The Republic is done... again?

I'm wondering how large of a fleet the First Order has. We really only saw the one Star Destroyer that Hux and Kylo were on.

 

We only see one Star Destroyer in ANH too.

EDIT: Actually, three. I forgot about the two chasing the Falcon after escaping Mos Eisley

 

IIRC wasn't it stated in Aftermath and Lost Stars that the Republic wanted to demilitarize and Leia and other leaders from the former Alliance to Restore the Republic didn't like that sensing the growing influence of the remnant Empire reorganized as the FO so Leia, General Ackbar and others created the Resistance to fight the FO need be?

 

Yes, I think that at the beginning of Episode VIII we'll see the FO on the offensive against the Republic and the remnant of that government will regroup as a united force by the end of the film, defeated but still intact and ready to fight back in Episode IX.

 

Yes, and I think that was an overconfident move by the NR. At one point the remnants of the Empire would look for a come back.

 

Yeah, that was pretty anti-climactic.

"Oh look! A NEW REPUBLIC! ...aaand It's GONE."

 

I'm guessing the entire Rebublic leadership was not destroyed. Same with the fleet. There will be more ships elsewhere that will join up with Leia's Resistence. Leia and her leadership will amass more power and probably gain a super weapon of their own this time. The destruction of Hosnian Prime and the violation of the Galactic Concordence means all out war with the First Order. Maybe that means the Warhammer concept and the Array will come into play this time.

Something I'd really like to see is the individual armies of planets (like Naboos Security volunteers) joining the fight with their distinct ships and fighting off the FO.

Now here's where it gets interesting. Will Luke come back with Rey, Chewie and R2 and be apart of Leia's Resistence, just as Leia was hoping for in TFA? Most think he trains Rey on Skellig. I'm hoping he comes back with Rey soon after, has a moment with Leia and they begin their strategy for defeating Snoke and Kylo. Luke on the sidelines a la Yoda doesn't feel right when the whole movie was about finding him and bringing him back.

In addition, the Resistence will need a new home as Snoke and Hux know they were hidden in the Illenium system. Where will be home? I doubt it will be Coruscant because they don't like all CG environments. Since only Leia knows Luke's location, maybe the system he is in will be their new hidden base of operations. Imagine the possibilities.

 

I hope Luke gets involved with the New Republic. Providing Jedi knowledge and insight into Supreme Leader Snoke and ways he can be fought and defeated, provided it's after he trains Rey to be a Jedi. The Republic can't be completely wiped out, since they pretty much control the GFFA outside of the Outer Rim and hopefully they get more actively involved with the Resistance in Ep. 8 and 9

 

Sure, but majority is still - a majority.

Also, if Snoke is the Plagueis no wonder the First Order is rich as frakk. (Galactic BANKING clan, wink-wink) They probably think of a Starkiller incident as "just a temporary setback".

 

For sure Chancellor Lanever Villecham pictured here was killed when Hosnian Prime blew up:

Maybe they can bring Mon Mothma back for another term as Chancellor? Or even better yet, make Leia Chancellor? After all she WAS right about the threat the FO posed.

 

There were a lot of his species in TFA. I think we will see in the opening crawl that Leia has been given control of all military operations and that a new senate has been elected and hidden somewhere.

 

I think the point was that the NR was bogged down on debate over whether or not to take the FO seriously and whether or not to go on the offensive.

Leia and the resistance were/are a group of idealists who didn't believe that it was possible to avoid conflict.

What we'll see next is the Resistance gaining more influence and putting together a rag tag fleet to fight the FO. It will look more like the fleet put together in ROTJ.

Where all of this goes in VIII will have more to do with the chronological gap between the films. Months or years?

I could see the next installment coming 9 months or so after TFA. Both Rey and Kylo are far along in their training, the Resistance is starting to piece together a fleet, and the FO is ready to strike before they gain too much strength.

It could be a couple of years later, like the gap between ANH and ESB, but this would waste too much opportunity to see the training. This film will need to have a rhyme with ESB and we know they are filming on Skellig again, as well as making set pieces to use elsewhere in stand in locations for the island.

The specific plot details are unknown, but we'll need to see a confrontation, with a twist, in VIII, and it will have to end looking very dark for the protagonists.

With all of that being said, Rian Johnson is likely going to take us somewhere unexpected, and Kasdan has already said that the script is weird.

 

Yes, this seems like the most likely outcome. The First Order has essentially achieved a much more successful Pearl Harbour attack and the Resistance managed a far more effective Doolittle Raid which nevertheless still leaves the majority of the FO fleets intact. Therefore ep.VIII will most likely open in the midst of the FO blitzkrieg campaign against the New Republic which would have sacrificed territory for time to rearm and reorganise. To continue the WW2 metaphors, imagine the initial invasion of the USSR where Germany made a lot of progress in a short amount of time but was eventually halted and a slogging match started. That's essentially how I view the war progressing with sieges around key strongholds, like Leningrad(St Petersburg) and Stalingrad(Volgograd), that the NR will hold to buy time.

The resistance will no longer exist, I don't know why people think the NR will somehow join them rather than the other way around. The resistance is composed of former NR military personal who wanted to fight the FO despite the NR appeasement stance so naturally with a full scale war erupting these people will rejoin whatever NR forces are left and aid the rearmament process.