Star Wars Cantina

[tchar]

"I dunno about that - the newer b-wings are quite nimble, and pack a pretty awesome punch for something that looks like a flying crucifixion" smiled T'char. "Really though, most ships will perform pretty well, given the right pilot. Take Tython here, banged up a couple of Preybirds a few weeks back, but at least he took a whole bunch of sith with him. That takes skill, an such an antiquitated fighter..."

[Phytho]

Tython sat and sipped his drink as he thought about a good reply. "Its true a good pilot will turn a terrible and old ship into a lethal killing machine. But even an excellant pilot cannot makeup for the failings of his ship if it is a bad one." Tython replied. "I mean. That preybird I flew waas really old and so slow that no matter what I did there would have been no way to get out of that situation. So there is only so much a pilot can makeup for.". Although if you have a terrible pilot and an excellent fighter there life expectancy will probably be about 1-2 battles.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

IC: The cantina had begun to fill up, only a few, well-lit booths remaining, leaving only the scattered tables on the main floor, most of which were uncomfortably close to the Jizz band playing, and the stools around the bar.

One of the new arrivals, a none-too-happy looking young officer, was making his way to the bar, briefly taking in the patrons in his path. he took a seat farther down the bar from where Thrawn and his group were sitting, keeping to himself, and seeming intent on drinking his worries away.

"Barkeep," Thrawn called, the burly bartender sulking over, "a drink for that man down there."

"You want me to get him some flowers, and a 'get well' holo-card too?"

Cocking an eyebrow at the bartender, Thrawn regarded him cooley. "Just the drink."

Moments later the barkeep refilled the young officer's tankard, grumbled somehting, pointed towards Thrawn.

The Admiral gestured to the empty stool on his left as the young man looked over.

 

OOC: I hope your an Imperial, I just assumed

[UlicHorn]

OCC: Just for clarification, who was that last post too?

 

Ulic sat at a table near Karn and Tython listening to them talk. He noticed the cantina was starting to fill up. "Maybe it's time I get outta here." He said.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

OOC:Just read backa couple of line and you'll find that captain_brandei's post sort of works in with that.

[UlicHorn]

OCC: No problem, my character has issues with high ranking Imperials. (if you couldn't tell yet) So I was just checking.

[captain_brandei]

OOC Thrawn: Actually, no, he's not; he's New Republic, but he is the son of the Imperial officer Brandei. Check out the first post in the Mission at Hefi thread.

 

IC: Alex took the drink and looked over to where the barkeep had indicated the blue-skinned Imperial. Great, now what am I supposed to do? Nobody ever covered this...

 

He didn't see any rank insignia on the man, so Alex gambled on the supposed neutrality of bars, threw the Imperial a nod, and hoped like hell he didn't recognize any family resemblance as he moved down to take the offered seat.

 

Maybe I can get some sort of intelligence report outta this. Are we supposed to do things like that? Hell...

[Krytos]

"What, already Ulric! We've bearly talked!" Karn said anxiously - he'd barely said a word to his old friend all this time. "Come on, what have you been up to lately? What infamous adventures for the Rebellion have you gotten yourself into in the past . . . umm, well however long it's been since we last met!"

[UlicHorn]

Ulic set his cup down on the small table. "Sorry, Karn, I'm not in much of a talking mood, I've got a lot going on right now and Blue boy over there," he said making a subtle head gesture towards Thrawn, "is making me a bit edgey. So maybe I'll get another drink and then head out." he said walking towards the bar.

[Krytos]

"Ok, mate." Karn said as Ulric walked off, there was something wrong with Ulric. And if Ulric wanted help, or someone to talk to - Karn knew that he would do so of his own accord.

Turning back to T'Char and Tython, Karn continued his prior conversation.

"Well, B-Wings are great as an Assualt fighter - though their lack of speed makes them easy prey for a nimble craft. Though, as you and Tython pointed out, it's also dependant on the pilot. A cunning pilot can easily best a superiour fighter piloted by an inferiour pilot. That's half the reason that the Rebellion has gone as good as it has, in my opinion at least. We've got pilots who are not only highly skilled, though also adament about their cause - a winning combination.

"Now, capital ship battles are a little different. There, your depending on not just the cammanding officer, though also the rest of the crew. A good captain can be undermined by an enept crew, worse yet an enept captain with a good crew. With a bad captain, the skills of the crew can never be pushed or used to their advantage. Even the strength and firepower of an ISD can fall claim to a bad crew. For example, my frigate use to have a terrible gunner in one of the laser turret to the aft of that ship, and it was no surprise that after a while pirates were taking advantagfe of that by attacking that spot the most. So, I replaced him with a better gunner and put him in a spot with plenty of support until his skills with a laser cannon . . . well, that's by the by."

[UlicHorn]

Ulic checked his wrist crono, still an hour left to kill. He waved the bartender down and purchased a bottle of Corellian Rum, he walked back over to the conversation and sat down. "I've got time left to kill but the only person I really want to talk to is the bottom of this bottle." he said as he opened it and took a swig.

[captain_brandei]

Alex took his seat and drank in silence for a minute, waiting for the Imperial to break the silence. When he didn't, he nervously said "Uh, thanks for the drink. To what do I owe the, uh, pleasure?"

[Phytho]

Tython looked at Karn and nodded in agreement. "That is very true but even if a huge ship has a bad captain but an excellent crew. I mean the Captain may give a command in a battle and his number one commander would be able to take the command and change it to make the ship a good fighting unit. But in that case the captain is not really the one commanding the ship. It is his right hand man.". "Mind you I find it interesting that the rebel alliance won very few major battles untill just before the destruction of the first death star. After that they seem to win almost every battle they get into?". Tython replied.

[Krytos]

"Ah, another factor to fighting the good fight: morale." Karn continued, keeping a worried eye on Ulric.

"After Endor, the Empire's self imposed image of being invincible fell apart like the super structure of the Executor as it collided with the Death Star II. With the obvious fact proven that the Rebellion could dish out a lot of hurt to the mightiest the Empire had, they lost a lot of the will to fight. That's probably a main reason why they fled after the Death Star blew up - I mean, they had enough of a force to destroy the Rebel fleet still and yet they didn't.

"After that, the Imperials fell in battle mroe and more, and so did their moral making it easier to beat them. It's only as of late that the newer Imperial factions like the Remnant that have been able to reinstill the Imperial pride back into their personal. Personall,y I'd prefer it if they all surended and the war was over tomorrow so I could retire to fending off just pirates."

[tchar]

"I must agree with Karn. The main reason for the alliance's later successes is that one pilot - Luke Skywalker - showed the other demoralised pilots that it is possible to not only beat the enemy fighters, but to even destroy the empire's most powerful and feared weapon. It was all a matter of confidence. I look at it this way - no doubt the pilots had all the skills neccessary to win before the destruction of the death star, but without the confidence and self-belief generated by its destruction they were unable to use their skill to its full potential. It's kinda like what Alex " - T'char gestured towards the young captain - " is always saying - THAT is why you fail..."

 

T'char took a long pull on his drink to wash away the effects of his rather lengthy speech.

[UlicHorn]

Ulic sealed the half empty bottle, and grabbed a cup of cafe from the bar. If he had work to do later he wanted to be ready. He'd drank enough to make most people fairly drunk, but being Corellian he had an almost natural resistance. He listened to the back and forth about the Rebellion and its ships and he wondered how long any of the others had been in the Alliance. He could remember how long he had been, and he never really regretted it but sometimes he thoguht about taking a different path...

[Phytho]

Tython just nodded and said "Its like people say. Where theres a will theres a way. And with the Rebel Alliance there was definetly a will to defeat the imperials even if at the beggining there was no was for them to win..... The strange thing is that even though the rebels were doing some serious damage to the imperials they were still not getting that much support. But even with the little support they had they still did a lot of damage and survived.... I think the most powerful weapon the rebels had was there intelligence network. With all the information they recieved they knew exactly when and where to hit, and also they were given a long warning before they were ever attacked at there bases." Tython replied.

[Krytos]

"Yeah, we can thank our Bothan friends for some of that intellegence gathering," Karn said remembering his second in command, who just happened to be a Bothan.

"Well, I guess it's time to get to know each other a little better. You know, how long you've been with the Rebellion, what else you do - that kinda stuff."

[captain_brandei]

Only too eager to escape the now-silent Imperial officer's presence, and seeing one of the veteran spacers a few tables over indicate him at one point, Alex decided he'd had enogh to drink to start being social. He stood up, nodded silently to the blue-skinned officer, and wandered over to the table, catching the last bits of conversation on Why the Rebels Won the War.

 

"You know, I think, personally, Skywalker didn't have that much to do with it. Mind if I join you?"

[Krytos]

"Sure, jump in and join the fun - we were just about to get to know each other better . . . unless you guys still want to talk about the Rebellion?" Karn asked as he tilted back his chair.

[captain_brandei]

Alex grabbed a chair and sat down,motioning for another dirk as he did so.

 

"My name's Alex Brandei...uh, go ahead and call me Alex, though."

 

"Not much to say about the Rebellion, other than that is was bound to succeed, sooner or later. Skywalker's a talented guy, dont get me wrong, but if it hadn't been him at Yavin, it'd have been somebody else somewhere else. If the universve has proven anything conclusively, it's that absoulte and autonomous control by any one being can't work in the long run, especially once the sense of that control gets ahold of them. Palpatine was a dying regime from the moment he disbanded the Senate. My, uh, parents made me study a lot of history, growing up."

[UlicHorn]

Ulic took a swig from the bottle. "So you feel that any one pilot could've destroyed the Death Star I? I mean they're are plenty of great pilots out there but half of them I know wouldn't have made it as far as Skywalker. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who worship Skywalker like a god, he's a nice guy though, but still I credit him with Palpatine's downfall. He blew that weapon out of the sky and lived to tell about it, not to mention giving the rest of the Rebellion a boost of confidence that aided in the rest of the major victories." Several of the other people looked at Ulic with surprise after breaking his long silence. He took another swig and set the bottle down.

[Phytho]

"That may be true but I got the impression that when all the pilots flew in they missed because the targeting computers where wrong and so all the other pilots missed even when they had locked on perfectly. That was also probably the main reason Luke got the missiles in was because he didn’t use his computer to hit the target.†Edited September 2, 2004 by Phytho

[captain_brandei]

"Oh, I give Skywalker full credit for doing the impossible at Yavin. I couldn't have done it; of course, I'm not all that much of a pilot, myself."

 

"My point is, simply, that if it hadn't been Skywalker at Yavin, it would have been somebody else, somewhere else. Luke's the man who did the job, but Palpatine's brand of corruption always, eventually, prompts a response."

[/i]

[Krytos]

"Yeah, you've got a point - eventually someone had to put Palpatine back in his place. Though, lets say Luke hadn't been at Yavin. Judging from the battle, even Wedge didn't help that much - given, Wedge was pretty young then back. Yavin would be space debris, and a lot of the Rebels high profiles like Leia wuold be gone - that is the kind of moral hit that could have completely wiped out the Rebellion.

"Think of it, in a single blow the Empire could have taken out Leia, Dodanna and countless others. And how would others in the Rebellion feel? I'm sure many would be enraged - though how many would be to affraid to fight now? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Their hope would undoubtably have been crushed. It would have taken a good few years for the stigma of such an event to die down before we would ever see anything like the Rebel Alliance again.

"However, that being said, I'm sure as Alex pointed out - someone would have eventually taken care of the Emporer. Heck, maybe even Darth would have done it without Luke being there? For him to do it at all there had to be some good left in him, somewhere."

Karn settled all four legs of his chair on the ground, he then turned and called the bar tender for a top up of his drink, and waited for a responce from the others at the table.