Star Wars Questions.

[Azure Trance]

2) Because George Lucas isn't a physicist, not does he try to keep things very coherent from movie to movie. Star Destroyers should be faster than they are in RPGs, IMHO, because they clearly chased the Falcon on more than one occasion (in ANH and ESB) and gained on it. Maybe the Falcon was souped up between ESB and ROJ?

I'm almost positive that the MFalcon was upgraded between those movies. In the beginning the MFalcon had a speed of 6, sometime during or after Dark Empire it had a speed of 10+. Can't remember which RPG books showed what when though, perhaps in the Movie Trilogy book.

 

[Barcode]

3. I read Zhan's trilogy years ago and I remember at one point the Imperial Fleet is kept at bay by a planetary shield. How did this differ from the one at Hoth? Was it only a partial shield?

I am reading the Zahn trilogy now, and just got past the part that you refer to. There is a lot of hoo-hah about the ability to take a planet and leave it's planetary defenses intact. You have to land planetary forces to take out the shield generator(s), so that the ISD's can take out the ground-to-space batteries. By the time you are able to occupy the planet, all the defenses are shot, so you have to rebuild them before you can hold it. Thrawn's brilliant plan of having cloaked ships inside the shield coordinate their fire with the ISD's makes the guys on the planet think that the ISD is inexplicably firing through the shield so they surrender in panic, leaving everthing intact.

On Hoth, they do pretty much the same thing. The rebels raise the shield over the base, and the imperials have to land AT-AT's to blow the sucker up. For some reason, coming out of hyperspace *too close* to the planet is what alerts the rebels to their presence, though I never understood why that was such a big deal. If they came out of hyperspace farther away and just advanced in realspace on the planet, wouldn't the rebels be alerted and raise the shield anyway?

Now, in RotJ, they needed to blow up the defense shield generator on Endor just so the fighters could get near the Death Star. But for Hoth and the Zahn example, the shields clearly allow ships through. On Hoth they were sending transports and x-wing fighters through the shield to escape. In The Last Command, the cloaked ships are able to penetrate the shield and fire at the planet. Even in ANH, they mention the X-Wings passing through the defense shield before they can start the attack. So there must either be two types of shields, one that allows ships through and another that doesn't.

 

[King_Stannis]

Re: Re: Star Wars Questions.

...Even in ANH, they mention the X-Wings passing through the defense shield before they can start the attack. So there must either be two types of shields, one that allows ships through and another that doesn't.

having just seen star wars a few times recently, the one x-wing pilot says "we're passing through their magnetic field".

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As far as I understood the scene in the Zahn Trilogy, the shields are only up when under attack. This means they cloaked the vessels and entered the atmosphere. After that, the star destroyers arrived. The shields went up. The star destroyers fire, and when the shots arrive at the shield (and are absorbed), the cloaked vessels under the shield "continue" the shots...

! WARNING ! spoiler for firsttime readers of the Zahn Trilogy ! WARNING !

During the siege of Coruscant using asteroids it becomes evident that planetary shields can not be passed by ships. They raise the shields to avoid that the cloaked asteroids hit the planet. But this inhibits any travel from or to the planet.

.SPOILER END.

The magnetic field the X-Wing Pilots speak of seem not to be shields.

On Hoth, the troups are able to land on the planet because the rebels didn`t have a planetary wide shield grid.

 

[Barcode]

On Hoth, the troups are able to land on the planet because the rebels didn`t have a planetary wide shield grid.

Begs the question as to how the AT-AT's got through the shield. Unless the rebels were silly enough to leave the shield generator outside the shield, in which case why not blow it up from orbit?

 

[keb]

Begs the question as to how the AT-AT's got through the shield. Unless the rebels were silly enough to leave the shield generator outside the shield, in which case why not blow it up from orbit?

Most likely they simply walked through it. Watch the scene in The Phantom Menace where the droid army walks through the Gungans' shield but the repulsortanks are completely worthless until the shield generators are destroyed.

 

[Barcode]

Most likely they simply walked through it. Watch the scene in The Phantom Menace where the droid army walks through the Gungans' shield but the repulsortanks are completely worthless until the shield generators are destroyed.

If you can walk an AT-AT through it, why can't you fly a ship through it?

I still think there have to be two types.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Begs the question as to how the AT-AT's got through the shield. Unless the rebels were silly enough to leave the shield generator outside the shield, in which case why not blow it up from orbit?

If you can walk an AT-AT through it, why can't you fly a ship through it?

I still think there have to be two types.

That's because there are. Remember the briefing for the assault on the First Death Star...

From the Script of Star Wars: A New Hope

DODONNA: The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver
straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The
target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust
port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the
reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should
destroy the station.

A murmer of disbelief runs through the room.

DODONNA: Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is
ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Starships have two types of shields... Particle shields for keeping out physical objects, like asteroids, debris, proton torpedoes and other starships. And ray shields for defending themselves against blasters, ion cannons and assorted radiation.

A planetary base like Hoth has no reason to mount particle shields... The atmosphere and snow cover shields the underground base from most meteors. They only need (or perhaps could only afford) heavy ray shielding to protect against orbital bombardment...

A second theory is that Hoth's orbital defense shield does not reach all the way to the ground, and only truly provide protect from above (like an umbrella). That would be why the Imperial troops had to land far outside the base and march in, instead of dropping on their front doorstep.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, actually I think Lucas didn`t think that out well. Every other Starwars Source indicates that there is only one kind of energy shield - which protects against anything what comes from out side.

But if we want some pseudoscientific explainations: The shield do only react to objects with a miniumum amount of speed. AT AT are slow enough to be below this minimum.

Or the umbrella effect.
Maybe near the ground, shields become less effective. (steadily trying to "block" the earth?)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Nazrog]

If you look at the EPII Cross Sections Book they address this, with AT-ATs being able to walk through the sheilds. They took the approach that since walkers are on the ground they are grounded and only take minimial damage from passing through shields.