How the Rebels Turned Farmers into Deadly Fighter Pilots So Quickly

hello there friends welcome back to another episode of generation Tech my name is Alan so you've decided to start a rebellion maybe you're an imperial senator who remembers the good old days when you actually had power in the sentence back when the empire was the Republic and the chancellor was just some glorified MC for Senate discussions of course you don't know how to actually start a rebellion but like most things in the Galaxy all you really need is some Galactic credits to get things moving and so you start casually funneling money to this new cause from your own private accounts there are definitely privileges to service and there's no denying that your years as a representative for the Republic has given you access to several lucrative Financial opportunities that are all completely legal and more developed and organized political systems corruption is a little bit more civilized and legalized funding like this goes a long way to provide a rebel fighter everything they need from plasters explosives to armor but also safe houses transport and secured Communications and thanks to the Empire's increasingly strengthen punitive crackdowns on the civilian populace there are now new can that it's popping up daily of course vetting these individuals and making sure they're sane and capable and you know totally not Imperial spies that is also very important but teaching Rubble the basics of being an Insurgent you know how to use a blaster weapon how to conceal yourself and how to maneuver and communicate and work with a small team well not only takes a few months at most the rebellion was able to take little shrimpy intellectuals like Charis nemic and turn them into a warrior poet within a relatively short time and with relatively few resources and take a look at nemec in this firefight he knows how to take cover and shoot from cover better than any Stormtrooper I've ever seen in the end it wasn't nemx training that led him down the training was solid it was more that he couldn't handle the massive weight of all the credits he had stolen from The aldani Garrison now nemec probably received more training than most Rebel soldiers and this because he was an operative who was a part of a very you know complex Heist he had to figure out how to blend in with an Imperial Army Patrol and infiltrate in Imperial Garrison other Rebels that joined the Infantry were far less prepared during the mid-rim retreat Rubble units like the 61st mobile infantry suffered High rates of attrition because they were constantly fighting one battle after another and so they basically recruited randoms from the battlefield they vetted them and put them into mixed units with veteran soldiers I mean some of them turned out to be spies and others survived I mean the Rebel Alliance might have been the good guys during the Galactic Civil War that much is clear but make no mistake Rebel commanders were not above sending ill-equipped ill-train troops right into the meat grinder in order to win some kind of strategic success this is just the evil War I guess but that was the rebel Army the rebel Navy hour was formed on a completely different set of principles given the fact that this was a galactic War without a Navy the Rebel Alliance wouldn't be able to shred read its influence across the Galaxy and more importantly it wouldn't be able to escape the grasp of the Empire and the Imperial Security Bureau by staying mobile and so with the Rebellion desperately needed to become a real threat against the empire were pilots mechanics crew members and officers for larger ships the only problem was that the Empire made it extremely difficult for the Rebellion to get their hands on this kind of personnel and you couldn't just learn how to be a Starfighter pilot without the right equipment and training but before we get there a quick word from our sponsor for today's video ownership.com it's the best place to get a lightsaber without being separated from your birth 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code Ewok that's all caps for an additional 15 thank you for your patience on to the rest of the video first the Empire disbanded most of the local militias and planetary Defense Forces in the galaxy and recruited its members for their own Imperial Army and Navy for instance on the world of viru Jancy the local Air cab unit was dismantled and the Starfighter Pilots were given an opportunity to sign up for the Imperial Navy which some did others though like antoch Merrick and Garvin drives disliked what they saw with the Imperial pilot training program and decided to join the Rebellion just like in the rest of their military in the Imperial Navy the policy was to remove the individual from the equation and turn these Pilots into numbers and statistics it was easier to throw away TIE fighter pilots as cannon fodder and get the mission accomplished in this way and instead of developing a bond in ownership with one Starfighter and one ground team the pilots in the empire were rotated around and assigned random Fighters now a lot of these Imperial protocols were actually pretty normal in larger military Air Forces but when you come from something like a small planetary Defense Force you're not going to be used to this kind of bureaucratic way of dealing with personnel and I think for guys like anti-American Arvin dreiss who were already pretty experienced senior officers the idea of starting out new and being just a statistic rubbed them the wrong way I think most likely also had an inkling that these high-stepping Jack boot wearing individuals were kind of evil again age wisdom and experience went out American drives were in the minority back then most Pilots weren't exactly aware of what the empire was and saw it as another paycheck and a continuation of a career that they might not want to throw away being a planetary Defense Force putt was very prestigious but you know what was even more prestigious joining the Imperial Navy and being a TIE fighter pilot it was definitely better than you know quitting completely and becoming a freighter captain and joining the rebel alliance in those early days was akin to joining an Insurgency that was labeled by everyone as a terrorist organization not only were most people afraid of dying immediately because of the might of the Empire they also didn't trust an organization that was linked to you know people who were clearly terrorists like saw Guerrera and his partisans they're also no Financial incentives or future career prospects in being a rebel at that time simply put no one believed that the rebels could win the only people the rebels were getting through their recruitment had a Personal Agenda against the empire which made things even more difficult to deal with an unruly infantry man he could be isolated and thrown into the brig but an unruly pilot well they could just steal your Starfighter and run away or cause a lot of big headaches during an operation you know starfighters were simply more important strategic assets than a group of soldiers on the ground and so in those early days of the Rebellion things were very casual there was no real consequences for deserting your unit or going on an extended leave should your mental health required or something I mean there were consequences it's just that no one was there to enforce the consequences rural Pilots knew their worth and so did their commanders while Rich donors like bail Organa and monmouthly could always buy more used y-wings and a-wings good Pilots were nowhere near as easy to get in the earlier days of the Rebellion the Starfighter Corps basically avoided direct contact or long engaged dogfights they mainly focus on patrolling near rebel bases and the occasional hit and run attack on soft Imperial targets like their Logistics Network mon motha was heavily criticized for her lack of aggression by other Insurgent leaders your losses today from your leadership Scouts the empire all across the Galaxy your people suffer while the leaders of this Rebellion refused to act so I was a great fighter don't get me wrong but he never saw the larger strategic picture which is what Monmouth was focused on she understood just how limited the rebels resources were any major engagement against the empire that resulted in a conventional battle could easily destroy all of the rebellion's reserved forces making it unable to defend itself or Carry Out Future operations which is exactly what happens during the Battle of atalan when the massasi group and Phoenix cell get trapped by thrawn and lose the majority of their force in those earlier days when forced to stand and fight the Rebellion lost way too much Personnel on ships to make it worth it and so before the battle of scarif the Rebellion faced a huge dilemma they needed to strikeout to convince people that they could actually defeat the Empire and they also need to strike out to get more resources but each one of these missions you know exactly the heavy toll especially on their Starfighter Corps now if you've learned anything from this channel you'll know that as each side of a Galactic Civil War introduces new tactics weapons and Personnel the battlefield will quickly evolve at the end of off like no military remains unchanged from where it was at the beginning of the conflict and if the Rebellion were a faction in some 4X Grand strategy game it's one big Advantage is that ideologically speaking its cause was pretty righteous and agreeable monmouth's study and made sure that the Rebellion focused on the hearts and minds of the Galaxy rather than on just tactical victories where you destroy Imperial garrisons and ships Monmouth knew that the Rebellion never really stood a chance against the empire in a straight up fight but the more crazy the Rebellion made the Empire the more missteps the Empire made the more the Rebellion could benefit from it every time the Empire retaliated against the Rebellion it severely pissed off the citizens of the Galaxy and sometimes even the very soldiers and Pilots that served the Empire by simply existing and not losing it was a huge win for the rebellion and a great Catalyst for more new recruits to join them now Antioch shortly after joining the Rebellion with garbage rice would be appointed commander of the entire higher Starfighter core he would also be assigned the rank of General the fact that he was also flying as blue leader during the Battle of scarif should give you an idea of just how small the rebel Starfighter core was and how thinly stretched their personnel was antarct Merrick would be forced to quickly come up with a new Starfighter Doctrine for the rebels needs and he was also in charge of vetting various ships and platforms for the Rebel Alliance to adopt for example he had the ut-60du wing after income Corporation was nationalized by the galactic Republic a shipment of viewings were mysteriously lost and somehow ended up in Rebel Alliance hands most likely thanks to some manipulation of Records by bail Organa it was up to guys like American drives to basically take a look at this platform and determine whether it be useful for the rebellion and how the Rebellion would use it prior to the Starfighter Pilots actually taking a look at the platform a lot of people wanted to use this as an escort fighter but Merrick recognized the ship's potential as a transport vessel and would hand it over to Rebel Alliance Special Forces I think American drives realized very very quickly let the u-wing while maneuverable and fast for support vessel just wasn't quick enough to be an escort fighter and so it was their experience as Starfighter Pilots that really enriched the rebellion's choice here and because of their good call the Ewing would play a pivotal role in the theft of the Death Star plants it was also American drives that would ultimately settle on the income Corporation t-65b platform as the main Fighter for the Republic prior to this most Rebel fighter squadrons would utilize a-wings and y-wings American drives chose this platform because they understood who exactly they would be recruiting to the Rebellion veterans from planetary Defense Forces like them Bush pilots from the outer rim freighter Captain shipping Goods on the heidien way without our proper pilot training pipeline being set up American drives knew that the Rebellion had to rely on platforms that were very easy to learn how to fly and since the income X-Wing shared the same control surfaces as the t-16 skyhopper one of the most common civilian ships in the outer rim is an obvious fit for the Rebellion but even with these easier ships to fly the rebelling simply didn't have enough experienced Pilots most Rebel Starfighter units had only a handful of replacement Pilots for each craft and not the two or three you would usually see in rotation in a normal size unit during the Battle of Yavin for instance there are only maybe four or five replacement Pilots left the back up yellow and red Squadron this included fake wedge by the way this was a clear sign that while the rebels had a few squadrons operational by the time the Battle of scarif started there still weren't enough Personnel to fill out all of the command and support roles that the Starfighter coordinated but as we mentioned the Empire started making problems for itself we see signs of this in all the media content that takes place in the Years leading up to the Galactic Civil War whether it's Solo or the rebels series or Andor the scent was increasing in the Empire's training and Military Doctrine were beginning to reflect a more hawkish approach when it came to stamping down on dissonance remember the Imperial Navy at its core was still very similar to The Republic navy you could throw out the old starfighters and capital ships but there are still basics in how you train Pilots how you educated them how you discipline and these things could just be changed overnight Imperials weren't trained to be monsters from the get-go because it's just ineffective for your military to go around randomly shooting innocence usually when units start commending war crimes it's because of a breakdown of the chain command a failure of the leadership and a breakdown of discipline and as the Empire began falling apart and the Rebellion began to grow rapidly it made the Empire unhinged and more desperate and as the empires started sliding towards more brutal and cruel measures a lot of Imperial Pilots with a moral compass started leaving so one of the things that the empire did a great job with was taking all of the various school systems in the galaxy and then tying them all together with the Imperial Academy system so all children in the Galaxy no matter where they were would take these standardized proficiency tests and at the age of 16 the ones that did the best were invited to join a federal Academy not all Academy Schools were the same but they all taught a similar curriculum that prepared young Imperial Cadets well for the job ahead of them whether they were going to joined the Imperial Navy or Army depending on the individual's personality and proficiencies after they graduated the Imperial Academy they can go on to more schooling this meant joining more specific schools like Stormtrooper Academy or if their grades weren't good enough they would just be sent to a clerical unit the best of the best however were sent to an imperial Naval Academy where they could train to become fighter pilots and Bridge crew here's the thing though these best of the best were often individuals who were highly intelligent and usually highly intelligent people are also pretty individualistic and creative and these were really not things that meshed well with the more authoritarian system the empire was trying to create but these were also the qualities you wanted in a fighter pilot it was an extremely deadly and competitive job and it couldn't just be average to survive and it became very apparent for these intelligent individuals at the empire was slowly losing its mind and descending into chaos I mean at one point officers were ordering their Cadets to do completely illegal things do not but Imperial protocol is to voice that clip was from a training simulation that took place in Sky strike academy one of the most elite Imperial Navy academies designed to create TIE fighter pilots and what Gentiles was going through a test along with rubble and Sergeant Sabian Wren who had infiltrated the school looking for defectors wedge and a group of students managed to send out a signal to the Rebellion they're the ones who instigated this whole operation and let's be honest guys if wedge and his friends were Imperial Army Troopers they most likely would not have gotten a rebel operative here to extract them but a few Pilots especially those with Imperial training were definitely worth the risk I mean heck I wouldn't be surprised if Rebel recruiters were just telling young kids hey join the Empire become a Starfighter and then steal one of their ships and then join us with all the training also take this holographic picture of Princess Leia in a metal bikini she'll be waiting for you right here boys ah Rebel psyops just make sure when you do steal that ship to run away it has a hyperdrive because that's why Tie fighters don't have hyperdrives now in case you don't know who wedge and Tilly's is and would become well he would be responsible for the destruction of the second death star and he was one of the few survivors of the battle of yhaven he would spend his career as a squadron leader he would refuse to take promotions to become like a rear Admiral and he would train countless fighter pilots all throughout the war a squadron full of moisture farmers and freighter Pilots can truly benefit from having just one imperial pilot that's how good these guys were and it wasn't just wedge in Tilly's who joined early you had other guys like big starklighter a close friend of Luke Skywalker he was considered one of the most talented fighter pilots on red Squadron he also had Thane kyrell who was recruited by wedge and Tilly's shortly after the battle of Yavin he would take part in the famous retreat at the Battle of Hoth as a part of Corona Squadron then we have Iden versio who was a special forces operator and also a pilot she would lend her expertise to the Rebellion as well now the latter two individuals deserted the Empire because of two main events for Thane rally was the destruction of Alderaan that made him severely question his role in the Empire granted not a lot of people even Imperials knew the real reason why Alderaan just disappeared and the subsequent destruction of the Death Star hardened many Imperials resolve but still a lot of Imperial Pilots also knew exactly what happened and around the Battle of Yavin a lot of Imperial Pilots would defect to the Rebellion I'm sure other Imperials also wanted to defect but being a pilot just made everything a lot easier Galen urso chose an imperial pilot Bodie Rook to get his message to the Rebellion United Imperial Stormtrooper for that reason and the second event that caused idenversio to defect was Operation Cinder this was a cruel scorched Earth policy carried out by Emperor Palpatine after his death it targeted many pro-imperial worlds with super weapons in order to punish the Empire and also keep resources out of the hands of the new Republic it was just deemed too evil and chaotic for many of the Imperials left fighting I think the rebel strategy of waiting for Imperial Pilots the defect falls directly into line with monmouth's grander strategy for the Rebellion again wasn't about tactical victories you know occasionally you did have to strike out against the empire to show people you were serious but really it was all about protecting innocent civilians getting supplies to refugees and protecting themselves the rebellion was pretty defensive in nature for most of the early parts of the war and as because Monmouth truly believed that by being the best version of themselves by providing an alternative to the Empire it was just a no-brainer that people would eventually join I think it's a really important lesson that we could all learn from you know instead of focusing on attacking your enemies be the best version of yourself so guys I hope you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification button down below so you don't miss out on the rest of awesome content as usual my name is Alan reminding you that my allegiance is to The Republic to democracy

Channel: Generation Tech

Views: 72,713

Keywords: generation tech, star wars, rogue one, red squadron, wedge antilles, garven dries, antilles extraction, sky stryke academy, imperial pilot, imperial academy, tie fighter, imperial defectors, defecting to the rebellion, iden versio, thane kyrell, rebel star fighter corp, x-wing, t-65b x-wing, starfighter corp, y-wing, battle of yavin, battle of endor, fighter pilots, yavin, blue squadron, sabine wren, rebels, mon mothma, antoc merrick

Id: rnE6nmpfgb4

Length: 18min 50sec (1130 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023