Naja

*shrugs* Modding? Anyway, I doubt that the Separatists were truly absorbed into the Rebellion, or the Empire. Just as they did with the Jedi Knights, the Empire was furiously determined to utterly exterminate any enemy, or potential enemy to the state, that might develop. The existence of Anakin's twins was the only undiscovered threat left that actually worried Palpatine as a threat to his power, if you recall. The Seperatists (due to their mainly automated military force) were annihilated by the Republic's armies, and their leadership was executed by Darth Vader; and truly, their only real goal was - in the words of Dooku - "unrestricted capitalism," or essentially, plunder. The Rebellion was started from scratch by dissident Republican Senators who still believed in liberal democracy, in the wake of Palpatine's fascist ambitions.

Uhhh, Moroth Doole (the cripple Kessel administrator)? Special attack: prosthetic eye counterespionage attack! Warlord Zsinj A Stormtrooper with adequate aim

Lancers, SSDs, Interceptors, and B-Wings had better be in there. Also, they'd also better fix their ship destruction so that every ship gets destroyed as beautifully as when an ISD does. *pant pant pant*

Hahhhhh.... Imperial Dark Troopers + a couple AT-ATs = mass murder

If you're refering to that Swiftboat Veterans for Truth crap, that was revealed to be a shabby GOP dummy group. The fact of the matter is that despite what he had to say about the war, the man chose to put his life in danger to serve his country when he didn't have to. Cowardice and bravery have nothing to do with whether or not you believe in the war you're fighting: it all has to do with your actions. I accept that Bush won. And you're right, it's dumb to perpetuate the whole Kerry/Bush thing. But call it a pet peeve of mine. I don't know how exactly you get that from me. I'm criticizing most of our foriegn policy, but nowhere have I advocated isolationism. What I'm for is responsible usage of our global power, and respect for international law. Forget China? Anyway, with a combination of their horrid, horrid economy (before and after the USSR's collapse in '91), their disastrous failure in Afghanistan in the '70s, the Balkanization (ceceding) of all their former republics (Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belo Russia, to name a few), Russia may be large, but it is far from influential anymore. Russians want food and jobs more than they want global hegemony, these days. US, Russia, China, France, England, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran, Ukraine... As far as anyone knows, America is - and will be, until China gets itself going (scary thought, honestly) - the only Super Power in the world. My point, simply enough, is that with power comes responsibility. It is the duty of the most powerful to be mindful of their actions, and respectful for international law and their friends abroad.

Kerry was a hack of a politcian, but at least he was a bone fide war hero. I don't know how you can call a man who willingly goes to fight in the most dangerous part of a war (the Swiftboats), when he had the choice not to, a coward. I especially don't know how you think a brittle weakling like Bush Jr. is some courageous champion, or whatnot - I mean hell, it's even debated if he even served in the the Texas National Guard! That man, along with Dick "I had other priorities" Cheney, and practically every other one of those warmongering idiots has never seen live combat once. A schoolyard bully puffs up and tries to look big and bad, but does that make him a hero? And for your information, Kerry testified against the corrupt Nixon administration - not American troops. Bush and his elite friends are staying the course, all right...and our exponentially increasing debt, our dwindling international reputation, and the rising amount of guerilla attacks in Iraq are nothing short of signs of our absolute victory! Be real. But we didn't interfere when he was commiting genocide against the Kurds. We were lavishing him with money and weapons when he was gassing his people. This whole "Iraqi Freedom" bullshit is just a convenient stand on that issue so that our elites can convince us that the war is a just cause, and again - to get our minds off of the facts that the original rationales for going to war, mainly that he was a threat to us and supported bin Laden - were unsound lies. If genocide is truly what we are against, then why the hell aren't we in Sudan? US and Russia? The Cold War ended almost 2 decades ago. And I don't think you understand the significance of international support. Afghanistan, though we chose to go at it alone, would have had the support of practically every one of our allies. You can't look at how we have brushed off, scared away, or even outright insulted our allies and then bitch and moan about how all the world's problems are suddenly ours. Multilateralist wars, be it the intervention in Kosovo, the first Gulf War, are the name of the game - and look at that! No single country, even America, has to shoulder the entire burden in those instances!

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but do you think that Petroglyph has chosen not to reveal other units? I'm not going to devolve this into an SSD or B-Wing thread, but besides heroes, which we know we'll see more of, how many standard units do you think we have yet to see?

I don't understand your reasoning...you're saying that we should support the pointless and dumb policies that our policy-makers are embarking upon, to prevent our soldiers from feeling that what they're doing is pointless and dumb? Isn't that circular logic? I mean, which is more ideal: fixing a problem, despite how painful the realization may be that there exists a problem, or sweeping it under the rug and sweet-talking everyone? Is that really your idea of support? It's just like fumbling around in a pitch-black room, looking for the door, and instead of using trial and error to find it, you continually bang your head against the same spot of wall - I mean sure, you're "staying the course," but you're still in the damned room. I say it again: supporting the troops is not dependant on supporting the policy. Think it through: if you think that the policy is wrong, wouldn't your support for the troops be to care for their well-being and fix the situation so that they can come home? With all due respect, I found your last comment very naive. You're being very absolutist and equating our current foreign policy to our past foreign policy actions, like WW II, for example. "After all, if you're against the Iraq war, you must therefore believe that any and all previous American wars were wrong," is almost what it sounds like you're saying. Now, let's make some distinctions here: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WW2: Justified - Hitler and Hirohito embarked on murderous and genocidal wars of conquest, attacked and annexed our allies. Korea: Justified - Our South Korean allies/satellite state were attacked. First Gulf War: Justified - Iraq embarked on a war of conquest against our Kuwaiti ally, war was completely condoned and supported by the new international community. Present conflict in Afghanistan: Not being handled well, but justified: Taliban was sheltering bin Laden and top al-Qaeda lieutenants, supported and condoned by international community; especially in the wake of massive global sympathy for 9/11. Present Iraq War: Unjustified - Contrary to the administration's (constantly changing) claims, and even disproved by various Bush administration cabinet members like Colin Powell and Richard Clarke and CIA reports, Iraq posed no threat to our security; no provable link at all to al-Qaeda, no WMDs, nada. "Mission of democracy" crap was a ruse to detract the public eye from the fact that the original rationales for going to war were completely innacurate and...fabricated. War was waged with complete disregard for international law, and the international community, which was vehemently opposed to it. The war, militarily and politically, is being lost much for the same reasons that Vietnam was lost: the administration walked into a situation with no clear understanding of what they wanted to accomplish, with no expectation of resistance (remember Rumseld saying that whole bit about "being greeted as liberators"?), with a fraction of the number of men required, and further distancing the American people's popular support for the operation with endless displays of their deceit, incompetence, and utter disregard for the lives of the Ameircan soldiers they so "support." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This war was simply an orchestration of the Project for the New American Century, a cabal of neoconservative intellectuals like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheyney, and Donald Rumsfeld who want the US to supplant the role of the UN. In their early 2000 report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," it shows that Iraq and the exploitation of something like 9/11 were already on their mind: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security...the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." (pg. 14) The goal always has been to get a permanent garrison of American bases in the Middle East region to safeguard access to oil, and to support our client states. "Although Saudi domestic sensibilities demand that the forces based in the Kingdom nominally remain rotational...it has become apparent that this is now a semi-permanent mission. From an American perspective, the value of such bases ensures even should Saddam pass from the scene...retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region." (pg. 17) This basically means that bases in the Middle East are going to be a permanent extension of American military and political influence. Given that Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq posess the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest natural deposits of petroleum in the world, it doesn't take much of an imagination to guess at what those "interests" are. The obvious goal would be to mold the latter two countries to be more like Saudi Arabia: client states that provide us with their oil and strategic influence, in exchange for our support in keeping their corrupt regimes afloat. "The process of transformation...is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." (pg. 51) The changes we want to make in the armed forces and our foreign policy aren't going to come swiftly - unless something SOOO terrible happens, that we can manipulate fear and confusion among Americans to enact them instantly! Enter September 11th. Here's the whole text of their report: http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Heyyy, looks like 60 might win! That's good, because 26 seems like kind of a no-brainer: EaW will not be Rebellion II. There will not be a diplomacy option, or an espionage option, or anything like that. Simply building forces, and battling on the ground or in space. Plus, I'd really like to know how moddable it would be! Poyhaps some fine gent could mod in the Lancer Frigate.

Thou art wise, grasshopper.

I love crackpot theories pretending to be science! Just like Intelligent Design, but hokier, and with the Yakuza!!

It's actually true - Stormtroopers on planets like Hoth do dress in Snowtrooper gear, on desert planets Sandtrooper gear, etc.

Tell me, where in my post did I say anything disrespectful of our troops? I meant that they and their lives are being wasted in a useless war that has nothing to do with our security, or the Iraqis' freedom. And Bush is rightfully blamed for this, because he is the worst excuse for a president we have had since that dunderhead Reagan made a mockery of us, and our true American values of democracy and pluralism. Out of his five years of being our president, the amount of time Bush has spent vacationing adds up to one of those years. Vader89, singling out those who did wrong is not dwelling on the past. It's holding accountable those who are responsible. Is remembering the Holocaust "coulda shoulda" ? After all, what's done is done; let's move on! A lot of Germans echoed those words, before and after the Nuhremberg Trials. Wrong deeds should not be dwelt on, you are correct, but they should never be forgotten, lest they happen again. I didn't hear that about Bush's wife, but I know that Barbara Bush made some arrogant-ass comment about how since the refuges "were disadvantaged anyway," they are somehow better off. *Side note* I've noticed something: I'm a cold-hearted pro-Imperial guy, but I really sound like how a Rebel would.

That's like asking who has the more potent arthritis.

Wasn't the Death Star built over Despyre?

When exactly do you plan to submit these questions to Petroglyph? And how long approximately do you think it will take them to answer?

Maybe that Mara Jade-looking chick on the screen next to all the Imperial heroes was really Admiral Daala?

It's never too late to break the ice with mysogeny!!

Yeah, the prospect is daunting, indeed. Thankfully though, if our current leadership maintains the same ideology (and spending habits) for long enough, we'll be bankrupt before Armegeddon comes in. Then it will come down to the Chinese and you Europeans to rule the world...we'll have enough trouble emerging from our own 3rd World Hellhole.

Wasn't that from that pre-teen Jedi Prince book series? Blehh.

The head of FEMA is just a joke, too. A whole bunch of people on Capitol Hill - Republican and Democrat - want his head; and more importantly, his resignation. I mean, this is a guy who knows nothing about emergencies. His previous employment before being appointed (by a family member)? Breeding Arabian horses, even then, which he got fired from.

Though a lot of the help did come at too little too late (compare Katrina to, say, the Florida hurricanes; the latter got about $40 billion in instant aid the next day, the former - which is officially the worst hurricane in US history - got $10 billion, and the first marginal help in the form of helicopters, buses, and National Guardsmen only arrived 4 days later), thankfully though, a lot of the many people who were in New Orleans have been taken out, and a lot of kindhearted people are treating them well. A lot of people are still choosing to stay though, and despite the idiots and looters, I actually think a lot of other people have a very understandable reason: finding family members. It may not be logical or safe, but I know for a fact if I had 3 kids still in New Orleans that got seperated from me in the flood, the flooding and the disease wouldn't deter me - I'd want to find my goddamn kids. There's hardly anything logical or safe that comes into your mind when your kid's in trouble, anway. I don't think most people understand why those people in New Orleans didn't "just get out" before the hurricane hit, in the first place. I mean, it doesn't just strike you as coincidental that everyone who stayed in New Orleans until help arrived were black and poor, and that everyone who left before trouble started were rich/middle class whites? The fact of the matter is, people with credit cards can move out before the disaster. People with cars can move out before the disaster. People with insurance can move out before the disaster. Poor people tend to not have any of these things, and it just goes to show you how something like a natural disaster can truly shine light on how class really matters.

I never bought that whole "ends justifying the means" crap. I don't care how industrialized Stalin made Russia. He did it with the blood of tens of millions of his own people on his hands. And for what? The Soviet economy was flimsy, innefficient, and over-centralized, anyway; look at how their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the 1970s totally crippled them, how vulnerable it revealed their infrastructure to be. I disagree that he would have gone the way of Saddam, if he didn't have hydrogen bombs, though. Iraq is a little bigger than the state of Texas, with flat, predictable terrain, and a population that generally disliked their leader. Stalinist Russia at its zenith covered a territory half the surface of the moon, with varied and random terrain, and a population that - through propaganda, a Stalinist cult of personality, and all those who were suspected "counterrevolutionaries" being shot or sent to gulags - revered their leadership. Saddam was easy to take out because the American military is the currently most high-tech, heavy-hitting conventional force on earth; Saddam's force had rotted over the 10+ years in which Iraq was under sanctions to a rusty, broken down parody of an army. A 'Blitzkrieg,' "Shock and Awe" type campaign, that worked so well at taking out the already-warn-out Iraqi forces, would prove futile at taking out Soviet Russia. Look at how well Russia has resisted foreign invaders in the past: Napolean, Hitler, the "White" Russian (Tsarist loyalist) allies from Europe and America. *shrugs* Irrelevant hair-splitting.

I dunno. We have seen X-Wings and the like in ground battle pictures, so fighter support is not confined to simply bomber runs. We really don't know, at this point.

I assume that air power would figure heavily into those sort of maps, to compensate for your lack of heavy armor. The Rebels would have the advantage in those maps, due to their better air force.