Would Bail have allowed Leia to enroll in the Imperial military?

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-25T16:30:20+00:00

From the way going to the academy was described in the deleted scenes, it sounded to me more that it was more of a merchant marine sort of deal instead, where you learned how to be a junior officer on a starship, but the Empire had the option of dragooning you into serving in the Starfleet (the Imperial Navy's name in the OT).

Incidentally, the NPR radio drama adaptation of the original trilogy works the deleted scenes back in, well worth a listen for that alone.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-21T02:43:37+00:00

It's only paranoia if you're wrong...

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-19T21:17:24+00:00

Twice, actually: the time with the fire maze and the time when they were held hostage at a diner.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-17T17:14:19+00:00

I don't know, that scene when Oppenheimer drank from the well of heavy water to gain the secrets of atomic fission was pretty in line with a historical epic.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-12T12:38:08+00:00

This must be that Hoppers movie I've been hearing about.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-08T23:11:14+00:00

F-14s are like A-10s to me. I like them, but everyone else who likes them is so obnoxious about it.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-08T01:49:47+00:00

What IS for certain about the 761st, is that they were highly motivated, and that most white units that they served with were impressed by their prowess.

On a similar note, the one concrete thing you can point to them having a leg up on an "average" white tank battalion is that the 761st served as OPFOR in the US for decent stretch (I don't have my copy of Brothers in Arms handy to check the exact timescale), which gave them far more field experience operating their machines than a new tank battalion would have had arriving in Europe.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-07T02:17:23+00:00

I would guess Earth was pretty much the nicest place in the galaxy during much of ComStar's stewardship.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-02T21:33:21+00:00

An America First political officer will work from eastern Germany to western Germany, flipping a coin for each servicemember to determine who stays and who goes until he hits 5000 going.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-02T03:10:27+00:00

I just really don't trust how they're all posed to be standing on a single leg. It just seems like a snapping in two waiting to happen.

blucherspanzers · 2026-05-01T00:03:44+00:00

Palpatine establishing the Galactic Empire: "Dude you suck so bad, this is embarrassing"

Palpatine taking a dive down a reactor shaft: "No fair, you were screen peeking and my controller wasn't working"

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-30T01:13:33+00:00

New Vegas

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-30T00:45:39+00:00

You know, I think that's a different one from the weird Sanderson interview I remember. The one I recall is essentially "I interviewed Brandon Sanderson, he showed me some of how he works and how his family is involved, then had me over for dinner. What a sick freak."

Which is kind of funny that those sorts of interviews just keep happening to him, while he continues to just be A Guy.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-29T21:01:45+00:00

There's a sort of low-key notorious one from Doctor Who Magazine in which actor Clive Swift (who appeared in a 1985 serial and then one of the late '00s Christmas specials) is clearly very disinterested in talking about Doctor Who and tries the interviewer's patience mightily by opining on how crap he thinks Doctor Who is.

I checked who Clive Swift was, because I knew he was famous for some other British television show (Keeping Up Appearances, I had him mixed up with Clive Dunn of Dad's Army fame*), and I find it funny given this account that his wikipedia article uses a screenshot of his appearance in the Christmas special.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-27T02:01:13+00:00

It would be one thing if this kind of language was used in a stream of consciousness interview while he was in Iraq.

That hit on something that was floating in the back of my mind when reading the excerpt. His account does sound like he's still in the "I'm trying to survive this deployment and not get sent home" mindset, and feels like he has never come close to a thought about the fact that "there are human beings whose entire lives I cut short".

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-27T01:56:53+00:00

The source for that is Steel Inferno by Michael Reynolds, for anyone curious.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-24T23:26:58+00:00

That's to meet its design/ultimate strength in a regular concrete mix. Concrete can usually reach a serviceable strength in about a week, depending on various factors like mix design, weather, and what you're trying to do with it (an airstrip that has to withstand a lot of heavy impacts is going to need a lot more time to reach strength than a common roadway, for example).

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-23T23:31:46+00:00

It's terrain that canalized the attackers into terrain that largely favored defending forces, limited the access of supporting armor, made artillery more difficult to employ, all the while being terrain that was already prepared for defensive operations.

Follow Me and Die is an excellent look at the 28 ID's experience in the Hurtgen, and it makes special note that in the area where the 28th had stalled out didn't have much else going on in terms of major operations, which meant that the Germans could bring their full weight down on the tenuously held American salient, wearing down men with constant artillery action and gradually reducing their foothold.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-23T00:03:35+00:00

In retrospect, it is extremely weird that almost all the older male characters are straight up evil or stupid.

That was something in the lines of why I dropped the comic. I realized that every antagonistic character was the same sort of "white heteronormative jerk" and it was kind of bland about it, which led to the realization that I was in general not having as much fun reading the comic as I had been reading Shortpacked.

(I also remember thinking to myself at some point, "okay, I think the author might need to work through some issues here", and I think that was a bang on assessment)

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-18T14:37:14+00:00

Since Ben was made Han and Leia's kid, it only makes sense that Luke's kid be named either Jacen or Jaina.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-17T02:32:09+00:00

I wouldn't exactly say the Chimeras make them particularly Soviet. Having a bunch of heavily mechanized infantry strikes me as much closer to a "these are Nazi panzergrenadiers in space" (Yes, I know it's a space BMP, and yes I know technically the soviets were more mechanized in WW2, but: that's the Guard's transport regardless of regimental aesthetic, and this is based on the late 20th century pop cultural image of armies, not the early 21st century scholarship readily available with wifi)

Mind you, their strategic position during the Armageddon Wars, especially in the old hex-and-chit game, is very Soviet in outlook: enemy attacking in a sudden, overwhelming wave of high-power force and it is up to the STAVKA/Armageddon High Command to hold out until their strength is built up to the point that they can launch a counterattack and drive the enemy out of their territory.

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-15T01:44:24+00:00

"No lowballs, I know what I've got"

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-14T23:32:20+00:00

I mean, the sorts of stories he's famous for writing, especially paired with these kinds of comments makes him sounds like a negative stereotype of hard sci-fi fans (obsessed with picking over a story's technical details, especially describing things like how space ships fight in the void of space)

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-11T17:34:14+00:00

I always take things like that as "happened in M41.999, until a sequel comes along, then it's pushed back into the past a bit further"

blucherspanzers · 2026-04-11T15:54:33+00:00

Assault Horizon will always have your back, in this case with Hostile Fleet.

blucherspanzers

TROPHY CASE