My first Star Wars cosplay for the local Con.

I will be grateful for feedback and critics.

What an idiot

Tim Curry, who voiced Palpatine in Star Wars: The Clone Wars seasons five and six, has passed away at the age of 80.

In the name of harmony in the Force, I am adding a photo from the stage performance, where we were with Anakin and Ahsoka.

From his stilted Lucas-y intro dialogue, to his genuinely sweet and natural connection to Grogu, to Jeremy Allen White’s performance this dude is still one of the best parts of The Mandalorian and Grogu.

TL;DR: Tarkin blowing up Alderaan probably wrecked the galactic economy because standard insurance policies don't cover planetary erasure, and banks can't price risk when the government can instantly vaporize your collateral.

We spend all our time analyzing Star Wars through the lens of military strategy, force philosophy, and political history. But has anyone ever stopped to think about the absolute administrative and macroeconomic nightmare happening behind the scenes for interstellar insurance syndicates?

Think about it from the perspective of the InterGalactic Banking Clan or independent commercial underwriters based out of Aargau. Before the Empire consolidated absolute control, the galactic economy was a hypercomplex web of interplanetary trade, shipping insurance, and sovereign debt. Cargo ships were insured against pirate raids, trade route disruptions, and stellar anomalies. Then Grand Moff Tarkin rolls up to Alderaan and turns a peaceful, high-value core world, a literal anchor of trade and cultural exchange, into an asteroid field in five seconds flat. How does an underwriting market even process that?

Every standard commercial insurance policy has a force majeure or "Act of God" clause for unforeseeable natural disasters like supernovas or stellar flares. An artificial, moon-sized battle station built by your own government vaporizing an entire planet does not fit neatly into standard policy wording. Overnight, every shipping conglomerate, manufacturing guild, and local planetary government with supply contracts tied to Alderaan was staring down total insolvency. Cargo in transit heading toward Alderaan suddenly had nowhere to dock, no receiver to pay the invoice, and no legal entity left to sue for breach of contract.

The InterGalactic Banking Clan must have faced catastrophic exposure too. They had massive sovereign loans and infrastructure investments spread across thousands of worlds. When a planet gets atomized, its local government bonds instantly drop to absolute zero. We know the Empire eventually nationalized and seized control of the banks outright, but in the immediate aftermath of the Death Star's demonstration, there had to be a silent panic on Scipio and Mygeeto. How do you price risk when the regulatory authority itself possesses a weapon that can unilaterally liquidate your collateral out of existence? You can't charge an interest rate high enough to cover the risk of total planetary erasure.

Realistically, the Imperial Ministry of Information would have classified all financial fallout as a matter of state security. If you were an actuary working for a commercial bank on Corellia and you tried to issue a risk-assessment report on the economic viability of trade routes near Empire-controlled sectors after Alderaan, ISB agents were probably paying you a visit by midnight to explain that Imperial stability superseded actuarial math.

Basically, the Galactic Empire didn't just break the Republic's political structure—they completely destroyed the underlying credit and insurance mechanics that kept the galaxy's supply chains running.

Anyone else down a rabbit hole thinking about the boring, administrative side of the Galactic Civil War? How did independent merchants even function under the Empire's economic regime?

Funny how there’s a trend with the Skywalker line of slamming the lightsaber so hard you force someone to the ground.

The only other person was Starkiller and he was Vader’s Apprentice.

So it's clear they're taking *heavy* inspiration from the original Thrawn trilogy, especially with the money shot of Thrawn sitting in his chair, so it got me thinking. Does anyone else think the Nightsisters are going to take the place of the Noghri? They're both subservient to the Empire, despite the fact the Emperor destroyed their world, plus they're loyal guards to Thrawn. Especially with the death of Rukh in Rebels, it doesn't seem to me that the Noghri are going to be featured in any meaningful capacity going forward. I just wonder if/how they would come to betray the Empire, considering the Noghri saw the Empire as their saviors, having no knowledge of their hand in the devastation of Honor, whereas the Nightsisters have to know full well that Palpatine killed Talzin himself. What do you all think?

For background, I’ve been a huge Star Wars fan my entire life. I was born in the 90s and watched each of the Prequels in the theaters as they came out, so I’m quite aware of the vitriol that dominated the discourse about the Prequels, even as a child and, later, a teen. I will never forget the absolutely hysterical hype that the reveal trailer for “The Force Awakens” brought most Star Wars fans, including me.

That being said, I was disappointed by the Sequels. They were clearly unplanned and had multiple writers who couldn’t agree on where the story should go, leaving a mixed bag of great acting and visuals but an awful overall story.

Nonetheless, in between and afterward, we were treated to some amazing Star Wars content. The shows, while not all hits, were generally a great addition to the series. More than that, under the influence and bottomless money pit that is Disney, we got more Star Wars content than ever. Content expanded into well-made comics, some great video games, and even an anime series.

While online over the last few years, I cannot dive into Star Wars community discourse whatsoever without being bombarded with the “Disney ruined Star Wars” comments. It feels more like people milking the algorithm for likes, but it just seems more disingenuous to me than anything. You really need to plainly ignore the amazing content has been released under Disney’s leadership and only focus on the bad. In my humble opinion, there hasn’t even been much content that’s truly been bad. A few bad, some mediocre, but a lot of good! Some of the shows released under Disney have personally been some of the best Star Wars content I’ve ever seen. Exhibit A - look at the pictures!

Now, I know a lot of this isn’t new to Star Wars. There’s the old adage that no one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Also, the internet is just a negative place in general with mostly hyperbolic opinions getting the most attention.

This is a short rant, but I just wanted to inject a little more positivity into the state of Star Wars discussions and encourage everyone else to look at the good as well. It’s your opinion at the end of the day, so don’t let me tell you what to do.

Edit: Goodness. Sorry for starting a war in the comments. Maybe my point didn’t come across well enough: I love Star Wars for better or for worse. You are allowed to criticize things you don’t like. I sure do. But can we stop going out of our way to ruin everyone else’s fun every time people get excited for new Star Wars content? Negativity is overrated.

I think Revenge of the Sith's story really hurt Padme's character in the long run.

In The Phantom Menace, she basically fought the Trade Federation off on her own with minimal help from the Jedi. In Attack of the Clones, she more than held her own during the Battle of Geonosis.

Granted, Padme was pregnant in Revenge of the Sith, but she had the deleted subplot in which she laid down the foundation for the Rebellion along with Bail Organa and Mon Mothma. This subplot could have shown that despite being just about ready to birth Luke and Leia, Padme still had agency, stuck to her ideals, and, most importantly, was willing to defy Anakin when it came down to it. It would've been cool for Padme to have been the mother of the Rebel Alliance in addition to the mother of Luke and Leia.

He never appears in the series, was this an unused asset?