New Essential Guide to Droids

The only other question I have at the moment is about the Great Heep and Abominor in general.

Is the fuel that organic slaves shove into Abominor furnaces something like fossil fuels? Or do their furnaces use something order than combustion to provide power?

 

Well in Survivor's Quest Jinszler(sp?) was said to be "middle aged at about sixty" making the average human lifespan around 120 years or age. So 160 isn't too much of a stretch for SW, it would be like seeing a 100 year old with today's lifespan around 75. I just figured Bakura was exceptionally healthy and its citizens had a greater average lifespan, much like the Japanese today.

 

60 is considered middle-aged even today. It doesn't mean he's in the exact middle of his lifespan.

 

60 is middle aged? When did this happen? I thought 40-50 was middle aged.

 

40-60 (or 65) is the generally accepted definition. According to the BBC, Wikipedia, and pretty much any dictionary.

I wouldn't call a 56 year old man old yet.

 

Forget organics. What about droids, what's old for them?

 

Well...... his body is already starting to break down. Its interesting, but the period middle age signifies the period of time when one lifestyle must change, so as to accomodate the onset of old age.

 

I dunno... I think the Z-X3 wouldn't have worked without its blaster box, since that's how it was portrayed in its only prior appearance. Same thing for the BL too, I imagine. It didn't have a blaster box in Joe's art for "The History of the Mandalorians," did it?

EDIT: Wait, maybe it did. I'll have to go look it up.

Dan

 

I recognize the Dooku reference, but what's the reference to Han being older than Chewie?

That's a good question. As you can tell, given the number of "droid vehicles" and "droid vessels" in the prequels, there was some overlap between this book and the NEGVV.

I claimed a couple unused designs that I thought were cool, like the manta droid subfighter. Other designs, like the tri-droid and the droid gunship, just looked too much like ships to me, and including them "felt" wrong. To get a sense of the amount of gray area at play, note that the spider droid is in the NEGVV, and the dwarf spider droid is in the NEGD.

Dan

 

Other than the charge of goofiness, what needed to be retconned?

Dan

 

I agree with you about local day/night, but I still think a plugged-in planet would mark yearly time by using galactic standard years. Even if you lived on Alderaan, I'd bet local schools would teach history using galactic standard years ... when you traveled offworld for business, you'd confer with everyone else in galactic standard time as a sort of lingua franca... when you read HoloNet News with your morning coffeine it would all be printed in galactic standard dates. I think it would follow that you'd mark your birthdays according to the Coruscant calendar (or maybe even keep two numbers in your head: your "local" age and your "real" age).

But whether Bakura is such a plugged-in planet is open to debate.

Dan

 

If IG-88 was the Death Star II, couldn't he have surrepitiously ordered more TIE fighters to attack Lando and Wedge (faking command codes and all) or just simply fire the superlaser at the Rebels, regardless of the proximity of the Imperial fleet?

 

A postscript to the 8t88 discussion: Years ago, I was planning to write a NJO-era short story for Star Wars Gamer starring Grand Admiral Grant and 8t88, in which Grant broke his "comfortable retirement on Rathalay" in order to fight off an invading Yuuzhan Vong warrior. 8t88's head played a supporting role! Unfortunately I didn't sell the story on my first attempt, and a short time later Star Wars Gamer went under.

Dan

 

Is there any possibility this might ever make it into Insider? Or get referenced into continuity in another feature?

I feel like most of the Grand Admirals are underused, but Grant is particularly interesting. Not because he was especially competent, but because he outlived so many others. You'd think the New Republic would do something with him besides send him off to the Old Admirals' Home.

 

That sounds amazing. You should definately see about getting that published again.

 

I seem to remember a bit about 8t88's head on Rathalay, and Jan Ors being assigned to keep tabs on Grant, from Abel's Dark Forces articles. Are those references to that particular short story?

>If IG-88 was the Death Star II, couldn't he have surrepitiously ordered more TIE fighters to attack Lando and Wedge (faking command codes and all) or just simply fire the superlaser at the Rebels, regardless of the proximity of the Imperial fleet?<

He didn't consider the tiny Rebel fighters a threat, just like Tarkin didn't. He had just decided to use the superlaser to wipe out both fleets, right when Wedge and Lando zapped him for good. It's all there in the short story.

TC

 

I like the idea of fossil fuels, because the Great Heep seems to fit with dirty, smoky, oily, burning fuels. On the other hand, I don't know if this feasible on its own given the level of sophistication of GFFA tech. The Great Heep also "drained energy" from astromech droids like a robot vampire.

Dan

 

HK-47 is over 4,000 years old (but received a new body in that time). Is he the oldest droid on record?

Dan

 

Yep, I supplied Abel with the details of my story back when he was writing his Dark Forces article, and Abel graciously wrote around it.

Dan

 

I think that droid with the Starmap in KOTOR would beat HK-47 for the longest living droid. That feller was around before even the Old Republic. Given the placement of KOTOR at around 4000-3000 BBY-ish, that should make him, easily over 20000 standard years.

Of course, I don't know if he counted as functional anymore by then.

 

Xim's war-robots lasted about 25,000 years, but the winner is probably C-3PO in the Tales story set "A long time from now". No exact figures, but "a long time ago" to "a long time from now" has got to be a really long time.

On a rather random note, I think a neat element to add to the continuity would be a droid who's been around since they were first invented, all 30,000 years before the Skywalker Saga, and has transferred his body from chassis to chassis throughout the millennia. Not even the same kind of chassis; for a few centuries he's an astromech, then he moves to an assassin droid, then spends some time as a window-repair droid just for kicks. He could make cameo appearances throughout the timeline.

 

It must be R2-D2. He is the R. Daneel Olivaw of Star Wars and the reincarnation of T3-M4... And he recorded the 6 movies.

 

Seconded.

 

Part 3 of the NEGD Endnotes has been posted!

Dan

 

Xim's war robots were always fun. So were Bollux and Blue Max.

Qella tie in? That makes a lot of sense. I wondered why it was called "better than Quantum armor"

Maybe the electrostaff was first designed for demolitions/forced entry, like the force pike, before being converted to use as a bodyguard weapon.

Glambot? Sounds like a cross between Gypsy and Cambot...