A Random Post

Admiral Guthrik of the Imperial Remnant stretched a glove over his hand as he walked off of his shuttle into brisk morning air of the planet Savet towards the headquarters of the imperial garrison that was supposed to be projecting imperial power over the planet. Unfortunately, the reason he needed to land on this backwater planet was because he had heard reports of mass dereliction of duty by the planet's garrison... reports that very much seemed to be true from what he was witnessing as he marched through the base. Not one soldier on the base was wearing their armor, and he even saw several children peaceably interacted with them as they followed the men on their patrol routes. The lack of discipling was disgusting.

Admiral Guthrik was red with rage by the time the blast doors of the head quarters building opened for him. "Take me to general immediately!" he barked at the receptionist as he stormed into the building, barely noticing her salute as she sprinted out of her office and got the elevator for him.

The ride up was completely silent as the Admiral clenched and unclenched his hands as he prepared to lay into the general who permitted such foolishness under their watch.

"General Talis' office is at the end of the left hallway after the bend," the receptionist intoned pleasantly as Admiral Guthrik marched out of the elevator in the indicated direction.

"General, you had better have a really good explanation for this!" Guthrik roared as stormed the lax officer's workplace. General Talis at least was in her uniform. An unassuming middle aged woman, Guthrik assumed that the only way someone like her managed to reach the rank of General was due to the massive turnover of the upper hierarchy of the military in the chaos of the collapse of the empire.

"Admiral Guthrik," Talis saluted. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"General, why are none of the men in uniform?" Guthrik growled.

"That is a long story, Admiral," Talis replied calmly, "but firstly, you can agree that, in our current predicament, the men I command are not replaceable, correct."

Admiral Guthrik crossed his arms. "Your assumption that I will likely not redirect our limited manpower to replace casualties here is correct, general, but that is no excuse for throwing discipline out the window."

Not skipping a beat, General Talis continued, "and are you aware, Admiral, that stormtrooper armor is statistically proven to increase the chance of dying in combat by 99%."

"Yes I... wait what?"

"Yes admiral, a study was performed following the destruction of the first Death Star that conclusively proved that stormtrooper armor actually increases fatality rates in battle. As the rebellion began gaining ground following the Battle of Yavin, General Davies sponsored a research study seeking to improve stormtrooper armor to increase survival rates of troops on the front line. However, it was discovered that no matter what changes were made to the armor, our men would still die every time they were hit by a rebel blaster or had an explosion detonate anywhere near them. Indeed, stormtrooper armor was found to be so ineffective that General Davies was considering closing the study with the recommendation that we should replace the armor entirely with cheap cardboard since our men were incapable of accomplishing anything regardless of their armaments, when he learned of an incident in which a stormtrooper had discarded his armor and attempted to desert the army before being apprehended. What's interesting is that the deserter had several hundred shots fired at him, three of had actually stuck his limbs before he was apprehended, and most remarkably, the deserter had survived this. So intrigued was General Davies by this story that he ordered a stay of execution for the man and he personally interviewed the man in the hope that he could learn the secret of his longevity. He learned that the reason the deserter had tried to leave the army was because the deserter had heard from another trooper joining his regiment that the system his family lived in had fallen under the rebel control and that the city they lived in had been ravaged during the battle. Inspired by this story, General Davies decided to redesign the study to see if it was possible to experimentally replicate the factors that had contributed to the deserter's survival. In the stormtrooper battalions under his command, General Davies divided the regiments into four groups: The first group was a control group of soldiers in standard equipment, the second group also had standard equipment and was ordered to marry volunteer woman or Twileki concubines and adopt Corellian street orphans, the third group was ordered to not wear their armor and refer to each other and themselves by their given name, and the fourth group was ordered to get married, adopt kids, not wear armor, and use their given names. These battalions were then pitted against rebel forces in statistically significant numbers, and it was found that the fourth group had the greatest survival rate of all the groups, followed by group three, group two, and lastly, group one, with most group one regiments getting annihilated. Terming this effect 'plot armor', General Davies finally concluded the study by recommending that all front line troops cease wearing armor and adopt families to maximize their performance. Unfortunately, by the time the study and report were completed, the rebel advance had been halted, and with recent recruits pouring toward the front lines, the perceived gains of implementing these recommendations were seen as too expensive, particularly the shipping and maintenance of orphans and concubines, while dropping the armor was hard for the high command to swallow due to the feared decline in troop discipline, and so the report was buried and nearly forgotten. However now that we have been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy and have no method of replacing fallen soldiers, I have performed a CBA and concluded that these recommendations are now worth implementing. I can show you the report if you'd like..."

An awkward silence pervaded the office as Admiral Guthrik processed General Talis' words. "Well, that is easily the most outlandish thing I have ever heard..."

"Let me ask you something Admiral," General Talis intoned. "Do you have a family?"

"I did," Guthrik sighed, "until my wife passed away a few months ago. My daughter then tried to go to the New Republic to marry a rebel veteran, and I was forced to have her executed. That was easily the hardest thing I have ever done..."

Talis eyes widened and she backed away from Guthrik. "Oh no, why would you do that?! And now you're taking that bad juju with you here!"

Suddenly, the sound of roaring spaceship engines could be heard outside, and the eyes of both the admiral and the general gravitated toward the window, where they witnessed a random Y-wing bomber fly toward them followed by TIE fighters who's shots were naturally going wide. As the Y-wing dropped its payload, Guthrik wondered if perhaps General Talis' madness was actually based on reality. Then the bombs detonated, incinerating the only uniformed officers on base while sparing those who had potential to contribute further to any kind of a plot...