

The end result appears to be that the simpler the premise of a science fiction or fantasy world, the easier it will be willingly picked up and digested by the masses. Never mind that the hero is a hero for being a hero's sake or that his arch villain had absolutely no reason to take over the world other than it is an evil thing to do. If the villain and hero both raise and army to fight to the death, millions of people will pay to watch it happen, and they will watch the subsequent trilogy with eager anticipation. It is a pitiable sight, when the world forgoes substance in favor of spectacles, but if it will keep your monetary boat afloat, who is to complain?