The Battle of Hoth

[Manroon]

I might point out, the novelizations are regarded as a step below the movies canon wise, and have a number of inaccuracies themselves. One good example is the Blue Squadron / Red Squadron name switch, and there are others as well.

BTW... Imperator is the name of an individual destroyer, not a class. The class of Star Destroyer Vyk is referring to is the Imperial Class, if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, and another thing to take into account if we wanna get deeply technical. The number of Destroyers shown as part of the Fleet on screen in Empire Strikes Back actually changes from the original Theatrical Release to the Special Edition. Knowing the changes made to the DVD and Blu Ray releases, it may well have been altered again, so it's probably darned near impossible to be sure of the EXACT size of the fleet.

[Vyk]

I initially had noted that the movies took priority over the novelizations or radio dramas, but ended up editing that out when trying to make my text a little more readable.  That'll teach me.    There are a few cases where I wish the novelizations were the authoritative source; at the very least, I wouldn't have to facepalm every time I heard about the Falcon's speed being measured using an Earth-specific unit of distance rather than time.    (Yes, I'm aware of the retcon, but the novelization simply uses "standard time-parts" and it makes vastly more sense.  On the other hand, I've heard that some of the earlier versions of the script state that Solo's line was a blatant lie and Obi-Wan knew it because of the nonsensical unit.)

As for Imperator vs Imperial, you're mistaken.    At no time do the movies or their novelizations use either Imperial or Imperator as a class designation.  You do frequently see mentions of "Imperial Star Destroyers," but they include referring to both Executor and her five escorts as "Imperial Star Destroyers".  For example, see the quote I used above, "Inside the largest of the six Imperial Star Destroyers, Darth Vader sat alone in a small spherical room."  Imperator as the class name dates back to 1978; you can read more here.  (Have you gathered that I <3 SWTC?)

Aside from the above, I usually use Imperator because of the above-mentioned canonical use of Imperial as a statement of allegiance.  If we use Imperial as the class name, it's unclear, when referring to an "Imperial Star Destroyer", whether it's a Star Destroyer of the Imperial class or a Star Destroyer used by the Empire.  Using Imperator solves that dilemma.

I haven't picked up the Blu-Ray releases yet (they're on my Life Day wish list!), but I don't think I've seen anybody point out the number of visible Star Destroyers as one of the changes.  (And given that I'm by far not the most pedantic SW fan out there, I would have expected to see somebody comment on it.)

A notable exception to my love of SWTC and one place where I disagree with the Commentaries is Saxton's assertion that Executor is not a Star Destroyer, but some other classification (he uses Star Dreadnought) and that Star Destroyer only refers to the smaller ships (in the same way that real-world ships can be frigates, destroyers, cruisers, etc).  I agree that would make more sense and dearly wish it were so, but as noted above, the novelizations explicitly refer to Executor as a Star Destroyer outside of character speech, so his rationalization that characters in the movies only call Executor a "Star Destroyer" in times of stress is irrelevant.  On the other hand, we do have EU evidence of "Star Dreadnaughts" and "Star Battlecruisers" in sources such as the Ep 2 & 3 Incredible Cross-Sections (which, in what I'm sure is sheer coincidence, were written by Saxton).

[kewlkev360]

The point wasn't to point out how many ships were there, merely to show that multiple ships were blockading the planet, forcing the rebels to punch through rather than go around.

[Manroon]

As for Imperator vs Imperial, you're mistaken.  Grin  At no time do the movies or their novelizations use either Imperial or Imperator as a class designation.  You do frequently see mentions of "Imperial Star Destroyers," but they include referring to both Executor and her five escorts as "Imperial Star Destroyers".  For example, see the quote I used above, "Inside the largest of the six Imperial Star Destroyers, Darth Vader sat alone in a small spherical room."  Imperator as the class name dates back to 1978; you can read more here.  (Have you gathered that I <3 SWTC?)

Oh, do I beg to differ! The movies and their novels might not mention the class, but virtually every EU Novel I've read refers to Imperial Class Star Destroyers or Imperial Class II Star Destroyers, otherwise commonly referred to as Impstars and Impstar Deuces. The X-Wing series particularly is littered with the term. I grant you that it is a tad confusing, but considering that the Imperial Class is the most widely used Destroyer in the Empire at the time, it's a safe assumption by any Rebel or Imperial that a Star Destroyer is Imperial Class unless otherwise stated. Most of the EU will either say 'Star Destroyer' 'Imperial Star Destroyer' 'Impstar Deuce' 'Super Star Destroyer' 'Executor Class' or 'Victory Class', the most common of those being the first three.

As for that website..... 1) Sad though it might be, Lucas has always ranked the early novels and materials as lesser canon, so I'd be inclined to disagree with the name put on one set of blueprints. If you were to follow that logic, the Falcon wouldn't even be a YT-1300. 2) I'm not overly inclined to trust the claims of a website that refers to the Shield Domes of a Star Destroyer as Scanner Globes. I've read enough X-Wing and played enough flight games to know what those suckers are. Primary. Targets. lol You may even recall, one had to be destroyed in ROTJ before Arvil Crynid could go spinning out of control and slam into Executor's Bridge. It was commented specifically after the explosion that the forward shields had gone down.

Actually, not to get off topic, but I'd love to see a breakdown of the shield projection on the Executor Class. On the Impstars, the two top domes are generally referenced as covering Port and Starboard topside shields respectively, and the bottom dome seems to cover the ship's keel, which I would assume needs less coverage since it's usually less of a target than the topside. Of course, with Executor's structure and the references in the films, one has to assume that the domes above the bridge covered the tower, and that other unseen projectors took care of the bow, body, and other areas of the ship. X-Wing has references that seem to back that theory up, but I've never seen an actual set of blueprints on the class.

[Vyk]

Manroon, I'd suggest reading http://theforce.net/swtc/towers.html#globes.  It includes a quote from Richard Edlund of ILM (shared winner of ROTJ's Academy Award for visual effects) stating that they're radar domes.  The X-Wing series is fun (largely due to a strong power bias toward fighters and away from capital ships), but games that are designed to allow one X-Wing to defeat a Star Destroyer should probably not be considered particularly authoritative. 

If you were to insist on them being shield projectors, it might interest you to know that there are a number of them on Executor.  For example, you can see two on the superstructure aft of the bridge in a picture of the studio model here, and I seem to remember there are a bunch more if you look closely enough.  I think there were multiples of them in XWA also (is that the reference you meant?), but I could be misremembering.

I'm sure we could argue about the naming issue for bloody ages, so how about this: we'll just always refer to them as Impstars and all will be well. 

This does bring up something that drives me nuts about the EU.  When you have two conflicting sources, which one is right?  Earliest?  Latest?  Most amusing? Particularly through the '90s you often saw novels repeatedly contradict each other about both important and unimportant topics, frequently in an absolutely maddening way.  (If you're overly pedantic like I am, anyway.)  Character issues are even worse.  I can hardly remember how many times (in SW chronology) Leia bounced back and forth between "I've come to terms with Vader being my father" and "Oh no Vader's my father I can't deal with this!" depending on who was writing the book. 

[Luna]

If both sources are the same canon class.... you go to Wookieepedia and see what the people there have decided on.

[Manroon]

I shall agree with you on referring to the Destroyers as Impstars, since it's a term we both agree refers to that ship class anyways, regardless of what the ship class name actually is.

I also concur with Luna on the Wookiee. As far as so many conflicting novels... particularly on the Leia issue, I agree it's maddening. Personally, I've found a particular group of authors I like best, and I have so far stuck largely to those authors works. I've actually focused most largely on the X-Wing novels, a few of the major hardback releases (Shadows, Courtship, Thrawn Trilogy, etc), and on the early novels. I LOVE Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the Solo Trilogy. EXCELLENT reading.

Thanks for that info on the model of Executor! Most interesting stuff. I'll certainly not dispute that Radar Domes are what the model builder may have intended them to be, with that quote, but... the movie itself forces me to hold my position on the final outcome. I'll grant you that the Rogue Squadron games can't really be taken as very canon, nor can any game really, though they are decent sources for some evidence depending on the issue in question, they're always up for debate. However, the actual Novel Series X-Wing tends to follow the same line, which is I think something to consider. In fact... though I can't quote the page..... there is a passage in Iron Fist, a novel of that series, in which a pilot lands his stolen TIE between the two domes on top of a SSD and later fires his lasers, destroying both domes and dropping the shields. The passage specifically referred to them as Shield Generators, and the event of their destruction dropping the shields around the bridge was specifically referenced repeatedly in the novel. It should be noted as well, the X-Wing Novel Series dealt extensively with three Super Star Destroyers. Lusankya, Iron Fist (formerly Brawl), and Razor's Kiss, and in fact detailed the destruction of two of those three. Courtship of Princess Leia detailed the destruction of Iron Fist. (KISS MY WOOKIEE! lol)


Is it just me, or is this a great conversation? I can't remember the last time we had something like this going on the forum, and I'm loving the technical debate.

[kewlkev360]

I agree that they are shield generators.  In ROTJ, the Port side globe explodes on the Executor.  The very next scene, the line is that the shields were down.   That seems pretty definitive to me.

Though it always boggles my mind, Why put the generator in such a vulnerable spot?

[Vyk]

Technical debates are what I do best.    Over a decade ago, I used to be active on the HPG Uplink BattleTech forum, and after a period of time, the term "Vykpost" came into use to describe an overly detailed rebuttal.  (It should probably disturb me how proud I am of that.)


Absolutely agree on authors.  Some of them I love (Zahn, Stackpole, Allston, and Crispin come readily to mind).  Some not so much.  A lot of the early books (Splinter, the Han Solo prequels) were incredibly good.  The Hand of Thrawn novels are an interesting case; taken on their own, they're not exceptional (especially for Zahn), but the impressive part about them is how thoroughly he managed to tie up pretty much every loose plot end from the pre-NJO books and comics.  On the other hand, the only reason I care about anything KJA wrote is because some of it's referenced in I, Jedi. 

Story time: quite a few years ago I was reading Darksaber while in the bathroom, and accidentally dropped it in the toilet.  The book was ruined, but I wasn't too bummed by the event.  About a year ago I thought "it can't really be as bad as I remember" so I picked up another copy.  I quickly came to the conclusion that I had put it in the right place the first time. 

A neat little detail in both the Thrawn trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn duology that it took me a number of re-readings to notice is how each of them start.  The beginning of all five books are the same as the Original Trilogy in that they start with an Impstar in space.  (The Prequels also all start with a ship in space, although obviously only the last is a Star Destroyer--a Venator class, in that case.)


Now back to our regularly scheduled argument:
I remember the part you're mentioning from Iron Fist--IIRC it's Piggy that makes a barely-controlled landing next to the shield generators.  I do feel compelled to point out, however, that the X-Wing books are explicitly based on the computer game(s), so they can't really be considered any more authoritative than the game they're derived from.  I do like some of the references to the game, though; one I remember in particular, early in the first book IIRC, Corran (and others) are in a simulator running the Redemption scenario, which was one of the more annoying missions in the first game.

[Vyk]

I agree that they are shield generators.  In ROTJ, the Port side globe explodes on the Executor.  The very next scene, the line is that the shields were down.   That seems pretty definitive to me.

Correlation does not equal causation. 

[kewlkev360]

Correlation does not equal causation. 
 

Wookieepedia has an interesting article about the domes under debate.  While we all know and accept that Wookiepedia isn't always accurate, it is something to consider.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/ISD-72x_deflector_shield_generator_dome

According to them, it's both a shield generator and sensor globe.

[Manroon]

I think I could get with Kev on that dual purpose thing.

Also, I would imagine the reason the domes are so exposed (unless George is a giant Disney freak XD) is for better projection coverage. A ball on a stick can project over more area than a bump on the hull, which may also lead into why the Mon Cal MC-80s have the redundant shield projector design, thereby covering for the smaller projection coverage of bumps on the hull.

And on the X-Wing Novels.... I must correct you. Research will show that the Comics were released first, followed by the novels, then the games. The books specifically started hitting shelves in 96, while the first game was not until 98. Therefore, your argument about the validity of content from the novels is invalid. Now on the other hand, you MIGHT be able to debate it through the comic book origins.... but I think the novels are pretty well entrenched in canon no matter what you do because that series covers such a MASSIVE portion of EU canon and is SO widely accepted. (In short, you can try, but the Rogues and Wraiths aren't people I'd recommend tangling with. )

[RogueLeader]

In Lego Star Wars you have to blow up the domes with your torpedoes to destroy a Star Destroyer.

And I should really read the X-Wing novels at some point.

[kewlkev360]

In Lego Star Wars you have to blow up the domes with your torpedoes to destroy a Star Destroyer.

 

Lol, I don't think Lego Star Wars can be counted very much as canon.

[Luna]

Lol, I don't think Lego Star Wars can be counted very much as canon.

It's completely non-canon, I think she just brought it up because it had to do with the domes.