Not at all, very much enjoy spirited discussion as it can hone ideas far better than just thinking about them in isolation. 😃

So about the whole succession and bloodlines thing, I was watching this video and he coincidentally talks about this very point here. The idea that the story is moving on from special lineages is good, and to make these lineages important to the story at the outset of TFA might provide more of a dramatic contrast when Rey (and later broom boy) appears. The lineage angle is stifling to the universe, like a set of dusty old rules dragging down a dynamic game. So what a breath of fresh air Rey would be, and highlighting her differences with Luke would make her fundamentally different than the previous protagonists of the story. That’s sort of what I’m trying to go for here.

Of course I like the idea of FO supporters in the Republic (I think there are one or two of my crawls specifically for this angle) but if I can find another way to hint at this in the movie proper I can spend the real estate of the crawl with something more complicated like the lineage idea. I think that complication here isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and moviemakers tend to underestimate the audience’s intelligence anyway, so more risks can be a good thing.

Concerning Luke and his threat to the FO, you accurately say that it seemed to be only Snoke and Kylo who really feared him, and directed the entire apparatus of the FO to pursue his demise. But the reason given in TFA is that he could train a new generation of Jedi. TLJ drops this angle in favor of the more general ‘hope’ message since it’s revealed that Luke has no intention of training more Jedi. Snoke even has a bit of a laugh about this after reading Rey’s mind. In retrospect it makes Snoke look rather foolish, jumping at shadows.

But as for the larger point, the succession angle paints a rather interesting picture of the galaxy - sure, soldiers and officers in the First Order proper would always despise Luke and what he did to the Empire, but there are so many more people who grew up under Imperial rule who might view the New Republic as the illegitimate government, whom they nevertheless support because the heir to the Empire serves the Republic. Now every day that Luke remains alive is another day that he lends credibility to this charade of governance. More importantly, if he were to die while not overthrown, the next in line would be his sister, who actually knows how to wield political power and is potentially as powerful in the Force as Luke. And this makes his sacrifice in TLJ much more interesting, since Leia is now the most important person in the galaxy apart from her son. Furthermore, as long as she exists Kylo can’t rightfully call himself ‘Emperor’, and the First Order still lacks the legitimacy of the Empire returned. That is what I find so fascinating about the idea, that this calculus can be taking place in the background even as the story shifts away from these trappings.