STAR WARS
Novel References


Tyrant's Test

PAGE QUOTATION COMMENTS
13

"... Tell me if I'm wrong, but I don't think an Interdictor could cross ninety-one light years in four hours — not on its best day."

Typical hyperdrive performance of an Interdictor, assuming the quality of jump calculations available in the vicinity of the Koornacht Cluster.

21

"How long did you serve with him?" Han asked.
"Four months — nineteen jumps altogether."

Typical frequency of hyperspace jumps for a New Republic Navy fleet during peacetime.

23

The Beruss clan estate in Imperial City was almost large enough to be a city in its own right. Within Exmoor's walls were two parks, one forest, one meadow; a small lake stocked with game fish from Illodia and plied by graceful wind-driven boats; and twenty-one structures, including the hundred-metre-tall Illodia Tower with its external spiral staircase.

Located more than three hundred kilometres south-west of the Palace, the estate was a testament to the long tenure of the Beruss clan on Coruscant. ...

Exmoor, the clan estate of Senator Doman Beruss from Illodia. Includes hundred-floor Illodia Tower, other buildings, gardens. Other refernces state that Monument Plaza is the only point where citizens of Coruscant can touch the native rock of their planet. Therefore the grounds of Exmoor must themselves be a mere rooftop garden, albiet one built on a grand scale.

31-33

Chewbacca's cousin Jowdrrl demonstrates the modifications she has made to the Millenium Falcon.

39

dielectric ribbon

41

photonic J + C

45

Lady Luck is equipped with a hypercomm. This is very interesting, considering the assertion in most RPG references that hyperwave communications are immensely energy-consuming and only capable of installation on large warships or fixed facilities.

50

optical

58-59

"Oh, I'm sure whoever signed off on the consolidation plan was sincere," said Carson. "Generals are C-one, admirals are C-one — so it's the grade that matters, not the rank, right? But old prejudices die slowly — to say nothing of old rivalries."

Discussion of the status of General and Admiral titles in the armed forces of the New Republic. Equivalence of ranks across services. Retention of Dornean Navy ranks after integration into New Republic Navy.

62

"...Based on a complete analysis of our contacts with the Yevetha, we are currently estimating their fleet strength at no fewer than ninety-three capital ships, of which at least twenty-nine are Imperial-design vessels and the balance are Fat Men.
"There are at least nineteen occupied and defended worlds, and there may be twenty — Doornik Two-oh-seven hasn't been reconned yet. Eight are defended by a mixed fleet, and we're considering that an indicator that the Yevetha consider those principal targets. Five are League members, and three are former colonies. The other eleven targets are defended by Fat Men only.
"It is possible that the Yevetha have additional vessels cached elsewhere — we hope to start reducing that uncertainty by expanding our surveys of the Cluster. ..."

Composition and deployment of the Yevethan fleet. The Yevethan fleet consists of at least 93 capital ships, including 29 Imperial-design ships.

63

The typical composition of a twenty-one vessel task force included a Star Destroyer or fleet carrier as flagship, two heavy cruisers and two assault carriers, four escort frigates, and five gunships — a fast, flexible, and formidable aggregation of firepower.

Composition of the New Republic task force. Curiously, this seems to imply that cruisers are less significant than destroyers.

64-65

Luke awoke in Mud Sloth's sleeper with an unaccustomed warmth beside him and an unaccustomed memory hovering close to his thoughts. He stirred, and Akanah melded her body against his again, skin touching skin and coaxing slumbering senses to awaken.

He did not know how to talk about what had passed between them, or what might come of it, but she did not ask that of him. She allowed him to stay in the restful comfort of the circle of their mutual embrace, making no demands, expecting no explanations. He'd returned that courtesy in kind.

It had been much the same the night before. Loneliness, grief, compassion, and a previously undiscovered hunger for a touch that felt like acceptance had brought them to the brink. But by silent mutual consent, something had been held back. Neither of them had asked for or offered their deepest intimacies. And, unpressured, each had allowed the other to enjoy the novelty of not being alone.

Luke Skywalker awakes in peculiar circumstances aboard the Mudsloth. Despite his condition, his heroic chastity seems undamaged.

68

"... I never defeated my father. The deepest cut I ever gave him was in refusing to join him." Luke lay back on the sleeper and looked up at the stars. "I think the next deepest cut was when I forgave him."

Luke Skywalker reflects on the conflict with his father.

73

Leia had one last visitor from the ranks of the Ruling Council before the day was out. Dall Thara Dru — the senator from Raxxa, chairman of the Senate Commerce Council, and the only female among the seven — had had nothing to say at the last meeting.

There is only one female in the Ruling Council of the New Republic Senate at the time of the Koornacht Cluster crisis.

81

Utharis

91

"Our claim to these stars is not a shallow thing of greed, or politics, or ambition. It is not a claim we would ever surrender. We are not like the weaklings you are accustomed to, calculating when to pursue an advantage and when to retreat, believing only in the expediencies of the moment.
...
Your wars are decided by the death of a tenth of a population, a third of an army. Then the defeated surrender their honour and the victors surrender their advantage. This is called being civilised. The Yevetha are not civilised, General. It would be a mistake to deal with us as though we were."

Nil Spaar contrasts Yevetha with humans.

97

hyperspace - soliton wave

102

hyperspace - entry growl

108

At three hundred metres, it became clear that Anomaly 2249 was not the Teljkon vagabond or any part of it. The work floods illuminated a metal mesh cylinder some sixty metres long, capped by solid metal spheres fifteen metres across and studded with circular metal fittings. It was slowly turning end over end, rotating around a slightly eccentric centre of gravity.

Anomaly 2249

109

hyperspace in one minute; 9 hour jump

117

10" stars

120

hyperspace - tracking a ship

139

From the moment Han knew where he was bound, he had been picturing himself alone in one of the tiny isolation cells of a standard Imperial detention block. A Super-class Star Destroyer had six such detention blocks for crew discipline alone, and ten additional high-security blocks for enemy prisoners.
But to Han's surprise, his four-guard escort led him to a different part of the ship, and a different sort of prison. Three of the ship's cargo areas had been designed for the secure transport of large numbers of slaves, refugees or prisoners of war. Located adjacent to the large landing bays used by the SSD's bulk shuttles, each of the holding areas was equipped with minimal facilities — water taps, ventilation, and food dispensers — considered adequate for up to a thousand people.

Distribution and character of SSD security blocks and holding areas.

139

"What world are you from?" asked a young woman in a brown fire-scorched caftan. She was either human or Andalese — her tousled hair might have concealed the latter's horn points, and the caftan was shapeless enough to hide the symbiosis grafts.
"Coruscant," said Han. "And you?"
"I was at the Morath pholikite mine number four, on Elcorth."
The others began to crowd closer around him as they recited their own answers.
"Taratan, of the Kubaz, nested at Morning Bell—"
"I am Brakka Barakas, dothmir of New Brigia—"

aliens - Andalese.
New Brigia: planet in the Koornacht Cluster named in reference to Brigia in the Tion Hegemony, first seen in Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. It seems likely that this world is a colony of the old Brigia.

143

In the end, it came down to an old friend or a young idealist, and Drayson settled on the latter.
"Open message to The Life Monitor, blind and secure," he said. "Personal to Cindel Towani. This is your shopping service. I want to alert you to a special offer, limited availability, your signature required. . . ."

Cindel Towani is also the name of the human child appearing in the Ewok films.

147

With a single quick stride, Leia closed the distance between them. "You took my husband away from me," she said, and dropped int oa Jedi fighting stance.
"Princess, surely—"
It took only one blow to silence him, one more to bring him to his knees, and one last to send him sprawling, unconscious. Releasing her breath in a satisfied sigh, Leia stood straight and looked to a startled Tarrick.

Is the Princess turning to the Dark Side? She attacks and injures a weak and defenceless man in vengeful, irrational malice.

150-151

"Interesting device," said Rieekan. "Not quite entirely black, but close. We took it into the cold room and opened it in the dark, under vacuum. Good thing we did. The power supply is wired with an oxidation fuse, set to go critical if the box is opened. The yield would probably be about equal to a proton grenade. We took holos and closed it up again, very carefully.
"Then we put it on a dummy transceiver rig, connected the way Ourn showed us. The dummy rig looks like a real transceiver to the device but has only one ten-millionth of the output power needed to actually open a hypercomm channel — just enough for us to record the signal for analysis.
"I just got an update on that before I came in," Rieekan said, looking down at his datapad. "Apparently the box uses a burst-compression algorithm that we haven't quite deciphered yet to hide the signal in the noise. Very efficient." He looked up at Leia. "And distinctively Imperial, according to my senior engineer. Probably hatched right here on Coruscant, back in the days of Section Nineteen and Warthan's wizards."

Warthan's wizards = elite technologists of the Galactic Empire, based on Coruscant.
Hypercomm box.

153

They met in the upper command lounge, a large semicircular compartment high on the forward face of the command tower. The command lounge's double-shielded viewplanes provided a spectacular view of the Star Destroyer's broad eight-kilometre-long spear-point hull.

SSD command lounge, located in command tower.
Reiterates the five-mile fallacy. A Super Star Destroyer is actually somewhat more than twice the length stated here.

156-157

With more than fifty connected structures and twenty thousand rooms and chambers, the great size and complexity of the Imperial Palace had inspired many stories.
It was said that near the end of construction, eight workers were lost for nearly a month when their comtracker failed. Rumours persisted about a chamber with no doors, sections with a hundred or more rooms that had never been occupied, and the hidden treasure compartment of "the pirate general," Toleph-Sor.
There were at least eleven offices and nine other rooms with their own true stories of murder, plus the grisly tale of Frona Zeffla, who died at her desk and went undiscovered for a year. Longtime staffers recalled how the children of Palpatine's aides, given free rein to roam at will, played three-day-long games of "Hunter" in the lifts and corridors.
Though much of the old palace had been damaged or destroyed by the clone Emperor's Force Storm, what survived or had been rebuilt was still easily large enough to either hide or get lost in.

The scale of the Imperial Palace is described. It has over 20,000 rooms.

159,162

Standing beside him was a human wearing the black uniform of an Imperial Moff
...
":...General Rieekan, what kind of proof could you offer to refute that image — a black-shirt commander standing with Nil Spaar on an Imperial Star Destroyer?"

A Moff may have a black uniform, a situation not seen in the films. This has implications for the generality of the black officer uniform. In A New Hope only low or mid-ranking officers were seen clad in black. This passage from Tyrant's Test confirms that there potentially exist officers in black up to the highest levels. This supports my theory, stated elsewhere, that the black-clothed officers are a branch of the military apart from the regular Army and Navy (olive dress). This man is probably supposed to be someone who has risen to Moff status through stormtrooper service. In any case, Nanaod Engh's words suggest that "black-shirt" officers have a distinctively fearsome reputation.

164

aliens - Yao

168

Codes to warship shields etc.

173

hyperspace - twists realspace?

176

hyperspace jump, beckon call

177

Wreck of Gorath is Strike-class ship.

179

At their present distance, the transit lag for a round trip to Coruscant should be something more than forty minutes.

Transit lag for transmission to Coruscant is 40 minutes.

180

Strike-class ship is 450m long.

181

Strike-class ship has 258 compartments.

182

"It is my belief that the most probably scenario to explain our findings ..."

Error of grammar or spell check. Should change "probably" to "probable".

182

"Or she may have tried to jump out and broken up in the process, in which case there might be very little debris to find," said Taisden.

Destruction of ship whilst jumping to hyperspace leaves little debris. The quote does not indicate whether the material is simply spread over enormous distances (because of the high velocities involved in the jump process) or whether some of the material is annihilated or actually ceases to exist. More probably (considering later comments on hyperphysics by Sil Sorannan) the material enters hyperspace and remains in hyperspace forever.

183

"cruiser"

184

Adz-class patrol destroyer is detected by sensors at 900,000km.

185

Adz-class patrol destroyer identified.

186

speed .55
6 starfighters

187

"Someone on Tobay forgot that TIEs have solar-electric ion boost engines. Not much for them to eat. They won't catch us. Somebody else has figured that out, too — Tobay is accelerating now. "

Refers to colloquial myth that TIE starfighters are solar-powered.

188

hyperspace beacon

193

... three New Republic warships made their entry into star system ILC-905 in the formation known as triangle-high forward.
On the point, a hundred kilometres ahead of the others, was the picket Folna, with all its sensitive antennae passively scanning in all directions to the limit of their range. Trailing in the flank position was another vessel of the same size, the gunship Vanguard. In the anchor position, flying parallel to Vanguard, was the command vessel for the patrol group — the cruiser Indomitable, under Commodore Brand.
...
In addition, three of Indomitable's five squadrons, including Red Flight's K-wing bombers, were fully armed and lined up for deployment, with their pilots standing by.

Describes naval formation triangle-high forward.
The cruiser Indomitable carries five squadrons of starfighters, comparable to the complement of an Imperial star destroyer. A star destroyer named Indomitable was constructed in the Kuat system sometime between the Battle of Hoth and the death of Palpatine. (Slaying Dragons, Angela Phillips, in STAR WARS Adventure Journal volume 1 issue 9.)

194

Or if Brand didn't like the odds, a word from him — and ninety seconds to spin up the hyperdrives — would have all three ships wheeling about and jumping out to safety.

90s spin-up hyperdrives

194

Even with the best possible instruments, an Imperial-class Star Destroyer was undetectable against the background of a first-magnitude star at a range of only six thousand kilometres. A ship the size of Vanguard could creep within three hundred klicks without being spotted. Any inattention, any errors of assessment, any deficiencies in the systems, and those margins would narrow still further.
active sensing — a laser pulse, a radar ping — could remove that vulnerability, separating a nearby ship from a distant star. But active sensing created a vulnerability of its own, announcing their presence like a shout in the night.

ISD indetectible against star background
- implies angular resolution of sensors in this mode.
- size comparison: Vanguard : ISD
- passive/active sensor modes.

194-195

aliens - Hrasskis

196

... all the ships destroyed during the mass recon of the cluster were making constant-velocity pases through their target systems:
This suggests that the Yevethan sensor grids are capable of detecting even very small vessels when they are following a flight profile requiring the use of braking and maneuvering thrusters —

Limitations of Yevethan sensors.

196

as the patrol group left the fifth planet behind, Brand left the bridge for a quick, unannounced tour of Indomitable's ready stations.
By that time, the crew had been standing at conflict-yellow alert for fourteen hours straight, and the fine edge of their vigilance had been blunted by fatigue and boredom.

14 hour sublight travel from planet 12 to planet 5.

197

asteroids;
Cronau radiation - hyperspace travel

198-199

By that time the patrol group had closed to within half a million kilometres, bringing the planet within range of its full array of sensors.

all sensor systems have range equal to or greater than 0.5Gm = 5x10^8m;

199

Indomitable's first officer, Captain Tobbra ... was keenly aware that but for a few months' seniority, the flag chair might have been his instead.

Commodore ranks higher than but comparable to Captain; implies few intermediate ranks.

203

Brand watched from the bridge as they moved out to their positions twenty kilometres ahead. Though the wings and other surfaces had been darkened for space operations, their engine exhausts glowed like candles in the night. The triple exhausts of the K-wings stood out among them.

K-Wing starfighters have triple exhausts. This is an important structural detail which any illustrations should obey.

210

The 190-metre gunship was among the most agile of the New Republic capital vessels, but it could not come close to matching the acceleration of the enemy missiles.

Gunships of Vanguard's type are 190m in length.

212-213

"What's the standard radius of an Imperial particle shield?"
"Two hundred metres."
"What's the diameter of a Fat Man?"
"Two hundred forty metres."
"So the one that's docked — it's not fully enclosed by the yard's shields."
"So what? It has its own shields. Which are sure to be back up by now, even if it did have them down for unloading."
"Exactly. Which means that there should be an interference zone between the two shield boundaries," said Brand. "If we can wedge something in there—"
"Then the shields will concentrate and focus the blast, multiplying the effective yield."

Existence and behavior of interference zones between particle shields. This reference implies that particle shields have a finite extent and distinct edge.

223

Fallanassi vanishing trick.

239

"... a conscience at peace is worth a thousand tainted victories."

Mon Mothma's advice to Princess Leia.

242

"As provided for under the Senate rules of order, and in respect of the provisions of Article Five of the Common Charter, I yield the gavel to the President of the Senate, Leia Organa Solo, hereditary Princess of House Organa of Alderaan and elect senator of the restored Republic of Alderaan. "

The formal status and titles of Princess Leia. Reference to "Republic of Alderaan" is interesting because the local government of the Alderaan system is a democratic constitutional monarchy, not a republic. It seems most probable that "Republic of Alderaan" is a larger political body with its capital at the Alderaan system. Perhaps it refers to Alderaan's entire sector, with representation in the Galactic Senate being sector-based rather than planet-based.

262

Details of Qella nucleotides and Eicroth bodies.

266

Given an unobstructed view and the eight-kilometre length of the Yevethan flagship, the oversized and exceptionally sensitive sensor dish atop the Millenium Falcon had no difficulty picking out Pride of Yevetha from among the many ships orbiting N'zoth.

Reiterates the five-mile fallacy of SSD length.

267

But fixing the orbit of the flagship with enough precision to jump within a thousand metres of it required more than a single snapshot. Chewbacca neede to know not only the porbital tracks of any ships near it or en route to it. The task was complicated by the distances involved — when looking at the tracking data, Chewbacca was looking several minutes into the past. He could only guess about the present and the future, and a wrong guess would mean failure — even sudden death.

Microjump through hyperspace over distances less than sensor range. The distance is several light-minutes. This may be the shortest known microjump in all of the novels.

267

Meanwhile, Shoran and Dryanta were checking the equipment that had been mounted in place of the escape pods at Esau's Ridge.
The starboard pod had been replaced by a mine launcher loaded with six firecracker mines. The portside pod had been replaced by a hull-cutting ring, a traditional tool of both priates and police.

Refers to port and starboard escape pods on the Millenium Falcon.

268

What he saw was a Fleet Intelligence assault plan for a Super Star Destroyer — a complete three-dimensional technical drawing of the ship with the location of the cell blocks marked, the best breaching sites highlighted, and the shortest paths between them drawn in.

Technical plans for SSD.

271

The nitrogen overpressure pumped into the space between the two ships before the final burn-through caused the metal disc cut from Pride of Yevetha's hull to blow back into the enemy ship as a spectacular half-ton projectile.

Indicates the approximate thickness of the SSD hull at Chewbacca's chosen breach point.

276

The waist-high curved panels contained both ray-shield generators and energy absorbers, and the Yevetha had nothing to fear from hand blasters so long as they stayed behind the arc of the shields.

Existence of portable personal shields.

287

One after another, the great ships emerged out of the centre of overlapping white flashes of radiation, like new stars winking on in the night.

Radiation flashes associated with return from hyperspace. Cronau radition.

287-288

Cruisers and attack carriers, Star Destroyers and gunships, all quickly closed the distance to the rover, roaring by overhead in a spectacular display.

This indicates the conventional order of naval ship designations, without the peculiar inversion of destroyer and cruiser designations implied by some other STAR WARS references.

294

"There is a moment coming," Major Sil Sorannan had told his secret command, "a moment of opportunity that will neve be repeated in our lifetimes. If we are not ready when that moment comes, we will all die on Pa'aal."

Major Sil Sorannan is introduced as the leader of the Yevethans' Imperial prisoners of war.

303-304

Undetectable in hyperspace, a stasis probe would drop into realspace only long enough to take a sensor snapshot, transmit the data to its controller, and receive the interval instruction for its next appearance — altogether, a matter of no more than twenty seconds. Only passive sensors were used. Stealthiness was essential to the probes' survival.
Ordinarily the more severe challenge to stealthiness was the Cronau radiation from the entrie and exits. But with the probes' zero space velocity, the Cronau radiation collapsed into a narrow wave cone, which was directed away from enemy sensors.

Describes the function and operation of stasis probes; their entry and exit from hyperspace. Cronau radiation.

308

It was from that room that Pride of Yevetha's individual batteries would be assigned targets. Those decisions were in the hands of the three Yevethan officers seated at the consoles in the pit. Sorannan's responsibility ended at maintaining the data server for the target registry and its electronic links throughout the ship.
Still, he studied the holographic image-map with as much intent devotion as did the fire control proctors.

Major Sorannan is stationed in fire control centre of Pride of Yevetha. This room seems similar to the main SSD bridge known in the original movies.

313

Autopilots calculated jump vectors, and hyperdrive motivators called on the immense power of solar ionisation reactors. Space trembled, twisted and yawned open around the accelerating warships.
Moments later, Black Sword Command's withdrawl from Koornacht Cluster was finally complete.

Black Sword Command exits to hyperspace.

316

But it was a wart of attrition, with nearly as many losses as there were victories — Thunderhead. Aboukir. Fulminant. Werra. Garland. Banshee.
Nor were all of the losses among the smaller vessels. Commodore Farley Carson's Yakez was caught between two thrustships and broken into in two by the detonation of its forward magazine after its bow shields collapsed. The fleet carrier Ballarat took a brace of Yevethan missiles just forward of the number four flight deck, and the chain of explosions that followed hurled three squadrons of shattered E- and X-wimgs out into space.

Names of some important New Republic ships involved in the Battle of N'Zoth.

320-321

"so here's something you should know about me. Before I joined Black Sword Command, I was detailed to the Research Section as a pilot for the experimental hyperphysics team. We were trying to learn how to drop bombs from hyperspace. We never learned how. "
Sorannan crouched by Nil Spaar's head, and his voice grew soft. "You see, it turns out that no matter which way you go through the magic door, you need a hyperdrive to open the door. None of the wreckage ever appeared again in realspace."
...
"It's really too bad the project didn't work out," Sorannan said, stepping back while Gar and another witness dragged Nil Spaar to his feet. "Because it turns out to be very easy to release an object in hyperspace. One good shove will do it — like the ejection charge of an escape pod, for example."
...
"I don't know how long you will survive there," he said. "I do know that you will die there."

Sorannan explains some hyperphysics, the ejection of free objects from a ship while in hyperspace.

327

"... the ship's right at the edge — at least as far as opening a big enough hyperspace portal, and opening it fast enough to minimise the stresses. It's a matter of being able to focus enough energy in a small enough space in a short enough time. And one of these days, it's not going to be able to do it — and either the middle of the ship will jump out and leave the rest behind, or the portal will snap back and crush it."

Calrissian describes the process of reentry from hyperspace in terms of a "hyperspace portal".

340

He paused as though listening, then added, "Don't bother with a cruiser — send a Star Destroyer, or two. We're going to need a heavyweight to stop her."

Reverts to the common error regarding relative power of a destroyer and cruiser.

359

"Check me if I've missed something, Doctor, but Maltha Obex has no moons."
Eckels nodded. "But Qella did. Unremarkable moons — nothing to inspire a grand mythology. At least until one of them fell from the sky."
"The ice age is the result of a moonstrike," Luke said, his expression gravely thoughtful.
"Yes, it would appear so," said Eckels. "The smaller moon was a capture moon, with an irregular orbit. working backward from Artoo's recordings, we found that the gravity of the larger moon disturbed the capture moon into a decaying orbit — a hundred years, in round numbers, before the fall."
... said Eckels. "Judging from what I saw, they did not have the means to destroy or repulse a moon — even the small moon of Maltha Obex dwarfed this vessel and its power. ..."

Moonstrike at Qella causes global ice age and extinction of all indigenous life. Dr Eckels and Luke Skywalker discuss the limits of Qella technology.

364

Epilogue: Coruscant, Eight Days Later

Travel time from Maltha Obex to Coruscant is less than eight days.


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