Darths & Droids IV: Not in Numerical Order

[Rogar Demonblud]

And again the general utility of the Mark I Mod I human eyeball is shown.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Nice plan, Pete. Of course, it raises the obvious question of why the fighters aren't just blowing up every ship to make sure nobody gets away.

[Kantaki]

Nice plan, Pete. Of course, it raises the obvious question of why the fighters aren't just blowing up every ship to make sure nobody gets away.

It's the Falcon.
Why should they waste shots on something that's so obviously already trashed?
You know, instead of something that actually needs blowing up like actually working vessels, buildings, fleeing civilians, dunes...
The wonders of camouflage.
Make your ship rustbucket look like a even worse pile of scrap metal and almost no one will bother taking it out the first time they see it.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'd shoot it just because people will likely be hiding under it. Or in it. When your orders are 'Kill Everyone' you kill everyone.

[Xihirli]

Poor parking skills strike again!

[Rogar Demonblud]

Pete is really earning that point he got for the demerit.

[Kantaki]

I'd shoot it just because people will likely be hiding under it. Or in it. When your orders are 'Kill Everyone' you kill everyone.

I mean yeah sure, but considering the gunner in campaign 4 had to be told to shoot at the escape pod with "no life signs" I don't think the Empire employs people that clever.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And someone finally calls out the lack of seatbelts. Obviously this galaxy is missing not only OSHA but also NTSA.

[Aeson]

And someone finally calls out the lack of seatbelts. Obviously this galaxy is missing not only OSHA but also NTSA.

Or the inertial compensators are assumed to render them unnecessary. And, to be fair, at the implied accelerations seen in Star Wars, you'd be very lucky (sort of) to survive a total in-flight failure of the inertial compensators outside of landing or take-off maneuvers, and one would hope that the whole "ship shudders as it's being hit by weapons fire" thing isn't "normal operating conditions."

Regardless, during the escape from Tatooine, Han instructs Luke and Obi-Wan to "go strap yourselves in" right before the hyperjump, implying that some form of restraint presumably analogous to a seat belt exists and is present on the Millennium Falcon.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And yet they just go sit on a diner bench instead of strapping in. I'll believe they have seatbelts when I see them.

[VoxRationis]

Regardless, during the escape from Tatooine, Han instructs Luke and Obi-Wan to "go strap yourselves in" right before the hyperjump, implying that some form of restraint presumably analogous to a seat belt exists and is present on the Millennium Falcon.

And yet they just go sit on a diner bench instead of strapping in. I'll believe they have seatbelts when I see them.

It's a linguistic fossil from when seat restraints were common in the early days of spaceflight, used in an age where they are uncommon much as we use metaphors about horses and coach driving. In Core worlds, the phrase is even sometimes misspelled "strop" due to confusion over pronunciation, just as people sometimes write "give free reign" instead of "free rein."

[Anonymouswizard]

It's the Falcon.
Why should they waste shots on something that's so obviously already trashed?
You know, instead of something that actually needs blowing up like actually working vessels, buildings, fleeing civilians, dunes...
The wonders of camouflage.
Make your ship rustbucket look like a even worse pile of scrap metal and almost no one will bother taking it out the first time they see it.

I distinctly remember that, while the Star Wars Falcon merely looks like a pile of scrap held together with duct tape, the D&D Falcon is legitimately a pile of scrap held together with duct tape.

I mean yeah sure, but considering the gunner in campaign 4 had to be told to shoot at the escape pod with "no life signs" I don't think the Empire employs people that clever.

Plus if they can only shoot at a few targets per attach run they might be saving it for later.

[keybounce]

Hey, Duct Tape is pretty good. It can hold a car together.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hey, Duct Tape is pretty good. It can hold a car together.

It's kept a ship together long enough for Rey to grow up, so it's performing about as well as expected.

Just really commenting on how the D&D Falcon isn't as impressive as the ones from the films and seems to act more like a spaceship exposed to vacuum for decad would. It's the classic car that's clearly driven across Africa without taking a single road, but the owner has kept it running anyway (or to put it another way, it's Oliver).

[Rogar Demonblud]

So, any bets on how many people Pete has killed with his piloting so far? This is starting to feel like Death Race 2000.

[Kantaki]

So, any bets on how many people Pete has killed with his piloting so far? This is starting to feel like Death Race 2000.

There's the one who tries to get away by leaping forward instead of to the side (relative to the Falcon) and whatever they hit in panel four looks pretty gory too.
Also, there's probably some guys in those buildings the ship tore through.
So, anywhere from zero to somewhere in the double digits.
The First Order's probably still in the lead though.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Well, if you want to go that route by canon Luke killed over a million people when he blew up the Death Star. Vader didn't personally kill that many.

[Aeson]

Alderaan canonically had a population of a couple billion; I think I can find it in my heart to forgive Luke the millions who died by his hand when the Death Star was destroyed.

Also, if we're talking about who is directly and personally responsible for the greatest number of deaths in the Star Wars movies, that's implied to be Grand Moff Tarkin for giving the order, or these guys for pulling the trigger. Collective responsibility doesn't free you from personal responsibility for your actions and the results thereof, and even if it's split a few dozen ways two billion deaths is a pretty big kill count.

[Xihirli]

Spoiler: Spoilered for Keybounce

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Throw four more planets in there and you get THIS movie for body count. I think TFA had the highest offscreen body count until Infinity War.

[Aeson]

Spoiler: Spoilered for Keybounce

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Throw four more planets in there and you get THIS movie for body count. I think TFA had the highest offscreen body count until Infinity War.

Spoiler

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We weren't talking about which movie had the highest body count but rather which character was directly and personally responsible for the greatest number of deaths seen on screen. Also, TFA's Galaxy Gun / Death Star knockoff hasn't yet been introduced, let alone fired its gun, so we can't exactly talk about it outside of spoilers, here.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Poor BB-8... Meatbags can be so inconsiderate.

And yeah, Finn manning the keel gunner position is odd, especially when they're trying to stay below those PIEs. If Rey were flying upside down it would make more sense.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Not really, it would just raise the question of why they're flying upside down instead of right side up. The only way this makes sense is if the dorsal turret is inoperable for some reason.

[Keltest]

Not really, it would just raise the question of why they're flying upside down instead of right side up. The only way this makes sense is if the dorsal turret is inoperable for some reason.

Something not working correctly? On the Falcon!?

[Rockphed]

Finn obviously took the easy way and went down.

[Rogar Demonblud]

This makes slightly more sense here than in the movie, since the movie didn't have bad dice rolls as an excuse for repeatedly hitting things.

[Kantaki]

"Maybe they were flying like you"

[Anonymouswizard]

Would it be too obvious to guess

Spoiler

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That the hyperdrive modulator is what gets them through the shield around Starkiller Base?

But it really does look like these films will be improved as much as the prequels were. Even without the dice rolls it's already making more sense.

Spoiler

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And yeah, still going for alive Poe=Wedge, with the Resistance using Poe's identity to feed information back to the First Order like a reverse Han.

[The Great Wyrm]

My guess is that

Spoiler: spoiler

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it has to do with the infamous "hyperspace ramming" in Episode 8

[The Glyphstone]

Spoiler

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#WhyNotBoth?

[Kantaki]

You know you you're about to do something really stupid when your plan gets Jim's seal of approval.

Spoiler: Episode VIII

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I'm kinda expecting the ramming will be Jim's idea fault.
It just seems like something he'd pull.

Or Pete. But he wouldn't blow the ship*.
He would try to steal it.
I mean, it would be a clear upgrade, wouldn't it?


*Also, he's kinda on the wrong ship.