New Vehicles TLJ Official Info *Spoilers*

[Rhadamantus]

Fan made comparison (may or may not accurately reflect dimensions):

Supremacy Comparison [Credit: IveFallenNICantGetUp/Reddit]

The Supremacy is the central command headquarters for the First Order's fleet, serving dual purpose as a massively scaled battleship. This colossal ship not only carries Stormtroopers into battle, it also harbors ships and can build and fix ships on board.

http://moviepilot.com/p/star-wars-snoke ... di/4363316
Which has been read by some to suggest the notches in the trailing edge of the top of the Supremacy are actually Star Destroyer repair bays. Good for toys, bad for movies (unless this is all the First Order have left after everything they lost on Starkiller Base.)

At least it's wingspan, instead of length.

[The Romulan Republic]

And if you put those hundreds of star destroyers up against the single giant ship, who wins? Probably the giant ship, all else being equal.

Again, see my point about the difference between building a fleet to patrol your vast territory when you rule all of known space, and building a ship to fight a peer power. The hundreds of Star Destroyers may be the better investment in the first case, but not in the second.

Though the Mega-class (ugg) seems to be more a planetary assault ship? But still, size is an advantage their, most likely. If its job is to breach planetary shields, its not a scaled up Star Destroyer in function. Its a scaled-down Death Star.

This is more like Neo-Nazis seizing a third-world country, then building a Ford, complete with railguns, lasers, and fighter jets capable of reaching space. The Empire couldn't build bigger than a Death Star with a whole galaxy of resources.

Couldn't, or chose not to?

See my post reg. the different strategic needs of the Empire and First Order.

Or more plausibly (since the Empire did love its grandiose shows of force), the technology has developed over the thirty years or so since the OT. I mean, this isn't unprecedented, in Star Wars or the real world. Pre-Disney takeover, the Second Death Star, canonically, was much bigger than the first one, which was built just a few years earlier. Or, real world, an air craft carrier is larger than earlier capital ships, correct?

Maybe the larger size is necessary to accomandate the Starkiller Base's FTL weaponry.

Why should this little upstart, with vastly fewer resources, be able to do so? How can they also afford to bankroll a fleet headed by THAT behemoth? They should have no money! They should not be a threat to a god damn galactic power! The only hope they had was to blow away the New Republic capital and force a surrender. Their god weapon is gone. They should be on the back foot for another thirty years until they scrape up the cash for a few more Star Destroyers.

See above.

Also, the NR pretty clearly does not have strong control, or any control, over the whole galaxy.

On scale, it doesn't matter what science says. In Star Wars, a SSD eight kilometers long is a major expenditure for a galactic civilization of seventy million inhabited worlds.

Source for that please.

For one thing, an eight kilometer ship being a major expenditure for a galactic civilization ought to render the Death Stars utterly impossible.

The Supremacy ruins the atmosphere.

Not to me. This is just typical Star Wars.

And, as someone else said, more advanced does not mean bigger.

I said that, more or less.

But there's no reason why you can't have bigger ships either.

No one can doubt that the B-36 was bigger than the B-52. Which is more advanced? Our firearms have shrunk for centuries, everything in the recent decades has focused on miniaturization. A better way to show technological advances would be in turbolaser technology (which they have, in the wrong direction), shielding, hyperdrives, and starfighters. Not size.

Those subtler advantages are harder to convey visually on-screen in a Star Wars film, though.

Besides, a B-36 may be bigger than a B-2, but how would, say, an aircraft carrier compare to the previous era's premier capital ship, the battleship?

[ray245]

And if you put those hundreds of star destroyers up against the single giant ship, who wins? Probably the giant ship, all else being equal.

Again, see my point about the difference between building a fleet to patrol your vast territory when you rule all of known space, and building a ship to fight a peer power. The hundreds of Star Destroyers may be the better investment in the first case, but not in the second.

Though the Mega-class (ugg) seems to be more a planetary assault ship? But still, size is an advantage their, most likely. If its job is to breach planetary shields, its not a scaled up Star Destroyer in function. Its a scaled-down Death Star.

I'm talking about the FO being able to muster this much resources without anyone even noticing. And they already have a scaled-up Death Star in the case of Starkiller base.

[Galvatron]

After some 30 years of unrestricted military build-up using the heretofore untapped resources of the Unknown Regions, I see no problem with the First Order having a relatively small number of really big ships. Especially after we saw what they could do on a planetary scale with Starkiller Base.

The Supremacy is really no more impressive than the first Death Star. In fact, it's far less impressive if it doesn't have a superlaser. From what I've read about it so far, it sounds more like a well-armed mobile HQ than a superweapon.

Some of y'all need to chill the fuck out.

[Zor]

Really the Supremacy is Peanuts in comparison to Starkiller Base or a Death Star.

Zor

[The Romulan Republic]

And if you put those hundreds of star destroyers up against the single giant ship, who wins? Probably the giant ship, all else being equal.

Again, see my point about the difference between building a fleet to patrol your vast territory when you rule all of known space, and building a ship to fight a peer power. The hundreds of Star Destroyers may be the better investment in the first case, but not in the second.

Though the Mega-class (ugg) seems to be more a planetary assault ship? But still, size is an advantage their, most likely. If its job is to breach planetary shields, its not a scaled up Star Destroyer in function. Its a scaled-down Death Star.

I'm talking about the FO being able to muster this much resources without anyone even noticing.

Wasn't the much larger Second Death Star supposed to have been built secretly, until Palpatine leaked it as part of a trap?

But yeah, I have my issues with "Unknown Regions" shit in general.

And they already have a scaled-up Death Star in the case of Starkiller base.

I don't know. In a sense the Starkiller Base is a scaled-up Death Star, but in another, its completely new, given its FTL range. Its like the difference between a very large artillery piece, and a ballistic missile silo, to use a very, very rough analogy.

But it makes sense that they'd have some other ships that could be used for planetary bombardment, either for situations where less overwhelming force was desired (drop the shields without destroying the whole world, for example), or just to avoid having all their eggs in one basket.

[Galvatron]

I like to think of the Unknown Regions as an unusually large cluster of uncharted systems covering a single region of the galactic map versus some giant void "where no one has gone before."

I remember Curtis Saxton once describing the Unknown Regions as "internal wilderness" in one of his old musings on the subject. That always resonated with me, even before the prequels and the Disney reboot.

[The Romulan Republic]

Better than "there's a huge uncharted, unclaimed region of the galaxy", which flatly contradicts Attack of the Clones.

Also:

After some 30 years of unrestricted military build-up using the heretofore untapped resources of the Unknown Regions, I see no problem with the First Order having a relatively small number of really big ships. Especially after we saw what they could do on a planetary scale with Starkiller Base.

The Supremacy is really no more impressive than the first Death Star. In fact, it's far less impressive if it doesn't have a superlaser. From what I've read about it so far, it sounds more like a well-armed mobile HQ than a superweapon.

Some of y'all need to chill the fuck out.

This.

I mean, there's a lot of criticism you can make of the new films, but it seems like some people just nitpick everything (and have ever since Phantom Menace destroyed the old fandom's faith in Star Wars' management).

When it comes to Episode VII, I'm not worried about a big ass star destroyer with a stupid name, not really.

I'm worried about possible catastrophic "edgy" retconnings of how the Force works, and character assassination of Luke. The ships are ultimately mostly window dressing. As long as they don't fuck up the fundamental underpinnings of the themes of the franchise, or characterization of core characters, they can throw in all the giant spacefaring phallic compensators they want.

[Galvatron]

Better than "there's a huge uncharted, unclaimed region of the galaxy", which flatly contradicts Attack of the Clones.

This seems to come up a lot. Can you tell me verbatim what AOTC actually said that has resulted in such an absolute belief of a fully-explored GFFA?

[The Romulan Republic]

Better than "there's a huge uncharted, unclaimed region of the galaxy", which flatly contradicts Attack of the Clones.

This seems to come up a lot. Can you tell me verbatim what AOTC actually said that has resulted in such an absolute belief of a fully-explored GFFA?

The Jedi librarian telling Obi-wan (when he consults her in his investigation regarding Kamino) that if something isn't in the Jedi archives, it doesn't exist, and not being immediately dismissed/laughed at. Indeed, Yoda (who is probably one of the less prideful PT Jedi Masters) seems to agree that Kamino's absence can only mean someone deleted it from the archives, as I recall. That, to me, is very telling. Plus the age of galactic civilization and hyperdrive speeds in general.

Now, you could point out that those archives could have been all lost during Order 66/the Empire's reign. But I'd presume that if Jedi had charted the whole galaxy in detail, that a lot of that knowledge would have become more widely-disseminated. And the war didn't seem to occure at a level of brutality (or over a sufficient period of time) to wipe out widespread knowledge of entire regions of the galaxy. Granted, it seemed that Imperial propagandists were largely able to remove knowledge of the Force, but not completely, and if anything, the Empire had greater control over the fringes of the galaxy than the Old Republic did.

[Galvatron]

The Jedi librarian telling Obi-wan (when he consults her in his investigation regarding Kamino) that if something isn't in the Jedi archives, it doesn't exist, and not being immediately dismissed/laughed at. Indeed, Yoda (who is probably one of the less prideful PT Jedi Masters) seems to agree that Kamino's absence can only mean someone deleted it from the archives, as I recall. That, to me, is very telling. Plus the age of galactic civilization and hyperdrive speeds in general.

Meh, her statement seems to smack more of Jedi arrogance than objective fact. There could be countless planets in the Jedi archives that are nothing more than some alphanumerical designation. Besides, our own scientists have recently revised their estimates of the number of planets in the Milky Way to be somewhere in the low trillions. If the GFFA is like the Milky Way, I have no problem believing that there are plenty of worlds that may have slipped through the cracks, despite what the Jedi believe.

Doing the math, we can then say that the Milky Way galaxy has – on average – between 800 billion and 3.2 trillion planets, with some estimates placing that number as high a 8 trillion!

Kamino would therefore be a suspicious oddity because it's a known planet with a known populace of reputedly advanced sapient beings. Any planet like that should be catalogued in the Jedi archives.

[The Romulan Republic]

Maybe, and I expect that the librarian's statement was somewhat exaggerated, realistically. But the Star Wars galaxy has had far longer, with far more means, to accurately explore the galaxy than we have had, and an entire swath of the galactic map being uncharted strikes me as deeply incongruous and contrived. A plot device that does not flow logically from what we already know about the setting.

Edit: Weighed against that, of course, is ESB's quote from Ozzel when looking for the Rebels on Hoth, about their being many uncharted settlements.

If forced to reconcile it, I might say that the number and locations of all systems and all or nearly all worlds is known, but not necessarily every world has actually had a team land and do a thorough survey. But any interstellar civilization is likely known and made contact with.

[Galvatron]

Maybe, and I expect that the librarian's statement was somewhat exaggerated, realistically. But the Star Wars galaxy has had far longer, with far more means, to accurately explore the galaxy than we have had, and an entire swath of the galactic map being uncharted strikes me as deeply incongruous and contrived. A plot device that does not flow logically from what we already know about the setting.

Granted.

However, even a thousand generations may not be enough time to explore trillions of planets. Especially if many of them are located in regions of the galaxy claimed by sovereign entities that are uncooperative with the Republic's efforts to chart them.

I realize that I'm just flinging poo at the wall to see what sticks, but I truly believe that a fully-explored GFFA would be devoid of mystery and therefore even worse than the EU's depiction of the Unknown Regions.

Edit: Weighed against that, of course, is ESB's quote from Ozzel when looking for the Rebels on Hoth, about their being many uncharted settlements.

If forced to reconcile it, I might say that the number and locations of all systems and all or nearly all worlds is known, but not necessarily every world has actually had a team land and do a thorough survey. But any interstellar civilization is likely known and made contact with.

I can live with that. For all we know, there are countless "LV-426s" in the GFFA at the time of the movies.

[The Romulan Republic]

Granted. However, even a thousand generations may not be enough time to explore trillions of planets. Especially if many of them are located in regions of the galaxy claimed by sovereign entities that are uncooperative with the Republic's efforts to chart them.

I realize that I'm just flinging poo at the wall to see what sticks, but I truly believe that a fully-explored GFFA would be devoid of mystery and therefore even worse than the EU's depiction of the Unknown Regions.

Oh, their will always be mystery. Every dark alley or seedy establishment on Coruscant or in Mos Eisley will hold its own secrets. Their will be wilderness areas, even in an "explored" area, where people seldom go because there's nothing of great material value their. And if their are no mysteries, people will just make them up.

But if you want deep space exploration or something, Star Wars isn't really a great setting for that. Although the quest to exotic regions is a staple of the sort of fantasy and mythology Star Wars draws a lot of its inspiration from, so its somewhat unfortunate that that's the case.

[Batman]

One should remember that 'completely mapped' is not the same as 'fully explored'. The Jedi weren't dubious because they had no population or meteorological data, no numbers on how many Space IMAX theatre they had, but because the entire system was missing from their maps. Them knowing (or thinking so) where every star in the galaxy is isn't the same as them knowing anything detailed about the systems besides where the central star(s) are located.

[Galvatron]

But if you want deep space exploration or something, Star Wars isn't really a great setting for that. Although the quest to exotic regions is a staple of the sort of fantasy and mythology Star Wars draws a lot of its inspiration from, so its somewhat unfortunate that that's the case.

Hence my ass-pull rationalizations. If even 90% of the galaxy is fully-explored, the remaining 10% is still a LOT of potential for mystery.

One should remember that 'completely mapped' is not the same as 'fully explored'. The Jedi weren't dubious because they had no population or meteorological data, no numbers on how many Space IMAX theatre they had, but because the entire system was missing from their maps. Them knowing (or thinking so) where every star in the galaxy is isn't the same as them knowing anything detailed about the systems besides where the central star(s) are located.

Spoken like the true goddamn Batman.

[The Romulan Republic]

So yeah, for the purposes of this topic, you could probably find lots of places to hide the construction of a giant warship.

I just find the classic depiction of the Unknown Regions as big largely unexplored slice of the galactic map awkward and contrived.

[Galvatron]

I've lost track of all the scarce resources that the new EU has introduced that are vital for starship construction (thorilide, doonium, etc.), but it's entirely possible that the First Order has discovered and plundered "treasure trove" worlds full of them within the systems they control. Moreover, they don't have to share these resources with the rest of the galactic community like the Republic and even the Empire did.

The First Order may truly have an uncontested monopoly on enough resources to build a fleet rivaling that of the Empire at its peak.

[The Romulan Republic]

One thing I'm actually not clear on, which is relevant to this discussion, is how much territory they do control? Are they mostly mobile with the odd hidden base, like the Rebels? Likely not, if they could manufacture something like Starkiller Base. Do they control a few systems? A few sectors? An entire region of the galaxy?

They almost certainly control some territory/systems, but not all and probably not a majority of the galaxy, going off TFA. But I'd have to follow the EU more closely than I do to narrow it down much more than that.

[Galvatron]

I think the extent of the First Order's territory is being kept deliberately mysterious so there's always a sliver of doubt about their limitations.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh. Figures.

Well, I'm going to say "a few resource-rich sectors, but they can punch above their weight because they focus their resources disproportionately on their military capabilities" (like a space North Korea) as a reasonable guess. Does that seem reasonable?

[Galvatron]

Yep. Although they don't appear to suffer from same sort of technological limitations that the North Koreans do given they had a small fleet of state-of-the-art Imperial warships (including an SSD) as their starting point.

Thus, they probably don't need Space China to funnel aid to them. I suspect that their main limitations are time and manpower.

[eMeM]

Here comes the Raddus, aka the Viscount-but-not-six-times-longer-than-it-looks:




EDIT: Wait a moment, wouldn't removing computerization make the ship more crew intensive?

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, you'd think. Maybe an error, meaning to say that its more computerized?

And yay, resistance capital ship! Three kilometers isn't bad eight. Sure, its not MEGA class size. But its a decent size for a cruiser.

[Galvatron]

We still don't know what ultimately happened to Admiral Raddus, but it's nice that they named a ship after him.