Vast Empire



"The Empire is dead. Long live the Empire."

The Vast Empire is an online group of Star Wars fans, writing fiction set in a shared universe based on Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. In it, 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, centred at Coruscant itself...

Main page is here, along with the actual stories here.


 * A Father to His Men (Certain squad leaders)
 * Alternate Character Interpretation (Of the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant.)
 * Amazon Brigade
 * Badass Army (The VE Stormtrooper Corps, and 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.
 * Better Than It Sounds
 * Chekhov's Gun (loose ends from one Holiday Squad Competition often tie into the overall plot or the story for the next year.)
 * The Dark Side (Is what the VE's rulers and guiding members are using. As Dark Jedi.)
 * Dodge the Bullet (Done by the Noghri.)
 * Elite Mooks (The main characters, and the Noghri on the opposing side.)
 * The Empire (The heroes of most of the stories.)
 * Elites Are More Glamorous (And the main characters.)
 * Ensign Newbie (Tends to die horribly once their writer vanishes from the scene.)
 * Guns Akimbo (Fairly common.)
 * God Mode Sue (Tend to be mocked and then gleefully killed once their writers quit.)
 * Gunship Rescue (An oft-used premise when one of the squads is in a jam.)
 * Hand Cannon (Carried around by members of the squads.
 * Highly-Conspicuous Uniform (Blackjack Squad, due to its new position as the Elite Squad has bright red armour. Mostly averted due to camouflage paint on the stormtrooper armour.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy (Averted, sometimes to the point of Improbable Aiming Skills .)
 * In-Universe Game Clock (The VE has been in the Thrawn era for nine years of real-time. Stormtroopers advance through the ranks in what must be days of in-universe time. Appears that this may be fixed by moving the timeline forwards to the post-Thrawn era in the near future.)
 * Laser Blade (Is reserved for members of the secretive Dark Jedi Order, which rules the VE from behind the scenes.)
 * Katanas Are Just Better (Some old stories had stormtroopers with vibrokatanas.)
 * 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.)
 * Obligatory War Crime Scene (Several, due to the nature of the main characters.)
 * Old Soldier (Several, regardless of in-universe age)
 * One-Man Army (Overlaps with God Mode Sue as above, usually averted. Played straight for certain scenarios where the squad would be expected to die.)
 * Redshirt Army (The Imperial Army and the "normal" stormtroopers, who take many more casualties than their PC counterparts.)
 * Take Over the World (Well, the galaxy.)
 * The Medic (Riqimo is the most prominent example, and one of the RP "specs" members can choose.)
 * The Remnant (The Vast Empire itself qualifies. Others are occasional villains in stories.)
 * Sociopathic Soldier (Several)
 * Squad Nickname(For all the squads)
 * The Squad (Four of them, in fact.)
 * Villain Protagonist (The premise.)
 * Wingman (TIE pilots in the PC squadrons.)