Ship of the Week: Nebulon-B Frigate

[Blackstar the Chakat]

It was a pretty cool game.
The only problem is that whenever you blew up an A-Wing, the freaking fuselage would fly out of the wreckage and ram you, thus killing you. I swear, those things are like fracking homing missiles.

Kind of like what they did to the Executer?

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

It was a pretty cool game.
The only problem is that whenever you blew up an A-Wing, the freaking fuselage would fly out of the wreckage and ram you, thus killing you. I swear, those things are like fracking homing missiles.

What was the name of the battle that the Yuuzhan Vong War was turned in? Ebaq 6 or something? Didn't Verenge use an A-Wing in the same manner?

The battle of Ebaq. Vergere, a complicated Jedi/Sith/Potentium/plain effin' crazy little thing, crashed an A-wing into the planet, wiping out the Vong invasion force.

Although that's from memory. I gave away my copies of the NJO about a year ago.

[Mikey]

I know very little of the EU - but one A-wing going down obliterated an entire Vong invasion force?

[Tsukiyumi]

Mikey - I think you forgot to add one of these:

[Mikey]

Yeah, that should have been in there. I mean, IIRC, A-wings don't even have hyperdrive - is their sublight drive powered by the ultimate-instant-planetwide-annihilation form of energy?

[Monroe]

I know very little of the EU - but one A-wing going down obliterated an entire Vong invasion force?

She crashed into a fuel tank I think. She didn't wipe out an invasion force but the commanders. Basically she hit in the right spot to blow the fuel tanks on the installation which killed a few thousand Vong and exposed them to vacuum.

[Captain Seafort]

Fuel tank? The impression I got was that she rammed the moon at full thottle after a long run-up, turning the A-wing into a relatavistic missile.

[Mikey]

Relativistic? Somebody's going to have to edumacate me, because I was under two impressions:

#1 - A-wings do not have hyperdrive. Is SW sublight really a very significant percentage of c?

#2 - An A-wing doesn't have a payload, as it is a manned vessel rather than a weapon of itself.

[Captain Seafort]

#1 - A-wings do not have hyperdrive. Is SW sublight really a very significant percentage of c?

A-wings do indeed have a hyperdrive, although how it got shoehorned in is anyone's guess.

Regarding sublight speed, relatavistic combat was seen in "Star by Star".

Having re-read the relevant bit of "Destiny's Way", however, it turns out that Vergere was actually going pretty slowly - around 10 km/s. She hit one end of a tunnel that passed through right through Ebaq 9, and the atmospheric seal was vapourised by the impact. The fighter was reduced to a ball of plasma that passed right through the moon, igniting various bits of metal on the way through, which burned up the oxygen supply in short order. Those Vong who survived the heat suffocated.

#2 - An A-wing doesn't have a payload, as it is a manned vessel rather than a weapon of itself.

Tell that to the Executor's bridge crew. Or the Vong, for that matter.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Oh, okay. Thanks, Seafort. Memory's a bit rusty, there.

[Mikey]

Thanks for the info. As I said, I'm no expert in the EU, so I wasn't familiar with the Ebaq sitch.

However, just because one managed to take out the Executor's bridge, or the atmosphere of Ebaq through some miracle of pseudoscience, doesn't mean that it's a missile rather than a fighter. At best, it's a "divine wind" attack, albeit rather more succesful than most Japanese kamikaze attacks.

[Captain Seafort]

However, just because one managed to take out the Executor's bridge, or the atmosphere of Ebaq through some miracle of pseudoscience, doesn't mean that it's a missile rather than a fighter. At best, it's a "divine wind" attack, albeit rather more succesful than most Japanese kamikaze attacks.

Ebaq 9, IIRC, wasn't a planet, but a small planetoid - it was too small to sustain an atmosphere of its own, so the Empire/New Republic/whoever built a network of sealed catacombs inside it. Vergere's attack broke the seal on said catacombs.

As for the fighter/missile argument, I don't think anyone suggested that either Vergere's or Arvel Crynyd's attacks were anything but kamikazi runs.

[Sonic Glitch]

What would you recommend in the Star Wars EU for someone who's only ever read Timothy Zahns Thrawn trilogy, and Specter of the Past? And only then several years ago.

[Captain Seafort]

What would you recommend in the Star Wars EU for someone who's only ever read Timothy Zahns Thrawn trilogy, and Specter of the Past? And only then several years ago.

Zahn's stuff is among the best there is - in addition to what you've already got there's Vision of the Future (the immediate sequel to SotP), Allegiance, Survivor's Quest, and Outbound Flight (a prequel of sorts to SQ).

From other authors there's James Luceno's books, which I've heard nothing but praise for, Matthew Stover's RotS novelisation, and Aaron Allston's X-wing novels.

[Sionnach Glic]

Dark Lord by Luceno is definitely worth picking up.