Why did the Imperial Army Just Disappear?

in Legends when thrawn becomes the heir to the Empire his first move is to remove all that bloat and inefficiency within the imperial system and replace it with just like discipline and utility and one of the first organizations he sought to revitalize was the struggling Imperial Army why would someone like thrawn who is known as a very rational individual favor of the Imperial Army over the much more famous and glossy Stormtrooper Corps well it's because thrawn was actually well intentioned and he was also a smart individual with a genuine desire to bring peace and stability to the Galaxy and he realized that the Stormtrooper Corps was very one-dimensional and limited so the Stormtroopers were not structured or created like a traditional military branch it was equipped like a light infantry or Expeditionary Unit like the Marine Corps star Trevor is reticularly a part of the Imperial Army when it came to chain of command and funding but were commonly deployed with the Imperial Navy on their warships the Stormtrooper core was a light infantry unit so he didn't have access to a lot of heavier equipment like Tang Starships transport and so it heavily relied on the other military branches the Star Trek Accord were the Vanguard and tip of any Imperial offensive they were primarily Geared for attack the Imperial army trooper was supposed to arrive once the Stormtroopers have taken a position and then Garrison in that position the Stormtroopers had a much higher standard of recruitment they were selected for their height and strength they were usually men and many were recruited straight out of the Imperial Academy system or from other service branches Imperial Navy Troopers are army Troopers who distinguish themselves in battle were given a chance to go to Stormtrooper core and become a stormtrooper but what really separated the Stormtrooper core from the other service branches was their fanatic loyalty it's Emperor Palpatine which is created thanks to a very extensive screening process and a lot of indoctrination after all every dictator does need their own private militia that only answers to what they want so why are we talking about this well recently Liam one of our viewers asked this question here on our Channel he's basically asking if the Imperial Army unit was so essential to Galactic security well where did they go this is one of the more common questions asked by the more hardcore elements of the Stars fandom there's a complete disconnect between what it says in the lore and what we actually see on screen simply put the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy and their Troopers should make up the majority of the ground forces in the Empire the Stormtrooper Corps was Elite and so they were just a smaller sub-branch of the military we should rarely see the Storm Trooper course so why are they everywhere in the original trilogy and where are the Imperial Army Troopers well before we get there a word from our sponsor for today ownerserver.com they 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had been in power for almost a decade the Imperial military by this time had replaced the majority of their public era weapons equipment and Personnel this means the Imperial clients start a star instead of the venator Klein Star Destroyer Stormtrooper is instead of Clone Troopers at least during this period of time the Stormtroopers were still considered very elite and relatively Limited in quantity and so in 10 BBY with the mimbom campaign in full swing the majority of the troops on the ground representing the empire were Imperial Army Troopers Stormtroopers were also deployed but in small numbers Han Solo represented your typical Imperial army trooper he was a member of the 224th Imperial Armor Division and he had been busted down to infantry after failing out of flight school because of you know disciplinary issues and you guys know who else was there with him a young Cassian Andor who was serving as a cook after being in prison for assaulting a few clone troopers of course not all Imperial Army Troopers are just criminals and cups if you take a look at the aldani Garrison there are plenty of normal average people serving there some are probably conscripts others volunteers looking for a paycheck with a few True Believers sprinkled in between and if you think about it this is exactly what the Empire needed during this time period a large and relatively cheap force that could at least bring some type of stability to The Wider Galaxy put money and resources in recruiting good officers and just find bodies to fill in all of those fortifications at the time the Empire defeated its conventional foes and was now mostly focused on chasing down insurgents criminals and bandits an elite expeditionary Force like the Stormtrooper core was basically Overkill in many of these type of scenarios and so they weren't needed during the Great transition period between the galactic Republic and the Empire I'm sure Palpatine had a long list of things he really wanted to do but like any leader he had a basically prioritize certain things over others huge amounts of money were spent on the Death Star program and all of the related research programs that would make it functional and even more was spent on replacing the Republic Navy's Capital ships and starfighters with new designs I would argue that was a really dumb move and it wastes a lot of money but whatever the TK Troopers would replace the clone troopers and eventually turn into the Stormtrooper Corps now I actually think a lot less resources were placed in the creation of the Stormtrooper core than other branches of the military I mean given the size of the Empire of the Navy was always going to be a lot more important and I think that's where the majority of the funding went I believe that Palpatine's ultimate goal was to create a large Central military force but at the time there were huge budgetary constraints you also had a large number of sector and planetary Defense Forces corporate Defense Forces that were kind of in the way during the early Empire period Palpatine was still pretty rational and he took a pragmatic approach to dealing with this situation something he would do less and less as the dark side started eating away his brain Palpatine understood that these local Defense Forces swearing allegiance to their local areas was a huge security risk for him it was something that the less centralized Republic tolerated and even funded to a certain extent but for Palpatine there could only be one true Authority in the galaxy and that was him but instead of Waging War against all of these small localized militias something that honestly the Empire didn't have the Manpower for anyway Palpatine would simply fold many of these planetary Defense Force Fighters into the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy this is why it wasn't uncommon for Imperial army trooper units to have several members of the same PDF serving together these men also would be deployed close to home which of course increases morale and the willingness to do one's job correctly and at the same time the Imperial Army troopers were mainly just fighting against Pirates Bandits and your occasional Rebel Insurgency and they were almost better equipped to do so because you actually had people with an understanding of the local terrain and geography and even people this made the Imperial Army a very efficient peacekeeping organization but the Imperial Army because it was still being deployed locally with local you know citizens suffer from the same problems that planetary Defense Forces did the allegiance of these soldiers were split between their home planets and also the Empire ultimately Palpatine's intentions like most authoritarians and dictators was not to make the lives of his people better but to increase and preserve his own political power and domination Palpatine who was always ahead of the game understood that one day he might have to order these Imperial Troopers to shoot on their own people and this is something that he wasn't sure the Imperial Army Troopers would do I mean this is a problem that a lot of authoritarian regimes have during the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989. one of the first units that the Chinese Communist Party are trying to send to Tiananmen Square was the 38th combined Corps now back in those days the Chinese military was still organized at the regional level that meant that that they would bring a bunch of people recruits from one city and group them together and the 38th combined Coralville it was mostly made up of people from Beijing which is where the Tiananmen Square massacre occurs as a matter of fact a lot of the students at Tiananmen the ones that were protesting they were a part of the 38th Reserve forces and so many individuals from the 30th refused to Massacre their own people from their own City some of these guys were actually their comrades and their leader Shu Ching Shin was a war hero well respected by the military establishment he was actually moved to Tears by the resilience and strength of the student protesters and refused to obey the order now he would eventually be replaced this was the central government's greatest fear at the time and I think this is something that Emperor Palpatine feared as well I mean most authoritarian regimes and dictatorships they don't actually really put the people as their number one priority they might try to improve the lives of the people as you know a way of maintaining power but maintaining power is definitely the most in important part of their mandate it's all they care about and anyone who rejects this Orthodoxy any soldier who is foolish enough to assume that their allegiance is actually to the people rather than the emperor is going to be seen as a huge liability and threats in those earlier days of the Empire Palpatine didn't have complete control over everything yet I mean there are still institutions like the Imperial Army and also institutions like the Imperial Senate but as Insurgency movements became more aggressive it started attacking more military installations Palpatine used this excuse to crack down on what remaining institutions checked his power Palpatine also became a lot more paranoid as well dictators are almost always egotistical individuals and they become what they are by destroying their opposition their enemies and sometimes well-meaning friends even and at one point when they've truly you know reached all of their goals they'll surround themselves with sick offense and servants basically dictators are usually really poorly equipped to address the criticisms and complaints of the people and always have paranoid that the opposition just wants to seek their power and are actually legitimately after true change and bettering the lives of everyone in the Empire dictators are usually quite cynical and they believe everyone out there is just like them now Palpatine could have easily addressed many of the Grievances that the imperial citizens had and preserve this power by cutting down on the Empire's rapid military expansion and focusing more on economic development and social services but because Palpatine viewed his own people not as individuals that he needed to protect and serve but as individuals who should serve him it never opens up the necessary dialogue to de-escalate the situation he only fans the Flames further quickly pressure was placed on organizations like the Imperial Army Troopers who up until now had just been garrisoned in places with minimal contact with the locals were now ordered to carry out more patrols enforce more laws and unpopular policies like the seizure of private property land and resources for the Empire's military industrial complex and operations individuals like Lieutenant Gorn who up until now is able to focus on doing his job and taking care of his men had to carry out increasingly up operations against people that he actually cared about in our last video we did an entire video titled you know if the empire was so terrible why would people join you know some people called me a fascist of course because they didn't watch the whole video maybe I don't know but the point of that video was that many Imperial soldiers were decent people who just needed some work and while they might be fine with you know sitting in a fortification and defending it from Bandits many became increasingly uncomfortable with their new orders which usually involved cracking down on local populations with Force if necessary as the Rebellion grew in size the Empire responded with increasingly Draconian and brutal measures after the successful raid on aldani things began to change rapidly within the Empire Palpatine realized that the Imperial Army could not be trusted or relied on in the coming civil war that would envelop the entire Empire Palpatine was fully comfortable with the fact that he was about to wage an impressive campaign again against his own people and so it's at this point Palpatine would almost give unlimited power to the Imperial Security Bureau now this wasn't Military Intelligence or some type of objective civilian intelligence organization this was an intelligence organization that was only loyal to Emperor Palpatine and a part of his company or political organization the ISB was given the ability to commandeer any unit or vessel in the field that they wanted to pursue the Rebellion the ISB became the eyes ears and hands of the emperor and they would wield his military like a giant hammer it's also at this point the Empire started focusing on ramping up Stormtrooper Recruitment and training babatia needed far more than just a quick reaction for us now he needed to Garrison these fanatic soldiers in trouble spots where there was a high level of Rebel activity the Stormtrooper units unlike Army Troopers are completely faceless they are intimidating and inhuman looking there's no individual to be seen just a large group of soldiers that are interchangeable and identified only by their numbers this made it incredibly hard for the local population to connect with the Stormtroopers and appeal to them during the Tiananmen Square massacre the initial foray into the City by The People's Liberation Army was met with students wielding food pamphlets flowers and hugs the students friendly acceptance of the piano soldiers melted their resolve and discipline and so this is one of the major reasons why during the original trilogy at the peak of the Galactic Civil War egy just didn't see many Imperial army trooper units they simply were getting phased out and replaced by the Stormtrooper Corps the Imperial Army troopers were halfway measure and mixed between the old and the new the Stormtroopers however always represented the Empire's true face and Emperor Palpatine's true intentions well guys I hope you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification button down below my name is Alan reminding you that my allegiance is to The Republic to democracy [Music]

Channel: Generation Tech

Views: 293,849

Keywords: generation tech, star wars, galactic empire, imperial army, imperial navy, imperial army trooper, stormtrooper corp, stormtroopers, storm trooper, imperial army trooper vs stormtrooper corp, why did palpatine get rid of the imperial army, where did the imperial army go, andor, aldhani raide, battle of mimban, mimban campaign, han solo, andor mimban, imperial army troops, imperial army driver, what happened to the imperial army

Id: o3JkRwoz1ns

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023