Another day at work.
The Empire is dead. Long live the Empire.
The Vast Empire is an online group of Star Wars fans, writing fiction set in a modified version of Star Wars Legends where the Player Characters comprise a splinter faction of the original Empire known as the Vast Empire. The heroic Stormtroopers of the Vast Empire fight the terrorist forces of the New Republic and other Imperials, such as those led by Grand Admiral Thrawn. Consisting of a handful of scattered worlds and a fairly small fleet of warships, the Vast Empire and its shadowy leaders nevertheless have grand ambitions, centered at Imperial Center itself...
The (now dated) front page is here
, and the actual stories are here.
Most of the active membership base of the Vast Empire has moved to a new site: Empire's Edge.
This show provides examples of:
- Amazon Brigade: Numerous Stormtrooper Squads and Starfighter Squadrons have had a rosterful of women at times.
- Ax-Crazy: Many Player Characters over the years, including some particularly brutal Naval Intelligence characters. RAIDERS as a whole sits somewhere between this and Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits.
- Badass Army: The VE Stormtrooper Corps, Phoenix Company in particular: they held off three Star Destroyers and crippled two of them, then beat back a planetwide invasion force on their home planet.
- Chekhov's Gun: loose ends from one Holiday Squad Competition often tie into the overall plot or the story for the next year.
- The Empire: Played with. While VE has retained very few of its predecessor's bigoted and cruel influences, it's still mostly totalitarian. Members have occasionally cited this trope as an excuse to micromanage their OOC subordinates.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Player Characters are rarely considered run-of-the-mill soldiers by the time their second battle rolls around.
- Ensign Newbie: Newcomers which prove their worth and are very active can ascend the command structure quickly during lulls in activity.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The winner of the Elite Squad Competition gains distinction as the official Elite Squad and gets to wear bright red armour. Mostly averted due to camouflage on the regular Stormtrooper armour.
- In-Universe Game Clock: The VE has been in the Thrawn era for over nine years of real-time, so Stormtroopers advance through the ranks in what must be days of in-universe time. "Chapters" are VE-wide stories that resync the timelines for a major canon event.
- Laser Blade: Is reserved for members of the secretive Dark Jedi Order, which rules the VE from behind the scenes.
- More Dakka: An effective solution to enemies who can dodge bullets and wipe out squads with a stone knife. Sometimes.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Comes up about as much as you'd expect. Some Squad leaders make it their slogan.
- Redshirt Army: The Imperial Army and the "normal" Stormtroopers, as well as the majority of the Starfighter Corps, who take many more casualties than their PC counterparts.
- The Squad: Most Player Characters are assigned to an Army Squad or Navy Squadron.
