u/OfficialAli1776

How quickly homelander’s regime fell apart after his death. Homelander and his lackeys went from basically ruling America as a deep state at the end of season 4 to having congress UNANIMOUSLY vote to arrest Ashley at the end of the finale. The fact that congress, all 435 members of the house and all 100 members of the senate, every Republican and Democrat l, regardless of culture war politics, all voted to arrest her really goes to show how much they all must’ve hated homelander and were only following him out of fear and literally nothing else. It would be really cool to see what a post-homelander America would look like, especially with Stan Edgar running Vought again, if only we had a show that could explore that…wait.

I always see people saying the Empire replacing the clones with naturally born soldiers was stupid in their part, but I disagree. My main argument will be cost effectiveness, and that the clone army was just too expensive to be practical. Firstly, even with growth acceleration, it would take around 9 years to grow a clone soldier from birth to deployment, 9 years is a long time for things to change and numbers to not be replenished. Secondly, during the war, countless clones died to b1 battle droids, probably the worst individual unit in all Star Wars. Obviously individual soldier skill is important, but equipment, tactics, and logistics are more so. Just because the empire put quantity disproportionately above quality, doesn’t mean training a high quality army isn’t worth it. That being said, the advantage gained by having clones isn’t disproportionate enough to warrant their continued use.

There are a few other logical point of like to make in addition to cost effectiveness:

1. Security, having all your soldiers come from a single source makes that source a massive weakness.

2. Jango Fett DNA was already being stretched beyond what was acceptable to the Kaminoans, eventually you’d get to a point where clones would hardly be clones anymore and would have the inherent skill of normal humans.

3. Keeping the clones around would give the Kaminoans disproportionate influence over Imperial politics. If I were Palpatine, this would be a massive worry for me. They could also, theoretically, do to me what I did to the Jedi through some contingency order.

A friend and I were talking about this and I had a thought. He said that Stormtrooper armor never seems to fit properly, along with its lack of effectiveness. I pointed out how thin it is, especially at the chest area compared to clone armor. Obviously Stormtrooper armor looks like it’s a downgrade in quality compared to clone armor, I know it’s anecdotal, but Captain Rex ranting about how bad it was might prove my point further.

Compared with Stormtrooper armor, TK armor honestly looks like it has more in common with clone armor. It fills in the gaps on the sides that Stormtrooper armor has, as well as adding an extra layer of armor on the head. So that brings me to my theory that it was originally conceived as a phase III clone armor, and that could be part of the reason it was rolled out so fast after Project War Mantle. We know Phase II armor was in development since the beginning of the Clone War, so “phase III” armor being in development mid/late war isn’t so far-fetched and it would only need to be slightly tweaked to include various sizes while keeping the original design

I’m a Catholic with family still in Iran and I’m honestly torn on the Iran situation. On one hand, I get that the modern church values peace and diplomacy, but on the other, the Iranian regime are murderous terrorists who’ve been known to negotiate in bad faith. In my opinion, a war to remove them would be just on purely moral grounds, not that I support an invasion or anything like that. I’m curious as to what standard the church says this war is unjust when not even a generation ago, John Paul the 2nd was vocally against Marxism, not to mention the various wars sanctioned by us to defend Christians throughout history. One could even point to God’s actions in the Old Testament against evil nations as being a lot more harsh on the nations as a whole than what we’re currently doing to Iran. Just to reiterate, I’m not really a fan of war and I oppose any invasion of Iran, but I think what we’re currently doing is barely even a war and don’t see how it’s wrong.

I want to start with a disclaimer saying that I don’t think that what the Fire Nation did was good and this is in no way a defense of them.

From reading some panels from the ATLA comics it looks like when Zuko became Firelord he immediately started radical reform in the Fire Nation, while not being occupied, surrendering and painting themselves as the aggressors in the war. The problem I have with that is that it’s kind of unrealistic. You’ve gotta keep in mind that the Fire Nation spent the last century on war nationalism, not only that, but conquering lands. That legacy doesn’t just go away because one leader says it does. I know that that Zuko suffered through multiple assassination attempts during his early rule, but that’s no where near what realistically would happen.

For a real world example, look at post-ww1 Germany and Italy. One reason fascism was so popular there was because of how the war ended in both countries. Both Germany and Italy felt like they’d been stabbed in the back, albeit in different ways. Italy was promised the Dalmatian Coast by Britain and, even though they were on the winning side, didn’t get it. Germany, when they lost the war, still had soldiers in France so from their point of view, they lost only due to politics and not from their country actually losing. When looking at the Fire Nation, this problem would be worse because they’d already won the war in most regards at that point. Ba-Sing Se was captured (I know it was recaptured, but hardly any time had passed) and Sozin’s comet was coming, giving their benders a ridiculous buff. From the perspective of a normal person in the Fire Nation, Zuko would be a foreign asset who took control via coup and surrendered a war they’d already won, making all those sacrifices in vain. In my opinion, there’s no way the Fire Nation’s military, probably aristocracy, and even much of its people, wouldn’t depose Zuko as a traitor.

I want to end by addressing some of the obvious counter arguments.

“He has the avatar on his side”
>Aang can only be in one place at once and won’t be able to put down anti-Zuko revolts all over the Fire Nation. He also won’t be able to suppress any Fire Nation civilians because he famously didn’t have the stomach to kill Ozai, much less ordinary people. So I doubt he’d be willing to firebomb Fire Nation villages and cities like the allies did in ww2. As for the religious argument, the Fire Nation’s religion had already been in schism for a century, the avatar’s presence wouldn’t mean as much to them.

“He won the Agni-Kai”
>The Agni-Kai was inconclusive at best, both Azula and him cheated. Besides that point, Zuko’s rule would be so radically different that a lot of people probably wouldn’t care.

I know a lot of people hate the Inquisitor lightsabers because of the spin-helicopter thing they do, but objectively it’s a good innovation on lightsaber technology that a highly skilled force user can use to great effect. The problem is we only see them used by Inquisitors and not Sith Lords. A huge advantage they have is that they can easily alternate between single and double bladed, without having the absurdly long hilt like Maul and Savage’s lightsabers did. The addition of a chainsaw makes it so that the wielder would have an advantage during saberlocks. The spinning is also good because it lets the wielders’ hands remain stationary while creating a screen against blasters and lightsabers. Lastly, I know it’s stupid, but the flying mechanic is really helpful, even though it makes no sense.

I’m 24 (5’6) and I’ve never tried to date or anything like that. The reason is I read and see so many stats about height and how it correlates with dating nowadays and I’m lowkey terrified. My friends tell me I should at least try, and I know that if I try nonstop I might *eventually* get lucky out of pure statistics, I don’t know if I want to necessarily put myself through that process. I’m kind of in a bind here and was hoping for some honest advice.

I know it sounds stupid, but it’s a genuine question

Round 1: No avatar state

Round 2: Aang is in the avatar state

Whenever I watch ROTJ I can’t help but notice when Anakin catches on fire, the fire itself burns on his clothes for a good bit until they basically melt away. Considering leather is harder than cloth, did it make it so that, ironically, Anakin burned longer than if he had been wearing normal Jedi robes?