STAR WARS Rebels new animated series!

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Define "base". If that was where all the high command hung out and planned things, where Mon Mothma and Bail Organa and Leia and others were when they weren't on missions somewhere, I'd call that the base of operations. All the saboteurs and smugglers and such like the Ghost crew would be cells. Even if were a few dozen people operating in a city or on a planet or from a ship or three, I'd still call that a cell. Thousands of personnel and dozens of ships? That's a base. And we've really only seen one (at a time).

--Jonah

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

B-Wings are not good in a dogfight. Their primary purpose is to strike against capital ships.

BTW: Just so people do not think I am speculating, the info I stated is taken from the starwars.com database entry for B-Wing.

To be fair, in A New Hope, the Empire called it a "The Rebel Base". That alone does not indicate that their was just one base. However Vader later stated:

"This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, and will soon see the end of the rebellion.”

I take this to mean that the Empire believed that the base at Yavin was either:
1. The only rebel base.
2. The rebel base that contained the bulk of material and personnel that if destroyed, would basically end an chance for the remaining forces to continue with an effective rebellion.

However as I proposed earlier, although this was stated, it does not mean that it was true. The Empire was most likely too over confident and also underestimated the rebel forces. This also could have been a due to propaganda created by the Emperor to instill in the Empire and those under it's control that no one or group could ever be a threat to the Empire.

 

[Wolfsburg]

Yeah, I was gonna say, the Empire definitely considers it the singular Rebel base in ANH. Tarkin refers to it as THE rebel base several times. As for the absence of Mon Mothma, I never believed she would spend all her time in the base and for some reason assumed she wasn't the Rebel leader at the time of ANH. That came later. Like a lot of what everyone else is posting, that was purely conjecture on my part. The movies have consistently implied there is one Rebel base (Dantooine, Yavin 4, Hoth) and I always considered that to be the nerve center, the main base of operations. I certainly believe there are other small cells but logic would lead one to think the base would have the lion's share of equipment and ships, including these new fantastical B-wings.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

So are you saying the Fleet (Medical Frigate, Home One, etc...) is parked on Hoth? Because they were not in orbit or nearby to help provide a distraction for forces to withdraw.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I think the fleet and the ground base have always been in different places, so as to not have all the eggs in one basket.

--Jonah

 

[Solo4114]

BTW: Just so people do not think I am speculating, the info I stated is taken from the starwars.com database entry for B-Wing.

To be fair, in A New Hope, the Empire called it a "The Rebel Base". That alone does not indicate that their was just one base. However Vader later stated:

I take this to mean that the Empire believed that the base at Yavin was either:
1. The only rebel base.
2. The rebel base that contained the bulk of material and personnel that if destroyed, would basically end an chance for the remaining forces to continue with an effective rebellion.

However as I proposed earlier, although this was stated, it does not mean that it was true. The Empire was most likely too over confident and also underestimated the rebel forces. This also could have been a due to propaganda created by the Emperor to instill in the Empire and those under it's control that no one or group could ever be a threat to the Empire.

So, admittedly, the source material is no longer canonical, but there's a looooooong history of the B-wings being considered fighter-bombers. The old West End Games material had them as such, and the X-wing games treated them that way as well. I think they were conceived of as such, as well.

I think what we're seeing is that a lot of the "sourcebook" style material from before the "Great EU Purge" is being reincorporated because, well, it doesn't actually conflict with anything. Stuff about the ships, the planets, various species, a lot of that is surviving because it still works fine and doesn't contradict anything. It's the post-ROTJ stuff that's out, mostly, but even then some source material survives.

The one thing I've noticed is that the A-wings and B-wings have appeared much earlier in the continuity than I'd have expected, but I still think you can work around it by arguing that they didn't appear in the films because (A) they weren't that useful in their respective roles for the missions we saw, and/or (B) there were production issues with them that meant they were in shorter supply. In the Death Star attack in ANH, for example, A-wings wouldn't have been much use, as they'd be too lightly armored to withstand the fire from surface batteries. Likewise, the B-wing would be too slow to effectively attack the exhaust port. You needed a true attack fighter like the Y-wing, and a multi-role superiority fighter like the X-wing to provide escort/backup duty.

 

[Riceball]

It's possible that the B-Wings weren't in full Rebellion service until the time of Jedi and that they were either still manufacturing them at the time of ANH and/or they weren't ready for prime time yet. 5 years from working prototype to full production is reasonable in most cases (unless it's the F-35) but it still takes time to manufacture enough to be worth fielding and I'd argue that the Rebllion doesn't have the luxury of massive facilities to rapidly mass produce stargfighters, esp. one as complex as the B-Wing would likely be.

Another thing is that it's possible that they felt that the B-Wing is better suited to fleet actions and thus not attached to any base or cell group but with the fleet instead. It would stand to reason that the fleet is probably somewhat dispersed and doesn't hang around whatever planet(s) the Rebel have a base or bases on since the presence of a large fleet of ships not belonging to the Empire would be a dead give away that a given planet has a Rebel base on it. And since the Rebel fleet, at least until sometime between Rebels and Empire consists of nothing but Corellian corvettes the B-Wing would act as a major force multiplier, it would allow the fleet to actually take on some Imperial ships, like the ones like the light cruisers we've seen, and, if not win, at least buy enough time for the fleet to safely jump to hyperspace while bloodying the Empire's nose at the same time.

As for the whole base thing, I still think that the bases we've seen are not THE Rebel base, maybe a key base but not THE base and certainly not their only base. Alternately, the bases we've seen could simply be THE base in the sector which would explain why it was always referred to as the Rebel base. Besides, even if there's more bases there's no reason why you wouldn't refer to Yavin and Hoth as the base if they're the ones you're looking for.

 

[Wolfsburg]

So are you saying the Fleet (Medical Frigate, Home One, etc...) is parked on Hoth? Because they were not in orbit or nearby to help provide a distraction for forces to withdraw.

I think the fleet and the ground base have always been in different places, so as to not have all the eggs in one basket.

--Jonah

What Peregrinus said. The EU explanation that the Mon Cals didn't join the Rebellion until after TESB made sense to me, thus no Home One at Hoth.

 

[Riceball]

I think the fleet and the ground base have always been in different places, so as to not have all the eggs in one basket.

--Jonah

That makes perfect sense and, as I said previously, nothing would say, "Rebel base here!" than an unknown fleet of ships in orbit around an uninhabited backwaters planet.

 

[Wolfsburg]

Yeah, I wouldn't dispute that a bit.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

That's all fine and dandy but if you go back to the latest Rebel Recon, they explain that there are different cells and that the reason you see some ships in movies and others later is based on what ships are assigned to different cells. That's just how it is. It is pretty much what I have been speculating for a while now.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I'm thinking Quarrie was named after Ralph McQuarrie or am I just reaching?

http://www.starwars.com/databank/quarrie

I just watched it tonight with my nephew and at first I thought he called him Quarrian. I thought it was him misidentifying the species or something. It could be a nod to McQuarrie though.

B-Wings are not good in a dogfight. Their primary purpose is to strike against capital ships.

I have always been under the impression that the Empire has always underestimated the Rebellion. So just because the Empire believed their was only one rebel base or that all rebels have already amassed their forces on Yavin, it does not make it true.

It depends on how much they keep from the EU. The B-Wings were slower, but there was nothing that said they were bad in a dogfight; just that dogfighting wasn't their primary mission. It was like flying a P-47 against a ME-262 in World War 2. The P-47 was slower, but it was built like a tank and armed like a tank. If it got the ME-262 in its sights it would do a good job of killing it.

I liked the fact that they kept the name Project Shantipole for the B-Wing project. That's the kind of stuff I hope they incorporate from the EU.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

I just watched it tonight with my nephew and at first I thought he called him Quarrian. I thought it was him misidentifying the species or something. It could be a nod to McQuarrie though.



It depends on how much they keep from the EU. The B-Wings were slower, but there was nothing that said they were bad in a dogfight; just that dogfighting wasn't their primary mission. It was like flying a P-47 against a ME-262 in World War 2. The P-47 was slower, but it was built like a tank and armed like a tank. If it got the ME-262 in its sights it would do a good job of killing it.

I liked the fact that they kept the name Project Shantipole for the B-Wing project. That's the kind of stuff I hope they incorporate from the EU.

i took that info from the data banks. Not sure if that is considered canon or not but i am going to believe it till something of known canon conflicts with it.

 

[Wolfsburg]

That's all fine and dandy but if you go back to the latest Rebel Recon, they explain that there are different cells and that the reason you see some ships in movies and others later is based on what ships are assigned to different cells. That's just how it is. It is pretty much what I have been speculating for a while now.

Yeah, it is what it is but I'm just saying I think that it's dumb. Sadly, it's canon so it's all a moot point.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

No, not dumb. It makes a lot of sense.

Once again this is just another example of what some of us were speaking about here a few weeks ago on how a fan who has a preconceived notion about how a story element is suppose to play out. And when the story or detail goes in a different direction, they think it is stupid. In actuality, it simply a fan being close minded to new or different possibilities.

 

[Wolfsburg]

No. It's just a fan that doesn't like seeing movie canon being steamrolled.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

And as we already explained and proved... It's not.

 

[astroboy]

The great thing about star wars is that there was never any conversation about the tech. Other than the death star, no one was ever introduced to new tech. There was no techno babble.

They let the story and characters stand on their own without further exploration or justification. I'd say that the first time they ever did that was with the midichlorians. And we all cringed. Not just for absurdity, but because they were trying to give a backstory for something we just accepted.

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[Bryancd]

No. It's just a fan that doesn't like seeing movie canon being steamrolled.

I have a passing familiarity with the films and can't for the life of me recall any canonical aspect which spoke to the dispensation of ships in the Rebellion.

 

[astroboy]

I have a passing familiarity with the films and can't for the life of me recall any canonical aspect which spoke to the dispensation of ships in the Rebellion.

Same here.

A lot of this is our own assumptions. Personally, I assumed that the rebel base was on yavin 4. I assumed that was the entire rebel fleet.

But by return of the jedi, I assumed that they created an alliance with the Mon calimari. Hence, the size of it and all the new fighters.

But that is just how I saw it.

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