8 Most Incompetent Rebel Officers

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[Phoenix-]

Let's not forget that in Legends, the New Republic's anemic initial response to the Yuuzhan Vong ruined any hope of actually containing the invasion at the Outer Rim. A very sizable portion of the 365+ trillion dead in that conflict probably could've been avoided if Borsk Fey'lya was remotely competent.

[andyd]

It's almost worse with Leia, she told Han point blank that they were being tracked. She knew and still made a beeline for the Yavin base

[tba]

I figured the reason General Dodonna and the Rebel high command stuck around at Yavin was because the token force of thirty fighters and fighter-bombers were pretty much all the ships they had left there, after the absolute tarring they took at Scarif. The rest of the Rebel fleet either went down in flames or scattered to prevent the Imperial Navy from finding the hidden base. With the ships they had left at Yavin, they might have gotten a few people out, but not enough to keep the Alliance together if Yavin fell. So, Dodonna decided to just go all-in and gamble on the strength of the stolen plans.

As for Rieekan, yeah, it turned out he'd made the wrong call, but given what he'd known at the time, it was an entirely reasonable one. I mean, yeah, the station is huge and terrifying, but only an absolute psycho of a bloodthirsty monster would randomly vaporize two billion people and a center of galactic art and culture because he thought it would get him more style points than holding a presser.

Unfortunately for Rieekan and Alderaan, Tarkin was in command, and that's exactly the sort of crime against humanity he would pull.

That said, while Tarkin's reputation for being ruthless to a psychopathic degree was well known, by the time the Death Star showed up at Alderaan, Rieekan wouldn't have known just how screwed the planet was. The Rebels had no idea of the station's capabilities or leadership at that point, because the plans were wedged inside R2-D2 and just leaving Tatooine about then. Leia, who'd been present at Scarif and had the data for at least a little while before, only found out Tarkin was on board the DS-1 when she was brought before him in person. There was no way Rieekan could have known what the station was capable of or what sort of madman was running it.

He might blame himself, but I don't know how he would have decided differently with what he'd known at the time.

[solarsailor]

I wonder if there is some survivorship bias at work explaining why we don’t see more incompetent Rebels. Most Imperial officers commanded their forces from either a Star Destroyer or a safe command center. It was rare for them to die in battle, meaning they could afford to screw up multiple times.

When a rebel cell lost a battle the Empire would kill or torture everyone involved. It could be there were many incompetent Rebels, but none of them lived to repeat their mistakes. Thus the rebellion only ended up with only the individuals competent enough to survive the Empire’s overwhelming technological and numerical advantage.

[carsoncasmirri]

I figured it was just hard to find because unlike most of the Empire if you were an incompetent Rebel Officer this problem was quite often self-correcting and fatal

[MagicalMaster]

A reason it's so hard to find incompetent rebels is because if they were incompetent then they would quickly be killed off. They were fighting against a numerically superior foe with few qualms to their lives.

[Lanwarder]

The thing is, Rebels are the rebel alliance, an alliance of various anti imperial groups. The empire is organized, government regulated, and monolithic. Therefore, it's a lot easier to blame war crimes coming from the top within the empire whereas there is no one single "top" when it comes to the Rebels. The Republic, new republic, etc? That's a whole other story, but as far as the Rebel alliance is concerned, it's not as if we never saw the divide between factions like Mon Mothma's and Saw Gerrera's

[imperialadvisor]

I would add to this list the unnamed Rebel Captain who lost his entire crew & the command of his Corellian Corvette to a single Imperial Probe droid right after the Battle of Hoth. Had not for the intervention of Luke and R2D2, a portion of the Rebel main fleet would also have been lost. (see the Original Marvel Comic series)

[andrewlyon]

It's probably telling that a lot of the incompetent rebel leaders are otherwise good commanders with specific deficiencies or bad calls while many of the bad imperials are so terrible they could be mistaken for rebel agents.

[ianhutchinson]

Suprised you didnt throw mon mothma on this list, considering how much she hamstrung the new republic's ability to react to either the vong or the first order, depending on the timeline

[yourstruly]

9: Vice Admiral Holdo, she attempted to escape, but hit a super star destroyer instead because she didn't know how to drive.

[yo_boi_john]

This isn't as much of an Incompetent rebel officers list as it is an Incompetent event list.

[tk-]

Jan Dodanna didn't have the authority to issue an evacuation and he never intended to leave himself, he was coerced to leave by the other high command members, although a number of Bothan high command members remained in Massassi base during the evacuations and were killed by the 501st.

[lerneanlion]

In case of the last one, I think this happened because she decided to fight instead of run. If she ran, the Krynka might just ran after its original preys if it found some of them. Unless it decided the bigger prey is the better option, of course.

[kazwilson]

Oof. Leia is lucky they didn't bust her down to kitchen duty after that Rebel fleet disaster.

[TrueYellowDart]

Blaming anything related to Alderaan on anyone except Tarkin is quite a stretch.

[charlesjenkins]

The stuff on Leia is actually kinda pitiful - obviously Leia isn't gonna persuade Tarkin not to do exactly what he wants, he is willing to do it without authorization from the emperor for heaven's sake. Its almost certainly not a split second decision, but rather his intention all along he hadn't told other high command about, but either way, she had no chance of stopping him. And she knew the ship was being tracked, she was luring it to one planet full of militants who were the only people who could possibly stop the thing because if they didn't, it was all over either way.

And Riekan is a bad commander bcs he's "stern"? Like wth the EU is so freaking weird inventing entirely ridiculous personalities bcs of onscreen presentations that don't match at all. Lots of military commanders are "stern" (and tbh he really isn't he just has a "tough" sounding voice so people make associations).

[Prich]

Leia's biggest failure: Allowing someone like Holdo in a high command position.

[moblinmajorgeneral]

I'm gonna be fair to Leia for the Death Star Escape. She likely understood the Falcon was bugged, and figured Massassi Group was the one in the best position to destroy the Death Star.

[StickNik]

5:30 - regarding the tracking device on the Falcon, there is the argument to be made that she wanted to use them being tracked to lure the Death Star there and keep them there long enough for the attack to succeed, with only an actual rebel base being good enough bait, otherwise the Death Star could've simply retreated.