By chance, do you know if the Empire used anything similar to the separatists’ defoliator canon? If so, do you think this weapon would be effective in destroying a semi-primitive city of mostly wooden buildings, or do you think the Empire employ something like a squadron of flametroopers to do the job?

I don’t know of any weapon resembling a defoliator that was used by the Empire. Flametroopers (called incinerator stormtroopers in Legends) would definitely be a viable alternative, and have been known to take on this role. 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

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Can you hazard a guess at how many Alderaanians might have survived the destruction of the planet? I read somewhere that Alderaan had a population of about 2 billion (not sure if that’s accurate), and I’m struggling to come up with a realistic number for how many might’ve been offworld at the time (working or studying on other planets, moved to their partner’s homeworld, vacationing on another planet, etc). Tens or hundreds of thousands? Maybe even a few million? Thanks for your help!

According to Coruscant and the Core Worlds, about 60,000 Alderaanian citizens were offworld at the time of Alderaan’s destruction. The same book, as well as a few others, cite Alderaan’s population before 0 BBY as 2 billion, so yes that is accurate. This is the estimate I have used personally, but if anyone knows of others feel free to add!

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen 

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(Mount Anon again) To be specific, I’m looking for a species of small-to-medium sized riding animal (so about Fathiers’ size), that could be used by a rebel cell on a jungle planet (like Devaron or Kashyyyk) similarly to how the Twi’leks used blurrgs. Something fast, agile, and that you could easily fire blasters/use melee weapons while riding, y’know?

In that case, I think a fathier might be a good choice. They’re quite expensive and may be hard to acquire, but they are definitely fast and agile and there is an instance of the Rebellion using them for hit-and-run missions. A falumpaset might also work, as they’re intelligent and used to navigating jungle and swamp, though they won’t be as fast – they may be better used for carrying equipment/ammo. Many ungulate species may also work, depending on where in the galaxy you are, especially the kybuck, a Kashyyykian animal resembling a tauntaun. You might like to look through the ungulates category on Wookieepedia, and see if anything there fits your location and circumstances. 

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen

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Do you have a tag for animals/non-sentient species? I’m looking specifically for a good animal for a character to ride into combat cavalry-style—something similar to a Tauntaun, though possibly something adapted to a warmer climate. Any ideas?

I do have an animal tag, though I don’t believe there’s anything there to answer your question. One that immediately comes to mind would be a fathier, but I imagine this would depend heavily on the planet and context you’re thinking of. Would you mind elaborating a bit?

~ Jacen

I’m wondering about the production of clones during the Clone War. Specifically numbers. How many during the height of the war? And what did the pipeline on Kamino look like towards the end of the war? If numbers aren’t known, can you speculate given the time it takes to raise/train the clones and what their replacement rate might have been? Thanks!

The actual number of soldiers in the GAR at any point in time is highly unclear and a topic of debate. Writers at the time did not coordinate much on things like the structure of the GAR, designation numbers, and the growing/training process, so different numbers are given by different sources, and often the numbers given do not line up with what we see in the show/movies and seem vaguely implausible. I would recommend reading through the behind the scenes section of the Wookieepedia article on the GAR, as it explains the disparity more thoroughly than I could. Essentially, you may decide for yourself which numbers to go with, though it is a common estimate that there were three million clones in the Army one year after the Battle of Geonosis (21 BBY). Over 200,000 clone troopers were known to be present at the battle, either on the ground or on the ships, and this number is usually assumed to have increased quickly (within six months) to the 1,200,000 quoted by Lama Su. 

As numbers are unclear, the rate of production of the clones is also unclear. Supposedly, the Kaminoan cloning process takes ten years to produce one fully grown human, while the Spaarti cloning process takes one year. “Millions” of Spaarti-grown clones were added to the Army towards the end of the war, meaning that Kamino was not the only source. The rate of casualties is unknown, but judging by the existence of the Republic military enhancement bill (21 BBY, authorizing the production of 5 million additional Kaminoan clones), the troops were dying faster than they were being replaced. It is known that the training of the Kaminoan clones was rushed more and more as the war went on. Other than that, very little solid information is available. 

I hope that is of some help at least, and sorry I can’t give a more definite answer!

~ Jacen

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Hi! I was wondering if you have any suggestions for how a character might get amnesia in SW? I was thinking hitting their head when a ship crashes but I was wondering if there were any weapons/weird things that might cause amnesia/memory loss. Thanks!

The two other main ones that come to mind would be hibernation sickness and Force manipulation. Hibernation sickness occurs when a person is frozen in carbonite for too long, causing a range of symptoms including memory loss, but these symptoms usually only last a day or so, which (correct me if I’m wrong) doesn’t seem to be what you’re looking for. Alternately, the Force can be used to manipulate a being’s memory, sometimes causing permanent brain damage by accident or on purpose. An example would be the use of the mind probe ability (also called Drain Knowledge). 

I would say that a concussion is probably your best bet, definitely the most common cause of memory loss and likely the easiest to work into a story. A ship crash especially would be easy, because oxygen deprivation resulting from inhaling the smoke and fumes is pretty likely to cause short-term memory loss at the least. (Though, if you’d prefer something else, this also means that being Force-choked for too long is a definite option.) 

I hope this helps a bit! Feel free to follow up if you need more information! 

~ Jacen

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hey there! just curious about 2 things – first off, does the galaxy far far away have a name? like earth is part of the milky way galaxy, do the people of the sw universe have names for their galaxies? second, i know it’s a bit silly but what measurement system do people use? say a character needs to refuel a ship, would they buy in liters/gallons/barrels? tysm!!

No, it does not have an in-universe name. I don’t believe any other galaxies are named either. Volume measurements specifically aren’t used all that often, but it seems that litres, gallons and cubic (centi)meters are all acceptable units. Metric and imperial measurement systems are both used in Star Wars, so take your pick. 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen 

Buy writebetterstarwars a Coffee. ko-fi.com/writebetterstarwars

writebetterstarwars:

Hey guys! I just wanted to let you know I’ve set up a Ko-fi for this account. The link is also in my bio. It’s 100% optional and I’m never going to restrict any of the content on here, but if you’ve ever got a few bucks to spare I would really appreciate it! (Uni applications are coming up faster than anticipated :/)

Thanks for your consideration!

~ Jacen

Buy writebetterstarwars a Coffee. ko-fi.com/writebetterstarwars

How to find things on Wookieepedia, Part 1 – Browsing

maptowhereialreadyam:

[NOTE: I originally posted this on pillowfort but thought it might be interesting to folks here too]

This post is aimed at fic writers but it’s probably of use to anyone who has ever tried to look something up there. It might also be helpful for other Wikis but I don’t frequent those the way I do Wookieepedia, so I can’t verify. These are things that felt like it took me far too long to figure out. I welcome feedback to make it better.

Part 1 is about finding things on Wookieepedia when you aren’t sure what it’s called, aka browsing and using Categories. (this post)

Part 2 discusses narrowing down the results of your browsing (Category intersections).

Part 3 discusses how to track down that thingamajig you saw on that one episode (the Appearances section).

First some general terms.

Articles – These are the pages you are looking for. They’ve got pages on Aunt Beru and on Kathleen Kennedy, T-7 ion disruptors and “Destroy Malevolence”(the 4th episode of TCW). Basically everything.

Stubs – These are pages that are placeholders and haven’t been completely filled out. Still handy depending on how much is lacking, even if it’s only to let you know there’s not much.

Pages – Appear to be the same thing as an article or stub and I’m not honestly sure why they sometimes use this term and not articles.  It should be noted that it is defined in part by what it is not which is a Category (see below).

Categories – A category is a way of grouping articles together. They can have subcategories creating a hierarchy. Every subcategory is technically a category as well. Categories are cool because when you aren’t sure what you are looking for they allow you to browse and hone in on your search. For example, Starships is a category whose subcategories include Starships by Affiliation and Starships by Type.  In addition,  Starships are a subcategory of Spacecraft which is a subcategory of Vehicles. Get the idea?

(There’s also Files – this is most often an image and accessed from an article. I won’t be discussing it much here)

There’s a load of screencaps so more below the cut.

Keep reading

For anyone who doesn’t yet know the ins and outs of Wookieepedia, be sure to check these posts out! Using all the functions of the wiki is a great way to sift through it and find what you want quickly!