Palpatine and the Lusankya

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2007-08-17 08:00pm

Markos's idea that the Lusankya was disguised as something else and then inserted into the cityscape sounds viable enough to me.

Darth Massacrus · Post by **Darth Massacrus** » 2007-08-17 10:13pm

perhaps the Lusankya was constructed at Kuat, then partly disassembled into many smaller sections that could easily be transported to the hole in the ground on Coruscant. The idea that a Super Star Destroyer could be taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt elsewhere sounds absurd, but the XWING novels also mention that another Star Destroyer was partially rebuilt by Warlord Zsinj from battle debris. If a Warlord who controlled only a third of the galaxy could accomplish thiss, then would it be impossible for an Empire that ruled likely 90% of the Galaxy and had a leader who could fog minds to be able to take apart a completely intact ship, and just reassemble it elsewhere?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-08-18 12:34am

Kinda makes you wonder why they didn't land it like a rocket inside a building that existed solely to keep it erect. I mean, it worked for Terrahawks, am I right?

Breaking it into parts doesn't help: if anything, it makes the time people need to be distracted from the sky full of kilometer-size bits of spaceship floating around even longer. If you mean 'disassemble' down to small parts, you really mean 'fresh construct' which is pretty fucking unlikely. Comparing a partial-rebuild of a battle loss to reassembling a far larger ship in the middle of a major city without anyone noticing is retarded.

Then again, the population that could actually see it landing where it did would depend on the area of Imperial Center: some buildings (I guess the tallest ones) have good views, but many have limited view obstructed in all directions by other buildings. Contriving to have a majority of droids running that area of traffic control, killing sensor logs, making a few hundred million people look the other way and then changing the memories of the few million-odd that could actually see it is less crazy (but still as insidious and impressive) than messing with the whole planet.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2007-08-18 06:23am

Darth Massacrus wrote:perhaps the Lusankya was constructed at Kuat, then partly disassembled into many smaller sections that could easily be transported to the hole in the ground on Coruscant. The idea that a Super Star Destroyer could be taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt elsewhere sounds absurd, but the XWING novels also mention that another Star Destroyer was partially rebuilt by Warlord Zsinj from battle debris. If a Warlord who controlled only a third of the galaxy could accomplish thiss, then would it be impossible for an Empire that ruled likely 90% of the Galaxy and had a leader who could fog minds to be able to take apart a completely intact ship, and just reassemble it elsewhere?

No he didn't, he gathered all the wreckage from the Razor's Kiss together so he could redrop at another point and make it look like his vessel, The Iron Fist had been destroyed. He didn't try to rebuild an SSD from SSD wreckage.

Darth Massacrus · Post by **Darth Massacrus** » 2007-08-20 10:03pm

from a certain point of view, Zsinj did rebuild it, but yes, it was only to fool the New Republic.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-08-23 03:07pm

Darth Massacrus wrote:from a certain point of view, Zsinj did rebuild it, but yes, it was only to fool the New Republic.

Don't talk shit. If I go to a scrap yard and weld togeather the parts of a demolished car I have not built a new car.

Zsinj merely built a collection of scrap designed to explode and send out recognisible parts of a Super Star Destroyer to make the NR think his own functioning SSD was destroyed.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2007-08-23 04:17pm

The Second Death was simply an engine with a reactor attatched, and then all the debris from the Razor's Kiss tacked on - it only had atmosphere on the 'bridge' IIRC, and may even have been remote control.

The 1/3 figure for Zsinj's territory - where does that come from?

Is it inconceivable that the Lusankya was cloaked to allow it past sensors and visual inspection? A hole could have been dug and easily explained, then filled in and also easily explained, and no one would have seen anything - anyone who noticed something majorly odd could have been mindfucked. Those who asked why a certain approach vector was cleared for no apparent reason could have been fed an excuse. Seems simple enough to me, especially since we know that Palpatine personally had stocks of cloaking technology.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2007-08-23 04:45pm

^ The "Rebellion Era Sourcebook" according to Publius.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-08-23 05:42pm

Lazarus wrote:Seems simple enough to me, especially since we know that Palpatine personally had stocks of cloaking technology.

Do we really. IIRC all Thrawn came away from Wayland was a workable schematic. Plus it was noted by Thrawn and Pellaeon that to cloak a ship even the size of an ISD would be insanely expensive.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2007-08-23 05:48pm

Lord Pounder wrote:
Lazarus wrote:Seems simple enough to me, especially since we know that Palpatine personally had stocks of cloaking technology.
Do we really. IIRC all Thrawn came away from Wayland was a workable schematic. Plus it was noted by Thrawn and Pellaeon that to cloak a ship even the size of an ISD would be insanely expensive.

I remember an argument... somewhere... where the conclusion was basically: The Sith Infiltrator/MF is the smallest ship capable of having a clocking device and due to cost, tech and sheer size, an ISD was about the upper limit.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2007-08-23 06:27pm

The were TIE fighters with cloaking technology, though granted, they used a different cloaking technology than what Thrawn got from Wayland.

As for the cost of cloaking ISDs, the Chimaera had one in Specter of the Past and three Imperators from Disra's sector fleet also had it to begin with, or they were installed quickly without drawing attention from High Command.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2007-08-23 08:24pm

Pelranius wrote:The were TIE fighters with cloaking technology, though granted, they used a different cloaking technology than what Thrawn got from Wayland.

What is the source for the cloaked TIEs?
Maul's Infiltrator also used a different type of cloak.

As for the cost of cloaking ISDs, the Chimaera had one in Specter of the Past and three Imperators from Disra's sector fleet also had it to begin with, or they were installed quickly without drawing attention from High Command.

ISDs would be the upper limit, based on what I can remember. I'm at work so I don't have full intrawebs access to search for it.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2007-08-23 10:16pm

People are vastly underestimating the difficulty of hidding the Luskanya.

It's a 19 km long, new type of warship.

Coruscant is the center of a galactic empire. It has a population of Trillions. That's not counting the crews of incoming and outgoing ships, sensor droids, smugglers, pirates, and in system inhabitants not part of the planetary population, and possibly FTL telescopes analogs.

Somehow, Palpatine hide it from all of that.

He mind-fucked Trillions of people, and probably hundreds of trillions of machines to hide that ship.
The minimum he did it was the time it took Luskanya to break orbit, decend through the atmosphere, fly into a giant-prepared cave, and seal it up.

THat's the minimum, assuming the Luskanya entered the system using the name Executor, and Palpatine made everyone think it jumped into hyperspace and left the system. Which makes it even hard to do, cause he's got to hide the ship will making it appear to be doing something else entirely.

Alexian Cale · Post by **Alexian Cale** » 2007-08-24 04:58pm

The Essential Guide to Characters dictates that Palpatine used his mind-fogging powers to mindfuck the planet.

Admiral Drason · Post by **Admiral Drason** » 2007-08-24 08:58pm

The Empire did fit a cloaking device on a Command Ship. I can't find the name of the ship but it was the one in Rebel Assualt II Hidden Empire.

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2007-08-24 09:27pm

Admiral Drason wrote:The Empire did fit a cloaking device on a Command Ship. I can't find the name of the ship but it was the one in Rebel Assualt II Hidden Empire.

SSD Terror I think

They also did it on a half-built ship destroyed at Fondor by the Rebels (Rogue Squadron III, Rebel Strike)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-08-25 04:33am

This isn't really a massive brreach of Palaptine's power for the timeframe he occupies. Remember this is the quasi-insane, "burning the candle at both ends/augmenting my power in every way possible" uber-Palpatine who wants to eat all life in the universe. He's been reasearching ways to augment his power (temporarily and permanantly) such as tapping into the forcec poentials of other beings, drainign their life forces/tapping death to power his abilities, etc. Nevermind that he's also given up fear of limiting himself -he'll exert himself far more than most other froce users because of his magic reincarnation trick - overdoing it and risking the damage/destruction of his body by strain (like Dorsk 81) is not a danger for him, so he can afford to pull of more insane-high end feats (like his insane force storms, or mind-fucking a significant porttion of a planet's population.)

As a comparative note, this is not really a whole lot different from what C'Baoth has done in the Thrawn Trilogy (simultaneously directing and augmenting the human crews of scores of ISDs and hundreds of escorts) means many huhndreds of thousands or millions of people's minds being affected- and that is over intergalactic distances. THe Battle-meditation applied at Endor would also have to be of similar scale (affecting the minds of hundreds of thousands/millions of individuals.) - even though Palpy wasn't doing that, ,Thrawn didn't seem to think it beyond his capabilities, either.

All these insane/absurd "explanations" as to how Palpy might have snuck the ship onto the planet don't really matter (even if you make the ship invisible it would risk collision with other ships, airspeeders or any ther sort of air traffic unless they were deliberately warned away, which would tip off to something going on.) and dissasembling an Executor class is an absurd concept (It is most certainly NOT a modular ship, and making it so delibeately would have drastically compromised its structural durability. I'm not even sure just HOW modular you could make a 19 km long starship - the engineering problems making it a fairly SOLID non modular construct are mind boggling enough as it is.

JointStrikeFighter · Post by **JointStrikeFighter** » 2007-08-25 05:02am

Another possible solution is that a fake non functional shell was built over the ship disguising it as a regular super bulk freighter. This would allow the SSD to simply fly into the atmosphere looking like any normal freighter before landing in the hole that has been dug for it. Then when the roof is put over the hole the dummy superstructure can simply be disassembled and taken away.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-08-25 12:55pm

JointStrikeFighter wrote:Another possible solution is that a fake non functional shell was built over the ship disguising it as a regular super bulk freighter. This would allow the SSD to simply fly into the atmosphere looking like any normal freighter before landing in the hole that has been dug for it. Then when the roof is put over the hole the dummy superstructure can simply be disassembled and taken away.

A large hole that no-one ever reported seeing? I think thats a little thin. How big do super freighters get in the GFFA anyway?

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2007-08-25 01:24pm

Do we really. IIRC all Thrawn came away from Wayland was a workable schematic. Plus it was noted by Thrawn and Pellaeon that to cloak a ship even the size of an ISD would be insanely expensive.

And if Thrawn can build some, the Emperor can. The Emperor also built TWO Death Stars, I really doubt 'a bit on the expensive side' is an issue here, do you?

I remember an argument... somewhere... where the conclusion was basically: The Sith Infiltrator/MF is the smallest ship capable of having a clocking device and due to cost, tech and sheer size, an ISD was about the upper limit.

Yeah well that's a bullshit argument then, since cloaked TIE's are known to have existed in Rebel Assault II.

As for the cost of cloaking ISDs, the Chimaera had one in Specter of the Past and three Imperators from Disra's sector fleet also had it to begin with, or they were installed quickly without drawing attention from High Command.

Exactly, and if the Remnant can do it, the Empire at the height of it's power damn well can.

ISDs would be the upper limit, based on what I can remember. I'm at work so I don't have full intrawebs access to search for it.

Wrong, the Terror had a cloaking device, as someone else has mentioned. Executor-class vessels have been cloaked, so the Lusankya could have been.

He mind-fucked Trillions of people, and probably hundreds of trillions of machines to hide that ship.
The minimum he did it was the time it took Luskanya to break orbit, decend through the atmosphere, fly into a giant-prepared cave, and seal it up.

No, he would only need to mindfuck a few hundreds of millions, billions at most, if the Lucy was cloaked. I maintain this is the most obvious plan.

JointStrikeFighter · Post by **JointStrikeFighter** » 2007-08-25 09:40pm

A large hole that no-one ever reported seeing? I think thats a little thin. How big do super freighters get in the GFFA anyway?

The hole could be dug as being for the foundations of a new building, then when the ship goes in a cover story about "funding being withdrawn" or somesuch could be put out and the hole filled in again.

Darth Massacrus · Post by **Darth Massacrus** » 2007-08-26 08:56pm

actually, I take back my previous view that the Lusankya was disassembled and rebuilt on Coruscant. Lazarus reminded me of a possibility I simply overlooked: that Since the Empire had cloaking devices capable of hiding entire SSD's (such as the Terror and the unnamed one from Rebel Strike), The Empire likely just placed one on Lusankya when it came time to hide it on Coruscant. As for how the Empire was able to use cloaking devices that had previously been unattainable, the answer is simple. Cloaking devices are powered by Stygium Crystals, which can only be found on one planet: Aeten II. Unfortunately, by the time of the Clone Wars, the crystal mines on Aeten II had run dry. Around the time of the Battle of Yavin though, Grand Admiral Martio Batch borrowed the Tarkin superlaser and turned Aeten II into an asteriod field, so that Stygium Crystals trapped within the planet were released. Now that the Empire had a suddenly abundant supply of Stygium Crystals, mass cloaking devices were possible again. Batch even equipped a Super Star Destroyer (Terror) with a cloaking device, and developed a cloaked starfighter known as the TIE Phantom. Unfortunately, Rebel sabateurs destroyed the TIE Phantoms and the Terror. But it is likely that more than a few of the cloaking devices (or Stygium Crystals) that Batch devised were used elsewhere in the Empire, perhaps even to cloak the Lusankya.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-08-28 05:14am

If Lusankya had a cloak why didn't Isard use it when she commanded the ship? Plus Palpy would still need to mind fuck the people who cordorned of the area and any operators of GCT's and any other decent sensor equipment. Plus the crewers who landed the ship would have had to be mindfucked or killed. Remember no-one knew how Lusankya got there, not even Isard who admitted to spending quite a bit of time trying to find out how it got there, as Director of Imperial Intelligence she'd have had quite the resources to find out..

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2007-08-28 07:25am

Guys, you have to remember that 'cloaks' in SW are treated with some half descent realism (or at least they were by Zahn who 'introduced'* them). In SW they are a double sensor blind, unlike in ST where the cloaked ship can see everything as normal, in SW the cloaked ship is just as blind to everything outside its cloak as everything else is to it.

It would be impractical to place it on a large ship. Thrawn comments on this.

*Defined them in the EU AFAIK anyway, I know there were introduced in TESB originally.

Tiriol · Post by **Tiriol** » 2007-08-28 08:18am

Crown wrote:Guys, you have to remember that 'cloaks' in SW are treated with some half descent realism (or at least they were by Zahn who 'introduced'* them). In SW they are a double sensor blind, unlike in ST where the cloaked ship can see everything as normal, in SW the cloaked ship is just as blind to everything outside its cloak as everything else is to it.

It would be impractical to place it on a large ship. Thrawn comments on this.

*Defined them in the EU AFAIK anyway, I know there were introduced in TESB originally.

It should be noted that the cloaking device used by Grand Admiral Thrawn was experimental one which the Emperor's scientists (under supervision by Thrawn, in fact, as we learn in TIE Fighter) created, since the source of the rare material needed for older model of cloaking devices had ran out. This older model didn't share Thrawn's cloaking device's unfortunate sensory setback, if I recall correctly.