Darths & Droids VI: Thread title will appear here when received

[Kantaki]

New comic

Those bombers are great. If you can get your enemies to use them.

[Keltest]

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Good lord did I ever hate these bombers. What happened to the y-wings? Why would you ever design a ship like these? Its aggressively bad design.

[Gez]

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Good lord did I ever hate these bombers. What happened to the y-wings? Why would you ever design a ship like these? Its aggressively bad design.

Technology in Star Wars seems to be regressing rather than progressing. The prequels were higher technology than the original trilogy, and things like the Old Republic were even higher technology. So I figure the trend continued and people make these ugly bomber things because they forgot how to build better designs like the B-Wing and Y-Wing.

[Anonymouswizard]

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Good lord did I ever hate these bombers. What happened to the y-wings? Why would you ever design a ship like these? Its aggressively bad design.

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My guess? They're primarily designed for atmospheric or low or it operations against ground based targets. Probably something you park in orbit for weeks or months after gaining control of the orbitals but before you've pacified the surface.

They're probably old Imperial stock the Resistance got running when they realised the First Order was on their way but didn't have anything suited to attacking capital ships.

Technology in Star Wars seems to be regressing rather than progressing. The prequels were higher technology than the original trilogy, and things like the Old Republic were even higher technology. So I figure the trend continued and people make these ugly bomber things because they forgot how to build better designs like the B-Wing and Y-Wing.

I mean in the old EU there was technological innovation, but it was slow, the galaxy had mostly plateaued. It's likely that in the new EU we're seeing the decline of galactic civilisation as it tears itself apart into warring kingdoms, before a new group or philosophy arises that can invent new technology and forge a new empire

[KillianHawkeye]

I think these bombers are clearly not the kind that are meant to be used against capital ships, but rather ground targets. The Resistance is using them out of desperation, IMO.

[Rodin]

I think these bombers are clearly not the kind that are meant to be used against capital ships, but rather ground targets. The Resistance is using them out of desperation, IMO.

I like that explanation for why they're so janky. It still doesn't explain why you would fly in such close formation to generate soft kills from another ship exploding. Bombers didn't do that in WWII, which is a major inspiration for Star Wars in the first place. So why do it here?

[VoxRationis]

Technology in Star Wars seems to be regressing rather than progressing. The prequels were higher technology than the original trilogy, and things like the Old Republic were even higher technology. So I figure the trend continued and people make these ugly bomber things because they forgot how to build better designs like the B-Wing and Y-Wing.

I wouldn't say that's consistently true. After all, BB-series astromechs pack the same kind of utility the R-series had into a much smaller package. Star Destroyers pretty consistently get larger and more powerful over the years in the main continuous sequence of years we see covered. The Leviathan, the enormous foreboding ship we fear in KotOR, is something like a twentieth of the volume of a standard Imperial-class Star Destroyer (600 meters long versus 1600). The sequel trilogy shows sporadic developments of one capability or another. I'd say that though there is less technological innovation than one would expect over decades in an industrialized society spanning hundreds of planets, things aren't exactly decaying a la 40K. There are also some moments in this very film, and I'll be vague so as not to spoil anything, where people examine weapons and vehicles from the Rebellion era and unambiguously refer to them as undesirable to use.

The issue that the bombers have, I think, stems from a desire to sort of hyper-stylize the Resistance by exaggerating aesthetic cues. Since a lot of Rebellion/Resistance stuff is based on imagery of the Allies in WWII, they wanted to throw in a scene with vertical-drop bomb bays, ignoring the fact that such things don't really make sense in space combat.*

Edit: I think we have to discount the idea that there is a serious Watsonian explanation for why the bombers are like this, for spoiler reasons that I will enclose below:

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I see these suggestions that the bombers are, in fact, repurposed minelayers or anti-surface bombers. I think the minelayer explanation makes more sense because the Resistance would have little reason to invest any resources in a vehicle that only carpet-bombs surface targets with gravity bombs. Nonetheless, I think we can't credit the movie for thinking like this because no one ever mentions it. Poe gets in trouble for pressing the attack with the bombers, even though it was absolutely the right thing to do. They would never get a better opportunity to use them because the bomber design is so terrible that even in an optimal use case (a single capital ship, outside the range of its fellows' supporting fire, has had its surface cannons disabled and has delayed launching its fighters, preventing them from establishing a screen far enough in advance of the ship), they suffer 100% casualties and very nearly fail the mission. If the idea was that these "bombers" were non-combat vehicles being used outside of their intended purpose, likely at Poe's urging, a) blaming Poe would make more sense, and b) Leia or someone else would mention it: "That minelayer squadron could have kept a First Order flotilla stuck in port for a month if you hadn't rammed them headfirst into the enemy." But such a thing is never said, and every character seems to agree that this frontal attack on capital ships is what the bombers are supposed to be doing, but that this wasn't the time to be doing it. I can only conclude that the writers prioritized getting the cinematic shots they wanted (of rank on rank of bombs plunging out of the open belly of a spacecraft) over actually thinking whether the spacecraft in those shots made sense.

*Or at least not the space combat shown in Star Wars. In a Niven-esque setting, you could easily have a weapon system wherein such bomb bays have a very light, underpowered mass driver that just sort of nudges the bombs out on a small vector perpendicular to the line of travel, with the idea that since they're being launched from a ship traveling at relativistic velocities, the bombs will, from the target's perspective, make a beeline forward. But that's not how they work here.

[The Glyphstone]

According to Wookiieepeediiaa,

Spoiler: Bombers

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Are intended for microgravity/zero-gravity, because the 'gravity bombs' are actually magnetically launched and guided to fall 'down' towards the largest magnetic object nearby, such as a capital ship.

Okay then.

They're also called B/SF-17 StarFortress heavy bombers apparently, in case the inspirational material hadn't finished beating you over the head hard enough.

[Fyraltari]

Honestly, I like Episode VIII, and I still think these bombers are stupid and this battle makes little sense.

[The Glyphstone]

I always thought it was one-third each of three potentially very good movies, myself. But going into detail would be spoilers.

[VoxRationis]

Honestly, I like Episode VIII, and I still think these bombers are stupid and this battle makes little sense.

That's my general attitude as well. I see VIII as a flawed but good movie that does best when focusing on the "opera" part of "space opera" and not the "space."

[Anonymouswizard]

I always thought it was one-third each of three potentially very good movies, myself. But going into detail would be spoilers.

VII was pretty much fine. It's good but a retread, but most of us went in expecting a retread.

Spoiler: E8 and E9

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VIII is a pretty good movie, but probably needed another draft or to be moved. It would have worked as an ending, but as it is it just closes off too many branches.

IX is two films crammed into one. If ideas had been given time to breath it would have been a good E8 and E9, as it is it just rushes from plot point to plot point

All three have occasional 'um, okay' moments that weren't in most of the previous films, but nothing that can't be overlooked in the moment. Barring, of course, those bloody bombers.

[Kornaki]

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I see these suggestions that the bombers are, in fact, repurposed minelayers or anti-surface bombers. I think the minelayer explanation makes more sense because the Resistance would have little reason to invest any resources in a vehicle that only carpet-bombs surface targets with gravity bombs. Nonetheless, I think we can't credit the movie for thinking like this because no one ever mentions it. Poe gets in trouble for pressing the attack with the bombers, even though it was absolutely the right thing to do. They would never get a better opportunity to use them because the bomber design is so terrible that even in an optimal use case (a single capital ship, outside the range of its fellows' supporting fire, has had its surface cannons disabled and has delayed launching its fighters, preventing them from establishing a screen far enough in advance of the ship), they suffer 100% casualties and very nearly fail the mission. If the idea was that these "bombers" were non-combat vehicles being used outside of their intended purpose, likely at Poe's urging, a) blaming Poe would make more sense, and b) Leia or someone else would mention it: "That minelayer squadron could have kept a First Order flotilla stuck in port for a month if you hadn't rammed them headfirst into the enemy." But such a thing is never said, and every character seems to agree that this frontal attack on capital ships is what the bombers are supposed to be doing, but that this wasn't the time to be doing it. I can only conclude that the writers prioritized getting the cinematic shots they wanted (of rank on rank of bombs plunging out of the open belly of a spacecraft) over actually thinking whether the spacecraft in those shots made sense.

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My working theory is no one knows what the ships are for. They found them, or had them donated, or stole them, and decided to load them up with bombs. Maybe they think they *are* supposed to be bombers, and the poor performance simply proves Poe used them poorly in their minds. These are basically the last single pilot ships they have, all we can conclude is they did not save the best for last.

[Fyraltari]

VII was pretty much fine.

Most of what's wrong with this trilogy comes directly from VII.

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Destroying the accomplishments of OT? VII blew up the new Republic and slaughtered Luke's new Jedi Order.
Taking away the character development of the heroes? VII divorced Han and Leia, made Han a down-on-his luck smuggler again and had Luke flee to the end of nowhere while his nephew turned evil and the Empire was on the rise again.
Snoke coming out of nowhere? VII.
Rey becoming an accomplished Jedi in no time flat? VII.
The First Order being inexplicably much more powerful than the New Republic? VII.

TFA actively refuses to do the work the first part of a trilogy ought to: to properly set things up. Instead it just lays a few "mystery boxes" in front of the viewer and passes the responsability of dealing with them to the next guy. Who were Rey's parents? No one should care, but Abrams certainly wanted us to. Even though he evidently had no answer. Where did Snoke come from? Abrams didn't care. What was Luke up to that was so important? Good luck finding a satisfying answer to that one, Rian!
Hey guys, be sure to put Phasma in every single trailer, such an important charac

It's good but a retread, but most of us went in expecting a retread.

Actually, I remember a lot of people being confused by that at the time, wondering if there were a good reason to do something so close to Episode IV, and whether it was some attempt to gain the fans' trust before going to new directions in the next two.

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Turns out it was creative bankruptcy.

Spoiler: E8 and E9

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IX is two films crammed into one. If ideas had been given time to breath it would have been a good E8 and E9, as it is it just rushes from plot point to plot point

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What ideas? What is there of value in TRoS? This movie has nothing to say, about anything. Star Wars used to be about something. About joining the fight for freedom, about finding yourself, about reckoning with your own family, about democracy falling into tyranny. And it had something to say about the society of its time. But TRoS? It's the most obvious example of the trend of SW to be more and more self-referential rather than be about its surrounding culture. The Empire was a stand-in for real thing, Palpatine was stand-in for real people, the First Order is a stand-in for the Empire and Palpatine is reduced to be his own stand-in, if that makes sense. This movie is just an empty spectacle, noise and lights devoid of any meaning or stakes.

You want to talk about retread? IX's main plot points is that the hero is descended from the villain and that the hero redeems the dark henchman, at the cost of his life. I feel like I've seen that somewhere already.

Take the first two trilogies, as much as we clown on "it's like poetry, it rhymes", none of those six movies are like the other five. Of the three "main" Disney movies, TLJ is the only one that isn't aping another movie and the only one that has something to say. That's no coincidence.

[Kornaki]

Memnarch, you can probably come back and read this in about 200 pages if you want

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Maybe that will get cleared up later once the whole scene of the space fight is finished and the rest of the fleet has hyper-jumped somewhere else to regroup again.

Oh, you sweet summer child. Winter is coming.

[Gez]

According to Wookiieepeediiaa,

Spoiler: Bombers

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Are intended for microgravity/zero-gravity, because the 'gravity bombs' are actually magnetically launched and guided to fall 'down' towards the largest magnetic object nearby, such as a capital ship.

Okay then.

This is incredibly stupid. No, it's beyond stupid; it's absurd. I can't even fathom such an idea actually forming in the head of a character living in the Star Wars universe.

[VoxRationis]

This is incredibly stupid. No, it's beyond stupid; it's absurd. I can't even fathom such an idea actually forming in the head of a character living in the Star Wars universe.

It's patently a post-hoc justification. Of course, given that the justification is even more implausible than just shrugging and asking the audience to accept the bombers without explanation, one wonders why they would bother.

[Pax1138]

It's patently a post-hoc justification. Of course, given that the justification is even more implausible than just shrugging and asking the audience to accept the bombers without explanation, one wonders why they would bother.

I do not know why this is so complicated. There's gravity in the bay. So of course if you released the bombs they would fall out the open end. And once they're in space, objects in motion, etc., so they would just continue in whatever direction they fell out of the ship toward. Why are magnetic whatevers etc even being brought into this?

[SirKazum]

This is incredibly stupid. No, it's beyond stupid; it's absurd. I can't even fathom such an idea actually forming in the head of a character living in the Star Wars universe.

When has that ever stopped writers though, including Star Wars writers?

[Aeson]

I do not know why this is so complicated. There's gravity in the bay. So of course if you released the bombs they would fall out the open end. And once they're in space, objects in motion, etc., so they would just continue in whatever direction they fell out of the ship toward. Why are magnetic whatevers etc even being brought into this?

Probably because the general reaction to the bombers was something along the lines of "that's stupid" and "that shouldn't work."

Also, assuming that the bomber's artificial gravity field is constant, uniform, and contained within the fuselage, simple freefall doesn't match the observed behavior of the bombs in the movie - the bomb 'column' doesn't appear to begin to flatten out or invert after leaving the ship, which implies that either the bombs all exit the bomber at the same speed or they continue accelerating together towards the target even after they're ejected from the bomb bay. That bomber probably isn't big enough for all of the bombs to reach terminal velocity in the ship's atmosphere before exiting the bomb bay, and we also see some vertical separation between bombs in the column after they exit the ship so it's unlikely that bombs higher in the column are 'pushing' bombs lower in the column along (not that that'd be a good idea anyways, especially not with spherical bombs - you probably wouldn't have perfect alignment, so you'd be likely to see deflection in the column, particularly in the middle; on top of that, these bombs seem sensitive to impact once armed, so maintaining uniform speed/acceleration of the bombs in the column by essentially hitting bombs lower in the column with bombs higher in the column does not strike me as a great idea), so either we're not looking at a simple freefall bomb ejector or something else is going on.

[VoxRationis]

I like the chaff idea in terms of keeping with what Darths & Droids has established regarding how hyperdrives work, but in this particular scenario, I must agree with Memnarch in saying that it's utterly implausible that the First Order fleet could have deployed it this quickly. They'd need to be machine-gunning the chaff actively, at the sort of velocities that make the chaff into projectile weapons, in the Resistance's direction in order to get it in front of them.

[theangelJean]

I like the chaff idea in terms of keeping with what Darths & Droids has established regarding how hyperdrives work, but in this particular scenario, I must agree with Memnarch in saying that it's utterly implausible that the First Order fleet could have deployed it this quickly. They'd need to be machine-gunning the chaff actively, at the sort of velocities that make the chaff into projectile weapons, in the Resistance's direction in order to get it in front of them.

In the previous comic, Hux assumed it had already been deployed as part of standard blockade procedure - that is, before the start of the Resistance action. The GM rolled, and lo, it was so, and always had been...

[VoxRationis]

In the previous comic, Hux assumed it had already been deployed as part of standard blockade procedure - that is, before the start of the Resistance action. The GM rolled, and lo, it was so, and always had been...

Right, but if you look at the start of the adventure, you can see that that ruling was made in error. The Resistance fleet was already mostly mobilized for the evacuation before the First Order fleet showed up, appearing from hyperspace in one area at a significant distance from its enemy. There's no way that such a deployment could have allowed for the setting of chaff to cover more than a small fraction of possible escape vectors.

[KillianHawkeye]

It's... literally a retcon.

What was shown (i.e., what was described to the players) originally is being amended to include a blockading procedure. This sort of thing happens all the time in a roleplaying game when players/GM forget to mention something or have differing assumptions about what is happening. You can't now use the original images/descriptions to complain about it not making sense, since events now didn't happen exactly the way they were presented.

[VoxRationis]

The retcon doesn't really work, though; in order for it to allow the First Order to deploy the chaff, the GM would need to retcon their deployment as being practically on top of the Resistance fleet, which would raise questions as to why the entire previous scene had been a fighter battle instead of a close-in gunnery duel between capital ships.

[KillianHawkeye]

The retcon doesn't really work, though; in order for it to allow the First Order to deploy the chaff, the GM would need to retcon their deployment as being practically on top of the Resistance fleet, which would raise questions as to why the entire previous scene had been a fighter battle instead of a close-in gunnery duel between capital ships.

How do you know that hasn't been happening in the background this whole time?

[Kantaki]

New comic

Sally's Snoke is great. Doing the whole "kneel before me" thing over interrupted bath- and reading time is delightfully unhinged, if absolutely understandable*.
And not waiting for the report because "I figured you messed up. Again." is good too.
Shows a capacity to learn and ties nicely into the point about books.

*Been there, wanted to do that.

[theangelJean]

Have to wonder if "bollixed" is the correct spelling, though.

[KillianHawkeye]

Have to wonder if "bollixed" is the correct spelling, though.

"Bollixed"? I figured they mean something like bollocks. Bollocksed? Bollocks'd? I don't know, I'm not British...

I can see how you might think "bollix" if you didn't know the proper spelling of bollocks.


EDIT: Apparently, "bollix" means to bungle something, and is a variant spelling of bollocks. TIL.

[Fyraltari]

IIRC, the model for the Millennium Falcon comes from a sandwich. I think that little pilot's cabin that sticks out was an olive or something.

Spoiler: Debatable

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