Welp, as per the front page...


The Pittsburgh Toy & Collectibles Show returns to the Pittsburgh Expo Mart.  Located in the Monroeville suburb of Pittsburgh, the Expo Mart is situated right in front of the mall Dawn of the Dead was filmed in.

The show's a haven for good finds.  I got my double telescoping Luke there one year so there's some nice scores to be had.  Always good to meet up with the PSWCS members as well.

And speaking of...  The Pennsylvania Star Wars Collector's Society will be holding their annual toy drive (in conunction with the 501st Stormtrooper Legion) with a booth at the show.  They'll be accepting donations or you can contact Bill Cable at the PSWCS site to make a donation by mail.

Between Greg Brady, Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter, and the glorious me being there, how can you NOT go to this?  If you're absent...  You betta have a note!  haha, get it?  Like Horshack...  Hah!

Be cool if they did make the lamp something more than just a Lava Lamp...  Still I'm completely obsessed with finding this damn thing.  It consumes me at this point...

Eh, not really actually, but I do want one at least.    That Lava Lamp rocks to me.

I miss Scott...   

Nice info JayDouble, thanks for the heads up on that.  Something to look forward to I guess...  The $8 sabers is a good deal for stocking up for the kids.  I may get them those for X-Mas.

The BOGO at KM isn't bad either given that they've had some fairly decent figures around but at shittacular prices.  Good to know where to go that day.  Fortunately KM's are close enough that a Black Friday trip isn't a rough one for me...  Wal-Mart not so much.   

Some great points/counterpoints...  I am glad you arrived Blaster_E11 because you've always had good thought-out opinions over yonder so it's nice to see you sharing them here freely.

the jewish administration has always been a tricky subject, but it was easier for the german war machine to have jews watch over other jews (the same kapos did in camps)

I agree, and that same concept translates to aliens...  The Imperial War machine, even though I consider it vast and almost unimaginable, wouldn't have had as easy a time managing aliens on every inhabited planet...  On many, especially more docile worlds or ones that support the Empire (regardless of potential xenophobic ideals), I envision the Empire utilizing the populace to manage themselves militarily.  Perhaps human/core Imperial control over those "homeguard" divisions...  Someone to make sure the homeguard isn't developing a resistance, and obviously propoganda would be important, but subjucating every world on a "personal" level would be difficult even for an Empire that I think has military might beyond comprehension (for us in the real world anyway ).

don't forget that luke is supposed to be everyone who is watching the movie, like in fairy tales it's the character you can identify to. he was "awed" as any of us would be if he met such a wonderful creature

I disagree that Luke is to be the "every man".  He has a more defined role as a sheltered farmboy in my eyes which doesn't represent myself...  It really doesn't represent the views of anyone but that one segment.  Lucas's development of Luke was based a little on himself at points, but he says there's some of him in Han Solo too, etc... 

The text I referred to though, with Luke being sorta dumbstruck by Chewbacca, had Luke almost being enamored with Chewie as if he were a freak of nature...  He ogled him like he was a sideshow attraction.  It's a minor point I think, but one that I figured I'd bring up...  Luke didn't act like that in the film, but I think the reason stands that some people look on aliens with disgust out of natural reaction.  It's the same reason that the aliens in the Cantina sequence sorta shocked fans, and was amusing too.  Some you look on with disgust (as the Imp Officer looked at Chewbacca) while some you don't...  Some you're afraid of and some you warm up to.

Perhaps the Wookiees were bastardized due to their helping Yoda escape too...  It may not be so much a blanket hatred of species but just the ones that "defied" the Empire.  Much as one may look down on the Neimoidians if they saw them, or perhaps the Quarren...  They maybe don't hate aliens, just aliens that are also their enemy...  But that's just thinking aloud really on my part.  Overall I do tend to view the Empire as being xenophobic, but able to hide it to some degree...

They cover it up with citing these species they choose to blatantly hold under their thumb as being traitorous ones (IE: Wookiee's).  Other species, like for argument's sake the Neimoidians, are accepted into the EMpire but don't serve directly in the Imperial war machine per se, but they do have a home guard division comprised of JUST Neimoidian Troops in an Imperial Army uniform perhaps, and with a command structure that has maybe some Neimoidians on lower level command positions, but which has higher command positions being held by key officials that hold the Imperial ideal in the utmost regard...  The "Heidrich The Hangman" of the Empire, for example...  And of course a completely loyal regional governor at the top.

But still, that leaves us with a Neimoidian division who maybe consider themselves, are told, and they accept, that they're part of the Empire...  Are they going to be backing up a Stormtrooper legion that's spearheading the attack on Yavin Base?  Never, but they're there keeping the peace on Neimoidia and perhaps surrounding places like any orbital bases, moons, or perhaps neighboring planets colonized by the Neimoidians.

the divisions made of soldiers from conquished countries are an interesting feature of the WW2 history, obviously the german needed them badly since the beginning of operation Barbarossa against USSR (as well as the involvement of the US in the War). You'll notice these troops were only used in eastern Europe and Russia not in Africa. However they came from countries with deep antisemite or fascists beliefs (Croatia, France, Holland...). Most of the time the troops were considered aryans but some other time the german would use salvic soldiers (rather unusual when you consider them inferior) like croats or ukrainian.

Those divisions also saw action in the west though, and Italy/south as well...  Africa was so early into the war (it was the point where the German leaders who were competent really started to break and realize they weren't the all-dominant force they believed themselves to be), that it wasn't an issue to draft different nation's conquered male population into their military.

At the same time though, not all analogies to WW2 match to SW perfectly, but it stands to reason that a "galaxy of a million million worlds" as SW is described, would find some logistics issues in how you control these worlds effectively and efficiently, while still maintaining a balanced economy, civil tranquility, etc...  Basically the Empire would be forced to pick its battles.  It needed the Death Star afterall because it seems (by context within the film) that the Emperor was playing a juggling act with the existing Imp. Senate and the Regional governors...  He had to keep everyone happy and I'm sure that was tough...  If the galaxy broke out in revolution everywhere, he'd have trouble.  As it was he was dealing with a Rebellion that he considered small but which I'm sure was only small by galactic standards...  And obviously by ROTJ's end and various EU sources, the Alliance is a formidable military itself...  Only small compared to the Imperial war machine.

I don't think the Empirasuffered the same difficulties as the 3rd reich, it didn't have to fight a foreign coalition, just a rebellion.

Again, that's something that's looked at from a certain POV though, as Obi-Wan would say...  How big the Alliance is, is definitely debateable.  Personally I look at it as being incredibly big, but smaller than the Empire by a substantial bit... 

At the same time though, the Empire deals with civil unrest on many worlds, which isn't something the Reich would have to have dealt with exactly, but they were known for having control over the populations of their conquered nations by utilizing those populations to control themselves...  The French for instance, the Poles, etc...  Not part of the 3rd reich, but a political/police body did control the population that answered to the local "garrison" or detail in the given nation or area.  The Empire could, and I believe would, utilize similar methods of controlling planets...  If the Empire felt they needed to eradicate a given species, they could easily then create whatever reason they wanted and do so, but doing that with millions of worlds at once would incite rebellion from wolds where cooperation was a necessity I believe.

local militias and fear (remember the EU rule of fear developped by tarkin in WEG RPG books ?) would keep the systems in line, if not they could still send a stormtrooper garrisson or a couple starships

That's what I'm saying basically, but the militias are part of the Empire for reason of assimilation/conformity.  Those species will never gain much in life outside of what they manage on their planet...  The Empire still is xenophobic and there's no advancement among aliens within the political structure of the Empire.  But at the same aliens would be used to control their own planets, with of course close supervision of Imperial supervisors of one form or another... 

And as species were deemed uncontrollable, or were just unlucky enough to be "liquidated" for their planetary assets, the Empire would simply dismantle these species through whatever means...  Enslavement for the Wookiees as in the EU, for example of a slow means of extermination of that species...  And of course other species would suffer that kind of fate for whatever reason...

Tarkin's doctrine of fear is an EU property but I like it...  However the problem with his fear doctrine is that a large component was his development of the Death Star project.  The fear was mostly circled around that instrument...  Without it, simply beating planets into submission seems impossible.  If it were possible the EMperor wouldn't have bothered with an Imperial Senate, with a beuacratic system, etc., as is established in the film.  ANH makes it pretty clear thought that control is this constant juggling act for Palpatine, not something he simply has because he has an army that can crush anything.  It was a juggling act to get it in the prequals and maintaining it would require lots of back scratching to make sure he has support.

Without the Death Star, the Emperor would have to go back to that juggling act and Tarkin's fear doctrine would partly fall apart (I think it still has some application, and probably is a main component considering a 2nd DS was in production) and Palpatine would still have to control that peace at least in his core worlds.  But with the DS's emergence into the public, and it's subsequent destruction, it's also quite probable that rebellion would've started to spread quicker than ever...  Worlds would get word of the DS and what it did, and that's a PR nightmare for the Empire...  planets who had any suspicions of Palpatine's behaviors/motives would almost certainly now fear for their well-being and would fight or support those who do secretly.

This has been a good discussion guys...  I'm inspired to make some customs just based on this talk really.   I've had this Neimoidian in an AT-ST Drive runiform in my head now for a couple weeks, haha.  Could be a great custom.

a guy with over 10 000 posts in less than 6 months was even promoted a mod 

Hmmmm, why does that sound familiar?

So which outcome did GNT have according to Erikson?

Was ******bag an option?