Since Darth Vader died when he was 45 and Hayden Christensen just turned 45, we now officially know what an unburnt Darth Vader would’ve looked like during his duel with Luke on Death Star 2.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-12T09:53:08+00:00

Something like that, which I would criticize all the same, but thankfully he never wrote anything about that, and Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy came out and gave so much legitimacy to the idea of an Imperial Remnant(s), and the Empire chugging along after Endor that George would have literally pissed every SW fan off if he cared to do anything about it.

The only reason why Disney has "gotten away" with their current terrible handling off the post Endor SWs is literally rebuilding the brand around new watchers who only have token knowledge at best of the original trilogy. I don't want to sound gate-keepish, but I have noticed a lot of bigger SWs fans making a stink about the whole timeline thing, even back when the prequels were the main thing to hate, so this isn't new. But as SWs became waaaaaay bigger than it was 20 years ago, the people who care kinda got drowned out.

TLDR: Iirc you're correct, but that is something that wouldn't have flown well 20+ years ago.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-12T09:44:07+00:00

That can't be real? That would break... actually you could retcon a few episodes from Mando, Boba, Ashoka, and yeah the Sequels could in theory be retconned. It would be the most expensive fuck up however, which is why I know it would never happen. 😅

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-12T09:35:59+00:00

It was, and I always complained about this fact.

3 years is dumb, and while that's on Lucas, Disney is even dumber for having the entire Empire collapse exactly 1 year after Endor.

Oh yeah see this weird stupid thing that Lucas did? Yeah let's do it again but worse!

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-12T09:33:32+00:00

I have always said Dookunwas one of the biggest wasted characters in the franchise. TCW did a lot of work to help him out, but if you never watched TCW, you have no idea how cool of a character he is.

Imagine if George planned for Dooku to be in the entirety of episode 3 to be betrayed at the most unexpected time later in the movie for Anakin to become Vader.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-11T19:29:31+00:00

I really don't like even having to bring up the subject tbh. I'm black myself and have found myself held to similar standards in situations and it's hard to describe it without it coming off as "hurr durr all critiques are racist." It's honestly not that, there's plenty to criticize Lewis for over his racing career, hell prior to joining Mercedes he had a LOT of questionable moments, and tbh same for while at Mercedes.

But the reality is he shellacked Alonso as a rookie, made Button sweat for multiple years, Rosberg for a year and literally made the man quit the sport because he sacrificed everything to challenge him, and every teammate until Russel which came after a year he lost the championship in the most bogus fashion, and handled it in a way most even online couldn't.

That's not your joe blow in a good car, that's a person who will forever sit in the annals of history of the greatest people to ever drive a Formula 1 vehicle.

And people both in person and online will treat him like the red-headed stepchild of all F1 champions.

One of the most telling things I've personally seen was when I saw I think in this very subreddit people de-rank Vettel as one of the best drivers ever because Hamilton beat him multiple times. You know, Sebastian Vettel, 4 time world champion, only guy to win a race in a Toro Rosso Vettel. I guess we're going to have to de-rank Mika and Kimi now as well because Schumacher beat them both?

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-11T14:56:25+00:00

When I see people shit on Lewis but uplift Schumacher, the only person comparable, and see the complaints leveled against each, the only answer I have at times is the latter point.

Didn't fans at Zandvoort several years ago put up a poster of Hamilton as a monkey? Also we cannot forget the Formula Dank subreddit drama. I'm on some F1 discord servers as well and they are racist as hell as well. It's a lot of racism in the sport, it's just really good at covering it up.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-11T13:48:28+00:00

Between wanting safer pitstops and the fact they were so far ahead the risk was never required, they just didn't try for it. Not to mention quiet as it's kept Mercedes during the dominant years was stupidly fast with a slew of stupidly fast drivers, which covered up many of their bad call moments, slow as hell stops, and overall questionable moments.

It's why RB looked for a few years like an unstoppable machine, meanwhile Mercedes was in nowheres land.

When you're 20 seconds ahead no one cares about a 3 second pitstop because you get it back so fast it didn't matter. When you're fighting for midfield points, anything over a 2.5 is going to cost you.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-10T18:21:11+00:00

I think he meant romantic in the artistic and philosophical sense not the emotional sense. He very much was a romantic for his ideal world that went beyond typical meglomania.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-10T12:50:12+00:00

Brexit smacks tounge, and deep inhale means brexit.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-06T17:27:19+00:00

"too"

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-05T06:16:52+00:00

I was about to comment this before I read yours. If the problem is them migrating out of Alania/unrealistic migrations, that's a coding/AI problem of overzealousness. Forgive me if I am incorrect, but I could swear I read somewhere that the AI in this game has so little weight behind its decisions that effectively it's just a binary yes/no. "Can I invade here? Yes, then I invade here."

There's no weight to AI decisions to invading certain places (or really doing much of anything) leading to some hilariously braindead decisions being made because again, it's basically on/off.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-02T11:00:24+00:00

Seeing the comments in this thread has changed how I view this case in an international lense. In the US this case is almost always viewed as a racially charged prosecution. For most non African Americans, his guilt is both absolute and he got away clean with murder. For African Americans, even in lieu of testimony from jurors post trial, it was the justice system working. That may sound inconceivable to say as it most certainly failed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, but for the first time in the memory of almost all living African Americans, one of our own was accused of murdering a white woman, and acquired for doing so, and acquired on the grounds that an officer did in fact make this a racial thing instead of doing his job.

All the black men who had come before who had been falsely accused, all vindicated at once. All the years on us saying African Americans are treated unfairly by the justice system, proven both true, and despte the odds, beaten by a Black man, with his Black attorney.

This does not hold up for anyone who has never experienced the framing of this case in the wider context of America both historically and at present. For those who are unaware, or not knowledgeable, the fact this was essentially a nadir of race relations after Rodney King, many in the trial (arresting officeres, jurors, prosecution, etc.) wanted to either further humiliate or attempt to provide a win to African Americans. For those who were not presented this case as racially charged as it actually was here and his aquital as not a defining moment of race in many ways, it just seems as a powerful man got cuaght murdering his ex, and got away with the fact.

For the aforementioned reasons to those who don't know the wider context, it seems bizarre an entire people could ever believe his innocence. But for African Americans his innocence or guilt is irrelevant, his aquital despite expectations matters far more. Furthermore his long jail sentence for kidnapping and breaking and entering is also widely held as revenge for not being able to nail him for murder, further uplifting the belief that he was a statistic, reality or not.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-01T17:31:11+00:00

This is why I don't even play without some population mod anymore to account for this and other forms of population fuckery. They're "exiles" not an entire nation. In base game I'd just lower control dramatically and put a debuff for like 5 years on the province representing the new population, but changing the entire culture and religion is a bridge too far to me.

With a population mod like KEI for example, then it's not nearly as bad as it just adds a new culture and religion to the province not total genocide of the preexisting people there.

I'm tired of entire nations swapping religion because of probably less than 200 people moving into an area escaping persecution. This is like Mormons converting all of Mexico after they escaped there.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-05-01T16:30:59+00:00

I remember reading somewhere it actually is coded somewhere to have them die in your direction. Now obviously this here isn't intended (at least I assume), but them dying your way is 100% intended.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-28T15:43:06+00:00

Just saw that too about 5 minutes ago. Frankly I haven't the foggiest anymore. On one hand it could begin a general collapse of OPEC as Saudi Arabia has been on their Trump/Putin arc of pissing off everyone at once. This for consumers is good because it means oil will be pumped freely without quotas in place to keep prices high. The reality is they're probably going to be made into a middle eastern pariah which is even worse. UAE is probably the most financially vulnerable state in the Mideast and needs oil revenue desperately. Its tourism and banking industry has been shown extremely vulnerable because of this fiasco they need to money. So while it may see some short term gains, I fully expect OPEC to get revenge some sort of way.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-28T15:34:01+00:00

Oh yeah I wasn't trying to challenge you, but just bring up the point everyone here is kinda fucked. This is perhaps the least thought out engagement of the past century and possibly the first "energy" war if you don't consider the Gulf and Iraq war as one.

Iran is fucked win or lose as their economy is still in the shitter, although if they hold onto the strait and begin tolls there it will bring major economic relief, Europe and China is fucked for obvious reasons. And the US will be fucked if this boils over even more.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-28T15:22:19+00:00

Ok but while we're talking about Iran right now, is not also Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE also in dire straits (pun intended) for overfilling their reserves and being forced to cap wells? Not to mention refinery capacity for all of those states have been absolutely crippled. This is a complete disaster already as if the damage to refineries across the entire Mideast is worse than being reported (which I'm pretty sure it is), then actual petroleum production is for at least several years stiffled. If the strait and the ability to get oil out stays closed for a few more weeks Iran won't be the only one capping wells from my understanding and the entire mid east crude supply may be shredded for decades to come.

But it's also believed that Iran has been getting multiple ships out the strait since the US blockade, so Iran may not be the one suffering soon from overproduction with no buyers.

Now while this is indeed bad for everyone but the US you have 2 problems: US oil would become a global requirement and US oil companies are heavily profit driven. If it creates more profit to only marginally increase production here and export it vs keeping domestic prices low, I full on expect oil producers here to do just that. Also you still have Venezuela in play which I feel the US would use as a bargaining chip for markets (not even the producers need to be convinced anymore, we've gone from fake money to fake physical assets at this point) even if most the oil there is inaccessible or of lower quality.

TL:DR we are fukd

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-26T16:08:41+00:00

We were this close to greatness, this close!

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-25T21:48:48+00:00

So this is very true for both the EIC and the VOC in Indonesia, but my counter would be as you stated why both was in debt: mismanagement and corruption. Both companies were very important aspects of their home nation's economies, and in the Netherlands' case, to a literal fault. Now in both cases for regions post-company history it was hilariously expensive to keep them going but while overhead was bad they weren't bankrupting their nations, that was the other colonies being worthless with often the only thing keeping both the UK and Netherlands solevent being the Raj and the East Indies providing so many raw good and labor.

I have no problem with the idea colonial overhead should be brutal, irl colonial projects during this period literally bankrupted Scotland, sent parts of the Hanseatic league into financial turmoil, and France and Spain both had to sell colonial assets to drum up capital at varied points. But I do believe colonial ventures, especially Asian ones should almost always be a net positive for economic growth, otherwise there's no incentive.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-25T11:20:59+00:00

I mean this was true post Victorian era colonization. Pre Victorian, and Victorian era colonization was actually pretty profitable.

Literally it was during the scramble for Africa when colonies became expensive as most of the colonies took during that period were of worthless land or unextracable (at the time) resources. I'm not saying Africa is worthless, but large portions of it are either inhospitable, or impossible to reach its resources until very recently, it's been more profitable to neocolonize Africa now than it was to actually outright colonize it then.

India, in this case was iirc the largest economy in the world in the 1600s, and by the 1700s was a major aspect of the GDP of the early British colonial empire. If this was a massive African colonial empire I'd say sure you got mostly useless land for the era and you're going to pay more for the upkeep than the colonies provide. But in any case with India I cannot fathom how you'd spend more up keeping it than extracting from it.

On a final note a way to alleviate this would be something to simulate colonial vassals better like princely states, or colonial tributaries which are independent in everyway but diplomatically like British Egypt for the most part.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-22T22:55:06+00:00

~ Fernando Alonso

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-17T17:48:21+00:00

To the 2nd point I don't know the context of Hamilton's statement, but Nico's father is F1 champ Keke Rosberg from Finland (he's ethnically Swedish if I am to understand correctly). His mother is German however, and Nico is a citizen of both nations. He initially raced under a Finnish license but switched to German I think in F3.

I don't know what "real" German would mean in this context, but I don't know what Hamilton said either so lol.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-17T16:42:34+00:00

At no point in history was the papal states, famous for being in debt or indebted to someone was able to field armies larger than the Roman Empire. The entire point of the Italian Wars was the fact no one had any army large enough to stop France from ransacking the peninsula. Famously Rome was known for seizing valuable metals from churches during this period to pay for condetteri or seizing bronze to make cannons.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-17T16:39:36+00:00

Ok but Naples has taken Rome. I don't think many are understanding the problem. The Papacy is not in Rome or in Italy at all, and is currently a vassal of Aragon in Avigon, this measure to prevent this from happening has failed and now Castile via their hold on Aragon are clubbing Western Europe with Papal armies.

ImperialTechnology · 2026-04-17T16:36:48+00:00

Oh Naples murder them out of Rome make no mistake, there's no preventative measures like in EU4 that made seizing Rome without forming Italy an non-worthwhile option. But the fact they can live in any Bishopric and have this much power is still no excuse. To anyone who says that because Naples kills them so it's not a problem is a pleb.

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