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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Books Death Star Owner's Technical Manual: Imperial DS-1 Orbital Battle Station

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Barriss_Coffee, Sep 1, 2013.

  1. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004

    I act under the belief that PHONEGAMES are not canon. never ever!But knowing Wook is wook.. oh well..

    this prototype may be less a death star and more a TDF Coreship that got used as weapons testbed for superlasertechnology scaled down and such... was it ever pictured in the phonegame?
     
  2. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
  3. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Now that the book's finally out- any thoughts on it?

    I noticed that there's lots of stuff on the DS2 in the back of the book, that wasn't in the preview. And yes, it's 160 km.

    There's one discrepancy in size between a ship's depiction on the scale chart and it's size in the box description- the Torpedo Sphere. Listed as 1,900 km, yet in the back of the book scale chart, it's shown as being the length of the Eye of Palpatine (19,000 km). Maybe they missed a zero?

    Everything else seems to match up though.
     
  4. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
    Giant Torpedo Spheres... *prays* please let this be just an error not NOT get retconned into both sizes existing!
     
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  5. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    The Eye of Palpatine was supposed to be bigger than torpedo spheres- but it's more chunky in build - which might explain it.

    Apparently the collision between the Black Ice and a torpedo sphere- was one of the early hints that some might be much bigger than previously suggested:

    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Torpedo_Sphere
     
  6. Tzizvvt78

    Tzizvvt78 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2009
    Yes, the Black Ice incident proves at least one TS was a lot longer than 1,9 km. There's also a reference to a larger TS type in Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, under the Executor's profile, iirc.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. LAJ_FETT

    LAJ_FETT Tech Admin (2007-2023) - She Held Us Together star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 25, 2002
    Just put my order in on Amazon UK. Hopefully it will be delivered by next weekend.
     
  8. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Any thoughts on the Death Star sizes? It would surprise me if it's just a WEG reprint- given that the Falcon book didn't reprint the old length for the Falcon, but updated it.
     
  9. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Nineteen thousand kilometers? Holy cow! ;)
     
  10. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Yes- that was me miswriting- should have been metres- can't edit it now. My mistake was already commented on in the other thread.
     
  11. LAJ_FETT

    LAJ_FETT Tech Admin (2007-2023) - She Held Us Together star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 25, 2002
    Just got my copy from Amazon UK.
     
  12. twowolves

    twowolves Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 6, 2013
    Um, from a ship junkie, I have a suggestion... *raises hand meekly*

    The opening credits start off with, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Instead of the constant retcons that exist outside of the fiction, why not do something more subtle, like retcon it from the inside out? If it was a long time ago, just establish that all these numbers are being discovered through the efforts of scientists trying to recover information, much like archaeologists? That way, if numbers change, they can say, "Due to recent findings in the field, we now know that x ship was x meters long, confirming [or invalidating] early speculations..."

    It seems it would be more fun that way, and the retconning itself could be incorporated into the fictional reality we all love so much.

    Just a random musing from the department of For What It's Worth...
     
  13. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Sometimes retcons (or, at least, hints that material may be inaccurate) are phrased in a similar fashion.

    For example:

    http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/in...ilized-great-gunslingers-in-star-wars-part-1/

    Funny enough, Amaiza was immortalized not for this superior display of skill, but for her association with the Starhoppers, depicted in the classic but dubiously accurate holodocumentary Eight For Aduba-3, from Tri-Nebula Entertainment.

    In this case, we're told that the events of one of the earliest Marvel comics, were depicted in a "dubiously accurate holodocumentary" - if the comic is the holodocumentary in comic form, we don't have to take it absolutely literally.
     
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  14. twowolves

    twowolves Jedi Master star 4

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    Oct 6, 2013
    See? Exactly. And for me, that just makes immersion in the SW world that much easier because now, the very act of retconning is a part of the adventure.
     
  15. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    One of Traviss's short stories (Odds) was built around retconning the "quintillions of battle droids" reference to the armies of the Confederacy, which was problematic because the entire Republic & Confederacy put together only had a population of around 100 quadrillion- 1/10 of a quintillion.

    It involved propaganda from Republic officials.
     
  16. jSarek

    jSarek VIP star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2005
    That's actually an allusion to an old Star Wars Gamer article by Pablo Hidalgo, where Voren Na'al investigates the Starhoppers, and the underlying epistemology is even more complicated than that:

    (From here)

    Ultimately, most authors who work on retcons find "some character or narrator was lying or mistaken" to be a last resort, for several reasons. First, it's too easy - it takes very little creativity to just say "nuh-uh, that's not true" and then present another answer. Secondly, it's often disrespectful - most retcon artists want to preserve the intent of the authors whose works they're reconciling. And third, it's often not very believable - the characters in question are usually in a position to be knowledgeable about what they're discussing, and without strong reason to prevaricate. It has its place in a pinch, which it may have here, but it should never be anything but a last resort.
     
  17. twowolves

    twowolves Jedi Master star 4

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    Oct 6, 2013
    With characters, sure. Retconning isn't ideal. But for purely technical matters like starship sizes and numbers, as long as it's not done too often or unreasonably, it's can be helpful.
     
  18. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Good point. Zahn's retcon of Mara & Lando's relationship as "faked, so people she needed to investigate, would underestimate her" - still gets criticised to this day. And it's far from the only Zahn retcon to rub people up the wrong way.
     
  19. King of Alsakan

    King of Alsakan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2007

    Or maybe its problematic the Republic population is a mere 100 quadrillion;)
     
  20. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    Feel free to do a census if you do not trust the figure ;)
     
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  21. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Nov 7, 2000
    The number is humans only. Alien scum doesn't count. :D
     
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  22. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Indeed. It should be noted that this author- Ryder Windham, has used the 160 km DS1 figure in the past - in the novel The Rise & Fall of Darth Vader.

    So we can't say he's unaware of the Saxton retcon.

    This is what leads me to think that it's more likely, that they're retconning the Saxton figures, rather than it being a "copy-paste".
     
  23. King of Alsakan

    King of Alsakan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2007
    Didn't notice that before, I cant believe they would shrink both of them back.Craziness.

    Still looking forward to getting this next week, but whats next to change an 8 km Executor, a 6 million man Clone Army, a population of Coruscant of 10 billion? ;)
     
  24. Tzizvvt78

    Tzizvvt78 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2009
    Since Saxton didn't work on either film, it's hard to pin a larger size on him and not ILM (who came up with 160 km for the first and 800 km for the second Death Star). If Windham wants to continue the string of inconsistencies, he's welcome to it, but this doesn't mean I'll shell out money to line LFL's pockets.
     
  25. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Didn't the ILM quote (1:180,000 scale) actually produce (when the figures were compared to the actual 4ft (about 120 cm) DS1 model) something larger than 160 km?

    I wouldn't trust all their quotes.

    The Making of Return of the Jedi tells us that the model of the Death Star II's reactor chamber was 5 ft tall and 22 ft wide. If it's to scale with the smallest Falcon & X-wing models used for the shot, and the ratio of reactor chamber size to DS2 diameter (in hologram) is correct, then we can get a ballpark figure for the diameter of the DS2, based on movie shots rather than quotes.