Fuel Shortages In Star Wars = Death Stars?

[Lucky]

1) The Trade Federation invaded Naboo as a protest over money issues, but the source of those money issues is unknown. It at first appears that they are just greedy idiots, but what if there is a real problem?

2) A major planet like Ryloth lacked the resources to fuel the Clone army's equipment.

3) A single planet, Malastare was of vital importance for fuel to wage the Clone Wars implying that starship fuel is seemingly rare or expensive to produce artfully.

4) During the waning days of the Clone Wars we see a sudden emergence of solar powered vehicles that like the Republic Police Gunship, T.I.E. Fighter Series, and even large warships like the Raider-class corvette

5) The Death Stars, single ships worth half the fleet have special "Hyper Matter" reactors.

6) In Episode 4, Luke talks about how he could purchase a ship of his own for the price Han Solo is asking for the charter. It sounds like Han is over charging, but what if fuel and up-keep really is that high for ships?

All this combines to paint a rather odd picture of a an interplanetary civilization that is suddenly running out of fuel for some reason. It sounds strange and impossible for a civilization that has mature fusion technology, but it seems to be the only thing that fits the facts to me.

It really seems odd to me. Am I seeing things that aren't there?

[Darth Spock]

Hm, interesting idea, and there were shortages noted during the Clone Wars, but I think these were mostly caused by distribution and economic problems rather than physical shortages.
In CW S:3E:11 Pursuit of Peace, Amidala's aide, Teckla, is showcased before the senate as an example of what the war is doing to its population. There is mention that the district she lives in rarely has electricity, but this is right on the heels of the power plant on Coruscant being destroyed. We are told too, that they often have no running water, and that education, infrastructure, and health care are suffering. It sounds more like the war machine is consuming the economic and distribution resources that had previously only served the civilian population, not to mention what hand the CIS and Trade Federation may have had in disrupting the flow of goods.

1) The Trade Federation invaded Naboo as a protest over money issues, but the source of those money issues is unknown. It at first appears that they are just greedy idiots, but what if there is a real problem?

I've wonder what specific circumstances lead up to that blockade myself. I can see they couldn't exactly introduce the "heroes" as being deadbeat debtors, even if the Trade Federation is unreasonable and manipulating the situation. Still, in CW S:3E:4 Sphere of Influence, the planet of Pantora is similarly blockaded, and the reason given is debt.

Given that TPM tells us repeatedly that trade route taxation was at the root of the problem, I'd guess that the Trade Federation was deferring these costs to their customers, in this case, Naboo probably couldn't keep up with the rate hike. Besides conveniently being the home world of Palpatine, it seems to be an established and economically active member of the Republic, yet remotely located and militarily weak, thus making a good choice for the Trade Federation to use strong-arm tactics against in order to "demonstrate" the negative effects of the new taxes.

In short, if you don't maintain your own shipping fleet, and you sign on with the Trade Federation, fall behind in your payments and they'll forcibly make sure you don't use alternate, unsanctioned shippers.

2) A major planet like Ryloth lacked the resources to fuel the Clone army's equipment.

The remaining Republic troops and native Twi'lek guerrillas lacked the resources to fuel the Clone army's equipment, which includes ordinance. They were also short food and water. In short, this was what was left of a Clone force sent to assist the citizens of Ryloth, which it would seem had already fallen to the CIS, meaning the enemy likely controled whatever industry was considered important on the planet.

On an aside, this same episode told us that the range of the Republic's blockade runners was a problem in delivering supplies. This gives indication that fuel is not necessarily scarce, but that hyperspace travel at least, requires a considerable volume of fuel, and that ships need to refuel on a regular basis. CW S:4E16 Friends and Enemies gives credence to this, showing that civilian filling stations seem to be sprinkled across the galaxy. This is assuming of course, they are all running on the same basic type of fuel.

3) A single planet, Malastare was of vital importance for fuel to wage the Clone Wars implying that starship fuel is seemingly rare or expensive to produce artfully.

Given that this was a major producer of fuel, located around the hotly contested outer rim, I can see where a single, ready source of millions, billions, trillions, who knows how many tons of fuel would be important. Especially considering how if one faction controls the supply, the other side would be denied access altogether, possibly limiting ready access to fuel for that particular region of space.

4) During the waning days of the Clone Wars we see a sudden emergence of solar powered vehicles that like the Republic Police Gunship, T.I.E. Fighter Series, and even large warships like the Raider-class corvette

Well, I don't know if those panels are guaranteed to be solar collection panels, though I see the databank entries are certainly pressing that idea. It's a bit odd though, considering the police gunship seemed to spend most of its time in the lower levels of the city, quite cut off from solar radiation. Regardless, if they have the means to collect and utilize otherwise wasted ambient energy from the nearby environment, why not do so? I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion they are desperate for fuel though.

5) The Death Stars, single ships worth half the fleet have special "Hyper Matter" reactors.

Well, if you're referring to the "special" reactors, I can see where the sheer mass of those things may require something extra, just cruising around in real space, let alone hurling that thing into hyperspace. If you're referring to these monsters accounting for a fuel shortage, well, if indeed the "Hype Matter" reactors are radically different than other reactors, it shouldn't make a huge difference, except of course, for the economic drain again.
If there isn't a significant difference between the Death Star's reactor and those of other craft however, I'd say the existence of such a vessel would discount the idea of fuel being truly "scarce." Of course, straining the existing fuel supplies, driving up the cost and limiting the publics access to fuel wouldn't stop the Empire, in fact, I can see where it could play to their advantage.

6) In Episode 4, Luke talks about how he could purchase a ship of his own for the price Han Solo is asking for the charter. It sounds like Han is over charging, but what if fuel and up-keep really is that high for ships?

Considering how much he seems to owe Jabba, I doubt he needs that much for gas. Don't forget his retort, "And who's gonna fly it kid, you?!" If such a fee really represented legitimate costs, it would have been a stronger selling point, rather than saying "avoiding Imperial entanglements" would cost something extra.

All this combines to paint a rather odd picture of a an interplanetary civilization that is suddenly running out of fuel for some reason. It sounds strange and impossible for a civilization that has mature fusion technology, but it seems to be the only thing that fits the facts to me.

It really seems odd to me. Am I seeing things that aren't there?

I suppose that ready fuel supplies may not fully meet demand, with Imperial consumption driving the prices above rates seen in the old Republic. Given the amounts of fuel consumed by the Empire, I think any shortages are likely artificial, stemming from Imperial economics. Even then, comparing the few civilian references we get in the OT, people still seem to be using quite a bit of power in their day to day lives. I really don't see that much difference between the lifestyles of even back-world Tatooine people from the prequels compared against Luke's zipping around in landspeeders and T-16 skyhoppers in ANH.

[Mike DiCenso]

Hm, interesting idea, and there were shortages noted during the Clone Wars, but I think these were mostly caused by distribution and economic problems rather than physical shortages.

In CW S:3E:11 Pursuit of Peace, Amidala's aide, Teckla, is showcased before the senate as an example of what the war is doing to its population. There is mention that the district she lives in rarely has electricity, but this is right on the heels of the power plant on Coruscant being destroyed. We are told too, that they often have no running water, and that education, infrastructure, and health care are suffering. It sounds more like the war machine is consuming the economic and distribution resources that had previously only served the civilian population, not to mention what hand the CIS and Trade Federation may have had in disrupting the flow of goods.

Yes, well it all ties into the health of the Galactic Republic's economy as a whole. As has been pointed out in numerous threads, the Republic in the very same story arc you refer to was already in danger of going bankrupt should it purchase another 5 million clone troopers from the Kaminoans. The same was true of the Separatists in building more droids for their army. Both sides were seeking loans from the Banking Clan.

This probably ties into why in the Rebels time frame, we see active recruitment and training of normal citizens (who seem to be low-grade in ability and their officers, with a few exceptions, incompetent) for the Empire's military; they just can't afford the high price of high-quality clone troopers any more and the Death Star project is clearly taxing the Empire in that it has to go out and search for eight exotic magical Kyber crystals of large enough size to even make the damn thing's primary weapon work at all.

In either case the lack of fuel is a strong indicator of an over-stretched economy that is at it's very limits, and it is one of the biggest blows to the Wong/Saxtonian model of the Republic and it's successor the Empire being unstoppable economic industrial juggernauts with unlimited resources.
-Mike

[359]

Resource and energy deficits do not indicate a weak economy, but instead one producing in a state of total war. This is an example of Star Wars again following the pattern of World War II. True, the civilian population is experiencing an economic crisis, however this is not at all dissimilar to the ration systems implemented in times of total war; such as during WWII.

On Ryloth the Republic forces are suffering from logistical issues, they either don't have the raw materials for war, do not control any industry for wartime production, or both. The overall problem is a result of a CIS blockade of the planet preventing the remote delivery of strategic supplies, or any supplies for that matter. The solution of using blockade runners is quite literally an air-drop of supplies, paralleling the situation in the Berlin Air Lift during the Cold War, but with more active conflict.

With regards to the fuel on Malastare, it is another resource to be added to the Republic's supply and not to the CIS'. Its positioning in the outer rim also places a great strategic importance on its control. Having a supply of refined fuel in the Outer Rim conflict zone removes the need of shipping fuel from the inner systems out to the Outer Rim in order to make war. This represents a great improvement to logistics if there is no longer a need to expend fuel for shipping fuel especially using potentially vulnerable convoys.

All this is not to say that there is no strain, the Republic is devoting its entire economy to the war. Thus what we see in the Clone Wars is the exact limit of their war making ability. And presumably the war making ability of the Empire would be close to the sum of the war making abilities of both the Republic and the Confederacy as seen during the Clone Wars, but no more as both entities were pushed to their limit maintaining the conflict.

[Trinoya]

While there are obvious fuel issues, I doubt it directly leads to the creation of the death star. Just moving the materials would, in theory, cost more fuel than you'd ever 'save' from the finished project.

That said: It may, however, explain the need for massive worlds dedicated to specific goals and projects. It's a lot easier if all your food producing worlds are near major fuel sources so that you can limit travel times. It would also explain away the apparent lack of dedication in exploring the rim worlds even though it is an apparent 'galactic' empire.

Almost certainly the switch to solar power is reflective of a superior logistics doctrine though. Moving all that fuel has to be a nightmare.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Hm, interesting idea, and there were shortages noted during the Clone Wars, but I think these were mostly caused by distribution and economic problems rather than physical shortages.

In CW S:3E:11 Pursuit of Peace, Amidala's aide, Teckla, is showcased before the senate as an example of what the war is doing to its population. There is mention that the district she lives in rarely has electricity, but this is right on the heels of the power plant on Coruscant being destroyed. We are told too, that they often have no running water, and that education, infrastructure, and health care are suffering. It sounds more like the war machine is consuming the economic and distribution resources that had previously only served the civilian population, not to mention what hand the CIS and Trade Federation may have had in disrupting the flow of goods.

Yes, well it all ties into the health of the Galactic Republic's economy as a whole. As has been pointed out in numerous threads, the Republic in the very same story arc you refer to was already in danger of going bankrupt should it purchase another 5 million clone troopers from the Kaminoans. The same was true of the Separatists in building more droids for their army. Both sides were seeking loans from the Banking Clan.

This probably ties into why in the Rebels time frame, we see active recruitment and training of normal citizens (who seem to be low-grade in ability and their officers, with a few exceptions, incompetent) for the Empire's military; they just can't afford the high price of high-quality clone troopers any more and the Death Star project is clearly taxing the Empire in that it has to go out and search for eight exotic magical Kyber crystals of large enough size to even make the damn thing's primary weapon work at all.

In either case the lack of fuel is a strong indicator of an over-stretched economy that is at its very limits, and it is one of the biggest blows to the Wong/Saxtonian model of the Republic and its successor the Empire being unstoppable economic industrial juggernauts with unlimited resources.
-Mike

With fuel so important, shouldn't we consider that starship weapons to be independantly powered, like having their own tibanna gas tanks?
Would the Republic display the madness of building a whole new generation of massive warships known for their remarkable ability to entirely tap the main core in order to power weapons, more than any other warship before?

We may have to consider tibanna gas to be cheaper than the "other" fuel.

[Mr. Oragahn]

While there are obvious fuel issues, I doubt it directly leads to the creation of the death star. Just moving the materials would, in theory, cost more fuel than you'd ever 'save' from the finished project.

That. It's basically claiming that the biggest resource waster in a thousand galaxies was the best solution to a shortage of one particular resource.
Not to say anything about the need to blow planets up.
The whole thing was totally insane and could only work if somehow, Palpatine stroke a deal with the Banking Clan by uing the DS as an excuse for taking massive loans in order to complete the project, while transfering the debt on the entire galaxy, which would be one of the best way to destroy all the worlds and keep them subdued.

There, the Death Star would be:

- a drainer of resources of the entire Empire, and thus massively encouraging huge private conglomerates to go hunt for extra resources elsewhere, which they'd make the Empire pay at a considerable cost. The Empire would borrow money to the Banking Clan, somehow collapsing the economy even further with mass inflation.
- a propagator of debt like never seen before, as all worlds would be held accountable. All productive forces would be curbed and syphoned by the higher echelons of each world and of the Empire itself.
- a tool of power against which no one could fight, meaning that the Empire could continue dealing with the money lenders and still maintain the official imperial currency as the main exchange currency.

This perverted circle of destruction would know no end but would certainly bring a million worlds to their knees.
I'd say, a "good" syncretism of contemporary USA and post-WWII Soviet Union.

If anything, you'd rather expect the Sith to be behind the Banking Clan. ;)

Almost certainly the switch to solar power is reflective of a superior logistics doctrine though. Moving all that fuel has to be a nightmare.

The solar panel schtick simply can't work.
It's much better as a cooling system, or even better, as a way to cast radiations in minute ways, for specific purposes, like scanning or jamming.

[2046]

Regarding OP point 1, Naboo had as an export its mined plasma (yes, I know) for power. So the trade bit may have been a "war for oil!" ruse.

Generally speaking I find Lucky's general point intriguing in broad strokes, though I concur that a direct relation to the Death Star is questionable. However, if that superlaser dish was an energy collector designed to grab some of the released energy of the weapon (which is not 1E38J or even 32, mind you) , that'd be kinda cool. But it seems more than a little contrary to what we know of the kyber whatzits and so on.

[Mr. Oragahn]

If only they had that giant lying around because someone thought it might be cool to concentrate huge amounts of sunbeams onto a given target, at light speed...
Pick the solar radiation of ~1300 W.m² at 1AU in our star system.
The 1st DS' dish has a diameter about 28% of the battle station's.
So with 120 km for the width of the DS, we get a dish radius of 16.8 km.
This gets us a surface area of 886,683,110 sqm.
The entire dish would be exposed to a total of 1.1527 e12 Watts.
If all the light could be concentrated onto a single point or a relatively tight area, you'd either have a good super heater, a transmitter for cheap solar energy directly (to be deposited into a gigantic power cell) or a low intensity terajoule weapon.

Of course, parking the Death Star closer to the star would guarantee more powerful concentrated beams.
This is, however, entirely depending on the dish's abilities. Based on its natural curvature alone, the range obviously wouldn't that big. I'd wager the focus point would be about a diameter away from the dish, since it's very curved.

However, playing with the plasma would be funnier, especially if one could funnel a fraction of one of those CMEs...

[Lucky]

While there are obvious fuel issues, I doubt it directly leads to the creation of the death star. Just moving the materials would, in theory, cost more fuel than you'd ever 'save' from the finished project.

You have to move the materials no matter what you do in order to build a ship, but if you build a Malevolence or something like a Death Star you get a fleet's worth of firepower while only having one ship.

The Malevolence proved that one super-ship could work in the place of lots of little ships.

[Lucky]

The solar panel schtick simply can't work.
It's much better as a cooling system, or even better, as a way to cast radiations in minute ways, for specific purposes, like scanning or jamming.

Deal with it. T.I.E. Fighters are stated to have solar panels on them, and that means they are at least partly solar powered, and many are going that way with real world vehicles to extend range.

The Marcedes-Benz Vision G-Code has multi-voltaic paint, and there are a number of other spray on solar options in the real world

Way back in 2012 we in the real world broke the 33% efficiency barrier for certain types of solar panels, and in late 2014 the University of New South Whales broke the 40% efficiency barrier for solar panels, and i've seen other groups claim 47%
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 208%29.jpg

It's hardly a bad idea to use solar when you can, and even with just a 15 to 20% efficiency, and assuming real world limitations seems rather sill.

One would expect something like a Star Destroyer to be covered with solar panels given the raw surface area.

[Lucky]

Resource and energy deficits do not indicate a weak economy, but instead one producing in a state of total war. This is an example of Star Wars again following the pattern of World War II. True, the civilian population is experiencing an economic crisis, however this is not at all dissimilar to the ration systems implemented in times of total war; such as during WWII.

I was under the impression that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan went to war because of resource shortages and economic problems?

The Thule Society also makes for a rather nice real world analogy for the Sith.

On Ryloth the Republic forces are suffering from logistical issues, they either don't have the raw materials for war, do not control any industry for wartime production, or both. The overall problem is a result of a CIS blockade of the planet preventing the remote delivery of strategic supplies, or any supplies for that matter. The solution of using blockade runners is quite literally an air-drop of supplies, paralleling the situation in the Berlin Air Lift during the Cold War, but with more active conflict.

A major planet inexplicably lacks the infrastructure to defend itself let alone a small military force.

Really, there are a bleep load of under developed planets in the Republic seemingly inhabited by primitive stone age tribes that are nothing but a drain on the Republic's resources as shown in SW:TCW: Mercy Mission.

With regards to the fuel on Malastare, it is another resource to be added to the Republic's supply and not to the CIS'. Its positioning in the outer rim also places a great strategic importance on its control. Having a supply of refined fuel in the Outer Rim conflict zone removes the need of shipping fuel from the inner systems out to the Outer Rim in order to make war. This represents a great improvement to logistics if there is no longer a need to expend fuel for shipping fuel especially using potentially vulnerable convoys.

One planet shouldn't matter when it comes to something like fuel as every developed system especially important worlds should be able to produce all the fuel they need.

[Lucky]

Hm, interesting idea, and there were shortages noted during the Clone Wars, but I think these were mostly caused by distribution and economic problems rather than physical shortages.
In CW S:3E:11 Pursuit of Peace, Amidala's aide, Teckla, is showcased before the senate as an example of what the war is doing to its population. There is mention that the district she lives in rarely has electricity, but this is right on the heels of the power plant on Coruscant being destroyed. We are told too, that they often have no running water, and that education, infrastructure, and health care are suffering. It sounds more like the war machine is consuming the economic and distribution resources that had previously only served the civilian population, not to mention what hand the CIS and Trade Federation may have had in disrupting the flow of goods.

1) That episode highlights the fact that 5,000,000 clones is more then the Republic can afford. It isn't a matter of resources so much as the money just isn't there for some unstated reason.

2) One problem with the idea that anyone should have a hard time powering their homes on Coruscant is that there should be a large number of generators in a number of forms. In the real world you can buy a fuel cell powered car that can be used to power your home, and Luke even had such a thing in his X-Wing

3) Only one power plant seems to have been hit in the attack. It shouldn't be much trouble unless the grid was poorly designed to an insane degree.

I've wonder what specific circumstances lead up to that blockade myself. I can see they couldn't exactly introduce the "heroes" as being deadbeat debtors, even if the Trade Federation is unreasonable and manipulating the situation. Still, in CW S:3E:4 Sphere of Influence, the planet of Pantora is similarly blockaded, and the reason given is debt.

1) The invasion of Nabbo and the blockade of Pantora are two different things even if both are done at the suggestion of the Sith. The actions taken against Naboo were outright illegal on many levels, and some of those levels really don't make much sense, but Pantora really did have an outstanding debt even if it was just being called in on Sith orders.

2) Pantora was blockaded with what appears to be a single ship.

Given that TPM tells us repeatedly that trade route taxation was at the root of the problem, I'd guess that the Trade Federation was deferring these costs to their customers, in this case, Naboo probably couldn't keep up with the rate hike. Besides conveniently being the home world of Palpatine, it seems to be an established and economically active member of the Republic, yet remotely located and militarily weak, thus making a good choice for the Trade Federation to use strong-arm tactics against in order to "demonstrate" the negative effects of the new taxes.

1) The taxes seem to already be in place, but the problems seem to be relatively recent.

2) Qui-Gon specifically stated the invasion of Naboo wasn't the standard Trade Federation tactics or operation.

3) It seems very likely that Palpatine as Palpatine wrote out the treaty with the trade federation before everything started.

In short, if you don't maintain your own shipping fleet, and you sign on with the Trade Federation, fall behind in your payments and they'll forcibly make sure you don't use alternate, unsanctioned shippers.

4) Even Mandalor relied on the Trade Federation rather then have a few large ships for cargo of its own, and it was not a part of the Republic as i recall. The lack of large cargo ships outside the TF seems odd at the very least.

The remaining Republic troops and native Twi'lek guerrillas lacked the resources to fuel the Clone army's equipment, which includes ordinance. They were also short food and water. In short, this was what was left of a Clone force sent to assist the citizens of Ryloth, which it would seem had already fallen to the CIS, meaning the enemy likely controled whatever industry was considered important on the planet.

I was talking about the beginning of the episode called Supply Lines in which both Republic aerospace and ground troops who are fighting off a CIS invasion force lose because they ran out of fuel. Ryloth, a surprisingly low tech world, was unable to properly fuel Republic forces.

On an aside, this same episode told us that the range of the Republic's blockade runners was a problem in delivering supplies. This gives indication that fuel is not necessarily scarce, but that hyperspace travel at least, requires a considerable volume of fuel, and that ships need to refuel on a regular basis. CW S:4E16 Friends and Enemies gives credence to this, showing that civilian filling stations seem to be sprinkled across the galaxy. This is assuming of course, they are all running on the same basic type of fuel.

1) We don't know the maximum range of the Republic Blockade Runners. We only know Toydaria being 2,000(?) parsecs(?) closer mattered.

2) If fuel was easy to come by then Ryloth would not have run out and been captured in the manner it was, and making Blockade Runners with range would not be an issue.

Given that this was a major producer of fuel, located around the hotly contested outer rim, I can see where a single, ready source of millions, billions, trillions, who knows how many tons of fuel would be important. Especially considering how if one faction controls the supply, the other side would be denied access altogether, possibly limiting ready access to fuel for that particular region of space.

But one planet shouldn't be very relevant if fuel is easy to come by no matter how much it produces. The Republic was made up of about 100,000 planets/star systems. You would think that each star system should be able to provide the needed fuel to make a single planet of little to no relevance, but that isn't the case.

Well, I don't know if those panels are guaranteed to be solar collection panels, though I see the databank entries are certainly pressing that idea. It's a bit odd though, considering the police gunship seemed to spend most of its time in the lower levels of the city, quite cut off from solar radiation. Regardless, if they have the means to collect and utilize otherwise wasted ambient energy from the nearby environment, why not do so? I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion they are desperate for fuel though.

1) There isn't any wiggle room on the solar power issue:

Four arm-mounted solar gather panels help power the repulsorlift vehicle.

S-foils with more efficient solar gather panels,

T.I.E.s use solarpower

2) The Republic police gunship is apparently suppose to fly above the skyline normally, and that would make sense for getting it to where the trouble is.

Well, if you're referring to the "special" reactors, I can see where the sheer mass of those things may require something extra, just cruising around in real space, let alone hurling that thing into hyperspace. If you're referring to these monsters accounting for a fuel shortage, well, if indeed the "Hype Matter" reactors are radically different than other reactors, it shouldn't make a huge difference, except of course, for the economic drain again.

If there isn't a significant difference between the Death Star's reactor and those of other craft however, I'd say the existence of such a vessel would discount the idea of fuel being truly "scarce." Of course, straining the existing fuel supplies, driving up the cost and limiting the publics access to fuel wouldn't stop the Empire, in fact, I can see where it could play to their advantage.

1) The Death Star was stated to have a firepower comparable to half the fleet. 1 death Star = a bleep load of ships.

2) Reactor technologies usually have a sweat spot. Odds are that you can't scale down the Death Star's main reactor in a practicle manner.

Considering how much he seems to owe Jabba, I doubt he needs that much for gas. Don't forget his retort, "And who's gonna fly it kid, you?!" If such a fee really represented legitimate costs, it would have been a stronger selling point, rather than saying "avoiding Imperial entanglements" would cost something extra.

1) There are other people Obi-Won could hire, but Chewy was a Rebel agent wasn't he?

2) Han needed a lot of money yesterday both literally and figuratively to pay Jabba, but had he not owed Jabba, he would not have been frantically looking for a job.

3) No matter how much money Han needs/owes, he can't charge much more then the going rate or he will never get a load.

I suppose that ready fuel supplies may not fully meet demand, with Imperial consumption driving the prices above rates seen in the old Republic. Given the amounts of fuel consumed by the Empire, I think any shortages are likely artificial, stemming from Imperial economics. Even then, comparing the few civilian references we get in the OT, people still seem to be using quite a bit of power in their day to day lives. I really don't see that much difference between the lifestyles of even back-world Tatooine people from the prequels compared against Luke's zipping around in landspeeders and T-16 skyhoppers in ANH.

Except you have things like Ryloth's fall do to fuel shortages and seemingly no infrastructure, Pantora suffering what appears to be civil unrest do to a trade Federation blockade, and the Naboo starving in Episode 1.

[359]

It's hardly a bad idea to use solar when you can, and even with just a 15 to 20% efficiency, and assuming real world limitations seems rather sill.

One would expect something like a Star Destroyer to be covered with solar panels given the raw surface area.

The issue in this case is not efficiency so much as total power generated. The amount of power a solar array will generate is proportional to how close you are to the nearest star. On a TIE fighter, even with an optimal angle, you're looking at a maximum of about 10 kW of power at 100% efficiency and the same light level as Earth. Put simply that is very little power for a flying star fighter.

The Malevolence proved that one super-ship could work in the place of lots of little ships.

It also proved that a couple ships could take out the behemoth anyway; thus such ships easily become a waste of resources.

I was under the impression that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan went to war because of resource shortages and economic problems?

In Germany there was a severe economic depression following WWI, but there was no significant lack of resources as they were still able to rebuild their military for WWII. And with Japan, if I remember correctly, it was more for political reasons than economic, but I'm not to familiar with the Pacific theater in WWII.

I was more referring to the United States during the war which implemented ration systems. As almost the entire economy was devoted to war making, hence the term Total War, there were significant resource shortages felt by the general public. Such rationed items included: sugar, oil, metal, meat, cloth, rubber, and several others.

So while there are resource shortages they are introduced by a state of Total War, not due to the lack of sufficient resources to support the population. As an analogy, power was diverted from life support to shields.

One planet shouldn't matter when it comes to something like fuel as every developed system especially important worlds should be able to produce all the fuel they need.

Perhaps the fuel they use requires materials not found on all planets, or perhaps Malastare can just produce much more. And again, its positioning in the outer rim is probably a large benefit due to its positioning. It could possibly be close or closer to systems which lack fuel production. There are many explanations more likely than the whole Republic is running out of fuel.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The solar panel schtick simply can't work.
It's much better as a cooling system, or even better, as a way to cast radiations in minute ways, for specific purposes, like scanning or jamming.

Deal with it. T.I.E. Fighters are stated to have solar panels on them, and that means they are at least partly solar powered, and many are going that way with real world vehicles to extend range.

The Marcedes-Benz Vision G-Code has multi-voltaic paint, and there are a number of other spray on solar options in the real world

Way back in 2012 we in the real world broke the 33% efficiency barrier for certain types of solar panels, and in late 2014 the University of New South Whales broke the 40% efficiency barrier for solar panels, and i've seen other groups claim 47%
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 208%29.jpg

It's hardly a bad idea to use solar when you can, and even with just a 15 to 20% efficiency, and assuming real world limitations seems rather sill.

One would expect something like a Star Destroyer to be covered with solar panels given the raw surface area.

I base my numbers on 100% efficiency and all EMR assimilated, and they still don't sell the idea at all. The output is stupidly low.
T.I.E fighters ought to be more powerful than a Bugatti Veyron. Do you know how much power this car's engine can output?
If anything, if treated as solar panels, these large black-mesh appendages simply hinder the ship's performances in all possible ways.
Therefore there's nothing to deal with other than it simply does not work.

It's better to consider that solar panel has an entire different meaning in SW. A colloquial term, that's all.

Here, let's try another idea
Those panels are scooping solar winds, particularly their protons, somehow to be used in the ion engines.
There, the "solar panel" brainbug might be cracked.

The free proton (a proton not bound to nucleons or electrons) is a stable particle that has not been observed to break down spontaneously to other particles. Free protons are found naturally in a number of situations in which energies or temperatures are high enough to separate them from electrons, for which they have some affinity. Free protons exist in plasmas in which temperatures are too high to allow them to combine with electrons. Free protons of high energy and velocity make up 90% of cosmic rays, which propagate in vacuum for interstellar distances. Free protons are emitted directly from atomic nuclei in some rare types of radioactive decay. Protons also result (along with electrons and antineutrinos) from the radioactive decay of free neutrons, which are unstable.

At sufficiently low temperatures, free protons will bind to electrons. However, the character of such bound protons does not change, and they remain protons. A fast proton moving through matter will slow by interactions with electrons and nuclei, until it is captured by the electron cloud of an atom. The result is a protonated atom, which is a chemical compound of hydrogen. In vacuum, when free electrons are present, a sufficiently slow proton may pick up a single free electron, becoming a neutral hydrogen atom, which is chemically a free radical. Such "free hydrogen atoms" tend to react chemically with many other types of atoms at sufficiently low energies. When free hydrogen atoms react with each other, they form neutral hydrogen molecules (H2), which are the most common molecular component of molecular clouds in interstellar space. Such molecules of hydrogen on Earth may then serve (among many other uses) as a convenient source of protons for accelerators (as used in proton therapy) and other hadron particle physics experiments that require protons to accelerate, with the most powerful and noted example being the Large Hadron Collider.

I'd have to check out the densisty of protons that could be theoretically caught by a panel at various angles (maybe they cast some field - it would perhaps combine well with theories of minimal shielding on TIEs) and see if enough matter can be collected to be used in, say, fusion engines.