Lit Battle of Endor - Mon Cal cruisers

At least they named the ships. Canon has been lacking lately.

 

I still don't like the name in Canon. It doesn't fit with the names for the MC80 Home One types. I was calling it Challenger (from a disused Hyperspace idea for the ship that eventually became the Dornean gunship), Mantan Wanderer or Champion before the changeover.

 

I can’t believe that second Mon Cal cruiser to be destroyed by the Death Star was never named in Legends. I mean, over the decades we got names for almost anyone and anything. But a major warship with such a prominent on-screen destruction is still unidentified.

 

Most of ROTJ has unnamed characters or ships. Heck, its only thanks to EC Henry any rebel background ship gets any prominence right now.

 

Maybe there's just a limited supply of names, and they didn't want to give it one, only for it to get zapped and have that name be unavailable for future use?

 

That didn’t stop them from naming the Liberty. Also, the supply of names are only limited by imagination. And also, you can always re-use a name. There were two destroyers named the Recruit in the Royal Navy during World War One: When the first one was sunk in 1915, a new vessel was given that name… and then that destroyer also sank.

 

I loved that scene in the movie when the surviving bridge crew of HMS Recruit were exonerated at their court martial and assigned to the brand new HMS Recruit-A. "My friends, we've come home. Let's see what she's got."

 

Hmm, maybe they just named the Liberty, then decided they didn't want to do the re-naming thing? I dunno.

 

The Liberty was named in the ROTJ novelisation.

 

You have to peruse this old thread: https://boards.theforce.net/threads...battle-of-endor.50041652/page-2#post-53727531

We came up with fourteen MC80a-class cruisers, three Home One-class cruisers, and three Liberty-class cruisers that can be distinctly identified in ROTJ. So at a minimum there were twenty Mon Cal cruisers present at Endor.

 

Ooookay, just to clear this up once and for all...because I don't think I got a definitive answer last time I asked...

MC80a = wingless Liberty, right? I'm looking at the Wookieepedia page for MC80a, and it's got the shot of the wingless Liberty.

 

In Legends, yes. In Newcanon, it's the Home One type that's the MC80A.

 

I thought the MC80a was the wingless Liberty, but now I can't seem to find a source that actually says that outright - the Wook page cites The Essential Guide to Warfare and its endnotes. TEGtW says that an MC80A is "a lean, combat-focused variant cruiser" - presumably a variant of the Liberty/"cruise liner". The endnotes never use the term MC80A, but they call the wingless Liberty one of "the three phases of the MC80 class" and "a later development of the better-documented Liberty". I can see how, taken together, they would suggest that the wingless Liberty and the MC80A are meant to be the same, but it still seems pretty vague to me.

The history of what an "MC80a" is supposed to be is really confusing to me - the earliest place I can find the term is the 1990 first edition of the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, where it's the craft name in the stats for a section on Mon Calamari Star Cruisers that makes no mention of differing classes. The 1992 Heir to the Empire sourcebook has much of the same information, but while the stats block still uses MC80a, the text calls it an MC80, and the second edition Rebel Alliance sourcebook from 1994 changes the stat block craft name to MC80. Similarly to the HttE Sourcebook, the X-Wing strategy guide uses MC80 in the text and MC80a in the stats, but represents it with a picture of a Liberty-type cruiser. All of this makes it seem to me that MC80 and MC80a were interchangeable, but the 1996 Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels calls the MC80a a distinct, more powerful class of cruiser, like the MC80B or MC90, while Home One and the Liberty-type are MC80s. That seems to be the version that's stuck, but it's a bit at odds with the TEGtW endnotes calling the wingless Liberty/MC80A a phase of the MC80 class.

 

@Sinrebirth

There is no source that explicitly states 40 Mon Calamari cruisers at Endor in either Legends or canon. There are no hard numbers on the exact size of the Rebel fleet as well, but we can make some rough guestimates.

The only thing we DO know is that at least 14 cruisers survived Endor.



Red = wingless MC80 cruiser
Yellow = wingless MC80 cruiser (upside down)
Orange = either MC80 wingless OR MC80A Home One

As Legends is irrelevant to me at this point, I'll detail below everything currently canon:

Now, we know that the Liberty and Nautilian were destroyed. That brings us to a bare minimum of 16. There is also at least one Liberty-type MC80 seen a few times after the classes namesake is lost, so that brings us up to 17. If we include the two cruisers mentioned lost in the ROTJ novelization (one that explodes after taking out an ISD and the one lost fighting the communication ship), we get a total of 19.

We know that Home One, Defiance, Independence, Nautilian, Liberty, and Amalthea were there, with Restoration and Freedom's Run tentatively scheduled to be there as well. Those are the only named ships among the MC80/MC80A that we know for sure. Based on Battlefront II, Invincible Faith probably arrived as well or at least was headed to Endor.

Personally, I'd estimate the total at Endor closer to 30 cruisers. We see at least 4-6 MC80 Liberty-types post-battle in Battlefront II, plus we don't know if some of the Rebellion's MC75 cruisers were at Endor. We know that the MC75's Temperance and Accordance didn't make it to Endor and were tied up at Hosnian Prime. It is possible that the Silver Talon was there, given that we see it so early post-Endor.

Let's not forget that there are TONS of MC80 Liberty-type cruisers at Jakku (some shots in BFII show a few dozen at least). Whether these are existing Rebel ships or new ones converted for New Republic service is TBD.

Anyways, all of this is to say that neither Legends or canon has pegged the size of the fleet or the number of Mon Calamari cruisers in it.

--Adm. Nick

 

Judging from the image of the surviving fleet, we have:

6 MC80 wingless Liberty-type Star Cruisers
8 "EC Henry converted Uru-class luxury liners" -- the engine configuration doesn't match Home One or her sister ships, though they do kind-of resemble the background Mon Cal cruiser for the jump to Sullust.
14 GR-75 medium transports
3 CR90 corvettes
2 EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigates
2 unknown ships (Dornean gunships?)

No sign of any MC80 Home One-type Star Cruisers or MC80 winged Liberty-type Star Cruisers. I don't think they were expecting us Fleet Junkies to kind-of, study it in detail.

 

Given that those eight cruisers all have two prominent engine glows, I've always assumed they were intended to be Home One-types. As to why the folks at ILM didn't photo graph the actual stern of the MC80A or include any MC80's in this shot is lost to history. However, given this was done in the era before HD and other high resolution imagery, I'm not surprised. Plus this is a shot that is just a few seconds long.

All of this is to say that while it is fun to analyze/rationalize this stuff, we should never overthink it and remember that these are films for entertainment, first & foremost.

--Adm. Nick

 

The MC80's were all just out of frame. Anybody can clearly see that.

 

You using the canon or Legends terminology here? Also, this guy mentioned the wingless Liberty-type model was permanently altered into the winged Liberty, so probably that's why it wouldn't appear later?

 

Legends:
MC80 Home One-type Star Cruiser
MC80 winged Liberty-type Star Cruiser
MC80A Star Cruiser aka MC80 wingless Liberty-type Star Cruiser

Canon:
MC80A Home One Type Heavy Star Cruiser
MC80 winged Liberty Type Heavy Star Cruiser
MC80 wingless Liberty Type Heavy Star Cruiser

 

To be fair, "heavy star cruiser" isn't canon. That is an FFG designation.

--Adm. Nick