The Mandalorian Season 2

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: One detail

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So, If Jango was a foundling and later rightfully earned his armour, that makes him a certified Mandalorian, yes?

[False God]

Also (and I know this is mild star wars heresy) planets are big places. It's ok to have one part of a planet look completely different from another part.

One planet must be entirely the same all over! All forest! All desert! All ice! No exceptions! /sarcasm

One of my biggest beefs with Star Wars is that even for its abundance of planets they are notoriously undetailed, even the ones we go to regularly.
They're more comparable to pieces of a single planetary map that have been divided up by "space".

[Peelee]

In Legends at least, stormtrooper armour was very good vs kinetic weapons such as spears, but poor vs blasters.

Spoiler: Lightsabers novel

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Qorl stood inside the training chamber holding a wicked-looking spear in his black-wrapped left hand. His droid replacement arm gripped the gleaming shaft with enough force to dent the metal. The serrated head of the spear had a long central prong with two side spikes curving up like a dragon’s barbed tail.
“You’re late,” Qorl said. He cocked his droid arm back—and hurled the deadly weapon at Norys with all the strength in his robotic servomotors!
Norys stood astonished as the deadly spearpoint hurtled toward his chest plate. He just had time to cry “Hey!” in a panicked voice amplified by his helmet speakers before the barbed tip impacted squarely with enough force to smash him backward.
Norys slammed into the wall, his helmet ringing against the hard metal bulkhead. His vision sparkled with impending unconsciousness. He expected to see a spear sprouting from his heart and waited for his nerves to send shouts of mortal pain. He wanted to scream that Qorl, his supposed teacher, had betrayed him, murdered him—
But a split second later his thoughts cleared enough to hear the clatter as the spear shaft fell harmlessly to the floor. He looked down at his chest in amazement and saw only a nick in the white armor where the spear had struck.
“What did you do that for?” Norys shouted.
Qorl answered in a gruff but calm voice. “To teach you respect for your stormtrooper armor, Norys,” he said, “but also to warn you not to become overconfident. Yes, that armor is powerful enough to stop many weapons, such as this crude spear.” The TIE pilot nodded toward the jagged weapon on the floor plates.
Norys bent down to grab the spear, narrowing his eyes in rage as he looked at his teacher. The old pilot had made a fool out of him. He felt a dangerous anger boiling through his veins. He had a good mind to take the triple-pronged spear and attack the pompous old man with it.
“But don’t think your armor is invincible.” Qorl reached inside his uniform, pulled out a deadly blaster pistol, and pointed it directly at Norys. “For instance, this blaster could slice through that armor as if you were wearing nothing at all.”

Lightsabers? Huh. I have no memory at all of that book.

Also, good job, Empire. Spears were the biggest threat to stormtroopers, good thing you protected against those.

Spoiler: One detail

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So, If Jango was a foundling and later rightfully earned his armour, that makes him a certified Mandalorian, yes?

Spoiler

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That means he was at some point Mandalorian. It does not preclude him from the Mandalorian's rejecting him later for whatever reason.

[hamishspence]

Lightsabers? Huh. I have no memory at all of that book.

It was book 4 in the Kevin J. Anderson Young Jedi Knights series.


I figured that the spear example was intended to cover all "kinetic" weapons - including guns - called "slugthrowers" in universe - and shrapnel from grenades and the like.

Hence blasters being the standard - because they're the only way to reliably go straight through the armour.

[Fyraltari]

It was book 4 in the Kevin J. Anderson Young Jedi Knights series.


I figured that the spear example was intended to cover all "kinetic" weapons - including guns - called "slugthrowers" in universe - and shrapnel from grenades and the like.

Hence blasters being the standard - because they're the only way to reliably go straight through the armour.

Which should be the point where people ditch the armor. At least until they can mass-produce beskar alloy.

[Peelee]

Young Jedi Knights

Kevin J. Anderson

Ahhhhh. That explains the quality of the writing, then.

Which should be the point where people ditch the armor. At least until they can mass-produce beskar alloy.

Beskar is rare, difficult to work for non-Mandos, and there are a ton of other materials out there. Beskar is like the titanium of the Star Wars world, to use a very loose analogy.

[dancrilis]

Beskar is rare, difficult to work for non-Mandos, and there are a ton of other materials out there. Beskar is like the titanium of the Star Wars world, to use a very loose analogy.

They could likely get equal or better protection from Orbalisk armour (assuming they still exist) and in theory they could mass produce it.

[Fyraltari]

Ahhhhh. That explains the quality of the writing, then.

Beskar is rare, difficult to work for non-Mandos, and there are a ton of other materials out there. Beskar is like the titanium of the Star Wars world, to use a very loose analogy.

Difficult to work for non-mandos? Is it magic? Because if it's not, an alloy is an alloy and given the necessary ores (which considering the resources of the various galactic governments is a trivial issue) you can mass-produce it.
Titanium is a chemical element though. And it's not as expensive as it used to be.

They could likely get equal or better protection from Orbalisk armour (assuming they still exist) and in theory they could mass produce it.

Isn't orbalisk the one that requires you to bond with force-sensitive symbiotic beetles?

[dancrilis]

Isn't orbalisk the one that requires you to bond with force-sensitive symbiotic beetles?

They did interact with the force seemingly in a symbotic relationship I don't recall them using the force themselves however, there also seems to be no indication they they couldn't bond with non-force users.

But my thinking if you were going to make use of there resistant nature would be to farm them, kill them and use the shells for your armour rather then attach to to living people, you would likely need a healthy research budget for this but if it worked you would have perhaps the best armour in the galaxy and no reason it could not be mass produced.

[Peelee]

Difficult to work for non-mandos? Is it magic? Because if it's not, an alloy is an alloy and given the necessary ores (which considering the resources of the various galactic governments is a trivial issue) you can mass-produce it.

Working Mandalorian iron is requires knowledge that is a tightly kept secret among Mandalorian smiths. Hence, difficult to work for non-mandos.

And alloys still require X amount of Y metal. If Y metal is rare enough, it doesn't matter than an allow is an alloy, there ain't gonna be enough alloy. Assuming that there even are any beskar alloys that would be worth anything - a single line could take care of that if they wish. "beskar is worthless alloyed". After all, this is Star Wars, not Metallurgy in Sci-fi.

Titanium is a chemical element though. And it's not as expensive as it used to be.

Yes, that is exactly the reason why I explicitly said it was a very loose analogy.

[Sapphire Guard]

Armour isn't necessarily useless if it can't protect against direct hits. A lot of modern military armour is more about shrapnel or 'you got shot, you're still going to be hurt or have broken ribs or whatnot, but you're still better off than if you were shot without it.' Helmets are more about shrapnel than stopping gunfire.

Don't I remember hearing that Orbalisk armour involved letting beetles slowly eat you? Sounds like a downside.

[Fyraltari]

Working Mandalorian iron is requires knowledge that is a tightly kept secret among Mandalorian smiths. Hence, difficult to work for non-mandos.

And alloys still require X amount of Y metal. If Y metal is rare enough, it doesn't matter than an allow is an alloy, there ain't gonna be enough alloy. Assuming that there even are any beskar alloys that would be worth anything - a single line could take care of that if they wish. "beskar is worthless alloyed". After all, this is Star Wars, not Metallurgy in Sci-fi.

Yes, that is exactly the reason why I explicitly said it was a very loose analogy.

Wait are you saying that Mandalorian iron isn't an alloy of iron? It's another elment on the periodic table that in all of SW only the mandos ever found? And is extremely rare but not radioactive?

Well I don't know why I expected SW to have any respect of chemistry to be honest.

[HolyDraconus]

Wait are you saying that Mandalorian iron isn't an alloy of iron? It's another elment on the periodic table that in all of SW only the mandos ever found? And is extremely rare but not radioactive?

Well I don't know why I expected SW to have any respect of chemistry to be honest.

I THINK its more along the lines of all tech in SW is super ancient yet powerful stuff that people of today have no idea how to properly use. More like how Archeologists have a better understanding of how the Aztecs worked than the common man kind of thing... I think..

[Maelstrom]

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...It would be nice to see Stormtrooper Armor actually block something for once though. In particular, I'd like to see them walk off some hits at range. I could accept that the armor becomes largely useless at point blank range, but that if you give it a few hundred meters to dump energy into the surrounding air armor becomes effective.

Spoiler: Stormtrooper armor

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The first trooper off the transport got hit in the shoulder, the blaster bolt deflected off, and he shrugged it off and kept going. I also noticed, plenty of the disabling shots were in the joints (though many were center of mass as well...)

[Mechalich]

I THINK its more along the lines of all tech in SW is super ancient yet powerful stuff that people of today have no idea how to properly use. More like how Archeologists have a better understanding of how the Aztecs worked than the common man kind of thing... I think..

Not exactly.

In Legends - which is the best guide we have for the new canon because this particular point hasn't been filled in yet - all of the major essential space technologies trace to alien species from the previous iteration of galactic civilization - Rakata, Gree, Columi, etc. - and the various species that founded the Republic reverse engineered them but have a limited understanding of how they work. This is most notable with regard to Rakata technologies, especially hyperdrive, which were designed to utilize the Force in order to function and the Humans, Zabraks, Devaronians and others who reverse engineered them had to make less effective versions that didn't use the Force.

At the same time, the Star Wars galaxy is materials limited economically. That's opposed to our economy on Earth today which is energy limited and in some cases labor limited. All the Republic-standard level technologies are made out of super-special materials that are phenomenally rare and therefore the economy is limited by the ability to acquire enough of them to build more stuff. This is admittedly weird because it doesn't fit with a modern understanding of how the periodic table and the distribution of elements across the galaxy actually works, but it does fit with the Old West/Kurosawa-style Japan Eras that Star Wars emulates. A reasonable rationalization is that everything in Star Wars is made from as yet undiscovered superheavy elements that are somehow stabilized through means unknown to us - probably the Force - and this totally restructures their sci-fi materials science.

Spoiler

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The first trooper off the transport got hit in the shoulder, the blaster bolt deflected off, and he shrugged it off and kept going. I also noticed, plenty of the disabling shots were in the joints (though many were center of mass as well...)

[spoiler]You're right, and that's a nice bit, though they do cut away almost immediately, so it's hard to actually notice. It's also a thing in the episode that Boba abandons use of his, presumably crummy and under-powered, Sand People scavenged rifle early on in favor of going all melee on the troopers. This suggests that their armor might be effective against that sort of weak weapon while high-end military grade arms penetrate easily. [/spoilers]

[Petrocorus]

Concerning the Stormtroopers' armor, in Rebels, it was quite efficient against blast from (not too close) explosions.

Spoiler: Ship

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Time to find yourself a Firefly, Mando.

Spoiler: Backpack

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Am i the only one who was bothered by the fact that Din doesn't to try to retrieve his jet pack at any moment? He doesn't even seem to have it when he talk to Cara Dune afterwards.

Or did i miss something?

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It also looks like he’s taken a few levels of monk while he was on Tatooine, given how he used that gaffi stick. I enjoyed the stormtrooper action, but those were some of the dumbest stormtroopers we’ve seen in a while, which is really saying something.

You’d think they’d set up the E-Web first, use that to cover their approach, then flank through the rocks on either side in something resembling squads, rather than a loose mass of troopers huffing and puffing their way upslope. Presumably Gideon was simply using the troopers as a disposable distraction and didn’t bother to give them any more detailed orders.

Spoiler: Stormtroopers tactics

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I for one was really bothered by the fact they didn't set up the mortar first or cared to use grenades.

Star Wars - The Old Republic. Tython was a starting planet for Jedi Consulates and Guardians. In old canon, it was the birthplace of the Jedi Order. I'm not sure why they changed that to Atch-To in new canon.

Yeah, that name disclosed in the second episode of a trilogy that sound quite close to "act two".

Spoiler: Rebels Spoiler

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Longer answer, she was to memory looking for Ezra.

Spoiler: Rebels Spoiler

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I concur with what Dire Flumph and Dancrilis said. It is quite clear at the end of Rebels she started looking for Ezra after the end of the war (I don't really care for Sabine's hair cut in this scene).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Petrocorus

Spoiler: Backpack

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Am i the only one who was bothered by the fact that Din doesn't to try to retrieve his jet pack at any moment? He doesn't even seem to have it when he talk to Cara Dune afterwards.

Or did i miss something?

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I noticed that too, and it was scratching at the back door of my mind all the while.

Given how they highlighted the jetpack at the start of the episode ("Riding with the windows down") it seems like a strange oversight for him to shed the pack and then ignore it thereafter. One can only hope he picked it up after the last scene on Tython, before going to see Cara Dune, because there was a lot of buildup in Season 1 towards him getting that pack, and it doesn't make much sense for it to drop off the radar now.

[Fyraltari]

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Din couldn't have his backpack because if he did, he'd have been in time to rescue Grogu. As for why he didn't fetch it in universe, first he was focused on getting Grogu out of the very obvious place he was in and then I guess he couldn't recall exactly where it was/get there int he middle of the battle.
Edit: Or in the rush of the battle he forgot about it. He spent most of his life fighting without one so in the heat of the moment it might not have occured to him.

[dancrilis]

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Din couldn't have his backpack because if he did, he'd have been in time to rescue Grogu. As for why he didn't fetch it in universe, first he was focused on getting Grogu out of the very obvious place he was in and then I guess he couldn't recall exactly where it was/get there int he middle of the battle.
Edit: Or in the rush of the battle he forgot about it. He spent most of his life fighting without one so in the heat of the moment it might not have occured to him.

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In addition to this - flying around deprives you of cover it likely wouldn't have been that useful for much of the battle and we know from Return of the Jedi that jetpacks can go off unexpectedly if they are hit so in general they might not be something that should be used in ongoing combat.
Fett using at the end was more a surprise for the troopers if they had seen him coming they might have shot him out of the sky as we know that while beskar does protect you from blasters an impact still occurs.

[Fyraltari]

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the troopers [...] might have shot him

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[Clertar]

This is most notable with regard to Rakata technologies, especially hyperdrive, which were designed to utilize the Force in order to function and the Humans, Zabraks, Devaronians and others who reverse engineered them had to make less effective versions that didn't use the Force.

This is the type of stuff that, for me, shatters the charm of Star Wars. But to each their own. I think that the mainstream media (mostly movies, now also live-action series) and the expanded media (novels, comics, cartoons) traditionally have had a good balance of the different approaches to the world.

[AdmiralCheez]

Spoiler: Backpack

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Am i the only one who was bothered by the fact that Din doesn't to try to retrieve his jet pack at any moment? He doesn't even seem to have it when he talk to Cara Dune afterwards.

Or did i miss something?

Spoiler: Backpack

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Oh yeah, that bothered me the second he ran off without it. That thing attaches and detaches in seconds; there's no reason not to pick it back up as soon as the fight broke out.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: Backpack

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He wouldn't even have to go get it, they've established he can make it come to him.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by dancrilis
...in general [jetpacks] might not be something that should be used in ongoing combat.

We’ve seen Mandalorians successfully using jetpacks in combat many times before, in Clone Wars, Rebels and the first season of The Mandalorian, so I’m pretty sure there’s no concern about using them in a fight.

Originally Posted by Mechalich
This is most notable with regard to Rakata technologies, especially hyperdrive, which were designed to utilize the Force in order to function and the Humans, Zabraks, Devaronians and others who reverse engineered them had to make less effective versions that didn't use the Force.

I’ve never heard any of this before—is this from EU sources, or one of the games?

Originally Posted by Clertar
This is the type of stuff that, for me, shatters the charm of Star Wars.

For me it’s just a little silly for technology to be designed around the Force, since the original Star Wars established the Force as something standing apart from technology, if not in opposition to it.

It doesn’t ruin Star Wars overall for me, but the concept seems a little ridiculous. Reverse-engineering ancient hypertech is fine on its own. No need to shoehorn the Force into it.

[Peelee]

I’ve never heard any of this before—is this from EU sources, or one of the games?

EU (and Mechalich was entirely correct but not entirely accurate). The Rakata were the first to have hyperdrives, but Humans and Devaronians still developed hyperspace technologies, and after the fall of the Infinite Empire, variosu races were able to eventually figure out workarounds for components that required Force use but did not work as well than the components specifically designed for those hyperdrives, but that was over twenty millennia before the Empire, and understanding of hyperdrive theory was pretty dang well understood for a long time by then. The first hyperdrives after the Infinite Empire weren't as good as the IE hyperdrives by nature of needing workarounds, yes, but that by no means meant that only the Rakata were able to figure out hyperdrives and only because of the Force. The Corellia system alone proved that was not the case.

And again, all of that is old canon and none of it has been reintroduced in new canon, to the best of my knowledge.

For me it’s just a little silly for technology to be designed around the Force, since the original Star Wars established the Force as something standing apart from technology, if not in opposition to it.

You dislike lightsabers, I take it?

It doesn’t ruin Star Wars overall for me, but the concept seems a little ridiculous. Reverse-engineering ancient hypertech is fine on its own. No need to shoehorn the Force into it.

They only reverse engineered the Rakatan hyperdrives because the Rakatans went to so many places. It's more survivorship bias than anything.

[dancrilis]

We’ve seen Mandalorians successfully using jetpacks in combat many times before, in Clone Wars, Rebels and the first season of The Mandalorian, so I’m pretty sure there’s no concern about using them in a fight.

But we have you have also seen them be damaged with poor results for the operator.

For me it’s just a little silly for technology to be designed around the Force

Some species are naturally force sensitive (or at least much more force sensitive them humans seem to be) - it is reasonable for them to build technology which is created for people who have telekinesis or heightened reflexes for instance.

[Fyraltari]

For me it’s just a little silly for technology to be designed around the Force, since the original Star Wars established the Force as something standing apart from technology, if not in opposition to it.

No, it doesn't? Besides the Force is an objective phenomon with replicable effects, it's magical and doesn't abide by the laws of nature but it's effects cannbe harnessed all the same. It's only logical that devices revolving around it would be created by people who use it. Lightsabers were mentionned (and are the most prevalent example) but, I think, holocrons are an even better example: data storage devices who can only be operated through the Force.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by dancrilis
But we have you have also seen them be damaged with poor results for the operator.

Just once that I recall, as opposed to the successful and highly skilled operation by Mandalorians in the three different series I mentioned.

The only other case of non-optimal jetpack flight that comes to mind is Ezra’s rather comical attempt to use one, and he wasn’t Mandalorian and was never trained to fight with one.

Originally Posted by Fyraltari
Besides the Force is an objective [phenomenon] with replicable effects, it's magical and doesn't abide by the laws of nature….

If your first statement is true, then the Force does indeed abide by the laws of nature, and if we take Yoda’s teachings at face value (and later Luke’s as well) then the Force is an essential part of nature.

Doesn’t change the fact that I find it silly to have technology running on the Force. For me, holocrons are the exception that bears out the rule.

[Mechalich]

If your first statement is true, then the Force does indeed abide by the laws of nature, and if we take Yoda’s teachings at face value (and later Luke’s as well) then the Force is an essential part of nature.

The Force doesn't 'abide by' the laws of nature, the Force is one of the laws of nature.

Our reality has, so far as our best understanding can deduce, has four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The Star Wars universe has five, the same four we have plus 'the Force.' That's really the easiest and most effective way to conceptualize how it works. At the same time, while the Star Wars understanding of the four fundamental forces is clearly advanced well beyond our own, especially in the manipulation of gravity, the understanding of how their fifth force, The Force, works, is extremely nebulous.

Exploration of this force is also difficult, because observer effects appear to dwarf all other phenomena with regard to the Force, and they vary based on extremely difficult to quantify traits like the emotional status of the observer. Additionally, only a tiny fraction of the population (maybe one in a million individuals, and most of those only if given specific training), are capable of interacting with these phenomena directly and most of those are trapped in extremely hidebound religious paradigms that discourage any fundamental exploration of the Force's functions.

Doesn’t change the fact that I find it silly to have technology running on the Force. For me, holocrons are the exception that bears out the rule.

Force-integrated technology makes perfect sense on a conceptual level, it's just that most of the people and species in the galaxy have no idea how to manipulate the Force in such a fashion as to make it perform technological functions. Instead there's a tendency to mimic Force-based manifestations with electromagnetic ones. Holocrons are derived from Datacrons and lightsabers are derived from Forcesabers, not in a direct engineering sense, but in that a force-based Rakatan tech was mirrored by a much more conventional Republic tech.

It's not that the Rakata had any sort of exclusive knowledge, they just built their society around the Force (well the dark side anyway) and pursued Force-based technology in concert with all other technologies. The Republic instead split Force-based pursuits away from the rest of their sciences by making them largely the exclusive province of the Jedi. The Sith, who didn't actually hold to this policy, produced all sorts of Force-linked technologies during the construction of their various empires, its just that most of them were horrifying because, you know, Sith.

Some of this stuff has made it into the Disney canon by the way, and more probably will over time. For example, in SWTOR the Rakata have a technology called a mindtrap, which involves tearing out someone's soul and putting it into a box. The new canon introduced the Rur Crystal, which allowed a member of a crazy Jedi splinter group to do that same thing (please let a Dr. Aphra tv series happen, she's the best non-Mando thing in the new canon).

[Peelee]

(please let a Dr. Aphra tv series happen, she's the best non-Mando thing in the new canon).

Spoiler: Hot take

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I love Dr. Aphra. Not too big on the droids, though. Way too hammy for me.