The Empire was based and supported by the Doctrine of Fear. This stated that citizens could be suppressed by the fear of military acion. The final cornerstone of the Doctrine of Fear was the Death Star. The Rebel Alliance saw this and destroyed two Death Stars to keep the Empire from becoming too powerful. THE IMPERIAL ARMY What Palpatine wanted when he took over the Old Republic was total control without arguments from systems that didn't like his rule. He maintained this by enlisting millions of soldiers known as Stormtroopers. These countless shock troops were tough and battle ready. Totally loyal to the Emporer (sometimes without option due to brain washing and hypnosis) these soldiers would obey orders without question, even if it meant their own death. Other than stormtroopers, the Empire also used commandos who had more freedom. These soldiers have execellent physical conditioning and are used to guard important stations such as Detention blocks, weapon control centers, important government buildings and the Imperial palace on Coruscant.

Smaller units such as Snowtroopers, Sandtroopers and Scouttroopers are specalty forces whose equipment are designed to assist them by maintaing their enviroment. Sandtroopers wear a large cooling unit, while Snowtrooper's uniforms include more insulation and a heater unit. Scoutroopers are used on forest and jungle planets; their uniforms are lighter than stormtrooper uniforms and contain sight aids, survival equipment and more rugged armor plating.

The armor corps pilot the huge AT-AT walkers, smaller AT-ST walkers and hoverscout vehicles. They are used to transport soldiers into heavy engagement and assist ground units during battle. The AT-AT are nearly impervious to ground-based weapons fire and atmospheric fighter fire. They are espically vunerable to deep pits covered with sticks and leaves, trenches filled with engine fuel and landslides. The AT-ST and hoverscout units go ahead of the AT-AT's to check for terrain hazards. Sometimes the last thing an army trying to repel these huge armored vehicles can do is plant proton explosives on or near them. Luke Skywalker did this during the battle of Hoth.

The officer corps provide the basis for system of command. Lightly armed themselves, they rely on other soldiers to provide cover for them. The officer's uniform is made of fabric only meaning they wear no armor to defend themselves. A well placed blaster shot can kill one of these men with a single shot. They are also more vunerable to more primative weapons including slugthrowers, arrows, spears and hand-to-hand.

THE IMPERIAL NAVY The Imperial Navy is based on short-range fighters to carry out operations. The most standart fighter used by the Empire is the TIE (twin ion engine) fighter. Lightly armored and unshielded, these are sacrafice fighters. Their armorment includes dual laser cannons and in more advanced models, a small warhead launcher.

The next fighter up is the TIE interceptor. Is is more heavily armed than the T/F but is still lightly armored and unshielded. They are used to intercept enemy fighters. It carries quad lasers and are more agile and faster. More advanced models include a warhead launcher and a small shield generator.

The TIE bomber is a heavily armored fighter-bomber used to launch warheads at enemy capital ships and platforms. Slower than the other two TIE craft, it carries an extra pylon next to the cockpit pylon. It is used to store warheads in larger quanties. The T/B is still unshielded and uses dual lasers coupled with a large-capacity warhead launcher.

Assualt gunboats were the first general issue Imperial fighter with shields and a hyperdrive. Able to travel at light speed, it can launch from far-off bases to re-inforce TIE craft. It is armed with dual lasers and dual ion cannons which enables it to disable enemy craft. Like the T/B, it carries a large capacity warhead launcher and is used to fight capital ships.

The most advanced fighter in the Imperial navy is the TIE advanced. Derived from Darth Vader's TIE x1 prototype, it has a terifically fast quad ion engine cluster,hyperdrive and shield generator. It is used by the most skilled pilots to take out enemy fighters. The drawback on this TIE craft is with added speed, the sheilds and armor are weaker than the Rebel space superiority fighter, the Incom X-Wing which is slower and less manuverable.

The Imperial navy uses Star Destroyes to transport its TIE craft over long distances. They usually carry 70-80 fighters and other craft. They are the mainstay capital ship of the navy, having heavy shields, strong armor and several weapon enplacementes. The Victory-class star destroyer is a smaller,more manuverable version of the Imperial-class. It carries less weapons than the ISD but is armed with a double warhead launcher.

The largest non-space station craft the Empire uses is the Super-class Star destroyer. This immense supercapital ship is equal to one starfleet. Origanally designed to carry the Emporer on diplomatic missions, it is almost invunerable. It carries 12 fighter squadrons (1 squadron=about 20-25 fighters) and 80 other transport and attack craft. Advanced gunnery emplacements enalbe the turret crews to target incoming warheads and gun them down. One critical flaw the Imperial ship designers made on this one was putting a standart Imperial-class star destroyer bridge on it. This made it espically vunerable to kamakazie fighter attacks or being rammed by smaller capital ships. Once the bridge is knocked out, all gunnery crews don't have much targeting input, and cannot defend the ship. Once this happens, a fighter squadron armed with torpedoes or heavy rockets can destroy it with one pass.

The largest Imperial achievement built was the Death Star. Roughly the size of a small moon, it was an Imperial attack platform with the ability to move. Its primary weapon is the Superlaser, a weapon devised by the master enigineer Bevel Lemisk, had the ability to destroy an entire planet when fully charged. It also carried thousands of turbolaser emplacements and 500 ion cannon emlacements. It was an orbital garrison and base to many wings of fighter craft. It had everything a small planet would need: hospitals, machine shops, repair bays, maintence shops, dining areas, barracks, farming levels,atmosphere, gravity, water, power, defense systems and detention blocks. Death star one was nearly 100 kilometers in diameter and death star two was twice that size. It was considered indestructable until thirty rebel fighters engaged and destroyed it by shooting a proton torpedo into its primary reactor. Death star two was designed to vent its reactor wastes out of thousands of small coin sized vents. The rebels got to it before it had been completly built, and flew into its center, where they destroyed regulator towers for the reactor. The Death Star was destroyed quiclly from within. The primary drawback with the Death Star program was its defenses were built around large capital ship assualt. A one or two-man fighter could pierce the primary defenses and attack it. Other drawbacks were: it couldn't manuver at all and could have easily been destroyed with millions of proton torpedoes, however the Alliance didn't have that kind of munitions. It also was slow when in hyperspace, meaning that what might take an ISD two days of light travel would take the Death Star ten days.

The empire uses smaller numbers of other craft including Escort frigates,Escort carriers,Dreadnaughts,Correlian corvettes, Assualt transports, and Lambda class transport shuttles.

-back to front