Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!milne From: milne@uci-icse Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Empire Troops Uniforms Message-ID: <3497@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Sun, 1-Sep-85 03:27:43 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3497 Posted: Sun Sep 1 03:27:43 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 2-Sep-85 04:07:36 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 53 From: Alastair Milne I think the idea behind the armour is possibly more psychological than physical: confront the enemy with battalions of human (probably) killing machines, with a faintly insectlike appearance about the face; demoralize and intimidate, and in many cases you'll already have the battle halfway won. The Empire appears to enjoy this strategy of giving machines menacing, disturbing appearances which are of no real mechanical advantage to the machines themselves: look at the probe droid, or the walkers, especially the big quadrupedal ones. Those cockpits looked as if they had great compound eyes on each side of them. Intimidation and oppression is the Empire's game, and not just with weaponry. Though I imagine that it's true enough about their being encumbered with bureaucracy, and rules that exist simply because they always have done. I see no real reason, though, to assume that blasters are particularly modern; and I'm pretty certain that the use of lightsabres could never have been common, since using them effectively required training with the Force. For the average fighter, the blaster has probably been the weapon of choice for quite a while. I would imagine that the armour is still used because of its demoralising appearance, and because it has a certain usefulness against weaponry less powerful than blasters (garotting, gassing, or drowning troopers would be just about impossible); and also because its communications equipment provides immediate, personal contact with every single trooper. Furthermore, I doubt whether the Empire much cares whether individual troopers get mown down by blaster fire. There are always more where they came from, and the Empire usually attacks in masses anyway. I agree about the economic use the Rebels must have to make of their resources. Better to concentrate on weaponry that actually reduces enemy forces (like ion cannons, speeders, X-wings, etc.) than to waste equipment on merely holding them off. And psychological warfare is not (or has not been) one of their strategies. A previous message paraphrased, I believe, a remark of Kenobi's from "A New Hope" about the "accuracy" of the stormtroopers' fire. Considering the context, I think he just meant that they were more accurate than Tuscan raiders with the blaster equivalent of flintlocks. Which they bloody well should have been, since they were aiming at something the size of a barn, and which hardly moved any faster than a barn. Certainly he spoke of blasters being "clumsy or random" when he first showed Luke Annakin's lightsabre. Ever notice how the window-like nature of the Star Wars films so far allows an enormous amount of speculation on subjects that the films don't cover? Alastair Milne