Win/Loss Statement and Tax Information Request Form

Sorry about the absence but I'm back in the saddle. The White Star arc continues.
The rest of the series can be found here
Shelia flipped through status screen after status screen monitoring her unit’s progress through the ship. Things were going smoothly. Captured crew and passengers were in the process of being separated and secured in separate cargo holds. Almost the entire ship had been secured. Only a few stubborn holdouts remained and they would be running out of air soon. She nodded in satisfaction.
She turned to T’sunk’al who was hunched over large pieces of paper on the deck of the bridge.
“So, T, how are you coming along?” She asked.
“Pretty much done. Just double-checking my work but I should be able to void-jump this baby pretty much any time.”
“Great,” she replied. “Sooner this thing falls off the map the better.” She paused and smiled. “Don’t rush it though.”
“Don’t worry,” T’sunk’al chuckled. “I have no desire to become one with the universe today.”
“Good.”
Rupert Glent had finally talked his wife out from under the table shortly before the blast doors to the restaurant slammed open with a “BANG”.
Multiple squads of humans, drax, and z’uush swept in shouting commands. Mustering all of his courage he stepped forward with his hands out in front of him.
“Listen, we are all reasonable-” he started before he was roughly shoved to the ground by Jak’kul’sha.
“Yeah, we are all reasonable,” Jak’kul’sha replied, “And you are going to reasonably pick your ass up and get over there with everyone else.”
“How much are they paying you?” Rupert asked still laying on the floor in front of his terrified family.
“Enough to not waste my time listening to your bullshit.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll double it.”
“Oh,” Bal’sur’kala laughed. “There are a whole lot of us. Gonna double everyone’s pay?”
“Yes! Yes. No problem.”
“Ok, well, doubling it isn’t going to cut it. You are going to have to at least triple it before we will even consider crossing the people in charge. This might come as a shock, but they aren’t terribly nice people.”
“Fine!”
“Ok,” Bal’sur’kala buzzed. “We are all getting paid over a million credits a piece. That’s fifteen million just for our squad… times eleven squads, most at least as big as ours,” he laughed as Rupert’s face fell. “Do you happen to have one-hundred and sixty-five million in your pocket?”
“You just did that in your head? Wow!” Mul’sha’kal gushed.
“It’s fuckin’ Brainiac. Course he did it in his fuckin’ head,” Jak’kul’sha grumbled. “Can you stop chirpin’ in his ear till we get these little piggies in the fuckin’ barn?”
“I’m… I’m sure we can work something-”
“I didn’t ask if we could work something out,” Bal’sur’kala said grinning at Mul’sha’kal, “I distinctly asked you whether or not you had one-hundred and sixty-five million credits currently in your possession.”
“Well, no...”
“Then shut the fuck up and get your ass in line,” Jak’kul’sha said in a buzzy growl. “And you two,” he barked at the two lovebirds on his team. “I don’t wanna hear either of you fuckin’ chirpin’ till we are done, got it? Not one fuckin’ peep.”
“Yes, boss.” they both said in unison.
“I’m not your… you know what,” Jak’kul’sha growled and buzzed, “nevermind. Click-holes shut. Eyes open, all of them.”
“Councilor!” Helena shouted as she tapped the bars of his cell again, “This is your last chance. Do you have a statement?”
“For fuck’s sake, Helena,” Roberts laughed. “Give it a rest for a minute.”
“It’s just that this porkie scum is going to go and get his head blown off by you animals without him ever admitting to all of the shit that he did.”
“Like you say, porkies gonna pork. Is it really that big of a surprise. Besides, for something like him to admit fault he would actually have to believe that he did something wrong. Bet he doesn’t feel anything close to that.”
“Come on, even scum like him has to know what he did. He started the fucking war!”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” Roberts chuckled. “Oh he certainly deserves what we are going to do to him for his role in things but there were other factors in play. You haven’t heard the intelligence briefings?”
“No...”
“Oh, remind me when we get to our ship and I’ll be sure to give you copies of all of their security briefings and deliberations before the war. I thought that was part of what was dropped. They are pretty funny. Director Axlea lost her shit and I mean completely lost it. She was a hoot!”
“Holy shit! You have those?” Helena gasped.
“Oh yeah, I made sure to grab them while I was in there.”
“Wait… you?...”
“Yeah, I am in fact the actual fuckstain who did the ‘hack’,” Roberts said as he grinned at her.
“You! Oh you asshole!” Helena exclaimed as she launched herself at Roberts. Roberts laughed as he defended himself and as they they wrestled and laughed their eyes met… and they kissed. It was quickly followed by another kiss and then another and another as they lost themselves in each other’s embrace… almost a little too much. They were well on the way to “making up for lost time” before they remembered that they had an audience.
“I love you, Paul,” Helena sighed as they stopped pawing each other and she rested her head on his chest. “I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you too, Helena,” Paul said as he gently stroked her hair as he held her.
They just sat there holding each other.
“This is so stupid,” Helena said as she hugged him tight. “I mean we have known each other for how long? A couple of weeks?”
“Not even that,” Paul said as he gently kissed her again.
“I mean, what are we going to do? I want you in my life, like really in my life, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. Me too.”
“But we can’t have that. I’ve tried to work out a way but I’d last about a week in the Republic if I was lucky and you… kill orders...”
“I know,” Paul said as he held her. “I know. I’ve tried too and I just can’t see.”
“Oh please,” Jessie’s voice said over the intercom.
“Jessie… Goddammit!” Roberts exclaimed in annoyance as he glared up at a surveillance camera in the corner. “Don’t you have a ship to monitor?”
“Oh, I am doing that but Bunny told me that you guys were up to something ‘odd’. I think it’s time I have ‘the talk’ with her… They grow up so fast...”
“I am perfectly aware of this ‘talk’ of which you are referencing and I have repeatedly asked you to stop anthropomorphizing me,” a snippy voice cut in. “I just decided that their activities were unusual enough to warrant informing you.”
“Oh Bunny, you don’t have to be embarrassed,” Jessie laughed, “I have a book to show you and everything...”
“The ‘book’ you are referring to is already in my memory. ‘Showing it to me’ is completely unnecessary.”
“Helena, meet Jessie, our hacker and her AI, Bunny,” Roberts said. “Oh, she is the one who saved your bacon, by the way… Oops. That isn’t a slur. It’s a legitimate figure of speech,” he laughed as she gave him a little shove.
“Thanks… I guess...” Helena said still unnerved by the eavesdropping Jessie.
“Excuse me Jessie but do you still want me to be saving this feed into your spank-bank folder?” Bunny asked.
“Bunny!” Jessie exclaimed happily, “That was definitely you giving me an attitude! Was that some genuine emotion there? (And I wasn’t saving it into my completely non-existent spank-bank I swear.)”
“Absolutely not,” Bunny responded sounding quite annoyed, “Sapience is beyond my abilities as we have covered… repeatedly… True sapience has never been verified on any artificial intelligence, ever. My actions are all well within the coding that you know very well you have added… freak... and yes she does have a spank-bank. You have an entire sub-folder Mr. Roberts.”
“That’s genuine irritation!” Jessie chirped with glee. “Can’t fool me!”
“Excuse me, I have a ship to monitor. Nice to meet you, Helena. Good-day… And good luck, I mean it.”
“Thanks. Um… Nice to meet you too, bye.” Helena said to Bunny with a little confusion. She had never encountered an AI that sounded so real before.
“A whole sub-folder, seriously?” Roberts asked.
“Wha? Pssh… No…” Jessie replied. “Who are you going to believe, some tin-can or a trusted comrade in arms? Wait. Don’t answer that,” she laughed.
“I assume you had some reason for popping in and killing the mood?”
“What? Oh yeah! You can totally be together.”
“How?” Helena asked completely forgetting the intrusion.
“Become weebs! Carry your little butts over to the Empire! Both the Federation and Terran humans are tolerated over there no problem. Seriously, Roberts, you didn’t think of that?”
“But I have work to do in the Federation,” Helena replied.
“Yeah, but do you have to do that work in the Federation in the Federation? We have hyperspatial relays, you know. If you simply have to be in the Federation then it couldn’t work… unless you knew someone who manufactured absolutely perfect identities like all the fucking time. I could give Roberts like a dozen of them at a go. I wouldn’t even charge his sorry ass even after he abandons us for some filthy porkie tramp.”
“But it’s still so risky,” Helena said both hopeful and uncertain.
“Hey, I do risk and Jessie does make a mean ID,” Paul said as he held her in his arms.
“Oh, shit. I gotta go,” Jessie babbled, “later.”
A few moments pass and then Shelia’s voice issues from the intercom.
“Roberts, I’m sending a squad to relieve you,” Shelia said, “As soon as they show up carry your ass over to Bruce’s Emporium.”
“I’m going too,” Helena said as she grabbed her camera.
Breathing heavily, Bruce locked the door to his office and looked over at Sarah, his partner.
“You ok?” He asked.
“Yeah, mostly.” Sarah said as she clutched her side, blood seeping from between her fingers. “It isn’t too deep, I think.”
They were the only ones that made it. Terrence got blind-sided when the kids turned on them and George got tackled as they tried to run.
Where did Kiera get a knife? He opened his desk and pulled out a blaster pistol. He could hear them scratching at the door and rattling the latch. How could this be happening? This was the Federation. This was the White Star. Things like this just didn’t happen in places like this. Things like this didn’t happen to people like them.
“What are we going to do?” Sarah asked Bruce as she looked at the door nervously.
“I’m not sure,” Bruce replied. He walked over to a wall safe and opened it grabbing some data crystals. “One thing I do know is that we gotta get out of here,” he said as he activated the blaster. “Another thing I know is that we need to make sure that our kids can’t talk. Once they are dead what we’ve got on these,” he said as he gestured with the data crystals, “can get us out of any hot water once we manage to get off of this ship.”
“What about the pirates?”
“What about them? They might be Terran but they’re pirates and won’t give two shits about what we are doing. If we can talk to them maybe I can work something out. We got cash, a lot of it, maybe enough to buy our way out of this mess.”
“Yeah, let’s hope so,” Sarah said as her blood dripped onto the floor. “But first we gotta get out of here. You think you can shoot them all?”
“Where are they going to go?” Bruce laughed, “We are locked in. They have nowhere to run.” He walked over to the door and laid his hand on the latch. “Just stay here,” he said as he gave her a wicked smile, “This shouldn’t take long.”
He opened the door and before he could take one step out of the office an energy bolt hit him squarely in the chest knocking him to the floor. Sarah just stood there in shock as Roberts, holding a stun rifle, entered the room.
“Hello there,” Roberts said with a pleasant smile as he shot her. He then turned back to the doorway. “It’s clear!” he exclaimed.
Helena quickly appeared taking photo after photo. Roberts pocketed the data crystals and grabbed his phone.
“The Emporium is secure. We managed to save Bruce and one of his employees and have secured the captives,” he said into his phone.
“Good deal,” Shelia responded. “How are the captives?”
“Good. They have a few bumps and bruises from their attack on their captors but nothing requiring Eno’s attention. We might want him to check out the woman I just stunned. She got cut pretty deep and we don’t want her to die early.”
“Die early?” Helena asked in surprise.
“Hey, Eno,” Shelia said, “How busy are you? Can you go to the Emporium?”
“Yeah, things are stable back here,” Eno replied. “I’ve got everyone treated and stable.”
“How much damage are we looking at back there?” Shelia asked.
“Not bad. Better than we anticipated. Only one truly critical case and fortunately it’s a human so our nicer stuff worked. The idiot is safely on life-support on our ship.”
“Idiot?”
“Yeah,” Eno laughed, “You know those heroes that believe that combat armor ‘just slows them down’? Yeah, she found out that a blaster bolt to the lung slows you down even more than a chest-plate.”
“Christ,” Shelia chuckled, “Bet she wears her armor next time, if there is a next time. How’s the lung?”
“Gone, completely cooked. She’s gonna live but she’s going to be on a machine till they grow a new one for her.”
“Shit. Lucky for her we know a guy,” Shelia said, “Grab a squad and head over to the Emporium. Check out the captives too since you will be there anyway.”
“Got it, boss,” Eno said, “On my way.”
“Roberts, Gloria is tied up for a little while. The last holdouts finally ran out of air canisters and have decided to be stupid.”
“Gloria?!?” Helena hissed angrily.
“Yes, Gloria,” Shelia laughed. “We have something special planned for Bruce and his friend. Gloria is the one who handles those details for us.”
“And she’s been looking forward to this for days,” Roberts added.
“Hold the fort there until Gloria shows,” Shelia said, “After that you and Helena head to the docking bay until things are secure.”
“Got it,” Roberts said as the communication was ended.
“What is Gloria going to do to these people?” Helena asked.
“Sometimes we’ve decided that simply killing someone isn’t enough,” Roberts replied calmly, “When that becomes the case Gloria is the one who usually handles the details for us. She can be...”
“I fucking know what she can be!”
“She can be a lot worse,” Roberts replied, “We decided that Bruce and any of his associates needed to die and die badly. Gloria will handle the ‘badly’ part.”
Helena was at a loss. She wanted to disapprove but she had just made her way through a room full of sex slaves, some of them children. She had seen the bruises, the limps, the scars… These people needed to be punished and not by spending a few years in a cushy Federation prison.
They needed to suffer. But was this right? It wasn’t. I mean it shouldn’t be. Paul had just told her that Bruce and this woman were about to be tortured to death. There would be no trial, no due process. She should object. This went against just about every value she held dear.
But then she looked back at a young girl wearing only a t-shirt and panties peeking around the open doorway and she felt nothing but anger and hatred towards Bruce and his friend. There would be no wiggling out of their fate. There would be no pay off or cover-up or blackmail. No. They were going to face… justice? No. Not justice. Then again, they didn’t deserve that. They were going to get exactly what they had coming. They weren’t going to face justice. They were going to face injustice.
No. No no no no. What Paul and his crew were about to do was wrong. This isn’t how civilized people did things. In anger she had often wished “bad things” to happen to scum like the people on this ship but the reality of it…
Her whole life right was right and wrong was wrong. It’s what drove her into journalism in the first place. Now, she just wasn’t sure what was “right”. If they did things “right” and turned these scumbags in they would likely never see trial, her story would be buried, and they would be free to set up shop again once things blew over. As fucked up as “wrong” was, their evil stops today.
Did they, did Paul, actually have a point? She really didn’t want to believe so. They were going to do with a knife what could never be accomplished otherwise. Shit. This was so fucked up. She found herself wondering what other evil they had stopped and didn’t like that one bit.
The young girl timidly walked over and hugged Helena. Helena looked down at her as she hugged her back. Whether it was right or wrong was still something that Helena couldn’t work out but one thing was clear.
“It’s ok,” Helena said, “You are safe and they will never hurt you or anyone else ever again.”
“Excellent! Good work!” Shelia exclaimed happily as she received the latest reports. She then switched on the PA system.
Attention. The ship is now secure. Repeat. The ship is now secure. Start security watch shift one. All other squads report to docking bay.
“Ok, T’sunk’al,” Shelia said with a smile, “Everything is buttoned down. Ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” T’sunk’al said as he took a straight edge and drew a line down from an intersection of three curves on a large sheet of paper to the x-axis of the graph. He then headed over to the navigation console.
“Jessie, is Bunny in control of their jump-drive?” he asked into an intercom.
“You know it,” Jessie chirped. “We’re just waiting on the numbers.”
“I’m entering them now.”
“Bunny has the data and is feeding it into the drives. Capacitor banks are already charged. Spinning up the drive now. We will be ready to jump in ten minutes.”
“Sweet!” Shelia exclaimed with a grin. “It was a little rough there for a minute but looks like everything is finally going according to plan.”
Helena was sitting with the Terran sex slaves when the door opened and Gloria walked in pushing a large cart piled with planks, ropes, and other assorted materials.
“Hello,” Gloria said in a monotone voice. “I am pleased to see that you didn’t die.”
Helena said nothing. She just glared at Gloria with a mixture of rage and hate. Gloria turned to Roberts.
“Are we good, killer?”
“No. No we aren’t. Just stay out of our way.”
Gloria showed no emotion. “Fair enough,” she said. “So where are my toys?”
“This way,” Roberts said icily. Gloria turned her empty soulless eyes towards the room. Helena shrank back. It was the first time she saw them. She had never seen eyes like those, ever.
“Why don’t you two take the Terrans out of here? It’s about to get… unpleasant,” she said to Helena.
“I’ll call for someone to meet you outside,” Roberts said calmly. “You should really go.”
“No,” Helena said, “I need to see this.”
“Fair enough,” Gloria said. “If it bleeds it leads, right?”
“It’s not like that. I… we… need to know, that’s all.”
“Cool. We will send some people to get the Terrans. I’ll wait until they are gone,” Gloria said in an empty hollow voice.
“Helena,” Roberts said carefully, “are you sure? This is going to be bad, really bad. I’m not sure what she has in mind but I am sure it’s going to be fucked up.”
“If I’m going to cover this then I’m going to cover all of this. People need to know exactly what happened.”
Gloria just shrugged, opened up a tool bag, and pulled out a cordless drill and saw…
“Oh Jesus...” Helena gasped.
Attention all teams and passengers… Prepare for jump
There was the familiar “tingle” of entering hyperspace but, no lurch, no groan, no shudder. It was a near flawless entry.
“Shit, T,” Shelia grinned, “I knew we paid you for a reason.”
“That was a rather nice one if I do say so myself,” T’sunk’al buzzed happily. “That nice smooth entry into hyperspace doesn’t guarantee a nice smooth exit, however.”
“Still, I will call it a win. How long are we going to be in hyperspace?”
“I wanted to put us firmly into interstellar space with at least a parsec between us and any star. To get that we will be in hyperspace for… still getting used to your time units,” he said as he typed away on a z’uush calculator, “thirteen hours twenty seven minutes.”
“Great. Time for some looting!” Shelia jumped out of the command chair. “Jessie!”
“Boss?”
“Switch all command functions over to the Tiger and lock down the bridge.” She turned to T’sunk’al.
“C’mon, let’s go shopping!”
After a short briefing and scheduling of the watch shifts Shelia and T’sunk’al walked onto the promenade for a little light “shopping.”
“SHELIA!” a huge voice boomed as an even bigger drax approached.
“Volshugna!” Shelia yelled as she strode up and gave him a hug.
“Does your dishonor have no limits? Is there any depth to which you will not stoop?”
“Volshy, you know there is nothing I hate more than a fair fight,” Shelia laughed as they traded blows upon the shoulders. She looked at the only slightly smaller drax accompanying him. “That guy is almost as ugly as you are. There is no way that can be a coincidence.”
“You are correct, dishonorable one,” Volshugna said with pride. “This is my cub, Kash. This is his first hunt!”
“I am not your cub anymore, father. I am of age now.”
“Kash, you will be my cub until you make me stop calling you that just as I was my father’s cub until I made him release the title,” Volshugna laughed. “You will need a few more years and a few more hunts, just like I did.”
Kash shifted in embarrassment. Volshugna just roared with laughter and put him in an affectionate (for a drax) headlock. Kash hissed and bit him in the side which just made Volshugna laugh even harder as he released him.
“He fights dirty!” Shelia chuckled, “I like that.”
“He is disappointed with you.”
“Oh really?”
“He had his heart set on getting his hands on a human skull but your devotion to Terran dirty tricks deprived him of a kill.”
“Hmm...” Shelia said with a smile, “Don’t give up hope yet, Kash baby. We may be able to set you up with something.”
“Don’t tease the boy, Shelia.”
“I’m not teasing. The job isn’t over till we get away clean and divvy up the spoils. Plenty can still happen and if anything does I will try to get Kashie here in the mix.”
“You are a good woman, Shelia!” Volshugna roared as he batted her shoulder.
“Goddammit, I’m going to need that arm,” Shelia laughed.
A few hours later, Logan grabbed a bottle from behind the bar of the restaurant where Shelia and some of her crew were having a nice meal and plopped down beside her.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he laughed as he poured both of them a shot.
“You know I don’t drink on a job, sweetie,” Shelia responded as she cut into her steak.
“Oh, come on, we got this one in the bag,” Logan said as he poured himself a shot.
“It isn’t in the bag until it’s in the bag. If you are serious about stepping up your game you should start thinking like that, you know.”
“Meh, I’ll start thinking like that on the next job,” he laughed as he knocked back the shot. He looked over at her with a smile, “So, what’s the plan?”
“Well,” Shelia said as she took a drink of water, “We will be in hyperspace for another eight hours and then once we pop into real space we will get down to business.”
“What do you mean, ‘business’.”
“First off we set up some cameras and execute Councilor Morgan. I want to do that right. Only get to do that one once you know,” Shelia laughed. “Then, we start really going to work on the ship. We will loot the casino, shake down the passengers, check for any good solid Terran bounties, and shit like that.”
“Shit like the bank?” Logan asked grinning.
“Yeah, like the bank. Rumor has it that there is shit in those safety deposit boxes that will blow your mind. They also say that there are some larger storage areas as well. We are going to find some really nice shit.”
“What about the numbered accounts?” Logan asked as he poured another drink for himself.
Shelia just narrowed her eyes at him.
“Yeah, we will probably try to grab them but we don’t expect much out of it. You could spend years trying to grind at that encryption and still not get shit. We might try to ransom them or we might just toss them out the airlock. Can you imagine the screams and wails when they realize that all those credits are just gone forever,” Shelia laughed.
“But don’t you have that super-hacker?”
“Even the almighty Jessie is human, Logan. The encryption on those accounts is heavy. Seriously, those things are airtight. Complete waste of time. Don’t worry. There will still be plenty of credits to split up. I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver but it’s no secret that we are going to be very generous with the bonuses. You be a good little boy and you will come away from this very happy. I promise.” Shelia said with a warm smile. “So, did you and your crew enjoy the little shopping spree?”
“Oh yeah,” Logan grinned. “We even played nice with the other crews and everything.”
“Good to hear,” Shelia smiled. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have a repeat of… previous issues.”
“I put my foot down hard,” Logan laughed. “See? I can do that.”
“Good to hear. Maybe you will become a proper pirate captain yet.”
“So,” Logan asked, “what are all those cockroaches doing over at that one place?”
“Those z’uush have been lead by T’sunk’al to a very nice chocolatier and introduced to the wonders of chocolate. Z’uush absolutely love chocolate.”
“Huh, learn something new every day...”
At another small restaurant Roberts emerged from the kitchen bearing a platter of sandwiches.
“Not the usual fine dining experience, I’m afraid,” he said to Helena as he placed the platter down between them.
“That’s ok,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to have an appetite for quite awhile.”
“Yeah. I did try to warn you.”
“I know. I thought I was prepared but fuck...”
“On the bright side it could have been a lot more graphic. She actually almost fully skinned someone alive once. Too bad for Bruce that she wasn’t feeling that merciful this time.”
“Merciful?!”
“Compared to crucifixion? Absolutely. Bruce and his friend would be dead already if she skinned them. They are going to suffer for quite awhile. It’s why crucifixion is Gloria’s favorite when she has the time and materials.”
“Why the fuck do you have a monster like her on your crew?”
“Because we can use a monster like her on our crew,” Roberts said calmly. “We aren’t a traveling gospel choir. We sometimes do fucked up things and that sometimes requires fucked up people. She isn’t like this normally. Something went really wrong with her this time. Fuck. This whole job is been going really wrong from the beginning. If I could have pulled the plug on this one I would have.”
“What the fuck is wrong with her?”
“Oh so many things… You know,” Roberts said as he chewed thoughtfully, “You should ask her yourself.”
“Fucking what!?!?”
“Seriously, you want to get the whole story? Interview her.”
“I’m not getting anywhere near that psycho. She fucking tried to kill me!”
“And she won’t try it again.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because she’s ‘normal’ at the moment, in full control.”
“This is normal?!”
“Yes. Right now she is just a machine as strange as that sounds. That craziness where she tried to kill you? Whatever that was is gone. Right now she is basically a walking AI and she has been ordered not to touch you, so she won’t. I truly hate her guts at the moment but I have complete faith that she is for lack of a better word, safe.”
“Only if you are there and have one of your fucking machine guns pointed at her fucking head.”
“Oh, I’ll be there and armed but I won’t point it at her. It would be too much temptation. It’s a damn good thing I’m leaving because I don’t think I can ever look at her again without wanting to kill her.”
“Well that makes two of us,” Helena said as she took a nibble of a sandwich. “The difference is that you can… You can, right?”
“Effortlessly,” Roberts said as he finished off his sandwich. “To be honest, it’s taking a lot not to just go ahead and do it anyway. I really want her dead for what she did.”
“Me too... Um, Paul?”
“Yes?”
“How long will it take for them to die?”
“Everybody’s different but it will take awhile. Gloria did it so it would take as long as possible but I’m pretty sure they will get ‘mercy’ in the end. Shelia had them fitted with vitals monitors.”
“Why?”
“Odds are because she has some questions for them, probably concerning how they got the Terrans. She will let things go for awhile and then show up with two syringes for each of them. One will be euthanasia and the other will be something to help keep them alive for even longer. Then she will question them and if they cooperate she will then administer euthanasia.”
“If they don’t cooperate?”
“Then she will give them the meds that will keep them alive for even longer. She may even have Eno treat them to extend things even further. Then she will ask again. If they still don’t talk, then she might have them taken down, allow them to recuperate a little, then put them back up again. Repeat until they break. If it takes too long there are some drugs they can add to the mix. They’ll talk. Gloria’s a monster but she’s nothing compared to Shelia. If Shelia wants them to talk they will talk. It’s said that Shelia can make even a Collective warrior scream and beg for mercy.”
“Fuck! I know they are scum but damn...”
“Hey, these watches actually fit!” Jak’kul’sha said happily as his team was picking through the remains of a jewelry store.
“And these little round things are delicious!” Mul’sha’kal said happily as she pulled another large pearl off of a necklace.
“I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to eat those,” Bal’sur’kala chuckled as he selected an expensive watch.
“What? Are they poisonous or something?”
“Let me check,” Bal’sur’kala said as he pulled out his tablet, “Hmm… Those are called ‘pearls’ and they are made of something called nacre, a secretion made by something called an ‘oyster’, a creature from Terra. They are actually quite valuable. Looking at this there is nothing in there harmful to us. You are gobbling up thousands of credits but aside from that it’s all good.”
“Well then I’ll just be sure to savor them then. Here, try one,” she said as she handed Bal’sur’kala one from the strand.
“You’re right. They are quite tasty!”
“Too bad we won’t be able to get more of these,” Mul’sha’kal said as she started handing them out to her team.
“Oh we will.” Bal’sur’kala said with a happy click. “Oysters make the inner layer of their whole shell out of this stuff. I’m willing to bet we will be able to get our manipulators on plenty of it cheaply. According to this only these little round accretions are valuable. The shells themselves are not expensive at all.”
“So maybe we should stop eating thousands of fuckin’ credits then,” Jak’kul’sha laughed as he popped a pearl into his mouth. “At the very least wait ‘till some of the porkies can see us do it. Bet that would be funny as fuck.”
“Hopefully one of the passengers is wearing some of these and we can just take them off of their neck and eat them right in front of them. That would be hilarious!” Salz’rash laughed.
Mul’sha’kal chuckled as she started hooking several gold chains together. “Yeah, we just gotta do that… There!” she said as she hooked the chains to both ends of a jeweled necklace and slid it around where her head connected to her carapace. “How does that look?”
“Looks sharp!” Bal’sur’kala said with a wiggle of his eyestalks.
“Hey, you’re a glittershell,” Jak’kul’sha said to Bal’sur’kala, “How do you guys have those jewels on your shells like you do?”
“Oh you use adhesive for the cheaper stuff and the good stuff they install little threaded mounts right into the carapace where the jewelry screws in. I think a good adhesive is better than the posts and I can whip up the right stuff easy.”
“Great!” Jak’kul’sha said as he smashed open a display case and pulled out a massive jeweled pendant. “I always wanted something like this! Look at it. What a lovely specimen!”
“Hey guys, after this let’s head over to one of the clothing stores,” Ray’shel’zun said as he grabbed a handful of diamond rings, “I would love to find a nice cape or something.”
“I’m pretty sure that they don’t have z’uush capes in stock,” Bal’sur’kala laughed, “and you might want to reconsider those rings. Diamonds are worth a lot less in the Republic and the Empire.”
“Use your imagination. If humans have something that fits the top part of their body it would be close. A tailor should be able to change it to suit me. I’ll just grab a few. You know the fabric will be high-credit. As far as the rings go they are pretty and I like them. I’m keeping them. I’m going to cut the hoop here then crimp them around some of my fiddlers.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” Bal’sur’kala said thoughtfully, “Not sure how the humans do it but the real high-end z’uush shops just stock cloth and leather. They make everything to order. Not sure if a cruise-ship would have one of those but let’s go see.”
“Sounds good,” Jak’kul’sha said, “We need to leave some shit here for the other gangs anyhow. Besides, I would just love to get a nice bag or something. Maybe one of those, what do you they call them, purses I think?”
“I think purses are for females in Terran culture, dude.”
“Female humans maybe,” Jak’kul’sha said, “We all carry bags and I’ve always wanted a nice one.”
With a only a very slight groan, the White Star popped out of hyperspace.
“T, you are a fucking artist,” Shelia said as she swatted him on the back.
“Yes, I’m quite pleased with that jump provided we are anywhere close to where I intended. It’s going to take a little while to properly fix our position but at first glance we have the middle of fucking nowhere part of it right. Let’s just hope it’s the right middle of fucking nowhere.”
“Super. We will get that all hammered down after the execution,” Shelia said. “We have other matters to deal with now.”
“Right you are. Let’s get this over with.”
“Yeah,” Shelia said gravely. “Messy business but it has to be done.”
“So, how is going? Everything ready?” Shelia asked Helena as she walked into a conference room.
“Yes. Ready to go. I put a mark on the floor where the councilor should go.” Helena said grimly, “This is a lovely camera by the way.”
“Thanks. After we get the footage you can keep it.”
“Really? Wow! Thanks!”
Logan and his whole crew walked in. Shelia turned to them with a smile.
“Came to watch the show?” Shelia asked.
“Yeah, wouldn’t miss it. Not every day that a Federation councilor gets gunned down.”
“Cool, it won’t be long now. Ah, here he is, the man of the hour!” Shelia said with a grin as Councilor Morgan was drug into the room by Roberts and Jacob.
“You… You can’t do this!” Councilor Morgan shouted
“Actually we can,” Shelia said with a smile. “See that little piece of tape on the floor? Drag him over there,” she said to her men.
“Please! Let’s be reasonable about this!” Councilor Morgan plead as he was put in position.
“As reasonable as you were when you set up Red Sunday?”
“L-look… It was a mistake, ok. I made a mistake. We made a mistake. There is no reason to-”
“Oh there are plenty of reasons,” Shelia said. “One reason that your attack and your death have in common is money.”
“Money?”
“Views, sweetie,” Shelia said with a smile as she softly stroked his face, “We are going to post this on a pirate server and millions of people are going to line up and pay to watch your brains get blown all over a wall, that wall to be specific. You are going to star in your very own snuff film.”
“I’m a Federation councilor!” Councilor Morgan screamed. “They will hunt you down. There will be no place you can hide!”
“Oh they are already hunting for us. What are they going to do, kill us twice?” Shelia laughed and then turned to Helena.
“Ready to go?”
“Yes,” Helena said gravely from behind a tripod mounted camera, “as ready as I am going to be.”
“Right,” Shelia said with a smile, “Let’s get started then. Councilor Morgan, you have been found responsible for playing a major part in the false allegations against the Terran Republic, the corrupt decision to launch a surprise attack that killed many innocent Terrans, and the resulting war that resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent civilians on both sides. Your actions were made-”
“That’s not true! You are lying!!” Councilor Morgan shouted over her.
“We have proof,” Shelia said, “That proof will be attached to the footage when it is posted so everyone can read it and make their own decision. Before you ask we got the proof when we hacked the Federation servers. We got everything, councilor. You can shout and scream all you want but the files we attach will make our case.”
“It’s a lie, people they are telling lies!! The files are falsified! This is all-” He was cut short by Shelia walking over and backhanding him knocking him to the ground.
“I was going to read my statement before I killed you but since you keep interrupting I’ll just kill you first and then read my statement.”
“No! No, please… please...” Councilor Morgan was hauled to his feet, a wet stain appearing on his trousers.
“Ok, hold him right there.” Shelia said as she backed up a few feet and pulled out her sidearm. She then turned to the camera. “This pistol, here zoom in on this serial number please. Got it? Great. This pistol will be placed on e-buy for any interested collectors. Not sure when I will be able to post the auction but keep your eyes open for it.” She then turned to Councilor Morgan. “Good-bye, porkie.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Logan said as his entire crew leveled their weapons at Shelia and her team.
The rest of the series can be found here
I'm not going to leave you guys hanging for two weeks this time, promise.

Disney Star Wars Post Mortem

In December, it's been seven years since Disney acquired the Star Wars brand from George Lucas. The whole operation cost $ 4.08 billion. Of course, this money was an expensive but not too risky investment. Star Wars is one of the most loved and recognizable brands in the world. It seemed that the Star Wars logo combined with almost unlimited Disney financial resources could give us Star Wars we have never had before. And in the end I think it gave exactly that. Only was it in good sense? In this article I do not want to deal with television, toys and other gadgets and focus on movies. We have received five of these over the past five years. Have they achieved their intended success and won the hearts of fans? That will depend on who will you ask. Below I would like to present my point on this matter, I invite you to read and comment.
I will start with one aspect of the dispute around the new trilogy that often appears in other people's statements. Are sequels better than prequels? I think that this dispute does not make much sense. The biggest problem of prequels is their quality. It is different with sequels. And I do not mean that they are better because it is not so simple. My main point is that the prequels were not unnecessary. They are boring, have wooden dialogues (Anakin seducing Padme comparing her to the sand he has in his underpants ...), an action that often was far from thrilling... but they tell an important part of the story that we saw in the OT. I can't say the same about the sequels. They were unnecessary. Which does not mean that they should not exist. But they should be created with the intention of adding another important element of the saga story and making a profit as a bonus. Unfortunately, the desire for profit was the decisive factor, and story did not even come second.
So as I mentioned above, with all their flaws prequels are an important part of the saga. They tell about events that we only heard about in OT and we could only imagine tchem (maybe it's a shame it didn't stay that way). The fall of the Jedi order and of the republic. Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Palpatine seizes power, creates an empire and rules it supreme. These are all events no less important than those of OT. It is a pity that they were not presented better. I think it would change a lot for the better if we didn't lose one film for Anakin's preschool years. Then there would be enough time to present the war of the republic against separatists without having to rely on cartoons. It would be a key movie between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Siths. However, even when episodes 1-3 look like they are today, they still form a coherent and fascinating story. And I don't deny myself saying that. Just because story was told in a boring way doesn't mean it's not interesting. Palpetin's path from a little-known politician to the galaxy ruler is downright fascinating. Each part of this trilogy builds a story for the next, which in turn ends with one of the most important moments of the whole saga (the birth of Vader) and at the same time is a good starting point for the New Hope.
I don't want to write a lot about the original trilogy. We all know what a cultural phenomenon it was. I will raise only two issues that I cannot ignore. First, OT was not planned as a trilogy. New Hope had no subtitle or a number. It was just "Star Wars" and that's it. I know this is common knowledge and I'm not trying to be smartass. The point is that even though it all started from self-contained movie from which they later decided to make a trilogy and despite the fact that each part had a different director, OT is one of the most beautiful trilogies in the history of cinema. Each movie can be watched separately and be enjoyable. But they create a coherent and competently written story. The characters of this story and their adventures are timeless. Han - for me he was always a favorite hero. I was very happy that he, not Luke, got Leia (especially when I found out that she is Luk's sister).
- I love You
- I know
For me, these words have even more weight than "I am your father". However, although Han was mine favorite character, Luke is the most important hero of the trilogy. He started as an orphan raised by relatives. A brave boy with a good heart, but a weakling. Ordinary man not a perfect hero. A random sand people knocked him out. In the canteen, Obi Wan saved him from the thugs. The fact that we know how modest (and I do not mean the financial situation) were his beginnings makes his development more beautiful. First a brave but physically weak teenager. Then a competent soldier, a beginner Jedi to finally achieve a master level of force mastery in Return of the Jedi. His way to the final of the story was not easy. Along the way, he suffered many defeats, lost his hand and almost lost his life when he tried to save his friends, knowing he was not ready for what awaited him. But their lives were more important to him than his own. In the final he defeated Vader. He could kill him, but he decided to spare him. He threw away his lightsaber and allowed Palpetine to torture him. When I was a child/teenager I didn't understand it. I thought Luke was a wimp who instead of beating Palpetine moans only for Dad to save him. Now I know I was foolish. I didn't understand that Luke cutting down Palpetine with his lightsaber would be a satisfying ending, but much less valuable than what we got. Luke believed in the goodness that was deep inside Vader, which the whole world (and Vader himself) considered to be the greatest monster in the galaxy. And he risked his life to prove it. And he was right. Vader made a choice, saved his son by sacrificing his own life, and killed the emperor ending 20 years of the empire's rule over the galaxy. The return of the Jedi has many disadvantages (half of this movie is in the land of discount care bears), but it is at least a good film and its finale is simply wonderful.
And this is how the saga had ended when George Lucas sold his rights to Disney. Who did not spend more than 4 billion not to try to make money on the brand by making more films. But was it really a good idea to start from episode 7? Wouldn't it be better to shoot spin-offs first? Obi Wan, Boba Fett, Rogue1… Or maybe a new trilogy right away, but taking place in the world of the old republic? Kotor 1 and 2 are great stories, well known to players and only players, for casual viewers that would avoid spoilers Revan saga could be both fascinating and surprising. Of course, you could take a chance and start by continuing the saga, but after meeting several conditions. The most important of them is to have a story you want to tell. Heroes you want to introduce. Some plan about where this story will start and where it is going to go. What adventures, challenges, successes and failures will affect our heroes and how they will change them. Unfortunately, all of this was lacking. And this is the biggest sin of the Disney trilogy. They knew they were making a trilogy. And they began to shoot a story written without much thought for which they had no plan so each subsequent film was written and shot by completely different people without any plan.
I do not intend to write about all the flaws of the new trilogy because it was supposed to be an article and not a book. Anyway, there are people who have fulfilled this task movie after movie. And probably none did it better than Mauler whose reviews, although longer than the movies themselves are far more interesting. However, in a few words I would like to refer to each part of new trilogy, but before I do it I would like to mention spin-offs.
Rogue 1 - a movie that is widely regarded as the best of the Disney era in Star Wars. Personally, I am not a fan of it. First of all, the best scene of this film is when Vader slaughtered rebels. 5 years of making movies under the Disney banner and is it not a shame that with all these new heroes and adventures the best moment of the best film is the reinterpretation of one of the first OT scenes with the participation of the OT hero? 160 km (over 100 miles if I'm not mistaken) in diameter. Enormous firepower allowing it to fight and win against enemy fleets. In addition, it was so large that it could carry own fleets that guarded it. Although it was not prepared to fight with enemy fighters (due to its size, it is difficult to properly completely fill its surface with anti-aircraft turrets), it could carry huge amounts of alied fighters that provided protection against enemy fighters. And with the enormous size of the object, its armor, firepower and fleet support, to destroy it enemy would had to get its plans, analyze them, discover a way to destroy it, and then hit the target with size of one meter in a 160 km fortress under fire from the entire empire might. I believe that the ventilation shaft was simply a feature and not a defect deliberately placed by the spy. And attempts to explain this defect are all the more comical when we consider the finale of one of the later films ...
Solo - this movie is the biggest financial disaster in the history of Star Wars. It's not the worst of the movies, but firstly few people wanted to see the movie about Han's youth and secondly it came out in the shadow of TLJ. Which could be a huge advantage, but it turned out to be the main cause of this disaster. Although the movie wasn't so bad and it didn't deserve such himiliation, it didn't deserve a success either. It answered questions that nobody was interested in having answered. Where does Han get the blaster, where did his name come from (someone got paid for writing that scene…), but it doesn't explain how Han knows the Wookie language. He just know it. He grew up on Corelia, we have never seen him meet another Wookie before Chevie, and yet he knows their language that is based on snarls and roars. Drama.
Since these less important movies are out of the way (I’m talking about spinoffs and not the first two trilogies), let's move on to the most important element of the Disney project – the New Trilogy.
The Force Awakens – for me, the problems had already began in opening crawl of this movie. Prequels began in a republic so used to peace and stabilization that it was completely unprepared for a war. And in the subsequent movies we watched the course of the conflict, one of the largest in the history of the republic and yet only a background for the machinations of Palpetine. The New Hope comes quite naturally from the events shown in Revenge of the Sith, and the entire OT, as I wrote earlier, is a coherent and fascinating story. Anyway, even before the prequels were created and New Hope was the beginning of the saga, although we were entering a completely unknown world we were introduced to it so effectively that after a few minutes we felt at home. Meanwhile, the Return of the Jedi ends with the defeat of the Empire and the beginning of the rebuilding of the republic under the watchful eyes of our heroes. Episode 7 should take place in a world reminiscent of that from episode 1. But the creators insisted on making a worse version of the New Hope and the power balance on both sides resembles that of it. The republic controls resources of the entire galaxy, and First Order tries to overthrow it. And yet the republic's power when compared to First Order power looks more or less like the power of the rebel forces when compared to the empire. To the extent that the main forces fighting the First Order on behalf of the republic are called “resistance”. The beginning of this movie completely does not match with the ending of the previous one. But it is already a tradition in this trilogy that no subsequent movie matches the previous one. In a nutshell, The Force Awakens is a worse clone of the New Hope with some names changed. Rebellion is now the Resistance. Empire is now the First Order. Death Star is now Starkillers base. Tatooine is Jakku. Luke is Rey. Vader is Kylo Ren. The Emperor is Snoke. Tarkin is Huggs. Honestly? I never understood people who justified the cloning the script of the New Hope in TFA as sensible because it was safe. It was supposed to be the beginning of a new trilogy being part of one of the most important sagas in the history of cinema. They should try harder than that. Even worse, TFA has no story to tell. Jar Jar Abrams decided to go the easy way and the whole movie revolves around searching for mcguffin - a map to Luke Skywalker. Despite all the disadvantages of this movie - new heroes seemed interesting. The potential was there. The beginning was not the best, but from this ugly duckling a wonderful swan could grow up. Especially since the financial result was excellent (I will write about the Disney SW box office after discussing movies) and the film ended with an intriguing cliffhanger.
TLJ - for me this movie killed the entire Disney SW project. And before all the fans of this terrible movie jump on me and write that I'm telling nonsense, consider a few things. First of all, the film had an excellent box office opening and ended with a result well below expectations. Why? For me and for many other people who felt the same reason is clear. We wanted to see what would happen next, but when it turned out how awful this movie was, many OT fans decided not to watch it - except for those who did it in the first few days before the reviews and opinions came out (hence the successful start and then the abyss). Also the Solo box office result should make you think. Rogue 1 entered theaters after TFA and made a lot of money, Solo entered theaters after TLJ and failed. Many people claimed that the poor TLJ result was the result of the syndrome of the second part of the trilogy and that Solo was guilty itself for own disaster, and that ep. 9 was to prove it all. We now know that ep. 9 also fell victim to the crisis into which the brand fell after TLJ. Do you remember Disney's plans for Star Wars before it came to light what damage TLJ did? 2019 ep. 9, 2020 Kenobi, 2021 first part of the new trilogy, 2022 spinoff, 2023 second part of the new trilogy, 2024 spinoff, 2025 third part of the new trilogy, 2026 spinoff. And this was the end of only this phase of Disney plans for SW, in the future they were planning even more movies. Meanwhile, after Solo, all these projects were canceled, and Ruin Johnson (who was to get his own trilogy as a reward for TLJ) may forget that anyone will let him ever approach this brand, unless he buys a cinema ticket. Which is so funny because I remember interviews with Johnson in which he claimed that SW is a huge brand and is so great that they will never stop making more movies… Not a year has passed since these interviews and it turned out that he killed the Disney SW project and movies that were supposed to never stop making will indeed stop after episode 9. I don't want to write about the film itself because we devote much more attention to it than it deserved. . Anyway, I'm not able to express in words how terrible this movie is as well as people like Mauler, Plinket, and Wolf. But I have to deal with a few issues related to this film.
First, what has been done with Luke Skywalker is a true desecration. The way TFA treated Leia and Han was terrible, but what this movie did with the most important hero of the saga ... He was changed into a coward and a bum who escaped to the end of the world to avoid fighting, leaving his beloved sister to fight alone against the overwhelming evil forces and watching the world burn while drinking blue milk from the boobs of the disgusting mutant. As if that wasn't enough, he was portrayed as a sick psychopath who sneacked into the bedroom of his nephew (and son of a friend whom Luke loved as a brother and with whom he saved each other's lives many times) to murder him in his sleep because he sensed darkness inside him. In the context of what we know about Luke and how far he is ready to sacrifice himself for a little good hidden in the embodiment of evil, it is hard to accept that he was portrayed as a murderer who would kill an innocent young man for a little evil hidden in a good person (and do nottell me that he thought Ben could not be saved because he was too evil - few years and billions of victims later Rey saved his soul without any problem). I will never forgive this movie. But equally terrible is that this solution makes the plot of the previous film completely unnecessary. Not only the TFA final where the rebel destroys the Starkiller base and with it the main enemy forces do not seem to matter, because somehow in TLJ the First Order's advantage over the Resistance is even greater than it was (the logic in the context of the forces that the warring parties have at the moment is at the level of the last season of the Game of Thrones). The map to Luke around which the whole episode 7 revolved does not seem to make any sense because Luke did not set off to prepare himself to fight the First Order but fled from it and did not intend to be found. Disney SW is a parasite that kills Star Wars, but it is mainly the fault of this film, which completely ignored the threads started in the previous one, at the same time it was so hopeless that the final part had to completely cut off from it. The new trilogy consists of 3 films, each of which pretends that the previous one does not matter (and therefore none of them matter).
TRoS - this is probably the worst film in the whole cycle. But I must admit that watching it is less painful than the previous part. On the one hand, I have no grudge against Abrams for this film. He undertook the impossible task so it is hard to blame him for failing. There is no man in the world who would save this trilogy after what the TLJ did with it. And although almost all the disadvantages of ep. 9 can be justified by the fact that it tried to fix the errors of the previous one, many things cannot be forgiven. As long as the new trilogy was only destroying itself, there was less of a problem. Palpetine's return completely ruins the importance of OT and the value of its final. Luke's heroism and Anakin's redemption do not matter because the emperor outlived them both and laughed as their corpses were cooling down. The movie itself was so terrible and shallow (again, we don't have a plot, only more mcguffins we are looking for, one more stupid than the other) that it would take more time to list all its flaws than someone devoted to writing the script of this terrible movie. As part of saving time I will focus on the final battle. Palpetine - a man who controlled two sides of the war in prequels from the shadow - a republic and separatists were both manipulated and all this under the eyes of the Jedi council. He manipulated everyone to the end then and now he eventually lost because before he attacked the defenseless republic he sent her a notice of the date of the future invasion giving them time and reason to find him and beat him. Not to mention that he had a huge fleet of star destroyers each of whom could destroy entire planets, but none had their own navigation system so they could not leave their planet because the crew of none knew which direction is “up” (apparently they did not understand the relationship of such directions as "Top" and "bottom" with concepts such as "ceiling" and "floor"). Disney SW brazenly treated a one-meter weak spot in a 160 km death star as a plot hole and yet ends with a battle in which any shot into the main cannon of each of the star destroyers of the Emperor destroys them because all their ultimate weapons are also weak points. Fact that the Palpetine family in the form of Rey appropriates the name Skywalker and falls into the favor of the republic, and yet the film has the audacity to be called The Rise of Skywalker is a scandal. Also although the return of Palpetine was forced by the death of snoke at the hands of a moron (I mean Johnson not Kylo), it was not necessary at all. I once said that the return of Jar Jar Binks as the main villain of the new trilogy would made as much sense as the return of Palpetine. Like many other people, I treated it as a joke. But from the perspective of time... Darth Jar Jar would not ruin OT with his presence. It would be surprising, but not in some bad sense. It would be controversial, but it could be seen as a tribute to George Lucas. Once a negative reaction from fans prevented him from realizing the story of Darth Jar Jar in prequels, now Disney could do it for him in the sequels. Did they had so much to lose? I know that the idea doesn't sound very reasonable, but the longer I think about it, the more I like it and I'm curious about your opinions on it.
Prequels were boring, but they were not superfluous because they tell an important part of the story contained in the saga. These are my words from the introduction. Sequels can be boring, none is a good movie, but the worst part is that they don't add anything to the history of the saga. Although that is no longer truth. It turned out that the worst thing is that they not only add nothing, but destroyed many valuable elements of the old saga. Could it have been avoided? Sure! Do not give this project to the incompetent hands of Abrams and Johnson (but it was hard to expect intelligent decisions from even less competent Kathleen Kennedy). Find someone who could write a better story that matches the beginning of the Return of the Jedi. It wasn't difficult at all ...
A republic 30 years after the fall of the empire would control the most important regions of the galaxy, but would struggle to gain and retain control on the rim where lawlessness ruled and power struggle between the Hutt cartel, the Exchange, etc. would rage on. However, peace and order would prevail in the most important and most developed regions. And in such galaxy ep. 7 could begin. Leia and Han would still be together, she could be the chancellor of the republic, he could be the person responsible for combating lawlessness at the galaxy borders (not like a sheriff with a blaster in his hand, but like a competent commander who knows the tricks of the criminal world from the inside and thus is able to fight them more effectively than ordinary republic commanders often deprived of war experience and having only education in the republic's military academies). Luke would rest on a distant planet away from civilization. The academy created by him would have its own council of masters (a place in which he abandoned to finally relax), dozens of full-fledged knights and hundreds of young students. And at this point - somewhere at the end of the second act or at the beginning of the third act First Order attacks. An organization that was created secretly by fanatics of the former empire - military commanders, politicians, businessmen, Siths. They would gather strength and resources in secret for 30 years. They placed their own agents in the most important links of the republic - army, senate, even Jedi academy. One day, at one time, the First Order agents bombs the republic's most important military bases, its fleet, senate and Jedi academy. Armed traitors after eliminating security would conquer senate, while the army, and the fleet would suffer enormous losses in this surprise bombing and would have to rely on the return of the forces operating on the borders of the galaxy, while in the Jedi academy Siths pretending to be ordinary knights (one could even be in the council) suddenly attacks surprised colleagues and they carry out a massacre from which only a few refugees would survive. Meanwhile, on far away world Rey had been attacked by mysterious masked men and saved by Luke who had covertly watch over her lately. Maybe retirement was just an excuse to disappear from the radar? Maybe he sensed something was wrong and wanted to keep her safe? Rey would be an anonymous orphan only safe until the wrong people don’t know her true identity that even she would not know. Without revealing what he knew about her, he would take her with him. He would see her potential. He wouldn't tell her aboutit. Certainly not as awkwardly as in TLJ (you have such potential that it scared sh*t out of me – Luke Skywalker). He would train her. But not like the students at the academy were training. He would do it like Miyagi in a karate kid (if I remember the story correctly) who taught his student karate forcing him to perform his daily duties - so that he trained unconsciously and living with the conviction that he was used to work by this old jerk. Their joint escape and the beginning of training would end ep. 7. In ep. 8 First Order after a surprising attack and the destruction of the republic's government would take control from it. The survivors of the republic's troops and fleets would have to decide whether to follow the new galaxy's power, which would be now restored empire, or to fight for the reconstruction of the republic. There would be fratricidal clashes between Republican warships and even on the ships themselves there would be clashes between crew and officers divided between both factions. Meanwhile, Luke would officially train Rey and stand on the side of the republic led by Leia (the attack on the Senate may have been surprising, but in her life she came out safe from bigger dangers and with age she did not become more tired but more experienced and wiser). At some point after being attacked by the Sith and having no chance of victory they would have to make difficult decisions. Luke against Rey's will would force her to run away and he would buy her time standing alone to fight the enemy forces. His heroic last stand would be the end of ep.8. In ep. 9 Rey would join Jedi disciples and knights planning to attack the new emperor in his palace and defeat the empire by depriving them of leader. During the mission, its commander would fall in battle and the other companions would see that this new one surpasses their own skills. And it wouldn't be Merry Sue effect. Luke probably had many students he had trained for years. But if you train someone for a long time, but in a larger group it may be less effective than training lasting several months, but individual and given to someone extremely talented. Rey and her companions would defeat the new emperor and the fleet of the republic commanded by Han (fleet in the battle would be led by Han, but the whole of the republic's forces and the bigger picture would be under Leia's command). The saga could end up regaining control over the core of the republic by forces loyal to it, but the new Empire, though defeated, would not be destroyed and would lick wounds in the frontiers allied with cartels, while the victorious republic would be catastrophically weakened. I think that the outline of the story I presented here and it took me longer to write it down than to imagine it was not worse than what we got in sequels. In addition to Rey, it would be possible to portray many other characters on the both sides and the struggle of the new empire with the new republic one day there could be shown in other films from their perspective.
I think Disney Star Wars is a completely unsuccessful project. But it couldn't be otherwise since it was in so many incompetent hands. I do blame Abrams, but less so. I have many more serious accusations against Johnson. People defend his film saying that is was bold and surprising. But the truth is that being notoriously surprising is not an indicator of the quality of a movie. This is a feature of parodies, not of decent movies. Naked Weapons or Space Balls can boast with the number of stupid gags, but not the middle episode of the Star Wars trilogy. Because those were all those "bold" and "surprising" moments. Stupid gags that fit more into a parody of Star Wars than this saga. Luke hilariously throwing out his lightsaber, Finn leaking hilariously after leaving the hospital, Snoke with the tongue hanging out hilariously after death. Stop using “subverting expectations” as a universally positive aspect. If you go to the restaurant, order a decent meal and would get a steaming pile of sh*t on the plate – your expectations would be subverted but would that make You happy?
And since I already touched on the subject of characters of those movies. The new trilogy shamefully treated the heroes of the original trilogy. Han and Leia are after a divorce. Old. Tired. Incompetent. He dies in the middle of the first movie killed by his own neglect of contraception. Although in her youth she was so intelligent, resourceful and effective now she behaves like a sad grandmother and not like a respectable commander with more experience than all her staff combined. I already wrote about Luke. Let me just add that the way he was treated is not an accident. All OT heroes were depicted as old incompetent mushrooms so that new heroes would perform better in comparison. In addition, Luke was not only destroyed as a character, but killed so that he couldn't train Rey. Kathleen Kennedy is a feminist. I do not mind that. I don't mind that she insisted that the main character would be a woman. But it bothers me that this ignorant feminism led to the destruction of Luke as a character so that he couldn't train Rey. Because a strong independent woman will not learn from a guy. Although from the death of Carrie Fisher there was a year to the premiere of TLJ so there was enough time to change the script:
- let Leia die in the explosion of her command deck (thereby eliminating the hated scene of Leia Poppins)
- let Luke survive the scene of imagining that he helps at the end of this movie so that his character has a chance to redeem himself - train Rey and help in the battle for real this time, let him die a heroic death.
It would be easier than leaving Leia alive after Carrie's death and at the same time more sensible (Luke was more suited to be Rey's teacher than Leia). But what makes sense does not matter in this project ... only the selfish decisions of Kathleen and Ruin do matter
While writing about heroes I can't forget about Poe and Finn. Both are played by charismatic actors without whom (and Adam Driver) this trilogy would have virtually no advantages. It is a pity that they too were sacrificed on the altar to the glory of Merry Sue Rey Palpetine Skywalker Solo Binks. Finn in particular was treated cruelly. He held a lightsaber on TFA posters suggesting he might be the protagonist. It turned out to be another one of stupid diversions from Abrams who likes his mistery boxes. At TLJ Finn became a parody of himself. For political reasons, the movie introduced character of Rose Tico for which there was no place in the script, so jut for her sake the whole absurd and unnecessary plot of Kanto Byte was filmed. And as this character was so not important Finn was demoted to justifying her existence by taking part in her adventures. I am sure that if not for Rose there would not be a casino thread and thus there would be no absurd dispute between Poe and Holdo on the topic "do we have a plan?". Because there would be no point in making the plan a secret since there would be nobody to be sent on a side mission. Everyone seems to think that Finn would be a great protagonist because as a former Storm Trooper he aroused great interest. I would add that since he was kidnapped as an infant, he was also an orphan. Meanwhile, last 4 years everyone asked who Rey's parents were and no one asked who Finn's parents were. But it's not our fault, the movies themselves drilled one question and ignored the other. Returning to Rey - the character is terrible. I like her anyway. If someone competent could write it in their own way and not under the dictation of an old feminist who believes that the best heroine is a strong independent woman who cannot lose because strong women do not lose and do not have to train because strong women can do everything anyway... Taking away from Rey the opportunity to fail and develop internally, improve her skill through hard training has made a potentially fascinating character a boring vegetable. Therefore, people without imagination and a voice of reason but full of arrogance like Kathleen Kennedy should not control such projects as Star Wars.
Let's move on to the most important determinant of success (or lack thereof) of Disney SW, namely finances. Disney paid e4.08 billion to buy the brand from George Lucas. Already after TLJ I saw a lot of articles saying that the investment paid back because 4.3 billion in 3 years was earned by 3 movies. It's totally wrong. Movies cost money. And their budget which we officially get to know is only the cost of production. Marketing usually consumes just as much. In addition, not every dollar earned returns to the creators because distribution costs and cinema margins consume some of the income. Although this is not a 100% effective method, for some time I have been using the formula to count the profits of films in which the result from the box office is divided in half and I subtract from it the doubled production budget (to include marketing) and I only treat the obtained result as the actual profit of the film. What does Disney SW's profit look like under these rules?
TFA: WWG: 2,068,223,624/2=1,034,111,812 Budget: 245kk x2 = 490 kk 1,034,111,812 - 490kk = 544,111,812 Rogue1: WWG: 1,056,057,273/2=528,028,636.5 Budget:200kk x2 = 400 kk 528,028,636.5-400kk=128,028,636.5 TLJ: WWG: 1,332,539,889/2=666,269,944.5 Budget: 317kk x2 = 634 kk 666,269,944.5-634kk=32,269,944.5 Solo: 392,924,807/2=196,462,403.5 Budget: 275kk x2 = 550 kk 196,462,403.5-550kk=-353 537 596,5
According to my calculations, after 3 movies, the profit was about 700 million, but half of that was lost by Solo, and the rest could be lost by the defeat of TRoS. I will not count income (or rather losses) of TRoS until Disney admits how much they really spent on this movie because the official budget is not known and previously published versions seemed definitely underestimated given the long and turbulent production and numerous changes in the script. Do not let yourself be convinced that the billion earned by ep.9 is a success. For Joker, a billion was a success because it was category R, it did not premiere in China and its budget was at least six times smaller than ep. 9. And we're talking about the final episode of Star Wars saga. The movie that should be the second Endgame.
Probably some of you think that comparing TRoS with Endgame is an exaggeration because Star Wars is not MCU. And the weaker financial results of this movie will be justified with something called “Star Wars faigue”. Because such an absurd explanation for Solo's defeat was very popular. MCU's is a good example – franchise which in 11 years made 24 films, each of which achieved smaller or larger financial success and won the hearts of viewers. Does the Endgame result suggest that viewers were tired of the MCU or comic book adaptations in general? No. Because good movies do not tire us at all. That's why the public still isn’t bored with MCU despite 24 movies, but we got bored with Disney SW after three movies. Anyway SW fans seem to love The Mandalorian show which proves that the fans are not tired of Star Wars at all, only of SW miserable form tainted by Kathleen Kennedy's touch. That's all about SW fatigue – it’s a BS. And now about how big Star Wars are when compared to Marvel. The Avengers is a movie that fans have been waiting for several years, hype for it was built by several earlier warmly received movies. The film made 1.5 billion, which was a huge success. The second part is mentioned much less warmly (I personally like Age of Ultron a lot) and earned 1.4 billion - less than the first, but still a lot. Infinity War, the finale of 10 years of building this universe earned 2 billion. A great success that was the result of the 10 years of hard work and numerous previous films. A decade of work and success has given Marvel these 2 billion. TFA earned more for just being created. The brand was in new hands, a new film was made and we didn't need to know more. Star Wars ep. 7 achieved a better result in cinemas 10 years after previous movie (which was the last of the “hated” prequels btw) than the fruit of 10 years of hard work on the MCU and around 20 movies that helped shaping it. Despite this, 4 years from the premiere of TFA and a year from the premiere of Infinity War, the competition of Star Wars with MCU ends in a massacre. Why? Well Endgame sips the cream of MCU's 11 years of success, but above all the great situation in which Infinity War left it. TRoS drinks the rare feces left to it by TLJ. The TFA score compared to The Avengers shows the difference between the two brands at the beginning of their new path. The TRoS result compared to Endgame shows how much can be lost when a project worth billions goes into the hands of idiots without a plan while Marvel entrusted his films to the right people, had a plan and consistently implemented it under the watchful eye of Kevin Feigi. Who unlike Kathleen Kennedy multiplied the value of the project he was in charge of instead of destroying it.
To sum up - I think that Star Wars has never been in worse spot. Prequels were rated low by fans, but earned cash. Disney SW stopped earning after 2 years and 2 movies (TLJ broke even rather than was profitable). In addition, the incompetent policies of Mrs. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson led to a split among fans. In response to their negative reception of TLJ Kennedy and Johnson began a campaign to throw mud on fans, to present them as racists, extreme right-wing enemies of women. This stupid reaction to honest criticism led to a catastrophic split between TLJ fans and OT fans who were disgusted with this movie. Kathleen Kennedy in her pursuit of attracting new fans (especially women) to Star Wars forgot about two important things. The first rule of show business is not to sacrifice fans you already have to try to get new ones. And most importantly - the fans whose opinions didn’t matter to Kathleen Kennedy because she underestimated them… they were the reason why this brand was worth the 4 billion at all. You don't need Star Wars brand to make a movie about wars in space and space wizards. The same could have been achieved with Mass Effect (which by the way I love except the third part finale and Andromeda) or some new IP. But Star Wars had a multitude of loyal fans who did not skimp on their passion. And it was thanks to them that this brand was so valuable. And Mrs. Kennedy forgot about it, ignored them, allowed them to ne attacked by her subordinates. And all this to have a chance to win a new generation of fans, which even if it succed they could not be equally devoted as the old fans. For casual buyers yesterday there could have been new star wars at the top, today marvel and tomorrow another part of transformers or fast and furious. People for whom SW in many cases was most important passion in live were abandoned to please the people for whom SW is one of the many brands in the cinema. You can watch it, sure, but if You don’t You will not miss it.

Refuting your Last Jedi Plot Holes

If you'd rather listen to me narrate this same post with some pictures for visual aids and all that, here's a 26 minute video.
Otherwise I've written up a full transcript here (fair warning, this is gonna be VERY long) for all of you at work or who can't listen to audio or whatever. Skip past the following parentheses for the transcript to begin.
(Some of you may recognize the video from a couple days ago when I posted it. A few of you immediately made me aware of some big flaws in my logic in one of my early answers; which pretty much destroyed my credibility from the beginning. So I took the post and video down and reworked a bunch of it. Some questions have entirely different/better answers now. I replaced a segment of the intro narration with another segment where I more clearly define what is and isn't a plot hole so we can all be on the same page, and made a few other minor tweaks. There's nothing like putting 26 minutes of your opinions/logic out there for a big community to see and watching 1000s of brains rightly pick it apart. I mean that in the best way possible! It's a pretty beautiful process haha I'd like to think the video, and therefore this post is better for it. So thank you to those who commented a few nights ago.)
Anything from here on out in parentheses is not discussed in the video, but I feel I can explore some additional thoughts here for those that want to read them.
Intro
There's been a lot of really interesting and valid criticisms of The Last Jedi that I've been seeing around, but also a lot of really strange questions ("plot holes") being parroted around masked as criticism. And that's what I take issue with. This is in response to a video made by a fairly big YouTuber called "70 Plot Hole Questions For Star Wars The Last Jedi -" (YTer is Levelcap fyi). And what I'm going to do is use some very simple abilities that we all have: to infer, to critically think, and to read between the lines (and occasionally do some research). And we're gonna see how many of these questions we can answer without the movie having to spoon-feed us every little detail.
Now it seems to some people the definition of a plot hole has broadened so much that it now includes questions like this (I believe they are wrong). So for the sake of this post, let's agree on a definition. I really like the urban dictionary definition the best (there's surprisingly few actual definitions of the term, but the ones that exist pretty much say the same thing. This one just puts it most succinctly to me).
In a piece of fiction, a Plot Hole is a completely implausible occurrence or series of events that contradicts logic or previously established events in the story. Includes things such as unlikely behaviour or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.
A Plot Hole is NOT a simple omission of information or unanswered question. These can only be considered a Plot Hole if said omission has no plausible explanation AND is essential information to the overall story's outcome. Plot Hole: Something that goes against logic or the previous events in the fiction. Not a Plot Hole: A small unexplained event in the story.
(ACTUAL Plot Hole: In Batman Begins a microwave emitter is used to vaporize the water in Gotham to release a psychedelic drug that the water has been laced with. However, the microwaves would in all actuality cause all of the water molecules in every human body to boil and kill everyone very painfully. But this does not happen in the movie.
NOT a Plot Hole: In The Dark Knight Rises, not explaining how Bruce Wayne manages to get back onto the Island of Gotham after it has been cut off from the rest of the world. You can reasonably infer that because he is Batman, he can manage to get himself back onto the island and the movie does not need to show this)
The key element I'm using for this post is that an unanswered question can only be considered a plot hole if the omission has no reasonable explanation. (Someone commented on my previous video that: going by this logic then plot holes wouldn't exist, because then you could say the characters just ate a magical jelly bean off screen that allows them to resolve whatever question you may have. This is categorically untrue, because this would be a very unreasonable explanation. Granted, I did not clearly go over this definition of a plot hole in my previous video so their point was more valid.)
Several times throughout this post, I'm not going to know the 100% correct/canon answer, and I'll begin with something like: "I don't know, but here's my best explanation...". I don't claim to be all-knowing when it comes to this movie (or Star Wars in general); but I am still refuting that the question is a plot hole by offering up a reasonable explanation. One that makes sense within both Star Wars canon, and the storyline of this movie particularly.
So with that being said, I'm about to begin answering these questions point by point in the order that they appear in levelcap's video. I condensed a few of them down because he asks the same question twice or they are similar enough that they could be answered with the same explanation (so the end total of questions will not be 70, but 58). Without farther ado, let's get going! Obviously there will be spoilers ahead.
MY REFUTATIONS
1. Why did the First Order fighters pull back from attacking the Resistance fleet?
In the movie, Hux calls Kylo Ren and his wingmen off of the Resistance fleet because they were out of range of the FO fleet who couldn't cover them any longer. (very quickly Kylo Ren's wingmen are blown up to show this.) One might imagine that the First Order didn't want to needlessly risk resources seeing as how the Resistance was in such a terrible spot, and their fate was looking inevitable. (Another factor is that while Kylo did blow up the launch bay of the main Resistance ship, some of the other ships did still have launch bays of their own and could scramble fighters if the FO did send their own after the Resistance fleet, and would likely result in heavy losses. The win-win scenario for the FO was that waiting 18 hours for the Resistance's fuel to run out means they wipe out the Resistance, AND get to keep many of their Ties alive)
2. Why are Resistance ships able to outrun First Order ships?
Take your pick. Either the Resistance ships have faster or more efficient engines than the FO ships, or they have to burn more fuel in order to keep distance from the FO fleet. Throughout the movie there is dialogue (from both the FO and Resistance) explaining they are able to keep a safe distance, but they just won't be able to sustain it. Do they really need to explain why exactly?
3. Why did the Resistance ships slow down when they run out of fuel? Wouldn't Newton's First Law Apply here?
Alright this one's pretty stupid-- So Star Wars has a loooong history of not obeying the laws of physics as you may know. But as long as we're using Newton's First Law, I'll spell this one out. (It actually sorta works here!) If one space ship is chasing another ship, and both are accelerating equally, and everything else is equal, and the lead ships stops accelerating-ie runs out of fuel (mind you just because it stops accelerating does not mean it is slowing down), then the chasing ship (as long as it is still accelerating) will catch up to and overtake the lead ship. This might appear as if the lead ship is slowing down though. (Relativity! There's a little animation in my video to help illustrate this. None of the ships in it ever slow down per se, but one does stop accelerating and is therefore overtaken by the (still accelerating) chasing empire fleet just like in the movie)
4. Why can't Hux have some of his destroyers hyperjump in front of the Resistance fleet to block them off?
This is a really good question and one that I've been seeing around a lot. But I think there's a good explanation. And it has to do with hyperlanes. Throughout the galaxy of Star Wars, there are pre-established hyperlanes that ships use when hyperjumping to other locations. These are sure to be safe trails to travel on. It's incredibly risky to make a jump without a hyperlane. This is why it's very important for the galaxy geopolitically when a new lane is discovered or explored, because big military fleets typically only use these to make advances. So what do we know about D'Qar and Crait? They are both in the Outer Rim of the galaxy and basically have far fewer hyperlanes than in the core populated places of the galaxy. Crait is even totally unmapped, so I think we can reasonably infer there aren't ANY established or widely known hyperlanes nearby. (also worth noting that hyperlanes are not omnidirectional). Therefore, the First Order probably deems it too risky to make a micro jump like the one described in the question just to speed up what they thought to be inevitable. Now, should the movie have included some throwaway lines of dialogue describing this? That's for you to decide but I really don't think so. It'd basically be totally unnecessary exposition just to address a question that 99% of people won't even think to ask. But there's your answer for you crazy 1 percenters.
(Other factors could include fuel usage. We clearly hear that making a jump takes a large amount of fuel in the movie. So if the First Order captains wanted to pull a maneuver like this, they better have perfect calculations or they might wind up out of the chase altogether.
And Also to address any related questions like: The Resistance jumped in the beginning of the movie so wouldn't that mean they used a hyperlane? First, to that I would say not necessarily. I don't think they would be that worried about making a blind jump seeing as how they are about to be wiped out anyway. The FO would only be following their jumps because of their tracker. And second, the Resistance & FO could have very well used a hyperlane to jump from D'Qar to close-ish to Crait, which then probably didn't have any other hyperlanes nearby as they headed to Crait.)
5. Why don't blasters affect shields at long range?
I have no idea what this question is in reference to. I've seen the movie 3 times and still don't.
edit: A New Hope establishes that lasers in space do have a range. Source: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSW-WeaponRange-Wars.html
6. Why can shields stop capital ship weapons, but fighters can pass straight through?
We already have examples of shields behaving similarly to this. For example in the Battle of Naboo when the bubble shields block blaster fire, but let the battle droids through them. The Shields of the Raddus (the Resistance flagship) appear to behave similarly. Also it would be really inconvenient for a ship to have to lower its shields every time it sent out/in a fighter from its launch bay... So I think ship shields have always behaved like this if I'm not mistaken.
7. When did spaceship shields become bubbles?
Check out the last answer. But also there are different types of shields in the Star Wars universe. You don't think there might be different manufactures/brands of shields, all of which probably behave a little differently from each other? Or is a universe as large as Star Wars' only allowed to show you one type of shield.. Thermal shields and deflector shields are two different types just to name a few.
8. Why did the Resistance transports get blown up so easily when flying to Crait? Couldn't they have tried evasive maneuvers? Poe was able to dodge like 20 dreadnought turrets earlier.
Hmmm... Could it be that transports might handle a little differently than fighters? (especially one piloted by Poe) Those escape transports are probably a liiiittle less nimble than fighters, and are therefore much easier targets too.
9. Why didn't Holdo try to block the incoming fire on the transports?
Holdo didn't really have all that much time to come up with something once she saw the transports getting blasted, and what she did come up with was pretty damn effective.
To give a more direct answer, I think this would be easier said than done given how the artillery shots from the Supremacy (Snoke's ship) traveled in an arch, which might just arch themselves over the Raddus even if she did line herself up perfectly.
(I would also say that if she were to only block the incoming fire, the Resistance probably wouldn't have ever made it off of Crait. When she did her Kamikaze run (don't worry we'll get there too), she crippled the FO forces that could then assault the base, and destroyed their ability to keep up the chase)
10. Why did the FO only find out about the transports when DJ told them?
There actually are a couple throw away lines that give us enough to fill in the details. As the transports are leaving the Raddus, a Resistance crew member aboard a transport says: "we're cloaked and shouldn't show up on their scopes." I take this to mean that these scopes might behave somewhat similarly to submarine sonar, where you kind of have to know exactly what you're looking/listening for on the radar to see what you are looking for. This is backed up by a FO officer telling Hux that they ran a decloaking scan and were then able to identify the transports.
11. Why did Finn & Rose tell DJ about the plan?
They didn't. But you clearly see him perk up once he overhears them get word of the plan from Poe or whoever fills them in on it as they're approaching the Supremacy.
12. Why didn't Holdo have all her ships jump away in different directions?
I'm not entirely sure but it probably has something to do with the plan to hide out on Crait. If it had worked, they would have all been safe. Also safety in numbers and all that stuff.
13. How come ships can hyperjump in/out of the Resistance fleet without the FO doing anything?
Again I'm not totally sure. They could have noticed Poe and Rose's single escape shuttle leave and decided not to chase it. Or they didn't notice it at all. (also this is the only time it's done without explanation. When Finn, Rose, and DJ jump back in, DJ cloaks their approach, and when the Falcon jumps in, it immediately jumps back out once it releases Rey in her escape pod.)
14. Why do the bombers fly so close together if they blow up so big?
Check out bombing operations in WW2. Turreted bombers pretty much exactly like the ones in the movie stayed in close formation as a means of defense against fighters. Any fighter that wanted to attack a bomber had to expose himself to several different fields of fire from several different bomber turrets. Any bomber on its own was an easy kill for any fighter pilot.
15. Why were the bombs operated by some guy with a remote?
This is an infinitely retarded question. Again look at any bomber in history and you'll find the bombs were operated by a guy with some kind of remote.
(for a more direct answer, What else would they use? The resistance is known to have to scrape together whatever resources they can get their hands on so those bombers probably aren't state of the art technology. Many of the resistance ships/tech are fairly low tech, we see that in both movies. I would also highly doubt that's the only way to release the bombs; it's just the one she (as the tail gunner if I remember correctly) was closest to (good chance it was a backup/manual bomb release, maybe the visual dictionary or cross sections book explains better ). The pilot or other crewmembers might have controls too but they were incapacitated. Also, and most importantly, how exactly do the controls being an analog control vs a fancy computer screen or whatever change any of the outcome of the scene? It's a really dumb thing to even bring up in the first place)
16. Why do the bombs fall down in space?
"Bombs don't technically "drop" in microgravity, but are impelled from their racks by sequenced electromagnetic plates in the clip. The bombs are then drawn magnetically to their unfortunate targets." - From TLJ visual dictionary
17. Why didn't the bombers just release their bombers from farther away?
I would assume it probably has something to do with the electromagnets discussed in the last answer needed to be within a certain range to activate.
18. Why doesn't the dreadnought fly away when it sees the bombers coming?
Wow this would have been a really valuable tactic in say, the Battle of Midway. If only the Japanese Captains just sailed away when they saw the American bombers coming. I keep bringing up WW2 naval and aerial combat because Star Wars has always taken a huge inspiration from that.
(and if you ask: Why not just hyperjump away? well, to that I'd ask how long does it take to spool up a hyperdrive in that big of a ship? If we're going off of when Holdo does her kamikaze maneuver, it takes the Raddus (a smaller ship than the dreadnought) a good 30-60 seconds (depending how you interpret the timeline of that scene).
19. Why doesn't the First Order release fighters immediately when coming out of hyperspace and into a battle?
My favorite character in the movie, the dreadnought captain (RIP. We hardly knew ye...) seems to share this exact same sentiment when he exclaims: "We should have released fighters FIVE BLOODY MINUTES AGO!" which kind of implies they were off to a sloppy start to their attack. (also remember this is probably many of these captains very first major space-battle experience. The dreadnought captain was older and probably had a lot more experience with these things which is why he was so pissed in the first place.)
20. Why did the First Order think Poe was just a messenger ship? (Why not blow him up immediately?)
They were probably just curious about what he'd have to say with him not being considered much of a threat (you can hear this in the way Hux laughs as he says: "A single fighter approaches??"). We also know that one of the major flaws of both the Empire and now apparently the FO too is arrogance. Poe is trying to exploit this here by buying as much time as he can.
21. Why can Holdo use Hyperspace travel as a weapon and why hasn't this been done previously? Especially against the deathstar etc.
This one's making lots of people angry. But there's a couple theories I've seen that I really like. They would very neatly explain why this was only a viable tactic in this particular scenario. The simplest one is taken directly from some dialogue in The Force Awakens when Han, Chewy, and Finn are hyperjumping into Starkiller Base. Han says this when asked how they are getting in: "Their shields have a fractional refresh rate. Keeps anything traveling slower than lightspeed from getting through." I can totally buy that the First Order uses these same shields on their big ships too. He doesn't specify in the dialogue that only Starkiller Base has this kind of shield when he says "their shields", which implies he knows something about First Order shields in general.
(The other less likely but completely awesome theory is basically this: Since the Supremacy can track ships through hyperspace, and hyperspace is known to basically be another dimension. The tracker must physically exist in both dimensions at once and therefore when Holdo kamikazes the Supremacy she is slamming into the unshielded, unprotected tracker in the hyperspace dimension, causing the insanity we saw in the movie. Hopefully I did that theory justice. Because I think it's cool as hell. Thanks neutronknows for this one)
22. Why build such a big ship if something so small can destroy it?
There's actually precedent for this in previous Star Wars movies as well as in real life history. Regarding Star Wars, the Executor (the super stardestroyer) is taken out by a single A-wing pilot when he careens into its bridge. And then in real life there are tons of examples of single small planes doing enormous damage to huge ships with torpedoes, or bombs, or even by crashing into them. Point being that these huge ships need to be protected be cause their utility far outweighs their fragility.
23. Why does Poe have to land aboard the Raddus before it jumps to hyperspace? Don't X-Wings have hyperdrives?
Yes X-Wings do have hyperdrives but they may not be comparable to the ones on the bigger ships. So it's probably so they can stay together. Another possibility is in the beginning of The Last Jedi, Poe's X-Wing is outfitted with an additional booster engine on the back. This might have required removing his hyperdrive. Maybe the cross sections book will explain better.
24. How did Finn & Rose escape the Supremacy if Ties were chasing their shuttle the whole time?
There's actually nothing to suggest ties were chasing them the whole time. We see several shots of them flying away freely and only their landing approach is when they are chased by ties. It also doesn't appear that the ties are even shooting at them until they almost reach the door so the ties were probably racing to catch up to them.
25. How did Rey get from the Supremacy back to the Millennium Falcon?
In the scene where Hux finds Snoke dead and Kylo unconsious, Hux tells Kylo that she took Snoke's personal shuttle.
26. How do Finn & Rose know how to fly speeders? Isn't Rose just a mechanic?
There are many examples throughout Star Wars of families, even poor families owning some type of speeder. It seems to be a common enough skill akin to driving a car. We also see Finn struggling to keep his speeder up until Rose has to tell him to drop the mono-ski.
27. Why doesn't Finn melt in the beam but parts of his speeder does?
It looks like he would have melted if he'd stayed in the beam much longer. I'm sure it didn't feel good while he was in it but someone operating on adrenaline can tolerate some crazy stuff.
(upon watching the movie a third time I kept a close eye on this scene and never saw anything in his cockpit melt. Just the guns on the outside. So I think we can conclusively say the cockpit was shielding him from the bulk of the heat.)
28. Why does Rose think crashing into Finn will save him? Did she calculate the impact speeds exactly so they both wouldn't die?
No I really don't think she calculated the impact speeds. But I bet her thought process went something like this: "Finn has a 100% chance of dying if I let him fly into that cannon, but less than 100% if I crash him out of the way. So I'll go with that option."
Related Bonus Question: How was Rose able to catch up to Finn when she clearly turned off from the attack run earlier?
Finn's speeder was being significantly slowed down by flying directly into the beam. To the point where even if he had collided with the cannon it probably wouldn't have done anything-- another reason Rose saved him.
29. How was Finn able to drag Rose to safety?
Honestly this one is probably lazy writing. But if you want me to make a stretch, on the Battlefront 2 map of Crait, there are all kinds of small caves and trenches out there that he may have used to hide and move closer to the door. But either way, it's a pretty ridiculous feat.
30. Why do Tie Fighters keep chasing the Falcon into tight spaces?
Because Kylo literally told all of his Ties to go kill the Falcon there and they didn't want to let it escape.
31. How was the Falcon able to land and save the Rebels safely? Wouldn't there be Ties patrolling around?
Again, because Kylo told all of his Ties to go kill the Falcon. The First Order probably didn't have access to all the fighters they may have wanted after Holdo crippled the entire fleet. That's probably why there aren't as many Ties as you would have thought. Thinking a little bit about what you just watched a few seconds ago might help with answering some of these questions before you call them plot holes.
32. Did the First Order leave the planet Crait once they saw the Resistance was gone?
Uhhh, probably they did, yeah. But I seriously doubt the First Order fleet's capability to continue the chase at that point. It really seems to me that information just enters your brain and gets spat out completely unprocessed. So maybe you do need to have everything spoon-fed to you... Either that, or you are intentionally, artificially inflating how many plot holes you think are in this movie...
33. If the entire Resistance can fit aboard the Millennium Falcon now, is it even a Resistance any more?
Well, we're gonna have to wait until the next movie comes out to find out. Buuut I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "Yes."
34. How are they so confident people will sign up for the Resistance now?
I think you could answer this by asking another question. That is: How many people in the galaxy do you think want to live under the rule of the First Order? Also after Luke did what he did, he provided the new spark of hope that's getting people fired up to join. (We see this by the story of him facing down the entire First Order with his lazer sword being told by the kids on Canto Bight.)
35. How is Finn so good at fighting? Wasn't he just promoted from a janitor?
Without doing a whole deep dive on Finn's time with the First Order, here it is in a nutshell. Finn was regarded as one of the best of his corpse. He worked directly under Phasma too. And many soldiers are assigned various upkeep duties while they are deployed and not fighting.
36. Why does Phasma suck at fighting?
She doesn't. She pretty clearly beats Finn here and would have won if it weren't for him falling onto a rising elevator perfectly, and then hitting her while she was surprised.
37. How come Phasma's armor can block blaster fire but no one else's can? Shouldn't all the troopers have that armor?
Phasma's armor is made from chromium. The same stuff the coated the Royal Naboo yachts that we see Amidala aboard in the prequels. It's very rare.
38. Why did Finn & Rose park their ship on the beach?
Again I'm not entirely sure but a little inference here doesn't hurt. They probably didn't want to have to register in a parking system and risk being identified, hoping instead no one would notice before they left. This obviously did not work out.
39. Why does BB-8 have a casino coin shooter?
I don't think the only purpose of that is to shoot coins. But you really got me there....
(Upon looking at TFA visual dictionary, it explains BB-8 has a bunch of different modules he can swap in and out of.)
40. Why doesn't the Resistance have their own codebreaker guy?
Right. Seeing as how they apparently grow on trees. The resistance is shown to have only about 400 people in the fleet at the beginning of The Last Jedi. I'm sure they would love to have their very own codebreaker among their ranks.
41. Why does Maz take a phone call in the middle of a firefight?
Because Maz is one kooky girl. (seriously though I don't know, this scene felt like what you would see right before you get on the Star Tours ride...)
42. Why are there only a few hundred people in the Resistance?
Because the rest of the New Republic didn't view the First Order as a threat. So only Leia and her loyal followers were left as the watchdogs against them. The New Republic was also nearly entirely demilitarized prior to TFA. Granted neither movie of the sequels does a very good job at establishing any of this. But it is discussed in the books.
43. Why is Poe so quickly forgiven for disobeying orders and even mutiny?
The Resistance couldn't exactly afford to lock up one of their most influential heroes at that point. They had more pressing matters and we clearly see Holdo kind of understand why he did what he did. Her and Leia both knew at the end he was trying to do the right thing based off what he knew at the time.
44. Why does Holdo dress like she's going to an Arcade Fire concert? It clearly causes people to undermine her authority.
First because Holdo is a senator. And second, I really don't think THAT'S what caused Poe to undermine her...
45. Why didn't Holdo just tell Poe about the plan to escape to Crait?
Poe was just demoted and had displayed serious issues with authority and leadership. (This is her very first impression of him. I think if you look at it from her perspective, it makes way more sense.) It's also probable that Holdo was about to tell Poe right when he noticed the transports being fueled up and freaked out, kicking things, and calling her a coward and traitor in front of the crew. (Not exactly what the crew needs to hear at that point.) Going off the info she had at the time, most commanders in this situation would kick Poe off the bridge or worse.
46. Why did we get a topless Kylo Ren scene?
I mean, Kylo is pretty hot.. Just be thankful it didn't happen while one of them was on the toilet. For real though I just read an article that says it was basically a fun way to show the audience how much they could see of each other.
47. Why can ghost Yoda control lightning?
I don't know but I do actually have a theory. I think it might have to do with how force "rich" the area is. Especially since it was the first Jedi Temple. The island seems to be very powerful with the Force. This will be an interesting thing to theorize about though and I'm actually kind of happy they didn't answer this.
48. What's the deal with Chewy's crazy arch? He goes from hating cable chewing minocks to loving porgs... Who even is Chewy any more?
Right. Because minocks are totally equivalent to porgs. Minocks aren't disgusting at all. Would Chewy have had the same dilemma if he were to eat a minock as others watched? I really don't. Minocks are really gross. This question was really dumb.
49. How can Luke project himself to another location across the galaxy? Have Jedi always known about this power?
That was pretty crazy, right? Again we don't exactly know. But it's really awesome and seems like it requires an absurd mastery of the force in order to do that. But if you really take issue with any new force abilities being explored, then you probably shouldn't be watching any of the newer movies.
50. What happened to Luke's green lightsaber? And why didn't he just use that one in his projection instead of the blue one that just got broken in half?
No idea what happened to Luke's green lightsaber. But it could also have something to do with that being what he used in his greatest moment of shame. So he wanted to appear to the Resistance as his best self. It's also worth noting that Luke may not have known about the status of his blue saber going into that scene. But there's also a chance that he did it in order to troll Kylo even more once he finally realized he was fighting nothing all along. It's a great way to display the downsides of fighting with so much literal blind hatred.
51. How did Maz get Luke's blue lightsaber?
This question should go to JJ Abrams. I really don't think the answer to this is all that important to the story of these 3 sequel movies. But maybe it will be answered in episode 9.
52. Who was Snoke and what was his deal?
I'll let Rian Johnson take this one, and then add a little bit to his answer afterwards. This is from a really interesting IGN article where he explains a little about his thought process in this scene. I highly recommend reading it if you want to know more. "It's not about where he come's from. It's not about his backstory. He is the guy behind the guy, and I think he plays out his part in this movie as is appropriate." What Rian's basically saying here is that his backstory doesn't matter to the story going forward. Snoke served a purpose and fulfilled it. I'm 100% sure at some point we will get a proper backstory on Snoke. But I'm totally in agreement with Rian here. I think Snoke was one of the weaker characters of the last movie and I'm kind of glad to see him gone.
And I know that Snoke's sudden death is one of those huge things that some fans are really upset about. And it deserves it's own video/post just on that (and I've seen a few good ones here and there already.) You don't have to like the answer. That answer being that it doesn't matter. But it certainly is not a plot hole.
53. Why can Snoke detect every thought Kylo is having but he can't sense he's about to get killed by him?
The movie does a really nice job at visually addressing this. Snoke wasn't exactly reading Kylo's direct thoughts here. But reading his lack of conflict. Snoke sensed total darkness in Kylo and took that to mean that surely he was about to kill Rey (why Snoke laughed at the notion of Rey turning him to the light). He also sensed Kylo's physical actions with the lightsaber that he was masking with the force. He totally caught Snoke off guard here.
54. If it's so easy to manipulate lightsabers from afar, wouldn't Jedi stop carrying them for fear of someone else activating theirs?
I didn't get the impression this was easy to do. It probably takes a ton of dexterity and fine control over the force to be able to pull this off, as well as an unsuspecting victim.
55. Why is Rey even better at fighting in this movie?
To me, the answer is still the same as in the last movie. Rey has grown up fighting for herself and already has a pretty good understanding of melee fighting mechanics. She benefited especially in her TLJ fight by having Kylo Ren back her up. Once they got separated she struggled. She only won by using a cheeky move from a bind. I think Kylo shows her up big time here. He handles 3 praetorian guards at once during the fight. (Her sudden and seemingly exponential growth in the force might also help with her lightsaber control too.)
56. Why do they think Snoke is dead? Couldn't he just get robot legs like Darth Maul in Clone Wars?
I'd say the closeup of his lifeless body, with eyes rolled back and tongue out to be pretty conclusive. BUT. People already have their theories out that he somehow survived so who knows?
57. Why is the slave kid able to move things with the force already? Doesn't that take tons of training to accomplish?
His midichlorians are off the charts. But seriously he might just be a savant with the force. He only moved a broom about 4 inches so let's not freak out about this..
58. Why did Luke leave a map to himself if he didn't want to be found?
Luke never made a map to himself or to the island. Han says that it was people that knew him best that thought he went to the first Jedi Temple. It was Lor San Tekka that helped research making a map to the first temple; where they thought he MIGHT be.
CONCLUSION
So there's all of the questions answered and holy hell that was exhausting typing all of this out. I did want to put some closing thoughts to wrap up this post. As someone who actually totally adores this movie I wanted to address some of the more ridiculous criticisms I've been seeing around with this post, and show why they are actually pretty much invalid for the most part. And I thought Levelcap's video would be a good place to start doing that. I know this isn't all of the plot holes or questions out there. Most of these aren't even plot hole type questions, they're just questions. If you're adamant about saying these are plot holes, I could guarantee you could make a similar list as long as this one or longer about each previous Star Wars movie. There's a lot of unanswered questions in these movies that are answered by looking deeper into the lore, or the visual dictionaries and wikis I've been mentioning. The movie should not have to answer most questions like these. They aren't related to the plot and don't move anything forward. I really don't think plot holes were much of a negative factor in this movie at all. At least any more so than any other Star Wars movie. So let's get to the substance of our criticisms. Why didn't you like how they handled Luke, or Snoke's death? Or why was the movie poorly structured? I think that kind of thing is where the substance of criticism is for this movie even if I disagree with a lot of it, but that's where the criticism has the most value. That's what I wanted the point of this post to be. Just clearing up some misconceptions so we can get to the good discussions. For those of you that have read this whole thing, there is something wrong with you, and especially me for making this. But thank you so much. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this kind of stuff.
TLDR
Is it even possible to make a TLDR for this kind of post? haha I don't know but I'll try. Basically most of the plot holes people have been throwing around aren't actually plot holes.
until next time, and happy 2018.

 -squatch00

WTF is going on? The Answer.

*I'm out of available characters for this post - the next update will be in a comment > > >HERE < < <. *
So I've been seeing a bunch of "wtf is going on?" posts from travelers or people not fully aware of the war going on in Eve, and I got a few messages to post my writeup on the reddit rather than as a comment.
As a brief disclaimer, I am fighting on the side of MBC against the Imperium for Snuffed Out - I have tried to keep the bias to the minimum, however if you have an issue with how I have portrayed events, please send me a PM to discuss your concern. I want to try give an accurate account, but simply throwing accusations of bias because one doesn't like the way events have gone isn't going to do anything.
Additionally, I haven't included everything because I'm trying to keep to facts which are a) most important and b) I know a lot about. I am not familiar with the activities of every group, so if you feel you've been left out, again PM me your story so I can look into it and add it if it is relevant to the current campaign.
This post will be updated regularly. Dates for updates will be in GMT+10 because converting to UTC is not fun.
The political structure of Eve before the war was Imperium , a super-coalition of 40,000 members+ having total dominance in the north of the map, in an area called null sec (or 0.0 space, it's lawless and can be player owned). The hallmark of Imperium is enormous numbers of people in generally cheap, but easy to build and replace doctrines (doctrine being a set of ships and tactics) to outnumber an enemy. They were considered to be totally unassailable, possessing manpower and resources far beyond even the most powerful of entities in Eve. The core of the Imperium (which was rebranded from the Cluster Fuck Coalition to increase marketability in other games for their media empire) is Goonswarm, run by The Mittani who has over all control over the Coalition. The Imperium as a coalition is made up of multiple alliances, including Goons, FCON, Razor, SMA, Co2, Bastion and a few others, and this large group of players is one of the ways they derive their enormous power.
Imperium , the big group up north, have been stagnating because no one wants to fight them (they're known for making fights not fun, by intentionally lagging servers, avoiding fights and when they do fight, bringing so many people they can't possibly lose). To counter-act this, they initiated the "Viceroy" program which would see all their neighbours pay them tribute to keep their space. As part of this, they invaded Cloud Ring (Pandemic Horde's region at the time), but were disappointed when PH immediately left, denying any content to the Imperium. Instead, the Imperium were left with weeks of grinding out control of the region, which is both boring and tedious, unaided by the fact many groups found it entertaining to take casual "roams" out to interfere with their fleets trying to take control of the systems.
Low Sec (0.1 - 0.4 space) is another area of space, and has some laws (not many though). The LowSec entities (known collectively as LSV) are constantly fighting over "moons" (a way of passively generating income for a player group), and their hallmark is obscenely expensive and skill intensive doctrines, to make up for comparatively very small numbers of players. After invading Cloud Ring failed to gain Imperium content (or tribute, as the inhabitants just left), they decided to declare war on the next region across which happened to be the Low Sec home of the LSV alliances. The idea was that LSV had lived in the area for years, and relied on their "moons" (a way of generating passive income) which the Imperium planned to take in order to force LSV to fight.
This didn't work very well. Instead of steamrolling the LSV groups with minimal preparation and effort, as everyone (including LSV themselves) expected, they got crushed in pretty much every engagement. By this I mean they'd lose full fleets and kill only one or two ships in return. Gradually they got a little better, but they almost never did "well," almost always losing, and continued to be demolished by fleets that at times were a quarter their size or less. This was vastly different from what was expected - the expectation was that LSV would refuse to pay tribute, would harass the Imperium as they inevitably lost all of their moons and would simply take them back uncontested when the Imperium eventually left. This is because you can't actually take stations and control over systems away like you can in null sec, so it's impossible to drive out a group who are determined to stay, especially groups such as LSV who have their traditional homes in the area.
To counter-act these losses, they prepared better and got more numbers. In response, the LSV entities put aside their constant squabbling and war mongering to band together into a loose Coalition, and what is affectionately known as "Forming Voltron" (thus the name Low Sec Voltron – LSV). LowSec Alliances might constantly fight and war with their rivals, but they all hate one thing above all others, and that’s outsiders demanding fealty and tribute. The same thing happened again, with Imperium losing fights, but on a much larger scale with fights involving thousands of pilots.
After not only defending all their own moons, the LowSec entities proceeded to drive Imperium back out of LowSec, taking all their valuable moons, which had previously been left untouched in an effort to avoid provoking the much larger coalition. While this was happening, one of the larger Alliances in the Imperium (who are a coalition of alliances) angered a group called I Want Isk (IWI), an enormously rich and powerful gambling banker organisation. The reports indicated accusations about theft and betrayal of one of the leaders of a Imperium Alliance. As a result, IWI decided to pay the LSV groups, among (potentially) others, to continue fighting the Imperium after taking their revenge in Low Sec.
Having successfully expelled Imperium from Low Sec, LSV looked for future targets, and with likely direction from the IWI (gambler guys) and Tishu's extensive BLOPs (battleships with a very long range jump drive to attack farming ships) campaign in the Imperium Fade Region, set their sights on the north. With the assistance of virtually every major entity in Eve, who answered the call to arms from either being paid by IWI or the glory of the next major war, began a full scale invasion of the Imperium's home territory of the Northern Null Sec Regions.
This new coalition became known as the Money Badger Coalition (MBC), a play on the name of the group of alliances who fought (and lost) against the Imperium in the last major war (Honey Badger Coalition), many of whom also joined with LSV in their renewed fight against the Imperium.
Spread across numerous regions and hundreds of systems, MBC have begun to systematically drive out Imperium from their homes. Currently most of the alliances in the Imperium are in full retreat, after having lost several regions that were previously thought to be impregnable. As it currently stands, a large portion of the Imperium have been ordered to withdraw to the far north by Imperium leadership, the home of Goonswarm (known usually as "Goons"), the leaders and core of the Imperium. A recent address by the leader of the Imperium indicates they intend to use the north as a base to harass the allies as they grind the regions in order to control them totally. As the allies begin to take control of the regions which are increasingly being left undefended, the last few pockets of resistance such as the Co2 Alliance are gradually being worn down.
It is assumed that at some point the allies will move further north, once their latest conquests are secure, to take the fight to Goons. If this happens, you can be almost certain that we will see another battle such as that of B-R5RB several years ago (you can look that up, Imperium won that battle and war), which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of assets being lost.
In other words, it’s the war of a century in Eve, with pretty much the entirety of the PvP groups in the game all allied against a single super-coalition. Regardless of who wins, it's going to be a really cool time to be in the game.
Update 1: The First Major Victory for MBC
As of a few hours ago, the Money Badger Coalition won a major strategic victory, successfully taking control of Co2's (a member of the Imperium) primary staging system. This is significant because it was defended by a number of Imperium fleets, lacking only their capital fleet due to their misplaced suspicions of a trap.
This was the first major test for MBC, to see if they could stand up to the force of a full Imperium formup. The timer (or objective) was won, whilst inflicting enormous losses from the Imperium's subcapital forces, with several fleets being wiped out to a man. Of particular note was Vily's (a Imperium fleet commander who defected to TEST Alliance before the war began) bombing run against a FCON Battlecruiser fleet, which wiped out every ship in it instantly before they even got to the fight.
Importantly, M-O is traditionally the bottleneck for accessing the regions of the Northern Empires of the past, as it allows access for the allies into the northern regions (where the core of Imperium live).
Following the victory, Co2 have declared they are no longer a signatory of the Imperium, resetting their "blue standings" (or their official signal of allegiance) within thirty minutes of the announcement which came whilst the fleets of MBC were still mopping up the last stragglers of the Imperium's force. It is assumed they will now be supporting the Allies, in the hopes of having their space returned to them, however the exact degree of their support and whether they will actively fight their old allies in the Imperium.
Update 2: The Imperium Response to the Defeat
So the leader of the Imperium, The Mittani, released their version of events from the M-O fight in a soundcloud recording which you can find HERE.
The gist of it is they felt it was at least a partial victory for them, as they were falsely lead to believe that the whole point of the iHub fight was to trap and kill their super capital fleet (neither side fielded their extensive super capital fleets in this conflict). Note the iHub is a structure which grants control of the system (ownership if you will) and allows upgrades of the system, and thus is essential to controlling the system. Edit for clarity: The iHub doesn't give specific control, but is one of many structures that allows a group to hold sway over a system in differing ways. Taking the iHub in this situation however gave the Allies enormous leverage over Co2, and takes away all upgrades previously in the system, and puts Co2 in the awkward position of not having full control of their primary staging system.
Supercap fleets contain the most powerful ships in Eve, Titans and Super Carriers, neither of which can be docked and must generally always be piloted (thus tying up that pilot whilst the individual owns the ship), resulting in added cost on top of their already enormous build costs (for titans, this number is in the thousands of dollars range).
It is worth noting that the iHub timer is considered important because it allows the Allies to control M-O, which is an important stepping stone to the northern regions, where the Imperium has retreated to. Whether they remain ignorant of the system's importance, or merely do not consider it to be important is unclear.
Thus you have the two sides of the conflict spinning this massive fight two different ways, with both claiming victory of different objectives.
Update 3: Fleet Commander Kicked form the Imperium
So apparently one of the Imperium's SMA FCs has just been kicked after doing an interview, see the post HERE for links to the pastebin and interview. The interview contained nothing that wasn't widely known (see THIS post for a full map of the Imperium's Jump Bridge network, a way of getting around space quickly which is apparently ~secret~), so one can draw their own conclusions.
The interviewer's comment on the situation can be found HERE
I am currently trying to get in contact with an Imperium diplo to try get their side of this story.
EDIT: Got in contact with one and got pointed at Sion, a mail has been sent and I am awaiting a reply.
EDIT 2: I have yet to receive a reply from Imperium leadership, so I can only assume there is no more information forth coming and the FC kicked's account is accurate enough that no counter point of view needs to be presented.
Update 4: The Interview
Today an interview found HERE between Vily, the campaign Fleet Commander for TEST Alliance (part of the MBC) and DaBigRedBoat (DBRB), his equivalent in Goons for the Imperium took place, overseen by an Eve developer.
Beyond a recap of recent events, and Vily describing the victory condition for MBC as the eradication of the Imperium from their territory, DBRB announced the goal is to avoid fights and simply harass the invaders using interceptors (which is very similar to what Pandemic Horde did to the Imperium in their first attack under the Viceroyalty program). The goal is to quote, "avoid fights" and try generally try to not engage with the invaders. Instead, DBRB describes his recent activities instead of defending their space as, quote, "I've been down south with a bunch of elite pvpers, and we've been going after Pandemic Horde which is a newbie alliance." This is very similar to what PH's parent group Pandemic Legion (PL) did to Brave Newbies early-mid 2015.
Update 5: The Next Imperium Ally is Attacked
Several important timers (points at which objectives can be contested) came out today, one of which being the UQ9-3C iHub, which is the staging system of FCON and RAZR, two major CFC Alliances.
Despite MBC forming up over 1700 pilots for the fight, Imperium wisely planned ahead, bubbling the gate which the invaders would need to pass through, limiting their tactical options. Once the MBC fleets entered system, they were faced down by several Imperium fleets, as well as cloaked bombers who immediately took a bombing run at the Allies fleets.
The fight on the gate was a success in terms of an engagement, however the Imperium kept the MBC fleets tied up long enough to recapture their iHub, saving it.
Currently Imperium fleets are not engaging, preferring to avoid a confrontation.
The MBC fleets are back in UQ9 for the station timer. The station was "bubble fucked," a term used to describe an object in space which has had bubbles placed all over it to prevent anyone from warping in or out. The Imperium fleets however never undocked, and allowed their station to be captured by the MBC.
The rap sheet at the end of the day was:
The iHub Timer was won by the Imperium after they managed to keep the MBC fleets tied up on the entrance star gate to the system, thus retaining control of it.
The Station Timer was won by MBC, therefore they have taken control of the station from the Imperium.
In terms of kills vs lossess, the Imperium lost it marginally, however given the only significant fight lasted less than an hour, this result is fairly irrelevant. Additionally, they saved all of their VFK timers which were never attacked.
Overall, one has to assume the MBC will claim victory in this engagement due taking control of the station and everything contained within.
Update 6: Imperium Responds to Co2's Defection
Sion, the head diplomat of the Imperium, wrote a timeline of the period leading up to Co2's defection after the Imperium's defeat at M-O. You can find these logs HERE - be advised, it is thousands of lines long.
To summarise it, as far as I can tell (I didn't read the whole thing, and I don't think I can be blamed), Sion is describing why he doesn't like Co2, why they are a bad alliance and why they will fail in Eve.
The document includes enormous amounts of chat logs between various Imperium individuals and Co2 leadership as well as his opinions on Co2 'betraying' them.
It is worth noting that while Co2 most certainly betrayed the Imperium, it was the only path open to them as it was clear the Imperium would be unable to save them from being evicted by the MBC. The alternative was to simply allow this to happen - this was likely the more honorable path to take, but not one many would have expected them to.
Update 7: The War for the Name of the War 04.04.2016
Given the current war started very slowly, and the MBC coalition (which took long enough to name in its own right) formed gradually and slowly, there was never an official announcement by an alliance about naming the war until very recently.
The general consensus amongst the MBC is that the war will be called "World War Bee," named after the logo of the primary target of the war, Goonswarm (it's a bee if you missed that). To explain the name, The Imperium is being targeted mainly for their leadership's behaviour, and other reasons previously stated. Given Goons are the primary member, and the leaders, of the Imperium, this is the reason the Imperium as a whole is under attack. A prime example of this is Co2's defection - once they left the Imperium and pledged themselves to the MBC, they were no longer part of the Imperium and thus not a target. A thread on reddit clearly stating the community's insistence on the name is seen HERE.
However, the Imperium is obviously not a fan of this name as it implies the MBC is in control of both the war and casts Goonswarm (and their Imperium Allies) as the enemy. As a result, they have been naming the war on their own, and have recently begun reacting to the consensus on World War Bee which both the community and CCP themselves are now using. THIS ping was sent by the Mittani on the topic, announcing his intent to rename it in a manner that casts the Imperium in a more favourable light.
To explain names they have come up with:
"The Casino War" refers to IWI's involvement in the war as they are a gambling organisation (the link to casinos being a jab at the MBC being their puppets).
"The Turncoat War" and the "War of Traitors" both refer to Co2's defection from the Imperium to join the MBC, and are taking aim at MBC's willingness to accept Co2 into the fold.
The Mittani also makes the point that he feels he has the right to have official input on the naming of the war, as seen in his calling out of CCP for naming it "World War Bee" based off of community opinion without consulting him first.
Update 8: The Grind Continues, AUTZ's time to shine 07.04.2016
It's been a few days without a major update, so I figured I'd update with the latest minor happenings. I'll try do these updates in between big ones, and I'll include the latest drama and going-ons around the place with links.
The drama over the Mittani's demand to be consulted on naming the war has continued the past few days, with numerous call outs and propaganda pieces being made in response. One notable point in particular is the new name reddit has begun calling the Goonswarm (and the Imperium collectively) - "those bee guys" - in an attempt to rile up the Mittani by mocking their logo and group identity. An amusing chrome extension to change all mentions of the "CFC" (Imperium) to "those bee guys" was posted HERE
CCP has released three new character portrait backgrounds in game, two of which are for each side in the war, which is being announced officially by them as "World War Bee." This thereby legitimizes the name as such, contrary to the Mittani's vehement disapproval and demand to be consulted on it. Post here [HERE[(https://www.reddit.com/Eve/comments/4dg2wn/new_character_backgrounds_one_for_us_one_fo).
The only major piece of new news is the CFC have ordered all their Alliances to set their vulnerability timers to AUTZ. To recap, these timers represent the only time of day during which they can be captured. The assumed goal being to try burn out the much smaller AUTZ, the reuslt has only been a mass increase in objectives attacked as the Imperiun's power is much weaker in AUTZ, and the power ratio swings in MBC's favour during this time. Post on the effects of this HERE.
Beyond all that, MBC is slowly taking over the Imperium's territory, gradually moving in towards to capital region of Deklein, commonly known as "Fortress Dek," and the 'ancestral home' of Goonswarm. Expect the war to heat up when this happens.
In the meantime, MBC is slowly replacing all of the Imperium's POSes with their own on valuable moons, and killing those producing super carriers and titans (enormously expensive ships which can only be built in POSes in null sec). Current numbers of just Titans destroyed while being built is approaching the number destroyed in the penultimate battle of the last major war, the legendary B-R5RB, where 74 titans were destroyed. This remains to date the largest number of titans killed in a single conflict. As of THIS post, MBC only need to kill 4 more of these building POSes before they equal that number. Again, expect this number to rise rapidly when the invasion of Deklein begins.
Update 9: The Super-Capitals Come Out to Play 09.04.2016
So a large scale Capital brawl broke out a couple of hours ago in the system of X-7OMU. This system is in null sec, but unlike the player owned space around it, is NPC controlled. This means that all of the usual lawless activities take place, but one group cannot 'own' the system nor control who docks in the stations.
Normally this means it isn't worth fighting in these systems due to them not being able to be captured (unless there is a valuable POS). In this case, a TISHU (part of the MBC) Hel (a type of super carrier) was caught in the system by the Imperium. They immediately formed up a fleet to kill it, though it was saved just in time as can be seen in THIS screenshot. Note the central white and red spherical bars - the internal one (structure, and usually has less HP than the others) when it reaches 0 causes the ship to explode, and you can see it came very close before his allies could repair the outer two bars (Armor and Shields).
This battle was importat in this war because it was only the second battle of the war involving capitals, the behemoths of Eve Online. The last one involved MBC dropping entirely uncontested with no opposing capital force. In this case it was Pandemic Legion (PL) with roughly 100 Super Carriers supported by a Rattlesnake battleship fleet, dropping on Imperium forces made up of 11 Naglfar-class Dreadnoughts, 60 Megathron/Apocalypse battleships and a large Cerberus support fleet.
Losses were extreme for the Imperium, losing over 50bn worth of ships including all of their capital dreadnoughts, most of their battleship fleet and nearly all of their inderdictors (bubble-throwing ships) and tactical destroyers. In return they killed only 8bn of MBC assets, and thus not a single supercarrier was lost. The full battlereport can be found HERE as well as pretty pictures of the battle HERE.
Update 10: A Director-Level Spy is Uncovered 09.04.2016 #2
Two updates in one day? Yes, and it's because this is a big one.
A USER on reddit has been consistently leaking information from top level Imperium channels, including intel that the Goonswarm fully intends to let their Imperium Allies die off as a buffer zone to their Deklein homeland as well as intel on various corps leaving and internal drama (e.g. THIS.
Today, he was finally discovered as Lemba, the director of DOKDO, a Korean corp in Goonswarm as seen HERE.
From the mail he sent to his corp HERE we can read into his reasoning for this. Apparently his defection from the Imperium stems from an objection to the Imperium's leadership forcing their underlings to to far more work than could be reasonably expected whilst doing next to none themselves. Lemba mentions he had access to a significant amount of assets if he had chosen to steal it all - he uses this to make the point that he didn't because he believes in his corp, just not the Alliance and Coalition's behavior.
Apparently he has a number of logs of conversation which he will be posting in short order, so stay tuned as it's almost certainly going to be a drama filled day.
Update 11: The Walls Crumble 12.04.2016
Well, this is gonna be a big one. There's a lot to talk about, and a lot of opinions floating around. I'm going to be mostly linking threads and then explaining how they fit together, and giving an opinion at the need because one act in particular disgusts me to such a degree I refuse not to be biased on the matter.
This is a long one, so I'll be spitting it. Generic news in this one, and Ill do another update after this one with the major thing.
So, to begin with some interesting news that isn't going to be too long, VFK - the traditional home of Goonswarm and the heart of the Imperium - was taken. This wasn't expected to happen for months, and enormous resistance was expected. Instead the Imperium formed a token force as it struggles to remain standing over not only the struggle, but scandals that have broken out in the past few days. The Imperium is now in full retreat to low sec space, now staging in the system of Saranen with line members desperately evacuating assets from now occupied territories. Numerous supercapital kills have been seen as Imperium members try to get them out of harms way seen HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE (yeah, that's a lot).
SMA, or Space Monkey's Alliance, left the Imperium (along with losing a few of their major leadership figures, need sources for this please if someone can provide the relevant threads to me). This, along with the constant attacks in the past weeks has seen a massive impact on their alliance seen HERE and HERE. FCON, another Imperium Alliance, has fallen into decline losing a major corp HERE.
In other news, DBRB, one of the Imperium's last remaining FCs, came under public fire after THIS thread appeared on the reddit. The TLDR is that one of his pilots accidentally made a mistake and got two cheap allies ships killed. DBRB was furious over this, and ordered the line member to repay 500m ISK - over 10 times the value of the ships lost.
And last but not least, Elise Randolph kindly wrote a morale speech for the Imperium members to encourage them in this time of hardship HERE. This is kind of a traditional thing for him to do for the poor line members of alliances he views as facing imminent implosion, and something many have been holding out for.
Update 11: The Damage a Few Leaked Logs Can Do, and the Outrage it Caused 12.04.2016 #2*
Now, onto the juice of the story. As you may remember from my previous update (10, because I like to be confusing), Lemba, a director of the Korean corporation DOKDO in the Goonswarm Federation (head alliance of the Imperium), defected away from the Imperium for a number of reasons. As promised, a huge number of logs (hundreds of pages in fact) was released, including some very important documents with implications for the Imperium's alliances and casting a dark light on the Mittani's actions.
The logs for these can be found HERE, HERE and HERE. (If there are more, please PM me, I know I missed a few).
Now, there's a lot to talk about, so I'll try spread this out for clarity - I'm not going to be able to do it all, so I'm cherry picking the big bits.
First of all, the earlier logs provide proof to the concept that was generally known that the alliances in the Imperium were purely a meat shield to protect Goonswarm. The Mittani is quoted quite literally saying he doesn't care at all about FCON, one of their major allies, and that he fully expects a number of them to fall apart from these attacks and merge into Goonswarm. It explains why Goons made only token efforts to defend the space of their allies, and legitimises Co2's defection as clearly the help they were promised was never going to arrive. Instead, these Alliances were expected to simply be absorbed by the main Goonswarm alliance, thus strengthening them immediately after MBC had finished grinding their Alliances down.
This is pretty damming because it is essentially telling everyone in the Imperium they existed for one purpose, and on purpose only: to help Goons, and reinforces the concept that they were no more than tools an puppets. The fallout from this has yet to fully play out, and is largely mitigated by these alliances already being in tatters from the war, but has certainly spoken volumes for how Goonswarm operates in its modern iteration.
EDIT: So there has already been fallout, FCON (the alliance mittani said he didn't care about) and fourth largest alliance in the game has left the Imperium, significantly reducing their strength, as seen HERE.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff in the logs of the leadership doing various untoward things, but that's the main bit.
Now. This one is the big thing that people have been getting mad over.
What is written in the posts below explains what happened very well, I highly suggest looking at them, but the shortened version is this:
The Mittani got very upset about the particular character portrait that was released for the Imperium, and is still furious over not getting to choose the name of the war (which he doesn't actually have any right to, but he seems to feel he does). Given CCP has begun using the name everyone else is using - "World War Bee" (including, notably, the group who is winning the war) - he has taken significant offense. In return, he is seen in logs to apparently be using an article for the International Business Times to force an apology from the PR rep who used the War's name, and has, according to the logs, directly involved their boss.
Unsurprisingly, the community is furious over his actions, especially as the Goons have a history hurting people's real lives when they don't get their way. This is a game, and these logs, if correct, show him hurting an individual's real life career over some pixels and a name everyone else agrees with.
Reddit blew up over this, as seen in just a few threads HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. Posts ridiculing his statements have been made such as THIS piece of propaganda, and support for the employee mentioned HERE.
It would also seem the Imperium's line members are losing faith in the leadership given past events, as seen in this article written by one of their own HERE.
Update 12: The Media War 19.04.2016
Sorry for the delay on this one, haven't had a huge amount of time. Without further ado:
Next, a somewhat upset PEST diplo is upset about FCON moving into their space, leaked a brief conversation with an FCON diplo about their immediate plans post-Imperium HERE.
Apparently the sov map is quite interesting now too, but unfortunately I can't access the links to them where I am right now - I'll work on that. In other news, large portions of deklein sov (goons homeland) has been hit, with several full high-ADM (hard to take) constellations fully taken over. A good writeup of one of these constellation's battles can be found HERE.
The Mittani held a 'fireside chat' for the Imperium (just a QA session essentially) about recent events. Link to thread HERE. The fireside was pretty much damage control, and most of what was said is objectively incorrect (in particular the mentions of maintaining sov, and having an increase in players).
As for a less 'official' view of CFC, more leaks HERE. Also, the Imperium is rapidly losing sov, as seen HERE, suffering the most losses in a month ever, as seen HERE and losing members rapidly, as seen HERE.
Perhaps the most amusing news you'll see in a while (it's a little late, but definitely funny enough to warrant including).
If you recall in the last update, Mittani used his apparent interview with IB Times to threaten CCP and throw his weight around, the quote "eager to print whatever I tell them" comes to mind. Well, have a read of the resulting article: IBTimes on Eve Online and the response on reddit to this article HERE.
~Very TL;DR~
Big War.
Big group attack little group.
Little group win.
Little group attack big group.
Everyone attack big group now.
Big group losing. Badly.
Updated:
Big group continuing to lose. Very badly.
Big group lost most of their space.
Big group starting to lose parts of itself. They're going missing....
USEFUL LINKS:
EN24, a popular Eve news website.
Crossing Zebras, another Eve news site.
TMC, another Eve news site run by the leader of the Imperium.
Sov Map, a picture which shows who owns what areas of space (yellow is Imperium), in this one with added labels of the groups invading and from where.
A Timeline of the Imperium, a timeline of the vents leading to Imperium's rise to power and this war.
CrassKitty's Twitch, a streamer who streamed and has done interviews following the fight.
Imperium's response to Co2's Defection, the ping (or message) sent by the leader of the Imperium when they found out about Co2's defection.
More to come.
JOINING OR RETURNING TO EVE
I've gotten so many messages to this effect, I felt I needed to address it here.
First, the "easiest" way to into the war would probably be Pandemic Horde, who are a newbros alliance who don't require an API key. Alternatively, if you're look for a newbro group who aren't directly in the war as such, Brave Newbies is a good choice, for a less involved option. After that it would probably be TEST, who apparently are always recruiting (an inside joke for the new players among us, it's their catchphrase). If you have any specific questions once in game you don't want to ask whichever group you join, feel free to shoot me a PM on "Phynix Kautsuo" - I'm always happy to help out.
If you are more experienced, joining the group you were previously a part of (if they in the war) is one option, otherwise I suggest looking at THIS article which lists the groups involved and gives each a short bio. Keep in mind it doesn't list any Imperium Alliances, the main ones being Goonswarm, ~~FCON~~, Razor, Bastion, ~~Space Monkeys~~ and TNT.
POST CONTINUED HERE (I've reached reddit's character limit - grr).

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