Also, I know the Resistance didn't "win" in Episode 8 but when I refer to them "winning" I'm talking about them winning the war itself.

I mean it doesn't help that in TLJ, the Resistance could have been utterly wiped out within the first 5 minutes of the opening if they focused fire on the Raddus, basically the only ship that mattered. But no the FO instead wasted time, taking out a base that had all been pretty much evacuated and was a stationary target that wasn't going anywhere.

Or during the 'chase' scene....the FO had a ton of Star Destroyers, get them to hyperspace and cut off the Resistance ships. Or just I don't know...send out the ton of fighters and bombers they have to destroy the ship, it's not like that was off the table considering they were able to destroy the bridge.

But then just as well in ROS, when the galaxy decided to do something, somehow, someway. The First Order was unable to handle planetary uprisings against them, thus all their Star Destroyers parked in orbit became useless.

Yeah, The Resistance winning doesn't make a lick of sense at all, when thought is actually put into it.

This is another thing I dislike about the Sequels.

Yeah, almost all the time the heroes win. But in the Star Wars Sequels, they win with hardly any explanation. Makes NO sense.

While it is true 400 troops is a ridiculously small portion of the galaxy's population, how do they compare with how many the First Order had? Unless the FO recruited several troops from every planet in the galaxy, there's no reason to believe the number of FO troops wasn't also insanely few compared to every being in the galaxy. Do we know for certain that every Star Destroyer was filled to the brim with soldiers, or were only those on important assignments given a full compliment while the rest made do with a skeleton crew? You may ask, why would the FO possibly build a fleet they couldn't properly staff, yet this post gives the very answer to that- even if the FO numbered several thousand, the civilian population of the whole galaxy would still outnumber them thousands to one. Ruling a galaxy through force of arms is not possible when you even if you spread you forces to one stormtrooper per planet, you still wouldn't have a presence on every world. Star Destroyers could have been deployed as a fear tactic- to have a visible symbol of the First Order's destructive power to cow systems into submission, even if in reality there weren't enough troops on board said Star Destroyer to take a single city, let alone police a system.

^ Even if the First Order was lacking manpower, they still had state of the art Star Destroyers that should have been able to destroy anything from orbit to prevent any sort of retaliation sent against them. I don't see how Jakku or Endor for example, would have been able to take out an FOSD(or why there were even Destroyers there to begin with, they are by comparison worthless worlds) or Cloud City at Bespin.

But I'd wager that the FO wasn't lacking personnel considering they were building up for some 20 odd years after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Unless they are that stupid, where they put pretty much ALL of their personnel on Starkiller base when it blew up.

In which case sure, I could see them losing but we're not given any indication of that happening, all of that is just speculation.

But regardless of that, The Resistance should have been logically wiped out completely in TLJ.

That also raises a few questions about if their really doing any good. If throughout an ENTIRE GALAXY they could only recruit realistically a couple thousand people, then they are definitely in the minority, and fighting against an empire that is actually widely popular. Just a Thought.

I mean Disney has lousy writing for the sequels so it makes sense.really good discussion. Read all of it with a cup of tea.

The thing is that in the first place, it is just as unrealistic that the First Order had as many or more resources than the Galactic Empire did or the New Republic do. The First Order and Resistance are partners in making no sense as a result of a contrived way of trying to reproduce the geopolitical situation of the Original Trilogy despite the heroes being the ruling galactic government. I see little point in questioning the size of the Resistance and their ability to seize victory when the First Order eclipses them in power out of magic as well.