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What was the Katana Fleet created for?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Zinergy, Aug 27, 2004.

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  1. Zinergy

    Zinergy Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2004
    The Old Republic had no military, navy, etc... it stood for peace, and settled conflicts through mediation. Why did the Old Republic then have to create a fleet of warships?
     
  2. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2003
    Kicking ass and taking names.
    ;)

    In all seriousness, they had the somewhat ambiguous 'Judicial Forces' remember.
     
  3. Zinergy

    Zinergy Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Aug 22, 2004
    But wouldn't a large fleet buildup scare some systems into thinking that the Republic was turning militaristic?
     
  4. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 22, 2003
    I think that the Republic was so bloated and corrupt that a handful of meaty bribes could've quelled any sort of dissent. Heck, giant bribes from Rendili could've gotten the Katana Fleet commissioned in the first place...
     
  5. Tam_Elgrin

    Tam_Elgrin Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2004
    And it wouldn't have been too hard to pass off the fleet as for defending against pirate or terrorist incursions.
     
  6. GrandAdmiralJello

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

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    It was another way to show the glory and greatness of the Republic, like the Outbound Flight.

    "Look, all is well. No corruption or problems here!"
     
  7. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Twohundred Dreadnought-Class Picket Cruisers are no big fleet.

    You just have to look at TPM: hundreds, if not thousands of two-mile-ships in orbit of a single planet.
     
  8. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 22, 2003
    Hundreds of converted freightors in orbit of a single planet.

    All of a sudden, two hundred heavy cruisers start looking all the more impressive...
    ;)
     
  9. Zinergy

    Zinergy Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2004
    You just have to look at TPM: hundreds, if not thousands of two-mile-ships in orbit of a single planet.

    Where in the EU does it state that?
     
  10. Borleias

    Borleias Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 26, 2003
    Film counting. Just count the ones around Naboo in TPM, and evaluate their density. Then understand this is a planet-wide blockade.

    All of a sudden, two hundred heavy cruisers start looking all the more impressive...


    200 600m long ships look impressive in the face of hundreds of multi kilometer long ships? Compared to the available power of the Old Republic, it is nothing.

    I wouldn't be shocked if I heard that a single Mandator Star Dreadnaught ran into a fleet of that size and annihilated it...
     
  11. JoruusCbaoth

    JoruusCbaoth Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 14, 2003
    I imagine it was made that much more legendary by the fact that it disappeared without a trace.
     
  12. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 22, 2003
    Any speculation about Mandators is, well, entirely speculatory and fair game for wishful thinking exercises.

    The Trade Federation's ships were converted freightors that, according to any number of sources including The New Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels were mediocre to poor combatants against dedicated military vessels and prone to a host of debilitating mechanical failures. On top of that, their simple existance doesn't illustrate much, as the Trade Federation illegally posessed them, converted them in secret, and didn't exactly knock on Coruscant's door to inform them that they'd built a force of makeshift warships.

    The vaunted Trade Federation battleship was armed with an unimpressive 42 quad blasters, and only eight of those could be brought to bear on any one vector (dead-ahead). In stark contrast, the Dreadnaught has 40 turbolasers of various kinds, with the ability to bring fully half of their to bare on either flank. The only advantages that the Trade Federation vessels would've had were in sheer bulk (as it, it would take the Dread longer to systematically burn it to slag because of its greater mass) and in fighter capacity--an incredible fifteen hundred droid planes.

    Even an Acclamator-class assault ship can hold its own against a Lucrehulk from time to time. And they're not even designed for dedicated space combat... Remember that they stayed away from the Republic's Acclamators in Attack of the Clones.

    The so-called battleships that are blockading Naboo are more akin to Star Galleons in many respects.
     
  13. President_Sharky

    President_Sharky Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Jan 18, 2004
    Ah, but the size of the TF battleships demonstrates how small and weak the Dreadnaught is in comparison to mass produced *corporate* freighters. Think of how many thousands of comparably sized warships KDY, CEC, or Fondor can churn out. A small armada of 200 Dreadnought-class "heavy cruisers" is nothing when the largest shipyards can make fleets made of thousands of warships ten or more times longer than them. Besides, the Dreadnought's a particularly ineffective space combatant against warships of comparable size, and it is only used as an anti-pirate police cruiser in the Rim Judicial Forces.

    The thing that made the Katana Fleet impressive was the new automated technology that allowed all 200 ships to be slaved together, thus minimizing the crew and allowing for tightly coordinated fighting on an unprecedented scale. This experimental technology would have probably been further applied to larger starfleets in the galaxy, but the Dark Force was the famous prototype. The other thing that made them famous was their disappearance and the catostrophic flaw of the slave system.
     
  14. President_Sharky

    President_Sharky Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Jan 18, 2004
    BTW, the reason a Dreadnaught-class has the "heavy cruiser" title is probably because of the MASSIVE turbolaser barrels it comes equipped with. The Essential Chronology has a picture (the Battle of Nar Shadda) of a Dread in action, and it shows that those blisters actually house immense single-barrelled turbolasers, which dwarf the guns found on the Acclamator, the TF battleship, and both ISD models.
     
  15. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 28, 2003
    I take that more as artistic lisence. The artist obviously decided to draw in a single large turbolaser.

    The EGTVV says nothing of such uber cannon, nor does any other source.

    --Adm. Nick
     
  16. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2003
    I think the point that I was trying to make was that the Trade Federation's battleships (incidentally, they seem to fit better into the assault ship category than that of a true battleship...and 'battleship' has been used extensively as a generic within the Star Wars universe for some time now) are not imposing ships of war, despite their great size and mass.

    Two hundred Dreadnaughts versus two hundred Lucrehulks wouldn't be much of a fight (unless the droid fighters got refitted with turbolasers or somesuch!).

    Also, the capability to churn out endless streams of superlarge warships is simply assumed at this point. The Tehcnical Journal of the Imperial Forces seems to imply that the infrastructure requisite to building mass numbers of Imperial-class Star Destroyers was vitually nonexistant outside of Kuat Drive Yards' home facilities when the class was first proposed.

    We know that there were (presumably) very large warships lurking around prior to the Clone Wars, but we don't know how quickly they could be produced.
     
  17. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    In that case one has to wonder, where all the republics ships for the clone-wars and especially ROTS originated.
     
  18. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2003
    It's quite odd, really. Unless Rothana Heavy Engineering had a secret shipyard out near Kamino, I haven't got a clue where most of their ships came from in Attack of the Clones.

    And if the opening scene for Reveng of the Sith is indeed what they say it is, I've got to ask: Where'd all those Venators come from, and who made them? For that matter, how big are they? My gut-reaction upon seeing the pics is that they're longer than a Victory, but less massive...
     
  19. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Not if you look how the NR built ships in Destiny´s Way or the empire constructed the DeathStar (see SW:ITWOT).

    As for Dreadnought-class-pickets vs TF-battleships.

    I found those stats for the TF-battleship:

    Trade Federation Battleship (Modified Trade Federation LH-3210 Container Ship)
    Designer/Manufacturer : Hoersh-Kessel Drive Incorporated
    Combat Designation : Converted Battleship
    Length : 3,170 Metres (Diameter)

    Weapons: 42 Quad Laser Batteries
    Damage: 6d10+5

    1,500 individual Droid Starfighters

    Does somebody have the WOTC-stats for the Dreadnought-Class? I have only the old WEG-stats.

    IF somebody has, we can compare damage of individual guns and broadsides.
     
  20. Zholitus

    Zholitus Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Aug 28, 2002
    Politically speaking, the Old Republic did not have a military for offensive purposes. It did have a patrol fleet that policed trade routes and provided minimum defense capabilities. The Katana Fleet's objective was to reduce the number of servicemen and women in the fleet. For instance, a typical dreadnaught required a complement of 16,000 people. Therefore, a traditional dreadnaught fleet would have complement of 3.2 million for 200 ships. The Katana fleet has a total optimal complement of 440,000. If anything, the Katana fleet further kept the Old Republic's promise of not having a standing army.
     
  21. QuentinGeorge

    QuentinGeorge Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2003
    I get the impression though, that there is ships here and there in various sector, as in, enough for mediocre defence, but not enough for any individual to go on a galaxy-spanning bender.

    Star-Galleon

    Come, on now we're taking this too far!

    What's next? Star-Caravel? Star-Trireme?
     
  22. Borleias

    Borleias Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Dec 26, 2003
    Also, the capability to churn out endless streams of superlarge warships is simply assumed at this point. The Tehcnical Journal of the Imperial Forces seems to imply that the infrastructure requisite to building mass numbers of Imperial-class Star Destroyers was vitually nonexistant outside of Kuat Drive Yards' home facilities when the class was first proposed.


    Typical piece of EU minimalism. In any case, if they wished to, the appropriate facilities can be built in a year or two, max. Just look at those huge moons called Death Stars.
     
  23. Brett_Bass

    Brett_Bass Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 22, 2003
    The Death Stars, however, were created well after the infrastructure requisite for building things like Star Destroyers in huge numbers was assembled, remember.
    ;)
     
  24. Knight1192

    Knight1192 Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2000
    I think it now depends on when the Katana Fleet is now built. It was probably battleship diplomacy if it was built shortly after the Stark Hyperspace War. In fact it could have been just that even if it was built well after the Stark Hyperspace War. The tour it was sent on does sound remarkably like the cruise of the Great White Fleet, whioch from what little I've read sounds like it was supposed to have been a good will tour, but you can certainly be the US president at that time was using it for diplomatic purposes.
     
  25. QuentinGeorge

    QuentinGeorge Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2003
    Stark Hyperspace War was 44 BBY, IIRC. That would make nearly a decade gap between the two events, wouldn't it?
     
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