Reading Heir to the Empire

[Gnoman]

She gets into orbit and her force senses tingle, so she powers the engine hard, but the ISD is already on an intercept course. She wonders if Wedge is the target, but 'a single X wing pilot could hardly be important enough to tie up a Victory class Star Destroyer. It doesn't seem to me like she's any higher value, they're only being hunted because Thrawn holds a grudge, but anyway, she's hailed by the ISD.

Note to Self: Star Destroyer Adamant.. Joining the Judicator, Death's Head, Relentless, Stormhawk, Nemesis, Chimaera. I've probably forgotten a few.

With her options limited, she says hello to the ISD and asks to be transported to Thrawn. The Captain doesn't quite buy it until she gives an old Emperor's Hand recognition code.

The ISD locks her up on board while they go find Thrawn, moving very fast, which makes her a very high value target to be using an ISD like a taxi. They do flit back and forth a bit from 'You don't use a Star Destroyer if you don't want to be noticed' to 'yeah let's divert this entire ship for the sake of this one fighter/freighter/target'

Adamant is a Victory-class ship, not an ISD (which is used in the EU almost exclusively for the Imperial-class ships such as Thrawn's Chimaera). Half the size, and less than a third of the firepower. In RW naval terms, it is a light cruiser where an Imperial is a battleship, and using one as a courier is much less remarkable.

[hamishspence]

In RW naval terms, it is a light cruiser where an Imperial is a battleship, and using one as a courier is much less remarkable.

Heavy cruiser, not light (Carrack-class, fills the "light cruiser" slot). Still, the basic point, that it is smaller than regular Imperial-class and plays a different role, does work.

The Victory was the replacement for the Dreadnought heavy cruiser - and the Imperial superseded the Victory - replacing it as the "line ship" so the Victory ended up becoming secondary - used where an Imperial would be seen as too scarce to waste doing less important duty.

[Sapphire Guard]

Hmm...okay. Mara estimates that a Victory class SD is too valuable to waste on one X Wing fighter, but apparently not for the Etherway, which is a smuggling freighter, IIRC. Is it that much more valuable?

So what's a Strike class ship, then?

CH17:

Leia and Chewbacca are trying to plan their escape, and not getting very far. The Chimaera has left, and they're not sure what to make of this, fearing some super complicated plan. They've left Khabarakh behind, so there's a small possibility that he can be rescued.

Leia says hello to the maitrakh, who is cordially polite to the woman that has most likely brought wrath and ruin to her village. They contemplate the decon droids, and Chewbacca runs the numbers to see if their progress stacks up. Apparently it checks out.

They plot a bit, knowing they have to hit the spaceport to escape. Their best chance is on the darkest part of the month, in two days, and the maitrakh volunteers to help the raid. It's difficult to see how they can pull this off, but there's a strong possibility of a levelled village at some point.

Winter updates Han and Lando about what's going on -the Imperials are hitting the shipping, there's not much they can do about it, the same power struggles are ongoing. They have not heard from Leia, but there's a message from Luke that they're all pretty suspicious of but decide to go after anyway.

Niles Ferrier meets them in the spaceport. He says he wants to cut a deal for some warships with the republic...the Katana fleet. Han is suspicious and checks behind them, but sees nothing. Ferrier's deal is that they pool their resources and go after them, and gives up Thrawn's name by accident.

They don't make a deal and leave. Lando finds a homing beacon once they're in the air.

On the ground, Ferrier is talking to his invisible friend. There's a second beacon on board, Solo looked right at him but couldn't see him, although Lando might've. So Ferrier is on their trail.

That was a nice trick there, he does well with limited information. I wonder if he's secured a non exploding ship yet.

I like what's happening with the Noghri a lot, I just hope they don't get slaughtered in retaliation.

[hamishspence]

So what's a Strike class ship, then?

Just "Cruiser" with no "heavy" or "light" prefix. Possibly "medium" instead:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Strik...medium_cruiser


Interestingly, in real life, strike could have been a prefix:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_cruiser

but those were never built.

[gomipile]

Hmm...okay. Mara estimates that a Victory class SD is too valuable to waste on one X Wing fighter, but apparently not for the Etherway, which is a smuggling freighter, IIRC. Is it that much more valuable?

I think she means a New Republic military X-wing is less valuable to Thrawn than one of Karrde's ships.

[pendell]

Sapphire Guard: A Strike-class cruiser is one of these . They showed up in the sources Zahn used, seemingly. They also show up in the Tie Fighter video game. Blew up my share of them back in the day .

Also ... I think a lot of the reason for Thrawn being portrayed as he is occurred because of the requirements of storytelling.

Thrawn is supposed to be a threat to the Republic; a threat so menacing that it requires our heroes to defeat him, a threat who is otherwise unstoppable. After all, if I'm reading the setting correctly there are uncounted warlords, independent forces, bandits and so forth who are easily dealt with by the regular Republic forces. Even the remnant of the Empire would not be a threat if it wasn't being lead by Thrawn.

So if he isn't a threat of this magnitude, there's no stake, no drama to the story telling.

So what threat does he present? He doesn't have force powers, and he's not building a Death Star. He's actually a fairly ordinary opponent; the only thing he has in his corner is that he's a military genius. Well, that and a few bits of technology from Mount Tantiss, but the important thing he's that he's genius.

Okay so now that we've decided the story's antagonist is going to be a military genius, how do we make that believable in the eyes of the audience? Zahn is writing for an audience of teens and twenty somethings; very few of them even have military experience at all, much less studied historical campaigns to know the earmarks of genius. How do you portray a military genius credibly to an audience who doesn't understand either the military or genius?

Well, one way to do it is to have Thrawn be consistently right when conventional military figures -- such as Captain Pelleon -- are wrong. So he constantly sets up these disagreements in which Thrawn is proven right again and again.

It has to be this way, because if Thrawn is not better than the conventional military we've got no antagonist, no threat, no dramatic tension to the story.

And as towards some of Thrawn's stratagems not being all that obviously bright to an outside observer -- well, again, that's down to the nature of storytelling. The problem of writing a story which revolves around cleverness is that the stratagems used have to be clever enough to outwit the heroes but not clever enough to outwit the reading audience. Otherwise the audience is confused and it can take paragraphs or chapters to set them straight, and all that exposition is boring; it puts people off the story.

That's why protaganists carry the Idiot Ball so often in stories like this; because the villain can't be smarter than the audience, and the heroes can't be smarter than the villain. So the villain resorts to ruses so transparent a grade-school child can see through them (that's often who the audience is, after all) , and the heroes have to be dumber than the villain in order to fall for it in the first place.

It's worse when you're writing a children's book. Zahn, at least, is trying to write a story that is entertaining to adults as well, and I think he succeeded. Certainly his books, along with Travis and The Death Star novel, are the only parts of the old EU I really consider worthy of my attention.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

The Death Star novel? Really? Cheers on the battle station, and yet another attempt to explain the plot hole that isn't a plot hole?

[hamishspence]

The Death Star novel? Really? Cheers on the battle station, and yet another attempt to explain the plot hole that isn't a plot hole?

I wouldn't call the narrative "Cheering on the battle station". It really emphasises the monstrousness of what was done to Alderaan, and how even the main gunner is massively troubled by it.

[Peelee]

I wouldn't call the narrative "Cheering on the battle station". It really emphasises the monstrousness of what was done to Alderaan, and how even the main gunner is massively troubled by it.

I meant the TV show Cheers.

[pendell]

I meant the TV show Cheers.

I understood what you meant, since I'm old enough to remember the show. But yes, I liked the Death Star Novel. I've done some government contracting and the characterization was spot on. I think it did an excellent job of portraying a slice-of-life for the Death Star crew.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

I understood what you meant, since I'm old enough to remember the show. But yes, I liked the Death Star Novel. I've done some government contracting and the characterization was spot on. I think it did an excellent job of portraying a slice-of-life for the Death Star crew.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ya know, I really shouldn't judge. I apologise. You liked it, that's awesome, I shouldn't say boo.

[The Glyphstone]

Wasn't that also the book that explained away the exhaust port vulnerability by way of wookie digestive ailments?

[DataNinja]

Wasn't that also the book that explained away the exhaust port vulnerability by way of wookie digestive ailments?

I'm fairly certain that that particular book explained it away as it was on the plans, changed after it was realized that it wasn't really needed... but then it would have cost more money and time to change it than to leave it in. might be wrong though.

I did enjoy it, too.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone for their responses, this thread is proving very educational.

I think she means a New Republic military X-wing is less valuable to Thrawn than one of Karrde's ships.]

Maybe so, but Karrde is just a grudge, Thrawn doesn't know about Katana fleet until later, so it seems like these books flit a lot between 'one target isn't worth a battleship' and sending battleships to apprehend one target. Seems like these are duties for which those Strike and Carrack classes might be useful for.

Also ... I think a lot of the reason for Thrawn being portrayed as he is occurred because of the requirements of storytelling.

It's one way of doing it, but not the only way. I get the need for a credible villain in the wake of the Emperor and Vader. The character himself is fine, but the way the world builds itself around him to prove him right hurts the story, for me at least. Especially on those occasions when it goes out of its way to undercut everyone else.

An effective way might be to have his actions speak for themselves. His plan re the Shipyards was a legitimately good one that made him look dangerous without the need for him to be constantly contradicting his subordinate and the narrative pointing out how much better he is than the imperials in almost every scene he's in.

Part of this is taste. Taking shots at other things is one of the best ways to make me put on skeptical goggles. One of the reasons I'm a bit cool towards TFA is that it appeared to be taking shots at its predecessors in some respects-a lot of the marketing was 'we're not the prequels, guys'.

These are still good books I'm enjoying, but the way the writing treats Thrawn is a problem for me sometimes.

CH19: Karrde watches the Etherway come into base. Mara's late, but transmitting all the proper codes. Still, he's a bit uneasy for reasons he can't explain.

Mara arrives, and is about to explain the trouble when TIEs and Stormtroopers ambush them, and Mara disarms and pins him. Even now, he maintains his calm. Whatever else about Karrde, he's excellent under stress.

Those Imperial forces got out of orbit very quickly.

On the bridge of the Chimaera, Mara is furious. For an Imperial Assassin, she's very naive. She tries to attack, and Rukh intervenes, so she tries Force Choke instead. It's not effective enough to actually hurt him, though, and she gives up. He threatens her with being handed over to C'Baoth, then lets her leave. Amazingly, he seems to actually be keeping his word about letting the others go, bar Karrde thanks to the location of Katana fleet, and tells her to leave back to the planet. On the way, she stops at a computer terminal and uses her Imperial backdoor code the Emperor gave her to find Karrde, and aware that she can't rescue him herself, decides to hunt down C'Baoth to see if he can help.

On the planet's surface, Aves holds her at gunpoint and she talks him into getting her a ship and a ysalamiri so she can hunt down Luke and ask him for help getting Karrde out of the Chimaera, even though she basically still wants to kill him.

Well, that went about as well as expected. Mara slipped up hard, and now she has to go to Jomark to get backup. Should be fun.

[GrayDeath]

This is one of the chapters that show off another reason why I enjoy the trilogy so much.

Both sides (and neutrals) make mistakes, and have to (almost always^^) own them and try a different approach.

No "But due to the Jedi Council doing X your accidentally blowing up spacestation y is now forgiven/never happened/someone else did it" and stuff.

[Peelee]

Wasn't that also the book that explained away the exhaust port vulnerability by way of wookie digestive ailments?

Wookiee. 2 E's.

An effective way might be to have his actions speak for themselves. His plan re the Shipyards was a legitimately good one that made him look dangerous without the need for him to be constantly contradicting his subordinate and the narrative pointing out how much better he is than the imperials in almost every scene he's in.

Oh man, then you're going to love

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when you find out that he's constantly cloning the best troops the Empire has so that the military will be terrifyingly better.

[Kish]

In both this case and the case of the prequel trilogy, I'd be generally sympathetic to "this takes unnecessary shots at something else" except that, in both cases, I think you're only perceiving shots because you're defensive about the thing shots are allegedly being taken at.

("But really, it's not" remains a poor rejoinder to specific examples of the former Empire's blatant incompetence.)

[russdm]

If I remember correctly, Zahn mentions somewhere in the annotations about making Thrawn and Pelleaon expys of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. So Thrawn spends time explaining matters to Pelleaon like Holmes does to Watson. It works better when you are of that fact.

One of the major issues with Vader really was his tendency of force-choking people. That could not have been good for turnover and officers that are summarily killed at random aren't going to learn from their mistakes. So Vader's essential leadership style just keeps removing possible talent, weakening the Empire by encouraging the officers to become backstabby through getting others to take the fall when they screw up.

Vader should have used Seppeku instead for officers. Would have encouraged better results that way. Or maybe, lashing subordinates for mistakes?

Anyway, Zahn had a beef with what had established in the OT as Vader and Sidious's methods of command, so he took the time to criticize Vader as frequently as he could. Needa dies for losing the Falcon, Ozzel dies for his stupidity, Motti gets choked. And it was implied strongly that without Needa apologizing for his ship, Vader would have had the entire crew killed. So, how again was Vader an effective military leader of any sort? When was Vader doing anything that was militarily effective? There was Hoth and then chasing the Falcon into an asteroid field.

[LadyEowyn]

Yes, I never considered the conversations between Thrawn and Pellaeon to be "taking potshots"; it was typically Pellaeon voicing the conventional military wisdom and Thrawn explaining the unconventional tactic he's using instead.

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And sometimes Pellaeon is right. In particular, about C'baoth.

Big spoiler below, don't read unless you've finished the books.

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On a related note, in the last few chapters we've seen the two mistakes that will cost Thrawn the war. First, not digging deeper into the Noghri situation, and second, double-crossing Mara. Those two actions lead to three previous neutral or Empire-loyal forces/people - the Noghri, Mara, and Kaarde - siding with the protagonists, and that's what results in Thrawn's loss.

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That specifically is what makes me love the Thrawn Trilogy. Thrawn doesn't lose due to being stupid, or due random chance, or due to being over-the-top evil, or due to the heroes having better tactics or more power. He loses because he treats the Noghri, Mara, and Kaarde as pawns or resources to be exploited. Likewise, the protagonists win because they choose to put their lives on the line by trusting people they have no obligation to trust - a race of Imperial assassins, the former Empire's Hand who has vowed to kill Luke, and a smuggler who's already taken Luke prisoner once. The protagonists win by being morally better than Thrawn, even when doing so invites serious risks. That, to me, is the essence of what Star Wars should be.

[Dragonus45]

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That specifically is what makes me love the Thrawn Trilogy. Thrawn doesn't lose due to being stupid, or due random chance, or due to being over-the-top evil, or due to the heroes having better tactics or more power. He loses because he treats the Noghri, Mara, and Kaarde as pawns or resources to be exploited. Likewise, the protagonists win because they choose to put their lives on the line by trusting people they have no obligation to trust - a race of Imperial assassins, the former Empire's Hand who has vowed to kill Luke, and a smuggler who's already taken Luke prisoner once. The protagonists win by being morally better than Thrawn, even when doing so invites serious risks. That, to me, is the essence of what Star Wars should be.

Spoiler: Post Trillogy Spoilers

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This is also one of the reasons I love Pellaeon so much. He never became the tactical genius that Thrawn was but he did learn the right lessons from how and where Thrawn failed. I like to think that is why he had the fortitude and courage to pull the trigger on Imperial surrender. Although being the second in command to every insane warlord who tried to run the Empire afterwords probably also helped. He got a real master course on how not to run the Empire.

[Mando Knight]

Wasn't that also the book that explained away the exhaust port vulnerability by way of wookie digestive ailments?

I'm fairly certain that that particular book explained it away as it was on the plans, changed after it was realized that it wasn't really needed... but then it would have cost more money and time to change it than to leave it in. might be wrong though.

I did enjoy it, too.

I have the book handy, the situation as it played out there was a bit of a both-and: an architect assigned to the section noticed the extraneous exhaust port and told the Wookiee to change it and she'd file the plan alterations later. The Wookiee took sick and the architect got distracted by other projects and goings-on, so his replacement didn't know about the change and gave her the "I'm paid to build to the plans, and that's what I'll do unless you have it in writing" excuse.

The architect didn't realize until minutes before the Death Star was destroyed (while she was deserting the station with the novel's other misfits during the attack) that the exhaust port was the weak point that the Rebels were gunning for.

[The Glyphstone]

I've always thought of it as 'an entire book written to explain two words of dialogue' (the main gunner repeating 'Standing By' instead of firing). The fact that it tries to justify the exhaust port weakness slips my mind until someone reminds me.

[Peelee]

I've always thought of it as 'an entire book written to explain two words of dialogue' (the main gunner repeating 'Standing By' instead of firing). The fact that it tries to justify the exhaust port weakness slips my mind until someone reminds me.

Imean, you're not wrong. I just get tired every time someone new tries to justify the exhaust port.

[Sapphire Guard]

Wookiee. 2 E's.

Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
An effective way might be to have his actions speak for themselves. His plan re the Shipyards was a legitimately good one that made him look dangerous without the need for him to be constantly contradicting his subordinate and the narrative pointing out how much better he is than the imperials in almost every scene he's in.
Oh man, then you're going to love [SPOILER]

Heheh, well played, I now get to wonder whether this is sarcastic or not (don't clarify)

In both this case and the case of the prequel trilogy, I'd be generally sympathetic to "this takes unnecessary shots at something else" except that, in both cases, I think you're only perceiving shots because you're defensive about the thing shots are allegedly being taken at.

("But really, it's not" remains a poor rejoinder to specific examples of the former Empire's blatant incompetence.)

As far as I remember, there were elaborate detailed discussions about said specific examples in the early part of this thread. If you feel differently, feel free to quote me.

The most unnecessary shot was the one about the Imperial Navy fighting back 'like cadets' after the Fall of the Death Star. We didn't see that part of the battle in ROTJ, so it's not calling out a existing weakness, it's making one up wholesale specifically for Thrawn to call out.

If I remember correctly, Zahn mentions somewhere in the annotations about making Thrawn and Pelleaon expys of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. So Thrawn spends time explaining matters to Pelleaon like Holmes does to Watson. It works better when you are of that fact.]

I'm not that versed in Holmes, but my understanding is that he doesn't actually explain that much, he draws apparently random conclusions, acts on them, and doesn't explain until the end of the story or when he is forced to by people nearby. We also learn his limitations almost immediately on meeting him, his encyclopaedic knowledge of detective things is balanced by his lack of knowledge of everything else, and it comes with downsides like the cocaine habit when he's unstimulated.

Yes, I never considered the conversations between Thrawn and Pellaeon to be "taking potshots"; it was typically Pellaeon voicing the conventional military wisdom and Thrawn explaining the unconventional tactic he's using instead.

But that's just another version of the same thing, highlighting how Thrawn's methods are always better than convention. A few of these would be fine, but they're in nearly every scene.

This conversation feels familiar. I'd better move on.

CH20:

Luke is called into the seat of judgement to preside over the last case of the evening, a dispute over a boundary fence. His judgement defers sentencing to the village council and adjourns the matter until he can get a look at the fence. C'Baoth is unhappy with him for delegating instead of mind reading, and calls the locals primitives because they lack understanding of the Force, and also because the old galaxy exterminated the Jedi. Which is actually a somewhat fair point. Luke isn't sure if its true, because it hasn't been written yet, but he's strugling to think through a strange fatigue. Regardless, he's having misgivings about his new mentor's abilities.

Mid conversation, C'Baoth twitches and then asks Luke to go to sleep.

Mara's having her old nightmare about the death of the Emperor, and she's woken by a proximity alarm. She's arrived at Jomark, and uses Imperial codes to make her landing. A sudden fatigue hits, but she fights it off enough to gather herself, then goes to the Ysalamiri in the back, and the fatigue lifts. She brings it back to the cockpit. Whereupon the ship begins taking impacts from thrown rocks.

[Kish]

As far as I remember, there were elaborate detailed discussions about said specific examples in the early part of this thread. If you feel differently, feel free to quote me.

I participated in the discussion you're talking about. I brought up multiple examples of the Empire's gross incompetence in the movies; you ignored all the specific examples and simply asserted that the Empire had not been incompetent. I see little need or value in dragging the same posts from the first few pages of the thread; they are, after all, still there should you wish to address them at any time. Now, you're effectively moving the goalposts: you're still ignoring rather than contesting the textual examples of Imperial incompetence, but filling in an offscreen event in a way that isn't flattering to the Empire is invalid.

This conversation does feel familiar.

[Peelee]

Heheh, well played, I now get to wonder whether this is sarcastic or not (don't clarify)

I'll just leave this here for you: Man, that show was great.

Spoiler: Not a spoiler, I'm just doing this so people who don't want to see gifs don't have to.

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[Rakaydos]

The most unnecessary shot was the one about the Imperial Navy fighting back 'like cadets' after the Fall of the Death Star. We didn't see that part of the battle in ROTJ, so it's not calling out a existing weakness, it's making one up wholesale specifically for Thrawn to call out.

How did the rebel fleet go from "We wont last long against those star destroyers," "We'll last longer than we will against that death star!" to celebrating victory with the ewoks?

Surely, if the imperial navy was remotely competent, they would slowly grind the rebel fleet to dust even after the emperor's death?

Except we SEE things start to go wrong, right after the emperor dies. Narratively, it's the climactic part of the film, where each set of heros gains the upper hand at the same time to tell a cohesive narrative. But in universe... The emperor dies, and then everything goes wrong for the empire. Ties fail to take out Wedge and Lando. Piett's super star destroyer gets suddenly decapitated, AND crashes before control can be restored. imperial reinforcements stop attacking Han and Leia at the shield generator. And Luke and Vader make it all the way to the hanger bay in time for Anakin's last words, so Luke can leave as the hanger is blowing up. In universe, that's a lot of things going right by chance to avoid endor being at best a Pyrrhic victory.

"In my experience there's no such thing as luck, only the Force."

[pendell]

How did the rebel fleet go from "We wont last long against those star destroyers," "We'll last longer than we will against that death star!" to celebrating victory with the ewoks?

Surely, if the imperial navy was remotely competent, they would slowly grind the rebel fleet to dust even after the emperor's death?

Except we SEE things start to go wrong, right after the emperor dies. Narratively, it's the climactic part of the film, where each set of heros gains the upper hand at the same time to tell a cohesive narrative. But in universe... The emperor dies, and then everything goes wrong for the empire. Ties fail to take out Wedge and Lando. Piett's super star destroyer gets suddenly decapitated, AND crashes before control can be restored. imperial reinforcements stop attacking Han and Leia at the shield generator. And Luke and Vader make it all the way to the hanger bay in time for Anakin's last words, so Luke can leave as the hanger is blowing up. In universe, that's a lot of things going right by chance to avoid endor being at best a Pyrrhic victory.

"In my experience there's no such thing as luck, only the Force."

This is explicitly called out in the Return of the Jedi novelization.

Smoke was everywhere, substantial rumblings came from all directions at once, people were running and shouting. Electrical fires, steam explosions, cabin depressurizations, disruption of chain-of-command. Added to this, the continued bombardments by Rebel cruisers—smelling fear in the enemy—merely heightened the sense of hysteria that was already pervasive.

For the Emperor was dead. The central, powerful evil that had been the cohesive force to the Empire was gone; and when the dark side was this diffused, this nondirected — this was simply where it led.

Confusion. Desperation. Damp fear.

So Thrawn was right -- the Imperial troops were fighting in part because the Emperor was guiding their thoughts and wills. When that pervasive mind disappeared, the Imperial forces dissolved into panic. Which is why they didn't annihilate the Rebel fleet after the destruction of the Death Star despite still having an overwhelming advantage in Firepower and numbers.

This is explicitly in the official novelization of the movie, which is a step above normal EU canon but still not actual film-canon.

I speculate part of the reason Pelleaon was able to do as well as he did in that battle was because, being Lawful neutral (or at least less lawful evil than the Sith lords), he was less susceptible to the Emperor's influence, which later EU dubbed "battle meditation". The words did not exist at the time of the novelization but the concept, or at least the rough idea, most definitely did.

Thrawn recognizes that Jedi have the power to affect soldiers in battle this way even without directly controlling the combatants -- think of it like a bard song effect adding +1 to all die rolls.

I believe this is one of the reasons he wants a Jedi on his side.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

This is explicitly in the official novelization of the movie, which is a step above normal EU canon but still not actual film-canon.

Hmm. I wonder... were the novelizations non-canonized when Disney wiped the EU, or were they considered to be part of the movies?

[Kish]

My impression of Zahn's writing is that, when a character or an organization has previously acted incompetently and he's in the position of writing it as a credible threat/hero, his approach is "acknowledge that the reader has previously been given reasons not to take this person/organization seriously and establish that those reasons no longer apply." That's obviously not going to fly if someone is instead looking for rejection of the idea that the person/organization did anything wrong, even the passive rejection of not saying anything.