There are two waves of Star Wars fans: those who were around for the original movies, and those, like me, who arrived on the planet after the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. For those of us who grew to love Star Wars as children, Lucasfilm has released a host of material supplemental, often referred to as the "Extended Universe" (EU), to the films. As a child (at heart), probably the most fascinating of this supplemental material are the Incredible Cross-Sections (ICS) books, published by DK Books. They offer incredibly detailed paintings peeling away layers of the different vehicles in the Star Wars universe, from the Death Star to the Venator-class star destroyer to the Naboo starfighter, as well as technical information regarding the performance and capabilities of those vehicles.
In addition to the two waves of fans, fans can be divided into roughly two camps based on their approach to the literature. There are those fans who love the story for its substantial literary merits, but couldn't care less about technical and scientific consistency, generally because they simply don't care to think about science; and then, there are those fans who love the story and the universe surrounding it, and express that appreciation by analyzing the stories and incorporating the assumption that the Star Wars universe is scientifically consistent. The latter camp is, understandably, considerably smaller, and a majority of the former group of fans are quite willing to live and let live: to accept the analyses the scientific-minded fans produce, while realizing that their own appreciation is simply not threatened. However, a small segment of the greater fan population deride and mock those fans who insist on technical analysis, and insist on spreading misinformation and fallacious arguments about the nature of the Star Wars universe and the capabilities of the Rebel Alliance, the Galactic Empire, and its predecessor, the Republic.
In particular, there is a whole lot of false information floating around about the Incredible Cross-Sections books. By including technical information and peeling back the skin of vehicles and ships, exposing their innards, the books practically force the reader to take in the sort of information that makes the scientific-minded fans really excited. Most Star Wars fans, of the sort who aren't inclined to scientific analysis, have the books because they describe and illustrate the ships and vehicles of the movies; they don't really question the numbers and other technical information in the books, but at the same time don't really think about them either. The loud anti-science fans, however, find themselves for some reason cahllenged by the numbers included in the books. Consequently, they insist on attempting to discredit the books, their authors (the inimitable Dr Curtis Saxton, also author of the esteemed Star Wars Technical Commentaries, the preeminent source of Star Wars technical analysis, co-authored two of the cross-section books and is the target of constant attacks), and the information contained in the books.
This veritable campaign of misinformation confuses many of the fans who otherwise couldn't care less, and plants false notions in their minds. This page is intended to correct the wrongheaded ideas at large in the Star Wars fan community and combat the invalid arguments advanced to support those ideas. Below, you'll find an overview of the Incredible Cross Section books (abbreviated as "ICS"), a summary of the technical information found therein and short justifications for that information, and rebuttals to common but false arguments and claims about the books. At there end, there is also a section of useful links for further research.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I myself am a firm member of that second camp of Star Wars fans. Really, technical analysis is how I appreciate the story; the simple fact that it's self-consistent (did you know that the amount of energy accelerating the star destroyer (ISD) as it jumps away in Empire Strikes Back (ESB) is in the same order of magnitude as the amount of energy expended in a Base Delta Zero (BDZ) operation?) is just really, really fascinating. I like seeing objectively how things work in Star Wars, and bad scientific analyses and stubbornly defended arguments raise my hackles. If you're interested in some justifications for a scientific approach to Star Wars, and indeed to the world at large, check out the links section.
The first ICS book, Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections (often abbreviated as OT:ICS or OT ICS to stand for "original trilogy ICS"), was published by DK in 1998, though Lucasfilm retained the copyright. It was written by David West Reynolds and illustrated by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore. The vehicles it covers include the
The second ICS book, Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross-Sections (abbreviated TPM:ICS for "The Phantom Menace: ICS"), is also by David West Reynolds and illustrated by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore. DK published it in 1999, as a companion to the release of Episode I, and Lucasfilm retains the copyright. It covers the
The Star Wars Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross-Sections is where the controversy really picks up. The book, published by DK in 2002 as a companion to Episode II and billing itself as "The definitive guide to the craft from Star Wars: Episode II", was written by Dr Curtis Saxton, an Australian astrophycist and author of the SWTC (see the recommended links below), and illustrated by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore. As usual, Lucasfilm retains the copyright. The book includes the
The Star Wars Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections was published in 2005 by DK, with Lucasfilm retaining the copyright as usual. Written by Dr Saxton and illustrated by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore, the book includes profiles of the
No. It was licensed by Lucasfilm, who determine what is and isn't canon. It's also canon according to Leland Chee's "two universes" description of continuity: it's part of the greater continuity, and is supplemental and consistent with the movie universe. And just because it's aimed at children doesn't mean it's necessarily non-canon (and, for the record, I find it a fascinating book; of course, that probably says something about my maturity, right? :) ).
Well, of course they're unrealistic! This is Star Wars we're talking about, for heaven's sake; the Empire can blow up a planet like a firecracker! I know; you're talking about in-universe realism. Well, I've provided short, and often heuristic, justifications for the numbers above in the Summary section. Really, what this objection boils down to is sense of scale. You and I, growing up on a little rocky planet in the armpit of the galaxy, have no idea what it really means to be able to destroy a planet or cross the galaxy in a matter of days. We have no way of viscerally grasping the scale of the capabilities of a civilization that treats an entire galaxy like a planet.
Actually, that suggests an analogy. The Empire, and Republics before and after it, treat entire galaxies like a planet. Think of scaling up the Earth to the point where the planet becomes a galaxy; cities become planets; airplanes capable of crossing half the world in hours become spaceships capable of crossing half the galaxy in hours. The ability to slag a planet translates to the ability to wipe out a single city -- in our case, with nuclear weapons; in the case of the Empire, with a Base Delta Zero command.
Now, to get a sense of how the numbers scale up, on the one hand, the radius of the Earth is about 6E6 m. The radius of an entire galaxy, on the other hand, is some 5E4 light years, which converts to roughly 1E16 m. So, take any phenomenon of which we are capable and imagine it 2 billion more times all at once, and you'll have some rough idea of what the Empire's capable of. For example, take a nuclear weapon. We have the ability to develop and build bombs with yields as high as 100 megatons. That's about 4e17 J. Multiplying by two billion, we have 8E26 J, which is right at the upper end of the estimates for a BDZ.
Really, what it boils down to is when you're thinking about technical issues, you have to let the math guide your thinking, instead of letting your intuition guide you, because your intuition is wholly inadequate for grappling with phenomena on a galactic scale.
No, it is not. 200 gigatons = 2e5 megatons isn't even enough to wipe out life on a planet, let alone destroy it; destroying an Earthlike planet, as calculated here, requires more than 3.2E32 J, which is on the order of one hundred trillion gigatons. In fact, 200 gigatons is not even enough to cause a mass extinction event: from here, it would barely be enough to devastate a large state like California. In fact, a full-power turbolaser hitting a planet might effectively simulate a small asteroid strike: awesome and destructive, but not enough to actually destroy a planet. Of course, the effects of the strike and the manner in which turbolasers and asteroids deliver energy differ, but the point remains the same.
Interesting note: the total US and Soviet Cold War arsenal peaked at more than 18 gigatons; if the 200 gigaton argument were the case, it should have been able to wipe out life on the Earth. It certainly couldn't have done that; collapsing human civilization requires far less firepower.
This is simply false, as anyone who has read and understood Dr Saxton's website realizes (note that I also take time to justify the numbers in the Summary section above). The argument is in any case irrelevent to whether or not the ICS are canon and part of the continuity now: Lucasfilm has gone over and checked them for continuity, as explained just beneath.
There is a subtle twist that can be given to this argument accusing someone of hypocrisy in accepting the ICS but not accepting, for instance, the numbers in "Odds". The potential responses are as follows: first of all, Dr Saxton's numbers are based on rigorous analysis of the movies and EU, while Ms Traviss' numbers are chronically inconsistent and follow only from a misinterpretation of selected text and ignoring contradictions; second, even if Dr Saxton's numbers are completely made-up (they're not), they still somehow manage to maintain consistency with the scope and scale of a galactic civilization, while Ms Traviss' numbers are glaringly inconsistent; third, attacks on Ms Traviss' take on the Clone Wars are generally launched not at the canonicity of the document but at the inconsistency it contains.
Finally, it's possible to point out that, by this definition of fanon, every single EU author is guilty of inserting fanon material -- i.e., material made up and not in the movies -- into the franchise. According to Leland Chee, it's still considered canon unless it irreconcilably contradicts established or higher canon.
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No. The Lucasfilm editors actually cut some of the material he added (need source), and, in fact, the numbers survived a second revision with which Dr Saxton had nothing to do; they're still present in the Complete ICS. Really, what this objection demonstrates is a lack of knowledge of the editing process, as well as a grievous impution of motive to Dr Saxton. Editing takes months, and reviewers at all levels of both DK and Lucasfilm edited the material for continuity; the final product was approved by the continuity editors at Lucasfilm and included into the Holocron.
This bizarre claim is limited to a small group of Star Trek fans who engage in the arcane Star Wars vs. Star Trek (SWvST) debate, and its motivation is twofold:
The three million clone fiasco is sort of like the debate about the length of the Executor, which has raged on and off since the release of RotJ between the loud anti-science fans and those who have done analysis on the issue. The EU author Karen Traviss attempted to ret-con the Clone Wars into a special-ops brushfire war fought with an army of only three million clones, contradicted by sources such as the New Essential Chronology, the Clone Wars mini-series, and the WOTC's core RPG, second edition. When tech fans like me stepped in to correct her on her sense of scale, she completely ignored them and, in a stunning and unjustified leap of rhetoric, labeled them "talifans", even escalating rhetoric to the point of threatening physical violence, saying fans who disagreed with her work "should be garroted", and posting on her livejournal gory, violent fantasies of strangling these so-called "talifans". In the meantime, despite the substantial rhetorical assaults and accompanying insubstantial arguments, tech geeks continued to point out the flaws in Traviss' reasoning. After all, if she's right, we're talking about a Grand Army smaller in size than the Soviet army during World War II, which fought on only one front in the smallest continent on a small, unurbanized planet on the rim of the galaxy; a Grand Army incapable of conducting an invasion of even a single planet; a Grand Army waging war against a droid army of quintillions of robots; a Grand Army that could have easily fit onto a single star dreadnought (of which the ICS assures us there were many, like the Mandator-II (ROTS:ICS [page number]). For more information on the three million clones debate, see the recommended links.
Rather than take this as an excuse to get on a soap-box (*puts soap-box away*), though, it's interesting to see how the ICS corrects these notions. The AOTC:ICS notes that the "millions more on the way" quote from AotC is actually referring to divisions, each of which, given the scale of the galaxy, could potentially contain millions of clones. The ROTS:ICS also notes that the Republic has Grand Armies, which sufficiently reconciles millions of clones in an army to the sheer size of the galactic conflict tearing the Republic apart.
To be honest, I personally disagree with Ms Traviss' numbers, and I really do detest the way she's handled the argument. When she labels those who disagree with her as "talifans", she ignores the substance of the arguments to focus on both the style in which the tech fans present their arguments as well as simply attacking them. I suppose the fact I disagree with her makes me a "talifan"; whether I actually warrant the title, I'll let you decide :)
Science, the Grand Illusion, and Other Neat Stuff: Introduction to the scientific method: how technical fans like myself try to approach Star Wars, and how everybody should approach learning about the world. Written by the prolific Michael Wong, author of Stardestroyer.net, one of the more widely recognized science fiction analysis sites on the internet.
How and why do we analyze sci-fi? Comparison of scientific and literary approaches to analyzing science fiction. Again by Michael Wong.
The Star Wars Technical Commentaries: The go-to site for technical information about Star Wars. Dr Curtis Saxton, the author, is an astrophysicist and has at this site compiled an enormous wealth of knowledge about how the Star Wars universe works. I highly recommend this site even for a fan not terribly interested in the details of the analysis; the knowledge, much of which is only hinted at or indirectly implied in the literature, greatly enriches the Star Wars experience.
A Travissty: Wayne Poe has compiled a rather comprehensive report on the origins and progression of the three million clone debate, complete with both arguments debunking Traviss' claims and rather scathing indictments of the behavior of both Karen Traviss and Dark Moose (a moderator on the official Star Wars message boards who has actually banned people for disagreeing with him!).
