She didn't want to deal with Solo anyway. And Han was avoiding her, which is why he talked to Rieekan about leaving.
Leia Organa on Hoth
- Thread starter LJones41
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Why not? Because after 37 years, I find myself wondering why Leia was on Hoth in the first place. Why would someone who is a political leader and not a military leader be at a Rebel Alliance military outpost in the first place? I keep asking this question and I keep receiving answers that do not make any sense to me. And I find myself wondering if Leia's presence on Hoth without any explanation might be a blooper that no one wants to consider, because it might be a blot (whether major or minor) on the beloved "The Empire Strikes Back".
All you have done is describe what had occurred in the film. Yet, no one has considered that Rieekan should have been doing this, not Leia.
Just because you don't believe us doesn't mean we are wrong.
The Lucas reason for her to be there, back when writing the outline for this first sequel, was quite simple. There was no were else she could be. This was THE Rebel Base. There were no others. Everything the Rebels are doing is based out of Hoth, so therefore any remaining leadership, agents, and anyone of any importance will be there someplace.
That was the logic before 1980.
Now for today, many years later, with many expansions on the universe, the idea is that she's become the leader of all her father's Rebel cells and operates them out of Hoth Base. The Senate is gone, and she's been outed as a Rebel, so she can't go about in public anymore like she use to do without the Empire having a huge price on her head. Therefore she operates out of the main rebel base, which was on Yavin and moved several times, ending up in Hoth. She can't go home...Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star. She can't go back to the Senate, it has been disbanded. Where else should she go? Might as well stay with this Rebel base and operate out of there doing what she can do, and coordinating operations for her cells to best deal with the Empire.
There isn't anyplace else she should be, so why not Hoth?
Exactly where else would you EXPECT her to be? It's not like the rebels actually control any territory that the Empire can't just steam roll with a huge fleet (in fact, they're specifically going out of their way NOT to openly control territory for that very reason). So anywhere else she might go, she'd have to be hiding and keeping out of sight as much as possible. And there's nowhere on the galaxy more "out of sight" than Hoth; that's the whole reason they built their base there!
Leia's a political and military figure, a revolutionary and firebrand for the republic they hope to build. Asking why Leia is at Hoth is like asking "What was Fidel Castro doing in Sierra Maestra in the first place? Wasn't he just a politician?
It's not. She's the leader of an armed rebellion whose goal is to overthrow the ruling government of the galaxy. Leaders have to actually lead the people who've pledged to follow them, especially in situations like this where the entire movement has been forced underground and reduced to fighting from the shadows.
What makes you think Rieekan is better qualified to do this than Leia? She's been jousting with the Empire on the sly for years now, she knows a thing or two about imperial protocols.
This is the same rebellion that named Lando and Han Solo "Generals" for the attack on the Death Star. Apparently to the rebels "General" is a word meaning "The only one in the room stupid enough to VOLUNTEER for this horseshit."
Why Rieekan? Civilian leaders can be over military leaders which is the point many have been making. It isn't a blooper on a beloved film because civilians leaders are over military leaders in many contemporary countries.
Without explanation? As others have asked, where should Leia be? She's a leader in the Rebllion, who is now on the run from the Empire. I think Hoth is as safe a place as she can go, since she was once a Senator, and therefor, a high visibility target for Imperial retribution.
Yes, but I doubt that's really applicable to the Rebellion in any case since they are not an actual government with a meaningful distinction between "civilian" and "military." An armed insurrection against an oppressive empire is made up of exactly three kinds people: Commanders, fighters, sympathizers.
Leia is a commander. Han, Chewie, and even Luke are mostly fighters although they sometimes act as commanders in large operations. The only members of a rebellion who might classify as civilians are sympathizers, and that's only because they never actually take up arms for the cause.
I think they may have been organized better than you think:
The Alliance Cabinet, also referred to as the Cabinet, was a branch of the Alliance to Restore the Republic's Civil Government. Arranged beneath the Alliance's titular chief of state, The cabinet was made up of both Military and Civil government representatives.
Rogue One definitely gave more details on that, but how did it fair after the evacucation of Yavin?
I'm curious how that works. Who elects them? What population do they represent? How does one vote for an illegal government? Do pro-Imperial citizens get a say?
This isn't the South in the American Civil War, where there are governments and territories. This is more like occupied France, isn't it?
Even back in 1983 I thought MM came out of nowhere. And disappeared just as quickly.
If you're not soaked in Star Wars like we are, do you even know who the hell she is?
... were mostly sympathizers. The politicians among that group are the ones Darth Vader was anxious about pissing off when he first intercepted Leia; while it is not lawful to openly support a rebellion against one's own government, the group of them combined were powerful enough and unified enough that if they moved against them illegally, the repercussions would be immense.
The whole point of the Death Star was to break that kind of unified opposition. The rebellion's political supporters could provide a unified front all they want, but with a death star in play the Empire could simply pick their coalition apart by demolishing their planets one by one. Abolishing the senate was part of this: without a need to give any pretense of "lawfulness" the Emperor could just do whatever the hell he wanted and anybody who stands up to him gets their planet slagged into space dust. "Your complaints will be answered, in the order they're received, by superlaser bombardment."
It's still the case that the Empire can't roll everyone at once with the Death Star destroyed, but it's also the case that they've reached a phase where the Empire has stopped pretending to obey any actual laws and have become a full throated military dictatorship. So the political backers of the rebellion now have to be even more careful about supporting the rebels: The Empire certainly can't destroy their planets or occupy their worlds, but it CAN AND DOES assassinate anti-Empire political leaders and/or massacre their families. The former senators and regional governors can't openly support the rebellion, because the Empire CAN openly slaughter them if they do.
They get into it a little bit in "Rebels" and some of the novels. Basically: the Rebellion begins as a scattered group of terrorist cells, started and lead by revolutionaries on various planets and backed, financially and materially, by like-minded senators as well as by private donations and business deals. Bail Organa is the archetypical example, but other planets with sketchier budget keeping and/or bigger military enterprise contribute in different ways at different times. The Alliance Cabinet is basically formed by representatives of all the major backers of the rebellion, sort of like the original Continental Congress during the U.S. war of independence. Some of those present are probably leaders of major corporations who also make major contributions to the Alliance and therefore have a say in how those resources are used.
As for how it works, I would say the answer is "Not particularly well." Up until the Battle of Scarif it doesn't seem like they actually accomplished much of anything except to piss the Emperor off. Prior to the battle, the rebellion was a "problem." After the battle, they become an "enemy."
I guess the Alliance could be considered a "government in exile" of sorts, except that technically they exist within territory that the Empire claims sovereignty over.
Kor
So far as I'm aware, all of the civilian leaders are Imperial Senators (former, in the case of Bail & Mon) so I don't think there's any direct corporate involvement. I imagine after the Clone Wars there are very few if any major ones that haven't been nationalised by the Empire.
A somewhat more likely scenario is that sympathetic subsidiary worlds (as Geonosis was to Baktoid and Lothal seems to be for Sienar) are fiddling the books to divert some funds and resources into the Alliance's coffers under the noses of their loyalist corporate masters.
Everything else is most likely acquired though private donations, clandestine trade with neutral systems and the underworld or outright stolen from the Empire.
But yeah, they're basically a secret government in exile with Mon Mothma as Chief of State.
Incom Corporation comes to mind. Or at least the part of it that supposedly defects and escapes when the Empire nationalized the company. Bringing along the X-wings, and perhaps the few existing U-wings.
The formal title the Rebel government took is usually listeds as "The Alliance to Restore the Republic", with the now former Imperial Senators and perhaps some planetary leaders, operating under the ideals of the former Galactic Republic prior to the Emperor declaring his reorganization at the end of the Clone Wars and Order 66. Which is also why the Rebel Alliance is able to transition into the New Republic shortly after the Battle of Endor.
I hope we get to hear Mon Mothma's speech to the Emperor in Rebels.
The formal title the Rebel government took is usually listeds as "The Alliance to Restore the Republic", with the now former Imperial Senators and perhaps some planetary leaders, operating under the ideals of the former Galactic Republic prior to the Emperor declaring his reorganization at the end of the Clone Wars and Order 66. Which is also why the Rebel Alliance is able to transition into the New Republic shortly after the Battle of Endor.
I hope we get to hear Mon Mothma's speech to the Emperor in Rebels.
That's from the EU and so far it doesn't appear to been carried over in to canon.
Indeed from the 'Rogue One Ultimate Guide' it seems Bail basically stole a shipment of U-Wings by moving some paperwork around.
It also say the X-Wings were developed by Incom right around the end of the Clone Wars as a follow up to both the ARC-170 & the Z-95 to serve as the Imperial Starfleet's mainstay starfighter. The whole thing was mothballed when Sienar won the contract instead and would have stayed that way had the Rebellion not gotten a hold of them and altered the design to suit their needs.
So the X-Wings we're so familiar with are a significantly modified version of a concept fighter that never went into full production.
Since we haven't seen either design used by Bail's cells in 'Rebels' one can only conclude that this happened just a few years prior to RO & ANH, meaning they're both almost two decades old by that point, which is much more in line with what Lucas intended.
Ugh. I hate the West End backstory for the X-Wings.
But I thought that was re-canonized BECAUSE of the U-Wing? The U-Wings were just barely getting made when the Incom team defected?
Between West End and the prequels not showing any X-wings, the original 1977 backstory went out the window. At least we have Y-wings.
But I thought that was re-canonized BECAUSE of the U-Wing? The U-Wings were just barely getting made when the Incom team defected?
Between West End and the prequels not showing any X-wings, the original 1977 backstory went out the window. At least we have Y-wings.
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