Ahsoka

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler

Show

I don't think we can jump to conclusions just yet. Thrawn may have a base elsewhere with the rest of the fleet, there may be other spacefaring people we haven't seen yet.

With two episodes left, we don't really have time to go into any of that, so it will probably be handwaved. Would have been nice to get here in Episode 3 instead of 6

[Infernally Clay]

Spoiler: Infernally Clay

Show

What advanced technology? Those bug-people seem to have some small devices of some sort, but otherwise the only technology we see is on the Chimaera.

Spoiler

Show

The raiders had laser guns, didn't they? That's pretty advanced technology. It's possible they stole them from Stormtroopers, I'll admit, but until proven otherwise I'm not sure we can just assume this galaxy is somehow less technologically advanced than the main one.

[Mechalich]

Fuel really wasn't ever relevant until Disney decided that the world's slowest chase scene was a good idea.

I suppose fuel was a given in some respect, but the previous material didn't treat it as a critical or scarce thing. Long trips without refueling stops were standard.

Even in Disney canon, fuel situations aren't that tight except in TLJ. During Rebels the Ghost runs out of fuel at one point, but it's been running back and forth across the galaxy as a fugitive vessel for what is strongly implied to have been weeks. Star Destroyers, like most actual naval vessels, were designed for quite long term independent operations and probably have a full fuel load rated for months of regular operations. An ISD has consumables for 2 years, which suggests that it should have fuel for normal operations (presumably combat operations deplete fuel much more significantly than station keeping above a planet) of a similar length of time.

Even with a bit of sci fi handwavium, 3d printers a touch more complex than that. They need spare parts. Not all of them are 3d printable, and you need a large stock of plastic. Recycling isn't good indefinitely, because some volatiles are lost in the melt process. How much depends on the kind of polymer. For less volatile polymers, like PLA, you trade off other things. PLA is specific will degrade in UV light and take on water from the atmosphere, and both will make the plastic unable to be printed again even if it is filament. There's a lot of good utility for 3d printers, but they are probably not going to ever be a wholly closed loop that replaces all else.

There's a lot of stuff that can be stripped out of a Star Destroyer though, by a commander choosing to be suitably aggressive.

Spoiler

Show

The Chimaera is an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. It has a crew complement of ~37,000 and nearly 10,000 Stormtroopers. It carries 20 AT-ATs, 30 AT-STs, 15 Troop transports, and 8 Lambda Shuttles (and that's the standard allotment, no telling what special stuff Thrawn had stashed aboard).

If Thrawn has cannibalized most of his ground units and recycled the resources no longer needed due to his apparently significant stormtrooper losses up to and including their physical remains (10,000 people represents a grim but substantial resource of organic molecules) he could keep the Chimaera running for a long time.

Spoiler

Show

The raiders had laser guns, didn't they? That's pretty advanced technology. It's possible they stole them from Stormtroopers, I'll admit, but until proven otherwise I'm not sure we can just assume this galaxy is somehow less technologically advanced than the main one.

Spoiler

Show

We also get a good look at the hermit crab people's encampment (Ezra implies they are migratory), and their trailer homes are made of shaped metal, they use electric lights, and possess a variety of poorly explained by clearly manufactured machinery (frankly it looks like someone raided a storehouse full of 1970s and 1980s electronics to use as props). Life on Peridia made be somewhat more primitive than in the main galaxy - for one, I don't believe we see any droids of any kind - but there's clearly sufficient technology to qualify as an industrialized society, enough that Thrawn's men can take things like steel and petroleum from the locals rather than having to go out and mine it themselves.

My sense is that Peridia is probably hundreds of years behind the Imperial standard, with its available tech probably frozen at the last time there was a big cultural exchange between traveling Dathomirians. That would explain why the stormtroopers stick with the battered versions of their white armor rather than adopting the red armor worn by the bandits (which is at least somewhat effective, since one of the guys Sabine shoots gets back up). Imperial gear is therefore better than whatever is locally available, but not necessarily fundamentally different.

[Maelstrom]

Star Destroyers, like most actual naval vessels, were designed for quite long term independent operations and probably have a full fuel load rated for months of regular operations. An ISD has consumables for 2 years, which suggests that it should have fuel for normal operations (presumably combat operations deplete fuel much more significantly than station keeping above a planet) of a similar length of time.

Considering modern capital class ships go between 15-25 years between refueling, I think we can safely assume the same in the SW universe, but as is the case in ours, the renewing the fuel for onboard/non-capital vessels and the general provisions for the crew would be the real issue. As we have seen so little of this new planet/galaxy, I'm content to wait and see...

[Ramza00]

The thing about the Chimera

Spoiler: Rebels

Show

It suffered massive structural damage in that episode of Rebels before it jumped to light speed via the space whales.

Furthermore the Bridge and other parts of the ship were exposed to atmosphere / space during such time. We are talking a non ideal situation when Thrawn and the Chimera emerged in a different galaxy. Lots of repair work would need to be done, and surely people died during this encounter. Resources would have been depleted and we have no clue on how much.

[pendell]

Considering modern capital class ships go between 15-25 years between refueling, I think we can safely assume the same in the SW universe, but as is the case in ours, the renewing the fuel for onboard/non-capital vessels and the general provisions for the crew would be the real issue. As we have seen so little of this new planet/galaxy, I'm content to wait and see...

Modern naval vessels don't use superluminal drive or support turbolasers, which are extremely powerful compared to modern weaponry. We see an ISD casually flashing asteroids into vapor in Episode 5. The power required to do this is some 250 terajoules, the same order of magnitude as an atomic bomb, and every single blast carries that level of power.

Not to mention, that same ISD from Ep. 5 also carries an onboard complement of fighters, shuttles, ground assault vehicles. I think it's reasonable to assume that all of them are refueled directly from the ship's power plant. Compare to a real-life aircraft carrier, whose air wing runs on JP- something and makes no demands on the ship's reactor.

All of which implies that a GFFA starship has far more extreme power requirements than a modern naval vessel and thus the two are not comparable. I submit that , since their power requirements are so much greater, GFFA vessels may need to be refueled considerably more often than 15 years. Although I suspect it would be at least 6 months ; anything less wouldn't be suitable for a long-range capital ship designed for independent operations.

Of course, a stranded commander could indeed cannibalize many of those resources such as the fighter wing or the ground vehicles in order to save power. An armed starship in this condition would be able to fly, but not fight.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

It's important to differentiate between fuel, which provides the ship with power, and propellant, which allows the ship to move. A Star Destroyer, like most other big things in Star Wars, uses a hypermatter annihilation reactor as its primary power source. The fuel, therefore, is hypermatter, which is a form of space fantasy phlebotinum that has whatever properties the plot demands it to have (ex. the purrgil can apparently create hypermatter through metabolism of exotic gas, which is how they travel through hyperspace). It is entirely possible that, like the nuclear reactor onboard a modern aircraft carrier, the hypermatter reactor onboard a Star Destroyer could supply the ship with power for decades while going through a fuel supply measurable in kilograms.

However, a Star Destroyer uses ion engines to move, meaning that it uses propellant in the form of a stream of charged and probably plasma-fied particles out the back end. Ion thrusters usually use various gases as propellant. Assuming that Star Destroyers use something, or can be retrofitted to use something, reasonably abundant like ammonia or xenon as a propellant, all it really takes to resupply is a gas giant, and those are all over the place. Of course, having to set up one's own refueling operation would no doubt be time-consuming and cumbersome compared to just stopping at fuel depots or periodically connecting with a tanker.

Spoiler

Show

Assuming any level of interstellar traffic exists in this alternate galaxy, Thrawn may have chosen the path of least resistance and simply gone pirate, ambushing ships and securing their propellant/fuel stores. All that battle damage and repair to stormtrooper armor doesn't just indicate the passage of time, as stormtrooper armor is quite capable of remaining pristine in storage for a very long time, it means these guys have been fighting, a lot.

[LibraryOgre]

You know, with upwards of 45,000 people on a Star Destroyer, I would lay decent odds you'd have a couple engineers that could cook up something that would work as a stop-gap, too.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: Fryaltari

Show

Cannibalizing their other ships for spare parts and rationning fuel, probably.

Thrawn says their numbers have dwindled and if all the forces they had around Lothal can now fit inside one Star destroyer, I can buy it.

They had no other ships. The space-whales dragged the Chimaera into hyperspace alone. See the clip that Ramza posted just above if you don't recall. Their losses should mean the Chimaera has a skeleton crew at best, not entire platoons of stormtroopers that can fill the hanger bay for an overly-dramatic scene.

A decade and half cut off from their homeworld and superiors living with witches can do strange things to people. Fascistic societies like the Empire are all about hero-worship and the exaltation of the leader. It's possible the only way to maintain discipline was to allow for some... kookiness, to take place. Star Wars take a lot of cues fro Dune, and it was a major plot point there that Paul ended up the central figure of a religion without ever really wanting to.

Yeah, I don't see Thrawn as the type to allow such a thing. He would insist on actual military discipline, not hero worship. He's never desired that, even from those he does inspire it in.

Most of the troopers have battered armor cobbled-up with non-regulation materials. He probably had to fix his helmet and used a statue's face, probably to denote rank. It's a rather effective way to distinguish him and show that Thrawn's forces have become something... different from the standard Imps.

I suspect Thrawn would sooner just have him go without the helmet. It's doubtful a piece of some statue would be an effective replacement for whatever material stormtrooper armor is supposed to be made of anyway.

Fuel really wasn't ever relevant until Disney decided that the world's slowest chase scene was a good idea.

I suppose fuel was a given in some respect, but the previous material didn't treat it as a critical or scarce thing. Long trips without refueling stops were standard.

Sure, but it is the sort of thing you'd expect to come up as an issue when stranded in the middle of nowhere for years.

Spoiler

Show

The raiders had laser guns, didn't they? That's pretty advanced technology. It's possible they stole them from Stormtroopers, I'll admit, but until proven otherwise I'm not sure we can just assume this galaxy is somehow less technologically advanced than the main one.

Spoiler

Show

Hard to tell. I got the impression from the sound they make (particularly when striking Sabine's armor) that they were ballistic weapons, not lasers at all. Looking at the scene again, their shots do appear to be glowing more than I'd expect from something shooting bullets, so, inconclusive. I'm not actually sure what those are supposed to be.

The fact that the raiders are fighting more with staffs than with the few guns they have does seem to paint them as more primitive though. Again, like Tusken Raiders...

[Tyndmyr]

Sure, but it is the sort of thing you'd expect to come up as an issue when stranded in the middle of nowhere for years.

If fuel is a thing, then yeah, it'd probably come up there. Fuel was just largely ignored until TLJ, so before then, I would simply not expect fuel to be a plot point, as even the smallest ships routinely travel across the galaxy repeatedly without ever once caring about it, indicating that fuel supplies are either infinite, or so close to it as to not be worth conveying to us.

But now fuel is important, so....it probably should also be important here. I guess this stands as another example of "the sequel trilogy made everything inconsistent."

[Peelee]

They don't look Dathomiran like Maul

Maul is a Zabrak, which are not native to Dathomir. Their home world is Iridonia (and are often also callled Iridonians).

Modern naval vessels don't use superluminal drive or support turbolasers, which are extremely powerful compared to modern weaponry. We see an ISD casually flashing asteroids into vapor in Episode 5. The power required to do this is some 250 terajoules, the same order of magnitude as an atomic bomb, and every single blast carries that level of power.

Not to mention, that same ISD from Ep. 5 also carries an onboard complement of fighters, shuttles, ground assault vehicles. I think it's reasonable to assume that all of them are refueled directly from the ship's power plant. Compare to a real-life aircraft carrier, whose air wing runs on JP- something and makes no demands on the ship's reactor.

All of which implies that a GFFA starship has far more extreme power requirements than a modern naval vessel and thus the two are not comparable.

Star Wars starships also have far more extremely advanced technology than a modern naval vessel so we can't say that the power demands far exceed their power generation unless explicitly told so.

The fuel, therefore, is hypermatter, which is a form of space fantasy phlebotinum

I'm a space fantasy phlebotomist!

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: Fryaltari

Show

They had no other ships. The space-whales dragged the Chimaera into hyperspace alone. See the clip that Ramza posted just above if you don't recall.

Spoiler

Show

"They've destroyed the blockade, our ships are just... gone!"
what do you think the purrgil did to those ships? They didn't shoot at them nor crush them. They took them away, just like they did with Chimaera.

Spoiler

Show

Yeah, I don't see Thrawn as the type to allow such a thing. He would insist on actual military discipline, not hero worship. He's never desired that, even from those he does inspire it in.

Spoiler

Show

He would if that was the best way to maintain discipline. Thousands of people have been uprooted from their home quite possibly forever, on his watch. Mutiny and defections are almost guaranteed. An empire survives on its symbols and narratives and Thrawn, I think understand that. If the troops needs the ceremonial and grandiosity to power through the hardships, he'll indulge them. It's a small price to pay to keep his men operational and united instead of going off to join the marauders or found a village or whatever.

Also, remembers how in Legends he told the Empire of the Hand that he would return ten years after his death (deliberately leaving out that he had a clone stashed somewhere) and they were dutifully waiting for his return like some kind of fascist-Messiah? That character is not above creating and abusing a sense of mystic if it serves him.

Spoiler

Show

I suspect Thrawn would sooner just have him go without the helmet. It's doubtful a piece of some statue would be an effective replacement for whatever material stormtrooper armor is supposed to be made of anyway.

Spoiler

Show

Ignoring that at this point wet cardboard offers more protection than trooper armor, you don't know that. This statue might have been made of cortosis for all we know.
But also, why would Thrawn not allow it? Most of the troopers clearly had to patch their armor up with non-regulation parts.

EDIT:

Maul is a Zabrak, which are not native to Dathomir. Their home world is Iridonia (and are often also callled Iridonians).

The Clone Wars establishes that Iridonia is a place on Dathomir, it's where the Nightbrothers live.

Obi-Wan: Darth Maul alive!? Can't be, I killed him myself.
Yoda: Correct you are, Obi-Wan. A creature of the same species he is. From Dathomir.
Obi-Wan: Dathomir? The planet of the witches? I was under the impression that Darth Maul's homeworld was Iridonia.
Windu: Dathomir is the planet where Maul was raised. Iridonia is where the males of the species dwell.

Obi-Wan then travel to Dathomir to speak with the Nightbrothers.

Edit2:

If fuel is a thing, then yeah, it'd probably come up there. Fuel was just largely ignored until TLJ, so before then, I would simply not expect fuel to be a plot point, as even the smallest ships routinely travel across the galaxy repeatedly without ever once caring about it, indicating that fuel supplies are either infinite, or so close to it as to not be worth conveying to us.

But now fuel is important, so....it probably should also be important here. I guess this stands as another example of "the sequel trilogy made everything inconsistent."

Fuel came up as minor plot point from time to time before TLJ. In particular, it serves as the inciting incident in the Zilla beast arc of The Clone Wars (the Republic finds the beast while fighting the seppies over a planet who is important because of its fuel production capacities and it turns out the beast is allergic to that very fuel).
Also, Solo.

[gbaji]

Even with a bit of sci fi handwavium, 3d printers a touch more complex than that. They need spare parts. Not all of them are 3d printable, and you need a large stock of plastic. Recycling isn't good indefinitely, because some volatiles are lost in the melt process. How much depends on the kind of polymer. For less volatile polymers, like PLA, you trade off other things. PLA is specific will degrade in UV light and take on water from the atmosphere, and both will make the plastic unable to be printed again even if it is filament. There's a lot of good utility for 3d printers, but they are probably not going to ever be a wholly closed loop that replaces all else.

Yeah. I think that's taking the 3d printer analogy a bit too literally though. We can reasonably assume that large capital warships will have significant fabrication and repair capabilities onboard. Some sort of decently sized machine shop is pretty much a given. We can't really know for certain what the Star Wars equivalent of that might be though, but I'd assume that being able to reshape materials on hand to suit the need should be possible at a minimum. Which would certainly result in a bit of patchwork appearance, but should allow for functionality.

Naval vessels, going all the way back to wooden ships with sails (oars maybe too) have generally carried the tools and equipment to make most needed repairs on board, and if able to find external materials, can engage in even more extensive repairs if needed. I don't find the fact that this ship is intact and functional to be at all unreasonable.

As far as fuel? Yeah. It's never been super clarified how this works in SW. But I would kinda assume that the energy costs for things like hyperspace travel should dwarf those for just hanging around with the lights on (heck, we see things hovering around in SW all the time, even when just parked, so...).

They are parked on a planet too. There are presumably materials there that can be used both for repairs and food. SW loves to present settings that appear super harsh all the time, yet magically tons of people (and unreasonably large monsters) live there, with no real explanation of where they all get their food anyway. So this is also not something I'm going to really worry about.

[Peelee]

As far as fuel? Yeah. It's never been super clarified how this works in SW. But I would kinda assume that the energy costs for things like hyperspace travel should dwarf those for just hanging around with the lights on (heck, we see things hovering around in SW all the time, even when just parked, so...).

The X-Wing series in Legends had sublight drives taking fuel as a vehicle normally would whole the hyperdrive barely sipped the fuel.

[Errorname]

Fuel really wasn't ever relevant until Disney decided that the world's slowest chase scene was a good idea.

I suppose fuel was a given in some respect, but the previous material didn't treat it as a critical or scarce thing. Long trips without refueling stops were standard.

Star Wars has always treated logistics in general as basically optional rules. They'll bring it up if it creates a problem they think is interesting or if they need an excuse for why a simple solution isn't being used but they're also pretty content to just not bother with it if they don't feel like it.

[hamishspence]

The Clone Wars establishes that Iridonia is a place on Dathomir, it's where the Nightbrothers live.

Obi-Wan: Darth Maul alive!? Can't be, I killed him myself.
Yoda: Correct you are, Obi-Wan. A creature of the same species he is. From Dathomir.
Obi-Wan: Dathomir? The planet of the witches? I was under the impression that Darth Maul's homeworld was Iridonia.
Windu: Dathomir is the planet where Maul was raised. Iridonia is where the males of the species dwell.

Obi-Wan then travel to Dathomir to speak with the Nightbrothers.

That's not what Wookieepedia says, even on its 'canon page' for the planet:


https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Iridonia

"I was under the impression that Darth Maul's home world was Iridonia."
"Dathomir is the planet where Maul was raised. Iridonia is where the rest of the males of the species dwell."

It takes the approach that Maul's village of Nightbrothers is an unusual expatriate colony and that Iridonia still exists as a homeworld.

[Errorname]

It takes the approach that Maul's village of Nightbrothers is an unusual expatriate colony and that Iridonia still exists as a homeworld.

This is backed up by non-Dathomiran Zabrak having a very different appearance to Maul and the Nightbrothers.

[Maelstrom]

If fuel is a thing, then yeah, it'd probably come up there. Fuel was just largely ignored until TLJ, so before then, I would simply not expect fuel to be a plot point, as even the smallest ships routinely travel across the galaxy repeatedly without ever once caring about it, indicating that fuel supplies are either infinite, or so close to it as to not be worth conveying to us.

But now fuel is important, so....it probably should also be important here. I guess this stands as another example of "the sequel trilogy made everything inconsistent."

I wouldn't say it wasn't a thing...In ANH, we see the fighters being fueled up, and then in ESB, tibana gas from Cloud city becomes a thing. But yes, as a plot point it's been hand waved until recently

[Fyraltari]

That's not what Wookieepedia says, even on its 'canon page' for the planet:


https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Iridonia



It takes the approach that Maul's village of Nightbrothers is an unusual expatriate colony and that Iridonia still exists as a homeworld.

Huh, you are correct.
I think what tripped me is that it implies there are no women on Iridonia? Or, more likely, most Nightbrothers left to Iridonia.

[Grim Portent]

Huh, you are correct.
I think what tripped me is that it implies there are no women on Iridonia? Or, more likely, most Nightbrothers left to Iridonia.

The idea seems to be that the Zabrak arose on Iridonia and then some formed a colony on Dathomir and diverged into the pointy-horn version like Maul, as opposed to the more blunt-horned Iridonians like Eeth-Koth, and the Dathomirian-Zabrak women lost their horns entirely.

There's similar things with a few other species, where some are the result of evolving from a colony of another race. Neimoidians (Nute Gunray and co) came from the Duros (Cad Bane) species for example.

[Errorname]

Huh, you are correct.
I think what tripped me is that it implies there are no women on Iridonia? Or, more likely, most Nightbrothers left to Iridonia.

It's weird because one of the only Iridonian Zabrak I can recall offhand is a woman, the bounty hunter Sugi, who has the same horned look as the men, and she showed up a season before all the Nightbrother stuff.

The gender segregation and extreme dimorphism seemed a uniquely Dathomiran thing, so honestly retconning it so that they were different species entirely isn't the weirdest thing, even if it's boring

[Grim Portent]

It's weird because one of the only Iridonian Zabrak I can recall offhand is a woman, the bounty hunter Sugi, who has the same horned look as the men, and she showed up a season before all the Nightbrother stuff.

The gender segregation and extreme dimorphism seemed a uniquely Dathomiran thing, so honestly retconning it so that they were different species entirely isn't the weirdest thing, even if it's boring

Jedi Master Eeth Koth and Jedi Master Agen Kolar are Iridonian Zabraks.

Kolar is from Coruscant, while Koth was originally from Nar Shaddaa he was retconned to have been born on Iridonia at some point. Either way, both are the Iridonian subspecies.

[Errorname]

Jedi Master Eeth Koth and Jedi Master Agen Kolar are Iridonian Zabraks.

Kolar is from Coruscant, while Koth was originally from Nar Shaddaa he was retconned to have been born on Iridonia at some point. Either way, both are the Iridonian subspecies.

I could not have told you Agen Kolar's name at all, although I knew that Eeth Koth wasn't the Jedi who died in ROTS.

That said I knew Eeth Koth offhand, because of a combination of a lame star wars name and the fact that he really should have just died in that Clone Wars episode (Let Grievous have a win man), but since he's not a woman it wasn't really relevant to my point about Clone Wars reinforcing what female Zabrak looked like a full season before all the Dathomir stuff happened.

[Fyraltari]

Okay, but now I'm wondering, are there Zabraks on Peridia?

Or are the Nightsisters some kind of monosexual species that can mate with other humanoids with the offspring being their specie if female and the father's if male?

And how would that work? Magic?

[Mechalich]

Okay, but now I'm wondering, are there Zabraks on Peridia?

Or are the Nightsisters some kind of monosexual species that can mate with other humanoids with the offspring being their specie if female and the father's if male?

And how would that work? Magic?

Dathomirians include both Nightbrothers and Nightsisters, it's just that the Nightbrothers look like Zabraks who file their horns and the Nightsisters look like Rattataki with hair. This high level of sexual dimorphism, while unusual in sapient species in Star Wars, really isn't that unreasonable on its own. It would be quite unremarkable among, for example, birds.

That said, the origin of the Dathomirians seems to involve a great deal of hybridization between Humans and Zabraks - the original Legends explanation was that the Dathomirians were a species produced via hybridization - but Disney sources tacked on a bunch of additional stuff that has left the situation rather confused. Notably, Morgan Elsbeth is Human, but has at least partial Dathomirian ancestry.

And, of course, it's not clear how different Zabraks and Humans truly are in-universe. In Legends, Zabraks were a created species produced by Rakata genetic manipulation of presumably Human slaves (this is true of like 95+% of near-humans in Legends) and therefore may differ from Humans only in a small number of selectively edited genetic clusters. Possibly there is sexually selective inheritance of specific genetic sequences in Human/Zabrak crosses, resulting in the sexual dimorphism expressed in Dathomirians.

Variable inheritance can be observed in Human/Twi'lek crosses as well. Jacen Syndulla appears entirely Human aside from green hair, but Shaeeah and Jek Lawquane appear significantly more Twi'lek in nature, with Shaeeah having entirely an entirely Twi'lek phenotype aside from mottled skin.

[pendell]

Mechalich, remind me: Where did we learn Hypermatter is used to power starships? We know they're used to power the Death Star (from the eponymous novel of the same name -- great one, by the way) but that was Legends canon. For all we know, Disneyverse ships are powered by unicorns and happy thoughts.

The X-Wing series in Legends had sublight drives taking fuel as a vehicle normally would whole the hyperdrive barely sipped the fuel.

Which would imply that the X-wings' reactors (hypermatter or whatever) aren't large enough to be self-sufficient; perhaps those on larger starships are.

In real life, antimatter is synthesized but it requires an immense amount of energy.

I'm assuming a hypermatter reactor can generate sufficient energy to act as a 'breeding' reactor to refuel itself. However, I suspect the process is time-consuming for an ISD-size reactor, or there would never be any need to refuel them at all.

...

perhaps, in TLJ, 'low on fuel' was only a problem because the Resistance ships were being pursued and so they did not have time to cease acceleration in order to divert the reactor to synthesizing hypermatter -- and perhaps the process would take days or weeks, if not months, which might explain why most ships don't do it. It's not economical. Far better to let that be done by the various stellar systems , who can store it up and then sell it to passing ships. But perhaps they could synthesize their own fuel, in a pinch, albeit very inefficiently.

Of course, this is all speculation but if someone has another suggestion I'd love it!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

Fuel came up as minor plot point from time to time before TLJ. In particular, it serves as the inciting incident in the Zilla beast arc of The Clone Wars (the Republic finds the beast while fighting the seppies over a planet who is important because of its fuel production capacities and it turns out the beast is allergic to that very fuel).
Also, Solo.

Solo came out after TLJ. The fuel focus in there felt like an attempt to try to justify TLJ's use of it a bit, but ultimately the film wasn't very successful.

Not familiar with Clone Wars, though I guess some sort of similar 'fuel is produced here' probably existed somewhere in the novels as well. It sort of makes sense that fuel exists, of course, it just was never a significant constraint in the SW universe. Ship diagrams and cutaways focused on crew areas, weapons, things of that nature, without devoting nearly so much space to propellant tanks as real world spacecraft require. Fuel's there, just...not very important.

Yeah. I think that's taking the 3d printer analogy a bit too literally though. We can reasonably assume that large capital warships will have significant fabrication and repair capabilities onboard. Some sort of decently sized machine shop is pretty much a given. We can't really know for certain what the Star Wars equivalent of that might be though, but I'd assume that being able to reshape materials on hand to suit the need should be possible at a minimum. Which would certainly result in a bit of patchwork appearance, but should allow for functionality.

A machine shop or the like, sure. I can picture them fixing up a damaged gun or patching a hull, definitely. However, they're still going to need raw materials, and a warship shouldn't be focusing on raw production/refinery/etc. Mostly, I think of the SW fleets as roughly equivalent to WW2 ships in how they are portrayed. Something like a Star Destroyer can definitely operate independently for some time, but does ultimately require the support and supply chain the Empire provides. In most cases, this can be handwaved fairly easily as taking place offscreen, it's only when you get into "these guys left the galaxy and didn't return" that it gets iffy.

You can say that stuff like fuel isn't a big deal because of the historical lack of focus, and maybe they are not flying around much to conserve it. People still got to eat, though.

I think it's mostly fine to handwave all that stuff so long as the context makes it obviously not that important, but it gets a bit weird when you have a massive fleet of star destroyers at Exogal or the like. Which are canonically crewed, not robotic....and still don't know what way is up without a beacon. At some point one just shrugs and gives up on the whole affair making sense.

[warty goblin]

There's an interesting inversion with ships. Through the age of sail, food and water were pretty much the only limits on a ship's endurance, because, well, wind is free. You therefore tend to see a fair amount of harvesting and scavenging of local food supplies precisely because it meaningfully contributes to how long a ship can remain at sea, much to the detriment of dodos and tortoises and sea bird colonies.

Once you hit steam power fuel very quickly becomes the limiting factor - there's a very weird period in the 1860s - 1870s where warships would carry steam engines for tactical flexibility and full sail rigs for strategic maneuverability because they just couldn't go very far on their coal stores. Once in the age of steam and steel, the only case where food was a limiting factor that I can think of is when the Graf Spee had her entire galley blown up at the battle of the River Platte, which was arguably one of a number of factors behind her scuttling. Also the destruction of the diesel purification plant, the expenditure of most of her ammunition, and the (mistaken) belief that vastly heavier British units were already en route. Operational issues due to fuel and machinery wearing out are pretty much a dime a dozen by contrast.

This them flips again with nuclear powered vessels, which are once more mostly limited by food and other supplies. So far as I'm aware however, tortoises are generally not considered a usable source of protein anymore.

All of which is to say that depending on what time period you want to analogize, you can pick whether food is an issue, fuel is an issue, both, or neither. The better question is whether logistics would have made the story better, and the correct answer in a space opera is that unless you need it to be the driver of the plot and a huge problem, it should just be ignored.

[Grim Portent]

Okay, but now I'm wondering, are there Zabraks on Peridia?

Or are the Nightsisters some kind of monosexual species that can mate with other humanoids with the offspring being their specie if female and the father's if male?

And how would that work? Magic?

This gets a little complicated, but the simple version is that the current version of Nightsisters are Zabraks who lost their horns as a result of living on Dathomir for generations. The males instead got naturally tall, thin and sharp horns, while the basic Zabraks have short, blunt rounded ones on both sexes. Might be something about Dathomir being steeped in darkness, influencing the locals to look more spooky the way it does to the animals and plants.


The meta reasoning for this is where things get kind of weird. Obviously back in Legends the witches of Dathomir were human, or basically human. Lucas liked the idea and made it Maul's homeworld. The current red clothes and pointy hoods aesthetic came about in the mid 2000s in a game and went on to inspire the take on them in The Clone Wars. Before The Clone Wars they were still mostly human I think, but since Maul is from Dathomir and a Zabrak, Lucas and Filoni made the Nightsisters also Zabraks and explained it as a subspecies of the main Zabraks.

One source does apparently suggest they can reproduce without the Nightbrothers, using a mixture of their magic and technology. IVF, cloning and other artificial reproduction methods are a thing anyway, so sure they can have a magically modified form.

They can breed with other species anyway, a lot of species in Star Wars can make hybrid babies because it's a space fantasy, so it's like humans and elves.

[Fyraltari]

This gets a little complicated, but the simple version is that the current version of Nightsisters are Zabraks who lost their horns as a result of living on Dathomir for generations. The males instead got naturally tall, thin and sharp horns, while the basic Zabraks have short, blunt rounded ones on both sexes. Might be something about Dathomir being steeped in darkness, influencing the locals to look more spooky the way it does to the animals and plants.

(Leaving the meta aside.)

Except that we see in this episode that the witches are not an offshoot of Zabraks who settled on Dathomir, they're a different species altogether, who came from Peridia and seemingly already looked like that.

Meaning that either the males of the species look exactly like Zabraks by pure coincidence and people from Galaxy One just assumed they must be a Zabarak offshoot, or Zabrak from Iridonia did settle Dathomir, and ended up being enslaved by the witches who fused both species in such a way that the males would be born Zabrak and the females witches.