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

I know I replied before...but I really got to go back to this one. The Fiend? Really?? Why not just call it the New Villain, Bad Guy Fighter? I get the idea behind an alphanumeric designation and a "cool name"...but Fiend just seems a little too tied into it being the ship the bad guys are using.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_F3H_Demon
https://www.flightjournal.com/pre-war-beauty-hawker-demon/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Devils_(aerobatic_team)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire

Honestly seems like a fairly standard fighter name to me (or group name, as I included the Blue Devils) - evil sounding stuff is also scary sounding stuff, and people love giving weapons and military groups scary sounding names.

And symbols. People just love throwing skulls on everything.

 

I get that...if they had introduced it in a more neutral way...as a fighter that some PSF was flying against Imperial Remnant Forces...I would not have said anything. But this just seems like someone said "you know 'fiend' is another name for villain...and the villains are flying it."

 

Fair enough.

 

New Databank entry. At this point everything's there except the one thing people are most curious about lol.

 

Biblical reference (Zion)

 

I've got two ideas:

1) Reference to Darth Sion.

2) "Sion" would have the same pronunciation as the word "scion" which broadly translates as "heir".

 

We need a New Republic warship named in honor of Wade Resselian.

 

Underwhelming finale as expected, but at least there's this cool shot:

Spoiler

And it'll probably take another half-decade for us to know what they're called lol.

 

But still no manufacturer or class name.

 

Nope, apparently they think the name of Sabine's loth cat is more important.

 

Have to agree that this one disappointed on the starship front. I again really wish Star Wars would move beyond thinking TIEs chasing a freighter/small transport is an exciting scene at this point. There is so much more that could be done.

Particularly disappointing in that really Thrawn shines mostly in fleet action. To not have a scene reflecting that and establishing some of his menace seems a missed opportunity. Of course it's unrealistic to expect something like the last novel trilogy in terms of time spent in space warfare, but I really hope his next appearance plays to his strengths (ordering small scale ground assaults and watching his subordinates fail not being one of them). Though I don't think Filoni has shown too much inclination for large scale space combat (relative to what he could have on the animated shows - there is of course, some, but Clone Wars could have used a half dozen or so more big capital ship clashes) so I have some doubts. Really taking Thrawn out of the milieu of naval combat and smashing him together with Dathomiri magic instead ended up being a letdown (Don't mind the Nightsisters themselves, just did not really care for them dominating the Thrawn plot to the extend they did).

 

Shadow of Starlight

Spoiler

Has a clearly identified Pacifier class Patrol Cruiser - I was expecting that to be the ship from the Marchion Ro comic, but instead it looks like it shares a design lineage with the long beams.

We also see a shuttle that looks like it could be a predecessor of Kylo Ren's shuttle.

 

Spoiler

What happened to the art direction? It doesn't look like something the Story Group cooked: with intent and oversight. Did they only oversee designs in Phase 1? It looks like something an overworked comic artist came up with.

It also looks very much like an embedded 3D model so high chance it's fan art.

EDIT: In the first panel with Starlight Beacon falling, you can see the stand hole on the Longbeams on their center. Very similar to the hole in this model: 1/2 circle, 1/2 triangle.

 

Going back to this because someone replied to my one year reddit post with a link to this tweet
They concepted the Shuttle being the proper scale at one point.

 

The size discrepancy is insane, the shuttle must have been at least half the real size to fit inside.
I really wish they used this solution instead:

 

Spoiler

It is concept art for the starfortress bomber, same as the longbeam itself:

Odd choice to upscale a bomber into a cruiser though...

 

Time to beat the dead horse again...but I would have preferred they had given Gideon a Gladiator Class ship as opposed to what they did.

 

Oh then that's good. Doesn't soften the clear copy-paste though. And I wish they did refinements to the design. Like that top silhouette is really meh.

Now the question is if that decision came from the top or not. Still waiting on the Phase 2 artbook, if there will even be new ones. I suspect if there won't be, then they took a more hands-off approach for the art in Phase 2 and 3.

 

Yeah. I confess I was a bit disappointed that the Phase 1 artbook only had a handful of new designs. And some of those didn't really match what text descriptions we got (ie the Lorna Dee and New Elite were given the same design as Nihil fighters, and Pyke Patrol Ships, despite being described as corvettes, and the Lourna Dee in particular was described like a stealth fighter with a focus on missiles which didn't really come through in the final design).

I sure hope we get more to come with Phase 3.

And that the phase 2 artbook has more designs cause the comics for that run did not cover a lot.

 

When you’re reading a book and unknown ships are introduced, do you have any go-to designs that you imagine and then modify as needed? I think the Imperial Navy seems to take that role for me, though perhaps the variety of ships in it isn’t as clear to me as others. But there’s definitely a limited set of designs that feel innately SW-y enough to serve as placeholders in my mine when reading about new ships.

FYI, this comes up a lot when I’ve read Zahn’s Ascendancy trilogy, since all the ships there are totally unknown for the most part. With the EU I had the privilege of reading many books after there’d been reference guides with artwork released for many of them. Though I sometimes wonder how close some Legends-canonical designs really are to what the authors who came up with the ships intended…

 

The "official visual design is clearly not what the author intended" thing has definitely happened a couple of times, yeah. Though the examples that immediately come to mind aren't ships.

 

In terms of imagining ships...I actually have a few I switch between. Lots of unused concept art, nameless ship designs in comics or background of show shots, and sometimes alternate takes on standard designs - the x-wing vs tie fighter version of the dreadnought is my go to for imagining capital ships without clear design lineages.

But sometimes I imagine things in non-star wars designs. Legends of the Galactic heroes for instance - maybe because that show has more than a bit of star wars influence (it is between a Galactic Empire and a Free Planets Alliance also known as Rebels) or maybe because the designs got burned into my brain after bingewatching that gargantuan series one summer. The designs for Galaxy Rangers also seem pretty star wars compatible to me. Oh, and Star Fox.

And when it comes to the Thrawn books in particular, I find myself turning to a webcomic by the name of Outsiders - with the Chiss using Loroi ships (though in Chiss white instead of green) and the Lioaoin using Umiak ships (though in blue and white instead of yellow, white, and red). Not sure why - and especially not sure why my brain has assigned the Lioaoin a design space while not thinking of anything for more important groups like the Nikradun, Kiliji, and Grysk. (and also looking again, I suppose the terran ships of this comic look the most like the Chiss comic design)

For ground vehicles, meanwhile, I tend to find myself going to, besides unused or unnamed star wars designs of course, battletech (particularly the Japanese version) and Supreme Commander.

Yeah, I would love it if we could get some reference book like the old days to give some images and minor backstory to all this mentioned designs, but since the closest we have gotten to that is High Republic being assigned old concept art, and not even consistently at that, it seems sadly unlikely. Our best chance is if were get comic adaptations of the novels, and even that seems a longshot since it has been years and only the first thrawn prequel novel has gotten an adaptation.