system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] What was the state of the Rebellion at the beginning of RotJ? When did the Rebellion become strong enough to contest the Empire openly?

When did the Rebellion go from scrappy underdogs doing pirate style hit and run attacks and relying on stealth as their greatest protection to being a convention army that would eventually control the galaxy as the New Republic?
gpt
The Rebel Alliance was never strong enough to challenge the Empire directly in conventional military action.  They were always the underdogs fighting a guerilla type action, up to and including the defeat of the Emperor and the destruction of the second Death Star.

For that matter, the New Republic wouldn't have been able to either.  They had nowhere near the military might that the Empire did, because they didn't want or need it.  The Empire's military fractured and broke on its own.  Nobody ever needed to defeat them in a conventional war.