What's in your 'head canon?'

[Reverend]

I'm not sure where those dates could have come from. I don't think any specific number has been mentioned in regards to Malachor other than a vague "thousands" of years ago and I don't recall anything specifically locking down how much time passed between the founding of the Jedi and Sith Orders. Just that the Jedi came first because the first Sith were Jedi heretics of a sort.
I do recall the "100 years Darkness" being name-dropped in one of the novels ('Tarkin' I think?) but again, there's no real context so far as I can recall. Much less how those events relate chronologically to the fall of the Old Republic.

 

[publiusr]

I've tried, but I just can't see it. I just can't squint at it hard enough to make it fit. I'm just not buying the idea that the Empire is completely bullshitting its own soldiers by giving them these godawful borderline-useless starfighters They're miniature death stars for Empire's most elite storm troopers.

In my mind--they were supposed to get the X-Wings in the end. They just had that stolen from them

This:

Looks to have better craftsmanship than this:

Besides--I can see T.I.E. fighter pilots bragging about a spartan, minimalist take on things--as Marines do about getting hand-me-downs from the Army.

 

[Tuskin38]

Both the new canon and the old EU (correct me on the EU part) the X-Wing was made for the Empire, but they went for the TIEs instead. The prototypes then some how ended up in Rebel hands after Incom was shutdown/absorbed/federalized

 

[Reverend]

It's worth keeping in mind that for the first decade and a half after the end of the Clone Wars, the Empire wasn't fighting massively formidable foes. Mostly just pirates and the odd Seppy holdout. What we can infer from Rebels is that it's not until fairly late on (only a few years prior to Yavin) that the rebellion got their hands on more formidable equipment in any significant numbers.

Indeed, the TIE Defender seems to be a direct and damn near immediate reaction to that sudden disparity. We don't yet know why they never went into full production, though one might assume that the Alliance succeeded in destroying the facility on Lothal, either eliminating the whole project of setting it back far enough that it was never able to get back up to any serious production level before Endor.


Something people seem to forget that the TIE is weak by design. The Emperor doesn't want his weapons turned against him, so it pays to make sure military power is diffuse. Add to that, the "helpless alone but mighty in numbers" approach very much reinforces the individuality eroding mindset that is at the core of Imperial doctrine.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's worth keeping in mind that for the first decade and a half after the end of the Clone Wars, the Empire wasn't fighting massively formidable foes. Mostly just pirates and the odd Seppy holdout. What we can infer from Rebels is that it's not until fairly late on (only a few years prior to Yavin) that the rebellion got their hands on more formidable equipment in any significant numbers.

Indeed, the TIE Defender seems to be a direct and damn near immediate reaction to that sudden disparity. We don't yet know why they never went into full production, though one might assume that the Alliance succeeded in destroying the facility on Lothal, either eliminating the whole project of setting it back far enough that it was never able to get back up to any serious production level before Endor.


Something people seem to forget that the TIE is weak by design. The Emperor doesn't want his weapons turned against him, so it pays to make sure military power is diffuse. Add to that, the "helpless alone but mighty in numbers" approach very much reinforces the individuality eroding mindset that is at the core of Imperial doctrine.

That's a logical alternative. It certainly makes more sense than the TIE's being weak because they and their pilots are considered expendable.

But even that has limits. The lack of a shield generator is a GLARING inconsistency, since SW canon demonstrates time after time that shield generators aren't actually that hard to install.

If anything, it would be like a modern world-class military developing a front line tactical fighter and neglecting to install chaff or flare dispensers (like, how could you not? Even if, for some reason, it wasn't designed with them, any halfway descent engineer could probably retrofit them in half an hour).

 

[Tuskin38]

The empire is all about force projection. It is cheaper to build ties without shields and hyperdrives then to build them with them. Cheaper=building more = more presence

 

[fireproof78]

That's a logical alternative. It certainly makes more sense than the TIE's being weak because they and their pilots are considered expendable.

But even that has limits. The lack of a shield generator is a GLARING inconsistency, since SW canon demonstrates time after time that shield generators aren't actually that hard to install.

If anything, it would be like a modern world-class military developing a front line tactical fighter and neglecting to install chaff or flare dispensers (like, how could you not? Even if, for some reason, it wasn't designed with them, any halfway descent engineer could probably retrofit them in half an hour).

Which was done in the First Order Special Forces TIES (and possibly standard ones but I would have to look) with little cosmetic changes to the ship. So, either shield tech took a leap forward, or the TIE design can accept add ons with relative ease.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Standard FO TIEs do have shields, but they don't have hyperdrives. The Special Forces TIE has both.

The FO doesn't consider their pilots as cannon fodder like the Empire did according to the lore. (TFA Cross Section book)

They are an important part of their military. Like with the stormtroopers, they were identified as children and raised to be pilots.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Which was done in the First Order Special Forces TIES (and possibly standard ones but I would have to look) with little cosmetic changes to the ship. So, either shield tech took a leap forward, or the TIE design can accept add ons with relative ease.

Yes, I could definitely believe that... so wouldn't an "add on" shield generator pretty much be STANDARD by now?

I mean, the USAF had their similar "oops" moment when they discovered that their guided missiles weren't the silver bullets they were supposed to be and "Holy crap, I'm a dog fight and I don't have a gun!" it took their field engineers all of two months to rig up a simple gunpod and strap it to the belly of the F-4 Phantom. Probably (sloppily) solved, and then they redesigned it to include a gun on the next production run.

TIE defenders are touted as BEING that redesign, which makes sense. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ginormous solar wings on the side of the TIE fighters not actually being necessary -- or even slightly useful -- on a fighter that size, because five generations of previous star fighters never needed them. Shield generators, on the other hand, actually WOULD be stupendously useful, and wouldn't you know, EVERY OTHER FIGHTER IN THE GALAXY has them.

So in my headcanon, that's what the wings are. They're panels for ray shields powerful enough to shrug off all but the heaviest blasers (which the rebels happen to have). TIE Defenders add deflector shields, which makes them impervious to collisions, proton torpedoes, ion cannons and most forms of sabotage.

 

[Ithekro]

It should be noted that the Jedi Starfighters don't have shields or hyperdrives, either.

The Z-95s used by the Clones in the war aren't stated tp have shields either, though some were retrofitted with hyperdrives. The ARC-170 had both hyperdrives and shield, but it was a much larger craft. The V-wings, had shields, but no hyperdrive.

The A-wing seems to have been a successor to the V-wing, which had shields and a hyperdrive, though some Rebel modifications removed the shields for more speed, so they could outrun some of the later TIE fighter designs.

The X-wing appears to be a successor to the Z-95, keeping the hyperdrive as standard, while taking the astromech socket from the ARC-170 and Jedi fighter designs. Also adding a shield.

The TIE fighter seem to be a cheap derivative based on the Jedi fighters and the V-wing, but without the astromech socket, which removes its hyperspace capability under normal conditions...even with a hyperspace ring. Shields were not added to keep more power for the engines and weapons.

The Empire replaced the fighter-carrier warship that was the Venator-class with heavier armored Imperial-class Star Destroyers that have more firepower. The large hanger deck proved to be a vulnerable spot for more than one Venator during the Clone Wars. Both Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker lost ships due to this weakness. While the Empire also lost a few ships due to high explosives in their hanger bay, it seems to not be that much of a target in combat, otherwise the Rebels would exploit it as often as the Separatists attempted to exploit the open hanger decks on Venators. The Imperial-class was designed to intimidate its opponents, which it is rather good at due to its size and firepower. Only some Rebels and a few foolhardy pirates, fear not these mile long star destroyers. It carries less TIEs, partly to to the enlarged reactors on the Imperials, but also due to the space taken up by the prefab garrison, the long term supplies the Imperial Star Destroyer carries (possible to be out on patrol or whatever for six years, while the Venators were about a third of that, with a lot of its supply problems having to do with its large wing of fighters. The Imperials also carrying a much, much larger number of troopers and their equipment, as they also too over the roll of transport from the old Acclamator-class, combining the two older Republic ships into the Imperial design, through doing this reduced the fighter capacity of the Imperial ship in favor or more troopers and heavier weapons on the ship.

 

[Tuskin38]

Jedi Starfighters

The Delta-7s did have shields

Canon doesn't say if the Eta-2s had shields or not, but legends said they didn't.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, as others have stated, whether or not a ship does or does not have shields or a hyperdrive isn't a matter of technology being advanced enough, it's a matter of expense with maybe an element of balancing the extra equipment against things like mass, fuel capacity and reactor size. Fighters launched from larger ships don't *need* hyperdrives. It's a luxury, not a requirement. They're generally better off and more useful being faster and more nimble at sublight.
It's like that old venn diagram, only instead of "fast/cheap/good" it's "compact/cheap/powerful". You can only have two, not all three at once!

As for whether or not the technology has advanced significantly (this also comes up often with KotOR) remember once again that this is not science fiction, it's space fantasy.
Imagine it in terms of a medieval style fantasy then ask yourself: how much have bows (blasters), swords (lightsabers) and horsecarts (spaceships) really changed in the last few thousand years? Hell, even tens of thousands?
Somewhat, sure. But it's very *very* incremental and more about changes in building technique, available materials and slightly shifting requirements as the cultural and economic landscape changes over the centuries than any fundamental advancement in technology. Indeed there's plenty of historical precedent of technologies being *lost*, so it's entierly possible in SW for certain "modern" equipment to be *less* sophisticated than it once was.

Lets say for the sake of argument that maybe, once upon a time all blasters were extremely precise and powered by powerful kyber crystal based technology. But that was back when all of galactic civilisation was restricted to just a few dozen worlds and they had several kyber rich planets to mine. When those mines were tapped and the civilisation grew to hundreds and then thousands of worlds, with fewer and fewer kyber planets to go around, it became too expensive or impractical so other, lower quality alternatives were sought.
Eventually, the technology simply fell out of use to the point where only the early Jedi with their archaic laser swords made use of kyber.

The Delta-7s did have shields

Canon doesn't say if the Eta-2s had shields or not, but legends said they didn't.

By what happens in the RotS opening (the bit where Anakin tries shooting the buzz droids off of Obi Wan's fighter), I'd say it's a fair bet they don't. Or that they're so weak that the Eta-2's own cannons can just blow right though them.

 

[Tuskin38]

in OT you never see 'shields' on the X-Wings, but they're said to have them in Canon. The only shields you ever see visibly in the movies are on the ground.

 

[Ithekro]

The only fighter we see for sure that has shields, is the Naboo Starfighter, as we see it being effective once Anakin raises them against blasters. The X-wings have shields by dialog, since they switch shields to "double front" when approaching the Death Star, and they and the Y-wings also have them as they "stabilize rear deflectors" in the trench run once the defensive towers stop firing on them, as they expect the TIEs to show up this time. Not that it helps much against Darth Vader.

 

[Reverend]

in OT you never see 'shields' on the X-Wings, but they're said to have them in Canon. The only shields you ever see visibly in the movies are on the ground.

It depends on how one interprets the old VFX elements. There's a few shots where an X-Wing is seen taking a hit (Red Leader & Porkins IIRC) and the area struck glows yellow for a few frames. There's no explosion, though systems are said to be down.
I could be mistaken, but I always took this to mean the deflectors did their job and deflected most of the energy, but not all of it. Hence: damaged, not destroyed.

You have to freeze frame to see it, but that same yellow afterglow also appears in tESB when the Falcon takes a hit in the rear quarter and sure enough, we get a line from Threepio saying they just lost the rear deflector.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

in OT you never see 'shields' on the X-Wings, but they're said to have them in Canon. The only shields you ever see visibly in the movies are on the ground.

I'm not sure what you mean by "see."

"Put your deflectors on double-front!"

"Stabilize your rear deflectors, watch for enemy fighters."

It's right there in dialog, in 1977.

Oh, yeah. What @Ithekro said.

 

[Tuskin38]

I didn't say the shields didn't exist, just that there wasn't visuals for them. But as Reverend said, we might actually see them.

Also I completely forgot about the visible shield on the N1 Starfighter. Been too long since I watched TPM.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

When were shields seen on the ground in the OT?

We see the generators, in TESB and ROTJ. But there's never a VFX for the shields themselves, is there?

 

[Ithekro]

I think the Falcon has her shields up on Hoth when the snowtroopers are shooting at her. Not sure though. Though that might be why the heavy repeating blaster might have been a threat.

The Falcon is hit a few times during the film with its shields up, so we can assume whatever effective hit was on it was a shield reaction. "One more direct hit on the back quarter and we are done for" She can take both TIE fighter shots as well as turbolaser fire from a Star Destroyer (for a little while anyway).

The Two huge shield generators never have their shields fired at during the films. Hoth's is a planetary shield (or at least a partial planetary shield) that the Imperials detect and know is too strong for their bombardments, so they don't waste effort on it. The Endor shield is around the Death Star and the Rebels don't shoot at it, nor do they run into it, so there is no chance for a reaction.

There might be shield reaction shots during the Battle of Endor while the capital ships are engaging each other, but a lot of those shots are tracking shots of fighters or the Falcon. There are only a few that stay in place long enough to see the exchanges of fire between capital ships, or missile impacts on Star Destroyers.

 

[Reverend]

Even if in theory stray fire did impact the shield, the camera POV was so far away from the surface that it most likely wouldn't have been visible anyway. That's even ignoring that the VFX crew were already struggling with what was at the time the most complicated and dense composite shots in cinema history. Adding another layer behind all of that would have been both impractical and visually distracting.

IIRC there was at one point going to be a shot in RotJ of rebel fighters ploughing into the shield during the "all craft pull up!" bit. Obviously it was dropped for what I can only assume was time and budgetary concerns.
Part of me wonders if the very same thing happening in 'Rogue One' was at least in part a knowing reference to that.