Grand_Admiral_Thrawn

Well, I've had my 12:01 ticket for about two weeks now, so yes, I'll be going tomorrow. I'm rather excited, which is unusual. Despite my previous apprehension about the film, I now have high hope for it. The only bad thing is taht I'll have to get there about three hours in advance just to wait in the line to get into the theater. Thankfully the line is inside the cinema building, so I'll be nice and warm during my wait.

I'm really starting to wish I had picked up that Illustrated Dictionary for Episode III, there was alot of interesting facts in it. There was a nice little paragraph about Palpitane's lightsaber, and there was also a section acplaining Imperial Officers. Apparently there were schools set up to train non-clone officers after the Clone Wars ended.

I found it surprising how much of North America is home to Black Widows. I had thought that here in southern Ontario I'd be safe from them, but apparently they can be found as far north as Ottawa. Fortunately I also read that they aren't aggressive in that they won't bite you simply because you come within two feet of them.

I don't dissagree with anything that's been said so far, but I should point out that medichlorians aren't what create the Force, nor are they the Force, but they are what allow the Jedi to utilise the Force. They're sort of like RAM for Force users. The more you have, the better you can use the Force. It's still a dumb idea but...

Alas, in the end the Force Lightning scaring is what we see. I agree that the other option is cooler and more appealing, but I guess that's not what Lucas cares about...

I've been listening to it for a bit now, and while I do like most of it, there are some aspects I'm not big on. For instance, the "battle theme" (for lack of a better term) seems to be disjointed in it's composition, very much like the experimental type of music that arose in the 20s and 30s (that used mathematical equations to determine notes rather than actually being composed). I quite like the vocals in this soundtrack, although it almost seems like the Lord of the Rings soundtrack at times. I especially like the Palpatine's Teachings track. I was personally angry with the Episode II soundtrack. It was nothing but an edited version of Episode I with a few added measures of music. This is much better. Still, it doesn't have the same feel to it as the Original Trilogy, and in that aspect I don't like it as much.

Well, I should point out that most of the arguments for the old Dark Side explaination rely on the EU for support, and portions of the EU that are more disputed than most others. The Emperor cloning himself a new body is, to me, a rediculous idea, the result of the Dark Empire series. If he's being consumed, what about all of the other Sith Lords like Exar Kun and others. I'm pretty sure they were more evil than even the Emperor...

So, which explaination do you prefer? The "original" EU explaination that he was slowly being consumed by the Dark Side, and that that is the inevitable appearance for a Dark Jedi, or the one (which in the end is the truth) that his face is actually the result of scaring from Froce Lightning (taken from the Episode III visual dictionary)?

Not to put a damper on your plans or anything, but I suggest you wait until the game is actually released before you decide to mod it. Many mods had intended to port to The Battle for Middle Earth from C&C: Generals, only to find that the game didn't have many of the modules needed to do so.

I'm still trying to figure out why a 14-year-old was driving a car alone...

Well, in the mean time, if any one is looking for a target cbnrm2 has seen fit to attack me twice, as has WTT_joepaa. Retributin would be much appreciated.

Yes, I hated Darksaber and Children of the Jedi, especially the latter. Luke gets hurt and suddenly he can't use the Force very well...

True, it doesn't need to blow up planets, but then we have the two flaws I pointed out. First, this superlaser doesn't have the threee augmenting lasers to enhance it's power, so the destruction of even an Eclipse might be beyond it (though no doubt the damage done would make it's destruction inevitable). When attacking with any large capitol ship, especially one of this size, attacking only one target at a time would be suicidal. So, we can assume that the weapons of this ship will be targeting more than one ship. Combine this with the limited number of weapons able to fire at any given time, recharge rate, and functionality (what type of weapons), we would find that a ship of this size wouldn't be a useful as it would seem. If we look at the Rebellion's strategy at the Battle of Endor, we see that none of the Death Star's anti-capitol ship weapons came into play. if a fleet maintained a position out of turbolaser range at the aft part of the Imperator they would be albe to use small fighter craft to take it out. That, or they could slowly destroy it from behind, out of range of most of it's weapons, and out of the firing field of it's superlaser. Because of the design of the Death Star's superlaser, it is possible to adjust the angle of the blast using the supporting lasers, shorten two and lenghen one will angle the beam in a different direction. Because the Imperator doesn't have these smaller beams, it would only be able to fire at a target directly in front of it. This is very limiting, especially with it limited movement. There are only two sensor domes on the ship. They are quite visable at the top of the command super-structure. Even the support ships wouldn't be of any help if fighters moved into extreme close range. Their signatures would blend in with that of a ship so large I agree that this is simply there for effect, but it is useless otherwise. The Empire was also big on funcionality, which is why every other class of Star Destroyer had the same size of command tower. A concentrated attack from below the ship into the large hangar bay at the front would experience little resistance. because the ships would be heading directly at the ship, they would provide only a small target. And I don't think there will be any weapons emplacements inside the hangar. As for armor, it wouldn't be any thicker, it would be the same as an SSD or ISD, there would just be more ship to cover. The fleet would have to be about as large as the Rebel fleet at Endor. Using fighters, the Imperator could be taken out in short order, especially because the "soft parts" are more obvious than the Death Star's tunnel to the core. Definitely! If the Rebels got a whiff of this, they would be jumping to attack. Was Daala after the resurrected Emperor? Anyhow, I choose not to recognise Dark Empire or Dark Empire II. It just doesn't make any sense.

Well, there is one flaw that I didn't point out. The positioning of the superlaser is impossible due to the forward "SSD hangar". If you look you'll find that the hangar occupies the space the "barrel" of the buperlaser would have to span. Now, assuming they could plug the Star Destroyers in the hangars into the ships power systems, allowing the Imperium to draw power from them, we would find that the ship would be vulnerable to small fighter attack. Without those "smaller" ships to protect it fighters could attack at will. Now, if we turn to the super lasers of both the Death Star and the Imperium we'll find that the latter has a superlaser of approximately 3.2 kilometers in diameter (two ISD lengths). This includes the superstructure surrounding the firing aperture. If we turn to the Death Star we find that, although the opening is smaller, the primary beam is augmented by three other beams, adding to the overall strength. So, from this, we can arrive at the following conclusion: the Death Star's superlaser fires a beam larger in diameter than that of the Imperium. Normally we could assume that because the energy is being spread over more area that the beam would be reduced in power. However, because of the three supporing beams of energy on the Death Star's superlaser we find that it is many times stronger. So, the Imperium's superlaser would be sufficient to deal with a ship, but still wouldn't have the power to destroy a planet. As for the rate-of-fire, it think this is more related to the time it takes to recharge the energy cells of the superlaser rather than the overall energy available. It might also be related to the heat generated by the superlaser. Repeated firing would result in the superstructure heating and possibly melting. So, how can we fix this behemoth? Let's start with the superlaser. The ship would have to be made thicker at the area of the forward hangar bay, allowing the superlaser to actually travel that path. In addition, the front of the ship would have to be blunt wather than pointed. This would allow for a superlaser more along the lines of that seen on the Death Star. Fortunately, because there would be no wind resistance, nor anything of the sort, in space, friction wouldn't be a problem with a blunt bow. This would solve any problems with the superlaser. Now, for those pesky aft docking basy. I would suggest a shielding piece of armor covering the entire area, with an aft facing exit for the rear docking pay, and a fore facing exit for the forward docking bay. This armor would span the area between the two bays and could be thick enough to defend the weak part of the hull while housing extra weapons emplacements. I would also suggest the removal of the obsurdly large bridge, having it replaced with a bridge about the size of the small fin on the rear-most part of the ship. In addition, two secondary bridges to the starboard and larboard of the main bridge (possibly on those diamond shaped protrusions?) for secondary command centres. Also, placing more sensor domes along the surface of the ship would deal with any sensor blind-spots.

You would have to consider all aspects of this: First, though this hypothetical Str Destroyer is large, we have no knowledge of it's firepower. There is obviousley a super laser of some description on the bow, however it would suffer from the clear restriction of a good firing arch. Although this ship is huge, it is still much smaller than a Death Star, meaning the fore facing super laser would have to be of a signifigantly lower power, though no doubt it would easily destroy any ship of a much smaller size. Clearly this ship would have far more weapon emplacements than any other capitol ship, but it would have far less surface area than a Death Star meaning it would not be able to bring as many of its standard weapons to bear at any given time. Also, because of the numerous protrusions many of the weapons would be blocked. Then, consider the maneuverability (or lack there of) of this ship. Because of its size the ship would be restricted to a stationary combat role, ammounting to a battlestation with engines. This lack of maneuverability would also allow enemy ships to simply attack from a vantage point out of the firing arch of the super laser, leaving it useless. I would also venture to guess that this ship would be vulnerable to any sort of fighter attack. If we look at The Empire Strikes Back we know that the Millenium Falcon was able to hide from a Star Destroyer's sensors by hiding on the back of the bridge superstructure. That would suggest to me that any small ship clinging closely to the Imperium would essentially be hidden, not only by the limitations of th sensors, bu also by the ships own signature (I should also point out that the sensor domes, visable on the bridge superstructure, aren't even scaled up for the size of the ship. This would lead me to beleive that it's sensor capabilities would be greatly compromised). I now turn to the ships bridge. As we can see, it is huge. This is a turn away from the usual design of even the largest Star Destroyers. We see in the Executor, Eclipse and Soverign that the command bridge is roughly the same size as the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer. A bridge superstructure on the scale of the Imperium suggests to me that much of this ship is meant to be imposing rather than functional. This is only supposition and has no real bearing. Now, there are two areas of the ship that are clearly weak-points. First, and the least obvious, is the area of the ship housing the Star Destroyer "hanger bays". We know that a standard Imperial-Class Star Destroyer is roughly 1.6 Km in length. We see at least two such Star Destroyers in line in one of the two bays. It is also quite possible (indeed, probable) that there are also other Star Destroyers abreast in there. Also, taking into consideration the design of the Imperial-Class Star Destroyers two bays (two bays connected by a "tunnle" through the superstructure) that these two Star Destroyer bays are connected by an extention of that bay in the space between them. Assuming that this hsip is symetrical, there should also be another such set of bay on the larboard side. SO, adding all that space up, you would find that there are a signifigan number of square kilometers of empty space within that ship. A concentrated fire from a group of capitol ships on these locations would pose a serious threat to the ships structural integrity. (yes assuming they can get through the shields. However shields in Star Wars can be reduced in certain locations and are not reduced as a whole, as suggested by many a Star Wars flight sim [my view is supported by the Executor in RotJ]). A second weakness is the large hangar directly above the Executor-Class Star Destroyer. Here, as with the smaller bays, much of the ship would be hollow. In addition to that the space directly above, presumably along the grey centre of the ship, would house the "barrel" for the super laser, making this section of the ship vulnerable to amputation, not only causing critical and possibly fatal damage to the ship, but also removing it's most powerful weapon. So, I suggest that any well commanded and armed fleet would be albe to easily destroy this ship. The resulting explosion would also deal with whatever smaller ships it was able to deploy. I am also doubt that Thrawn would take command of such as ship. If we consider the rest of the EU (which alas we must do as Thrawn is an EU character), we see that there was an SSD at his disposal somewhere (Daala takes command of it), yet he did not utilise it, nor did he use it as his command ship. He also use an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer rather than an Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer as his command ship, suggesting he knew there was more than sheir size and brute force to combat.

Are most people focussing on their attack strength or their defence? At the moment my defensive rating is 107,606. I haven't been attacked in two days (maybe because I exacted retribution and took over 2 million gold from those who had attacked me ), so I'm wondering if other are taking the "turtling" strategy I am.

Hmm, now that I return to the page, there doesn't seem to be the link for the video. Maybe some Lucas Film lawyers jumped him and stole his link.

My avatar or my sig? I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to see the former, but the latter, well some people were only seeing the first frame, though that shouldn't be a problem since I re-uploaded the smaller version.

Here is another interesting call. This one is a prank call, but the woman on the other end is real. This makes me wonder how some people can even drive a car, let alone get one fixed!

I reduced it by 82%. Is it good, or should I do it a little bit more?

I came across this two weeks ago. Some people are simply stupid!

I saw that some time ago on a website that has weekly updates of that kind. I was under the impression that it wasn't aired, but your link says it was. I can't believe the people who wrote the scrips didn't catch on, or at least the actors!

Well, if you think about it, any movie based on the Vong invasion, or whatever GL has envisioned, would place the original actors at hte perfect age, or at least they would appear the perfect age (except for Mark, who has unfortunately aged rather poorly).

Well, although it is seven minutes long, it really just clips with no audio. There is very little that we haven't seen already, and of the clips that are new, nothing reveals anything about the movie.

I reduced Nelson a little. If it is still a problem he can be reduced a little more.