Books A/V Star Wars: The Force Awakens Incredible Cross Sections

Of course, discussions can take place here. I was just pointing out to Jason that the majority of discussions were taking place there.

--Adm. Nick

 

It looks cheap, solid, and functional. It's not a gunship or long range transport, but a simple troop lander. It's more like a modern Stormtrooper Transport than anything you listed.

 

It is basically a flying Higgins Boat, designed to get troops from orbit to the ground, and that is fine by me.

 

Yeah it is literally just a landing barge, nothing more, nothing less.

 

It's a Higgins boat meets a GR-75 and shrunk. Not too dissimilar from EU troop transports. Kinda funny how that design is less "fantastical" which used to mean "Prequel stuff that fans hate".

 

While there were certainly a lot of things about the prequels to hate, the majority of vehicles were not among them. They had a unique, SW-ish flair to them.
The new Imperial Landing Craft could belong to any SciFi-franchise out there. Actually the first time I saw it deploy its Stormtroopers, I was reminded of the first Starship-Trooper-movie (you know, the one, which would have been awful, if it hadn't been a satire).
And what is the point anyway? Sentinels and LAATs can't just deploy troops, they can support them with heavy weapons or vehicles like speeder-bikes or even small walkers. The ILC just deploys foot-soldiers with their small-arms.

 

It has a cannon on top to do the same thing the guns on the Sentinel can do. And I believe thanks to Commander, that the CR20 and CR25 are back in canon, and they had a similar setup. This new ship is just the smallest dropship we've seen yet.

 

Two annoyances with the T-70 cross-section-
It's missing the blaster turret in the wing root
Mentions 8 torpedo loadout when we see Poe using at least 12 in the movie.

 

Agreed. Perils of working off scripts instead of being able to actually see the movie. Which is meant as an explanation for assessing future such projects, not as an excuse.

 

Here's hoping for a larger variety of NR/Resistance ships appearing in VIII. The lack of variety beyond the X-wings and the (atrocious) shuttle of Leia's left my somewhat disappointed. The Resurgence SD more than makes up for it though. Those ships are beasts.

 

The Resistance transport has grown on me just because of how weirdly counterintuitive it is. Also the B-wing influence.

 

3rd Viewing. At least 14 torpedoes. But the wing blaster is easily handwaved- it's an optional add-on that his fighter in the beginning had, but Black One did not.

Still an awesome book. Wish the movie had a few more ships for you to cross-section though. And the SB-AT would have been nice.

Seems like the galaxy has managed to refine hyperdrives a lot in the last 30 years- realtime comms with ships in hyperspace and the Falcon at least an drop out deep in a gravity well successfully.

 

I don't dislike the Resistance Transport at all. It's ugly, but in a memorable and distinctive way.

 

One could argue that is an Ugly as well.

 

Also it still looks better then all PT military designs.

 

Incredible job jasonfry and the same for the illustrator Kemp Remillard. I hope it helps, I think your beer and mortgage fund, so we can get a new ICS for each of the upcoming movies from you. Also hope you inspired a few future engineers/scientists like I was when the first non-Star Wars ICS books came out in the 90's. Loved all of the various tidbits throughout the book. Thought the summary of the technology in the beginning was great,and always nice to see technology both on the large and small scales, hypermatter reactors, planets cracking lasers, molten slag, shields etc... and no hard numbers as you had mentioned

Had a couple of questions if you had the time.I saw you answered the Starkiller base one already. Would have been cool to see, but I see the novel had an explanation for it. Also curious to see AdmiralNick22 question be answered regarding the 3,000 turbolasers on the Finalizer.

I had a couple more beyond that. I don't know if you can really answer these, but maybe some general thoughts would be much appreciated.

First is, can you give any thoughts into Kuat's situation during TFA? Is there still a Kuat proper who builds for the New Republic and then a splinter group who engineers for the First Order in the Unknown Regions?

Second, always happy to see the individual planetary security forces get a mention. In the TFA era do you think these forces would more in line with being a small auxiliary to the New Republic forces? Or would it be more akin to the Legends Pre-Clone War era, or times during the Old Republic (Coruscant, Alsakan, Corellia, etc..) where these forces were fairly significant?

Lastly, did you have any vehicles there were cut from the book at the last minute? Would have been nice to see those First Order walkers show up even though we did not get a good look at them in the movie. Thanks.

 

3000+ "turbolasers & ion cannons" though the exact breakdown of how many are turbolasers and how many are ion cannons is not given.

 

You did, however, mention a certain degree of modularity in the T-70's design. Maybe the expansion slot behind the main torpedo bay can be filled with a ground-defense blaster, another torpedo rack, or a fuel tank?

As to why that wasn't mentioned in the book? The cross-section was from Takodona, where Poe flew without any additional modules due to the hot-scramble nature of the Resistance's arrival there.


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I hope the blaster on the X-wing is standardized to some extent, just because my first thought when it popped out was "I bet those were Han's idea."

 

Is Poe's black X-wing the same T-85 model he has in Before the Awakening? That would be even further removed from the stock unmodified T-70.

 

No, The Visual Dictionary has Black One listed as a T-70.

 

Cross-posting this from my author thread to make sure folks saw it.

So the Falcon spread has a note about the freighter's origins pushing freight, accounting for the side-mounted cockpit. That idea came from ace Star Wars artist Jeff Carlisle. Jeff did a quick mockup to demonstrate the concept, which our workload and deadlines unfortunately didn't allow us to adapt for ICS. But this is the sketch I was referring to in crafting that description:



I think it's hellaciously cool, and makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, enjoy! And thanks Jeff!

 

Just received my copy of this, and all I have to say is "Awesome!"

I might use the information in this book (along with the contents of The Visual Dictionary, which I'm expecting in a couple of days) to put together a TFA-era RPG campaign for some of my friends.

 

It makes a ton of sense! It not only explains why the Falcon never had any room for much legitimate cargo to speak of, it also makes the position of the cockpit make much more sense.