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Adamskywalker007 wrote:The Zilo Beast among others in Clone Wars already had put blaster-resistant species into canon. As for the armor comments, this does seem to contradict the idea of stormtrooper armor being impervious to kinetic fire as was suggested in the old EU. Unless she wasn't discussing stormtrooper armor.

Sure but it's always nice to have more evidence of other creatures sharing similar traits. And the remark wasn't specifically about ST armor but just in general, which makes sense in a setting where the vast majority of foes are using blasters.

This is an incredibly common problem in Star Wars(lack of understanding of the third dimension in space). I wonder if there is some sort of limitation that makes this common? We see very few canon cases of ships maneuvering in different axis in space. One possibility is that it is taught as a measure to reduce collisions. Luke, with no formal military training, would have never learned this lesson.

It could be to avoid collision, ideally your ship's sensors would prevent that but you can never have too many safeguards.

Did this ever exist in Clone Wars? I remember seeing holographic clothes on a changeling, plus holographic disguises, implying that similar technologies exist.

I don't remember if the CW cartoons specifically showed any, but there have been examples of stealth armor appearing in other EU sources (i.e. Rebel SpecForce source book).

In Clone Wars, a droid was able to tell whether the crystal was properly aligned. In principle this would mean that if force fields have the necessary control, they should be able to align the crystal properly and tell if it had. But there is no indication that Star Wars technological force fields have that level of control. There is the second problem that lightsabers are extremely dangerous for one who isn't a proper Jedi and thus why would anyone want one? Though he fact that the pirate Hondo wanted to sell the crystals implies that there must be a demand for them and thus a purpose beyond that of building lightsabers.

I'm fairly certain that level of fine control is possible with force fields, although I can't recall any specific examples off-hand, just a general sense given the level of technological advancement they have.

Given the shown effectiveness of SW starship armor, I would guess that they have things stronger than diamond. Though it is possible that this performance is largely due to active systems that fail safely. Such an idea would explain how high speed speeder crashes are survivable. As the system fails slowly, the occupants are slowed down in a manner that protects them from more serious injuries.

At the least assuming it was the same as ours would give a low-end estimate of various armor hardness values, same as using simple iron for firepower calculations.

This is an interesting thought. Given that the Force exists in SW, I wonder if evolution really could be assumed to act in the same way as in reality?

The scary thing then would be (assuming the Force really had a "will" of its own), what reason it would have to develop creatures such as these?

What's odd is that this didn't seem to be the case in ANH. Were these measures introduced after or was it merely considered worth the risk in that instance. If the Death Star survived the Rebellion was doomed regardless of whether their base survived. This would be the case due to the fact that the Death Star's main strategic purpose was to punch through planetary shielding, something that took conventional fleets much longer.

Well Leia seemed to know that they let them get away just so they could track them, in which case the plan seemed to be "Let's get this over with as quickly as possible" and let the Death Star track them to their base.

It's nice to have an offical quote, but only an idiot watches Veers in ESB and doesn't think that blasters have variable yields.

I know, just being a bit tongue-in-cheek

This also happened in Clone Wars. In the episode "The Jedi Who Knew Too Much," Ashoka fended off fire from clonetrooper weapons set for stun. Based on the appearance in that episode, the lightsaber simply stops the stun blasts cold. Dial a yield would make sense based on the target. It would also explain how they are capable of stunning Jedi who have the ability to dissipate energy.

Interesting, was that from the "missing season" of CW? I never saw those episodes.

It would make sense given his primary function. Starfighters with astromech droids seem to be reliant on them for most of the electronic capabilities of the craft, substituting for an onboard computer. Are there any canon examples of fighters sending out jamming signals?

Not in this book but in the Rebel Dawn novel an Imperial shuttle is noted to have ECM on board to ward off target locks.

I wonder why this doesn't help him in ESB with the Wampa attack? One possibility, fitting with the concept in the ROTS novelization about the lack of malice from clones when Order 66 was carried out, is that an attacking animal is simply acting on instinct and thus the danger sense is less effective. Though it must still work for a trained Jedi given that Obi-Wan and Anakin realized the danger from the poisonous centipedes in AOTC.

Another interesting possibility is that he missed it because the Force was telling him to check out the debris from the probe droid, and thus he missed the possibility of the attacking Wampa. He also clearly wasn't focusing on that in general, given how little life they had detected, the probability of an animal attack wasn't a major concern for the Rebels.This is ignoring the deleted scenes that I assume are non canon.

Most likely he simply wasn't paying attention and focusing on looking for danger. It's something which was in the old EU, if the Jedi isn't open to the Force and somewhat receptive to potential warnings it was possible to catch them off-guard, varying for the abilities of the Jedi in question. If it isn't officially carried over into the new continuity it can be reasoned out based on observations of their actions.

It is interesting that flares are effective against SW sensors given that they actually aren't much anymore against modern missiles. Current aircraft rely on towed decoys and soft kill laser systems to defeat heat seeking missiles rather than flares. Though clearly the timing issue is extremely precise, given that Luke needed to use the Force to be successful.

It may be the flares are more complex in operation than their concise description here which makes them more effective or the missiles were themselves simple and so easy to fool (pirates can't always buy the best toys after all).

Based on both this and Clone Wars, the Hutts are apparently powerful enough that the three largest players in the galaxy leave them alone somewhat and rely on a combination of indirect threats, covert action and diplomacy in terms of dealing with them. While it would make sense that during the Clone Wars neither side wanted to add a new enemy, it seems odd that the Empire wasn't willing to. This would seem to imply that despite the shows of Imperial force, their control is not as powerful as it seems. This is backed up by the presence of the Mon Calamari fleet in ROTJ. This then implies that local planetary militias still have a great deal of power. It is also backed up by Leia's quote "The more you tighten your grip Tarkin, the more star systems will slip though your fingers."

It would probably be a case of the Empire deciding they could more easily take via indirect means that which would be more costly in a straight-up military conflict. Or perhaps conquering Hutt Space simply isn't that high a priority at the moment, the Hutts aren't exactly in a position to be threatening to the Empire and they seem content to rule their little corner of the galaxy as they wish. I believe this was also the case in the old EU with the existence of semi-independent/independent polities like the Hapans.

That hasn't changed from the old EU. But this seems to be a contradiction with the Clone Wars episode Jedi Crash. In that episode a damaged Republic cruiser(the same sort used by Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in the beginning of TPM) nearly crashes into a star when its navicomputer fails. This is only avoided when they shut down all power to drop out of hyperspace. Based on that episode, the ability exists to detect obstructions in the path of ships in hyperspace, even without the navicomputer, implying it is done with sensors. How would this fail to detect an interdiction field ahead of a ship in hyperspace?

Probably when the nav computer crashed it took with it the mass shadow fail-safes or a related system necessary for them to work.

It is also interesting that in Clone Wars we never see interdictors used. This seems to indicate that against a conventional enemy they aren't worth the trouble, that they are too vulnerable to enemy capital ships. There is also the problem that they would logically

It may be they were but we just couldn't visually identify them. Tarkin showcased a couple of other Interdictor vessels, smaller ones which didn't have the classic hemispherical protrusions as the Immobilizer, and we have classic ISDs now carrying gravity projectors. It could be a trade-off, have the projectors buried within the ship so that it can fight effectively while being less efficient at projecting mass shadows, or let them extend outside the hull for better operation at the expense of making the ship vulnerable.

It would be logical that the effect would be less effective against shields, given the way it dissipates over an area. Clearly the weapon was intended for use against surface targets and only improvised as a space weapon. Though I wonder what would happen if one used it to clear the surface of the Death Star? Though presumably the poorly equipped Rebels lacked the money for more exotic weapons such as these.

Even though it dissipates over a wide area, Luke was still close enough to do some nap-of-the-hull flying around the Immobilizer but had to wait for the shields to drop and the hole to open to unleash the charge. Given what we saw seismic charges do to the asteroids in AotC at such close range that still speaks to impressive defenses in spite of the vulnerabilities.

It is interesting to see a purely scientific perspective contrasted with Luke's when it comes to the Force. This really would be an interesting conflict to show in more detail, feeling closer to traditional science fiction. This also seems to indicate that it would be harder, if not impossible for Jedi to say pinch off blood vessels inside a target body, something that was once frequently mentioned on the forums as a way for Jedi to kill virtually anyone in single combat.

I don't see how it would make attacking internal systems any harder than before; indeed Vader kills the poor Twi'lek in Tarkin by going after the guy's heart.

Vader on Bespin seems a rare case of this not being needed. Even Yoda uses hand movements to manipulate things. Obi-Wan seems to always do this regardless of how small the task is.

Recall that Luke was levitating multiple rocks (and Artoo) while standing on his head during his training on Dagobah, so while the hand-motions might not be necessary they may serve some sort of function.

How can there still be unexplored space? In AOTC the Jedi librarian confidently says that if a star system doesn't appear in their records, it does not exist. Yoda and Obi-Wan realize that if there is something not there, it must have been erased from the records. This makes the nonsense from Zahn novels about the Unknown Regions absurd.

Unexplored is not the same as unobserved as was noted though. It's probable that most if not all of the galaxy has been mapped out in the same sense that we've mapped out our galaxy by observing where things are, but they are "unknown" in that no one has actually been there and mapped out things which can't be seen via remote observation.

Though in this case it would make sense given that the Rebels presumably don't have the same elaborate records as the Jedi or the Empire. This quote does lead me to another question, how did they detect the inderdictors? And given that they did, why isn't it more common to detect them ahead of time?

The context of the situation was that Luke & co. were hiding out on an inhabited planet when the Imperials showed up and put up a semi-permeable blockade (anyone could come in but everyone leaving was being checked).

So if blasters are plasma, why don't the bolts noticeably arc in gravity? And why do we occasionally see damage that precedes the visible bolt?
Whatever magic keeps them contained as a bolt is probably the answer.

It's annoying that I was intending to respond to this over the weekend just as the board died.

Balrog wrote:Sure but it's always nice to have more evidence of other creatures sharing similar traits. And the remark wasn't specifically about ST armor but just in general, which makes sense in a setting where the vast majority of foes are using blasters.

It does, but stormtrooper armor was generally described as being extremely effective against slugthrowers. For a Rebel sniper, I would assume that this was a common threat. Though the fact that clones are killed in droves by thrown spears that penetrate their armor in the Clone Wars episode Tresspass* does lead one to question the effectiveness of that armor against physical impacts. There are two mitigating factors: The first is that the spears were thrown by aliens with much greater strength than standard. The second is that the clones were wearing snowtrooper armor rather than the standard armor. This might be less effective against attacks in favor of enhanced environmental protection. Such an issue is common for MOPP suits IRL.
* That episode also had the odd problem that a Clone unit was following the orders of a local planetary government against the wishes of their Jedi commander. Wasn't the whole point of the Clone army that it answered directly to the Senate and Jedi? There was the other problem that Talz were described as being extreme pacifists in the EU, but now that has been superseded by this episode's depiction.

Balrog wrote:It could be to avoid collision, ideally your ship's sensors would prevent that but you can never have too many safeguards.

I was simply trying to come up with a reason all ships maneuver in the same axis, it really doesn't make much sense otherwise. Though this is common to virtually all visual sci-fi.

Balrog wrote:I'm fairly certain that level of fine control is possible with force fields, although I can't recall any specific examples off-hand, just a general sense given the level of technological advancement they have.

We don't see that many examples of such fine control however. It could be the technology is actually so powerful that for fine control, it would damage whatever they are trying to manipulate. We also see droids used heavily for fine control.

Balrog wrote:At the least assuming it was the same as ours would give a low-end estimate of various armor hardness values, same as using simple iron for firepower calculations.

That would be reasonable. Though I wonder if starship/vehicle armor in SW is actually a semi-active system? It would give an explanation for how they are able to dissipate such strong energy attacks without damage to the environment. This was previously suggested with the Clone artillery downing a TF coreship in AOTC. This would allow firepower in the MT/GT range without environmental impacts.

Balrog wrote:The scary thing then would be (assuming the Force really had a "will" of its own), what reason it would have to develop creatures such as these?

I wasn't really thinking in terms of this particular creature, but more generally. We still see examples of things that appear to be evolved regardless. I personally would consider the Force a naturalistic phenomenon as well. Everything about it can be explained as a poorly understood natural phenomenon. The "will of the Force" could be analogous to the flow of a river. You can use the flow to your advantage by using it as a source of energy, but you can also fall in and drown. Falling to the dark side could also be analogous to the use of opiates, in small quantities it can be an effective painkiller but overuse leads to physical addiction. Even the idea of bringing balance to the Force can be considered similar to equalizing pressure rather than a sentient Force. Credit for these analogies goes to Sea Skimmer. I couldn't think of any better ones.

As for the idea of the Force creating something evil, if we believe it is truly sentient, then it must be evil. How else would we explain how the Force allowed Palpatine to come to power? I was more saying that it would produce a factor that would influence natural selection in ways that are apparently unnatural without the Force. Such an idea was mentioned in Knights of the Old Republic(though now sadly non canon*), that the Dark Side presence at the sites of the Star Maps were influencing the evolution of life over at least 20 millennia. This appeared true on Kashyyk and Manaan at minimum. Likely on Tatooine as well, explaining how Krayt Dragons grew as large as they did.

* It would be interesting if they would make a new special edition of the game to fit it into the new continuity. Those events should be tweaked to fit Palpatine and Mace Windu's comments in ROTS about the SIth ruling the galaxy, with Malak and Revan having hit Coruscant and the Jedi being somewhat on the ropes. The Jedi Council brainwashing Revan back to the Light Side as an act of desperation would also give the Sith something to want revenge for, as mentioned by both Maul and Palpatine. Even if it was largely a result of Malak's actions. I would also prefer if they downplayed the Rataka such that the timescale and exact achievements were left more ambiguous.

Balrog wrote: Interesting, was that from the "missing season" of CW? I never saw those episodes.

It was the finale of season 5. The true finale to the series. Spoiler

Balrog wrote: Not in this book but in the Rebel Dawn novel an Imperial shuttle is noted to have ECM on board to ward off target locks.

It is likely the case that fighters lack the power output for proper jamming. Even shuttles would have much higher power requirements. We also see the Falcon jam a TIE fighter in ANH.

Balrog wrote:Most likely he simply wasn't paying attention and focusing on looking for danger. It's something which was in the old EU, if the Jedi isn't open to the Force and somewhat receptive to potential warnings it was possible to catch them off-guard, varying for the abilities of the Jedi in question. If it isn't officially carried over into the new continuity it can be reasoned out based on observations of their actions.

We certainly see this plenty in Clone Wars. The various Jedi characters fail to notice things that could potentially lead to their deaths repeatedly. Not to mention all of the various Jedi that fail to notice the danger from their clones in ROTS. At least three council members(Obi-Wan, Ki-Adi Mundi, and Plo Koon) were caught flat footed. Only Yoda seemed to realize the problem. One possibility for precog is that it depends on the plausibility of the event from the perspective of the one seeing the vision. Jedi that had fought and bled with the same group of fanatically loyal clones through years of heavy combat would have a hard time believing that they would ever turn on them. This would also explain why Palpatine failed to recognize his fate in ROTJ, he failed to foresee the possibility that Vader would turn back to the Light because he believed that the Dark Side was all consuming, something Yoda also thought.

As for Luke in ESB, we certainly see that he was new enough to using the Force that it would give limited warnings at best. And when he assumed there was little threat, he failed to see it.

It may be the flares are more complex in operation than their concise description here which makes them more effective or the missiles were themselves simple and so easy to fool (pirates can't always buy the best toys after all).

It is odd that for missiles as sophisticated as the ones we see in AOTC and ROTS they are so easily fooled. We also see an even more primitive trick used by Obi-Wan in AOTC when he uses spare parts to set off the magnetic detector on the missile that was chasing him. It could be that the flares are used in a similar capacity to Obi-Wan's trick that causes them to directly impact with the missiles and detonate them rather than decoying them in the same sense as with modern missiles. As the issue with chaff/flares against modern missiles is simply one of speed discrimination, if the flares are released in a way that causes them to have a high enough apparent velocity, it could still work. In Clone Wars we also saw flares in use with a cloaked ship, this would make a great deal more sense.

It would probably be a case of the Empire deciding they could more easily take via indirect means that which would be more costly in a straight-up military conflict. Or perhaps conquering Hutt Space simply isn't that high a priority at the moment, the Hutts aren't exactly in a position to be threatening to the Empire and they seem content to rule their little corner of the galaxy as they wish. I believe this was also the case in the old EU with the existence of semi-independent/independent polities like the Hapans.

Hapes was under the Empire, they simply overthrew them immediately after the fall of the Emperor. As for the Hutts, if the Empire really had complete control over the galaxy, it would be trivial to use up a few dozen Star Destroyers against the Hutts. This implies that their control is not complete.This also backs up the idea of the Mon Cal fleet being able to openly support the Rebels, the Empire lacked the direct strength to really put them down without a Death Star.

Balrog wrote: Probably when the nav computer crashed it took with it the mass shadow fail-safes or a related system necessary for them to work.

Then why isn't that ever a countermeasure used by the Rebels? Disabling their navicomputer would at least allow them to escape interdiction fields. And why do sensors fail to detect the mass shadow before it triggers?

It may be they were but we just couldn't visually identify them. Tarkin showcased a couple of other Interdictor vessels, smaller ones which didn't have the classic hemispherical protrusions as the Immobilizer, and we have classic ISDs now carrying gravity projectors. It could be a trade-off, have the projectors buried within the ship so that it can fight effectively while being less efficient at projecting mass shadows, or let them extend outside the hull for better operation at the expense of making the ship vulnerable.

Do they spesifically state that standard ISDs carry gravity projectors? The old EU stated that there were specialized Star Destroyers that carrired gravity projectors. Though it would make sense that it would be possible. In the ANH novelization jamming fields were described as making ships less maneuverable.

Even though it dissipates over a wide area, Luke was still close enough to do some nap-of-the-hull flying around the Immobilizer but had to wait for the shields to drop and the hole to open to unleash the charge. Given what we saw seismic charges do to the asteroids in AotC at such close range that still speaks to impressive defenses in spite of the vulnerabilities.

I was referring to the geometry of the problem of using against a warship. There is no way to fire it without it wasting over half the explosion into empty space. Hence why Luke used it inside the warship rather than on the surface of it.

I don't see how it would make attacking internal systems any harder than before; indeed Vader kills the poor Twi'lek in Tarkin by going after the guy's heart.

I hadn't noticed that. I was more thinking that it would be difficult to apply the Force in a means that worked like a sleeper choke, cutting off blood flow without harming the person.

Recall that Luke was levitating multiple rocks (and Artoo) while standing on his head during his training on Dagobah, so while the hand-motions might not be necessary they may serve some sort of function.

It appears that in the heat of the moment, it is more effective to use motions. While Luke was able to do in with intense concentration, for a quicker action hand motions are generally necessary. Vader is a rare case of it being used in combat without motion, though he lowered his lightsaber and concentrated fully, implying that he didn't even remotely consider Luke a threat.

Unexplored is not the same as unobserved as was noted though. It's probable that most if not all of the galaxy has been mapped out in the same sense that we've mapped out our galaxy by observing where things are, but they are "unknown" in that no one has actually been there and mapped out things which can't be seen via remote observation.

The context of the situation was that Luke & co. were hiding out on an inhabited planet when the Imperials showed up and put up a semi-permeable blockade (anyone could come in but everyone leaving was being checked).

So the interdictiors were not actually detected by their sensors but known because of their positon. I was wondering if they had detected them in advance with sensors? Because if they did, it begged the question of why this wasn't more common.

Whatever magic keeps them contained as a bolt is probably the answer.

But how would that explain why blasters apparently cause damage before the bolt is fired? A

This also ruins my theory of why slugthrowers are not used more against Jedi. If blasters were massless projectiles, it would be impossible to exert a force on them at a distance and thus lightsabers would be necessary to block them in any reasonable quantity(the absorption trick used by Vader and Yoda likely wouldn't scale up to serious blaster fire). However physical projectiles could easily be reflected with the Force at a distance, protecting the Jedi easily.

Adamskywalker007 wrote:It does, but stormtrooper armor was generally described as being extremely effective against slugthrowers. For a Rebel sniper, I would assume that this was a common threat.

Just as common a threat for the Rebels though are pirates and bounty hunters; indeed there are no firefights with any Stormtroopers in the book, only unarmored ISB agents and aforementioned no-good-doers. As an aside, Luke remembers this little factoid with the Rodians later and specifically asks if they have high-velocity, armor-piercing rounds for sale, so it's not just any ol' slugthrower.

Though the fact that clones are killed in droves by thrown spears that penetrate their armor in the Clone Wars episode Tresspass* does lead one to question the effectiveness of that armor against physical impacts. There are two mitigating factors: The first is that the spears were thrown by aliens with much greater strength than standard. The second is that the clones were wearing snowtrooper armor rather than the standard armor. This might be less effective against attacks in favor of enhanced environmental protection. Such an issue is common for MOPP suits IRL.

Additionally, the spears they threw looked rather metallic which, combined with their tremendous strength, would have more penetrative capability compared to your standard hollowpoint.

Balrog wrote:We don't see that many examples of such fine control however. It could be the technology is actually so powerful that for fine control, it would damage whatever they are trying to manipulate. We also see droids used heavily for fine control.

Perhaps, I'm probably thinking of something from the old EU anyways.

Balrog wrote:That would be reasonable. Though I wonder if starship/vehicle armor in SW is actually a semi-active system? It would give an explanation for how they are able to dissipate such strong energy attacks without damage to the environment. This was previously suggested with the Clone artillery downing a TF coreship in AOTC. This would allow firepower in the MT/GT range without environmental impacts.

The return of Neutrino radiators perhaps, although in that situation I'm pretty sure the core ships would have their shields up anyways, which would go some way towards absorbing the firepower (although obviously falling short in the end).

I wasn't really thinking in terms of this particular creature, but more generally. We still see examples of things that appear to be evolved regardless. I personally would consider the Force a naturalistic phenomenon as well. Everything about it can be explained as a poorly understood natural phenomenon. The "will of the Force" could be analogous to the flow of a river. You can use the flow to your advantage by using it as a source of energy, but you can also fall in and drown. Falling to the dark side could also be analogous to the use of opiates, in small quantities it can be an effective painkiller but overuse leads to physical addiction. Even the idea of bringing balance to the Force can be considered similar to equalizing pressure rather than a sentient Force. Credit for these analogies goes to Sea Skimmer. I couldn't think of any better ones.

I tend to waffle between the idea of it being naturalistic and the possibility of the Force actually having sentience. Perhaps in such a case it would be semi-sentient? But yeah, I doubt it specifically went to Fex, flexed its muscles and said "let's have some fun here..."

As for the idea of the Force creating something evil, if we believe it is truly sentient, then it must be evil. How else would we explain how the Force allowed Palpatine to come to power?

Perhaps it is amoral? Perhaps it thought it needed Palpatine in order to eliminate the Jedi Order which it saw as being stagnate and limiting in some way on the Force? I've seen these suggestions put forth before.

It would be interesting if they would make a new special edition of the game to fit it into the new continuity. Those events should be tweaked to fit Palpatine and Mace Windu's comments in ROTS about the SIth ruling the galaxy, with Malak and Revan having hit Coruscant and the Jedi being somewhat on the ropes. The Jedi Council brainwashing Revan back to the Light Side as an act of desperation would also give the Sith something to want revenge for, as mentioned by both Maul and Palpatine. Even if it was largely a result of Malak's actions. I would also prefer if they downplayed the Rataka such that the timescale and exact achievements were left more ambiguous.

So Knights of the (slightly less) Old Republic That could be interesting, although I would prefer if they went with a more original idea, for all that was good and just about KotOR it had it's weaknesses.

It was the finale of season 5. The true finale to the series. Spoiler

Ashoka leaves the Jedi order after being falsely accused of bombing the Jedi temple. The Jedi Council was willing to throw her to Tarkin for a military tribunal for political advantage. This served to distance him even further from the Jedi council as we saw in ROTS.

Thought so.

We certainly see this plenty in Clone Wars. The various Jedi characters fail to notice things that could potentially lead to their deaths repeatedly. Not to mention all of the various Jedi that fail to notice the danger from their clones in ROTS. At least three council members(Obi-Wan, Ki-Adi Mundi, and Plo Koon) were caught flat footed. Only Yoda seemed to realize the problem. One possibility for precog is that it depends on the plausibility of the event from the perspective of the one seeing the vision. Jedi that had fought and bled with the same group of fanatically loyal clones through years of heavy combat would have a hard time believing that they would ever turn on them. This would also explain why Palpatine failed to recognize his fate in ROTJ, he failed to foresee the possibility that Vader would turn back to the Light because he believed that the Dark Side was all consuming, something Yoda also thought.

The Clone Wars I think are a special case since they were set up specifically to blind-side the Jedi. We have the specific mention in AotC of the Jedi's abilities of foresight being blinded by the dark side, and in the RotS novel (which is canon in both continuities still) it is specifically mentioned that this dark-side "jamming" was part of the master plan. An additional part also mentioned in the novel are the Clones' lack of aggressiveness in carrying out their orders, which is another part of the Jedi 'precog' (and indeed is how Luke picked up on the ambush in this book ahead of time). Plausibility on the Jedi's part may still play a role though, in the book Luke mentions how he is "opening himself to the Force" in order to do various things, if a Jedi feels he is safe or is exhausted or any other reason he might not be "open" he could be caught flat-footed.

It is odd that for missiles as sophisticated as the ones we see in AOTC and ROTS they are so easily fooled. We also see an even more primitive trick used by Obi-Wan in AOTC when he uses spare parts to set off the magnetic detector on the missile that was chasing him. It could be that the flares are used in a similar capacity to Obi-Wan's trick that causes them to directly impact with the missiles and detonate them rather than decoying them in the same sense as with modern missiles. As the issue with chaff/flares against modern missiles is simply one of speed discrimination, if the flares are released in a way that causes them to have a high enough apparent velocity, it could still work. In Clone Wars we also saw flares in use with a cloaked ship, this would make a great deal more sense.

Perhaps, though again we don't know how sophisticated these missiles were compared to Fett's and other missiles we see in the movies, they could just be shitty ones

Hapes was under the Empire, they simply overthrew them immediately after the fall of the Emperor. As for the Hutts, if the Empire really had complete control over the galaxy, it would be trivial to use up a few dozen Star Destroyers against the Hutts. This implies that their control is not complete.This also backs up the idea of the Mon Cal fleet being able to openly support the Rebels, the Empire lacked the direct strength to really put them down without a Death Star.

I swear Hapes was some sort of protectorate or something in the old EU even before the Emperor's death, or at least there were other small polities which existed under the suzerainty of the Empire. As far as throwing a few dozen Star Destroyers at the Hutts, given the Hutts' resources it might not be that simple and an independent Hutt territory might serve some other purposes.

Then why isn't that ever a countermeasure used by the Rebels? Disabling their navicomputer would at least allow them to escape interdiction fields. And why do sensors fail to detect the mass shadow before it triggers?

It might not be as simple as throwing a switch to disable the navicomputer, or it is but booting it back up is a bitch, in which case it'd be a real desperation measure. As for not detecting mass shadows given the sheer speeds the SW ship is traveling at there simply might not be enough time between detecting the shadow and reacting to it for the pilot to do anything about it.

Do they spesifically state that standard ISDs carry gravity projectors? The old EU stated that there were specialized Star Destroyers that carrired gravity projectors. Though it would make sense that it would be possible. In the ANH novelization jamming fields were described as making ships less maneuverable.

Just what is in the quote, only that ISDs are starting to carry them and no mention of them being specialized or anything.

I was referring to the geometry of the problem of using against a warship. There is no way to fire it without it wasting over half the explosion into empty space. Hence why Luke used it inside the warship rather than on the surface of it.

Yes, but that still means the Immobilizer could've "tanked" half the explosive effect of the charge, which was enough to blow up those massive asteroids in the belt, since if it couldn't then Luke wouldn't have had to explode it from the inside.

I hadn't noticed that. I was more thinking that it would be difficult to apply the Force in a means that worked like a sleeper choke, cutting off blood flow without harming the person.

That I think would depend on the skill of the Force-user in question.

It appears that in the heat of the moment, it is more effective to use motions. While Luke was able to do in with intense concentration, for a quicker action hand motions are generally necessary. Vader is a rare case of it being used in combat without motion, though he lowered his lightsaber and concentrated fully, implying that he didn't even remotely consider Luke a threat.

That's probably the case.

So the interdictiors were not actually detected by their sensors but known because of their positon. I was wondering if they had detected them in advance with sensors? Because if they did, it begged the question of why this wasn't more common.

Nyet, it was only after they were already in position that their location and areas-of-effect were mapped out.

But how would that explain why blasters apparently cause damage before the bolt is fired?

The OOC answer is poor SF effects; this same property hasn't been seen in the latest SW iterations AFAIK. A more SoD answer would be that there are different types of blasters and they do operate on different principles, but are still affected by many of the same things like lightsabers.

This also ruins my theory of why slugthrowers are not used more against Jedi. If blasters were massless projectiles, it would be impossible to exert a force on them at a distance and thus lightsabers would be necessary to block them in any reasonable quantity(the absorption trick used by Vader and Yoda likely wouldn't scale up to serious blaster fire). However physical projectiles could easily be reflected with the Force at a distance, protecting the Jedi easily.

The ability for Jedi to use the Force and block projectiles still exists in the new continuity, perhaps a little more on the logical argument side than explicit evidence side (for now at least) but it's still there.

Chapter 11 page 116-117

The eyes of the security droid vigilant however and it was program use lethal force which was demonstrated when the ball got away from the children and arced through the air on the parabola that might have brought it with in the blast radius of a grenade to Drusils. Position the droid whirled shot forward and blasted the ball into component Adams before he could touch the ground. The kids scream parents roused from their drinking threw out a few belated screams as well. Playtime was over

So this seems to Indicate possibly some sort of disintegration weapon other then a Conventional blaster that this droid is Equipped with.

Balrog wrote:Just as common a threat for the Rebels though are pirates and bounty hunters; indeed there are no firefights with any Stormtroopers in the book, only unarmored ISB agents and aforementioned no-good-doers. As an aside, Luke remembers this little factoid with the Rodians later and specifically asks if they have high-velocity, armor-piercing rounds for sale, so it's not just any ol' slugthrower.

It would make sense that they have specialized anti-armor rounds for them. As for stormtroopers, it is interesting that they seem to indicate that they are not as common as other sources indicate. From what I have seen, Rebels seems to show that they are standard grunts.

Balrog wrote:Additionally, the spears they threw looked rather metallic which, combined with their tremendous strength, would have more penetrative capability compared to your standard hollowpoint.

That is true. knives after all can penetrate most kevlar.

Balrog wrote:The return of Neutrino radiators perhaps, although in that situation I'm pretty sure the core ships would have their shields up anyways, which would go some way towards absorbing the firepower (although obviously falling short in the end).

The two systems are likely related. Superconductive armor might have a semi-active shielding and heat disspation system incorporated into it. We see cases of direct hits to Star Destroyer armor(from Tantive IV's turbolaser fire) that appear visually indistinguishable from hits to armored(with no mention of shields) AT-AT walkers on Hoth.

As for the TF coreships, if they are shielded, clone artillery was powerful enough to punch straight through them.

So Knights of the (slightly less) Old Republic That could be interesting, although I would prefer if they went with a more original idea, for all that was good and just about KotOR it had it's weaknesses.

I agree mostly, it was just an idea that came to me. What I would love to see is a proper Bioware style RPG from the perspective of a Sith Lord, preferably Bane's first apprentice under the Rule of Two. It would be especially interesting if there was no lightside path, only the darkness.

The Clone Wars I think are a special case since they were set up specifically to blind-side the Jedi. We have the specific mention in AotC of the Jedi's abilities of foresight being blinded by the dark side, and in the RotS novel (which is canon in both continuities still) it is specifically mentioned that this dark-side "jamming" was part of the master plan. An additional part also mentioned in the novel are the Clones' lack of aggressiveness in carrying out their orders, which is another part of the Jedi 'precog' (and indeed is how Luke picked up on the ambush in this book ahead of time). Plausibility on the Jedi's part may still play a role though, in the book Luke mentions how he is "opening himself to the Force" in order to do various things, if a Jedi feels he is safe or is exhausted or any other reason he might not be "open" he could be caught flat-footed.

Obviously the Clone Wars aren't indicative of general weaknesses. I was more thinking of Palpatine's failure when I was thinking of the concept.

I swear Hapes was some sort of protectorate or something in the old EU even before the Emperor's death, or at least there were other small polities which existed under the suzerainty of the Empire. As far as throwing a few dozen Star Destroyers at the Hutts, given the Hutts' resources it might not be that simple and an independent Hutt territory might serve some other purposes.

They might have been semi-independent, but if the Empire wanted something, they still got it. As for the Hutts, the minimalism is far worse in the comic book, as shown in the other thread.

It might not be as simple as throwing a switch to disable the navicomputer, or it is but booting it back up is a bitch, in which case it'd be a real desperation measure. As for not detecting mass shadows given the sheer speeds the SW ship is traveling at there simply might not be enough time between detecting the shadow and reacting to it for the pilot to do anything about it.

In the Clone Wars episode, it was a desperate measure caused by a systems failure. And the end result was crashing into the planet orbiting said star. Obviously it qualifies as less than an idea set of circumstances.

Just what is in the quote, only that ISDs are starting to carry them and no mention of them being specialized or anything.

I looked at the quote again and it said simply that they were putting the projectors on star destoryers, not that standard ISDs had them. I presume the old EU specialized interdictor version of the star destroyer is back. Given the size and power requirements of the system, I presume this means that they are not standard on ISDs.

Nyet, it was only after they were already in position that their location and areas-of-effect were mapped out.

But I wonder why there aren't tactics that revolve around defeating this? It seems somewhat obvious.

The OOC answer is poor SF effects; this same property hasn't been seen in the latest SW iterations AFAIK. A more SoD answer would be that there are different types of blasters and they do operate on different principles, but are still affected by many of the same things like lightsabers.

When Yoda is shown on Kashyyk in ROTS. It's the shot in which he is overlooking the initial battle from the elevated platform.

The ability for Jedi to use the Force and block projectiles still exists in the new continuity, perhaps a little more on the logical argument side than explicit evidence side (for now at least) but it's still there.

I can't remember any examples at the moment, have slugthrowers been used against Jedi in Clone Wars?