STAR WARS
Novel References


Tales of the Bounty Hunters

PAGE QUOTATION COMMENTS
7

IG-88 powered on a cutting laser in one of the metal fingers in his free right arm and sliced off the second band. Free, he stood erect and clomped forward, several metric tons of precisely-made components.

M.Wong:
Indicates extremely high lower limits to the density of IG-88's body. A very generous estimate for IG-88's total volume would be roughly 0.1 cubic metres due to his spindly construction, and the accompanying quote indicates that his mass must be in excess of 2000 kg. His density would therefore be at least 20,000 kg/m³, in spite of the weapon and supply storage cavities in his body.
19

A career worker on Mechis III, Kalebb Orn had never understood why a human presence was required here, of all places. It seemed to serve no purpose. The droid manufacturing lines had gone without a glitch for at least the past century, but still company mandates required a human operator in some small percentage of the operations ... the self-designing assembly lines had grown so vast over centuries of operation.

M.Wong:
Describes the factory world of Mechis III, covered with droid-manufacturing facilities. Indicates that factory automation has progressed to the point where human intervention, even at the management and engineering level, is totally unnecessary. Anyone with even the most superficial experience in modern assembly lines knows how much constant, daily maintenance and monitoring is required to keep everything running smoothly- the concept of a factory running for centuries, complete with autonomous redesign, is staggering.
21

It weighed heavy on a man to know that he lorded over one of the most important commercial centers in the industrialized galaxy- even if he was one of only seventy three humans on the entire planet.

M.Wong:
More evidence of the fantastic level of automation on the factory world of Mechis III. Only 73 people are required to supervise the operation of the entire planet, and from the example of Kalebb Orn, we know that most of them probably have little or nothing to do.
43

By tapping into his droids infiltrated into the Empire, he had learned that Vader's flagship, the Executor, was a Super Star Destroyer eight kilometres long, laced with powerful computers and functioning with a crew far smaller than might be expected for such a scaled-up version of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. The construction of this incredible battleship had practically bankrupted several systems.

This passage reiterates the myth that an Executor-class ship is only 8km long, even though a basic geometric examination of the films reveals that the ship is at least double that size. Of course this only reflects the belief of the deranged assassin droid IG-88. The droid informants cannot be completely reliable when it comes to these technical details.

This passage claims that the cosntruction of the Executor had practically bankrupted several systems. This may be hyperbole, since an Executor is only one or two hundred times the volume of a star destroyer, of which there are tens of thousands in the Empire.

Executor is called a “battleship”.

49

Not only was Vader concerned with his flagship and the Imperial fleet under his iron command — he also knew of the Emperor's pet project, a second, larger Death Star under construction in orbit around the sanctuary moon of Endor.

As IG-88 digested the information, he had another flash of intuition. Some might have called it a delusion of grandeur, but IG-88 — who had already been copied into three identical counterparts, his personality moved into separate droid bodies — saw no reason why he could not upload himself into the huge computer core of the new Death Star!

Aboard the Executor immediately after the Battle of Hoth, IG-88 infiltrates Lord Vader's personal files. He learns that a new Death Star will be built at Endor. This passage is inconclusive on the issue of whether construction had commenced.

IG-88 conceives a plan for galactic domination: to infect the Death Star II computers with his personality, rather like a software virus.

50–51

With their optical sensors tuned to peak performance, the four IG-88s studied the shimmering classified plans of the second Death Star. The perfect curves of the armillary sphere indicated where reinforcement girders were to be installed, where the central superlaser would be aligned . . . where the new and precise computer core would be attached.

The Death Star computer core had not yet been installed. It had not even arrived at the sanctuary moon — but now IG-88 had the schedule and the destination. According to Vader's plans stolen from Executor, IG-88 knew how the computer core would be guarded, what path it would take as it entered and left hyperspace. It was all the information he needed.

“The solution is obvious.” IG-88A said. The others agreed.

“We must create a duplicate computer core, which we will inhabit.”

“We will secretly make the exchange. An identical core will be delivered to Endor.”

IG-88 inspects stolen plans for the Death Star II. This conference happened before the Millennium Falcon arrived on Bespin in TESB [see p.53]. At this stage the Death Star II lacks a computer core, its superlaser dish, and “reinforcement girders” — essentially the frame of the battle station. Without such fundamentals, the construction must be at a very early stage, if it has started at all.

53

As preparations for the assault on the Death Star computer core proceeded with all the speed the droid manufacturing droid could muster, an imperative transmission from one of IG-88B's smart microtracers shot towards Mechis III.

Boba Fett had found Han Solo.

Fett's ship, Slave I, was currently en route to Bespin, where Solo was heading toward a gas-mining metropolis known as Cloud City.

This event establishes a chronological reference: IG-88 formulated his plan to substitute the Death Star II computer core before Solo and his crew arrived at Bespin.

56

The ion cannon bombardment stopped, and his self-repairing systems gave him one instant of vision, a video frame: Boba Fett emerging from the shadows, holding a portable ion cannon like a bazooka. Boba Fett fired again, personally this time. A blast of electrical fire like a comet struck IG-88's chest and bowled him over so that his multi-metric-ton body smashed into the metal walls, denting them as he tumbled to the ground ... with emergency backup systems, IG-88B continued to transmit his subspace signal, uploading his files to Mechis III in a desperate attempt to preserve his memories.

M.Wong:
This takes place in the lower levels of Lando Calrissian's Bespin tibanna gas mine, where IG-88 is ambushed by Boba Fett. Repeats the reference to IG-88 massing several metric tons. Also indicates that IG-88 carried a long-range communications transceiver on his body, with which he can communicate with the factory world of Mechis III from Bespin. Not surprising, considering what the Arakyd probot could do.
66

[Jerjerrod] stood in his smart olive-grey uniform, watching the new stormtroooper escorts. “Attention!” he snapped. “Get that computer core installed as soon as possible. For the next several months our schedule is exceedingly tight, with no tolerance for delay. We must redouble our efforts. These orders come directly from Lord Vader.”

....

The blackness of sensor deprivation was distressing, but unavoidable. Humans would have called it “unconsciousness” — but when IG-88 finally reawoke after a month or so of stasis, he found himself in an immense new world of data input.

Chronological note: the duration of Death Star II construction was expected to be several months. The computer core that was infected with an IG-88 personality lay dormant for about one month after its delivery. Some more time (unknown) elapsed before the Battle of Endor.

60

When Boba Fett again refused to answer, IG-88 increased his speed to tolerance levels, narrowing the gap between his ship and the Slave I. He rode tight in the bowshock from Fett's ship. But suddenly, in a remarkable move, Boba Fett activated his inertial damping system, slamming his descent to a halt in the atmosphere of Tattooine. The stress and power required for such a maneuver utterly trashed his hyperdrives. IG-88 zoomed past him, unable to squelch his velocity sufficiently. He brought the IG-2000 to a halt in less than two seconds- directly in the targeting cross of Fett's ship.

M.Wong:
Another attempt by IG-88 to defeat the resourceful Boba Fett ends in abject failure, bringing Fett's IG-88 killscore to 3 (he had previously eliminated a second IG-88 unit in orbit). Describes another function of inertial dampers- they can apparently be used to lower the inertia of an entire vessel, to permit rapid velocity changes.
74–75

It was a kilometer to Kritkeen's mansion ... Dengar had his cybernetic eyes set at 64X magnification, and he could see Kritkeen clearly.

M.Wong:
Describes some of Dengar's cybernetic alterations.
78

According to records, the people of Azura had not had a murder on their planet in over a hundred of their years. They had forgotten how, grown soft. Through technology, they had created neural jacks that allowed them to both send and receive thoughts and emotions to one another, becoming technological empaths, sharing something of a limited group consciousness.

M.Wong:
Describes the placid population of Azura. More evidence of the widespread use of cyborg technology in the Old Republic, used in this case as a social engineering tool. The transmission range of the neural-jack transceivers is unknown.
85

So they closed his brain, removing those parts he would no longer need. They'd sewn the punctures closed in his torso, inserting new neural nets in the arms and legs. They grew new skin to cover what he'd lost on his face. They gave him new eyes to see with, new ears to hear.

M.Wong:
Describes the Empire's medical, surgical, and cyborg technology, with which they created Dengar the Assassin from the almost totally destroyed body of Dengar the reckless swoop racer. The insertion of neutral nets in his arms and legs indicates that he had lost much of his natural nervous-system functionality in those limbs, and the use of artificial sensory organs indicates that they can easily tie artificial devices into the sensory inputs of a human brain.
102

Solo's last maneuver had been to strafe the Star Destroyer. Then he'd gone off the scopes. Dengar figured Solo must have gone back into the asteroid field. Perhaps Solo had shut down systems for a bit, so that his own ship seemed no more than an asteroid, but as Dengar sped into the asteroid field himself, he saw that even Solo himself wasn't crazy enough to risk such a maneuver. Rocks the size of his ship hurtled toward him, and these weren't the soft carbonaceous chrondites that his weapons might punch a hole through- these were nickel-iron rocks that could smash him to pieces.

M.Wong:
Takes place during the Hoth asteroid-field chase in TESB, as Dengar attempts to hunt down Solo. Describes the composition of the Hoth asteroids in the immediate vicinity of the Star Destroyers where Solo was last seen, thus laying to rest any notion that they are carbonaceous. They are definitely high-density nickel-iron rocky asteroids.
154

The Hound could only manage a short jump carrying 593 wookies, which would be a tremendous burden on life support.

The Hound's Tooth is a big ship, at least compared to a light freighter like the Millennium Falcon.

214

“This ship can change course in the middle of a hyperspace jump! Hound, you're magnificent.”

The droid Flirt having subverted Hound's Tooth, makes some claims about its abilities. The credability of this particular claim is undermined by the excited boastfulness of the moment, the possibility that the subversion is incomplete and that lies are being told and the fact that the droid is still unfamiliar with the systems and might have made a misunderstanding.

221

They could not change course in hyperspace, but their ship could execute a second jump so quickly it would appear for only a brief moment on the Imperials' screens.

M.Wong:
Zuckuss and 4-LOM's ship does not have the in-jump course-changing capabilities of the Hound's Tooth or a Star Destroyer, but it can easily make a second jump. Demonstrates that even low-end spacecraft can jump in and out of a system with only a short period of sublight exposure.
247

The Rebels had left the galaxy. They had gone to a point above the galactic plane, far from any stars- from all places where the Empire might track them.

M.Wong:
Indicates that the Rebels actually fled the galaxy after their crushing defeat at Hoth. Obviously, they eventually returned, but at some point in time they were hiding somewhere above the galactic disc.
268

4-LOM flew the Mist Hunter out of the galaxy at a point near the galactic equatorial plane, and he used the massive gravitational forces of the galaxy itself to propel the ship toward the rendezvous point.

Again suggests that extragalactic travel is possible, at least on scales comparable to the size of the galaxy itself.

270

Their combined wealth staggered him. So many had posted bounties. the bounty on General Rieekan alone could have bought a moon in the galactic core. It could have bought worlds on the rim.

4-LOM's reflections indicate the approximate costs to purchase planets and moons. If the known bounties for Solo, Skywalker et.al. are worthy for comparison, the quantities involved with Rieekan and these purchases of worlds are of the order of hundreds of thousands of credits.

297

Fett actually leaned forward slightly. 'Those worlds rose in rebellion against the authority legally in place over them. The Emperor was within his rights to destroy them; they threatened the system of social justice that permits civilization to exist.' He paused. 'I am sorry for the deaths of the innocent. But that happens in war, Leia Organa. The innocent die in wars, and your side should not have started this one.'

Fett's perspective on the Galactic Civil War.
301

Fifteen years passed.
Or, to put it another way:
Darth Vader died; so did the Emperor. The Empire fell and was succeeded by the New Republic. On the human scale fifteen years is long enough for babies to be born and grow into teenagers; human children across the galaxy became adults and bore children of their own. For some long-lived species the period passed without significant change; for others, shorter-lived than humans, entire generations were born, grew old and died.

In a sector of the galaxy Boba Fett had never heard of, a star went nova; it murdered a world and an entire sentient species. It aroused less comment than had the destruction of Alderaan, only a decade prior; the galaxy at large barely noticed the tragedy, and Fett never heard about it. In a galaxy with over four hundred billion stars, over twenty million intelligent species, such things are bound to happen.

Expresses the scale of the galaxy; abundance and variety of its inhabitants, etc.

288

Hyperwave warning triggered when ships emerge from hyperspace.

289

Hoth was a cold world, far from its sun; the gravity gradient this far out was smaller than usual for a world habitable by humans --- the Falcon was going to jump to hyperspace practically any moment.

Implies role of gravitational gradient against the safety or possibility of jumping to hyperspace.

318

In the remaining minutes left before their exit from hyperspace, Fett dressed himself. The Mandalorian combat armour he dressed in was not the armour he had worn in years past; that armour, burned and cracked, was still somewhere deep inside the Great Pit of Carkoon, back on Tatooine. But Mandalorian combat armour, though rare, could still be acquired if you went about it right. For years Fett had been hearing about another bounty hunter who wore Mandalorian combat armour, a fellow named Jodo Kast. It had annoyed him terribly. With some frequency, during those years, Fett had found himself being blamed for, and credited with, things Kast had done.

Less than a year after his escape from the Sarlaac, Fett hunted Jodo Kast down, via the Bounty Hunters' Guild; he'd pretended to be a client, disguised in bandages; his own Guild had not known him. He'd requested the services of Kast, and Kast had come; by that time Fett had changed into his own spare armour, taken away the imposter's armour, and also his life.

Problem: contentious chronological placement of Twin Engines of Destruction. According to interviews with Dark Horse Comics editors and the Dark Horse STAR WARS Timeline, Fett's confrontation with Jodo Kast actually took place between Dark Empire II and Empire's End. This should be sometime between six and seven years after Fett's experience in the Sarlaac. On the other hand it is believed that Andy Mangels, the author of the comic, has made statements supporting the earlier timeframe. It is unclear which of these two prior references should take precedence.

Apparently, the collected version of the comic (originally four parts) states the earlier date somewhere, but several other STAR WARS comics contain self-contradictory chronological information, most notably the Tales of the Jedi titles.

321

“By the Cold. I can't believe I got caught by a nerf herder like you.”

The hyperspace tunnel fragmented around them; Fett turned away from Malloc, to his controls.

“Reality,” said Fett, “doesn't care if you believe it.”

Fett's ship emerges from hyperspace. The process seems to be automatic but Fett immediately gives his attention to the controls upon return to realspace. The passage describes the visible phenomena of hyperspace as a tunnel.


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