I have a few asks in the inbox right now, and I just wanted to let you guys know that they’re being put on hold for paper-writing purposes and will be answered later tonight. Thanks for being patient!

Theoretically, would it be possible for a ship—say, a Harrower-class dreadnought, for example—to still be intact and in operating condition nearly 4000 years after its creation, during the original trilogy era? Or, alternatively, would it be possible/more viable to build a brand new one 4000 years later? (also, happy new year! :D)

Well, I suppose it depends on the conditions in which it’s being kept. Durasteel can be corroded, but I expect that if it was preserved well enough it wouldn’t break down too much. The Harrower-class is described as being very hardy. I’d be guessing, but I think that if you want the ship to last 4000 years you could probably get away with it. Obviously it would need refueling and recharging, but I wouldn’t reject it as a possibility. 

On the other hand, the ship’s weapons and shields seem pretty similar to those around the OT era, and it’s a pretty small capital ship, so it’s also perfectly possible to build a new one, assuming you had a blueprint. It would be expensive, for sure, and it would take longer than to build than it would to restore an old one, but I think either scenario would work well enough. If anyone knows of an instance where a ship lasted that long, please feel free to add on!

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

I always wondered about relativity’s effect in the Star Wars galaxy, especially since the characters would age differently in lightspeed and traveling on ships than on planets. Also, wouldn’t time pass differently? Do they bend spacetime rules to have events happen in timely manners/ without much time lost?

We have to suspend disbelief a little bit here, but essentially relativity in the Star Wars universe is supposed to work much the same as in real life. The reason why people don’t age or experience time differently in hyperspace when compared to the rest of the universe is that the hyperdrive uses relativistic shielding to counteract the time dilation. In cases where this shielding has malfunctioned, a journey that appears to the passengers to be only a short jump could take centuries in reality, causing them to appear to travel in time. And we have to keep in mind that jumping to hyperspace in Star Wars is treated as entering another dimension, so it’ll be a little different.

~ Jacen

How did the empire control the holonet? I read that the empire used to control messages sent back and forth. If that was the case, do you imagine that propaganda was king?

The Empire basically shut down a large portion of the network and restricted and monitored the rest, meaning that people had great difficulty communicating anything the Empire didn’t want them to. From 19 BBY onward, they really didn’t use it for much else except military communications and propaganda, so yes, it definitely was. 

~ Jacen

I’m so glad I found you being reblogged on my dash today! Thanks for all your hard work. What’s your favorite topic re: star wars to educate others on?

Thank you, anon! By far my favourite topic to talk about is the physics and astrography of the Star Wars universe. (Actually, Star Wars is what made me realize I wanted to be an astrophysicist!) Although I do always love talking about the Jedi and the Force as well 😀

~ Jacen

Thanks! I’m trying to familiarize myself with the kind of consoles used in the Resistance. I know there’s a controller console, but the others seem vague, at least in TFA novelization. They also tend to generalize “at his touch the message was sent to every squadron member” kind of thing instead of the communication devices in ships. Do you have any advice for writing about these things?

Unfortunately, a lot of official writing tends to describe these things very generally. Not to mention, the descriptions of the use and functions of specific technologies are very inconsistent throughout the Star Wars universe. The first thing I would do is get really familiar with some terminology to describe the systems of a starfighter. Once you understand what each part does, it’s much easier to describe what a pilot is doing accurately (and a lot of this stuff is not specific to any one starfighter, and will work with the Resistance T-70 X-wings even though they don’t have a lot of known specifications). The best way to get a feel for it is to just read some of the books (the X-Wing series is particularly good for this), but obviously no one wants to read a dozen books to write a scene or two, so I would recommend taking a look at the “starships” section of the Vocab List (which I’ve just updated) for some of the terminology. It is by no means a complete list, so if you have the time you could also look through the Wookieepedia categories for starship components (which includes stuff like engines and weapons, which is still a useful thing to know how to describe) and starship computer systems. 

image

More practically, this is a photo of a T-70 X-wing’s cockpit. I find it nice to have an idea of where things are located, even if you can only pick out a couple components. I have not been able to find a labelled diagram of a cockpit, but I will post if I find one. 

At the end of the day, I’m a strong advocate for picking out whatever canon you want and tossing what you don’t, so I wouldn’t worry too much about whether you can describe the exact mechanisms of using a starfighter’s console. It can be nice to have a very general explanation of what’s going on, because too many technical terms that the reader may or may not know can really mess with the flow of a story. 

Hope that helps a bit!

~ Jacen

How does the Resistance get money? Are there wealthy donors? Does donating to them put the donors at risk if there’s a “money trail?”

Because the Resistance is a splinter group of the New Republic military, its main sponsor is the New Republic itself. But since they are so low on supplies and equipment, and since they do not see eye-to-eye with the New Republic on the issue of whether to take the First Order threat seriously, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they also need some sort of alternative income. For example, a high priority for the Resistance is getting medical supplies. This would be relatively easy to get using a donor’s money, compared to a capital ship or a squadron of fighters, which would be provided by the New Republic. Not a whole lot is known about how the Resistance operates at the moment, at least not compared to the Rebellion, for instance, so I would say that all that stuff is open to interpretation for now. 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen