/swg/ - Ion Barrage Edition

So after the AT-ST and the Airspeeder whats next for legion?

Yeah, that's one way. That will make memorable scenarios for players, "oh shit it's that guy who got two of our minion bullet sponges in one pass, now they call him "Twinbolt", but now you're reliant on RNG to make shit happen.

Another is to take real life callsign stories (this is my usual resource, I feel like I post it every time this discussion comes up f-16.net/callsigns.html ) and adjust to fit the SW universe. This can be a good way to have a couple "senior" mooks in an enemy squad right from the start if you need to seem more intimidating without waiting for stories to emerge.

Also, just good inspiration for the type of stories that'll get you a callsign.

>Imp aces
Klepto - kill-stealer
Butcher - Holds the squadron record for fastest solo CR-90 kill, carved it up like a hunk of meat
Taxi - Had trouble getting off the runway during a training exercise once
Biscuit - Surname "Barron"
Bail Organa - Alderaanian pilot who ejected on his first training exercise
Rockstar - Sienar test pilot, drug addict, and alcoholic
Whyren - Corellian reservist
Nerf - Surname "Herder"
Zipper - Once had a painful accident in a urinal
Sixer - Accidentally team-killed someone in a training exercise. Short for "Sixty-Sixer."
Bullshot - Sniped an A-wing from beyond maximum targeting computer range in an asteroid field

>Bail Organa - Alderaanian pilot who ejected on his first training exercise

>Tower - once nearly knocked a stormtrooper off a TL turret with a close pass
>Nexu - female pilot who grows her fingernails out way too long
>Sunny - Short for "Sunny Side", once nearly fried his fighter passing too close to a stellar nursery
>Kicker - Scored an air kill with a proton bomb, like he was playing grav-ball
>Traveller - short for "time traveller". He journeyed a few hours into the future when he smacked his head on the hatch in a rush to salute an officer on deck
>Fisherman - Constantly chasing twi'lek ass
>Strafer - fired his guns on the runway during a hasty scramble
>Eggs - Strafer's wingman, he fell off the ladder during the scramble and broke a bone
>Fuze - accidentally hit by friendly Ion cannon fire, cussed up a storm on the comm
>Free Flight - Academy intramural wrestling champ AND crazy flyer
>Cutter - constantly cut himself shaving
>Omen - Accidents happen around him but not to him
>Pancake - flattened his TIE into the side of the carrier on a mission, lucky he ejected first
>HFW - Won't shut the fuck up about Hologram Fun World

>Cover - Once lost his helmet before a patrol, flight lead made him do the whole mission without it
>Fork - Squint pilot who got damaged by debris from his kills many times - flying so close it was like he was trying to stab 'em
>Sloop - Claims to have once done a Segnor's Loop in the Academy
>Cyclops - Had his other bomber pod shot off by enemy point defense
>Snitch - Recon TIE pilot who also tattled on their squadron constantly
>Shovel - Navy pilot who had to make a planetary landing - threw up a lot of dirt
>Mando - won't shut up about his proud mandalorian heritage
>Bespoke - botched a rack launch from a Gozanti in training
>Agamar - supposedly engaged to his cousin
>Slab - got knocked out spectacularly in the squadron shockboxing tournament - hit the ground like "a slab of meat"
>Diver - made a water landing
>Dragonpearl - Real pretty to look at, comes with the personality of an ornery krayt dragon
>Slippy - has a tendency to make unexpected rolls in-flight, slippery hands
>Cooler - his shitty life support unit malfunctioned and made his TIE colder than it needed to be
>Strike - short for "bird-strike"
>RV - former TIE/sh pilot, claimed the TIE/sa frame was a "recreational vehicle"
>Hoth Hog - biggest eater in the squadron

How gritty is too gritty for Star Wars?

I ran a one-shot about capturing an enemy city, block to block kind of fighting culminating in taking the main citadel, and one of the players said it was a bit too gritty for his idea of Star Wars.

Senate - Fel Empire pilot, once had an incident where his TIE went into a flat spin
Binoculus - Overly patriotic, starts every briefing with "Dark Greetings"
Motorboat - Well-endowed female gunboat jockey
Skippy - Skipray enthusiast
Caamas - Made several emergency landings in burning TIEs
Ewok - Post-RotJ, caught in a broom closet with his mouth on a female stormtrooper
Macho - Enthusiastic mandalorian
Vader - Overheard breathing heavily while choking something in a porta-shitter
Tarkin - Killed a Rebel by landing on him
Kessel - Had an intestinal emergency in the middle of a formal event. Short for "Kessel Runs."

>one of the players said it was a bit too gritty for his idea of Star Wars

Sounds like your game wasn't too gritty, he was just a pussy.

Depends how detailed you got with the whole mangled bodies, presence of civilians etc.

They were ordered not to take any prisoners

That makes it grittier than most people are looking for.

PG-13 is the upwards limit of gritty for me

>Maw - Female pilot
>Half-Off - Gunboat pilot who returned from a mission missing over 50% of his spaceframe
>D. Hutt - Overweight pilot, only way he could have passed the physical is if he paid somebody off
>Judge - Studied the law before enlisting
>EMP - ran afoul of the MPs more than once
>Moff - Short for "Moff Diver". Good odds they were banging the local moff (you decide male or female)
>Princess - Dad is a senator
>Hustler - always smuggling contraband on base
>Coroner - tried to shoot down a rebel hospital ship
>Grease - tried to use lubricant to black out his cockpit so he'd be harder to see
>Wench - Female who did double-duty as a mechanic. Would prefer to be called "Wrench"
>Poet - wrote shitty poetry to his girl back home which was read out to the entire unit
>Idiot - Short for "Idiot's Array", lowest scores out of his class, highest kills first mission
>Feedback - Accidentally goofed up his mic configuration into everybody's ears on squadron comms
>Spotter - Recon TIE pilot with 0 kills but loads of assists, both squadronmates and friendly gunners
>Brake - TIE/D pilot who went from full accel to full stop too quick, nearly sheared his wings off
>Thicket - got pubes stuck in flightsuit
>Cube - short for "Chance Cube". Talking with them is like rolling the dice
>Clockwork - very OCD pilot
>Little D - Once hit on a lady Deathtrooper

Its not like I described organs spilling out or anything like that. It was nothing you wouldn't see in say, the Clone Wars show or Rogue One.

Evil is very subjective. If we had the Empire, but without the pointless genocide when it isn't needed yet the same lack of an elected Head of State, would it be evil? I'd say no, but anclaps would claim otherwise.

And you don't need to be a moustache twirler to be a Dark Sider. Here's some examples of Sith that aren't very evil, mostly EU ones. Inb4 muh movie purism, I can't give you any movie examples other than maybe Dooku because they are pretty evil.

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vectivus
starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Set_Harth
starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Xendor
starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Revan
And finally
starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dooku

Whatever you say about Charlemagne, he wasn't a mustache twirling bad guy. He had a cause and he was following it. If he didn't fully drink Sheev's kool aid, he could've been the next Revan. Also most of these individuals aren't saints, when I say they aren't evil, I mean they're not pointlessly saturday cartoon evil, and this isn't a debate like with Sheev. They obviously are not.

Old Debate may have ended, but I'm not wasting that Wookieepedia search

>Bail Organa - Alderaanian pilot who ejected on his first training exercise

>Taxi - Had trouble getting off the runway
>Bail Organa - Alderaanian pilot who ejected on his first training exercise

>Ellen - Flattest ears you know, looks like an /LN
>War Bride - local who married a pilot, turned out to be better than he was
>Space Moth - clipped a landing light on a runway
>Blue Ball - TIE/sa pilot who had a malfunction and had to dump his ordnance or explode
>CODE RED - fell for a prank in the middle of sleep shift
>Sketch - Recon pilot who once drew a sketch after his sensors malfunctioned
>Mr Widow - Keeps losing his wingmen
>Pack - Has a military backpack filled with unnecessary shit at base
>Dragon - ate some spicy local food, talked about how he spit fire after
>Chef - Once said he liked the smell of charred flesh
>Mega-Dads - Father was a Clone
>Shocker - gave an officer a static shock after flying through a solar wind effect which charged up his TIE
>Burnout - Had a Booster Blue problem
>Bolt - Always managed to leave the room when a shitty duty or mission came up
>Gunslinger - constantly practicing with his sidearm like some kind of land-walker
>Inbred - dumb enough to sleep with a squadron member
>DC - "Danger Close", kept wandering into the carrier's firing solutions
>Val - Very Annoying Lieutenant
>Tab - constantly paying for everybody's drinks
>Corusca - A Hard-edge pilot who was brittle when triggered
>Sticky - Slow to break off, but hard to shake loose
>FC - "Fleet Carrier", had a lot of kids
>Sea Cow - Former Lambda pilot

These have been great-

Do you have any for XG-1 Assault Gunboat pilots? I'll be flying a pair of Rho Veterans with Heavy Lasers in the upcoming comp season, and they need names.

Now I wonder if anyone made an alt art for Intelligence Agent using CIA
Who would Bane be? Vader? BoShek?

>intel agent
No, it has to be the man who actually throws people out of a plane

Ah yes, much better

I can throw out some ideas.

>Hipfire - Constantly making cannon snap shots without waiting for a targeting solution
>Fly-By - Made a pass at an Admiral's daughter
>Firework - worst missiles fired to targets hit ratio in the squadron
>How-High - Accidentally made a hyperspace jump before the leader gave the order
>Missile - got a confirmed kill on an unshielded pirate fighter by ramming into it
>Debuff - skinniest guy in the unit who is also a wizard with ion cannons.
>Backstop - Killed an enemy fighter in a pass, but also hit a friendly on his tail
>Limp - bent his cannon clipping a strut
>Glowrod - Had improperly calibrated guns that made it look like he was shining a glowrod on his targets
>Quiver - aka "Full Quiver", came back from a mission without firing a single bit of ordnance
>Protocol - Used to work in Imperial Customs
>Demon - Short for "Speed Demon", out-ran an A-Wing once
>Swing-Wing - Clipped a friendly TIE with a wingtip once
>Boatgun - Made a weapons pass at so low a speed he briefly went in reverse from all the recoil
>Rowboat - Lost engines but fighter intact, had to be recovered later. Said he could have rowed home faster.
>Blue Lock - Accidentally locked on to a squadron member

is anyone else gonna point out that the turret is supposed to be the ion cannons and not the front lasers

>Take this evil thing and take out the evil things it does, is it still evil?

Evil is two parts, action and intent. Evil intent is the intent to negatively impact others, and evil action is actions that negatively impact others. A combination with good and evil intents and actions can lead to grey moral circumstances, but an action that is both evil in intent and action is pretty much evil. And unintended consequences of an action does not outright cause it to be evil. That just makes them mistakes.

The Empire was founded on evil intent (Subjugate the galaxy and kill the Jedi) using evil actions (cause a war and orchestrate people to relinquish their freedoms). And while the majority of the empire may not have evil intent (AKA all the 'good' imperials), the empire as a whole produces more evil actions than good ones (repeated genocides).

So that leaves the empire 75% evil at best. That's a passing grade.

If Imperial, way more gritty than what most people are looking for. If Rebels, going contrary to the whole setting.

It was set in the Old Republic era.

Then replace Imperial and Rebel with Bad Guy or Good Guy, as appropriate. While it is often implied or suggested that war crimes and other atrocities of various sorts are perpetrated in the Star Wars galaxy, they are rarely if ever shown directly.

>they are rarely if ever shown directly.
....you see Alderaan get blown up on screen and the charred corpses of Owen and Beru, unnamed civilians, and the burned out husk of the Jawa sand crawler, innocent merchants. Episode 4 is full of war crimes shown onscreen.

The destruction of Alderaan is seen from orbit, and we have never seen (on screen) what the planet was like. We don't get to see a close up of a bunch of happy Alderaanians going about their lives, until they are vaporized by the superlaser.

The charred corpses of Owen and Beru are seen from a distance, after the murder is over. We don't get to see them scream in terror as they are immolated.

The same goes for the rest of the murder and mayhem: we see the aftermath, not the act itself. This serves to distance the viewer from the situation, because most people don't get pleasure from watching the helpless suffer.

Which is why I said, if we had the Law and Order Imperials but none of the Sith and none of the mustache twirlers, it would be a grey organisation. IE, the Fel Empire in Legends.

Commander Leia and SpecOps Scout Troopers, and presumably their opposites. Those are the other two units Alex name-dropped alongside the AT-ST and T-47 at Gencon.

Keep in mind that while TVW and R1 had that sort of stuff in it, they *also* had your cliche Star Wars Big Hero™ moments. If your one shot had one but not the other, then yeah, I see how that could come off as overbearing.

Are there any examples of soyboys in Star Wars?

What are some ways to GM a medium to large scale space battle as an exciting climax of a campaign?
Both my players and I hyped the conclusion of our campaign up like hell, but I am kind of at a loss how I am gonna stage and present the whole thing without it turning into a tedious slog.
The parties involved are the Empire with a small sector fleet, the players' rag tag alliance of pirates and a small planetary fleet turned rebel, that may or may not side with the players.
Got any tips?

>Loaf: Both his grandfathers were clone troopers (inbred>bread>loaf)
>White Hat: Former stormtrooper turned pilot, still has absolutely no sense of humor
>Dirty: Known for his fanatical cleanliness. Everyone is terrified he'll get promoted and end up enforcing those standards on others
>Cing: (with a hard C) Has the largest, most perfect cock that anyone has ever seen, has to talk his way out of 3-4 gay blowjobs a week. Married to a lady ensign on the bridge crew who's always smiling slightly and limping a bit

Basically, it comes down to narrative and the PC's actions.
That's not a cop-out, but it really does mean the PC's will have to come up with a cunning plan to defeat an overwhelming force because if they don't its going to be a straight up slug fest they WILL lose. You can run that narratively as well, over time the enemy will simply blow everything to shit and simply focus the spotlight on the PC's ship(s) as everything around them starts getting wrecked.

At which point they can continue fighting and eventually get shot down, or they can take actions which might decisively affect the outcome of the engagement, or at least push the inevitability of the defeat back a few more turns.

If they come back with a few more successful actions that are relevant to the battle, you might drag that back to a draw- it will take a fair few actions though to scrape in a win at heavy costs and a lot more actions to drag it over the line to being a decisive victory.

Fractalsponge is a godsent

That made me kek. Good job sir!

At first I didn't really like his version of the Dreadnought, but its really grown on me with the higher rez stuff he's doing now.
They actually look pretty tough.

But it's not, so it isn't, so your post is literally pointless.

That's like saying what if the Rebellion was controlled by Sith and genocided planets. Then they would be the bad guys.

No fucking shit. You're talking bullshit and wasting both of our times.

>That's like saying what if the Rebellion was controlled by Sith and genocided planets
It would be called the Confederacy of Independent States.

Blue lasers are a thing, but it is an oddity in an otherwise nice piece.

Give the players important things to do in the middle of the fight. Name key targets to protect and to neutralize, as well as to capture things like fleeing shuttles or escape pods.

What will the players be riding in during this battle, are they in charge of the operation or just a part of it?

Systems*

I still wish he'd made the domes actually able to close around the blister turrets. And I'm not a huge fan of his change of the clamshell slope.

Throws people out of a plane? Some other movie his actor was in?

that's pretty good advice, thanks man!
Have a corvette

>implying the rebellion's good
>implying the sith are always bad guys

Another day, another bait, another killed thread.

>evil intent
So wanting governmental power and killing the monastic order that, not very long before, genocided YOUR monastic order is pure evil intent?

>evil actions
Causing a war? Just like the Rebellion did? There was peace before Mothma decided to dick around. It's evil, but don't act like Palps is the only one who did it. And people voted him in. No one was relinquishing anything.

>repeated genocides
Literally every example of "genocide" was where the Empire retaliated against hostility by other groups, and they weren't even genocides; more along the lines of "overkill retalitory responses".

You're also ignoring all the laws, lessening of corruption, stronger economy, higher living standards (from the Mid Rim inward), new employment opportunities, a stronger military, a more unified society, a more centralized command structure, etc. etc.

Before you quote me saying "lol look its hux saying the empire did nothing wrong", I'm not. They did a lot of shit wrong. But don't pretend they're the only ones, and don't pretend they're pure unabashed evil.

I'm loath to say it, but even in NuCanon's SCAR comic they talk about how the Empire had a massively positive impact on many different planets and their people, and many people were loyalists to the Empire not out of fear or brainwashing, but genuine pride and loyalty. And that's in fucking NuCanon, which is pushing the "Empire was made only to be evil" narrative as hard as it can. It was already this way in the EU too, and if you're a full movie purist, 99% of the Imperials we see in the entire OT and PT do nothing evil whatsoever. Even ignoring the oft-argued Tarkin and Palps, the only true asshole we see is Vader.

Everyone else, from Piett to Imperial Extra Actor #43, does nothing at all reprehensible or evil, and it's not even debatable. They objectively don't.

War is hell, and neither side is above violent and gritty action. War is meant to be gritty, and you're not fucking up the setting no matter what side you're playing so long as you don't go full edgelord Hatred with it.

You can go that route, but when you want to recreate that classic star wars feel, you can't be too gritty about it.
Remember the atmosphere before the battle of yavin?
Luke and the other pilots where essentially ordered to fly a suicide mission because everybody would die otherwise anyway.
That's gritty as fuck on paper, but in the movie it is played almost happy-go-lucky, Luke is genuinely excited and looking forward to risking his life and shit.
You can do grit, but package it with a Star Wars sense of adventure.
At least that's how i like to do it.

If you run an Age of Rebellion game, and put your PCs in a position where they need to murder every Imperial that surrenders to them, you stop being the heroes and it stops being Star Wars. At least I did not enjoy playing a member of the atrocity squad.

I have two issues with that.

He didn;t go with the five one-gun pods on the top of each side, and he didn't keep the angle of the side deck consistent, he made the midsection look a bit too CR-90

Owen and Beru were murdered for buying the wrong droids. So were the Jawas.
Alderaan wasn't a military threat. Camaas wasn't a military threat. Despayre wasn't a military threat. Even if they were, the civilian population certainly wasn't.

Slavery. The Krytos virus. Systemic oppression of non-humans, institutionalized xenophobia.

Get out of here with your Rose tinted glasses and revisionist history.

>Causing a war? Just like the Rebellion did?

I'd not really call 'Fighting illegitimate government that is a traitor to the republic' the same as 'Playing both sides to start a war to get yourself in power.

>Everyone else, from Piett to Imperial Extra Actor #43, does nothing at all reprehensible or evil, and it's not even debatable. They objectively don't.

How about 'Blow up Alderan'. Genocide is one of those orders an ethical soldier is supposed to disobey.

Wasn't there also bits like arresting and sending people off to work camps for peacefully protesting.

General oppression is basically a staple with the empire.

Is anyone else finding it kinda hard to care about Star Wars anymore? I've been a little downtrodden about it for years now, but the announcement of the new trilogy before the current one's second movie is even out almost killed my interest entirely for some reason.

Like, I'm still cool with running Star Wars games in the old canon, and I know probably only about 40% of the old canon was actually good, but I still feel something for it. Probably just nostalgia and my general depression talking, though.

So what're y'all bringing to regionals (X-Wing and Armada) tomorrow?

I only care about Star Wars tabletop games. I'm more excited for Legion than I've been for any Star Wars movie released in my lifetime.

Maybe someday the video games will be good again, too.

Tell me about Vader.

>Another day, another bait, another killed thread.
You are aware that Star Wars is a ficticious setting in which, yes, the sith are always the baddies and the rebels are always the goodies, right?

>not very long before, genocided YOUR monastic order
Sith have always been the aggressors in such conflicts. Also it was a hellova long time ago, 1000 years.

>Causing a war?
has that one sussed.

>Literally every example of "genocide" was where the Empire retaliated against hostility by other groups
Geonosis was purged after the Clone Wars. Alderran was just kinda floating there is space, as planets tend to do.

>lessening of corruption
Literally no. Before leaders were kept honest by mind reading wizards who wanted peace and harmony. It was corruption that caused the Empire, or did you miss the entire prequel trilogy? (if so, fair enough, I'm a tad jealous)

>stronger economy, higher living standards (from the Mid Rim inward), new employment opportunities
So genocide and slavery are fine as long as the established upper class are happy?

>a stronger military
Not inherently good thing if it comes at the cost of civil liberties and what we on Earth would call human rights. Helpful, yes, but a better result would be not actually needing a military. You know, the situation the republic had with the jedi. Go on, mention the Stark Hyperspace War. We'll wait. Then we'll point out that it was solved by Jedi and that Tarkin's militarisation only made the matter worse.

>a more unified society
A less diverse society because everything that didn't fit the empire's "ideal human" was purged or suppressed. That's like saying an aryan reich would be a good thing.

>more centralized command structure
Again, not inherently a good thing. Helpful for pushing towards singular major goals but when those goals are "moar supah wepponz" you're probably better off with a decentralised republic with jedi peacekeepers. You know, like the republic.

Alderaan shot first. This is well documented and only Rebel apologists say otherwise.

My star wars interest is high but mostly in fan content, i'll still take a look at the films but they feel wanting

Go home, George. You can't remaster things any more.

I am not George and my multimillion dollar legal department can destroy you in over 700 ways, and that’s through harassment alone. You’re dead kiddo.

youtube.com/watch?v=KQyd9tEDhSc

I'm sorry Mr Mouse, sir. Please don't hurt my childhood memories. I'll be good. You don't need to make anything else as bad as Guardians 2.

>being a brainlet

There is nothing in the Republic's Constitution and laws that prevents the creation of the Empire. The Rebellion has no legal arguments, just muh feelings.

I'm fairly certain the republic had a constitution which set in place the governing organs of the republic and did not include an Emperor as one of them.

Alright, kids, you've had your fun. We don't need another thread of this trash again.

>IA
Vader, Palp, 2x eJets, 2x Officers, Zillo

That's next weekend, should be fun.

>X-Wing
If the next wave isn't out by then probably Parattanni. If it's out then Silencer hell will be unleashed.

>"ideas for "Rebel/Imperial starfighter pilots/squadrons"

One of the NPCs in my campaign is a war corespondent who ended up joining the PC's squadron after following them on a convoy raid in the rear seat of a Y-Wing. His personality was pretty much lifted from pic related.

It's going to be trash for as long as the new movie is in public perception

Pretty much everyone in the New Republic.
Pretty much everyone that follows Nu-Canon Mothma really.

What is a "soyboy"?

>that's like saying an aryan reich would be a good thing
It would.

the newest term for weak feminine men on /pol/

Even Han?

Oh so nothing to regard with any weight and if anything a flag to disregard someone's post

Especially han

PERFECT!

Palpatine was voted into office and granted emergency power, which were the things that allowed him the authority to become emperor, based on the false premise that the CIS was a legitimate threat to the republic. Even if that's not illegal (pretty sure it could be charged as some kind of fraud) he's still guilty of treason of the highest order for waging a war against the republic. Every crime the CIS committed lays on his shoulders. Not to mention sedition, blackmail, extortion, bribery he used against his rivals within the republic.

That makes the entirety of the Empire illegitimate.

That's why it's a barrage, they replaced all their guns with Ion cannons.

Where are the proofs? No, really, is there any sort of evidence for this in-universe? All of the people that would know about Sheev's double-game are dead. I'm pretty sure even Vader didn't know about it. It's great to make some false big claims, but Mothma wouldn't be seen as any more reasonable than Alex Jones.

You've seen his son, Skywalker genes sure don't something that ugly.

Do you remember that bit where he said he would lay down his power when the crisis had been averted? They are called emergency powers for a reason, the massacre of the Jedi was also illegal as fuck and I have no doubt in my mind the Republic is has no legal mechanism to strip down it's democratic powers and offload the majority of them to one guy.

>I'm pretty sure even Vader didn't know about it.
He fucking sends him to Mustafar to murder them all, he let's slip who he is towards the end of III when he has the boy in his grasp. Why argue with someone so stupid? I'm out!

>Do you remember that bit where he said he would lay down his power when the crisis had been averted? They are called emergency powers for a reason, the massacre of the Jedi was also illegal as fuck and I have no doubt in my mind the Republic is has no legal mechanism to strip down it's democratic powers and offload the majority of them to one guy.
The Republic isn't Space America. It has no checks and balances. In it's thousands year history, it was even taken over by religious fanatics who ruled it as a monarchy. The Republic is the government that invented Base Delta Zero, not the Empire, it just inherited it.

You're arguing from your point of view of the Republic being Space America. It isn't.

>He fucking sends him to Mustafar to murder them all, he let's slip who he is towards the end of III when he has the boy in his grasp.

Yeah after ironically getting the intel from Obi-Wan, who was listening in on Grievous when he made the order. Anakin knows this because he knows Obi-Wan is off going after Grievous. And even if Vader knew, he died before he could say anything about it.

That's an entirely different discussion. The *audience* knots these things definitively, so we know beyond a doubt that Palpatine is guilty of these things, so we know both that he's an illegitimate emperor and an evil bastard. His ability to get away with it is a non-issue.

>Hey, reporter, if you sit with your dick up against the instrument panel when we enter hyperspace, it feels fucking great!