Analyzing "Dark Lord - The Rise of Vader"

[l33telboi]

So I decided to pick up another SW EU novel for analysis. I've seen this one crop up in a few debates so it should make for an interesting analysis. People also seem to say it's a somewhat good novel, which would be a welcome change after reading a few novels from the Jedi Apprentice series.

Like before I will be picking out interesting quotes when it comes to quantifying tactics, strategies, firepower - basically everything and anything that could impact a versus debate in any fashion at all. And if I'm able, I'll perform whatever calculations are needed to quantify the incident being quoted. Though anyone reading this is of course welcome to give their own input on the matter, and doubtlessly there will be more then just a few things I can't quantify myself.

In any case, let's get on with it.

Chapter 1

Well, we're off to a good start and there’s already a ton of things that should be quoted. Chapter 1 is basically about a Jedi called Shryne and his assault on CIS controlled planet called Murkhana.

Dropping into swirling clouds conjured by Murkhana's weather stations, Roan Shryne was reminded of meditation sessions his former Master had guided him through. No matter how fixed Shryne had been on touching the Force, his mind's eye had offered little more than an eddying whiteness.

The CIS seems to be using local weather stations to make a planetary landing by gunships harder. The revelation that there are stations that can control the weather might also be worth noting, though it's not exactly important.

He was standing closest to the sliding door that normally sealed the troop bay of a Republic gunship, launched moments earlier from the forward hold of the Gallant-a Victory-class Star Destroyer, harried by vulture and droid tri-fighters and awaiting High Command's word to commence its own descent through Murkhana's artificial ceiling. Beside and behind Shryne stood a platoon of clone troopers, helmets fitting snugly over their heads, blasters cradled in their arms, utility belts slung with ammo magazines, talking among themselves the way seasoned warriors often did before battle.

This is quoted just to elaborate a little on how a planetary invasion (and defense) is conducted. Capital ships arrive in orbit (though at this point there seems to just be one of them), then sends down gunships to prepare the way for the Capital ship to actually land on the surface.

Seems odd to me that they would actually want to land something like a Victory-class Stardestroyer. What's the purpose of doing that? It's in-line with the movies where they land everything from Venators to Acclamators, of course. Still I'm somewhat miffed by why this is done. To unload large quantities of troops faster?

And I didn’t know that Victory-class stardestroyers were in service at the time of the clone wars.

Also notice that apparently an entire platoon of clone troopers is able to fit inside a gunship. The ICS seems to state that 30 soldiers constitute a platoon, so that fits with what modern armies use today. Of course the movies, as far as I remember, never had that amount of soldiers carried by the gunships.

What I also found funny was that fighters were able to harass a capital ship. The shields of something like that should be far above what the fighters should be able to penetrate. Though that statement is so vague that it’s not really worth pondering that much.

The gunship's inertial compensators allowed them to stand in the bay without being jolted by flaring anti-aircraft explosions or jostled by the gunship pilots' evasive maneuvering through corkscrewing missiles and storms of white-hot shrapnel. Missiles, because the same Separatists who had manufactured the clouds had misted Murkhana's air with anti-laser aerosols.

The CIS uses AA missiles to try to take down the Republic gunships, because there's some form of anti-laser aerosol in the atmosphere.

That's... odd. I don't think I've ever heard of anything like this before. And it definitely raises some questions when it comes to the nature of laser weaponry in Star Wars.

Shryne felt that the clone troopers had a better view of the war than he had, and that the view had little to do with their helmet imaging systems, the filters that muted the sharp scent of the air, the earphones that dampened the sounds of explosions.

Some information on the systems installed in the later models of clone trooper armor. Imaging systems (though what kind of imaging systems is so far not elaborated upon), air filters and earphones to dampen sound.

Grown for warfare, they probably thought the Jedi were mad to go into battle as they did, attired in tunics and hooded robes, a lightsaber their only weapon.

The bulk of the Jedi seem to still wander into war without armor or ranged weaponry. No surprise there, I guess. It's pretty much what we saw in ROTS. But some do argue that the majority of the Jedi have been wearing armor and blasters by the end of the war, so I guess it's worth quoting and acknowledging.

"The Koorivar have done a good job with their weather machines," a speaker-enhanced voice said into his left ear. "Whipped up one brute of a sky. We used the same tactic on Paarin Minor. Drew the Seps into fabricated clouds and blew them to the back of beyond."

Some elaboration on the tactic of using weather machines against aerial threats. Apparently it's something that's been used before.

From the nose of one gunship flew a bang-out capsule that carried the pilot and copilot to within meters of the water before it was ripped open by a resolute heat seeker.

The gunships are designed to eject the pilots in case the gunships are hit. And the CIS AA missiles are heat-seekers.

In one of the fifty-odd gunships that were racing down the well, three other Jedi were going into battle, Master Saras Loorne among them. Stretching out with the Force, Shryne found them, faint echoes confirming that all three were still alive.

Ah, numbers. Some 50 gunships being sent down, if they’re holding the maximum stated number of clones (according to the ICS, in any case) we’d be talking about around 1,500 soldiers in total.

Seems odd that this many Jedi would be accompanying such a small force of clone troopers though.

He clamped his right hand on one of the slide door's view slots as the pilots threw their unwieldy charge into a hard bank, narrowly evading a pair of hailfire missiles. Gunners ensconced in the gunship's armature-mounted turrets opened up with blasters as flights of Mankvim Interceptors swarmed up to engage the Republic force. The anti-laser aerosols scattered the blaster beams, but dozens of the Separatist craft succumbed to missiles spewed from the gunships' top-mounted mass-drive launchers.

The CIS further deploy Mankwim fighters (I have no idea what these are, presumably some local sort of fighter) to fend off the Gunships.

There's also some elaboration on just what the anti-laser aerosols do, apparently they scatter the blaster beams, I'm assuming this refers to the ball turrets that fired the green beams in the movies. Though I think it's safe to say it also scatters the normal kind of blaster bolts.

An interesting way to cripple an incoming attack-force. Though the guships compensate by using their own missiles to take down the incoming fighters. Also interesting to note that they are apparently fired by mass-drivers.

"High Command should have granted our request to bombard from orbit," Salvo said in an amplified voice.

"The idea is to take the city, Commander, not vaporize it," Shryne said loudly. Murkhana had already been granted weeks to surrender, but the Republic ultimatum had expired. "Palpatine's policy for winning the hearts and minds of Separatist populations might not make good military sense, but it makes good political sense."

Ah, something which you can use to gauge capital ship firepower with. A bombardment is, according to Shryne, capable of vaporizing an entire city. Though the duration of this bombardment isn't elaborated upon. I believe something similar was said in the ROTS novelization, though I’m not sure on that point.

In any case, modern city-killers are in the high triple-digit kiloton or single digit megaton range. So that can be used as a minimum when it comes to the total energy delivered to the city during such a bombardment. Of course, when he says vaporize, he could mean a whole lot more.

[Praeothmin]

Or it could be taken a Hyperbole, like Harry Kim's comments that an 80 Isoton torpedo was sufficient to vaporise a small moon...

The word vaporize is used a lot in SF, and it cannot always be taken literarily...

[l33telboi]

Or it could be taken a Hyperbole, like Harry Kim's comments that an 80 Isoton torpedo was sufficient to vaporise a small moon...

The word vaporize is used a lot in SF, and it cannot always be taken literarily...

Very possible. In fact, I would find it strange that someone should say 'vaporize the city' instead of something like, 'level half the continent' or something like that, given the firepower something like that would entitle.

This is also why I used the triple-digit kiloton or single-digit megaton firepower estimate.

Nevertheless, all the possibilities must be considered. Perhaps the rest of the novel elaborates on the issue. I can already now say that in the next chapter they’re thinking of using the vessel in orbit to destroy a building… which something like the megaton point-defense lasers on the vessel would be overkill for.

[Flectarn]

It does say alot about their ability to conduct precision strikes on ground targets from orbit though.

granted you can't exactly hold an area from the sky, but you can do alot to eliminate how much resistance it can muster when you put boots on the ground.

[Mike DiCenso]

[quote=""Dark Lord - The Rise of Vader"]
"High Command should have granted our request to bombard from orbit," Salvo said in an amplified voice.

"The idea is to take the city, Commander, not vaporize it," Shryne said loudly. Murkhana had already been granted weeks to surrender, but the Republic ultimatum had expired. "Palpatine's policy for winning the hearts and minds of Separatist populations might not make good military sense, but it makes good political sense."

[/quote]

Ah, something which you can use to gauge capital ship firepower with. A bombardment is, according to Shryne, capable of vaporizing an entire city. Though the duration of this bombardment isn't elaborated upon. I believe something similar was said in the ROTS novelization, though I’m not sure on that point.

In any case, modern city-killers are in the high triple-digit kiloton or single digit megaton range. So that can be used as a minimum when it comes to the total energy delivered to the city during such a bombardment. Of course, when he says vaporize, he could mean a whole lot more.

Here's the RoTS quote:

"The nightside sky is an infinite lattice of shining hairlines that interlock planetoids [...] The shining hairlines are light-scatter from turbolaser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town. The planetoids are capital ships."

It's to vaporize a small town, not a city. The issue becomes whatever you define a "small town" as in the SW universe. Certain folks seem to think that a small SW town is bigger than a modern real-world metropolis, even though we clearly have seen much smaller.

Does the TRoV novel give any particulars on this city? How big is it? What is it's population, ect?

Oh, a request: I know you're doing this in the chronological order of the chapters, but when I read this book a long while back, I recall towards the end of the book there is a meeting between Mon Motha and Bail Organa talking about an unsual and large shift in the Imperial Navy budget (obviously the Death Star project), which they are now going to try to direct their spies' efforts on. If possible, could you please post that quote?
-Mike

[Narsil]

Mos Eisley was never referred to, I think, as a small town. It wasn't even referred to as a village; it was referred to as a spaceport. Which puts me in the mind of what is essentially the literal 'pit stop in the middle of Nowhere, USA' archetype. Effectively your average restaurant, pub, and general petrol station.

It doesn't seem to fit the archetype of a town or city at all. And it's on the backwater, outer-rim planet in a whole galaxy of others.

And then you get the ecumenopolis type planets like Coruscant, Trantor, Nar Shaddaa and a few others, and you have to deduce that a Star Wars small town may well be much, much bigger than Mos Eisley.

Just my interpretation.

[l33telboi]

Nar Shadda isn't as highly urbanized as Coruscant. We see this in Force Unleashed when Starkiller jumps out of the falling tower.

The link on Trantor doesn't say much, btw.

As for the bombardment, they never shot the building, but they did bombard the Wookie homeworld for a prolonged period of time. Not exactly what you'd expect from about 10 dino-killer asteroids being thrown on a planet per second per ship.

Speaking of which, "vaporizing a small town" is still waaaay to little considering a ISD is supposed to be able to channel more then a petaton per second to weapons.

[Flectarn]

Which puts me in the mind of what is essentially the literal 'pit stop in the middle of Nowhere, USA' archetype. Effectively your average restaurant, pub, and general petrol station.

I think it's worth noting that most towns like that do have a larger component a bit further away from the interstate.

[Mike DiCenso]

Mos Eisley was never referred to, I think, as a small town. It wasn't even referred to as a village; it was referred to as a spaceport.

This is incorrect. On page 90 of the ANH novelization, Mos Eisley is referred to as a town. The following quote establishes that firmly:

"Unlike Anchorhead, there were enough people n Mos Eisley to require movement in the head to the day. Built from the beginning with commerce in mind, even the oldest of the town's buildings had been designed to provide protection from the twin suns. But often-times walls and arches of old stone masked durasteel double walls with circulating coolant flowing freely between."

So not only is Mos Eisley qualified as a town, but it is also given a fair amount of sophistication despite it's outward primitive appearance. We might presume that Mos Espa is similar in this regard.

Which puts me in the mind of what is essentially the literal 'pit stop in the middle of Nowhere, USA' archetype. Effectively your average restaurant, pub, and general petrol station.

No, this is something much more, and even podunk places like what you describe are not sometimes without a hidden, larger component to them, though in this case it is indeed much closer to the small town in the USA and in some other countries that are more than mere "pit stops", but modest communities in their own right.
-Mike