Gunguns on Pandora

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2010-01-10 06:13pm

There is one star wars species that unlike Ewoks would fit right into Pandora. They are high tech, skilled warriors and live in harmony with nature - the gunguns.

By a mysterious subspace magic anomaly the entire gungun population on Naboo along with all their cities, settlements, equipment, creatures, and other assets are teleported to Pandora. The gunguns are bewildered at first. But they realize there is something called unobtainium here. With enough unobtainium they can make a technobabble device that can open a portal back to their home galaxy. They immediately set their minds on building the device.

Meanwhile RDA assholes are present on planet looking to get rich by selling space rocks. Their satellites picked up the arrival of newcomers. The RDA does not take kindly to more people taking their precious unobtainium. The Navi too are not too pleased. They already had their hands full with RDA looting their forests. Now they are joined by a second group of marauders from space. Needlessly to say all three groups are wary of each other.

PS the Avatar timeline is two months after Jake Sullys insertion into Neytiris tribe. SW timline is around the time of Episode 1. Unfortunate as it may be this means Jar Jar was present at the time among the Gunguns so he too is coming along for the ride.

What happens next ?

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2010-01-10 07:50pm

From what i gather that is alot of gungans, in the area of several hundred million at least. I am sure that this could really piss off Ewya, but we don't know anything about Pandoran Marine Life. Kaadu cavalry might be able to pose a threat against the Na'vi in numbers as could their shield walls on open terrain, but the Na'vi are pretty damn strong.

I have never seen anything Gungans have anything which could deal with Gunships hovering over a hundred meters (and RDA aircraft are not repulsorlift). Presumably Quaritch could do the same sort of bombing mission against gungan cities, dropping bombs onto them.

Ecology is going to be an issue for the Gungans, you will also be bringing in a large number of Creatures from Naboo which are going to have problems. Why? Because at the begining of Avatar we see some Pandoran Plantlife being cultivated for the Avatars to Eat. I am damn sure that humans can not eat Pandoran Lifeforms and vice versa and gungans can eat human food, indicating similar chemical compositions and so forth even if they can breathe the Atmosphere by Magic. In more detail, what is going to happen to a Kaadu who is walking a dozen clicks from the nearest Gungan Settlement and decides to chow down on some Pandoran greens? Most likely it fills its gut with indigestable stuff that yields no nutrition or dies from poisoning.

Zor

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-11 12:44am

I don't know that the Gungans would last very long frankly. Unlike what the OP said, the Gungans were terrrible warriors that badly lost the only battle we saw them in until the "Make All Bad Guys Stop Everywhere" button was pressed. There isn't any evidence that their shield stop anything more than blasters (given physical objects could effortlessly pass through them, including Gungans and Battledroids), which won't help them against Na'vi spears or arrows, or Pandoran murderous wildlife for that matter, and their sling launched projectiles only seem to hurt things with electrical systems in them. They don't seem to have any ability engage airborne targets and they don't have anything like pikes or bayonets (let alone guns) to fight cavalry.

I don't see how they can survive. If they were plopped into the middle of the bush where RDA is, they don't even have a major body of water to hide in. And god help them if they make an enemy of the RDA. Their battle tactic of forming up into a battle line is EXACTLY what the machine gun was designed for. Again, the RDA doesn't use blasters, so the Gungan's shield won't be much help there against machine guns and rockets.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2010-01-11 04:00am

I thought theater shields stop fast moving objects ? That should include rockets and machine guns. The gunguns also carry personal shields. They should resist some projectiles whether bullets or arrows.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-11 04:44am

Gil Hamilton wrote:There isn't any evidence that their shield stop anything more than blasters (given physical objects could effortlessly pass through them, including Gungans and Battledroids),

At no point do gungans pass through the shields. According to other canon, attempting to pass through one of those without fully earthed (read, Stormtrooper or droid) armour makes you drop, crisped into a flaming skeleton. Similarly, ground-traction is essential to earth flying vehicles, this being the excuse for SW mechas. The aircraft will not get through either. There's no reason to think this wouldn't work on RDA goons, leaving them as smoking corpses the gungans can poke.

Their mechas would get through, but that's about it, and gungan weapons, while being comically short range, have plenty of punch. Enough that the handheld versions can burn their way through inch thick droid chestplates. Let alone large exposed glass cockpits.

PS, the droid tanks had a variety of projectile weapons as well. Though we don't see them used, if they just flew through shields without incident, they would surely be used to clear the field.

Ilya Muromets · Post by **Ilya Muromets** » 2010-01-11 04:47am

Gil Hamilton wrote:Again, the RDA doesn't use blasters, so the Gungan's shield won't be much help there against machine guns and rockets.

Wait, how in the world did you come up with that conclusion? The Gungan shields were never shown to be specialized ray shields, so why shouldn't they stop a bullet expending much less energy on impact than a typical blaster bolt? Quoted from the Episode I tech analysis on the main site, we have:

SD.net TMP tech analysis wrote:The Gungan surface selective particle/energy shield. This shield was unusual in that we actually saw the shield projection equipment: a turbine-shaped device which was apparently fed by a second device which looked almost like an energy weapon. We also saw its projection method- a stream of energy flew upward to a predetermined height, whereupon it spontaneously stopped and formed a hemispherical bubble around the Gungan armies. This shield was quite interesting in nature- it seemed to stop energy weapons of various kinds, and it apparently also stopped matter which did not match a particular set of mass and velocity criteria: tanks, shells, blaster bolts, and missiles could not enter (shells exploded against its surface, causing ripples, but could not penetrate), but humanoid battle droids could enter (although if you watch carefully, you will see that they shift their orientation as they pass through the shield, as if they need to sidestep to get through). The novelization describes this selectivity, but not in enough detail to determine what the exact criteria are.

Gungan shield tech as shown in the movie showed that it could stop shells and missiles. A rifle bullet would be nothing. In fact, it seems to be specialized for high-speed projectiles since the droid army had to basically step through it slowly to get through rather than motor through it in a tank or blast their way through it. Question is, how would RDA figure out that they'd have to step through it? Once you see something stop your missiles and ammo, I doubt "let's try stepping through" would be the logical conclusion if you're not familiar with the tech in question.

EDIT: Didn't one of the main site's analyses also have the screen shot of something striking the Gungan theater shield and clearly fragmenting, clear proof of a projectile weapon? I recall seeing it before, but I can't find it now.

Ilya Muromets · Post by **Ilya Muromets** » 2010-01-11 05:08am

Ah, I found the page: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... ur-SW.html

Note the first two screen shots on that page, which clearly indicate that Gungan shield tech can stop projectiles.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2010-01-11 05:15am

Too bad. I was actually going to suggest having the Na'vi ride their pterodactyls, have them pick up big rocks and just drop them on the Gungans from high above. Oh, the irony.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-11 05:50am

I can't see why the Na'vi would fight or even become aware of the Gungans. Sure, the gungans want to get the shiny rock, but despite his occasional sadism to passing Jedi, Boss Nass is hardly a lunatic sadist; he'd just go for the larger deposit two hundred miles away. Even assuming underwater mining is not possible. The Gungans will likely find the caustic sea they're in quite unpleasant of course.

Hell, the RDA won't find the Gungans unless the Gungans choose to be found. Othoa Gunga and the other cities were repeatedly said to be hidden cities. Against the Trade Federation and the Naboo. RDA isn't going to find them.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-11 03:15pm

Further information on how screwed the RDA are in a conflict:

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds featured the Gungan Grand Army as a playable faction, and therefore diversified their abilities considerably. The absence of this heavier equipment is easily explained by the fact that the Gungans had been already attacked and driven out of their cities by the Trade Federation offscreen. Items of note:

Gungan-portable shoulder launched surface to air missiles. Someone was saying the RDA's aircraft would be a threat? Against SW-grade stingers... bye.
Armed bongos, various variants, including large ship versions heavily armed capable of destroying SW grade fortifications. And anti-air missile versions. Just in case SW-level stingers aren't enough.
Transport ships, submersible, which can be used to deploy their soldiers and many of their smaller animals and war machines (this may be game balance, it seems likely they'd have larger ones too for the other beasties)
Artillery pieces various types, includinglarge droid-brained howitzer(?)-equivalents in addition to the ones we see in the film. They also have direct fire energy weapons on those big beasties that had the shield generators on their backs.
Anti-air ground vehicles. What, you thought things couldn't get any worse for the RDA's pilots? Guess again. There's more too.

There are also a variety of other mounts, including some as fast as speeder bikes(!), and aerial mounts of various forms including some kind of cybernetic dirigible puffer-fish things. This would seem very vulnerable, though it seems likely they mount shields on those, and even if they don't, a variety of their air creatures carry blasters.

Oh, and they still have theatre shields.

In conclusion, they have vastly superior numbers, superior technology at all levels, far superior fire-power, and better leaders (Boss Nass is quite unlikeable at times, but he's not a company manager, and his qualifications as a leader are probably more substantial than an MBA).

Just be glad the scene in the draft didn't survive, where one (of some twenty or so) Gungan general in the briefing commits three hundred battalions to the war effort, which would be about two hundred thousand troops. As it is, the film only shows some few thousand, which will of course, still be totally overwhelming.

However, just for added horror, the OP says that when the Gungans get the unobtanium they need, they'll not just go home. They open up a portal to their home galaxy (and presumably, time). The RDA will then have the Galactic Republic to deal with (especially when science expeditions arrive to observe this living world) just for extra bitch slapping (on the bright side, that probably means Earth can expect to be uplifted in due course). Oh, and the Gungans' entire civilization has been moved to Pandora, so they're unlikely to just go home fully, and leave all their cities behind.

The Gungans have everywhere been depicted as friendly and generous when approached open handed (human colonists on their home world are obviously not liked) if militant and with strict laws. I expect they'll probably provide actually useful goods (there are a great many Gungan traders now without a market, after all, fortunately the Gungans seem big on autarky) to the Na'vi at some point in exchange for local guides and other services to assist in their mining effort.

I can't see Eywa being a problem, as established on the databank, among various other sources, the Gungans make a point of 'living in harmony with nature' and it's unlikely their mining efforts would damage the planet significantly.

The good news is that only one Gungan vessel has ever actually been seen, and it was supposedly built with Naboo help, so they may not be spacefaring. The bad news is that it was armed with concussion missiles and hyperdrive, so they can still easily annihilate the RDA's space presence.

In conclusion:

Starting up... the MASSACRE!

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 01:15am

NecronLord wrote:At no point do gungans pass through the shields. According to other canon, attempting to pass through one of those without fully earthed (read, Stormtrooper or droid) armour makes you drop, crisped into a flaming skeleton. Similarly, ground-traction is essential to earth flying vehicles, this being the excuse for SW mechas. The aircraft will not get through either. There's no reason to think this wouldn't work on RDA goons, leaving them as smoking corpses the gungans can poke.

The movie clearly demonstrates that the Gungan theatre shield doesn't do squat to biological life. If it did cause things to burst into flames, explain how not a single blade of grass where the shield hit the ground was effected.

Their mechas would get through, but that's about it, and gungan weapons, while being comically short range, have plenty of punch. Enough that the handheld versions can burn their way through inch thick droid chestplates. Let alone large exposed glass cockpits.

No they don't. The gungans handle their bombas (I think that's what they are called) with their bare hands and just threw them. You could say that they work on a collision, but Jar Jar juggled one of the damn things after it was tossed to him. Why wasn't his hand burned off? The larger versions of the bombas that the catapults launched hit battledroids too (the Gungans, of course, were wise enough to carry their ordinance on pack beasts with carts that break open fairly easily rather than trucks designs for carrying artillery), but they didn't "burn" them at all. They got that little electric effect and they fell over.

PS, the droid tanks had a variety of projectile weapons as well. Though we don't see them used, if they just flew through shields without incident, they would surely be used to clear the field.

Because god knows the Trade Federation is known for effective military tactics, am I right? Both sides lined up like it was the damn Civil War and marched at each other at close range. They didn't even need that ordinance. An airstrike from any one of those thousands of ships they had in orbit would have done the trick irregardless of the Gungans portable shields. It's not like the Gungans were hiding, they marched openly into the middle of an empty plain area. The Trade Federation could have finished them off with a push of a button if they chose to.

This is the Grand Gungan Army:

Explain to me how that doesn't look like a big fat target for an aerial hit? This is the Gungan's idea of high strategy! I fail to see anything in the Phantom Menace that indicates that the RDA couldn't torch the Gungan army to a cincer with incindiary rockets, starting with those shield generators that take many long seconds to deploy. Probably while General Jar Jar Binks was shouting at them to throw the Bombas higher. You know, the excellent and intelligent officer the Gungans selected to command their forces against the Trade Federation, even though they had previously kicked him out of their city for being a goofball?

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds featured the Gungan Grand Army as a playable faction, and therefore diversified their abilities considerably. The absence of this heavier equipment is easily explained by the fact that the Gungans had been already attacked and driven out of their cities by the Trade Federation offscreen. Items of note:

Gungan-portable shoulder launched surface to air missiles. Someone was saying the RDA's aircraft would be a threat? Against SW-grade stingers... bye.
Armed bongos, various variants, including large ship versions heavily armed capable of destroying SW grade fortifications. And anti-air missile versions. Just in case SW-level stingers aren't enough.
Transport ships, submersible, which can be used to deploy their soldiers and many of their smaller animals and war machines (this may be game balance, it seems likely they'd have larger ones too for the other beasties)
Artillery pieces various types, includinglarge droid-brained howitzer(?)-equivalents in addition to the ones we see in the film. They also have direct fire energy weapons on those big beasties that had the shield generators on their backs.
Anti-air ground vehicles. What, you thought things couldn't get any worse for the RDA's pilots? Guess again. There's more too.

There are also a variety of other mounts, including some as fast as speeder bikes(!), and aerial mounts of various forms including some kind of cybernetic dirigible puffer-fish things. This would seem very vulnerable, though it seems likely they mount shields on those, and even if they don't, a variety of their air creatures carry blasters.

I wasn't aware video games were canon or ever respected. After all, if that is true, remind me to dust off the boot disk for TIE Fighter and blow up Star Destroyers with my TIE Defender again.

Besides, there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of any of this in the movie at all. If they had any of that, surely they would have had some of it at the battle with the Trade Federation. Some of that artillery would have come in handy against the Droid Army, but they didn't deploy it. So where was all this stuff? Instead, they marched slow moving beasts into battle. Had they have been fighting a competant enemy, they would have lost even worse than they did canonically.

In conclusion, they have vastly superior numbers, superior technology at all levels, far superior fire-power, and better leaders (Boss Nass is quite unlikeable at times, but he's not a company manager, and his qualifications as a leader are probably more substantial than an MBA).

Boss Nass. You mean the guy that made Jar Jar Binks a General and lined up all his troops like he was fighting Napolean's Grand Armee? Oh, yeah, and then made Jar Jar Binks the representative of his people to the Galaxy? Yeah, brilliant guy. Explain how Boss Nass is a good leader again, given he marched his army right into a field and just assumed that the Trade Federation wouldn't just bomb it out of existence from any one of the ships in orbit or even with just aircraft while they were marching.

Starting up... the MASSACRE!

For the Gungans, when they put their greatest retard in charge of their army and expect to march up to their enemy, be left along long enough to form up and deploy their shields, and fight with slingshots. Against an enemy like the RDA that actually understands the value of shooting first, before the enemy is ready, the Gungans are screwed. Or were you counting on Jar Jar Binks, er... General Jar Jar Binks to lead the Gungans to victory with his brilliant intellect?

Samuel · Post by **Samuel** » 2010-01-12 01:41am

The Gungan army wasn't intended to win, just draw the droid army out of the city.

As for making Jar-Jar a Senator, I think they don't care about galactic politics at all and figured putting him off planet was a great way to keep him out of their hair. They couldn't exile him again because he became a war hero.

I wasn't aware video games were canon or ever respected.

They are- they are just lower tier. If it doesn't conflict, it is in.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 02:04am

Samuel wrote:The Gungan army wasn't intended to win, just draw the droid army out of the city.

They would still bring gear if they had it. This isn't an excuse for the idiocy that the Gungans displayed, particularly since there was no indication that the Trade Federation would bother with them more than scorch them out of existence with an economic use of those starships they had surrounding Naboo the moment the Gungans marched out of the forest.

As for making Jar-Jar a Senator, I think they don't care about galactic politics at all and figured putting him off planet was a great way to keep him out of their hair. They couldn't exile him again because he became a war hero.

And why they made him the commander of their Army during the battle with the Trade Federation? To give him something a distracting hobby?

They are- they are just lower tier. If it doesn't conflict, it is in.

The Phantom Menace pretty conclusively demonstrates what the Gungan army was packing. If they had better gear than that, they'd have brought it. Hell, they didn't even bring trucks. They WALKED to Naboo's capital with PACK BEASTS hauling their ordinance. Here on Earth armies were doing better than that 100 years ago.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-12 02:47am

Gil Hamilton wrote:The movie clearly demonstrates that the Gungan theatre shield doesn't do squat to biological life. If it did cause things to burst into flames, explain how not a single blade of grass where the shield hit the ground was effected.

Ignoring the infamous grass-deflects-blasters inside the shield effect, because they don't want it to? Have you any evidence to contradict canon statement that droids get through because they're grounded, biologicals can't get through? No, you haven't.

No they don't. The gungans handle their bombas (I think that's what they are called) with their bare hands and just threw them. You could say that they work on a collision, but Jar Jar juggled one of the damn things after it was tossed to him. Why wasn't his hand burned off? The larger versions of the bombas that the catapults launched hit battledroids too (the Gungans, of course, were wise enough to carry their ordinance on pack beasts with carts that break open fairly easily rather than trucks designs for carrying artillery), but they didn't "burn" them at all. They got that little electric effect and they fell over.

Oh FFS. The boombas are grenade-equivalents. Hoshit, US Soldiers handle grenades with their bare hands, therefore an organic being can stand in front of their grenade launchers and laugh as it bounces off his chest? And yes, they do burn things, we see this pretty clearly when a big boomba hits a tank and blasts a bigoff hole in its front armour.

I'd like to know how you think those broken bits of droid got scattered on the field for Jar Jar to trip on if the boombas don't do physical damage. Did the Gungans tear them apart with their bare hands?

Because god knows the Trade Federation is known for effective military tactics, am I right? Both sides lined up like it was the damn Civil War and marched at each other at close range. They didn't even need that ordinance. An airstrike from any one of those thousands of ships they had in orbit would have done the trick irregardless of the Gungans portable shields.

One ship remained in orbit, it was not equipped with turbolasers, only anti-fighter weapons.

This is the Grand Gungan Army:

Explain to me how that doesn't look like a big fat target for an aerial hit?

This is the Gungan's idea of high strategy!

No, this is the Gungans idea of obvious diversion.

I fail to see anything in the Phantom Menace that indicates that the RDA couldn't torch the Gungan army to a cincer with incindiary rockets, starting with those shield generators that take many long seconds to deploy. Probably while General Jar Jar Binks was shouting at them to throw the Bombas higher. You know, the excellent and intelligent officer the Gungans selected to command their forces against the Trade Federation, even though they had previously kicked him out of their city for being a goofball?

My my, an obviously political appointment. In an army. Who'da thunk it?

I wasn't aware video games were canon or ever respected. After all, if that is true, remind me to dust off the boot disk for TIE Fighter and blow up Star Destroyers with my TIE Defender again.

Their units are canon, their gameplay is not. You could not have thought of a worse example. The Missile Boat, for example, is most definately canonical.

Besides, there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of any of this in the movie at all. If they had any of that, surely they would have had some of it at the battle with the Trade Federation. Some of that artillery would have come in handy against the Droid Army, but they didn't deploy it. So where was all this stuff? Instead, they marched slow moving beasts into battle. Had they have been fighting a competant enemy, they would have lost even worse than they did canonically.

Already addressed, are you being deliberately dense? By this point, the Gungans had fled their cities. I'm sure retreating armies never lose heavy equipment... oh wait.

Boss Nass. You mean the guy that made Jar Jar Binks a General and lined up all his troops like he was fighting Napolean's Grand Armee? Oh, yeah, and then made Jar Jar Binks the representative of his people to the Galaxy? Yeah, brilliant guy. Explain how Boss Nass is a good leader again, given he marched his army right into a field and just assumed that the Trade Federation wouldn't just bomb it out of existence from any one of the ships in orbit or even with just aircraft while they were marching.

Because the objective was to make a big obvious distraction, and it worked perfectly.

And frankly, Binks isn't that stupid. They could sure do better, but you're assuming the senator's aide is picked by the homeworld and not by the senator.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-12 02:54am

Gil Hamilton wrote:They would still bring gear if they had it. This isn't an excuse for the idiocy that the Gungans displayed, particularly since there was no indication that the Trade Federation would bother with them more than scorch them out of existence with an economic use of those starships they had surrounding Naboo the moment the Gungans marched out of the forest.

Starship. Your knowledge of this film is pretty embarassing if you're going to talk smack about it. Starship without any dedicated ground-bombardment capacity.

And why they made him the commander of their Army during the battle with the Trade Federation? To give him something a distracting hobby?

A commander. Not the commander. Lucas' intent, and EU products also mention, is that there were other Bombad Generals in existence.

The Phantom Menace pretty conclusively demonstrates what the Gungan army was packing. If they had better gear than that, they'd have brought it. Hell, they didn't even bring trucks. They WALKED to Naboo's capital with PACK BEASTS hauling their ordinance. Here on Earth armies were doing better than that 100 years ago.

No, it doesn't. The Gungans had already been conclusively defeated prior to this, enough that their cities were deserted, remember?

By your standard, because Nazi Germany had basically no tanks at the Seige of Berlin, that disproves the existance of Nazi tank units earlier in the war.

The Romulan Republic · Post by **The Romulan Republic** » 2010-01-12 03:06am

NecronLord wrote:One ship remained in orbit, it was not equipped with turbolasers, only anti-fighter weapons.

To be fair, even anti-fighter weapons could easily have kiloton or megaton-level firepower. Of course, weather that would be enough depends on just how strong the Gungan's theatre shield was.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 03:49am

NecronLord wrote:Ignoring the infamous grass-deflects-blasters inside the shield effect, because they don't want it to? Have you any evidence to contradict canon statement that droids get through because they're grounded, biologicals can't get through? No, you haven't.

The movie provides ample evidence. If the shield burned biologicals, then the grass where the shield hits the ground would be burnt. This is clearly not the case, so the shield obviously doesn't affect biological life. That's stunningly clear.

Now provide evidence that they can selectively make it not affect grass or admit you are wrong. Until you do, The Phantom Menace provides definite proof that Gungan shields have no affect on biological life interacting with it at all. As it stands, you are looking like an idiot who didn't occur to think that plants are lifeforms too and we see absolutely no affect on them by those shields.

Oh FFS. The boombas are grenade-equivalents. Hoshit, US Soldiers handle grenades with their bare hands, therefore an organic being can stand in front of their grenade launchers and laugh as it bounces off his chest? And yes, they do burn things, we see this pretty clearly when a big boomba hits a tank and blasts a bigoff hole in its front armour.

Right, and where is any sort of arming mechanism on them, hmm? The Gungans just throw them. If they did that much severe damage, then Jar Jar would be missing an arm when the other Gungan threw a bomba to him and he sat there juggling it.

I'd like to know how you think those broken bits of droid got scattered on the field for Jar Jar to trip on if the boombas don't do physical damage. Did the Gungans tear them apart with their bare hands?

Shitty construction of Battledroids. Once Anakin hit the "Stop All Bad Guys Everywhere" button, we watched a battledroid physically fall to pieces by losing power.

No, this is the Gungans idea of obvious diversion.

Which goes to show how retarded they were. There was no reason to think that the Trade Federation would abandon the city in order to engage the Gungans a fair distance away or that they Trade Federation would do it with an infantry force. Moreover, WALKING to their engagement with only pack beasts in with all your troops in a mass is a surefire way to get them killed.

I want you to state for the record that you honestly believe that the Gungans demonstrated intelligent tactics or I want you to concede that the Gungans are terrible warriors.

My my, an obviously political appointment. In an army. Who'da thunk it?

A political appointment with no politics. Jar Jar was such a malcontent that they kicked him out of their society and the only credentials he returned to them with was that he failed to die while tagging along with a pair of Jedi offplanet. For this they make him a general of a force they EXPECTED to fight later that week, despite the fact that he has no training as an officer and no evidence of being respected by anyone. That is one more nail in the coffin that is Gungan intelligence.

Either provide evidence that Jar Jar is suitable to lead an army or concede that Boss Nass is a complete moron.

Their units are canon, their gameplay is not. You could not have thought of a worse example. The Missile Boat, for example, is most definately canonical.

Whoop-ti-do. StarWars videogames are the biggest examples of canon cherry picking in existence. I'm not inclined to give them any sort of credence over the movies at all.

Already addressed, are you being deliberately dense? By this point, the Gungans had fled their cities. I'm sure retreating armies never lose heavy equipment... oh wait.
Yes, but they would still have some of it. For example, there is no reason they couldn't have marched with those anti-aircraft weapons on their backs while in retreat. The Gungans had NONE of that stuff in the movie. In fact, if we are calling gameplay mechanics non-canon, then those units aren't canon. After all, they only exist in the game to provide the Gungans with equivlent set pieces as the other armies in the game. They only reason for it to be completely absent in such an important battle is they didn't have it in the first place. Unless you think they were so completely hard up that all they had LEFT were pack beasts and they left all their trucks and troop carriers behind such that they had to WALK to Naboo's capital on foot with a few thousand soldiers with shields and slingshots to back up a few catapults.

Why the hell does a supposedly modern force even HAVE slingshots, shields, and catapults? Explain that. Where are their guns and armor (in the armored vehicle sense, not in the "We are wearing leather jerkins" sense that the Gungans seemingly have decided to employ)? Fuck, we KNOW the bongo has a direct sea route from the Gungan city to the capital city of the Naboo. They could have made an amphibious assault on the city WITHOUT running the risk of being bombed by the Trade Federation if they had those submersible troop carriers you were talking about and surprised the Trade Federation.

Because the objective was to make a big obvious distraction, and it worked perfectly.
It worked only because the Trade Federation were imbeciles, which is NOT something a good strategist counts on when fighting a war. They had no reason to abandon the city to meet the Gungans in the field for a Napoleanic style infantry battle, they could have stayed in the city and forced the Gungans into even costly urban combat which the Gungan force was completely unsuited for. Or they could have just bombed the Gungans as they walked out of the woods. Or both. Boss Nass' strategy only had any merit because the other side made an equally bad mistake.

This, incidently, is a mistake RDA wouldn't have made, given it is a major plot point of the movie that RDA isn't stupid enough to wait for the enemy to gather strength of numbers and march on them.

I'm starting to question your brain if you are honestly defending the Gungan's performance in TPM as good strategy. Are you?

And frankly, Binks isn't that stupid. They could sure do better, but you're assuming the senator's aide is picked by the homeworld and not by the senator.

You are truly desperate in a discussion when you utter the phrase "Binks isn't that stupid." Even if Amidala was daft enough to make Binks her aide, that still doesn't explain why the Gungans were daft enough to give him an army.

Starship. Your knowledge of this film is pretty embarassing if you're going to talk smack about it. Starship without any dedicated ground-bombardment capacity.

Conceded, but there is still no reason they couldn't have bombed the Gungan army while they were on the march with their fighters or with the ships anti-fighter guns, given how powerful those are. Tell me, what is stopping them from directing a few of those anti-fighter guns to the ground and blowing up the Gungan army? It wasn't the Naboo fighters, they weren't in the air until AFTER the Gungan army was on the field. These are Starwars lasers. I given their power, I can't think of a blessed reason why they couldn't bombard the ground even if they didn't want to send their fighters after the Gungans.

A commander. Not the commander. Lucas' intent, and EU products also mention, is that there were other Bombad Generals in existence.

Going by Wookieepedia, he had joint command of the Army that was sent to Naboos capital. That still doesn't explain why the Gungans were so stupid as to make him a General in the first place.

No, it doesn't. The Gungans had already been conclusively defeated prior to this, enough that their cities were deserted, remember?

By your standard, because Nazi Germany had basically no tanks at the Seige of Berlin, that disproves the existance of Nazi tank units earlier in the war.

Basically none, but they still had some. This is a false analogy. Even disregarding the fact that the Germans undoubtably had a couple rolling around Berlin, there is still tons of evidence of the existence of tanks for the Nazis in general (like all the rest of WW2). There is absolutely none for the Gungans. Seriously, the Gungans had catapults and sling shots for Pete's sake. That no self respecting modern army, let alone futuristic army that you are trying to sell them as, would have those things in their armories. Why would they had they gear you describe (as bizarre as some of it is, what is the Gungan obsession with using animals in battle)? If you want it to be credible they have that equipment, you need to produce some evidence for these things. There is none in the movie.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 03:50am

The Romulan Republic wrote:To be fair, even anti-fighter weapons could easily have kiloton or megaton-level firepower. Of course, weather that would be enough depends on just how strong the Gungan's theatre shield was.

The Gungans can't march with their theatre shields on. The Trade Federation need only hit them when they are on the move.

Serafina · Post by **Serafina** » 2010-01-12 03:59am

Gil Hamilton wrote:
The Romulan Republic wrote:To be fair, even anti-fighter weapons could easily have kiloton or megaton-level firepower. Of course, weather that would be enough depends on just how strong the Gungan's theatre shield was.
The Gungans can't march with their theatre shields on. The Trade Federation need only hit them when they are on the move.

Any evidence for this?

They obviously had not need to switch it on until they saw the enemy, and once they did, they had no need to move around, either.

We see other theather shields that can be moved (Clone Wars), so why should it be impossible for the gungan shield to do so?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-12 04:43am

Gil Hamilton wrote: The movie provides ample evidence. If the shield burned biologicals, then the grass where the shield hits the ground would be burnt. This is clearly not the case, so the shield obviously doesn't affect biological life. That's stunningly clear.

Now provide evidence that they can selectively make it not affect grass or admit you are wrong. Until you do, The Phantom Menace provides definite proof that Gungan shields have no affect on biological life interacting with it at all. As it stands, you are looking like an idiot who didn't occur to think that plants are lifeforms too and we see absolutely no affect on them by those shields.

Err, this is a canonical SW capacity. Notably in Droidekas, which have disintegrating fields all around, except on the ground. Witness the RotS novellisation where one gets tipped on its side while the field is on, and begins melting through the deckplates under it. Droidekas also don't set the grass on fire normally, or the stone, or the metal, or any floor. Because pouring energy into setting the floor on fire is wasteful and hazardous to organic troops

Right, and where is any sort of arming mechanism on them, hmm? The Gungans just throw them. If they did that much severe damage, then Jar Jar would be missing an arm when the other Gungan threw a bomba to him and he sat there juggling it.

It would be pitifully easy to rig a detonator that goes off when it hits a living thing or mechanical object that's not a Gungan. There is no evidence of any arming mechanism on them, by which standard, they shouldn't go off at all

Shitty construction of Battledroids. Once Anakin hit the "Stop All Bad Guys Everywhere" button, we watched a battledroid physically fall to pieces by losing power.

In short, yes. Your idea is that the Gungans ripped droids to bits with their bare hands, or maybe those pikes. Riiight.

Which goes to show how retarded they were. There was no reason to think that the Trade Federation would abandon the city in order to engage the Gungans a fair distance away or that they Trade Federation would do it with an infantry force. Moreover, WALKING to their engagement with only pack beasts in with all your troops in a mass is a surefire way to get them killed.

I want you to state for the record that you honestly believe that the Gungans demonstrated intelligent tactics or I want you to concede that the Gungans are terrible warriors.

They're not great. Their technology is pretty obviously designed to look weird without any actual thought applied by the production team (the average gungan soldier has what, two maybe three boombers and then he's out?!) They don't need to be. They have superior numbers, technology, firepower, shields, communications, space-based strike capacity... They have the option to choose the battle, they have bases of operations immune to enemy attack (hidden underwater cities).

A political appointment with no politics. Jar Jar was such a malcontent that they kicked him out of their society and the only credentials he returned to them with was that he failed to die while tagging along with a pair of Jedi offplanet. For this they make him a general of a force they EXPECTED to fight later that week, despite the fact that he has no training as an officer and no evidence of being respected by anyone. That is one more nail in the coffin that is Gungan intelligence.

Either provide evidence that Jar Jar is suitable to lead an army or concede that Boss Nass is a complete moron.

Whoop-ti-do. StarWars videogames are the biggest examples of canon cherry picking in existence. I'm not inclined to give them any sort of credence over the movies at all.

Irrelevant, it's canon and that's that. No, seriously. That's where the canon debate ends. Not contradicted by a higher source and it's in. That's that. They've a whole variety of weapons not seen in the Battle of Naboo.

Oh, and for the record, the starship with the concussion missiles? Not from a game. I believe it's from a comic. Regardless, that is more than sufficient to mount a five hundred gravity attack run on the ISV Venture Star and blow up the RDA base for dessert.

Yes, but they would still have some of it. For example, there is no reason they couldn't have marched with those anti-aircraft weapons on their backs while in retreat. The Gungans had NONE of that stuff in the movie. In fact, if we are calling gameplay mechanics non-canon, then those units aren't canon. After all, they only exist in the game to provide the Gungans with equivlent set pieces as the other armies in the game.

They're given names and background, and in some cases, illustrated elsewhere. Recall the picture I posted before?

They only reason for it to be completely absent in such an important battle is they didn't have it in the first place. Unless you think they were so completely hard up that all they had LEFT were pack beasts and they left all their trucks and troop carriers behind such that they had to WALK to Naboo's capital on foot with a few thousand soldiers with shields and slingshots to back up a few catapults.

Or you know, the majority of their heavy equipment was say, destroyed by the Trade Federation's army?

Why the hell does a supposedly modern force even HAVE slingshots, shields, and catapults? Explain that. Where are their guns and armor (in the armored vehicle sense, not in the "We are wearing leather jerkins" sense that the Gungans seemingly have decided to employ)? Fuck, we KNOW the bongo has a direct sea route from the Gungan city to the capital city of the Naboo. They could have made an amphibious assault on the city WITHOUT running the risk of being bombed by the Trade Federation if they had those submersible troop carriers you were talking about and surprised the Trade Federation.

Screw me if I know why they like throwing things with slings. I never claimed their stuff was sensibly designed, only that they were far superior to the RDA in numbers and firepower.

It worked only because the Trade Federation were imbeciles, which is NOT something a good strategist counts on when fighting a war. They had no reason to abandon the city to meet the Gungans in the field for a Napoleanic style infantry battle, they could have stayed in the city and forced the Gungans into even costly urban combat which the Gungan force was completely unsuited for. Or they could have just bombed the Gungans as they walked out of the woods. Or both. Boss Nass' strategy only had any merit because the other side made an equally bad mistake.

Of course they had a reason to abandon the city and confront them. It was an easy victory, allowing them to round up the Gungans with a minimum of property damage to Theed. When your enemy bunches together and lines up, and your forces are superior, you attack.

This, incidently, is a mistake RDA wouldn't have made, given it is a major plot point of the movie that RDA isn't stupid enough to wait for the enemy to gather strength of numbers and march on them.

Nor was the Trade Federation. They searched for, found and attacked the Gungan cities, remember? Cooincidentally, if the RDA had waited for their enemy to come out of cover (giant flying mountains) they would have been able to slaughter them far better.

I'm starting to question your brain if you are honestly defending the Gungan's performance in TPM as good strategy. Are you?

You are truly desperate in a discussion when you utter the phrase "Binks isn't that stupid." Even if Amidala was daft enough to make Binks her aide, that still doesn't explain why the Gungans were daft enough to give him an army.

They didn't give him an army, they gave him a rank.

Conceded, but there is still no reason they couldn't have bombed the Gungan army while they were on the march with their fighters or with the ships anti-fighter guns, given how powerful those are. Tell me, what is stopping them from directing a few of those anti-fighter guns to the ground and blowing up the Gungan army? It wasn't the Naboo fighters, they weren't in the air until AFTER the Gungan army was on the field. These are Starwars lasers. I given their power, I can't think of a blessed reason why they couldn't bombard the ground even if they didn't want to send their fighters after the Gungans.

Because of course, it's not like the Naboo and Gungans would time their attack to take place while the Droid Control Ship wasn't in line of sight of the captial now, is it? The ship is in orbit, that means that over 50% of the surface will not be under its guns at any given time. While they could have send their fighters down, they had something else to do in very short order thanks to the Naboo fighters.

Going by Wookieepedia, he had joint command of the Army that was sent to Naboos capital. That still doesn't explain why the Gungans were so stupid as to make him a General in the first place.

The United Kingdom has given the Prince of Wales the rank of Air Chief Marshal. This is despite his never having been a member of the RAF. By this standard, they are morons. But they don't actually give him a command position to go with that. We don't actually see Binks in command of anything. We see Tarpels commanding, and Binks riding around on a horse looking dim.

Basically none, but they still had some. This is a false analogy. Even disregarding the fact that the Germans undoubtably had a couple rolling around Berlin, there is still tons of evidence of the existence of tanks for the Nazis in general (like all the rest of WW2). There is absolutely none for the Gungans.

Wrong. There is canonical evidence I have linked before.

Seriously, the Gungans had catapults and sling shots for Pete's sake. That no self respecting modern army, let alone futuristic army that you are trying to sell them as, would have those things in their armories. Why would they had they gear you describe (as bizarre as some of it is, what is the Gungan obsession with using animals in battle)? If you want it to be credible they have that equipment, you need to produce some evidence for these things. There is none in the movie.

SW Galactic Battlegrounds. Simple as.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-12 04:51am

Serafina wrote:Any evidence for this?

They obviously had not need to switch it on until they saw the enemy, and once they did, they had no need to move around, either.

We see other theather shields that can be moved (Clone Wars), so why should it be impossible for the gungan shield to do so?

He's probably thinking that the energiser part needs to stay aligned with the projector part, however, we don't really know if those things are gimballed or not; the model looks like it can rotate and incline to some degree, and it would certainly be stupid(er) if they couldn't, and relied upon the beasties staying directly in front of each other on a level plain.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 12:37pm

NecronLord wrote:Err, this is a canonical SW capacity. Notably in Droidekas, which have disintegrating fields all around, except on the ground. Witness the RotS novellisation where one gets tipped on its side while the field is on, and begins melting through the deckplates under it. Droidekas also don't set the grass on fire normally, or the stone, or the metal, or any floor. Because pouring energy into setting the floor on fire is wasteful and hazardous to organic troops

The shield doesn't have a choice in the matter. It is already committee the energy to the environment. This is actually SHOWN by your example, because if they could set their shields to ignore the ground, then even if the droideka fell over, it wouldn't start damaging the deck beneath it, it would continue to not affect the floor as before because I fail to see how a droideka being upright or fallen over has anything to do with its shield at all, unless you are suggesting that shields are more intelligent when the operator is standing. This is clearly a shield geometry issue, not a selectivity issue.

The point of the grass not being burnt remains. If Gungan shields did this, then there is no reason they wouldn't burn the grass where the shield interacts with the ground. After all, the energy has already been emitted, its already left the battery and gone to shield. Therefore, it stands to reason, if we are to be consistent, that Gungan shields do squat to biological life.

It would be pitifully easy to rig a detonator that goes off when it hits a living thing or mechanical object that's not a Gungan. There is no evidence of any arming mechanism on them, by which standard, they shouldn't go off at all

You have a funny definition of "pitifully easy", given that forces the projectile to be intelligent enough to quickly differentiate what it is being thrown at and determine whether or not it should operate. A much simpler explaination is that it discharges into its environment on a solid impact. The fact that this didn't kill Jar Jar during the battle (one of any number of things that failed in this task) can be attributed it to being an anti-electrical weapon.

In short, yes. Your idea is that the Gungans ripped droids to bits with their bare hands, or maybe those pikes. Riiight.

It goes along strongly with the fact that Battledroids are capable of structurally falling apart when they lose power. A strong blow may cause whatever is holding them together to decouple. Their shitty construction was clear to behold in the movie, especially when you consider the "all Battledroids power and physically fall to pieces down if you shoot here" button Anakin hit.

Which goes to show how retarded they were. There was no reason to think that the Trade Federation would abandon the city in order to engage the Gungans a fair distance away or that they Trade Federation would do it with an infantry force. Moreover, WALKING to their engagement with only pack beasts in with all your troops in a mass is a surefire way to get them killed.

They're not great. Their technology is pretty obviously designed to look weird without any actual thought applied by the production team (the average gungan soldier has what, two maybe three boombers and then he's out?!) They don't need to be. They have superior numbers, technology, firepower, shields, communications, space-based strike capacity... They have the option to choose the battle, they have bases of operations immune to enemy attack (hidden underwater cities).

Chances are they don't have that superior numbers. They marched, what, a thousand or so soldiers to the Naboo capital with maybe a dozen pack beasts max and a bunch of those bipedal dinos they ride on*?

*Interesting, they call this their cavalry, which means that they actually ride the damn things into combat. What self-respecting modern or future army would have the equivalent of horses? Even during Vietnam, the US Cavalry had abandoned horses in favor of helicopters.

You can play "the production team wanted this look" card, the same way you can play the production team for StarWars notoriously is inconsistent with how they apply special effects, which is why blasters mysteriously work less on people (doubly so when those people are main characters) and why shields don't scorch the ground when they interact with it. However, we have to take it at face value, yeah?

The fact that the Gungans use slingshots, shields (the handheld variety**), and catapults when they could have guns, body armor, and artillery demonstrates their stupidity, not that they are eccentric.

**the design of the shield is weird. I looked at a picture of it and it is held by a handle in the exact center of the shield with their knuckles facing forward (like they are punching). It lacks any sort of secondary strap that binds it to the forearm, which puts the onus of blocking on their wrists along rather than their entire arm like in real shields. The design MUST be tremendously unwieldy if they, in fact, intend to fight with them. This further demonstrates their incompetence, since even bronze age humans knew how to make ergonomic shields.

Irrelevant, it's canon and that's that. No, seriously. That's where the canon debate ends. Not contradicted by a higher source and it's in. That's that. They've a whole variety of weapons not seen in the Battle of Naboo.

Oh, and for the record, the starship with the concussion missiles? Not from a game. I believe it's from a comic. Regardless, that is more than sufficient to mount a five hundred gravity attack run on the ISV Venture Star and blow up the RDA base for dessert.

Firstly, this is directly contradicted by TPM, where none of these weapons existed at all. You can hold fingers in your ears all you want, but there is no reason why they'd abandon their artillery in favor of catapults and pack beasts. Further, the Gungans physically could have carried on their backs any man-portable anti-aircraft rockets and would have been sensible to do so, given we SEE the Trade Federation employ flying units against them when Jar Jar is introduced and there is no reason why the Trade Federation should not continue to do so. So where are they? Where is any evidence or semeblance or them? Or are you going to pull a Rumsfeld and (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) go "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! The Gungans possess weapons and I intend to find them!". Fuck, Rumsfeld even had a better case than you.

Secondly, if the Gungan's had a starship, they'd have surely used it to assist the Naboo in assaulting the Command ship. Particularly if the Command ship is, as you suggest, only armed with anti-fighter weapons. At the very least, it would have been helpful, since it provides another reasonably hard target in the air. Or is this another one of your "absence of evidence" Rummy acts?

They're given names and background, and in some cases, illustrated elsewhere. Recall the picture I posted before?

Those are lesser sources than the movie Gungans, which do not possess them.

Or you know, the majority of their heavy equipment was say, destroyed by the Trade Federation's army?

So destroyed that the Gungans were still lugging around slingshots, personal shields and their catapults, but abandoned their guns and artillery? Bullshit. You know that would be a retard thing to do. They are retarded enough for even HAVING those things.

Screw me if I know why they like throwing things with slings. I never claimed their stuff was sensibly designed, only that they were far superior to the RDA in numbers and firepower.

A lack of sensible design implies a lack of intelligence behind the design. Now either provide an explanation why the Gungans would have shields and catapults for mysteriously abandoned their guns and artillery. They lack superior firepower and what firepower they have is limited to throwing distance (something a machine gun far exceeds, which takes care of the numbers issue, barbarian hordes ARE what the machine was born to fight, after all). In any sort of open field on Pandoran, the RDA would inflict grevious casualties on them before they get into catapult range and god help the stupids if they marched through the jungle.

Of course they had a reason to abandon the city and confront them. It was an easy victory, allowing them to round up the Gungans with a minimum of property damage to Theed. When your enemy bunches together and lines up, and your forces are superior, you attack.

Bullshit, they had no need to do anything more than wait for the Gungans. What do they care about property damage? The Gungans had no capacity to CAUSE significant property damage and weren't the Trade Federation guys already doing horrible things to the Naboo population anyway? The whole reason Amidala was mad at Vellorum in the first place was his inaction while her people were being murdered by the Trade Federation. I'm sure they really give a shit about blaster markers in the plaster, after they, you know militarily invaded them. The majority of the property damage that would have been done to the capital would have been caused by them in the first place.

Waiting for the Gungans to come to them would allow them to fight from preestablished defensive positions, entirely on the Trade Federations terms and its not like a bunch of Gungans marching around in the field with their pets is a threat. What are they going to do, pillage Trade Federation farms and assets? The only people who are likely to have anything out there worth fighting over is the Naboo anyway; the Trade Federation has no real stake in Naboo. The whole point of this stunt was to take Naboo hostage and brutalize them enough so that they could get a tax break on shipping, or at least that's what Palpatine convinced them. The Trade Federation listening to Palpatine and thinking they could get away with what they did on Naboo demonstrates their own brand of idiocy.

Nor was the Trade Federation. They searched for, found and attacked the Gungan cities, remember? Cooincidentally, if the RDA had waited for their enemy to come out of cover (giant flying mountains) they would have been able to slaughter them far better.

Which is why the Trade Federation completely left the Gungan army alone while they were marching to the Naboo capital... wait, why again? The Army was nothing but a big fat slow moving target.

Watch Avatar again. RDA was heading for a target within those mountains, they had to go there. Leaving when they did assured that the minimum about of Na'vi would be present. The whole point was the attack the Na'vi BEFORE they started marching, while they were still disorganized and also blow up their sacred tree, which unfortunately was amongst those flying mountains. They still handed the Na'vi a crushing defeat until the Deus Ex Terra showed up.

They didn't give him an army, they gave him a rank.

They did indeed give him a rank, they gave him the rank of General and put an army under him when they FULLY expected to do some fighting in the coming days. Boy, that's really smart of the Gungans, huh? Dash cunning.

Because of course, it's not like the Naboo and Gungans would time their attack to take place while the Droid Control Ship wasn't in line of sight of the captial now, is it? The ship is in orbit, that means that over 50% of the surface will not be under its guns at any given time. While they could have send their fighters down, they had something else to do in very short order thanks to the Naboo fighters.

Satellites in orbit don't take particularly long to circle a planet unless they put themselves in special orbits to ensure they don't. Besides, this is StarWars, they could have easily moved in the correct orbit in the many hours (or due to SW acceleration minutes) of the Gungans marching to bomb them. Orbital craft, fortunately for our society, can circle a planet and not just hover over one location.

Secondly, claiming interference from the Naboo doesn't work. Recall the sequence of events. The Gungans arrived at the battlefield first and started marching around. The Droid Army then rolled out to fight them. THEN the Jedi spring the Naboo pilot corp, which for some reason, were being held right next to their fully fueled and completely flight ready fighters in an unlocked hangar which only had one gun watching it*. FINALLY, the Naboo engage the Trade Federation Command Ship, while the battle is already being fought simultaneously on the ground.

(*Brilliant move on the Trade Federation, keeping the pilots next to their fighters rather in prison cells somewhere else)

The United Kingdom has given the Prince of Wales the rank of Air Chief Marshal. This is despite his never having been a member of the RAF. By this standard, they are morons. But they don't actually give him a command position to go with that. We don't actually see Binks in command of anything. We see Tarpels commanding, and Binks riding around on a horse looking dim.

Yes, I would think it would be utterly retarded of the UK to give the Prince of Wales the rank of Air Chief Marshal and then put him in charge of the RAF during an actual battle. Except the UK only gave this to one of their royalty and didn't let him actually do anything, while the Gungans gave the rank of General to their biggest screw up for no reason other than that he hung out with Queen Amidala for a few days and actually marched into battle with him at the fore. There is a big freakin difference here.

Wrong. There is canonical evidence I have linked before.

Where in TPM are they even hinted at? You've got squat. If they were intended to exist, then they would have been in the movie. You can shake your fist at George Lucas and his production team for screwing you here, but at the end of the day, they still only armed the Gungans with the shiny aquatic plastic equivalent of Bronze Age weapontry for their movie, complete with animals rather than vehicles (unlike an animal, with power sources like in StarWars, a truck doesn't have to be fed except every few years, yet somehow they had beasties dragging carts anyway).

SW Galactic Battlegrounds. Simple as.

NNNN! Wrong, overridden by the movie, where their artillery was catapults and their ranged weapons were slingshots that threw weird electric balloons. You still didn't answer the question of what self-respecting army would have those things at all, let along keep them while abandoning their good shit.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2010-01-12 12:55pm

Satellites in orbit don't take particularly long to circle a planet unless they put themselves in special orbits to ensure they don't. Besides, this is StarWars, they could have easily moved in the correct orbit in the many hours (or due to SW acceleration minutes) of the Gungans marching to bomb them. Orbital craft, fortunately for our society, can circle a planet and not just hover over one location.

Secondly, claiming interference from the Naboo doesn't work. Recall the sequence of events. The Gungans arrived at the battlefield first and started marching around. The Droid Army then rolled out to fight them. THEN the Jedi spring the Naboo pilot corp, which for some reason, were being held right next to their fully fueled and completely flight ready fighters in an unlocked hangar which only had one gun watching it*. FINALLY, the Naboo engage the Trade Federation Command Ship, while the battle is already being fought simultaneously on the ground.

(*Brilliant move on the Trade Federation, keeping the pilots next to their fighters rather in prison cells somewhere else)

This is an incomplete thought on my part. The last paragraph attached should be:

"Had the Trade Federation not left the city at all (or had they bothered to lock the pilots up somewhere rather than keeping them right next to their mysteriously fully flight ready fighters), then there is no issue. SW fighters travel so fast that no matter what part of the planet the Gungans are on, they can reach them in mere minutes. While the Naboo would be waiting for the Droids to leave, the Trade Federation could have slaughtered the Gungans with their fighters, even if they didn't bother to bombard them with their anti-fighter guns. It's not like they'd have to worry about the Naboo Air Force stopping them had Nute Gunray had two brain cells to rub together anyway. Or, uh, this phantom Gungan starship you insist they have, that is full of missiles.

Darth Hoth · Post by **Darth Hoth** » 2010-01-12 12:57pm

Why does this line of argument look familiar?

Of COURSE the Empire Gungans don't have Base Delta Zero spaceflight! That's just mentioned in some dumbass EU book video game that's wanky and inconsistent with the movies and the evil Warsies obviously snuck in that stuff under the nose of Lucas himself just to wank and spoil his grand vision! If they didn't show it in the films when I think it would've looked real nice they obviously can't ever have it anywhere in any way and the EU is evil for suggesting otherwise!

The EU is canon unless explicitly contradicted. Try again.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2010-01-12 03:51pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:The shield doesn't have a choice in the matter. It is already committee the energy to the environment. This is actually SHOWN by your example, because if they could set their shields to ignore the ground, then even if the droideka fell over, it wouldn't start damaging the deck beneath it, it would continue to not affect the floor as before because I fail to see how a droideka being upright or fallen over has anything to do with its shield at all, unless you are suggesting that shields are more intelligent when the operator is standing. This is clearly a shield geometry issue, not a selectivity issue.

The novellisation I've referenced explains this in great detail. Seriously, there's about a page of droideka melting its way through a deckplate when tipped up. The shield is programmed to not affect the floor under the generator. Everything else burns. Or is the novellisation not canon either now?

You have a funny definition of "pitifully easy", given that forces the projectile to be intelligent enough to quickly differentiate what it is being thrown at and determine whether or not it should operate.

The Gungans can make a submarine that goes through the core of their water planet. Which uses forcefields for windows. A simple sensor and a circuit for 'go off when you hit materials from array X' and containing standard droid and non-gungan life forms, is piteously easy in comparison.

A much simpler explaination is that it discharges into its environment on a solid impact. The fact that this didn't kill Jar Jar during the battle (one of any number of things that failed in this task) can be attributed it to being an anti-electrical weapon.

This would contradict various other EU uses of it against non-droid objects.

It goes along strongly with the fact that Battledroids are capable of structurally falling apart when they lose power. A strong blow may cause whatever is holding them together to decouple. Their shitty construction was clear to behold in the movie, especially when you consider the "all Battledroids power and physically fall to pieces down if you shoot here" button Anakin hit.

Would you like to stop, for a moment, and consider the kind of bullshit you're talking?

Which goes to show how retarded they were. There was no reason to think that the Trade Federation would abandon the city in order to engage the Gungans a fair distance away or that they Trade Federation would do it with an infantry force. Moreover, WALKING to their engagement with only pack beasts in with all your troops in a mass is a surefire way to get them killed.

Err, why not? Again, the Trade Federation force was massively overwhelming and achieved decisive victory. This is exactly the kind of time when a commander would engage in open field battle. Recall how eager Stormin' Norman et al were for tank battles in Iraq, rather than streetfighting? They could win either way, but a set-piece battle always favours a more advanced, larger force.

Chances are they don't have that superior numbers. They marched, what, a thousand or so soldiers to the Naboo capital with maybe a dozen pack beasts max and a bunch of those bipedal dinos they ride on*?

And the RDA had a couple of dozen aircraft and a small number of ground forces.

You can play "the production team wanted this look" card, the same way you can play the production team for StarWars notoriously is inconsistent with how they apply special effects, which is why blasters mysteriously work less on people (doubly so when those people are main characters) and why shields don't scorch the ground when they interact with it. However, we have to take it at face value, yeah?

The fact that the Gungans use slingshots, shields (the handheld variety**), and catapults when they could have guns, body armor, and artillery demonstrates their stupidity, not that they are eccentric.

**the design of the shield is weird. I looked at a picture of it and it is held by a handle in the exact center of the shield with their knuckles facing forward (like they are punching). It lacks any sort of secondary strap that binds it to the forearm, which puts the onus of blocking on their wrists along rather than their entire arm like in real shields. The design MUST be tremendously unwieldy if they, in fact, intend to fight with them. This further demonstrates their incompetence, since even bronze age humans knew how to make ergonomic shields.

A schmoe gungan in exile is capable of a two or three meter vertical, standing leap with no runup. That is superior to the best olympian high jumpers. Why the fuck are you assuming their musculature is the same as ours? Never mind that the thing is designed to deflect blasters, which probably don't have very heavy recoil, and is likely to be very light, mitigating the reasons to strap it to the forearm. This is actually the most sensible piece of gungan hardware, and something that really ought to appear more often in Star Wars; Stormtroopers would have greatly benefit from carrying them during the Tantaive boarding action, for instance.

Firstly, this is directly contradicted by TPM, where none of these weapons existed at all. You can hold fingers in your ears all you want, but there is no reason why they'd abandon their artillery in favor of catapults and pack beasts.

Right. Becuase the retreating British at Dunkirk took all their heavy equipment. Abandonment of heavy equipment happens when an army is in retreat. Go to google, and look up 'Iraqi Tank Abandoned' if you don't believe this happens.

Further, the Gungans physically could have carried on their backs any man-portable anti-aircraft rockets and would have been sensible to do so, given we SEE the Trade Federation employ flying units against them when Jar Jar is introduced and there is no reason why the Trade Federation should not continue to do so. So where are they? Where is any evidence or semeblance or them? Or are you going to pull a Rumsfeld and (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) go "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! The Gungans possess weapons and I intend to find them!". Fuck, Rumsfeld even had a better case than you.

Except, of course, I have presented evidence. You are WoIing like mad to avoid confronting it.

Secondly, if the Gungan's had a starship, they'd have surely used it to assist the Naboo in assaulting the Command ship.

This particular starship was said to be built shortly after TPM, numbskull. I should have thought that would be obvious by the fact that I mentioned the Naboo assisting in its construction, which would not have happned prior. Fortunately the OP says 'around the time of' which does not mean prior to, or during. Wizards.com (it actually is from a game, and hell, it's a kid's game, which will probably make you cry even more).

Particularly if the Command ship is, as you suggest, only armed with anti-fighter weapons. At the very least, it would have been helpful, since it provides another reasonably hard target in the air. Or is this another one of your "absence of evidence" Rummy acts?

What makes you think starship means capital ship? This thing is a light freighter. Along the lines of the Falcon. Which hardly matters, as it will still be more than sufficient to break the Venture Star and ships like it in half before they even understand what's happening.

A lack of sensible design implies a lack of intelligence behind the design. Now either provide an explanation why the Gungans would have shields and catapults for mysteriously abandoned their guns and artillery.

Urgh.

They lack superior firepower and what firepower they have is limited to throwing distance (something a machine gun far exceeds, which takes care of the numbers issue, barbarian hordes ARE what the machine was born to fight, after all). In any sort of open field on Pandoran, the RDA would inflict grevious casualties on them before they get into catapult range and god help the stupids if they marched through the jungle.

Or starship mounted concussion missiles likely to be in the multimegaton range.

Bullshit, they had no need to do anything more than wait for the Gungans. What do they care about property damage?

Err... They'd seized the city, and planned to 'trade' with it later. Wrecking it is a pain in the ass for that.

The Gungans had no capacity to CAUSE significant property damage and weren't the Trade Federation guys already doing horrible things to the Naboo population anyway? The whole reason Amidala was mad at Vellorum in the first place was his inaction while her people were being murdered by the Trade Federation. I'm sure they really give a shit about blaster markers in the plaster, after they, you know militarily invaded them. The majority of the property damage that would have been done to the capital would have been caused by them in the first place.

Err. I'm talking about the TRADE FEDERATION not wanting property damage. I expect if the droids had let the Gungans march into Theed and engage them, the Gungans would have done so.

Waiting for the Gungans to come to them would allow them to fight from preestablished defensive positions, entirely on the Trade Federations terms

The fight was already on their terms.

and its not like a bunch of Gungans marching around in the field with their pets is a threat. What are they going to do, pillage Trade Federation farms and assets? The only people who are likely to have anything out there worth fighting over is the Naboo anyway; the Trade Federation has no real stake in Naboo. The whole point of this stunt was to take Naboo hostage and brutalize them enough so that they could get a tax break on shipping, or at least that's what Palpatine convinced them. The Trade Federation listening to Palpatine and thinking they could get away with what they did on Naboo demonstrates their own brand of idiocy.

Which is why the Trade Federation completely left the Gungan army alone while they were marching to the Naboo capital... wait, why again? The Army was nothing but a big fat slow moving target.

Worthless conjecture. You have no idea how easily they could detect them while they were in the seemingly plentiful jungles.

Watch Avatar again. RDA was heading for a target within those mountains, they had to go there. Leaving when they did assured that the minimum about of Na'vi would be present. The whole point was the attack the Na'vi BEFORE they started marching, while they were still disorganized and also blow up their sacred tree, which unfortunately was amongst those flying mountains. They still handed the Na'vi a crushing defeat until the Deus Ex Terra showed up.

And they still lost substantial numbers of aircraft because they were pussyfooting around flying mountains they didn't have to.

They did indeed give him a rank, they gave him the rank of General and put an army under him

Quote now.

Satellites in orbit don't take particularly long to circle a planet unless they put themselves in special orbits to ensure they don't. Besides, this is StarWars, they could have easily moved in the correct orbit in the many hours (or due to SW acceleration minutes) of the Gungans marching to bomb them. Orbital craft, fortunately for our society, can circle a planet and not just hover over one location.

The minimum orbital period for a satellite in low earth orbit is around an hour. There are three minutes of film between the Gungans emerging from the swamp and the fighters taking off to engage the command ship.

Secondly, claiming interference from the Naboo doesn't work. Recall the sequence of events. The Gungans arrived at the battlefield first and started marching around. The Droid Army then rolled out to fight them. THEN the Jedi spring the Naboo pilot corp, which for some reason, were being held right next to their fully fueled and completely flight ready fighters in an unlocked hangar which only had one gun watching it*. FINALLY, the Naboo engage the Trade Federation Command Ship, while the battle is already being fought simultaneously on the ground.

(*Brilliant move on the Trade Federation, keeping the pilots next to their fighters rather in prison cells somewhere else)

*facepalm*

Wrong part of the movie. They bring the pilots with them. They spring the pilots about an hour and a half earlier and take them to Coruscant in the Royal Yacht. The pilots are held under the guns of an entire squad throughout, in a hangar. When the pilots are held, under the guns of an entire squad of droids, while thousands of federation battleships are in orbit each holding two thousand vulture droids, the occupation is in its initial phases, and people are still being rounded up.

Yes, I would think it would be utterly retarded of the UK to give the Prince of Wales the rank of Air Chief Marshal and then put him in charge of the RAF during an actual battle. Except the UK only gave this to one of their royalty and didn't let him actually do anything, while the Gungans gave the rank of General to their biggest screw up for no reason other than that he hung out with Queen Amidala for a few days and actually marched into battle with him at the fore. There is a big freakin difference here.

Binks gives no commands during the battle, and is not shown to have anyone under him at all. His participation is that he was there.

Where in TPM are they even hinted at? You've got squat. If they were intended to exist, then they would have been in the movie. You can shake your fist at George Lucas and his production team for screwing you here, but at the end of the day, they still only armed the Gungans with the shiny aquatic plastic equivalent of Bronze Age weapontry for their movie, complete with animals rather than vehicles (unlike an animal, with power sources like in StarWars, a truck doesn't have to be fed except every few years, yet somehow they had beasties dragging carts anyway).

SW Galactic Battlegrounds. Simple as.
NNNN! Wrong, overridden by the movie, where their artillery was catapults and their ranged weapons were slingshots that threw weird electric balloons. You still didn't answer the question of what self-respecting army would have those things at all, let along keep them while abandoning their good shit.

The catapults also appear in SWGB. They are merely presented as part of a larger force there.

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