New Essential Guide to Droids

Could there be some property to transparisteel that allows it to shatter? Remember the Executor's viewports shattered upon Crynyd running through them, and those were surely transparisteel.

Ah the mysteries of Star Wars tech. . .

 

Well, Pablo referenced the "Lava Beast Jahwenko" in his short story "Spare Parts," and if I remember correctly, David West Reynolds referenced the "giant mutant womp rat" in the Episode I Visual Dictionary.

I never played Super ROJ, but Super SW and Super ESB were great, old-school, side-scrolling shoot-em-ups. LucasArts really should re-release all three games on one disc, packaging it as "Star Wars Classic" at a low price point for a current system like the PS2 or Nintendo DS.

Dan

 

Super ROTJ was pretty good, although at the end, Vader had all the difficulty of a wet paper bag (it's quite easy to defeat him without being hurt at all). Palpatine, on the other hand...*shudders* Took me about 30 tries to finish him off even once. And escaping the exploding DS2 in the Falcon is darn near impossible.

 

That Jawenko reference warmed my heart.

The mutant womp rat was referenced in the Essential Guide to Alien Species (under the womp rat entry, of course) and in the original Star Wars Visual Dictionary, where a caption stated something to the effect that Malakili had gotten his gaffi stick after helping some Sand People get rid of a mutant womp rat.

Another SSW reference is in the original Incredible Cross-Sections, where the inside of the sandcrawler resembles the version seen in SSW, complete with molten pits and grinders.

I'm not sure if its an intentional reference or not, but the current depiction of the gundark is similar to the one seen on Dagobah in Super ESB.


What I REALLY want is for somebody to re-release the old Japanese-only Star Wars game for NES. Among other things, it had levels on Kessel and Iskalon. Major kudos to the creators for that, though it doesn't really work in continuity.

 

What was the name of the boss on the Mos Eisley Cantina level? It was a Mantellian Savrip, but of course that name didn't exist at the time, so they called it something else. That would be a prime referencing opportunity.

Dan

 

Die fighting that oversized chess piece and it was impossible to afterward. The default level-two gun you get isn't strong enough, and he strikes you with extendable head and arms.

Nothing personal, but over a decade on I still hold a grudge.

 

Dan:
Looking at the Death Star TC droid chart, i have some thoughts. First, the MN-2E looks nothing like the MN-2E in the old EGD, but much like the M38; also the pic shows a SPD-R4 droid. Reading Thrawn trilogy, it refers to the "insectile" SPD droids, which certainly must have referred to this pic, yet EGD explains the SPDs in Thrawn book as the SDP-W2, a droid that looks nothing like an insect. And while not a droid question, I have always wondered why Ambria and Onderon made it into EGPM, but not Koros Major (Empress Teta/Cinnagar), arguably the most important planet in the TOTJ comics.

 

For me, it was making the last platform jump to reach Lava Beast Jawenko. See, it couldn't be a spinning jump, or you'd hit the ceiling and fall into the lava, and have to do nearly the entire sandcrawler level over again. But it was nearly impossible to do a regular jump unless you were holding the controller just so, leading to scores of resets, hundreds of curse words, several thrown controllers, and at least one secret promise to travel to LucasArts and kill everyone involved with the programming of Super Star Wars.

Dan

 

>>>What was the name of the boss on the Mos Eisley Cantina level? It was a Mantellian Savrip, but of course that name didn't exist at the time, so they called it something else. That would be a prime referencing opportunity. <<<

It was called a Kalhar Monster, I believe. One possible retcon is one recognizing the multiple depictions of Savrips by explaining that there are a number of different subspecies; the Kalhar would be one of those subspecies. Either that, or the thing was bred at the famed Kalhar Savrip Ranch.

 

OR, maybe that particular Savrip was particularly fond of the Kalhar, which is a tasty dessert biscut on Ord Mantell, thus the name "Kalhar Monster". "Me want kalhar!"

TC

 

Clever.

 

since Savrips are really sapient, maybe Kalhar is his proper name?

 

Master Com's entry seems to imply that the Marvel comics Wheel and the Jubilee Wheel from the NJO series are one and the same. Is that right?

TC

 

I haven't played that particular game, so I have to ask: was the Kalhar Monster blue?

"Krill is for kalhar, that's good enough for me..."

 

True dat. It certainly appears that the naming/art was messed up early in the process (i.e. the early '90s.) For example, by the time I inherited the material for the original Essential Guide to Droids, that old "maintenance droid" art had already been repurposed as the LesTech M38 Explorer.

Not being as retcon-happy then as I am now, I simply treated the most recent depictions as the correct ones and ignored the old info.

True, Koros Major is more important politically, but Onderon and Ambria were the primary settings for the Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider stories in Tales of the Jedi, and thus are arguably more important to the Star Wars reader than Koros Major.

But when you get down to it, there are things I'm unsatisfied with in the original Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, and think the format/content could be improved upon in a new edition.

Dan

 

And I think there's a market for a new EGtPaM edition, if the art and info are good...

 

Just to wrap up discussion on transparisteel vs glass, Labyrinth of Evilmakes mention of a substance called "permaglass" used in Palpatine's home in the 500 Republica, and it can shatter (or "pebble" as LoE puts it). Perhaps this permaglass is the material in Padme's suite and Palpy's office.

 

It's definitely the implication. Now, there are definitely some structural differences between the two according to published art, but I'm fond of the Jubilee Wheel as a reconstructed Marvel Wheel. At a minimum, the NEGTD entry necessitates that the original Wheel and the Jubilee Wheel use the same computer core.

Dan

 

Thanks for spotting that!

Wish I'd used permaglass instead of creating the new substance "clari-crystalline." (sigh)

Dan

 

Easy fix: Permaglass is a genericized brand name for clari-crystalline. Kinda like SHEETROCK® and drywall.

 

Unfortunately, retcons may yet be on the horizon... There's another homing beacon.

From the EGtW&T:
[blockquote]After the Millennium Falcon was captured by the Death Star, Darth Vader had an Imperial XX-23 homing beacon hidden inside the smuggling freighter, and the beacon's signal led the Empire right to the main Rebel base on Yavin Four.

(The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, p. 130)[/blockquote]

[link=http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/books/weg/crfg62.gif]We've seen the XX-23 before[/link], in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide (p. 62), and it does not look like the one in Darklighter or on the Homing Droid. Its a 10 cm cylinder, which makes it almost a third of the length of the Homing Droid.

Possible retcons? Perhaps the Darklighter/NEGtD version is an XX-23, but one specially built for use with a HMOR.

 

Actually, the Homing Droid is 0.3m *tall*, and about twice as long. So the beacons would be about the same size, just very different in appearance.



/Charlii

 

Right, 0.28m tall.

So the HMOR could have a XX-23 tucked away inside its body shell, or that beacon on its back could be a specially-redesigned XX-23.

 

Rogue_Follower, you rule -- even if every one of your posts makes me want to tear my hair out! (Cuz you're so good at spotting continuity errors, see...)

Excellent catch on the XX-23, and I can only concede that a retcon along the lines of the one you describe above is in order. The Darklighter homing beacon may (must?) be a specialized variety of XX-23.

Dan

 

If that's the case, it would mean The Wheel's been moved prior to the NJO. Though "both" in the Mid Rim, The Wheel is located in the Besh Gorgon system while the Jubilee Wheel is over Ord Mantell in the Bright Jewel Cluster. Not that I'm against the retcon - it makes sense, and I actually thought they were the same when I first read Agents of Chaos.