Let's not forget that in Legends, the New Republic's anemic initial response to the Yuuzhan Vong ruined any hope of actually containing the invasion at the Outer Rim. A very sizable portion of the 365+ trillion dead in that conflict probably could've been avoided if Borsk Fey'lya was remotely competent.
In fairness he was a piece time leader going up against an unknown juggernaut I don't think he expected the Vong to be so ridiculously strong. Edit the only people capable of taking the Vong warriors in single combat were the Jedi and even they struggled against them.
@@dred9174 the problem with Fey'lya wasnt necessarily being a peace time leader. As a member of the Bothan intelligence corps he had more than enough knowledge to make strategic decisions. But he was also power-hungry, hated the Jedi and generally distrusted humans (with some good reasons). He had a long running feud with Admiral Ackbar, and for months used the Yuuzhan Vong invasion to browbeat the military as being incompetent while denying their very real danger. He was more concerned about how it made him look than actually facing the threat. In fact, it took him essentially being ordered to give up the Jedi and surrender before he finally grew enough of a spine to counter his own hubris, and even then the Vong still invaded and c9nquered Coruscant. The only thing he ended up doing that helped was blow up the databanks and antenna relays at the Imperial Palace when he died, and even then that was at the cost of trillions of dead or captured. Fey'lya's failures may have been more political, but he was an atrocious military officer because he put personal power ahead of everything, even if his agenda was to benifit the most beings
"Yeah they wanted us to go, Han! Oh, but please still head for the Rebel base." -Princess Leia's 4000 IQ move (something something Deus Ex Machina retcon The Force Willed It etc. etc.)
Not really. They had every intention of luring the Death Star to Yavin because they had the schematics, which would allow high command to fight a weakness, so they can destroy it.
@@HolyknightVader999 Still risky if one isn't certain about the reliability of the plans cause in Legends they acquired different copies of the plans from simultaneous thefts like one from the Death Star itself and another being more elaborate and discrete.
I wonder if there is some survivorship bias at work explaining why we don’t see more incompetent Rebels. Most Imperial officers commanded their forces from either a Star Destroyer or a safe command center. It was rare for them to die in battle, meaning they could afford to screw up multiple times. When a rebel cell lost a battle the Empire would kill or torture everyone involved. It could be there were many incompetent Rebels, but none of them lived to repeat their mistakes. Thus the rebellion only ended up with only the individuals competent enough to survive the Empire’s overwhelming technological and numerical advantage.
Essentially it was natural selection. Any rebel cell that had incompetent members/leaders would end up being detected and unable to escape capture. This ending the cell.
I figured the reason General Dodonna and the Rebel high command stuck around at Yavin was because the token force of thirty fighters and fighter-bombers were pretty much all the ships they had left there, after the absolute tarring they took at Scarif. The rest of the Rebel fleet either went down in flames or scattered to prevent the Imperial Navy from finding the hidden base. With the ships they had left at Yavin, they might have gotten a few people out, but not enough to keep the Alliance together if Yavin fell. So, Dodonna decided to just go all-in and gamble on the strength of the stolen plans. As for Rieekan, yeah, it turned out he'd made the wrong call, but given what he'd known at the time, it was an entirely reasonable one. I mean, yeah, the station is huge and terrifying, but only an absolute psycho of a bloodthirsty monster would randomly vaporize two billion people and a center of galactic art and culture because he thought it would get him more style points than holding a presser. Unfortunately for Rieekan and Alderaan, Tarkin was in command, and that's exactly the sort of crime against humanity he would pull. That said, while Tarkin's reputation for being ruthless to a psychopathic degree was well known, by the time the Death Star showed up at Alderaan, Rieekan wouldn't have known just how screwed the planet was. The Rebels had no idea of the station's capabilities or leadership at that point, because the plans were wedged inside R2-D2 and just leaving Tatooine about then. Leia, who'd been present at Scarif and had the data for at least a little while before, only found out Tarkin was on board the DS-1 when she was brought before him in person. There was no way Rieekan could have known what the station was capable of or what sort of madman was running it. He might blame himself, but I don't know how he would have decided differently with what he'd known at the time.
@@davidlewis5312 Yeah, there's the decent at worst possibility that attempting an evacuation would've just gotten him and his crews killed alongside everyone else.
I figured it was just hard to find because unlike most of the Empire if you were an incompetent Rebel Officer this problem was quite often self-correcting and fatal
@@carsoncasmirri3874 small likelihood to serve under someone who would be willing to outright kill you sure, but a lot of the Imperial command would rather send anyone who makes even a small mistake to some backwater rather than constructively addressing the mistake and why it was made. Thrawn and his officers were the sole exception.
It could also be because of the Rebellion's cell structure allowed for a lot more reports to "get lost" and any mistakes would generally end witg the cell in question being wiped out without reporting to Rebel command.
A reason it's so hard to find incompetent rebels is because if they were incompetent then they would quickly be killed off. They were fighting against a numerically superior foe with few qualms to their lives.
The thing is, Rebels are the rebel alliance, an alliance of various anti imperial groups. The empire is organized, government regulated, and monolithic. Therefore, it's a lot easier to blame war crimes coming from the top within the empire whereas there is no one single "top" when it comes to the Rebels. The Republic, new republic, etc? That's a whole other story, but as far as the Rebel alliance is concerned, it's not as if we never saw the divide between factions like Mon Mothma's and Saw Gerrera's
I would add to this list the unnamed Rebel Captain who lost his entire crew & the command of his Corellian Corvette to a single Imperial Probe droid right after the Battle of Hoth. Had not for the intervention of Luke and R2D2, a portion of the Rebel main fleet would also have been lost. (see the Original Marvel Comic series)
@@imperialadvisor4880 if I remember correctly it wasn't just a probe droid. It was highly advanced version illegally modified by imperial oficer. The modification included, higher stenght, speed, complete protection from blaster fire and ability to take over the entire ship. Also we literally had seen how it was able to butcher the entire crew while being under done heavy fire.
I'm gonna be fair to Leia for the Death Star Escape. She likely understood the Falcon was bugged, and figured Massassi Group was the one in the best position to destroy the Death Star.
In case of the last one, I think this happened because she decided to fight instead of run. If she ran, the Krynka might just ran after its original preys if it found some of them. Unless it decided the bigger prey is the better option, of course.
@@rossburney8713except those creatures didn't knew what was a human, they would go behind their natural prey as animals in earth do, except polar bears they're starving so much that will go for humans ass well
Running triggers predatory instincts and a compulsion to chase. Even if she wasn't expecting to kill the krykna, it would've been reasonable to assume that standing her ground and getting some shots in could deter any inclination for it to have seen her as viable prey. Of course, it also didn't help that krykna are Force sensitive and empathic as well, reacting hostilely to creatures that fear them, but she had no reasonable way of knowing that.
It's probably telling that a lot of the incompetent rebel leaders are otherwise good commanders with specific deficiencies or bad calls while many of the bad imperials are so terrible they could be mistaken for rebel agents.
@@MasterGhostfI really want some fiction to give some deeper exploration of tension between the Republic Restorationists and the Neo-Separatists in the Rebellion. Like show me a “former” Separatist on Andor making casual reference to the transition to the Empire proving the Separatists were right all along - and a Twi’lek survivor of the occupation of Ry’loth just DECKS THEM in response
Jan Dodanna didn't have the authority to issue an evacuation and he never intended to leave himself, he was coerced to leave by the other high command members, although a number of Bothan high command members remained in Massassi base during the evacuations and were killed by the 501st.
5:30 - regarding the tracking device on the Falcon, there is the argument to be made that she wanted to use them being tracked to lure the Death Star there and keep them there long enough for the attack to succeed, with only an actual rebel base being good enough bait, otherwise the Death Star could've simply retreated.
Idk man that seems really risky. She’s seen what the Death Star can do, she knows that as soon as it shows up, it can very well blow the entire planet to shreds before any of them have time to react And besides, they used that method against the second Death Star, and attacked it where it was, rather than letting it come to them
@@Cmmdre977 The Death Star 2 was in construction and couldn't move, being protected by the shield on Endor, whereas the first was mobile and complete. It is really risky I'll give you that, but 1 and 2 scenarios have enough key differences. They wouldn't necessarily know where the Death Star 1 would go if it doesn't stay around the former Alderaan, and as I said in my comment, the base acts as a way to keep them there vulnerable to attack and exploit their aggression, rather than have to find them and potentially have to contend with an entourage of Star Destroyers. Even if the base gets destroyed (which could be made a lesser blow with evacuations), the starfighters attacking the Death Star could still succeed, say if Luke's bombing run was a minute later, it would be a very sad victory, and as you mention that Leia knows what it can do, I doubt she wants to risk any other populated system, and there is a defenders advantage at play, however small, in planning for a battle on home turf. They are aware during the battle that the Death Star needs time to target them, though I don't know if it's reasonable to assume Leia would think that on the way there. Death Star 2 is a lot more vulnerable than 1, and waiting for it to come to them would be a lot more disadvantageous. I believe the Rebels have amassed a greater force and resources at that point in the war, and they're also working with the assumption it's laser isn't operational along with it's incompleteness. If a Rebel Fleet went against the first operational one, I would assume the cost of victory would be a lot more dire with the chance of capital ships being destroyed as the starfighters all need to focus on attacking the Death Star.
@@Cmmdre977 weak response. War is risk. They either risked stopping it there or they let it chase them for years destroying any planet that would take them. And you fail to recognize that nobody knew the Death Star was under construction until it was already completed. You can’t ambush something being built if it’s already built doofus.
@@Cmmdre977 Unlike the first Death Star, the second one was still in construction and confined to a shield, so it couldn’t move. The first Death Star had a hyperdrive. It could’ve simply gotten away. How were they going to find it anyway? It’s in space.
@@StickNik Although, would Leia really be familiar enough with the Yavin system to know that the gas giant Yavin was currently in a good position to block the 4th moon from the incoming hyperspace lane before she got there?
She intended to hit it. Holdo knew her unique ship would cut through the star destroyer and buy them time to escape. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Holdo had a plan but chose not to say so because she wanted to be a pompous feminist (or at least the writers made her like that) then she caused the mutiny because people doubted her because she didn’t have a plan when she secretly did. Idk what’s worse. Being stupid and incompetent or having something but choosing to put yourself on a high horse which in turn makes yourself look stupid and incompetent
Suprised you didnt throw mon mothma on this list, considering how much she hamstrung the new republic's ability to react to either the vong or the first order, depending on the timeline
Well, Mon Mothma cant really be counted as a military officer, she was a political leader, and her bigger screw ups were as leader of the Republic, not the Rebel Alliance.
She died before the Vong invasion started though. Defense Declarations and New Class program were decent ideas, especially considering the didn't know about Vong. There was nothing much she could do besides that, short of not launching the Rebellion at all.
She likewise was not around (if even still alive) for the colossal failure to act against the First Order. The New Republic military was still strong enough to at least put up a good fight against the First Order had they acted quickly. However, too many of the NR leaders at the time (or outright FO sympathizers or spies) dismissed the threat.
This is essentially how junior officers are in real life. The issue people are forgetting is that most junior officers are 22-24 year old O-1s who just got their 4 year degree and do not have a lot of experience. The ones who do most of the work are senior NCOs.
5:27 Plus Vader literally saw Leia's ship escape from him when he was going for a walk and asked the Rebels how's their health plan in Rogue One movie. Apparently it was great.
The stuff on Leia is actually kinda pitiful - obviously Leia isn't gonna persuade Tarkin not to do exactly what he wants, he is willing to do it without authorization from the emperor for heaven's sake. Its almost certainly not a split second decision, but rather his intention all along he hadn't told other high command about, but either way, she had no chance of stopping him. And she knew the ship was being tracked, she was luring it to one planet full of militants who were the only people who could possibly stop the thing because if they didn't, it was all over either way. And Riekan is a bad commander bcs he's "stern"? Like wth the EU is so freaking weird inventing entirely ridiculous personalities bcs of onscreen presentations that don't match at all. Lots of military commanders are "stern" (and tbh he really isn't he just has a "tough" sounding voice so people make associations).
Besides, I think Leia did everything she could to persuade him. She begged him, citing the planet's pacifistic nature. When that didn't work, she offered up a fake location for the Rebel Base.
So I had watched the video and I had noticed that there was another officer that you might have missed General Draven from Rogue One I'd say he was incompeinent reason why he had issued an order to kill Jyn's father to andor but then ordered a squadron to Edau to kill him when in fact he should have taken her father alive it would have convinced the rebel council to extract the plans with the full rebel fleet at scaif.
But if they took the lead designer and engineer of the Death Star captive the Empire would be worried that the already pretty sus guy would tell the rebels either where the Death Star or Death Star plans are or maybe tell them a potential weakness which would definitely make them beef up both the defense and security on Scarif and the Death Star. If he’s dead however then the Empire can “rest easy” knowing that the suspicious guy with a lot of top secret information on their biggest secret super weapon is dead.
@@howdydoodilly6812 and the point of killing him was potentially stopping the research on the Death Star and keeping it from becoming a reality. No one had any idea that it was basically completed at that point.
@@drosarius5929 you just don’t kill the designer of a super weapon unless you have the plans yourself. This is basic intelligence gathering 101. Unless you have the plans that makes capturing the designer redundant, you capture the designer. Otherwise all you’re doing is wasting time and resources and the head of your intelligence department is not going to be happy.
TBF taking a target alive is incredibly risky to your men. And if you’re sending skilled personnel you have to wiegh if the target is really worth being taken alive IE more valueable then the lives of the soldiers/operatives under your command and if he has information you can’t get some where else in a less risky way. I wouldn’t call it incompetence to kill a target with the hopes of sabotaging a weapons project when you have no way of knowing what he knows or his true motives.
In Dodonna's defense: Rebels would have lost a lot of transports at Scarif (as they took them to battles while the ships had the least chance to escape) so likely not enough to evacuate everyone and everything... And just high command evacuating at that moment would destroy the morale. Which Dodonna would likely know.
I also think that the Rebellion tended to have better officers overall, this is due to the fact that they promoted based on merit as opposed to the empire which promoted many officers based on either political ideology or willingness to stab their comrades in the back.
I always thought that Leia didn't realize they were being tracked until after they had already made the hyperspace jump to Yavin, as sending just 4 TIE Fighters after them was the final confirmation that their escape had been too easy. By that point, the tracker would've already provided enough data on their hyperspace vector that it was too late to go somewhere else to get rid of the tracker.
I kinda feel like some of the rebel officers mentioned didn’t really fit in the realm of incompetent. Carlist for instance seemed to work off of what he knew and from outset seemed a rather intelligent commander, I don’t think anyone could blame him for believing that the empire wouldn’t destroy a entire world, and that if he attempted a evacuation it would only justify its use. Sure it may have been naive to think the empire wouldn’t do it, but even much of the empire was shocked at the barbaric act. Unlike other commanders who may be cowards he was willing to stay behind for his men, he’s in my opinion a very competent commander
Same deal with the A-wing pilot. Those bugs were good at sneaking up on a variety of people, and she was occupied setting up the devices, on a strange planet. The real incompetence isn't her, but rather, her commander, for sending just a single person on a mission on a planet about which little was known.
I don't think Leia would even achieve convincing Tarkin to not destroy Alderran, since Tarkin had already had his mind set. And Darth Vader is very clever in how to hide a tracking device, just imagine the pain to have to find it even with the help of both R2 and 3PO. Even if she did told Luke, Han, Chewie and the droids to search for it, it's going to take them awhile.
Leia had no chance to change Tarkin's mind. His evil was second only to Vader's who was below Palpatine. Though an argument could be made that Tarkin was even more evil then Vader.
This might be out of your purview, but can you do a deep dive on EU character Borsk Fey’lya? He was the single greatest threat to the New Republic right up until his death.
11:35 What his followers say, in truth, he hid in a hole and never achieved anything until the Jedi and clones showed up and were gracious enough to include him in their final push.
I have to play The Son’s advocate here. The Captain of the _Invincible Faith_ was a bit of a paranoid officer, and expected that the intruder was actually tracking the ship so they could be destroyed, and thus had his focus outward rather than inward on a spy who may have had her record inflated by the ISB for the purpose of distraction. Alphabet Squadron was assembled as a way to get rid of troublemakers, so his incompetence was put into a place where it wouldn’t hurt anybody but other failures. The Princess Leia was operating under rather good judgement by sending the _Millennium Falcon_ to Yavin IV immediately. The Death Star’s plans were already under scrutiny from a side far more familiar with them, and any weakness would need to be identified and exploited immediately. Thus, she had to give the Empire a target they could not resist, and quickly. Commander Hill was a traitor, and we thus cannot and will not defend him. General Dodonna was a logistics officer, and not intended to fight on the front lines. His direct command of a battle should never have taken place. As to the evacuation of Yavin, the handful of remaining ships did evacuate those they could, and the command remaining were those who elected to stay. General Rieekan made a mistake. No one can claim not to have done the same. Since that time he learned and took more balanced risks. The insurgent Cham Syndulla was a broken man. He’d fought for so long he couldn’t see beyond his PTSD. Lieutenant Dicer was lost in a terrible accident. To prevent more losses like hers, please consider supporting the Base Delta Zero initiative on Patreon and Kickstarter.
Princess Leia trying to tell Han to go to a netural system and check the Falcon for tracking devices...wouldn't work when he clearly didn't believe anyone could track the Falcon....when Leia told him the Empire was tracking them his responce was Not this Ship.
In the radio drama it's revealed that Leia was well aware the falcon was being tracked Han even offered to go to another planet to remove the bug but she said that there was no time and the data had be translated as soon as possible to fight against the death star.
Lt. Dicer was a literal red shirt character who the main characters didn't bother to even look for despite finding Rex still alive hours after he had likewise been taken by those giant spiders.
Princess Leia wanted to lure the death star into a trap so they could destroy it, she made the right call on that one. It is hard to argue with success.
I would say Hera was a very somewhat very incompetent leader up until a certain point in Rebels. She lead a negotiation force to convince the protectors passage but ends up losing a couple A-wings. Or her attack on Lothal costed her an entire squadron of X-wings which ended in a massive defeat. If anything if you want a fighter squadron leader I wouldn't want Hera to be the lead.
Yeah, both Rebels and Clone Wars had a habit of making whoever they needed to be incompetent that episode a total bumbling fool regardless of that character's track record. Usually it was so that Ezra or Ahsoka could look impressive by being right when these previously legendary characters fumbled the whole deal. Which of course only made it even more glaring in those episodes where Ezra or Ahsoka was supposed to drop the ball so someone else could show them up.
I'm a rebellion fanboy but I like this video a lot because if the faction is too "good" it becomes too hard for me to suspend my disbelief, bottom line is there must be incompetence, corruption and plain stupidity amongst the good guys or things will get predictable and boring
Well, the imperial officers can mostly afford to be incompetent since they can usually just find a fall guy, while an incompetent Rebel Officer? They would die faster than getting a bug hit by a buckshot point blank.
Honestly, I don't think Leia going back to Yavin IV whilst being tracked was a mistake. The Death Star is a giant superweapon with a hyperdrive that can go from one end of the galaxy to the other meaning it'd be impossible to track, let alone with a fleet big enough to destroy it. Leia knew that leading the Empire straight to the Rebel Base was bait they would jump on which is what the Rebels wanted, the Death Star nice and close to their base so they can launch all of their fighters at it in one final attack. It was a risky move but they really had no choice but to do it if they wanted the best shot at blowing up the Death Star.
I wouldn't say that Carlist Rieekan was incompetent. On Hoth, he put up a good defense, retreated, and preserved most of his force when they were cornered by a numerically superior foe led by good leaders like Vader and Veers. An inferior commander like Borsk Fey'lya would've gotten all the rebels killed.
Not to mention Alderaan had what, 2-3 minutes from the time the Death Star showed up until they were all sucking vacuum... Pretty sure any evacuation shuttles wouldn't have made any difference.
Hey Allen, could you make a video or short explaining (or atleast trying to) how every single blaster shot in Andor seems to one-shot everyone, even when hitting extremities. Even though most people we see who get hit and survive in other media like TCW are wearing some kind of (plot)armor, there are still plenty of other examples of relatively unarmored people, like the Rebels, tanking multiple shots, even to more vital areas like the shoulder or chest. This is the first show were blasters are this lethal and even if the show is supposed to be more thrilling and brutal than others its still kinda off-putting. We know that blasters burn through the body and burn it up from the inside but is there anymore info on this? Many thanks, a traveler from a galaxy far, far away
No matter where you get hit at close range, fatal or not, I imagine a blaster hit is going to put you down. Not everyone who falls in a battle dies. There's a lot of wounded who are taken out of a fight from enemy fire.
If the Rebels found out able Sheev’s trap at Endor… they might have abandoned the mission. It’s possible they’d be able to rescue Leia, Han & Chewy and Co. but maybe not. And Luke, even if things went the same, wouldn’t have been able to drag Vader through the Death Star with no one giving a 💩. Of course, Luke could have taken the Empire for himself, keeping Vader alive long enough to officially transfer power. Then he could direct the Death Star to the Rebel base, bringing peace, freedom, justice and security to his new Empire
They weren't abandoning the mission after they were already there. Otherwise, Ackbar would've overruled Lando and attempted to retreat once they did figure out it was a trap. The bigger issue is that they may not have gone after the Empire at Endor with a huge attack in the first place, at least not while the Emperor was there and expecting them. Instead of purposely walking into a trap, they could've waited for a month or two and tried to infiltrate the DS2 itself with saboteurs or some other less conspicuous plan. Even if the Empire moved the station away from Endor, needing to find it again would still probably be less risky.
I wish to point out that the most incompetent Rebel officer was George Lucas himself. The attack on the Death Star was beyond ridiculous and was something that only plot armour could save. 30 fighters attacking a space station equipped with hundreds if not thousands of TIE fighters with less than 30 minutes to do so is ludicrous beyond imagining. The lack of any wingman tactics, fighter cover for the fighters in the trench, the failure to use the Y wings 360 rotating turret to shoot at Vader, and even the lack of any idea of something as simple as the Thatch weave tactic makes Lucas a very incompetent Rebel officer indeed. Which, since Lucas also commanded the Imperial forces as well, it can also by similar measure be said that Lucas is also the Imperial Military's most incompetent officer as well. Mistake me not, Star Wars Ep. 4 is a great piece of cinematic history but the tactics used therein are horrendous by any real world standard.
The Y-wings were modified to remove the rear seat gunner, though, so perhaps that change also locked down the gun. They don't rotate in any of the movies, nor in the X-Wing games, for example.
@@Axterix13 interesting... though it still doesn't really defeat my argument... Lucas's tactics are worse than General Custer's at the Little Bighorn...
@@williamkeogh710 I'd like to always remind everyone that the Jedi are based on the _losers_ of the Japanese Feudal Era, and Lucas straight up said that he wanted a story where the underdogs won, ignoring the fact that whenever underdogs do win in history, it's because they're backed by something bigger, such as the Soviets backing the Vietcong or France and Prussia backing the colonial rebels. Underdogs with no backing? Let's ask who Spartacus is.
In Legends, the Empire only took so long to launch a full scale attack in the first place due to having already quickly blockaded the moon, thus making the evacuation very slow and difficult. In canon, I think the Rebel Alliance did evacuate quickly.
*This just shows that both sides of the good & bad of these generational wars, both sides have make decisions that doesn't fully benefit either party in the long run. Each side has someone or a group of individuales that switch sides every year & even lose their lived because they've switched sids, made careless choices & they paid for it with their lives or someone or many others paid for it with their lives.*
In rebels they made the arquitens literally so weak. There is no way that one b wing or one tie bomber would be enough to take out a light cruiser. But then again, i always keep forgetting that rebels is a kids Show made by Disney. The empire HAS to look stupid, with thrawn as the exception.
At the time Leia anticipated the empire to follow her to Yavin, she hadn't had any idea what the "death star plan" actually is. The original plan is to head back to Alderran after retrieving data from Scarif but her ship was intercepted by Vader near Tatooine. So...if Leia decide to use the rebel base as a bait by going to Yavin knowingly she is being tracked by the empire, she had just made the decision to risk the entire rebellion on her own without consulting anybody in the organisation and bet their lives on a hope that the data in R2 can give them a way to destroy the Death star and find it in time before the said Death star showing up above their heads. Not a great plan.
@@sompongpire3027 she knew what the plans were. Han asked her what R2 was carrying. “The technical readouts of that battle station. I Just hope when analyzed a weakness can be found.” She tells Han. “They’re tracking us.” That the escape was “too easy.” It was a risk. A Gamble. ≠ not smart. < that’s a value judgment and subjective.
@@sompongpire3027 it was a daring plan. Not a bad one. They knew they had to destroy the Death Star. Leaving it functional was a death sentence for the Alliance. Why not bring it where you have the best chance of killing it? Where you have your strength and know the ground. Stop ingesting the schlock this guy puts out. Be critical. This guy is a joke.
Nah, man! Princess Leia was incompetent because of her actions in the Sequels! She tries ordering Poe to break off his attack on the First Order Dreadnought even though she waited until the last possible second, where the Rebel Bombers wouldn’t be able to return to base in time before they were either picked off or the fleet was destroyed by the Dreadnought! She then reprimanded Poe for taking down a fleet killer even though the high casualties were completely on her! She uses the Force to only save herself instead of any of the other senior commanders, like Ackbar! She leaves Holdo in charge and stuns Poe during the mutiny instead of just talking him down. She told no one about the Rebel Base on Crait. She makes Poe, the mutineer, into a General!
@@mapleflag6518 who was such a bad officer that she demanded a mutiny. Her whole plan was to let the Empire kill the ENTIRE rebel fleet just to get to that stupid planet to call for help? 1) Did the long range communications that these ships have all stop working all of a sudden? There’s no reason for secrecy. They’re up your butt and following you at every jump. Why go to this stupid nowhere planet to use outdated salt encrusted equipment? 2) why not just jump directly there and save your fleet? Just because they can track you isn’t an excuse to lead your fleet on a death march. Go to hyperspace and close the distance ffs. Every fleet decision in that movie except for Poe was garbage.
When was the after action report on the destruction of Alderaan written? Given the events of the film happen in just a matter of days (if not hours) then surely the Empire would write the history they want following the subsequent destruction of the Death Star, painting Tarkin as someone acting without anyone else being aware of what he was planning to do.
I can see why so many people still supported the Empire after its collapse, whilst not perfect it still provided stability something the new republic and the republic former couldn't really provide.
I feel like Ryloth is a lot like Haiti. A planet kept down by everyone in the galaxy and which was only known by the Coruscant upper classes for their excellent slaves, they worked for their entire (movies) history to gain freedom.
In the real world NO ONE would follow the main characters. It's just a good way to die. I had officers like that. No one respected them or followed them when the chips were down.
Leia was young and naive and understand what was going around her, so she was easily manipulated because of lack of experience. so won't call her Incompetent and book i am read now it after the fall of the Empire she's fully aware that the Republic could fall again because of its greed, she's the only one who wants to build as army not controlled by the senate, she's trying to win the Space Race by trying to build a new Fleet with all her allies are aware that they are enemies trying to destroy what she doing
The most incompetent Rebel commander is who agreed with absurd Mo(ro)n Mothma's decision of decimation New Republic military before they'll be able to establish peace across the galaxy and suppress imperial warlords in the Outer Rim. Also Rebels military leaders kinda don't have balls in wartime to just say to their own politicians and councilors: Stand down from the military operations, goofiez! Leave it to profies!". Their democratic war council in Rogue One is hilarious: those bla-bla-binkses wants to overrate strong hierarchical imperial war machine?)
Tarkin likely still would have destroyed alderaan anyway, even if leia never joined the rebellion, if i am not mistaken he hated everything alderaan and it's people stood for.
Yeah, Tarkin saw Alderaan and its people along with their ideals as weak and foolish as well as a threat to his Social Darwinist ideas along with being a threat to his personal power as Alderaan's ideals were getting people to question the Empire's cruel oppressive policies constantly so Tarkin thought that destroying the planet and murdering its people would kill those ideals and intimidate everyone else into towing the line. He was SO wrong luckily as resistance to the Empire only became more intense after Alderaan's destruction as people saw just how cruel the Empire was and that they had nothing to lose by fighting as they could be murdered just for being on the wrong planet at the wrong time.
Great vid GenTech. I was also recommend Sarkli from Rogue Squadron 3. He had a major ego and on a mission with Luke he betrayed the Rebels and joined the Empire.
Not sure what I found more ridiculous your reasons for labelling Leia as incompetent or your reasons for labelling Orson Krennic competent. Why didn't she convince Tarkin not to destroy Alderaan? You might as might blame her for not getting Tarkin and Vader to surrender the Death Star to her. Tarkin probably made the decision to destroy Alderaan when he ordered the Death Star to set course to Alderaan. After all what good was the Death Star if one didn't make an example showing off its power and one's willingness to use it? Had the Death Star survived, the Imperial propaganda would have used Alderaan's destruction to try and make the rest of the galaxy submit out of fear they would be next if they rebelled. Why didn't she have Han take a roundabout course to Yavin and try to find the tracking device? They could probably have looked for hours and not found it given the number of places on the hull and in the ship a tracking device could have been placed. I believe that in Star Wars Legends, after Lando uses an anti-tracking system on his ship, Han remarks that he should install one on the Falcon but Lando merely says that trying to map the Falcon's irregular hull would likely drive the system crazy. Besides she was under a serious time crunch to get the plans to the Rebels before it crippled Rebel morale or it destroyed another planet to prove its destructive capabilities. The longer it took the likelier the Death Star would get more protection making any potential attack more difficult. She might also have believed the Empire was capable of tracking them with some other technology like the New Order tracked the Resistance in The Last Jedi making any attempt to find a tracking device a waste of time. Finally she was still recovering from being tortured by Vader and witnessing her homeworld's destruction (and her adoptive family's death). As for her trusting the Queen, Trios was instrumental in rallying the Mon Cala to the Rebel Alliance by helping rescue their king which did provide a compelling reason for Leia to trust her. As for the others, it seems to me you were using single instances to declare someone completely incompetent. -I would question whether Hill Purpura counts as a rebel or incompetent as your sole justification for adding him to the list is based on when he was trying to betray the Rebel Alliance and his plan seemed it would succeed if not for the Rebel Alliance's quick reaction. Not to mention between surviving the Battle of Hoth and rising to the rank of Commander seems to imply that his superiors thought he was somewhat competent. -I would also question whether Cham Syndula counts as either a rebel or incompetent as well. Until his mission with Hera, his group was unaffiliated with the Rebel Alliance and would not have worked with them without Hera. As far as his competency is concerned, he and his group survived first the CIS' and later the Empire's attempts to capture and kill him so he had to have been doing something right. -Lieutenant Dicer seems more a case of bad luck than incompetence as she was operating in an unfamiliar environment that had been declared secure. Even if she had realized the danger she was in a little earlier it is doubtful she would have survived as later in the episode the Ghost crew were nearly overwhelmed as well even after using the Ghost's weapons on the spiders. If she was incompetent simply because she got surprised by the spider then Luke has to be incompetent for being captured by the Wampa on Hoth.
Let's not forget that in Legends, the New Republic's anemic initial response to the Yuuzhan Vong ruined any hope of actually containing the invasion at the Outer Rim. A very sizable portion of the 365+ trillion dead in that conflict probably could've been avoided if Borsk Fey'lya was remotely competent.
In fairness he was a piece time leader going up against an unknown juggernaut I don't think he expected the Vong to be so ridiculously strong.
Edit the only people capable of taking the Vong warriors in single combat were the Jedi and even they struggled against them.
Oh, hell, yes. Borsk Fey'lya and the Vong War really showed that the New Republic was a mistake in the old EU.
@@dred9174 Give your typical soldier a disruptor rifle, and we'll see how long that goes.
@@dred9174 the problem with Fey'lya wasnt necessarily being a peace time leader. As a member of the Bothan intelligence corps he had more than enough knowledge to make strategic decisions. But he was also power-hungry, hated the Jedi and generally distrusted humans (with some good reasons). He had a long running feud with Admiral Ackbar, and for months used the Yuuzhan Vong invasion to browbeat the military as being incompetent while denying their very real danger. He was more concerned about how it made him look than actually facing the threat. In fact, it took him essentially being ordered to give up the Jedi and surrender before he finally grew enough of a spine to counter his own hubris, and even then the Vong still invaded and c9nquered Coruscant. The only thing he ended up doing that helped was blow up the databanks and antenna relays at the Imperial Palace when he died, and even then that was at the cost of trillions of dead or captured. Fey'lya's failures may have been more political, but he was an atrocious military officer because he put personal power ahead of everything, even if his agenda was to benifit the most beings
It's not the Rebell alliance. It's the new Republic.
It's almost worse with Leia, she told Han point blank that they were being tracked. She knew and still made a beeline for the Yavin base
"In short we have one shot to make this right...and it's all Princess Leia's fault."
-Jan Dodanna
"Yeah they wanted us to go, Han! Oh, but please still head for the Rebel base." -Princess Leia's 4000 IQ move (something something Deus Ex Machina retcon The Force Willed It etc. etc.)
I think it was more of a gamble especially since they got the plans to the Death Star. A risky gamble but it won the battle.
Not really. They had every intention of luring the Death Star to Yavin because they had the schematics, which would allow high command to fight a weakness, so they can destroy it.
@@HolyknightVader999 Still risky if one isn't certain about the reliability of the plans cause in Legends they acquired different copies of the plans from simultaneous thefts like one from the Death Star itself and another being more elaborate and discrete.
I wonder if there is some survivorship bias at work explaining why we don’t see more incompetent Rebels. Most Imperial officers commanded their forces from either a Star Destroyer or a safe command center. It was rare for them to die in battle, meaning they could afford to screw up multiple times.
When a rebel cell lost a battle the Empire would kill or torture everyone involved. It could be there were many incompetent Rebels, but none of them lived to repeat their mistakes. Thus the rebellion only ended up with only the individuals competent enough to survive the Empire’s overwhelming technological and numerical advantage.
Essentially it was natural selection. Any rebel cell that had incompetent members/leaders would end up being detected and unable to escape capture. This ending the cell.
They wouldn't always be dead. They could also be slaves, or sleeper agents, but your point still stands. Only the competent ones survive.
That's a pretty neat in-universe explanation for an out-of-universe motivation to show the heroes as being better than their opponents.
I figured the reason General Dodonna and the Rebel high command stuck around at Yavin was because the token force of thirty fighters and fighter-bombers were pretty much all the ships they had left there, after the absolute tarring they took at Scarif. The rest of the Rebel fleet either went down in flames or scattered to prevent the Imperial Navy from finding the hidden base. With the ships they had left at Yavin, they might have gotten a few people out, but not enough to keep the Alliance together if Yavin fell. So, Dodonna decided to just go all-in and gamble on the strength of the stolen plans.
As for Rieekan, yeah, it turned out he'd made the wrong call, but given what he'd known at the time, it was an entirely reasonable one. I mean, yeah, the station is huge and terrifying, but only an absolute psycho of a bloodthirsty monster would randomly vaporize two billion people and a center of galactic art and culture because he thought it would get him more style points than holding a presser.
Unfortunately for Rieekan and Alderaan, Tarkin was in command, and that's exactly the sort of crime against humanity he would pull.
That said, while Tarkin's reputation for being ruthless to a psychopathic degree was well known, by the time the Death Star showed up at Alderaan, Rieekan wouldn't have known just how screwed the planet was. The Rebels had no idea of the station's capabilities or leadership at that point, because the plans were wedged inside R2-D2 and just leaving Tatooine about then. Leia, who'd been present at Scarif and had the data for at least a little while before, only found out Tarkin was on board the DS-1 when she was brought before him in person. There was no way Rieekan could have known what the station was capable of or what sort of madman was running it.
He might blame himself, but I don't know how he would have decided differently with what he'd known at the time.
You call Tarkin a madman a lot but he really isn’t. He isn’t the least bit insane. His Ruthless demeanour is a byproduct of his devotion to palpatine
I will also question how long the station was present before firing. Rieekan and his ships probably didn't have enough time to actually do anything.
@@davidlewis5312 he wouldnt have been able to do anything but survivors guilt can still suffocate people
@@davidlewis5312 Yeah, there's the decent at worst possibility that attempting an evacuation would've just gotten him and his crews killed alongside everyone else.
I figured it was just hard to find because unlike most of the Empire if you were an incompetent Rebel Officer this problem was quite often self-correcting and fatal
It's also true in the Empire's, depending on the commanding officer and their mood...
In which case you get force choked and quickly replaced.
@@Briggers0810 i figured that there was a statistically small likelihood of serving under Vader or Tarkin
@@carsoncasmirri3874 small likelihood to serve under someone who would be willing to outright kill you sure, but a lot of the Imperial command would rather send anyone who makes even a small mistake to some backwater rather than constructively addressing the mistake and why it was made. Thrawn and his officers were the sole exception.
@@kratal122 I think that could be anywhere really but yeah. I’d take a backwater posting over a summary execution any day of the week
It could also be because of the Rebellion's cell structure allowed for a lot more reports to "get lost" and any mistakes would generally end witg the cell in question being wiped out without reporting to Rebel command.
A reason it's so hard to find incompetent rebels is because if they were incompetent then they would quickly be killed off. They were fighting against a numerically superior foe with few qualms to their lives.
The thing is, Rebels are the rebel alliance, an alliance of various anti imperial groups. The empire is organized, government regulated, and monolithic. Therefore, it's a lot easier to blame war crimes coming from the top within the empire whereas there is no one single "top" when it comes to the Rebels. The Republic, new republic, etc? That's a whole other story, but as far as the Rebel alliance is concerned, it's not as if we never saw the divide between factions like Mon Mothma's and Saw Gerrera's
I would add to this list the unnamed Rebel Captain who lost his entire crew & the command of his Corellian Corvette to a single Imperial Probe droid right after the Battle of Hoth. Had not for the intervention of Luke and R2D2, a portion of the Rebel main fleet would also have been lost. (see the Original Marvel Comic series)
Name of the comic?
@@ave390 Star Wars Issue 45 Death Probe - great size comparison of a Star Destroyer and a Corellian Corvette as well.
@@imperialadvisor4880 if I remember correctly it wasn't just a probe droid.
It was highly advanced version illegally modified by imperial oficer. The modification included, higher stenght, speed, complete protection from blaster fire and ability to take over the entire ship.
Also we literally had seen how it was able to butcher the entire crew while being under done heavy fire.
I'm gonna be fair to Leia for the Death Star Escape. She likely understood the Falcon was bugged, and figured Massassi Group was the one in the best position to destroy the Death Star.
In case of the last one, I think this happened because she decided to fight instead of run. If she ran, the Krynka might just ran after its original preys if it found some of them. Unless it decided the bigger prey is the better option, of course.
Also, she was a pilot with a pistol, not an infantry soldier with w shoulder arm.
Would you continue after some little bugs? Or a big, squishy, juicy person?
@@rossburney8713except those creatures didn't knew what was a human, they would go behind their natural prey as animals in earth do, except polar bears they're starving so much that will go for humans ass well
Running triggers predatory instincts and a compulsion to chase. Even if she wasn't expecting to kill the krykna, it would've been reasonable to assume that standing her ground and getting some shots in could deter any inclination for it to have seen her as viable prey.
Of course, it also didn't help that krykna are Force sensitive and empathic as well, reacting hostilely to creatures that fear them, but she had no reasonable way of knowing that.
It's probably telling that a lot of the incompetent rebel leaders are otherwise good commanders with specific deficiencies or bad calls while many of the bad imperials are so terrible they could be mistaken for rebel agents.
Atleast the rebel commands don't have to fight stupid ass power plays against their colleagues.
@@ee-ef8qr eh many rebel groups had issues trusting each other
@@MasterGhostf That's not the same as them undermining each other if two rebel groups didn't want to work together they fucked off.
@@MasterGhostfI really want some fiction to give some deeper exploration of tension between the Republic Restorationists and the Neo-Separatists in the Rebellion.
Like show me a “former” Separatist on Andor making casual reference to the transition to the Empire proving the Separatists were right all along - and a Twi’lek survivor of the occupation of Ry’loth just DECKS THEM in response
Jan Dodanna didn't have the authority to issue an evacuation and he never intended to leave himself, he was coerced to leave by the other high command members, although a number of Bothan high command members remained in Massassi base during the evacuations and were killed by the 501st.
5:30 - regarding the tracking device on the Falcon, there is the argument to be made that she wanted to use them being tracked to lure the Death Star there and keep them there long enough for the attack to succeed, with only an actual rebel base being good enough bait, otherwise the Death Star could've simply retreated.
Idk man that seems really risky. She’s seen what the Death Star can do, she knows that as soon as it shows up, it can very well blow the entire planet to shreds before any of them have time to react
And besides, they used that method against the second Death Star, and attacked it where it was, rather than letting it come to them
@@Cmmdre977 The Death Star 2 was in construction and couldn't move, being protected by the shield on Endor, whereas the first was mobile and complete. It is really risky I'll give you that, but 1 and 2 scenarios have enough key differences.
They wouldn't necessarily know where the Death Star 1 would go if it doesn't stay around the former Alderaan, and as I said in my comment, the base acts as a way to keep them there vulnerable to attack and exploit their aggression, rather than have to find them and potentially have to contend with an entourage of Star Destroyers. Even if the base gets destroyed (which could be made a lesser blow with evacuations), the starfighters attacking the Death Star could still succeed, say if Luke's bombing run was a minute later, it would be a very sad victory, and as you mention that Leia knows what it can do, I doubt she wants to risk any other populated system, and there is a defenders advantage at play, however small, in planning for a battle on home turf. They are aware during the battle that the Death Star needs time to target them, though I don't know if it's reasonable to assume Leia would think that on the way there.
Death Star 2 is a lot more vulnerable than 1, and waiting for it to come to them would be a lot more disadvantageous. I believe the Rebels have amassed a greater force and resources at that point in the war, and they're also working with the assumption it's laser isn't operational along with it's incompleteness. If a Rebel Fleet went against the first operational one, I would assume the cost of victory would be a lot more dire with the chance of capital ships being destroyed as the starfighters all need to focus on attacking the Death Star.
@@Cmmdre977 weak response. War is risk. They either risked stopping it there or they let it chase them for years destroying any planet that would take them. And you fail to recognize that nobody knew the Death Star was under construction until it was already completed. You can’t ambush something being built if it’s already built doofus.
@@Cmmdre977
Unlike the first Death Star, the second one was still in construction and confined to a shield, so it couldn’t move. The first Death Star had a hyperdrive. It could’ve simply gotten away. How were they going to find it anyway? It’s in space.
@@StickNik Although, would Leia really be familiar enough with the Yavin system to know that the gas giant Yavin was currently in a good position to block the 4th moon from the incoming hyperspace lane before she got there?
9: Vice Admiral Holdo, she attempted to escape, but hit a super star destroyer instead because she didn't know how to drive.
She intended to hit it. Holdo knew her unique ship would cut through the star destroyer and buy them time to escape. She knew exactly what she was doing.
@@Mike1064ab Duh
@@Mike1064ab Holdo knows exactly what she was doing? I have my doubts about that.
What I'm certain is that the writers don't know what they're doing.
Holdo had a plan but chose not to say so because she wanted to be a pompous feminist (or at least the writers made her like that) then she caused the mutiny because people doubted her because she didn’t have a plan when she secretly did. Idk what’s worse. Being stupid and incompetent or having something but choosing to put yourself on a high horse which in turn makes yourself look stupid and incompetent
Uh, Holdo was with the resistance, not the rebellion. get your facts straight before pointing them out
Suprised you didnt throw mon mothma on this list, considering how much she hamstrung the new republic's ability to react to either the vong or the first order, depending on the timeline
Well, Mon Mothma cant really be counted as a military officer, she was a political leader, and her bigger screw ups were as leader of the Republic, not the Rebel Alliance.
She died before the Vong invasion started though. Defense Declarations and New Class program were decent ideas, especially considering the didn't know about Vong. There was nothing much she could do besides that, short of not launching the Rebellion at all.
She likewise was not around (if even still alive) for the colossal failure to act against the First Order. The New Republic military was still strong enough to at least put up a good fight against the First Order had they acted quickly. However, too many of the NR leaders at the time (or outright FO sympathizers or spies) dismissed the threat.
This is essentially how junior officers are in real life. The issue people are forgetting is that most junior officers are 22-24 year old O-1s who just got their 4 year degree and do not have a lot of experience. The ones who do most of the work are senior NCOs.
The 0-1 is the catterpie of the officer class
5:27 Plus Vader literally saw Leia's ship escape from him when he was going for a walk and asked the Rebels how's their health plan in Rogue One movie.
Apparently it was great.
This feels like a Robot Chicken episode I'd love to see!
And Leia activated Vader’s trap card. Unfortunately for Vader, she turned it back on him.
Nice Hellaing Abridged reference.
This isn't as much of an Incompetent rebel officers list as it is an Incompetent event list.
Oof. Leia is lucky they didn't bust her down to kitchen duty after that Rebel fleet disaster.
Goated comment 🐐😂
That's the problem with royalty.
@@lucagerulat307 said royalty that provides much of the Alliance budget
@@keithkahler1327 wich doesn't make them good military commanders by default.
Ugh
The stuff on Leia is actually kinda pitiful - obviously Leia isn't gonna persuade Tarkin not to do exactly what he wants, he is willing to do it without authorization from the emperor for heaven's sake. Its almost certainly not a split second decision, but rather his intention all along he hadn't told other high command about, but either way, she had no chance of stopping him. And she knew the ship was being tracked, she was luring it to one planet full of militants who were the only people who could possibly stop the thing because if they didn't, it was all over either way.
And Riekan is a bad commander bcs he's "stern"? Like wth the EU is so freaking weird inventing entirely ridiculous personalities bcs of onscreen presentations that don't match at all. Lots of military commanders are "stern" (and tbh he really isn't he just has a "tough" sounding voice so people make associations).
Besides, I think Leia did everything she could to persuade him. She begged him, citing the planet's pacifistic nature. When that didn't work, she offered up a fake location for the Rebel Base.
So I had watched the video and I had noticed that there was another officer that you might have missed General Draven from Rogue One I'd say he was incompeinent reason why he had issued an order to kill Jyn's father to andor but then ordered a squadron to Edau to kill him when in fact he should have taken her father alive it would have convinced the rebel council to extract the plans with the full rebel fleet at scaif.
But if they took the lead designer and engineer of the Death Star captive the Empire would be worried that the already pretty sus guy would tell the rebels either where the Death Star or Death Star plans are or maybe tell them a potential weakness which would definitely make them beef up both the defense and security on Scarif and the Death Star. If he’s dead however then the Empire can “rest easy” knowing that the suspicious guy with a lot of top secret information on their biggest secret super weapon is dead.
@@howdydoodilly6812 Kill everyone but him, blow up the base.
The suspicious guy is officially dead but still can cooperate.
@@howdydoodilly6812 and the point of killing him was potentially stopping the research on the Death Star and keeping it from becoming a reality. No one had any idea that it was basically completed at that point.
@@drosarius5929 you just don’t kill the designer of a super weapon unless you have the plans yourself. This is basic intelligence gathering 101. Unless you have the plans that makes capturing the designer redundant, you capture the designer. Otherwise all you’re doing is wasting time and resources and the head of your intelligence department is not going to be happy.
TBF taking a target alive is incredibly risky to your men. And if you’re sending skilled personnel you have to wiegh if the target is really worth being taken alive IE more valueable then the lives of the soldiers/operatives under your command and if he has information you can’t get some where else in a less risky way. I wouldn’t call it incompetence to kill a target with the hopes of sabotaging a weapons project when you have no way of knowing what he knows or his true motives.
In Dodonna's defense: Rebels would have lost a lot of transports at Scarif (as they took them to battles while the ships had the least chance to escape) so likely not enough to evacuate everyone and everything... And just high command evacuating at that moment would destroy the morale. Which Dodonna would likely know.
I also think that the Rebellion tended to have better officers overall, this is due to the fact that they promoted based on merit as opposed to the empire which promoted many officers based on either political ideology or willingness to stab their comrades in the back.
Aah, yes, the Sith proclivity of Klingon Promotion.
or they brought their way in because they're from rich families
I always thought that Leia didn't realize they were being tracked until after they had already made the hyperspace jump to Yavin, as sending just 4 TIE Fighters after them was the final confirmation that their escape had been too easy. By that point, the tracker would've already provided enough data on their hyperspace vector that it was too late to go somewhere else to get rid of the tracker.
I kinda feel like some of the rebel officers mentioned didn’t really fit in the realm of incompetent.
Carlist for instance seemed to work off of what he knew and from outset seemed a rather intelligent commander, I don’t think anyone could blame him for believing that the empire wouldn’t destroy a entire world, and that if he attempted a evacuation it would only justify its use.
Sure it may have been naive to think the empire wouldn’t do it, but even much of the empire was shocked at the barbaric act.
Unlike other commanders who may be cowards he was willing to stay behind for his men, he’s in my opinion a very competent commander
Same deal with the A-wing pilot. Those bugs were good at sneaking up on a variety of people, and she was occupied setting up the devices, on a strange planet. The real incompetence isn't her, but rather, her commander, for sending just a single person on a mission on a planet about which little was known.
Leia's biggest failure: Allowing someone like Holdo in a high command position.
All Carlist Rieekan ever wanted was a Waldorf salad
I don't think Leia would even achieve convincing Tarkin to not destroy Alderran, since Tarkin had already had his mind set. And Darth Vader is very clever in how to hide a tracking device, just imagine the pain to have to find it even with the help of both R2 and 3PO. Even if she did told Luke, Han, Chewie and the droids to search for it, it's going to take them awhile.
Leia had no chance to change Tarkin's mind. His evil was second only to Vader's who was below Palpatine. Though an argument could be made that Tarkin was even more evil then Vader.
This might be out of your purview, but can you do a deep dive on EU character Borsk Fey’lya? He was the single greatest threat to the New Republic right up until his death.
11:35 What his followers say, in truth, he hid in a hole and never achieved anything until the Jedi and clones showed up and were gracious enough to include him in their final push.
I have to play The Son’s advocate here.
The Captain of the _Invincible Faith_ was a bit of a paranoid officer, and expected that the intruder was actually tracking the ship so they could be destroyed, and thus had his focus outward rather than inward on a spy who may have had her record inflated by the ISB for the purpose of distraction.
Alphabet Squadron was assembled as a way to get rid of troublemakers, so his incompetence was put into a place where it wouldn’t hurt anybody but other failures.
The Princess Leia was operating under rather good judgement by sending the _Millennium Falcon_ to Yavin IV immediately. The Death Star’s plans were already under scrutiny from a side far more familiar with them, and any weakness would need to be identified and exploited immediately. Thus, she had to give the Empire a target they could not resist, and quickly.
Commander Hill was a traitor, and we thus cannot and will not defend him.
General Dodonna was a logistics officer, and not intended to fight on the front lines. His direct command of a battle should never have taken place. As to the evacuation of Yavin, the handful of remaining ships did evacuate those they could, and the command remaining were those who elected to stay.
General Rieekan made a mistake. No one can claim not to have done the same. Since that time he learned and took more balanced risks.
The insurgent Cham Syndulla was a broken man. He’d fought for so long he couldn’t see beyond his PTSD.
Lieutenant Dicer was lost in a terrible accident. To prevent more losses like hers, please consider supporting the Base Delta Zero initiative on Patreon and Kickstarter.
Princess Leia trying to tell Han to go to a netural system and check the Falcon for tracking devices...wouldn't work when he clearly didn't believe anyone could track the Falcon....when Leia told him the Empire was tracking them his responce was Not this Ship.
Ah LT. Dicer we hardly knew ye
Remember Kids, Anakin charged his own Padawan for these Courses, but gave her 10% off.
At least that's what Not Anakin said to Not Obi-Wan
Nice that’s pretty good and seamless
In the radio drama it's revealed that Leia was well aware the falcon was being tracked Han even offered to go to another planet to remove the bug but she said that there was no time and the data had be translated as soon as possible to fight against the death star.
Lt. Dicer was a literal red shirt character who the main characters didn't bother to even look for despite finding Rex still alive hours after he had likewise been taken by those giant spiders.
I'm with you!
Lieutenant Dicer's name is pretty accurate. She really did get diced
Leia knew they were being tracked, I guess for some reason she thought it was a time sensitive matter.
A pox on ALL their houses!
I find it funny that people on the competent list are on the incompetent list
Princess Leia wanted to lure the death star into a trap so they could destroy it, she made the right call on that one. It is hard to argue with success.
I think its more accurate to call this a video showcasing mistakes rather than incompetence
Thanks! I've been waiting for this for a while!
I would say Hera was a very somewhat very incompetent leader up until a certain point in Rebels.
She lead a negotiation force to convince the protectors passage but ends up losing a couple A-wings. Or her attack on Lothal costed her an entire squadron of X-wings which ended in a massive defeat.
If anything if you want a fighter squadron leader I wouldn't want Hera to be the lead.
To be fair, Hera lost that squadron going up directly against a well-equipped Grand Admiral Thrawn.
One word: Holdo.
Great video !
Yeah, both Rebels and Clone Wars had a habit of making whoever they needed to be incompetent that episode a total bumbling fool regardless of that character's track record. Usually it was so that Ezra or Ahsoka could look impressive by being right when these previously legendary characters fumbled the whole deal. Which of course only made it even more glaring in those episodes where Ezra or Ahsoka was supposed to drop the ball so someone else could show them up.
Please could you cover top 10 most competent and most incompetent Separatists?!
Let’s not forget that the first guy left her helmet in her cell with her.
I'm a rebellion fanboy but I like this video a lot because if the faction is too "good" it becomes too hard for me to suspend my disbelief, bottom line is there must be incompetence, corruption and plain stupidity amongst the good guys or things will get predictable and boring
I having Andor withdrawals, this is like methadone its good but doesn't satisfy that craving..
Well, the imperial officers can mostly afford to be incompetent since they can usually just find a fall guy, while an incompetent Rebel Officer? They would die faster than getting a bug hit by a buckshot point blank.
8:11 Holy hell this guy looks cool.
Honestly, I don't think Leia going back to Yavin IV whilst being tracked was a mistake. The Death Star is a giant superweapon with a hyperdrive that can go from one end of the galaxy to the other meaning it'd be impossible to track, let alone with a fleet big enough to destroy it. Leia knew that leading the Empire straight to the Rebel Base was bait they would jump on which is what the Rebels wanted, the Death Star nice and close to their base so they can launch all of their fighters at it in one final attack. It was a risky move but they really had no choice but to do it if they wanted the best shot at blowing up the Death Star.
I wouldn't say that Carlist Rieekan was incompetent. On Hoth, he put up a good defense, retreated, and preserved most of his force when they were cornered by a numerically superior foe led by good leaders like Vader and Veers. An inferior commander like Borsk Fey'lya would've gotten all the rebels killed.
Not to mention Alderaan had what, 2-3 minutes from the time the Death Star showed up until they were all sucking vacuum... Pretty sure any evacuation shuttles wouldn't have made any difference.
@@logansmall5148 I was gonna say that, he really didn't have a choice
Hey Allen,
could you make a video or short explaining (or atleast trying to) how every single blaster shot in Andor seems to one-shot everyone, even when hitting extremities. Even though most people we see who get hit and survive in other media like TCW are wearing some kind of (plot)armor, there are still plenty of other examples of relatively unarmored people, like the Rebels, tanking multiple shots, even to more vital areas like the shoulder or chest. This is the first show were blasters are this lethal and even if the show is supposed to be more thrilling and brutal than others its still kinda off-putting. We know that blasters burn through the body and burn it up from the inside but is there anymore info on this?
Many thanks,
a traveler from a galaxy far, far away
I mean the pain caused by a red hot bolt of plasma striking any part of you must be excruciating
No matter where you get hit at close range, fatal or not, I imagine a blaster hit is going to put you down. Not everyone who falls in a battle dies. There's a lot of wounded who are taken out of a fight from enemy fire.
In the 3rd episode Andor takes a shot to the arm and lives.
@@Forever_orwhatever Yeah who the hell gets shot in an extremity and dies? I wanna know why people are shot in the gut and die immediately.
@@WillyShankspeare because it cooked his inside and organs
Vice Admiral Holdo. Terrible forces commander. Terrible character.
Blaming anything related to Alderaan on anyone except Tarkin is quite a stretch.
Borscht Fey'la. Not an officer... but he was CIC for the New Republic in some of its darkest days in the superior canon, also known as legends.
I see Allen likes to point fingers at losers.
Now I'm not saying you're wrong, but including the lady that got eaten by a giant spider kind of feels like it's just rubbing it in
If the Rebels found out able Sheev’s trap at Endor… they might have abandoned the mission. It’s possible they’d be able to rescue Leia, Han & Chewy and Co. but maybe not. And Luke, even if things went the same, wouldn’t have been able to drag Vader through the Death Star with no one giving a 💩.
Of course, Luke could have taken the Empire for himself, keeping Vader alive long enough to officially transfer power. Then he could direct the Death Star to the Rebel base, bringing peace, freedom, justice and security to his new Empire
They weren't abandoning the mission after they were already there. Otherwise, Ackbar would've overruled Lando and attempted to retreat once they did figure out it was a trap.
The bigger issue is that they may not have gone after the Empire at Endor with a huge attack in the first place, at least not while the Emperor was there and expecting them. Instead of purposely walking into a trap, they could've waited for a month or two and tried to infiltrate the DS2 itself with saboteurs or some other less conspicuous plan. Even if the Empire moved the station away from Endor, needing to find it again would still probably be less risky.
Hey allen, why arent staring your videos with your classique intro anymore?
Long have we waited
Then again the rebels proabbly didn't need to worry given they had a horde of hungry murder bears as allies.
Fugent by lupus nocte is playing in the background by the was
Just when one thinks they know all things Star Wars, Allen sez, "Hold my beer" !
I wish to point out that the most incompetent Rebel officer was George Lucas himself. The attack on the Death Star was beyond ridiculous and was something that only plot armour could save. 30 fighters attacking a space station equipped with hundreds if not thousands of TIE fighters with less than 30 minutes to do so is ludicrous beyond imagining. The lack of any wingman tactics, fighter cover for the fighters in the trench, the failure to use the Y wings 360 rotating turret to shoot at Vader, and even the lack of any idea of something as simple as the Thatch weave tactic makes Lucas a very incompetent Rebel officer indeed.
Which, since Lucas also commanded the Imperial forces as well, it can also by similar measure be said that Lucas is also the Imperial Military's most incompetent officer as well.
Mistake me not, Star Wars Ep. 4 is a great piece of cinematic history but the tactics used therein are horrendous by any real world standard.
The Y-wings were modified to remove the rear seat gunner, though, so perhaps that change also locked down the gun. They don't rotate in any of the movies, nor in the X-Wing games, for example.
@@Axterix13 interesting... though it still doesn't really defeat my argument... Lucas's tactics are worse than General Custer's at the Little Bighorn...
@@williamkeogh710 I'd like to always remind everyone that the Jedi are based on the _losers_ of the Japanese Feudal Era, and Lucas straight up said that he wanted a story where the underdogs won, ignoring the fact that whenever underdogs do win in history, it's because they're backed by something bigger, such as the Soviets backing the Vietcong or France and Prussia backing the colonial rebels. Underdogs with no backing? Let's ask who Spartacus is.
One of the dumbest moves the rebels made was staying after the death star was destroyed cuz the empire came and attacked them months later.
In Legends, the Empire only took so long to launch a full scale attack in the first place due to having already quickly blockaded the moon, thus making the evacuation very slow and difficult.
In canon, I think the Rebel Alliance did evacuate quickly.
Be honest, Alan:
How hard of a pump did you get before recording this vid? Mans is Generation Swole.
*This just shows that both sides of the good & bad of these generational wars, both sides have make decisions that doesn't fully benefit either party in the long run. Each side has someone or a group of individuales that switch sides every year & even lose their lived because they've switched sids, made careless choices & they paid for it with their lives or someone or many others paid for it with their lives.*
In rebels they made the arquitens literally so weak. There is no way that one b wing or one tie bomber would be enough to take out a light cruiser. But then again, i always keep forgetting that rebels is a kids Show made by Disney. The empire HAS to look stupid, with thrawn as the exception.
Thrawn is always the exception.
Pretty sure Leia led the Death Star to Yavin on purpose. She knew they were being tracked.
Maybe that was her intention as a huge gamble, leading a prized target after another juicy one so they can destroy it.
At the time Leia anticipated the empire to follow her to Yavin, she hadn't had any idea what the "death star plan" actually is. The original plan is to head back to Alderran after retrieving data from Scarif but her ship was intercepted by Vader near Tatooine. So...if Leia decide to use the rebel base as a bait by going to Yavin knowingly she is being tracked by the empire, she had just made the decision to risk the entire rebellion on her own without consulting anybody in the organisation and bet their lives on a hope that the data in R2 can give them a way to destroy the Death star and find it in time before the said Death star showing up above their heads.
Not a great plan.
@@sompongpire3027 she knew what the plans were. Han asked her what R2 was carrying. “The technical readouts of that battle station. I Just hope when analyzed a weakness can be found.” She tells Han. “They’re tracking us.” That the escape was “too easy.”
It was a risk. A Gamble. ≠ not smart. < that’s a value judgment and subjective.
@@sompongpire3027 it was a daring plan. Not a bad one. They knew they had to destroy the Death Star. Leaving it functional was a death sentence for the Alliance. Why not bring it where you have the best chance of killing it? Where you have your strength and know the ground.
Stop ingesting the schlock this guy puts out. Be critical. This guy is a joke.
Hey Generation Tech, do you think you can make more competent and incompetent videos but on the separatist leaders?
Ik she wasn't a republic leader but shaak ti was if she would've bought it straight to the council instead of palpatine would've save the order
Nah, man! Princess Leia was incompetent because of her actions in the Sequels! She tries ordering Poe to break off his attack on the First Order Dreadnought even though she waited until the last possible second, where the Rebel Bombers wouldn’t be able to return to base in time before they were either picked off or the fleet was destroyed by the Dreadnought! She then reprimanded Poe for taking down a fleet killer even though the high casualties were completely on her! She uses the Force to only save herself instead of any of the other senior commanders, like Ackbar! She leaves Holdo in charge and stuns Poe during the mutiny instead of just talking him down. She told no one about the Rebel Base on Crait. She makes Poe, the mutineer, into a General!
To be fair, he was mutinying against Holdo.
@@mapleflag6518 who was such a bad officer that she demanded a mutiny. Her whole plan was to let the Empire kill the ENTIRE rebel fleet just to get to that stupid planet to call for help?
1) Did the long range communications that these ships have all stop working all of a sudden? There’s no reason for secrecy. They’re up your butt and following you at every jump. Why go to this stupid nowhere planet to use outdated salt encrusted equipment?
2) why not just jump directly there and save your fleet? Just because they can track you isn’t an excuse to lead your fleet on a death march. Go to hyperspace and close the distance ffs.
Every fleet decision in that movie except for Poe was garbage.
@@drosarius5929 Yup. They should have just shot her.
Me as a dje hard imperial, this video gives me joy
Unlike the Empire who killed their incompetent officers at least the ones in the Rebellion were able to learn lessons & would become better.
That purple haired “admiral” should be number 1
Dicer was an epic fail🤣
When was the after action report on the destruction of Alderaan written? Given the events of the film happen in just a matter of days (if not hours) then surely the Empire would write the history they want following the subsequent destruction of the Death Star, painting Tarkin as someone acting without anyone else being aware of what he was planning to do.
I can see why so many people still supported the Empire after its collapse, whilst not perfect it still provided stability something the new republic and the republic former couldn't really provide.
Legends offer's fertile Ground for incompetent New Republic officers. There are so many I can't even remember them all.
I feel like Ryloth is a lot like Haiti. A planet kept down by everyone in the galaxy and which was only known by the Coruscant upper classes for their excellent slaves, they worked for their entire (movies) history to gain freedom.
In the real world NO ONE would follow the main characters. It's just a good way to die. I had officers like that. No one respected them or followed them when the chips were down.
Rebels turned Dodonna into a soft little sad teddy bear.
The last on this list kinda feels like a cheap shot
Leia was young and naive and understand what was going around her, so she was easily manipulated because of lack of experience.
so won't call her Incompetent and book i am read now it after the fall of the Empire she's fully aware that the Republic could fall again because of its greed,
she's the only one who wants to build as army not controlled by the senate, she's trying to win the Space Race by trying to build a new Fleet
with all her allies are aware that they are enemies trying to destroy what she doing
Well the Tantive 4 was not "tracked down" exactly, it was followed.
0:25 History is written by the victors who don't want their dirty laundry to be shown and make themselves look good to the public, Generation Tech.
The most incompetent Rebel commander is who agreed with absurd Mo(ro)n Mothma's decision of decimation New Republic military before they'll be able to establish peace across the galaxy and suppress imperial warlords in the Outer Rim.
Also Rebels military leaders kinda don't have balls in wartime to just say to their own politicians and councilors: Stand down from the military operations, goofiez! Leave it to profies!". Their democratic war council in Rogue One is hilarious: those bla-bla-binkses wants to overrate strong hierarchical imperial war machine?)
Could you guys do a video matching war hammer 40k space marine legions and match them with starwars leaders? I have been wanting this for awhile 😅
A great video as usual and the Lego Tie Fighter is upright again, but also has one bent wing.
Tarkin likely still would have destroyed alderaan anyway, even if leia never joined the rebellion, if i am not mistaken he hated everything alderaan and it's people stood for.
Yeah, Tarkin saw Alderaan and its people along with their ideals as weak and foolish as well as a threat to his Social Darwinist ideas along with being a threat to his personal power as Alderaan's ideals were getting people to question the Empire's cruel oppressive policies constantly so Tarkin thought that destroying the planet and murdering its people would kill those ideals and intimidate everyone else into towing the line.
He was SO wrong luckily as resistance to the Empire only became more intense after Alderaan's destruction as people saw just how cruel the Empire was and that they had nothing to lose by fighting as they could be murdered just for being on the wrong planet at the wrong time.
@@girlgarde maybe palpatine should have put someone with a caution in charge of the death star.
@@CloneScavengerVulpin8389 Agreed. Who would be counted on to not blow up Alderaan or at least only do so with the Emperor's consent?
@@girlgarde yularen.
@@girlgarde or thrawn.
Great vid GenTech. I was also recommend Sarkli from Rogue Squadron 3. He had a major ego and on a mission with Luke he betrayed the Rebels and joined the Empire.
That’s not incompetent you ass. He was a TRAITOR. He deliberately screwed them over.
@@drosarius5929 Wow ok, a bit harsh there. No need for insults.
Not sure what I found more ridiculous your reasons for labelling Leia as incompetent or your reasons for labelling Orson Krennic competent.
Why didn't she convince Tarkin not to destroy Alderaan? You might as might blame her for not getting Tarkin and Vader to surrender the Death Star to her. Tarkin probably made the decision to destroy Alderaan when he ordered the Death Star to set course to Alderaan. After all what good was the Death Star if one didn't make an example showing off its power and one's willingness to use it? Had the Death Star survived, the Imperial propaganda would have used Alderaan's destruction to try and make the rest of the galaxy submit out of fear they would be next if they rebelled.
Why didn't she have Han take a roundabout course to Yavin and try to find the tracking device? They could probably have looked for hours and not found it given the number of places on the hull and in the ship a tracking device could have been placed. I believe that in Star Wars Legends, after Lando uses an anti-tracking system on his ship, Han remarks that he should install one on the Falcon but Lando merely says that trying to map the Falcon's irregular hull would likely drive the system crazy. Besides she was under a serious time crunch to get the plans to the Rebels before it crippled Rebel morale or it destroyed another planet to prove its destructive capabilities. The longer it took the likelier the Death Star would get more protection making any potential attack more difficult. She might also have believed the Empire was capable of tracking them with some other technology like the New Order tracked the Resistance in The Last Jedi making any attempt to find a tracking device a waste of time. Finally she was still recovering from being tortured by Vader and witnessing her homeworld's destruction (and her adoptive family's death).
As for her trusting the Queen, Trios was instrumental in rallying the Mon Cala to the Rebel Alliance by helping rescue their king which did provide a compelling reason for Leia to trust her.
As for the others, it seems to me you were using single instances to declare someone completely incompetent.
-I would question whether Hill Purpura counts as a rebel or incompetent as your sole justification for adding him to the list is based on when he was trying to betray the Rebel Alliance and his plan seemed it would succeed if not for the Rebel Alliance's quick reaction. Not to mention between surviving the Battle of Hoth and rising to the rank of Commander seems to imply that his superiors thought he was somewhat competent.
-I would also question whether Cham Syndula counts as either a rebel or incompetent as well. Until his mission with Hera, his group was unaffiliated with the Rebel Alliance and would not have worked with them without Hera. As far as his competency is concerned, he and his group survived first the CIS' and later the Empire's attempts to capture and kill him so he had to have been doing something right.
-Lieutenant Dicer seems more a case of bad luck than incompetence as she was operating in an unfamiliar environment that had been declared secure. Even if she had realized the danger she was in a little earlier it is doubtful she would have survived as later in the episode the Ghost crew were nearly overwhelmed as well even after using the Ghost's weapons on the spiders. If she was incompetent simply because she got surprised by the spider then Luke has to be incompetent for being captured by the Wampa on Hoth.
No saw? The empire was trying to frame the rebels as bloodthirsty criminals and his actions only reinforced that.
I don't think he was ever officially a commander the way Syndulla was.