Death Star *minor spoilers*

[Armadious]

Minor spoilers if you know nothing about Rogue One.

Read a short article about the tease for Rogue One about the Death Star being built so close to the planet. In it John Knoll says that one its a moon not a planet and two the Death Star has repulsors. I wonder if this means ISDs, SSDs, and other massive ships in the new SWU do as well?

[Vanger Chevane]

Minor spoilers if you know nothing about Rogue One.

Read a short article about the tease for Rogue One about the Death Star being built so close to the planet. In it John Knoll says that one its a moon not a planet and two the Death Star has repulsors. I wonder if this means ISDs, SSDs, and other massive ships in the new SWU do as well?

I'd expect DS1 to have repulsors as it has to be able to maintain an orbit & move through space fast enough to make a Hyperspace jump without an insanely huge cluster of Ion Engines we all missed in ANH.

The sheer number of repulsors required should IMHO make it a one-off idea as equipping SSDs & such would be horribly expensive, especially given a short supply as most huge repulsors in the Imperial Inventory went into DS1.



One the other manipulator, the closest we have to DSW (Disney SW, as opposed to the older LSW - Lucas SW) Canon is the Rebels cartoon, and the later episodes have shown several ISDs (probably MK1s due to the early Rebellion timeframe) flying quite serenly through atmo.

It may be a feature of early MK1 ISDs, which have been decommissioned or mothballed by ANH, where almost all ISDs do not have repulsorlifts as part of the design plan & engineering. More space for troops, less power draw for a little-used & tactically stupid idea (think how an ISD in atmo & on reuplsorlifts would handle - slow wallowing target, do the repulsors lose power when the shields & turbolasers are getting top priority from the reactors resulting in a high crash risk?), an ISD capable of Orbital Bombardment should have no reason to get that close to its target (artillery doesn't post at the front lines for many well-established & proven reasons), etc.

[Armadious]

That is an interesting idea for the Rebels ISD issue, I had just turned them into much smaller but similar looking ships in my brain. The death star bit still bothers me a little, I mean there is less reason for a DS to be in atmo then an ISD other the sheer terror the thing would inspire (and of course changing the planets tidal forces etc). Also I do not believe repulsors have anything to do with space travel, maybe its a newer material thing I don't know. The DS sourcebook has its ion engines located primarily around the equator of the station, says they are so powerful special suits are required to work around them, but that it is still stupid slow. The way ION engines work you wouldn't have to have them larger to be necessarily, its also a question of how fast the particles are propelled out.

Anyway - talking on the forums yay.

[Vanger Chevane]

Repulsors could also be used in space for collision avoidance...unless it has the kinetic energy of a crashing SSD.

I agree there's really no way a DS should or will ever go into atmo unless it's already crashing.

[Grimace]

The only atmosphere the Death Star should ever fly through is the rapidly escaping atmosphere from a planet that has just been blown to bits by the superlaser on the Death Star.