Author: stcrmpilot

Aside from Chironians, do you know of any taur-like (two grasping limbs, four walking limbs) sentient species? I vaguely recall one that was in an older RPG supplement but I can’t remember the name, and there’s no category on the wiki for hexapodal sentient species.

I’m afraid I don’t, sorry! I don’t own any of the RPG support books either, so I can’t check those, but perhaps one of my followers can recall the species you’re thinking of?

~ Jacen

Which sentient species have the best hearing?

Well, there are certainly plenty to choose from! Out of the more commonly-referred-to species Pau’ans probably have the best hearing, but Lannik, Lasats, and Sullustans are all said to have better hearing than humans. That’s just what has come to mind, this definitely isn’t an exhaustive list. Anyone who can think of more is welcome to add on! 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

Is it possible for a ship to come out of hyperspace in-atmosphere?

The atmosphere itself wouldn’t be so much of a problem, of course, the issue would be with the gravity well of the planet. Theoretically, the safety mechanisms should pull the ship out of hyperspace as soon as the force of a celestial body’s gravity starts to have an effect on the ship, a ways before it actually reaches the body itself. Likewise, a ship should not be able to enter hyperspace while under the influence of the gravity well. However, we have seen that malfunctions in he hyperdrive and related safety systems can cause a ship to jump to hyperspace while in a planet’s atmosphere. It is possible that a similar malfunction, or disabling the failsafe that causes the ship to exit hyperspace, could allow the ship to end a jump closer to the planet than normally allowed. Naturally, this would be very dangerous and could easily cause the ship to just hit the planet’s surface or burn up upon reentry, and right now I can’t think of any examples of someone actually doing it, but I believe it could be possible with a lot of careful calculation.

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

So, bacta prevents the formation of scar tissue – but can it heal existing scars?

I don’t believe it’s explicitly said whether bacta can be used to heal scars. However because wounds healed with bacta can still scar, and because getting treatment faster increases the chance of full recovery and reduces the chance of scarring (implying that the bacta can only effectively heal that tissue which had not already scarred), I would say that bacta probably can’t heal existing scars.

~ Jacen

Following up on that question about starship engines, how much information is there on the Executor’s sublight engines? I only know that they’re Kuat Drive Yards stardrives, are freaking huge and that there’s 13 of them. I want to have Admiral Piett geek out about his dear ship with the captains of Death Squadron, so I’d like to fill that scene with a ridiculous amount of technobabble.

The Executor’s sublights are called Executor-50.x engines, and that’s about all we know. I couldn’t even tell you for sure what kind of engine they are. However, KDY also manufactured the Imperial I-class and Victory I-class Star Destroyers, which both use ion engines for sublight travel. I think it’s safe to assume that the Executor-50.x engines are also ion drives, albeit massive ones. Since I can’t give you specifics on the engines, I’ll give you a rundown of how ion drives work.

Ion drives use a controlled fusion reaction to produce a stream of charged particles, which are forced out of the exhaust ports to provide thrust. These particles are mildly radioactive (in the case of the Executor, any ship that flew too close to the engines would be vaporized by the radiation) and they travel at close to the speed of light. The engines can be powered by generators, chemical reactants, power cells, or pretty much any other sufficient source of power. On Executor-class Star Dreadnoughts, power came from one main reactor and a number of secondary reactors, though the type of reactor is unknown. If the engines are indeed ion drives, they will be nuclear fusion reactors cores.

That’s about everything I can find, unfortunately. I hope it helped!

~ Jacen

I need a part of a ship — preferably something related to the engine, if only because that’s what I’ve been using as a place-holder — that somebody could be shown how to repair and do maintenance on, if it should happen to become necessary.

Pretty much anything could work, but the engine and weapons systems in particular would need more frequent maintenance and repair than, say, the navigation systems. Unless you have a specific reason not to, you could find out what sublight engine your ship uses and just go with that, without needing to mention any specific parts of the engine. For most sublights, you won’t find terribly specific information about the different parts of the engine anyway, and same goes for weapons systems. If you’d rather reference a specific part, I would look into the many mechanisms involved in hyperdrives and pick one from there. We know, for example, that the hyperdrive motivator can be both damaged and repaired with the help of an astromech droid. It is reasonable to expect that hyperdrives would need frequent inspections, though we don’t see people doing maintenance on them all that often. You could also go with something like the communications systems or starship sensor array, as these are likely to be damaged in battle. The specifics of these also depend on what type of ship you’re thinking of.

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen

Do you know if there’s any kind of social media within the SW universe?

I have not been able to find any mention of it in the guidebooks I own and I can’t recall ever reading about it. However, if anyone owns any of the RP sourcebooks and would like to confirm, it may be mentioned in there. If not, I believe it would be reasonable for it to exist anyway, if you wanted to make something up. Sorry I couldn’t help more!

~ Jacen

theticklishpear:

(A table of contents is available. This series will remain open for additional posts and the table of contents up-to-date as new posts are added.)

Part of Fifteen: Further Research and Resources

AKA What Pear Read To Write This Series

I read a lot of stuff in preparation for writing this series of posts. Researching and writing each post usually took about 3-5 hours. Here’s most of what I read and watched, though admittedly not all of it, and yes, I did go out and read some very basic, elementary-school-level things sometimes to make sure I wasn’t misremembering things or misrepresenting them.

My biggest suggestion is: When in doubt, go to Youtuber Artifexian. He goes through all the math and how it’s related to what, and even has conlang and calendar creation videos. You’ll see him pop up a lot on these lists.

For hard sci-fi writers looking for all the math equations, go through the video descriptions for the Artifexian videos linked below. He explains what each equation means and why you should bother with it.

Solar Systems:

Stars:

Multi-Star Systems:

Planets:

The Habitable Zone:

Orbits:

Asteroids:

Planetary Considerations:

Seasons:

Day/Night Cycles:

Surface Features:

Skies:

Life in Space:

Health in Space:

Working in Space:

Progressing Toward Interstellar Travel:

Generators:

Additional Resources:

Literal Books From My Childhood:
(Yes, I understood they were outdated in some areas.)

If there’s a topic I didn’t cover or that you’d like to see more on, feel free to drop in a request for it and I’ll work on adding it. These series are always open to additions, and those topics can come from you!

Some resources for anyone looking to create their own planet or system!