Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

We see ship shields in TLJ.

Also, regarding the Starhawk differences, are we sure that their builds are standardized? I always assumed not, one because they are put together partly from parts of other ships, and two because the Republic was made up of members of the highly individualized Rebel Alliance who practically had not one ship like another (exaggerating, but you know what I mean).

 

Only when turbolaser bolts or torpedoes hit the shields. Between hits, as I recall, the shields are invisible.


The same is true in TCW in the Cat and Mouse episode, where we see torpedoes hitting the "thermo-shields" of Trench's ship.

 

Oh, okay, I didn't catch that caveat in the conversation.

 

I got the idea that "shields that happen to be visible at all times" was what was under contention, from the underlined bits:

 

Yup - the improvements in graphics, allow a little "shield surface" to show as part of the flashes, rather than just a flash on its own.

 

When did science fiction writers come up with the idea of energy shields? I was hoping TV Tropes would have an answer for me, but apparently not.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_field_(fiction)

The concept of a force field goes back at least as far as early 20th century. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction suggests that the first use of the term in science fiction appears to happen in 1931, in Spacehounds of IPC by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.[1]

An early precursor of what is now called "force field" may be found in William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land (1912), where the Last Redoubt, the fortress of the remnants of a far-future humanity, is kept safe by "The Air Clog" generated by the burning "Earth-Current".[2][1]

 

There's one good TV Tropes reference:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeflectorShields

Literature

• The "Air-Clog" is a shield generated by running the Earth-Current through a circular conductor surrounding the Last Redoubt in William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land. Given that The Night Land was published in 1912, this may be the first fully realized description of a technology-based force field in all of literature.

 

Ah okay, I guess I missed that.

 

It's easy to miss stuff on TV Tropes. Lots of times I've been digging around for a reference I recall seeing before, and it takes ages.

 

So we've confirmed that it's not just artistic license, some energy shields are visible, others are invisible unless impacted by laser fire. So there could be a similar split when it comes to visible tractor beams and invisible tractor beams.

Some loose rules would appear to be:

• Shields that surround ships are invisible unless hit by laser fire
  
• Shields that are connected to or interact with a physical object are visible (see the Scarif shield gate, the shields on the Invisible Hand's hangar, Gungan's energy shields).

Now I was going to theorize here that invisible shields are Ray Shields (which block energy) and visible shields are Particle Shields (which block solid objects). After all, the Scarif shield and Invisible Hand hangar shield block ships from entering. (The hangar shields seem to block air from escaping as well).

Buuuut there are a number of holes with this. Greivous traps Obi-wan, Anakin, and Palps using ray shields, which are clearly visible. (Apparently even though they block energy and not solid objects, going through them would electrocute you). The shield on Hoth blocks ships from entering or leaving, but is apparently invisible. (Though it could be that we just never got a good enough angle on it in the film). And of course the very visible Gungan shields block laser fire but allows the droids to enter.

 

Speed may be a factor. The visible droideka shields block both laser fire and fast-moving objects, but a slowly rolled grenade will pass through.

The Scarif shield was visible in scenes after the shield gate was destroyed (the Tantive IV escape scenes) so we know that while destroying the shield gate opened a hole in the shield there, it did not destroy the whole shield, or render the whole shield invisible.

 

Where did the 25,000 number for the old EU fleet come from when Han says pretty clearly that the Imperial fleet is less then a thousand ships in ANH?

 

Where does he give the size of the fleet in ANH?

 

Han says that the whole imperial fleet couldn’t have destroyed Alderaan. It would have taken “a thousand ships and more firepower—“ and then he’s cut off.

 

EU (West End Games) nailed down the number of sectors as roughly 1000, then the number of Star Destroyers in a standard Sector group as 24, then the novel authors took that number and ran with it.

Han's quote in the ANH novel, was:

"No ... the entire Imperial fleet couldn't have done this. It would take a thousand ships massing a lot more firepower than has ever existed."

That, through the "bigger fleet" lens - could have been interpreted as "a thousand of the biggest ships in the fleet" - the Super Star Destroyers, which themselves actually number vastly less than 1000.

 

Just poking around Wookieepedia...looks like 25,000 Star Destroyers comes from Specter of the Past. In Disney canon they used the same number, and it first appears in Star Wars: Uprising.

 

Ohh right.

 

That was probably its first use in a printed novel, yes.

SWTC's comment on the subject was

"Accords well with estimates of the number of sectors in the galaxy (order of a thousand) and the regulation minimum number of star destroyers per sector group."

 

Since we're in the topic, how big would you think the First Order navy is? I'm going to guess no more than 500-1000 Resurgents if "old ISDs are still the bulk of the navy" is still considered canon (despite the fact we haven't seen that shown anywhere as far as I recall).

 

The one that goes down over Jakku is either an ISD or a Xyston. It definitely doesn't have the Resurgent shape.

 

Depends on the angle.

It's not like we've had much of view angles of Resurgent-class Star Destroyers.

I reckon it is a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer.

 

Yeah that's a Resurgent, ISDs have the four "squares" (the little missing spots in the hull) on the sides too but the ones on the front are much longer than the ones on the rear, while on the Resurgent they are the same size. If this was a bottom view it would explain the missing "tail" in the back.


The model isn't official but it looks fairly accurate.

I gotta wonder what a First Order battlecruisers is doing on Jakku (considering even the Empire didn't have the resources to put an ISD on every backwater planet), perhaps they're scrapping old ships like we see on Bracca?