# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  Let's Read: The Han Solo Adventures (1979)

## pendell

I recently got a nice thank you for the Silmarillion thread, and decided that I'd like to do another read through -- this time of the 1980 version of  The Han Solo Adventures , written by Brian Daley in 1979-1980.  This is one of the very earliest of the Legends continuity, long since made non-canon by the new movie  Solo , but it's  still a great space western romp, if you like that sort of thing, which I do.  

So: This is a trilogy of three books, written in 1979 and 1980. For comparison, the Empire Strikes Back, Episode 5, was released in 1980. These stories, about several adventures Han and Chewie had before the events of episode 4, may have been written in part to make Han's character more sympathetic. The original Han, based partly on  Francis Ford Coppola  and  James Dean  was a bit of a loner and an antihero. A seemingly-amoral mercenary who cares only for his rewards and is more than willing   to shoot first .  

That's the Han Solo of 1974. But the plans for him in the 1980 movie.. well... 

*Spoiler*
Show


Is it a spoiler for a movie that came out four decades ago?  Anyway, Han is going to be the romantic lead and a good guy and tragically be frozen in carbonite as a cliffhanger. 

 

As discussed, the character is going to  be a romantic lead and do a lot of heroic things in the next few movies, and that means we need the audience to care about him when the inevitable dramatic scene happens. We want them sad at the conclusion of ESB , not cheering. 

So this set of novels seem to go some ways towards laying that foundation for the character's redemptive arc.  

Still, the fact these are prequels lay out some basic ground rules: We know Han and Chewie have to survive. We know they have to end the series with a ship and out of jail; but they also can't experience lasting success either.  You can't have a desperate smuggler in a cantina on Tatooine, the backwater (backsand?) of the galaxy, if they became fantastically wealthy. No, so what we're going to have is a small time grifter, like Mal in firefly. Good enough to stay alive and keep his ship, not so good as to ever escape from that life. But with a heart of gold. 

So with that intro out of the way, let's start the first chapter of the first story!

*Han Solo at Star's End* 

*Spoiler: Chapter 1*
Show


We start off on the Planet  Duroon , which is currently being pillaged by the  Corporate Sector Authority .  As we pan in , the Millenium Falcon has been detected by an authority patrol vessel in a no-go region and it is now in pursuit. 

Han and Chewie orbit to the opposite side of the planet and re-enter, going down _way_ low to level off only meters above the planetary surface.  Using Terrain Following Radar to navigate at high speed this close to the ground. 

This is one area where science fiction matches with science fact, as  TFR  was quite new in the 1970s, first seen on the F-111, and used in exactly the same fashion: For low-altitude high-speed penetration of a defended area. 

Ironically, this is one area where science has bypassed science fiction, since with the advent of stealth  low-flying altitude is no longer considered feasible . While it does help, flying that low is _very_ dangerous.  Invisibility at medium altitude is better. 

Still , the _Millenium Falcon_ is a hot ship but not a stealth ship. So Han gets to very low altitude to avoid the patrol. 

Several minutes of flying and terror later, provoking the line of dialog: "that was a stupid place to put a mountain", Han arrives at his rendezvous point, a clearing in the jungle. Then he sets up shop and waits for his contact.

Han has this to say about his hiding place: " this whole part of Duroon's spotted with hot springs, thermal vents, heavy-metal magma seepages , and radiation anomalies. It'll take them a month to find me, and in an hour or three, I'll be gone like a cool breeze." 

We also get a description of Han himself: 

"A young man dressed in spaceman's high boots,  dark uniform trousers with red piping, and civilian shirt and vest. Han had cast aside his uniform tunic, stripped of it's rank and insignia, years ago." 

CANON NOTE: This version of Han is a former military officer, who has been cashiered from service.  I assume this will be explained in due course. 

We also get a note on his side arm: "A custom model blaster with rear-fitted macroscope, it's front sight blade filed off to facilitate the speed draw. His holster was worn low, tied down at the thigh, cut down so it exposed the weapon's trigger and trigger guard." 

CANON NOTE: This Han Solo is a wild west speed-draw gunfighter.  Why he needs a sniper scope on a pistol I have no idea , as it is as out of place as an oxygen mask on a fish, but I suppose that is one area where the toy manufacturers made it that way and that left the novelist with the unenviable job of shoehorning it in. 

Han waits at the ramp, wishing for a drink. "There was a flask of ancient, vacuum-distilled jet juice under the cockpit console, but Han didn't feel like going for it; he had business to conduct." 

CANON NOTE: This Han is a hard drinker. Maybe that's why we found him in a canteen in Episode IV? But it definitely goes with the whisky-swillin' gun-fightin' cowboy image. 

He doesn't expect trouble, but he has the Falcon's belly turret on line, just in case. 

Momentarily, his contacts show up. Biped, downy, globular torso, short arms and legs with more joints than a human's. Small head, large, unblinking eyes.  Mouth and throat is a loose and parchy affair, smells like the jungle.  

Now that they've met and not killed each other, the exchange occurs. The locals begin unloading their cargo: Guns. Lots and lots of guns. 

It seems the Corporate Sector Authority is plundering this planet. These people are not the local inhabitants , but were imported by the Authority as workers; promised good jobs and a new life, they have instead been enslaved.  So some few stole from the Authority and fled into the wild, where they gems from the mines (this is a mining planet) to purchase the weapons for an insurgency.  Ploovo Two-For-One, a loan shark to whom Solo owns money, wangled this job for him. Solo flies in the guns, gets paid, pays Ploovo. Everybody wins except the Authority execs, who are already so obscenely rich the loss of this entire planet won't even dent their credit lines. 

Han disavows any interest in them or their cause; he's just here to get his cash and be on his way. It's a job to him. Even so, that heart of gold shines through a bit as he sees them carrying their weapons and gives them a ten-minute course on firearms and elementary guerrilla tactics.    

Just as he finishes the locals, who aren't fools, start testing their weapons to make sure they work. Fearing the shots will bring Authority intention, Han heads back to his ship to dodge the Authority patrol, which the locals tell him consists of only one ship: An armed  Lighter , an orbit-to-ground cargo ferry which has been given blasters so it can act as local constabulary. 

Raising shields and arming weapons, the _Falcon_ takes off and is immediately slapped with a tractor beam. The Authority Captain had guessed roughly where the Falcon had to be, and was waiting in orbit for them.  The Falcon boosts right at it, with the result the Authority ship hits it with a tractor beam and drops right on top of them, using the advantage of height to compensate for having the less speedy, maneuverable craft.  

Fine. Han angles all his shields double-front, trains all cannons aft, and charges right at the Authority ship!  

Time for a game of chicken, only with starships.   Pretty soon the Authority vessel fills the bubble canopy.  

The authority captain  does the yummy versus pointy  calculation and decides they're _definitely_ not being paid enough for this, so they kill their tractor and  dodge.   At nearly the same microsecond, Han and Chewie make a desperate bank of their own. 

The _Falcon_ scorches by , missing the Authority ship by a meter, and hits it with the aft-pointed guns, scoring minor hits for superficial damage. It's still a moral victory as the Falcon makes it out of  the gravity well and flashes into hyperspace.  Mission complete. 




Final thoughts:  

Well, that was quite a ride. Also, it struck me just how much work Mr. Daley put into making his work relatively "hard" for space opera and internally consistent. We got a lot of characterization interspersed with the action of that last chapter, but subtly done so it's easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Show, not tell, indeed.  

And that's chapter 1. Join me for Chapter 2 for the harder part of the job: Gettin' paid. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

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## Gnoman

> *Spoiler: Chapter 1*
> Show
> 
> 
> This is one area where science fiction matches with science fact, as  TFR  was quite new in the 1970s, first seen on the F-111, and used in exactly the same fashion: For low-altitude high-speed penetration of a defended area. 
> 
> Ironically, this is one area where science has bypassed science fiction, since with the advent of stealth  low-flying altitude is no longer considered feasible . While it does help, flying that low is _very_ dangerous.  Invisibility at medium altitude is better. 
> 
> Still , the _Millenium Falcon_ is a hot ship but not a stealth ship. So Han gets to very low altitude to avoid the patrol.


*Spoiler*
Show

Stealth doesn't make terrain following obsolete. Stealth aircraft have been shot down because the operators got careless, and stealth tech is fairly limited in spread. The war currently ongoing has seen many aircraft flying at or below treetop level in order to avoid air defensesand fighters.





> *Spoiler: Chapter 1*
> Show
> 
> 
> CANON NOTE: This Han Solo is a wild west speed-draw gunfighter.  Why he needs a sniper scope on a pistol I have no idea , as it is as out of place as an oxygen mask on a fish, but I suppose that is one area where the toy manufacturers made it that way and that left the novelist with the unenviable job of shoehorning it in. 
> 
> 
> .


*Spoiler*
Show

Can't blame this one on Kenner - the scope on Han's pistol is clearly visible in the cantina scene - there's a good silhouette shot as he stands up from the table. The propmakers created Han's DL-44 by sticking greeblies ona WWI-era Mauser C96, and the scope goes a long way toward breaking up that gun's very distinctive lines. It also makes some sense in practice - pistol scopes are a real thing, used as much for faster target acquisition (this is now done more with reflex sights, but that's a newer tech) than it is for magnification, though scopes do that as well. When we see Han shooting close-in, he doesn't use sights at all, preferring point shooting. When he does aim on film, it is usually at a range where both aspects of a scope would be useful.

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## Fyraltari

Well, this should be good. Unlike with your _Silmarillion_ read-through, I haven't read this one, so I'm curious to see what shenanigans our favourite space smuggler gets into.

I'm not clear whether you've already read this once or if you're going in blind, though?



> *Han Solo at Star's End*


Hmm, creative move on the part of the Mule to hire Solo to find the Second Foundation. Let's see if it works out for him.
Joking aside, I wonder if that was an intentional nod to one of _Star Wars_'s many sources of inspiration.




> *Spoiler: Chapter 1*
> Show
> 
> Planet  Duroon , which is currently being pillaged by the  Corporate Sector Authority .



Hmm. Didn't expect this particular band of baddies to exist since the seventies.

Besides that, looks like this was more of an "action" chapter, than a "character" one. Is there any indication of how long before the movies this is set in? Hopefully we'll get some flashbacks to Han and Chewbacca's first meeting and his acquisition of the _Falcon_.

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## hamishspence

> Besides that, looks like this was more of an "action" chapter, than a "character" one. Is there any indication of how long before the movies this is set in? Hopefully we'll get some flashbacks to Han and Chewbacca's first meeting and his acquisition of the _Falcon_.


As I recall, the novels themselves never say - but other Legendsverse material puts them as beginning around 2 years before ANH.

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## Palanan

I grew up on these and love them dearly.  

Some of the best characters and aliens in the Star Wars galaxy, or so fond memory would have it.






> Originally Posted by *pendell*
> _Join me for Chapter 2 for the harder part of the job: Gettin' paid._


*Spoiler*
Show

Wait til you get to the pet store.        :Small Tongue: 





> Originally Posted by *Fyraltari*
> _Hmm. Didn't expect this particular band of baddies to exist since the seventies._


Not sure I understand you here.  You werent expecting corporates to be portrayed as villains as early as the 70s, or after the 70s?

Worth noting that on an early draft of David Gerrolds script for The Trouble With Tribbles, one of the producers wrote a note to the effect that in America, big business is never the villain.  That was evidently an unwritten rule of television in the 60s, but clearly didnt last long.




> Originally Posted by *Fyraltari*
> _Hopefully we'll get some flashbacks to Han and Chewbacca's first meeting and his acquisition of the Falcon._


*Spoiler*
Show

No direct flashbacks to their first encounter, and nothing specific about picking up the Falconprobably to leave these topics open for the movies to deal with.

As I recall, theres an implication that Han and Chewie knew each other before Han was discharged, and this may have been meant to suggest that Han had helped Chewie and/or other Wookiees in some way that didnt align with Imperial protocols.  What this is, the books never say.

I personally feel that would have been a far more interesting angle for an origin movie, and would have added far more depth and nuance to young Han's character, but alas, not to be.

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## pendell

> I'm not clear whether you've already read this once or if you're going in blind, though?


 Not blind, but I haven't read these novels very often. I owned the last book as a first printing back in the 1980s and read it cover to cover because, before ESB, I was hungry for Star Wars and that was the available outlet at the time.  Now that I am several decades older, I read the books with different eyes.  

I had just pulled them out after a several years hiatus, took a look, and thought "Y'know? I bet this would make a good readthrough." So here we are. 





> Hmm, creative move on the part of the Mule to hire Solo to find the Second Foundation. Let's see if it works out for him.


Nothing _ever_ works well when you hire Solo at this stage of his career :). 




> Hmm. Didn't expect this particular band of baddies to exist since the seventies.


It's right out of a spaghetti western, like  Once Upon A Time in the West, 1968 .     The first chapter is a scified-version of an old story in the American west -- desolate wasteland being exploited by a rich company (usually the local railroad) who brings in virtual serfs under false pretenses to work the mines or build the railroads or farm the land, living in  Company Towns .  The company takes everything worth having and pays the workers as little as they can help.  Out in the territories before state governments were organized, there was precious little law and the companies were laws unto themselves.  

Much like the Corporate Sector Authority in this story.   The Empire , concentrated in the Core Worlds, is absorbed with its own affairs and couldn't care less about what happens here. Since the Empire is only three decades old, that probably held true for the Republic as well.  Senators like Mon Mothma don't soil their robes touring mines out here in the back of beyond, so it attracts a very particular sort of greedy, unscrupulous profiteer common both in American history and in American western stories. It also drew the outlaws and smugglers who made a living outside the law as well. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

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## Peelee

> I Not sure I understand you here.  You werent expecting corporates to be portrayed as villains as early as the 70s, or after the 70s?


Pretty sure they're saying the didn't expect the Corporate Sector Authority, the specific group in Star Wars, to have been written into the SW universe that long ago. Staying power isn't exactly a hallmark of the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventures books. 



> Worth noting that on an early draft of David Gerrolds script for The Trouble With Tribbles, one of the producers wrote a note to the effect that in America, big business is never the villain.  That was evidently an unwritten rule of television in the 60s, but clearly didnt last long.


Vestiges of it remain. Apple refuses to allow villains to have iPhones in movies, for example.

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## Fyraltari

> Not sure I understand you here.  You werent expecting corporates to be portrayed as villains as early as the 70s, or after the 70s?


I wasn't expecting _Star Wars_ to have big corpos as villains as early as the seventies. I would have expected the eighties at the earliest, but then again, France's and the U.S.'s 70s weren't the exact same. Half of ours still being within the _Trente Glorieuses_, and all.




> Worth noting that on an early draft of David Gerrolds script for The Trouble With Tribbles, one of the producers wrote a note to the effect that in America, big business is never the villain.  That was evidently an unwritten rule of television in the 60s, but clearly didnt last long.


It's more subtle nowadays, American cinema does love its C.E.O. villains, but almost always portray it as lone bad actors rather than an institutional thing, in the way that megacorporations being regional Empire-backed despots suggests.




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> I personally feel that would have been a far more interesting angle for an origin movie, and would have added far more depth and nuance to young Han's character, but alas, not to be.


I mean, that is roughly what happened, no?



> Not blind, but I haven't read these novels very often. I owned the last book as a first printing back in the 1980s and read it cover to cover because, before ESB, I was hungry for Star Wars and that was the available outlet at the time.  Now that I am several decades older, I read the books with different eyes.
> 
> I had just pulled them out after a several years hiatus, took a look, and thought "Y'know? I bet this would make a good readthrough." So here we are.


Ah okay, so you probably remember the major plot beats, but not the details. Got it.




> Nothing _ever_ works well when you hire Solo at this stage of his career :).


*Spoiler: Spoiler for Isaac Asimov's Foundation serie, I guess*
Show

Well, the Mule never found the Second Foundation, so that checks.





> It's right out of a spaghetti western, like  Once Upon A Time in the West, 1968 .     The first chapter is a scified-version of an old story in the American west -- desolate wasteland being exploited by a rich company (usually the local railroad) who brings in virtual serfs under false pretenses to work the mines or build the railroads or farm the land, living in  Company Towns .  The company takes everything worth having and pays the workers as little as they can help.  Out in the territories before state governments were organized, there was precious little law and the companies were laws unto themselves.


Right, I have overlooked the "Western in space" angle and was thinking about the corpos more like modern companies/cyberpunk all-encompassing megacorps and less like company-towns.

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## Palanan

> Originally Posted by *Fyraltari*
> _I wasn't expecting Star Wars to have big corpos as villains as early as the seventies. I would have expected the eighties at the earliest._


Well, the first Han Solo novel came out in 1979, so reasonably 80s-adjacent.

As for the Corporate Sector Authority itself, Ive always assumed that Brian Daley originated the CSA as a stand-in for the Empire, specifically to avoid stepping on any creative toes as the OT continued.  

My sense is that Lucasfilm had some strict no-fly zones where authors were concerned, especially early on.  As I recall, Lucasfilm hit the ceiling when Timothy Zahn wanted to include a plotline involving clones, since they were concerned about any potential infringement on their plans for the Clone Wars.  And Karen Traviss was effectively locked out of continuing her Republic Commandos novels for related issues.




> Originally Posted by *Fyraltari*
> _I mean, that is roughly what happened, no?_


Not really, no.

*Spoiler*
Show

In the Brian Daley novels, Solo was a junior officer who was publicly humiliated and cashiered out of the service, with Chewbacca as the only individual willing to defend whatever it was he did.

In the recent Solo movie, hes just a grunt who goes AWOL and escapes with Chewie in the process.  His motives in the movie are self-preservation and greed (and twu wuv, maybe)whereas in the novels its implied that he did something noble and self-sacrificing, and paid for it with his career and reputation.

At least, thats what I recall across several decades, so well see how accurate those memories are.

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## gbaji

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> In the Brian Daley novels, Solo was a junior officer who was publicly humiliated and cashiered out of the service, with Chewbacca as the only individual willing to defend whatever it was he did.
> 
> In the recent Solo movie, hes just a grunt who goes AWOL and escapes with Chewie in the process.  His motives in the movie are self-preservation and greed (and twu wuv, maybe)whereas in the novels its implied that he did something noble and self-sacrificing, and paid for it with his career and reputation.
> 
> At least, thats what I recall across several decades, so well see how accurate those memories are.


*Spoiler*
Show

The officer thing was significant, since IIRC he knows Imperial landing/docking protocols or somesuch, which helps him out (I think in this book actually). It was (again very very vague memories here) implied that part of what made him a good smuggler (well, better than average) was his experience in the Imperial Navy meant he knew how to avoid Imperial patrols and searches. He knew their practices and methodologies, and knew where the weaknesses were and how to exploit them.

I get why they went the direction they did in Solo, but it was a bit of a disappointment that they wrote that completely out of the character in canon. The original backstory much better explained his training as a pilot, at the very least, and perhaps why he prefers to "avoid Imperial entanglements".

He also apparently knows just enough about Imperial Detention facilities to break into one, but not so much how to get back out...

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## Peelee

A. C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy also expounded on Han's past, conveniently with gaps enough for the original Han Solo trilogy stories to fit in, and also going into his military service a little.

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## Fyraltari

> I get why they went the direction they did in Solo, but it was a bit of a disappointment that they wrote that completely out of the character in canon. The original backstory much better explained his training as a pilot, at the very least, and perhaps why he prefers to "avoid Imperial entanglements".


_Solo_ had a scene of Han as an Imperial pilot who disobeys orders and is consequently reassigned to the infantry on Minban. It was cut for time, but there's nothing stopping you from deciding that _Solo_'s Han Solo was in the Imperial Navy.

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## Peelee

> _Solo_ had a scene of Han as an Imperial pilot who disobeys orders and is consequently reassigned to the infantry on Minban. It was cut for time, but there's nothing stopping you from deciding that _Solo_'s Han Solo was in the Imperial Navy.


He's also shown as a TIE pilot in the comics.

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## gbaji

> _Solo_ had a scene of Han as an Imperial pilot who disobeys orders and is consequently reassigned to the infantry on Minban. It was cut for time, but there's nothing stopping you from deciding that _Solo_'s Han Solo was in the Imperial Navy.


Was that in the deleted scenes (and I missed/forgot it)? Or cut as in "doens't actually appear in film anywhere, but it was mentioned by someone in an interview"? Cause that at least works and fits with the older backstory for him.

The film portrays it as though he's basically just tossed as cannon fodder into a meatgrinder battle with minimal training. Been a while since I watched the film though.

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## Fyraltari

> Was that in the deleted scenes (and I missed/forgot it)?


Yes.



> The film portrays it as though he's basically just tossed as cannon fodder into a meatgrinder battle with minimal training.


Also yes.

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## pendell

> *Spoiler: Foundation*
> Show
> 
> 
> Well, the Mule never found the Second Foundation, so that checks.


Actually.. 
*Spoiler*
Show


He did. In _Second Foundation_. He confronted the  First Speaker of the second foundation, who also had psychic powers.  The Mule was distracted for a moment and promptly brainwashed;  he returned to his capital a very different person and ruled for several years as a benevolent dictator before dying of a mutation; the dead hand of Hari Seldon's plan resumed its progress towards re-creating a second Galactic Empire -- until the events of Foundation's Edge resulted in the plan being altered too attempt something _much_ more ambitious. 



Anyway, let's move on to Chapter 2: 

*Spoiler: Part 1*
Show


The _Sunfighter Franchise_ -- for such is the identity the Millenium Falcon's transponder is now reporting it as -- sets down on the planet  Etti IV , capital of the Corporate Sector. 

 

Certainly a beautiful place.  

Once on dirt, Han wastes no time in washing his ill-gotten income twice:  He has been paid in gems by the miners of Duroon.  Step 1 is to trade these gems for something less likely to raise comment;  precious metals and rare crystals.  Having put in the effort at the commodities market, he next goes down to the Authority and trades the consignment for an Authority Cash Voucher.  Flush, he gets in contact with Ploovo Two-For-One, the loan shark, and suggest they meet at the _Free Flight Dance Dome_, a very posh and upscale restaurant in the port which features variable gravity. Artificial gravity is standard in the Star Wars universe; that's why Captain Needa and Admiral Piett stand on their bridges rather than floating around.   This restaurant has taken this one step further;  they have multiple artificial gravity generators on premises allowing them to create different micro-environments for their clientele; people who grew up in 1/6th gravity can relax in comfort while , two booths down, a family used to 2.5 gravities can finally sit at a meal without worrying about accidentally flying away. There is also a zero-gravity dance hall as well, so people can "fly" while dancing, tumbling, or any other athletic endeavor that takes their fancy. Hence the name: "Free Flight Dancing". Because you really can fly and dance here. 

Y'know? That actually sounds like a lot of fun. 

Ploovo Two-For-One accepts; he's a man who loves his comforts. And he has other reasons, which will be discussed at their proper time. 

Before travelling to the restaurant, Han and Chewie stop in at Sabador's , by reputation the best exotic pet store, with the widest selection, in the spaceport.  

On the way, we pass a patrol of Authority Security Police, or "Espos", for short, wearing brown uniforms and black helmets. 
The flavor text for these people goes: "There were all kinds of cops in the galaxy, some good, some not. But the Authority's Security Police ... were among the worst. Their enforcements had nothing to do with justice, but only with the edicts of the Corporate Sector Authority. Han had never been able to figure out what turned a  man into an unquestioning Espo bully-boy; he merely tried to ensure he didn't cross trails with any of them." 

We are not disappointed.  "Spidery night-gliders of Alterrn, iridescent-feathered song serpents... tiny, tubby, clownish marsupials.. cages and cases, tanks and environmental bubbles, teemed with ... eyes, ... tentacles, clicking chelse, and wobbling pseudopodia." 

The shop is currently being staffed by the owner ... Sabador, a native of Rakrir. "Short segmented tubular body scuttled along on five pairs of limbs, two long eyestalks rotating constantly. " Seeing Han, he (?) raises himself up on his back two sets of limbs, until his eyestalks are level with Han.

Sabador quickly reaches a conclusion about this scruffy-looking duo, and tells them he's not in the market to buy a Wookie; wookies' are intelligent creatures, a pet store can't buy them. 

As an aside,  it appears the Corporate Sector isn't _completely_ fallen to evil, as they still outlaw wookie slaves. Which is ironic, given the Empire definitely enslaves wookies on their home planet of Kasshyk. But it's illegal to buy or sell or trade them here. Lingering Republic influence maybe?  

Chewbacca does NOT like hearing this. Han talks him down, but manages to wangle his anger into a discount from the proprieter; for they are here to buy. Not sell. 

Exactly what they are buying we'll discuss further in the next part; the important clues are that 1) The proprieter considers them "revolting" 2) This particular specimen has been de-venomed but _not_ de-scented 3) Has moreover been in rut since it was brought in, so it is very, very bad-tempered for a species already renowned as bad news.  

Han takes it, on two conditions: He needs an opaque box to carry it in. And he needs it lightly sedated so he can handle it.  He then uses the Angry Wookie Discount to get it at half the shopkeep's starting offer, who is all too happy to get them out of his business as soon as possible. 

And so it is we find ourselves at the Free Flight; Han and Chewie step in, box in hand,  stepping over to Ploovo Two-For-One's table. 

Ploovo Two-For-One,  "loan shark and former robber, smash-and-grab man, and bunco steerer out of the  Cron Drift ", waits for our companions with three bodyguards at his table. He wants two things from this meeting. First, he wants his money. Second, he wants revenge on Han Solo, who has been stringing him along for far too long. He has decided to be clever about his revenge.  He can't outright kill a man about to pay his debts, and he can't turn him over to the police; both unpardonable for a man in his position. But there's a third option, something about this very restaurant, which will give him his revenge without having to lift a finger. 

Han arrives , sets down the box with Ploovo's payment. Just then, a group of Espos approach their table...


 

We've put quite a lot of Chekhov's guns on the wall in that section. I encourage the reader to take a few seconds to ponder over all the pieces of the puzzle and consider, for a few minutes, how this is all going to play out. Then read on, and we'll see if you're right or not. 

Fasten your seat belts , partners, it's about to get bumpy  :Small Amused: 

*Spoiler*
Show

 
MISSION TIME!
OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE THE FREE FLIGHT DANCE DOME

Ploovo spots the security police, takes the box, and suggests Solo vacate the premises at once. Solo stops him, saying they should all sit together, all-friendly like, and by the way  the body guards have his permission to put their hands on the table, where he can see them. *Now*. 

Ploovo signals acquiescence; caught between his bodyguards and Solo, any firefight is going to result in him getting perforated from every angle in seconds. So he's more than happy to be friends. We're all buddies, aren't we? 

The patrol arrives at their table and calls Solo out under his assumed identity; his ship's been impounded! 

Solo is shocked; his ships' inspections and approvals are all current (He should know, he forged them himself). 

CHARACTER NOTE: Solo in this version has points in persuasion, starship operation , firearms, and at least one rank in slicing.  He is only proficient in repair and mechanics -- that's what his partner specializes in.  He's got a ton of charisma for those fast-talking cons, but I guess wisdom is his dump stat. 

The espo sergeant shakes his head; the regulations have been updated.  Just on surface inspection, the ship has 1) lift-to-mass ratio and armaments more in-line with a military ship 2) thruster customization for greater speed which removed a lot of the safety radiation shielding. 3) Irregular docking tackle. 4) Augmented defense shields 5) Heavy duty acceleration compensators and 6) Long-range detection gear.  "That's some firecracker you've got there", the sarge concludes, noting she's out of spec and not on the Waivers list which would allow her to have any of it.  

Han tries to brush it off and say he'll visit the portmaster later to square this all away, but the patrol isn't having it; their orders are to escort him directly to the portmaster _right now_. After which, the ship will be reverted back to its original factory specs by Authority techs. 

Han realizes this is a death sentence;  they got all this from a surface inspection. If authority mechanics start tearing the ship apart and finding the smuggling compartments, he'll be lucky just to be sent to prison.  Just by docking at this port he's signed his own death warrant.  And Ploovo Two-For-One knew this, but chose not to warn him. This way he gets to see Han Solo punished without having to take any blame or make any effort.  It's Solo's fault for not checking things out before docking. 

CHARACTER NOTE: Yep, definitely low wisdom score here. 

Aside:  What is even the stock YT-1300 good for _except_ smuggling?  Freighters in the Star Wars expanded universe are often just huge containers with an engine bolted on one end of the chain and a cockpit on the other, and they're small potatoes compared to the Guild Heighliners of the Dune Universe. The Millenium Falcon doesn't have that much more carrying capacity than a modern passenger aircraft; that implies a small cargo, therefore either very valuable or very perishable; a courier or a smuggler.  Not a freighter, any more than you would try to deliver crates in a Honda Civic. 

Trapped as he is, Solo hands over the box anyway, telling Ploovo it's his payment, with interest. The box is opened and suddenly THIS comes jumping out



A  Dinko .  Described in book as "temperament came close to psychopathy; One of the mysteries of the zoological world was how the little terrors tolerated each other long enough to reproduce; small enough to fit in a man's palm ... powerful rear legs moved constantly, and the twin pairs of grasping extremities on its chest pinched the air, longing for something upon which to fasten. It's long tongue flickered in and out between wicked, glittery fangs." 

CANON NOTE: This isn't the last time we're going to see Dinkos in Legends; according to the wiki I just linked  Palpatine used them to train Darth Maul; the trauma is partly what made him such a taciturn, expressionless being. It also explains the market for them; if they're good enough for the Emperor, surely they're good enough for all of the Empire's upper crust! 

At any rate, the creature, which has an Authority Cash Voucher tied around its dorsal (Ploovo's payment) , leaps out of the box and energetically tries to eat Ploovo's nose! 

Oh yes, the stink. I'm forgetting to mention the stink. The Dinko combines the worst attributes of the wolverine and the skunk, and it sprays everyone within three meters of the table with its scent glands. And this creature is in rut ... the effect is something like the world's biggest smoke bomb, if that bomb let out poo gas and had teeth and a vicious temper.  

This effectively distracts everyone at the table, so Han and Chewie make a break for it!  The bodyguards are confused; some trying to help their boss detach the dinko from his face, others trying to chase our daring duo.   The espos, outing themselves as ill-trained bullies who shouldn't be issued a lollipop much less a firearm, rip out their guns and start blasting away. 

Um.. excuse me? You're going to open fire on a fleeing man in the _middle of a crowded restaurant_? In the spaceport of the Authority Capital?    Like as not you'll accidentally tag an Authority exec out on the town with a significant other, and then, if you're lucky, you can spend the rest of your employment on an asteroid somewhere.  

Han and Chewie vault the bar, where the bartenders reach under the bar , pull out staves, to mix it up and keep their bar from being trashed. Han fights them off for one combat round, then he's past and Chewie takes up the fight. Drawing his own gun and throwing suppressive fire back at the espos (in a crowded restaurant; for pity's sake!) , he makes it over to the gravity control panel. 

Use Computer Check: FAIL. 

Han doesn't have any idea how to use the equipment and he's under fire, so he just starts ramming all the levers up to MAX.  

Everyone in the bar, except those behind the bar in the service area, is immediately slammed to the floor under the weight of 3.5G, which is the maximum the generators can support.  Happily, there weren't any dancers in the air at the time, so no one is killed or seriously injured. It's just the equivalent of being sat on by a very, _very_ heavy person.  

CHARACTER NOTE: Han is certainly the "Scoundrel" after which the feat  Scoundrel's Luck is named. he certainly has that. 

That only leaves the two bartenders to deal with, and Chewie has already solved that problem.  Chewbacca comes over and look at the control panel, growls at Han for a klutz, and takes 20 over the panel. After a few minutes he has created a 1-g corridor through the restaurant to the entrance which carefully avoids both authority gunmen and underworld thugs.  They step carefully down the path and outside , where they confront a party of revellers coming in for an evening of fun. 

HAN [ in his most officious, bureaucratic tone]:  "This establishment is closed and under quarantine. Fronk's Fever"

BLUFF CHECK : PASS. 

The partyers believe him completely, and scatter to the four winds.  They grab an Uber to return to the spaceport, while Han reassures Chewbacca they'll never hear from Ploovo again; humiliated he may be, and angry he may be, but he _was_ paid back the full amount so there's no way his backers will spring for a bounty on the pair. If Ploovo Two-For-One is smart (and he is very smart), he'll cut his losses and never, ever cross paths with our smugglers again.  

As they travel towards the spaceport , Han muses : "Life is getting tough for the independent businessman." 

MISSION COMPLETE!  

 


*Unbuckles seat belt* 

Well.. that... that was quite a ride.  Novel hasn't let up at all from the last chapter. We've learned a bit more about Han and about the _Falcon_,  and survived another caper.  But we still have to get off-planet. Etti IV is pretty but I think it's about to become a bad place for our health. 

Actually, this feels a _lot_ like a gaming session with an absolutely crazy rogue. I wonder if Brian Daley ever sat at a gaming table? 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## runeghost

Thanks for the thread - Andor's Pre-Mor Authority reminded me a lot of the Corporate Sector, which had them in the back of my mind. 

I like this version of Han, and it remains my head-canon version of the character. To me, it fits him better than any changes made since (especially the Solo movie, which committed the cardinal sin of trying to fit too much the character's backstory into a single film, though Lando was excellent).

My no-prize attempt for the gunfighter's blaster (with scope) was that the gun was powerful enough and Han's hands steady enough (or maybe when braced) that with the scope, it could work as a sort of pocket-sniper rifle. I.e. keeping the scope let it be two guns in one: a very potent gunslinger's weapon, and something that could take very long-range shots with a little time to aim.

----------


## Keltest

A lot of blasters in Star Wars seem to have scopes or other attachments that are designed to work with things like a Mandalorian's helmet HUD. Its possible that Han's blaster is one such, and that he simply doesn't have the necessary hardware to work with that particular piece.

----------


## Gnoman

> Actually.. 
> Aside:  What is even the stock YT-1300 good for _except_ smuggling?  Freighters in the Star Wars expanded universe are often just huge containers with an engine bolted on one end of the chain and a cockpit on the other, and they're small potatoes compared to the Guild Heighliners of the Dune Universe. The Millenium Falcon doesn't have that much more carrying capacity than a modern passenger aircraft; that implies a small cargo, therefore either very valuable or very perishable; a courier or a smuggler.  Not a freighter, any more than you would try to deliver crates in a Honda Civic.


Official sources (both canons) put the cargo at 25-100 tons (with between 8 and 0 passenger cabins) depending on configuration. On Earth, that level of cargo is handled by aircraft - 100 tons is right in line with what a 747 can carry - so it is probably best to think of the YT-1300 in that category, especially since even the stock one is quite fast with a class 2 hyperdrive and good sublight acceleration. Larger bulk transports would have a Class 3 and be extremely sluggish in sublight. Perishables, high-value low-bulk cargoes, or anything with a time sensitive nature would be ideal. Also remember that a lot of worlds in the GFFA are extremely sparsely populated without a lot of interstellar trade. Diverting a massive bulk freighter to one of them very often would probably be a waste, so they're going to be served by smaller tramps.
- 



> My no-prize attempt for the gunfighter's blaster (with scope) was that the gun was powerful enough and Han's hands steady enough (or maybe when braced) that with the scope, it could work as a sort of pocket-sniper rifle. I.e. keeping the scope let it be two guns in one: a very potent gunslinger's weapon, and something that could take very long-range shots with a little time to aim.


Scopes on a pistol are pretty useful and common. They rob you of the sights, but as I mentioned Han doesn't _use_ the sights at close range - any time we see him in a fight where he's not shooting well into ranges that scopes make sense, he's relying entirely on the quite real "I'm pointing with my arm at this guy, I'll hit him somewhere" technique.

----------


## Peelee

Also:

What is a Ford F-150 good for _except_ smuggling? Freighters in out universe are enormous cargo container ships/heavy duty airplanes/18-wheeler tractor trailers.

YT-1300s are light freighters. The key word here is "light". It's the Star Wars pickup truck.

----------


## LeSwordfish

Wookiepedia suggests that the notch on the front of the milennium falcon is for pushing big cargo crates around. I'm not sure if Solo rendered that non-canon, with Lando having an...escape pod? Something? there.






That still doesn't look very much freight for interstellar distances to me (less than a couple of big lorries, for example) but following that train of thought takes us to "surely nothing is economically worth shipping from planet to planet" and that's silly talk for Star Wars.

----------


## pendell

> Also:
> 
> What is a Ford F-150 good for _except_ smuggling? Freighters in out universe are enormous cargo container ships/heavy duty airplanes/18-wheeler tractor trailers.
> 
> YT-1300s are light freighters. The key word here is "light". It's the Star Wars pickup truck.


What can you fit in an F-150 that will allow you to make a living as a commercial driver with that as your rig?  It's not going to be eggs or petroleum or anything else; the profit isn't adequate for the volume. Even in our world, if your primary occupation is "F-150 freight driver", you're talking very small but very valuable cargoes. So ,  Yeah . 

Of course, in the real world F-150s have legal use as recreational vehicles, carrying stuff around farms, driving in the third world and such. But they don't compete for legitimate commercial freight; that's not their design purpose. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## Peelee

> What can you fit in an F-150 that will allow you to make a living as a commercial driver with that as your rig?


So I have a question. When you drive and see a F150 on the road, do you think, "ah, that person is a making their living as a commercial driver with that as their rig, which is clearly economically unviable, and thus this must be a smuggler!"? 

YT1300 is a pickup, man. Yeah, Han uses it for smuggling because he doesn't use it for legitimate work. That doesn't mean there is literally no feasible explanation that it could ever be used for legitimate work. You're using circular reasoning here to try to make your point.

----------


## Keltest

> What can you fit in an F-150 that will allow you to make a living as a commercial driver with that as your rig?  It's not going to be eggs or petroleum or anything else; the profit isn't adequate for the volume. Even in our world, if your primary occupation is "F-150 freight driver", you're talking very small but very valuable cargoes. So ,  Yeah . 
> 
> Of course, in the real world F-150s have legal use as recreational vehicles, carrying stuff around farms, driving in the third world and such. But they don't compete for legitimate commercial freight; that's not their design purpose. 
> 
> Respectfully, 
> 
> Brian P.


Han Solo certainly seems to spend plenty of time out in the boonies, so having something that can go "off road" so to speak might be advantageous. Certainly the space equivalent of the 18 wheelers would need equivalent facilities to receive them, whereas the Falcon can just land anywhere with a stable enough flat surface.

----------


## pendell

> Han Solo certainly seems to spend plenty of time out in the boonies, so having something that can go "off road" so to speak might be advantageous. Certainly the space equivalent of the 18 wheelers would need equivalent facilities to receive them, whereas the Falcon can just land anywhere with a stable enough flat surface.


Makes sense; it wouldn't be high value but there would be a use for it as a tramp freighter to primitive worlds; like a modern bush pilot delivering to the rural third world or Alaska.  There are no roads and therefore no place for 18-wheelers; freight must be delivered by air. And since there is no developed airstrip there's no place for a 747 to land, so you're looking at a small aircraft or a piper cub.  Possibly even seaplanes; it's a lot easier to find a lake or a river to land on in some parts of the world than a cleared airstrip. 

So I guess the legitimate use for a YT-1300 would be the  Tramp Trade . That is, small operators on small margins carrying ad hoc cargos where there is no established trade lane. Fill 'er up with whatever seems likely to bring a profit, sell it at the next port, then buy whatever looks like it can bring a profit at the next port. It's a very nomadic existence -- and by its definition it is marginal.  Once a trade route becomes really profitable people will start improving it, adding spaceport facilities and then the Lucrehulks begin shipping in quantities the small trader can't compete with; so it's on to other low-margin planets and cargoes the big players don't see as worth their time. 




> So I have a question. When you drive and see a F150 on the road, do you think, "ah, that person is a making their living as a commercial driver with that as their rig, which is clearly economically unviable, and thus this must be a smuggler!"?


Normally when I see an F-150 I assume it is a pleasure vehicle; someone may be driving it for commute or other personal use. I'd be very surprised to see one configured to seriously haul freight as a commercial vehicle. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## Peelee

> Normally when I see an F-150 I assume it is a pleasure vehicle; someone may be driving it for commute or other personal use. I'd be very surprised to see one configured to seriously haul freight as a commercial vehicle. 
> 
> Respectfully, 
> 
> Brian P.


Great, so we've established that non-commercial use is a thing. That's progress.

Now, let's pretend that doesnt exist and a vehicle _must_ have commercial use. Your apparent refusal to acknowledge the existence of the trades does not, in fact, mean that such professions and people don't actually exist. I promise you, they're there. Im fact, I literally just got back from picking up lunch. Barbecue from across the street, pulled pork sandwich with Mac and cheese. On the maybe a minute drive not counting the light, I saw at least 3 commercial pickup trucks with company livery on them. I'm not counting any of the trucks the firm I work for has in this, btw, that would be a little cheap.

Quick tip, service trucks are usually painted white. They'll be easy to spot if you look for em. They're everywhere. And used commercially.

----------


## Keltest

> Great, so we've established that non-commercial use is a thing. That's progress.
> 
> Now, let's pretend that doesnt exist and a vehicle _must_ have commercial use. Your apparent refusal to acknowledge the existence of the trades does not, in fact, mean that such professions and people don't actually exist. I promise you, they're there. Im fact, I literally just got back from picking up lunch. Barbecue from across the street, pulled pork sandwich with Mac and cheese. On the maybe a minute drive not counting the light, I saw at least 3 commercial pickup trucks with company livery on them. I'm not counting any of the trucks the firm I work for has in this, btw, that would be a little cheap.
> 
> Quick tip, service trucks are usually painted white. They'll be easy to spot if you look for em. They're everywhere. And used commercially.


Not that I disagree with the overall point, but commercial pickup trucks like the ones youre describing usually operate locally. We have better tools for hauling heavy equipment from Seattle to Phoenix, for example, and thats something that doesnt map well to interplanetary distances.

Pendell has already conceded the point on operating in less developed areas that dont have the infrastructure to support massive trade vehicles, so I dont think theres much point in pressing this specific train of thought when its already fairly weak at the seams.

----------


## Wintermoot

> Great, so we've established that non-commercial use is a thing. That's progress.
> 
> Now, let's pretend that doesnt exist and a vehicle _must_ have commercial use. Your apparent refusal to acknowledge the existence of the trades does not, in fact, mean that such professions and people don't actually exist. I promise you, they're there. Im fact, I literally just got back from picking up lunch. Barbecue from across the street, pulled pork sandwich with Mac and cheese. On the maybe a minute drive not counting the light, I saw at least 3 commercial pickup trucks with company livery on them. I'm not counting any of the trucks the firm I work for has in this, btw, that would be a little cheap.
> 
> Quick tip, service trucks are usually painted white. They'll be easy to spot if you look for em. They're everywhere. And used commercially.


Except Han Solo isn't a space plumber or a space contractor or a space handyman. His supposed cover story is he's a freight hauler. Someone who's entire shtick is moving cargo (freight) from point A to point B. 

I don't think you're going to find many people who would say "the F-150 is a great option" for that. 

Likewise the "light freighter" that the Falcon is built on, is a terrible choice for hauling freight full-stop. It's cargo space is minimal. How anyone ever thought "this is a good design for a light freighter" is ridiculous, which is the point being made. 

The smallest terrestial vehicle you might want to compare his job to is an 18-wheeler, which is a small tractor hauling a cargo container three to four times it's length. That's what a space "light freighter" should theoretically compare to. 

It's okay to admit that the falcon is a failure of a design for what it was intended for. It's still wicked cool.

----------


## pendell

> Great, so we've established that non-commercial use is a thing. That's progress.
> 
> Now, let's pretend that doesnt exist and a vehicle _must_ have commercial use. Your apparent refusal to acknowledge the existence of the trades does not, in fact, mean that such professions and people don't actually exist. I promise you, they're there. Im fact, I literally just got back from picking up lunch. Barbecue from across the street, pulled pork sandwich with Mac and cheese. On the maybe a minute drive not counting the light, I saw at least 3 commercial pickup trucks with company livery on them. I'm not counting any of the trucks the firm I work for has in this, btw, that would be a little cheap.
> 
> Quick tip, service trucks are usually painted white. They'll be easy to spot if you look for em. They're everywhere. And used commercially.


When I say "commercial" I specifically mean "commercial freight" -- hauling cargo from point A to point B and this is the primary means of making income. Also requires a commercial driver's license. You don't need a CDL for an F-150 even if its' owned by a business; you do for a Kenworth.  

Sure, lots of companies own F-150s to move minor stuff and people around; service vehicles of all kinds just as you say.  But those kinds of jobs are incidental to the real money the company is making; they aren't expecting to stay in business based on the profit-grade cargoes those F-150s can haul.  

For Han, the Millenium Falcon is not an incidental to his business; he's not a mechanic or a doctor flying from world to world and using the ship just as transport. The Millenium Falcon IS his business; the only money he makes is the  profit on his cargo. And since there's no way he can pay for ship fuel hauling fertilizer, that means he's going to be carrying small cargoes which need very high speed delivery.  

I think Keltest has it right; the legitimate use for a YT-1300 is as a tramp ship carrying independent cargos on no fixed schedule. It's a living, but Han wants more money than he can get from flying legal cargo. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## ecarden

> I think Keltest has it right; the legitimate use for a YT-1300 is as a tramp ship carrying independent cargos on no fixed schedule. It's a living, but Han wants more money than he can get from flying legal cargo.


I tend to agree, though I think you could also use it as basically a bonded courier, carrying high value, small cargos/personnel. But there really ought to be better ships for that...

----------


## Keltest

> I tend to agree, though I think you could also use it as basically a bonded courier, carrying high value, small cargos/personnel. But there really ought to be better ships for that...


Its fast, seemingly well armed, and sturdy. If you wanted to haul gemstones or something equally valuable for its volume, I can think of worse ships.

----------


## Peelee

> Not that I disagree with the overall point, but commercial pickup trucks like the ones youre describing usually operate locally. We have better tools for hauling heavy equipment from Seattle to Phoenix, for example, and thats something that doesnt map well to interplanetary distances.
> 
> Pendell has already conceded the point on operating in less developed areas that dont have the infrastructure to support massive trade vehicles, so I dont think theres much point in pressing this specific train of thought when its already fairly weak at the seams.





> Except Han Solo isn't a space plumber or a space contractor or a space handyman. His supposed cover story is he's a freight hauler. Someone who's entire shtick is moving cargo (freight) from point A to point B. 
> 
> I don't think you're going to find many people who would say "the F-150 is a great option" for that. 
> 
> Likewise the "light freighter" that the Falcon is built on, is a terrible choice for hauling freight full-stop. It's cargo space is minimal. How anyone ever thought "this is a good design for a light freighter" is ridiculous, which is the point being made. 
> 
> The smallest terrestial vehicle you might want to compare his job to is an 18-wheeler, which is a small tractor hauling a cargo container three to four times it's length. That's what a space "light freighter" should theoretically compare to. 
> 
> It's okay to admit that the falcon is a failure of a design for what it was intended for. It's still wicked cool.


Ok, but all of that is beside the point. The point in question:


> Aside:  What is even the stock YT-1300 good for _except_ smuggling?


Now, to the totality of Pendell's replies so far, I must agree that he is correct. I concede that if you remove non-commercial ownership and focus only on commercial use, and then further remove all legitimate commercial use, then yes, a stock YT-1300 is not good for anything except smuggling.

----------


## Keltest

> Ok, but all of that is beside the point. The point in question:
> Now, to the totality of Pendell's replies so far, I must agree that he is correct. I concede that if you remove non-commercial ownership and focus only on commercial use, and then further remove all legitimate commercial use, then yes, a stock YT-1300 is not good for anything except smuggling.


I mean, youre trying to suggest that it would be used as a replacement for local non-space-capable cargo storage, which I have to question the use of the word "legitimate" for. Its hideously overengineered and almost certainly impractically expensive and unwieldy for the kind of work youre suggesting it would be used for. You could physically do it, I guess, but I dont think anybody would ever sign off on that.

----------


## Peelee

> I mean, youre trying to suggest that it would be used as a replacement for local non-space-capable cargo storage, which I have to question the use of the word "legitimate" for. Its hideously overengineered and almost certainly impractically expensive and unwieldy for the kind of work youre suggesting it would be used for. You could physically do it, I guess, but I dont think anybody would ever sign off on that.


Over-engineered and impractically expensive? It's one of the smallest ships we see that's not a starfighter or single-person transport. Han even claims he's made "special modifications" himself. What is over-engineered and overly expensive about the stock model?

Further, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that the notion of it's mere existence means it absolutely _must_ have no purpose other than smuggling is patently ridiculous. That's it. That is the entirety of my suggestion. Everything I have said goes back to that one proposition.

----------


## Keltest

> Over-engineered and impractically expensive? It's one of the smallest ships we see that's not a starfighter or single-person transport. Han even claims he's made "special modifications" himself. What is over-engineered and overly expensive about the stock model?
> 
> Further, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that the notion of it's mere existence means it absolutely _must_ have no purpose other than smuggling is patently ridiculous. That's it. That is the entirety of my suggestion. Everything I have said goes back to that one proposition.


Well, for starters, its a space ship doing, per your suggestion, the job of a landspeeder (or the truck equivalent.) It really wouldnt need to even be able to leave atmosphere, or enter hyperspace.

And I dont think youre correctly assessing Pendell's question either. He pointed out that it has limited cargo space for its purported design job. Its a reasonable question. Your counterargument was that it could haul things locally and still be commercial, but that doesnt hold up very well IMO.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Actually.. 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> He did. In _Second Foundation_. He confronted the  First Speaker of the second foundation, who also had psychic powers.  The Mule was distracted for a moment and promptly brainwashed;  he returned to his capital a very different person and ruled for several years as a benevolent dictator before dying of a mutation; the dead hand of Hari Seldon's plan resumed its progress towards re-creating a second Galactic Empire -- until the events of Foundation's Edge resulted in the plan being altered too attempt something _much_ more ambitious.


*Spoiler: No, no...*
Show

Falling into someone's trap is not the same as finding them. Tazenda and Rossem were nowhere near the SF's actual base.
 




> Sabador quickly reaches a conclusion about this scruffy-looking duo, and tells them he's not in the market to buy a Wookie; wookies' are intelligent creatures, a pet store can't buy them. 
> 
> As an aside,  it appears the Corporate Sector isn't _completely_ fallen to evil, as they still outlaw wookie slaves. Which is ironic, given the Empire definitely enslaves wookies on their home planet of Kasshyk. But it's illegal to buy or sell or trade them here. Lingering Republic influence maybe?


From your description, it looks like people walking in to sell him Wookiees is a commone enough occurence for him to assume that's what Han wanted, meaning that enslaved Wookiees aren't a suprising sight on this planet. So it'd be legal, but _he_ isn't in the business of selling people. Either because of morals or because, keeping a Wookiee prisoner takes a lot of effort. But maybe the actual text is clearer on the issue.




> The espo sergeant shakes his head; the regulations have been updated.  Just on surface inspection, the ship has 1) lift-to-mass ratio and armaments more in-line with a military ship 2) thruster customization for greater speed which removed a lot of the safety radiation shielding. 3) Irregular docking tackle. 4) Augmented defense shields 5) Heavy duty acceleration compensators and 6) Long-range detection gear.  "That's some firecracker you've got there", the sarge concludes, noting she's out of spec and not on the Waivers list which would allow her to have any of it.


What happened to the _Falcon_ looking like a piece of junk? Or is the idea that Han is going to purposefully make her look worse than she is to avoid this kind of things in the future?





> Aside:  What is even the stock YT-1300 good for _except_ smuggling?  Freighters in the Star Wars expanded universe are often just huge containers with an engine bolted on one end of the chain and a cockpit on the other, and they're small potatoes compared to the Guild Heighliners of the Dune Universe. The Millenium Falcon doesn't have that much more carrying capacity than a modern passenger aircraft; that implies a small cargo, therefore either very valuable or very perishable; a courier or a smuggler.  Not a freighter, any more than you would try to deliver crates in a Honda Civic.


I've wondered the same thing.
*Spoiler: There's really not much room for cargo in there*
Show




Of course, the real reason is that Lucas thought Valérian and Laureline's ship looked hella cool.
*Spoiler: Because it does*
Show



And copied the general design for his smuggler's ship. The fact that this ship's purpose is to carry a small team from one time-and-place to another while that ship's is to carry cargo notwithstanding.




> Trapped as he is, Solo hands over the box anyway, telling Ploovo it's his payment, with interest. The box is opened and suddenly THIS comes jumping out
> 
> 
> 
> A  Dinko .  Described in book as "temperament came close to psychopathy; One of the mysteries of the zoological world was how the little terrors tolerated each other long enough to reproduce; small enough to fit in a man's palm ... powerful rear legs moved constantly, and the twin pairs of grasping extremities on its chest pinched the air, longing for something upon which to fasten. It's long tongue flickered in and out between wicked, glittery fangs."


Lovely.




> CANON NOTE: This isn't the last time we're going to see Dinkos in Legends; according to the wiki I just linked  Palpatine used them to train Darth Maul; the trauma is partly what made him such a taciturn, expressionless being. It also explains the market for them; if they're good enough for the Emperor, surely they're good enough for all of the Empire's upper crust!


I doubt Sidious is very open about what he does in his secret Sith facilities.




> The espos, outing themselves as ill-trained bullies who shouldn't be issued a lollipop much less a firearm, rip out their guns and start blasting away. 
> 
> Um.. excuse me? You're going to open fire on a fleeing man in the _middle of a crowded restaurant_? In the spaceport of the Authority Capital?    Like as not you'll accidentally tag an Authority exec out on the town with a significant other, and then, if you're lucky, you can spend the rest of your employment on an asteroid somewhere.


[Insert joke about police competence here.]




> Han reassures Chewbacca they'll never hear from Ploovo again; humiliated he may be, and angry he may be, but he _was_ paid back the full amount so there's no way his backers will spring for a bounty on the pair. If Ploovo Two-For-One is smart (and he is very smart), he'll cut his losses and never, ever cross paths with our smugglers again.


I wouldn't be so sure. The guy's livelihood as a gangster depends on his reputation, he can't let people humiliate him like that and get away with it. Maybe he can't afford to track them down (though you'd be surprised at how much people can afford when their pride is on the line) but at the very least that means they can't go back to this place to make business, for fear of his thugs breaking all four of their legs.




> Actually, this feels a _lot_ like a gaming session with an absolutely crazy rogue. I wonder if Brian Daley ever sat at a gaming table?


This feels more like a typical action movie sequence to me. Something, say Pr. Indiana Jones would get up to.

I'm not really clear on the nature of the conflict between Solo and two-for-One, though. He wants revenge because Han is paying him late? But he's being paid in full, right? But he didn't _do_ anything? The border patrol caught Han all by themselves, why would it be Two-For-One's job to tell Han about new regulations? Han's the smuggler, here. And even if he did intend for Han to be caught by the police, wouldn't that incriminate him as well, as Han's business partner? Not enough to be interested, but surely, he doesn't want the law to pay attention to him? This thing just makes Han look paranoid to me.

----------


## Peelee

> Well, for starters, its a space ship doing, per your suggestion, the job of a landspeeder (or the truck equivalent.) It really wouldnt need to even be able to leave atmosphere, or enter hyperspace.
> 
> And I dont think youre correctly assessing Pendell's question either. He pointed out that it has limited cargo space for its purported design job. Its a reasonable question. Your counterargument was that it could haul things locally and still be commercial, but that doesnt hold up very well IMO.


Let's go with equating it to a landspeeder (never my intention when I likened it to a truck, but ignoring that). Landspeeder appear to have roughly similar speeds to modern-day ground cars, meaning any significant distance will require an inordinate time investment as opposed to a ship that can make suborbital flights. We also know that you can buy your own ship for 10,000 (presumably not a piece of junk), Luke's first reaction to seeing the YT-1300, is that it's a piece of junk (presumably costing under 10,000), and that Luke's used landspeeder which explicitly has low demand can sell for 2000. It doesn't sound like there's _that_ significant a difference between a landspeeder and a ship except the use case, and going between continents, as a quick example, would be significantly more quick and efficient in a suborbital flight than a landspeeder.

And then if we go on the idea that traveling between planets seems roughly like traveling between major cities in terms of how the people in the Star Wars universe treat it, I would hope that my pickup truck analogy would be more understandable. Along with the idea that nobody seems to think that a light freighter is inherently a smuggling craft - even the Empire, when they have a YT-1300 in the most advanced space station ever built, with a space wizard who is also an expert pilot, moffs, generals, admirals, colonels, and the vast array of lower level commissioned and noncoms aboard, literally nobody even thinks it may have hidden compartments until Vader orders a scanning crew specifically because he can sense Kenobi. Initial search yielded nobody and the logs and escape pods all gave the idea the crew abandoned ship.

So by the scale we see it seems like a light freighter designed for carrying light freight, in a setting where spaceships are incredibly common and seemingly affordable (roughly in the same sense that pickups are as opposed to sedans or coups), and nobody in that universe bat's an eye at the idea of a light freighter not being necessarily used for smuggling.

Youll forgive me if I think "what legitimate use does that ship have except for smuggling" to be ridiculous on its face.

----------


## Palanan

> Originally Posted by *Gnoman*
> _Perishables, high-value low-bulk cargoes, or anything with a time sensitive nature would be ideal. Also remember that a lot of worlds in the GFFA are extremely sparsely populated without a lot of interstellar trade. Diverting a massive bulk freighter to one of them very often would probably be a waste, so they're going to be served by smaller tramps._





> Originally Posted by *pendell*
> _So I guess the legitimate use for a YT-1300 would be the Tramp Trade._


Indeed.  As I recall, the Falcon is directly described as a tramp freighter in one of Brian Daleys novels.

The tramp freighter is a real-world concept that goes back to at least 1300 BC and the Uluburun ship, if not centuries or millennia earlier.  Its an itinerant ship which travels from port to port, carrying whatever mix of cargos the captain can scrounge.  The wreck at Uluburun gives some idea of the scattershot variety of goods that can be carried at any given time.

Tramp ships in the Bronze Age Mediterranean had a general route determined by seasonal winds and island groups; tramp dhows in the Indian Ocean followed a schedule tied to the monsoons.  A tramp freighter hauling across interstellar distances wouldnt be as tied to natural phenomena, and would go wherever the promise of short-term profit would take her.




> Originally Posted by *Keltest*
> _It really wouldnt need to even be able to leave atmosphere, or enter hyperspace._


In one of the Daley novels, Solo takes offense at an offer to move cargo between two points on the same planet, which he describes as a crummy surface-to-surface hop.




> Originally Posted by *Keltest*
> _haul things locally and still be commercial, but that doesnt hold up very well IMO._


In my area not so long ago we used to have what were called truck farms.  The truck may or may not refer to an actual vehicle, but these were farms whose produce was carried a relatively short distance from the farms to the market, probably just a few miles.  The produce was carried by actual trucks, which in terms of cargo space probably werent too much larger than an F-150.  Thats a solid example of a truck carrying a commercial haul over short distances.

----------


## pendell

> I'm not really clear on the nature of the conflict between Solo and two-for-One, though. He wants revenge because Han is paying him late? But he's being paid in full, right? But he didn't _do_ anything?


I'll add the relevant sentences which tell us pretty much everything about the quarrel. 




> While he waited, he gloated over his anticipated revenge on Han Solo.  Not that the pilot wouldn't repay. The loan shark was certain of getting his money. But Solo had long been an irritant, always ready with some dazzling evasion of payment, jeering Ploovo and bewildering him at the same time. On a number of occasions Ploovo had lost face with his backers because of run-ins with Solo, and his backers weren't the sort to be amused by that.  The code of ethics necessary to the conduct of illegal enterprises kept Ploovo from turning in the captain-owner to the law; nevertheless, a convenient local circumstance would serve the loan shark's purpose just as well.


So it's as you said; Han had repeatedly humiliated Ploovo. So Ploovo wants payback: Payback of the money he's owed, and payback for the face he lost. The first will be satisfied by a monetary payment; the second can only be satisfied by inflicting pain and agony on Solo. Happily, Solo is more than willing to inflict the damage on himself through sheer carelessness. 

Ploovo Two-For-One expected the Authority goons to drag Solo off to prison while he waved and counted his money. It didn't work out that way, of course. 




> What happened to the Falcon looking like a piece of junk? Or is the idea that Han is going to purposefully make her look worse than she is to avoid this kind of things in the future?


I think what's happening here is that the Authority inspectors look at the ship with different eyes than a farmer off Tatooine. Luke didn't pick up, as one example, on the fact that the ship has much more powerful engines than is standard for the class. it's the difference between showing your car to a 14-year-old and sending it in for a safety inspection. 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## gbaji

> When I say "commercial" I specifically mean "commercial freight" -- hauling cargo from point A to point B and this is the primary means of making income. Also requires a commercial driver's license. You don't need a CDL for an F-150 even if its' owned by a business; you do for a Kenworth.


Uhaul (and others) have a successful business renting trucks (including pickups), the largest of which are smaller than anything requiring a commercial license to drive. So the idea that a "small freighter" could be operated successfuly as a small business seems reasonable. I do think that the "bush pilot" model is mabye a better analogy, but it still works IMO.





> In my area not so long ago we used to have what were called truck farms.  The truck may or may not refer to an actual vehicle, but these were farms whose produce was carried a relatively short distance from the farms to the market, probably just a few miles.  The produce was carried by actual trucks, which in terms of cargo space probably werent too much larger than an F-150.  Thats a solid example of a truck carrying a commercial haul over short distances.


On the flip side, that's not really equivalent to traveling from one planet to another. One would assume that the overhead of having a ship capable of breaking atmosphere and having hyperdrive capability would only make trips profitable when actually breaking atmosphere and travelling to another planet (requireing a hyperdrive). Otherwise, you'd use something else (hence, presumably, Han's comment about a "crummy surface run").


Certainly, a lot of the Falcon falls squarely into "rule of cool" territory, but given the sheer number of small ships like this that seem to permeate the SW universe, one has to assume that they aren't that uncommon, and that lots of people use them for lots of different reasons. Personal travel, transport of small amounts of goods on a short schedule, transport of passengers, etc. Could you make a legitimate living transporting things around? Probably not in the more populated and built up areas of the galaxy where there are existing mass transport hubs, but out in the hinterlands? Yeah. I can see it. Large portions of the SW galaxy do appear to be more wild west than metropolis.

----------


## Wintermoot

the point that I take from this is that "the idea that a ship like the falcon, with its minimal cargo space, could be MEANT to be a freighter is ridiculous on the parts of the universe creators/ship designers" and I feel that that is solidly a true statement. Numerous posters have posted reasons why and I haven't really seen any reasonable disputations. 

Now we are dealing with people basically saying "the ship exists and other ships like it exist in the star wars universe THEREFORE they aren't ridiculous."  I'm sorry. But if that's the best refutation you have you really need to rethink how strong of an argument you think that is. 

In real life, no one is buying a ford F-150 and trying to make a career out of using it to haul things from chicago to kansas city. The most you'll find is someone tryingto move themselves with a truck a long distance and they aren't doing that as an economic model. 

The falcon is a ridiculous ship. Still cool though!

----------


## Peelee

> the point that I take from this is that "the idea that a ship like the falcon, with its minimal cargo space, could be MEANT to be a freighter is ridiculous on the parts of the universe creators/ship designers" and I feel that that is solidly a true statement. Numerous posters have posted reasons why and I haven't really seen any reasonable disputations. 
> 
> Now we are dealing with people basically saying "the ship exists and other ships like it exist in the star wars universe THEREFORE they aren't ridiculous."  I'm sorry. But if that's the best refutation you have you really need to rethink how strong of an argument you think that is. 
> 
> In real life, no one is buying a ford F-150 and trying to make a career out of using it to haul things from chicago to kansas city. The most you'll find is someone tryingto move themselves with a truck a long distance and they aren't doing that as an economic model. 
> 
> The falcon is a ridiculous ship. Still cool though!


Except it's not a ridiculous ship. It's only ridiculous if you assume it's only possible use is to haul stuff things from metaphorical Chicago to Kansas city. Further, iirc this Han Solo Adventures was the only time he ever claimed to be doing that, so it's not exactly a "cover story". Finally, the economics are never explained (which is a good move, hard numbers in Sci fi rarely, if ever, work out well) so you can't say what the economics even _are_ of making that Chicago run.

Further further, we have massive oil tankers and big rig 18 wheelers for large scale transport and we also don't have major pirate rings which can make easy targets of those during transport. This is not the case for the Star Wars universe, which has many stories involving pirates. Even planetside you have to watch out or Jawas will life the shirt right off your back.

This isn't a "it exists in universe so it makes sense" argument. This is a "everything in universe explicitly supports this and your analogies are assuming incredibly specific things as the only possible methods despite nothing except your own insistence that it must be this way supporting those positions and then declaring it nonsensible" argument.

----------


## Keltest

> Except it's not a ridiculous ship. It's only ridiculous if you assume it's only possible use is to haul stuff things from metaphorical Chicago to Kansas city. Further, iirc this Han Solo Adventures was the only time he ever claimed to be doing that, so it's not exactly a "cover story". Finally, the economics are never explained (which is a good move, hard numbers in Sci fi rarely, if ever, work out well) so you can't say what the economics even _are_ of making that Chicago run.
> 
> Further further, we have massive oil tankers and big rig 18 wheelers for large scale transport and we also don't have major pirate rings which can make easy targets of those during transport. This is not the case for the Star Wars universe, which has many stories involving pirates. Even planetside you have to watch out or Jawas will life the shirt right off your back.
> 
> This isn't a "it exists in universe so it makes sense" argument. This is a "everything in universe explicitly supports this and your analogies are assuming incredibly specific things as the only possible methods despite nothing except your own insistence that it must be this way supporting those positions and then declaring it nonsensible" argument.


Its a freight hauler and a space ship, ergo its for hauling freight in space. Thats not an assumption at that point, thats just being told flat out what its for. Sure, it "can" do other stuff, but thats no longer within the scope of the question. "What is it good for?" Not just "what can you brute force it into doing if you dont mind inefficiencies."

----------


## Wintermoot

> Except it's not a ridiculous ship. It's only ridiculous if you assume it's only possible use is to haul stuff things from metaphorical Chicago to Kansas city. Further, iirc this Han Solo Adventures was the only time he ever claimed to be doing that, so it's not exactly a "cover story". Finally, the economics are never explained (which is a good move, hard numbers in Sci fi rarely, if ever, work out well) so you can't say what the economics even _are_ of making that Chicago run.
> 
> Further further, we have massive oil tankers and big rig 18 wheelers for large scale transport and we also don't have major pirate rings which can make easy targets of those during transport. This is not the case for the Star Wars universe, which has many stories involving pirates. Even planetside you have to watch out or Jawas will life the shirt right off your back.
> 
> This isn't a "it exists in universe so it makes sense" argument. This is a "everything in universe explicitly supports this and your analogies are assuming incredibly specific things as the only possible methods despite nothing except your own insistence that it must be this way supporting those positions and then declaring it nonsensible" argument.


It's a "stock light freighter". It's not ridiculous for me to say "its designed purpose it to haul freight" because it's in the name.  If the lucasarts designers had just called it a "stock light courier" I wouldn't have the slightest problem with it. and it's also not ridiculous to say "a freighter with no real space to put freight is a badly designed freighter" 

I really don't see why that's so hard for you to admit. to quote your favorite saying "I don't know why this is a hill you want to die on" 

that being said, this new argument of yours "in a universe with heavy piracy, having a nimble, small freighter to move small cargoes through heavy pirated areas" is the first disputation you've concocted that isn't simply rubbish. So i'll give you that.  I can buy that the Correllian shipyards could have theoretically build this boondoggle of a freighter specifically to deal with piracy losses. I mean, its still a garbage design, but lots of garbage designs get pushed to production.

----------


## The Glyphstone

Isn't the YT-1300 also supposed to be extremely customizable? Heck, just looking at the Wookiepedia there are two canon, Corellian-made variants - the stock YT-1300P which is primarily a _passenger_ transport rather than a commodities transport, and the YT-1300F which is explicitly remodeled to gut its passenger capacity for additional freight cubeage. It's got mounting points on the outside for external cargo pods, various landing-gear modifications for terrain a larger transport would struggle with - and being so easily modded means it's comparatively cheap to take the extras off when you don't need them. There's probably as many customized YT-1300s as there are YT-1300 captains, pretty much the only thing it _can't_ do is haul mass bulk goods.

This is looking to me like two hills, not one, each fortified and defended to the death.



EDIT: Actually, reading about the cargo pod mounts makes me think of stuff like Battletech's JumpShips, and various other similar designs in all manner of sci-fi properties. External pods are probably the cheapest and easiest way to haul cargo ever made - you dont even have to wait to unload them, just drop them off and it's the customer's problem to get the stuff out.

----------


## Mechalich

Regarding the logistics of light freighters, including the _Millennium Falcon_, it's true that they don't make sense by the standards of 2023. However, Star Wars doesn't operate based on the standards of 2023, in fact, it barely manages to approach those of 1923! This is important, because there was a massive post-WWII revolution in logistics that simply doesn't apply to the Star Wars universe. Containerized cargo, 18-wheelers, ubiquitous paved roads, reinforced concrete bridges, universal docking cranes, etc. Star Wars does not possess the equivalent of any of these things. 

Instead, light freighters are meant to be equivalent of the small, extremely hardy trucks used in rough regions like the American West, Africa, and Asia during the first half of the 20th century. For example, these: 


These trucks are from the Mongolian expedition of Roy Chapman Andrews (the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones, so extremely relevant to the mindset of George Lucas) in 1922. Note how small they are and how comparatively little cargo space they have? The Falcon is meant to represent this kind of vehicle. One that roams between the major hubs, acquires a collection of bespoke goods, and then fulfills the needs of shopkeepers, traders, and craftsmen in small, isolated settlements. Significantly, on most planets the larger class of bulk carriers can't even land. 

If the Falcon were engaged in legitimate trade on Tatooine, what it would do is make run after run back and forth from Arkanis - the sector capital on the Corellian Run super-hyperlane - filling up the holds with probably 1000+ different items of low bulk and high value (probably lots of machine parts, alcoholic beverages, and pharmaceuticals) that he'd then sell to 10-20 different stores in Mos Eisley.

----------


## Wintermoot

> This is looking to me like two hills, not one, each fortified and defended to the death.


I'm decamping from mine. You all have fun.I will continue to love the Falcon for all its ridiculous, silly glory.

----------


## Peelee

> Its a freight hauler and a space ship, ergo its for hauling freight in space. Thats not an assumption at that point, thats just being told flat out what its for. Sure, it "can" do other stuff, but thats no longer within the scope of the question. "What is it good for?" Not just "what can you brute force it into doing if you dont mind inefficiencies."


Then you'd think "it's for hauling freight in space" would answer the "what good is it for?" argument, and yet.

----------


## Keltest

> Then you'd think "it's for hauling freight in space" would answer the "what good is it for?" argument, and yet.


Right, because the cargo space is pretty minimal. Layouts for the interior of the Falcon dont allow for much in the way of cargo containers even if you dont have to walk them up the main ramp. Thats the whole objection here. The one thing that its supposed to be good for is something it logically is not actually able to do.

----------


## Peelee

> Right, because the cargo space is pretty minimal. Layouts for the interior of the Falcon dont allow for much in the way of cargo containers even if you dont have to walk them up the main ramp. Thats the whole objection here. The one thing that its supposed to be good for is something it logically is not actually able to do.


Ah. Light freight and light cargo don't exist in thr STAR Wars universe, only boxes and crates and other things that cannot fit in the Falcon. I was unaware of that part of lore.

----------


## Keltest

> Ah. Light freight and light cargo don't exist in thr STAR Wars universe, only boxes and crates and other things that cannot fit in the Falcon. I was unaware of that part of lore.


Right, and now were back to the "Pickup truck doing the job of an 18 wheeler" part of the argument.

Lets just cut to the chase. What do you think the Falcon could actually be used to ship commercially between planets at that scale that wouldnt be better handled by a larger ship? Compared to even other freighters we see in Star Wars media, the Falcon is tiny.

----------


## Peelee

> Right, and now were back to the "Pickup truck doing the job of an 18 wheeler" part of the argument.
> 
> Lets just cut to the chase. What do you think the Falcon could actually be used to ship commercially between planets at that scale that wouldnt be better handled by a larger ship? Compared to even other freighters we see in Star Wars media, the Falcon is tiny.


Sure. Anything small enough to transport via light freighter as opposed to a massive freighter! Heck, that even happens in real life. Large water tankers are used to ship enormous amounts of things, and smaller 18 wheelers are used to get them from enormous shipping facilities to places, and small vans are used to for final legs, or from distribution centers to final destination, or companies like FedEx give their stuff to USPS which uses very small vans, and stuff like that.

And that's entirely discounting that we don't know the economics of the Star Wars universe, where it could be cheaper to have a place on one planet have stuff shipped directly to them instead of waiting in distribution centers for processing.

You're assuming logistics and economics _must_ be a 1-1 analogue to real world for no reason other than you can't imagine it being different. And there's something about making assumptions that fit a story instead of making assumptions they don't and then complaining about it.

----------


## Keltest

> Sure. Anything small enough to transport via light freighter as opposed to a massive freighter! Heck, that even happens in real life. Large water tankers are used to ship enormous amounts of things, and smaller 18 wheelers are used to get them from enormous shipping facilities to places, and small vans are used to for final legs, or from distribution centers to final destination, or companies like FedEx give their stuff to USPS which uses very small vans, and stuff like that.
> 
> And that's entirely discounting that we don't know the economics of the Star Wars universe, where it could be cheaper to have a place on one planet have stuff shipped directly to them instead of waiting in distribution centers for processing.
> 
> You're assuming logistics and economics _must_ be a 1-1 analogue to real world for no reason other than you can't imagine it being different. And there's something about making assumptions that fit a story instead of making assumptions they don't and then complaining about it.



That sounds like a lot of words to say you dont know and cant think of anything but assume there must be something.

And frankly, I hate that quote because I frequently see it (mis)used as an excuse to absolve writers from having to make sense. Its the writers job to make things fit together cohesively, not mine.

----------


## Wintermoot

> That sounds like a lot of words to say you dont know and cant think of anything but assume there must be something.
> 
> And frankly, I hate that quote because I frequently see it (mis)used as an excuse to absolve writers from having to make sense. Its the writers job to make things fit together cohesively, not mine.


I recommend you decamp as well Keltest, because the entire counterarguement here is based on two things: 

everything from a doordash driver on up is "freight" regardless of scale.the falcon ISN"T a bad design because it EXISTS in this universe therefore the economic reality of this universe must be such that the falcon is a good design. 


Neither of which is, IMO, worth arguing against because they are both so ridiculous. 

the falcon is a great design for what the show creator built it for: a roving base of operations for a scoundrel. It's a terrible design for actually what its meant to do. And I hope the correllian designer who made it got fired and is sitting at home with his models muttering to himself about how "they just don't understand my genius". 

I hope there is a graveyard of disused YT-1300 sitting on the tarmac in some abandoned desert planet, not even able to be sold as scrap. I hope someone has turned a bunch of them into food trucks.

----------


## The Glyphstone

Just gonna point out again...why are we using the Falcon as a baseline, when its explicitly and repeatedly mentioned to be 'heavily customized' from the stock YT-1300?

----------


## Keltest

> Just gonna point out again...why are we using the Falcon as a baseline, when its explicitly and repeatedly mentioned to be 'heavily customized' from the stock YT-1300?


Unless "heavily customized" means "Shrunk" then I dont know how much that matters.

----------


## Wintermoot

> Just gonna point out again...why are we using the Falcon as a baseline, when its explicitly and repeatedly mentioned to be 'heavily customized' from the stock YT-1300?


You are welcome to read/replace "falcon" with "YT-1300" anytime I say it as I mean them interchangeably. 

I have yet to see a diagram of a non-customized YT-1300 which miraculously has a bunch more cargo space. Perhaps a Tardis modification of some sort so that its bigger on the inside?

----------


## Peelee

> That sounds like a lot of words to say you dont know and cant think of anything but assume there must be something.
> 
> And frankly, I hate that quote because I frequently see it (mis)used as an excuse to absolve writers from having to make sense. Its the writers job to make things fit together cohesively, not mine.


Not my fault you read "I don't know" into that, since I gave several examples of how light freighters exist in real life. But a light freighter existing in Star Wars, thats too outlandish. How dare they.

----------


## The Glyphstone

> Unless "heavily customized" means "Shrunk" then I dont know how much that matters.


Because a smuggler who won his ship from another smuggler might have done something like replace the stock freight cubeage with something more useful for smuggling? Heck, Han has an entire secondary hyperdrive system - that cant be cheap in volume. Canon, both Disney and legend, has this in everything short of giant glowing neon billboards - a YT-1300F, the freighter model, has most of its interior volume devoted to storage and can attach external cargo pods for more capacity. This isn't a pickup truck, its a U-Haul van/truck. Smaller than an 18-wheeler, but still perfectly capable of moving cargo.

----------


## Keltest

> Not my fault you read "I don't know" into that, since I gave several examples of how light freighters exist in real life. But a light freighter existing in Star Wars, thats too outlandish. How dare they.


Your comparison was a van. That would seem to argue against there being legitimate commercial uses, since people dont use regular vans as commercial transports from city to city.

----------


## The Glyphstone

Moving small cargos legitimately between cities is literally what U-Haul's entire business model is built on.

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## Wintermoot

> Moving small cargos legitimately between cities is literally what U-Haul's entire business model is built on.


Han Solo and Chewbacca: College Hunks Moving Company.

When the princess of Alderaan needs to empty her dorm room after the evil empire has kicked her out of death star college for bad grades, she is too afraid to tell her parents and petitions her uncle Obi-wan for help! Problem is, old obi-wan only has a honda civic. Thankfully, the heroic Han Solo and Chewbacca can come to her aid.

----------


## The Glyphstone

> Han Solo and Chewbacca: College Hunks Moving Company.
> 
> When the princess of Alderaan needs to empty her dorm room after the evil empire has kicked her out of death star college for bad grades, she is too afraid to tell her parents and petitions her uncle Obi-wan for help! Problem is, old obi-wan only has a honda civic. Thankfully, the heroic Han Solo and Chewbacca can come to her aid.


I'd watch that.

But really. This intractable war between you two gets a lot softer if we get rid of the pickup truck analogy and replace it with a white panel van or moving truck. You can make that chassis into a cargo transport, a passenger shuttle, a smuggling vehicle, all variants off the same basic pattern.

----------


## Wintermoot

> I'd watch that.


The best part is in season one, she falls in love with the temp kid Han hires for the move Luke. Then it gets icky in season 2 when we find out he's her brother. Those season 2 writers, man, they really went off the rails.

----------


## pendell

> Regarding the logistics of light freighters, including the _Millennium Falcon_, it's true that they don't make sense by the standards of 2023. However, Star Wars doesn't operate based on the standards of 2023, in fact, it barely manages to approach those of 1923! This is important, because there was a massive post-WWII revolution in logistics that simply doesn't apply to the Star Wars universe. Containerized cargo, 18-wheelers, ubiquitous paved roads, reinforced concrete bridges, universal docking cranes, etc. Star Wars does not possess the equivalent of any of these things. 
> 
> Instead, light freighters are meant to be equivalent of the small, extremely hardy trucks used in rough regions like the American West, Africa, and Asia during the first half of the 20th century. For example, these: 
> 
> 
> These trucks are from the Mongolian expedition of Roy Chapman Andrews (the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones, so extremely relevant to the mindset of George Lucas) in 1922. Note how small they are and how comparatively little cargo space they have? The Falcon is meant to represent this kind of vehicle. One that roams between the major hubs, acquires a collection of bespoke goods, and then fulfills the needs of shopkeepers, traders, and craftsmen in small, isolated settlements. Significantly, on most planets the larger class of bulk carriers can't even land. 
> 
> If the Falcon were engaged in legitimate trade on Tatooine, what it would do is make run after run back and forth from Arkanis - the sector capital on the Corellian Run super-hyperlane - filling up the holds with probably 1000+ different items of low bulk and high value (probably lots of machine parts, alcoholic beverages, and pharmaceuticals) that he'd then sell to 10-20 different stores in Mos Eisley.



This is a great contribution, and I think you're mostly on the money, but not quite. 

I think the Star Wars universe _does_ have that logistic revolution.  The  Perlemian Trade Route . The Correlian Run. The  Hydian Way . These and approximately a dozen other major hyper-trade routes are what define the Republic and the Empire. They are the equivalent of modern super highways; I would expect the major worlds along these routes to be able to process and deliver very large ships like the Lucrehulk, which exist in canon.  Then you could have smaller freighters to carry goods from the major depots to the outlying worlds which aren't so blessed. That makes sense for a "last mile" cargo carrier. Although if I was in business in the GFFA, I wouldn't want a craft like a YT-1300 for the job, not with only 150 tons carrying capacity.   I'd rather have it as a cargo lighter, ferrying goods from a larger ship in orbit down to rough landing strips or pools of water.  

And it's definitely _possible_ to make a living in a YT-1300 legitimately, just as you say. As a tramp trader, ferrying bespoke cargo from the main trading worlds to the minor settlements.

Thing is, when I see a small , fast ship with minimal cargo space, my own thought is instantly "courier" or "smuggler" , not a serious long-haul freighter.   And I suspect the designers knew exactly what they were doing. The YT-1300 reminds me of the Prohibition era  Grape Bricks , ostensibly marketed as a soft drink additive. 

Except, of course, almost no one bought them for that purpose.  They were bought so people could make wine at home, circumventing the ban on sale and transport of alcoholic beverages. They even included helpful little instruction booklets which included tips like "do not do this or it will turn into wine". Wink wink nudge nudge. 

Everyone knew what those were for. The people buying them knew what they were for.  The companies selling them knew it. The Treasury agents charged with enforcing the laws knew it too. But because transporting grapes wasn't technically illegal, everyone had to pretend.  There were only a small minority of naive people who didn't get the joke.  

That's what I see when I look at the stock YT-1300: A dandy little smuggling craft which can also be used as a passable tramp freighter.  And we'll see that there are people who use the YT-1300 legitimately. But I suspect it was always designed from the start as a smuggler, and the people who commissioned them knew full well what it was they were doing.   Sure, you're going to get a few rubes who will buy it for its advertised ostensible purpose, just as there were people who really did buy grape bricks as soft drink additives, and that will serve well for cover.   But I'd be very surprised if most people bought the YT-1300 for hauling legal goods to legal markets.

There's a dandy little game on Steam: Star Traders Frontiers.  It allows you to make a stellar career as a legal merchant, smuggler, pirate, bounty hunter, xeno hunter, mercenary, spy.  The merchant job requires you to buy the biggest cargo holds you can fit, and it requires constant intelligence gathering to find out where there are surpluses to buy, shortages to sell into.     Flying a tiny , fast ship won't allow you to even pay the cost of fuel ferrying basic medical supplies to a population planet, then scrap to a refinery, then metals to an industrial satellite, and finally finished goods to  a population center. No, to stay in the black with a tiny, fast ship that means carrying small cargos , or even individual passengers, to odd little places in the wilderness for very, very big cash bonuses, paid up front.   Great if the jobs are legal ... but they're probably not. 

At any rate, that's my answer to the claim: "The _Millenium Falcon_ is classified as a light freighter, so they YT-1300 must be fit for that purpose." I contend that is deceptive advertising, a legal fiction.  _Technically_ it can function as a light freighter, but that's definitely not what it's best at.  I think it's true purpose is the mission profile at which it excels: Smuggling and Courier runs.  

There's also a secondary possibility: Just because a ship is designed for a role doesn't mean it's good at it.  The auto industry sells  Loss Leaders .  While this is changing, a few decades ago something like the Chevy Volt is a loss leader -- you know it isn't going to make you any money, but it gives you credit for at least *trying* to make an electric car so people may feel better about the other products you sell. And of course there are also just flat design flops like the  Ford Edsel . Just because a vehicle is designed for a role doesn't mean it's good at it, or that the role itself is well-conceived in the first place.  

But of course that's all in the realm of fanon speculation.   


Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## Peelee

> Your comparison was a van. That would seem to argue against there being legitimate commercial uses, since people dont use regular vans as commercial transports from city to city.


You're right. In our society in our world with our logistics and our economics thst doesn't work out. And, again, you literally don't know the logistics and economics in the Star Wars universe. This is a world where corporations took "company town" to such an extent that they have _senators_. Plus, we are explicitly told "hey these things exist for these reasons". I agree with you that the author needs to actually put in effort to allow audience assumptions, but you're not asking for effort, the effort is already there. You're asking for the author to hold your hand and explicitly spell out the exact circumstances because you've already made the assumption and are demanding your assumptions be proven wrong.

Forgetting, of course, that two arguments that explicitly show legitimate commercial use have been offered, tramp freighter and pirate gangs aiming for larger, slower, less maneuverable and loot-heavy ships. With no word from you. Yeah, we're using trucks as examples but that's because we don't have much seafaring experience and sea ships are much more close analogues with space and planets.

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## Keltest

> You're right. In our society in our world with our logistics and our economics thst doesn't work out. And, again, you literally don't know the logistics and economics in the Star Wars universe. This is a world where corporations took "company town" to such an extent that they have _senators_. Plus, we are explicitly told "hey these things exist for these reasons". I agree with you that the author needs to actually put in effort to allow audience assumptions, but you're not asking for effort, the effort is already there. You're asking for the author to hold your hand and explicitly spell out the exact circumstances because you've already made the assumption and are demanding your assumptions be proven wrong.


Yeah, because the assumptions im being asked to make _dont make sense_. "Light freighter" is almost an oxymoron. I can see it being used to transport things like precious gemstones from outer rim mines to more civilized planets for processing because the outer rim worlds dont have industrial landing ports for major cargo ships to load and unload from. But small volume precious cargo is basically the only non-passenger good that the Falcon is sized to be able to haul. And thats something of a niche market, which is probably why we very rarely see a ship the size of the Falcon engaged in actual legitimate commercial hauling of goods.

Heck, in the new Bad Batch episodes, we see that Star Wars does have cargo containers (basically literally), and on top of that they have ships sized to haul 50 of them. Thats bigger than the entire Falcon, and its all storage space, as opposed to the living quarters, engine room, life support etc... that the Falcon needs to function. THAT is a freight hauler.

The pickup truck analogy is admittedly flawed, but it does a very good job of demonstrating the scales involved when people make these observations.

ETA: Given that im the one who voiced the tramp freighter solution in the first place, it really shouldnt be surprising to you that im not offering commentary on it. I already said my piece on it.

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## Peelee

> But small volume precious cargo is basically the only non-passenger good that the Falcon is sized to be able to haul. And thats something of a niche market, which is probably why we very rarely see a ship the size of the Falcon engaged in actual legitimate commercial hauling of goods.


Alternately, the fact that its called "Star Wars" and not "Star Commercial Shipping" might be why we rarely see a ship the size of the Falcon engaged in legitimate commercial hauling of goods. We rarely see massive haulers engaged in that either, dude. Again, the universe says that these things exist for this purpose. And we don't know how the economics work out in that universe. If you can't be bothered to suspend your disbelief to such a small extent that you _absolutely insist_ that they _must_ have the exact same economic impacts that we do, that's certainly your prerogative.

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## Keltest

> Alternately, the fact that its called "Star Wars" and not "Star Commercial Shipping" might be why we rarely see a ship the size of the Falcon engaged in legitimate commercial hauling of goods. We rarely see massive haulers engaged in that either, dude. Again, the universe says that these things exist for this purpose. And we don't know how the economics work out in that universe. If you can't be bothered to suspend your disbelief to such a small extent that you _absolutely insist_ that they _must_ have the exact same economic impacts that we do, that's certainly your prerogative.


Is it really that implausible to you that they created a ship that looked cool and never really considered whether it made total sense? In Star Wars of all things?

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## Gnoman

> Yeah, because the assumptions im being asked to make _dont make sense_. And thats something of a niche market, which is probably why we very rarely see a ship the size of the Falcon engaged in actual legitimate commercial hauling of goods.


We do. Hundreds of times a day. There's one flying over my house at this very second. The best analog to the _Millennium Falcon_ is a _cargo jet_. Total capacity is nearly identical, the loading capacity is pretty similar even if the only ramp it has is the one seen on screen.


That's literally _why_ we se relatively few watergoing little tramp shipping - it was replaced by planes.

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## The Glyphstone

Actually that's not a bad point. Cargo jets exist despite not being able to carry a tiny fraction of the capacity of a superfreighter container ship. But the plane is faster and can deliver to places the freighter can't.

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## Fyraltari

> I'll add the relevant sentences which tell us pretty much everything about the quarrel. 
> 
> 
> 
> So it's as you said; Han had repeatedly humiliated Ploovo. So Ploovo wants payback: Payback of the money he's owed, and payback for the face he lost. The first will be satisfied by a monetary payment; the second can only be satisfied by inflicting pain and agony on Solo. Happily, Solo is more than willing to inflict the damage on himself through sheer carelessness. 
> 
> Ploovo Two-For-One expected the Authority goons to drag Solo off to prison while he waved and counted his money. It didn't work out that way, of course.


Okay, but the questions now are "If Han is usually late on payments, what is different this time? And why would he think that humiliating Ploovo further would solve the problem of Ploovo feeling humiliated?"






> I think what's happening here is that the Authority inspectors look at the ship with different eyes than a farmer off Tatooine. Luke didn't pick up, as one example, on the fact that the ship has much more powerful engines than is standard for the class. it's the difference between showing your car to a 14-year-old and sending it in for a safety inspection.


Except that Luke isn't just a moist farmer, he's already an excellent pilot, he knows his way around ships. And it's not just his opinion, it's also Leia's. And in ESB the _Falcon_ being in constant disrepair is a plot point. It's only in RotJ that it suddenly becomes "the fastest ship in the Alliance", so that it could have center stage in the big space battle.

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## Keltest

> Okay, but the questions now are "If Han is usually late on payments, what is different this time? And why would he think that humiliating Ploovo further would solve the problem of Ploovo feeling humiliated?"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Except that Luke isn't just a moist farmer, he's already an excellent pilot, he knows his way around ships. And it's not just his opinion, it's also Leia's. And in ESB the _Falcon_ being in constant disrepair is a plot point. It's only in RotJ that it suddenly becomes "the fastest ship in the Alliance", so that it could have center stage in the big space battle.


One would assume that Han's special modifications are meant to be not visible on casual inspection. But a port authority does a proper electronic scan and deeper examination.

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## Wintermoot

> We do. Hundreds of times a day. There's one flying over my house at this very second. The best analog to the _Millennium Falcon_ is a _cargo jet_. Total capacity is nearly identical,


Not even remotely correct. 

Check the diagram presented earlier in the thread. There are about 62-66 squares of cargo space between the three holds. These aren't 5' squares either. Based on the size of the cockpit in comparison to the cockpit as it appears on camera, they are 2-3' squares. So let's call them 3' squares and give them a full 66 squares. And let's be generous and give them 9' clearance, even though it appears less than that on camera. That is 66 x3 x 3 x 9 or 5346 square feet of cargo space. This is me being overly generous btw, the actual figure is less, this is a generous maximum because i don't feel like counting half squares or figuring out the actual size of the squares.

Does anyone have a RPG or technical manual that gives the actual footage of haul space? I'd be curious to see what it says. 

There is 24,500 square foot on a 747. 31000 in a lockheed c-5. The YT-1300 has less than a fifth of the cargo space of a terrestial aircraft. If it was "nearly identical" i wouldn't have as big of a problem with it.

So we are presented with two options: 

Star Wars economics are such that 5000' feet of haulage on an interstellar 'freighter' is economically sound and the yt-1300 is a good design.The yt-1300 is a terrible design. 


I'm going with option two. That the yt-1300 is a boondoggle of a design, ill-fit to purpose. Which is probably why they are so rarely seen outside of "tramp freighters" on the outer rims. Because they make excellent winnebagos, just terrible freighters. Probably why they are so cheap on the secondary market that Lando was able to score one to soup up and put his expansive walk in closet in. Probably why noted space-ship fanboy Luke (I like to imagine he has boxes of spaceship fancy and starcraft modellers quarterly under his bunk at home) and experienced interstellar traveller and terrorist er freedom fighter, Leia both saw it and called it out as a piece of junk. 

I am happy for you to go with option 1 if your prefer. That is, how did Peelee put it, your prerogative. Star Wars is a fantasy world we all can enjoy!





> Except that Luke isn't just a moist farmer,


This will have me laughing all day.

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## InvisibleBison

> Does anyone have a RPG or technical manual that gives the actual footage of haul space? I'd be curious to see what it says.


According to Wookieepedia, the Falcon has a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons. As a point of comparison, a 747-400F has a maximum payload of 124 metric tons. Given that the Falcon has had a lot of additional hardware installed that almost certainly has reduced its cargo capacity to some extent and that the 747 is a pretty big airplane, I'd say that the YT-1300 seems fairly plausible as a cargo vehicle.

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## Wintermoot

> According to Wookieepedia, the Falcon has a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons. As a point of comparison, a 747-400F has a maximum payload of 124 metric tons. Given that the Falcon has had a lot of additional hardware installed that almost certainly has reduced its cargo capacity to some extent and that the 747 is a pretty big airplane, I'd say that the YT-1300 seems fairly plausible as a cargo vehicle.


Interesting. The Wookieepedia article says "As was intended, the ship began its career as an intermodal tug pushing container in orbital freight yards.[1]" With the Cite note pointing to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Incredible cross sections" which sounds like a fun book!

So its not a freighter. It's a tug boat. Huge engines for pushing stuff. Makes sense.

It also has a diagram of a base model freighter. 

*Spoiler*
Show




now THAT makes more sense. That's much more cargo space. Still not as much as a modern era cargo plane, but at least three times as much as the falcon design.

----------


## The Glyphstone

Yeah, thats the F variant I had mentioned. I think that's also the one with the external cargo hooks.

So now I have to wonder - what exactly did Lando stuff into all that vacant space to make his design so comparatively cramped?

----------


## Fyraltari

> Yeah, thats the F variant I had mentioned. I think that's also the one with the external cargo hooks.
> 
> So now I have to wonder - what exactly did Lando stuff into all that vacant space to make his design so comparatively cramped?


A closetfull of capes, for starters.

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## Wintermoot

> A closetfull of capes, for starters.


And a giant fridge for the colt 45 malt liquor

----------


## Gnoman

> Not even remotely correct. 
> 
> Check the diagram presented earlier in the thread. There are about 62-66 squares of cargo space between the three holds. These aren't 5' squares either. Based on the size of the cockpit in comparison to the cockpit as it appears on camera, they are 2-3' squares. So let's call them 3' squares and give them a full 66 squares. And let's be generous and give them 9' clearance, even though it appears less than that on camera. That is 66 x3 x 3 x 9 or 5346 square feet of cargo space. This is me being overly generous btw, the actual figure is less, this is a generous maximum because i don't feel like counting half squares or figuring out the actual size of the squares.


The Falcon is pretty clearly configured for passenger carriage - officially the capacity is 100 tons or 8 cabins.

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## Keltest

> Yeah, thats the F variant I had mentioned. I think that's also the one with the external cargo hooks.
> 
> So now I have to wonder - what exactly did Lando stuff into all that vacant space to make his design so comparatively cramped?


Probably all the stuff that was supposed to be under the floor panels that get used for smuggling.

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## The Glyphstone

Looking at the specs, it also has 3 shield generators, two hyperdrives, and salvaged capital ship-grade armor playing in addition to its souped up engine. That's probably all pretty bulky stuff.

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## Peelee

> Is it really that implausible to you that they created a ship that looked cool and never really considered whether it made total sense? In Star Wars of all things?


Oh, that's absolutely what happened. No argument there. And then as the worldbuilding grew, it grew at least partly in the direction of "and it works that way". I accept that. You refuse to. Again, that's your prerogative, but its still you refusing what is offered and then complaining because now it doesn't work.

----------


## Mechalich

> I think the Star Wars universe _does_ have that logistic revolution.  The  Perlemian Trade Route . The Correlian Run. The  Hydian Way . These and approximately a dozen other major hyper-trade routes are what define the Republic and the Empire. They are the equivalent of modern super highways; I would expect the major worlds along these routes to be able to process and deliver very large ships like the Lucrehulk, which exist in canon.  Then you could have smaller freighters to carry goods from the major depots to the outlying worlds which aren't so blessed. That makes sense for a "last mile" cargo carrier. Although if I was in business in the GFFA, I wouldn't want a craft like a YT-1300 for the job, not with only 150 tons carrying capacity.   I'd rather have it as a cargo lighter, ferrying goods from a larger ship in orbit down to rough landing strips or pools of water.


The tricky bit, with Star Wars, is that spacecraft are representing multiple types of Earth vehicles, both aircraft, ground craft, and seagoing vessels. The major hyperlanes are used by the in-universe equivalent of ships, big old steamers and other cargo ships with very large capacity and at least some degree of modularity - the cargo ships in _Rebels_ are clearly based off of modern container ships even though the intermodal container didn't really become a thing until the 1950s. These are clearly being processed somewhere, probably at big orbital docks, since many of the truly massive ships in Star Wars are described as unable to enter atmosphere. In SWTOR, notably, you can't land directly on any but the most developed planets and all traffic to and from the surface is conducted by shuttle to an orbital station. That's deep in the in-universe past, but still a useful model.




> Except that Luke isn't just a moist farmer, he's already an excellent pilot, he knows his way around ships. And it's not just his opinion, it's also Leia's. And in ESB the Falcon being in constant disrepair is a plot point. It's only in RotJ that it suddenly becomes "the fastest ship in the Alliance", so that it could have center stage in the big space battle.


The thing about the Falcon being junky is that it's an_ old model_. In Legends the ship was commissioned in 60 BBY, meaning it was 60 years old when Luke first saw it, sixty years during perhaps the most rapid period of advancement in starship tech in the history of the galaxy (you can thank Palpatine for that). Several other designs in the same series, such as the YT-2000 and YT-2400 had already been out for decades by ANH. The Falcon is old and had seen a lot of hard service - there's an entire Legends novel about all the people who used to own the Falcon and what they did with it before Lando and Han acquired it. 

Now, Lucas was very much into US car culture - made a whole hit movie about it and everything - and so the idea of a ship that was old, looked crummy, but had 'got it where it counts' is absolutely in his wheelhouse. This is actually another useful reference regarding the Falcon. Whatever it was originally designed to do, it's been hot-rodded from stem to stern to the point that it barely resembles that purpose anymore.

----------


## runeghost

I'm going to tentatively dip my toes into the Falcon/YT-1300 discussion, to mention an inspiration that I didn't see yet in the thread: the 'speedster' of E.E. "Doc" Smith's _Lensmen_ series. 

While it doesn't get much attention these days, Smith was THE father of space opera, starting the _Skylark_ series in 1928 with _The Skylark of Space_, and then in 1937's _Galactic Patrol_ introducing into the Galaxy the Lensmen - elite space cops with telepathic abilities, trained by aliens, and who all bear a mystic jewel as a symbol of their office as they protect the galaxy from evil. Sound familiar?

And an important type of spacecraft in the Lensmen stories is the speedster:




> "one of those new automatic speedsters. Lots of legs, cruising range, and screens. Only one beam, but I probably won't use even that one..."





> "And what a ship this little speedster was! Trim, trig, streamlined to the ultimate she lay there, quiescent but surcharged with power. Almost sentient she was, this powerpacked, ultraracy little fabrication of space-toughened alloy, instantly ready at his touch to liberate those tremendous energies which were to hurl him through the infinite reaches of the cosmic void."


Now, in appearance, the speedster (particularly the indetectable black ones our heroes tend to use) look more like a then-undreamed-of SR-71 than the Falcon. But they're more than just cockpit and engines. Speedsters carry supplies for long trips, and can and do handle a small group (about the size of a party of PCs) in addition to their pilot. When Lensmen aren't flitting around the galaxy on the bridge of a battle-cruiser, they're using speedsters.  And while the greater Star Wars canon may have the Falcon in as a light freighter or smuggler, in the material Lucas was drawing inspiration from, the Falcon is a stand-in for a speedster. (A zee-rust speedster rather than a raygun-gothic speedster, but a speedster all the same.)

----------


## pendell

A good point; it's definitely a speedster i.e. high-speed courier or personal transport or smuggler as opposed to a cargo hauler, although it can function in that role. 

As much fun as we're having, I'm ready to start the next chapter. 

*Spoiler: Chapter 3*
Show


Han and Chewie get out of their Uber at their docking port to find an authority bureaucrat busy booting their ship, fastening a lock with an intruder alarm on the entrance to the docking bay.  Han quickly looks around and notices a liquor store nearby.  

"Here's the plan..."

... why does my skin crawl when he says that? 

The functionary finishes fastening the lock just as a young human male and a giant wookie absolutely reeking of alcohol and carrying a ten liter (some two gallon) container of something really , really smelly and really, really, boozy.  As he starts to leave the wookie bobbles and there is a complicated three way collision. The ten liters of booze go ALL over the authority guy's clothes.  There are a few complicated seconds of wookie yelling, Han apologizing and trying in vain to wipe the crud off the suit.  Finally the authority bureaucrat hustles off, desperate to change his clothes before his boss catches him and assume he's been drinking on the clock.  The two others keep hollering at each other about the booze as he flees. 

The yelling stops just as soon as he's out of earshot. Han pulls out the key to the lock which he had pickpocketed from the Authority guy in the confusion, and unlocks the door. They step in. Chewie starts warming up the Falcon while Han warns him not to call for clearance, as they won't get it.   Fortunately, Han has a Cunning Plan. 

He goes for a walk and, three bays down, sees another YT-1300 with an obviously honest crew loading up an ordinary cargo. 

As an aside, this tells us that at this point in time the YT-1300 must be a pretty common ship, at least in the Corporate Sector.  Han assumed he would find another ship like his within a few minutes' walk, and this is borne out. Ergo, for all our discussion the YT-1300 does seem to be a fairly popular ship, and these guys definitely are using it to haul cargo. 

Han hails them and asks if they're lifting tomorrow. The crew is a bit puzzled and says no, they're scheduled for 2100 tonight (9PM).  Han acts surprise, waves a cheery goodbye, then heads back to his own docking bay, going back in just as Chewbacca closes the doors and re-locks them with the Authority lock, the better to buy them a bit more time. 

Han had memorized the other YT's ID, docking bay number, and now their departure time. This is all he needs to impersonate them. So he hails the tower and asks permission to move their time up from 2100 to now.  The novel tells us "not an unusual request for a tramp freighter. whose schedule might change abruptly.  Since there wasn't much traffic and clearance for the ship had already been granted, immediate liftoff was approved at once." 

Which they do, and hyperjump away from Etti IV, Chewie singing all the way,  a wookie song of triumph. 

Aside: It appears that Keltest and Megalich are right;  the stock YT-1300 whose identity Han stole was a tramp freighter, carrying ad hoc cargo loads to whatever destination seemed likely to draw a profit. Presumably that's the Falcon's cover identity as well.  

Now, to business. 

Han and Chewie discuss, and decide they need to make a number of refits to the Falcon if they're going to continue in the smuggling game. 

1) They got jumped by an Authority lighter which saw them first. Therefore, they're going to need a better long range sensor. They have a sensor dish but it's wobbling and close to its last days, so they need to replace it. 

2) Likewise, they should have had warning of the Authority Lighter a long time before they themselves were detected.  What in military terms is called a [ Radar Warning Receiver (RWR)  and in civilian terms is called a "fuzz-buster". Radar emissions are detectable on passive listening devices a long time before the signal strength is high enough to give a detection return to the originator.  Han and Chewie have one, of course. This enables them to detect police traps and evade them. Except the Authority has either changed the frequencies or their using some other detection gizmo. Whatever it is, Han and Chewie need to be able to detect it before they're spotted themselves, or it's time to get out of smuggling and into honest work. 

3) Finally, they need to be on the Waivers list or they'll never be able to set down in Authority space again. 

Han notes that the Authority has wrung out thousands of star systems and now Han wants his own personal, and profitable, revenge: Rob 'em blind.   He's not going to be stopped by these obstacles.  

So they head off to find an outlaw ship mechanic -- a man known as "Doc". He and his organization have been in business for a very long time, and they are the ones who have done most of the illegal customization's to the _Falcon_ in the past.  He pays a fortune in bribes to Authority police so that he is always tipped off when a raid is under way, so he jokes that he may be the only criminal in the business who will need to start a pension plan for his employees.    Let's find him. 

It takes some work. First stop is an all-but-abandoned mining world, where we meet a guy who sends them to a barge captain. After a background check, they are given a rendezvous, which escorts them to a planet , where they land on a fusion-formed landing strip while anti-air turbolasers track the Falcon in. Han notes fusion-forming as any solid material will do; minerals, vegetable matter, enemies whom you had no further use for. 

We are met by Doc's daughter,  Jessa . 



Described as "tall, her hair a mass of heavy blond ringlets .. her upturned nose had a collection of freckles acquired under a variety of suns: Jessa had been on almost as many planets as Han. Just now, her large brown eyes show derision". 

Jessa brings Han back into the office and breaks the news that Doc is missing; he was on a purchasing trip , hit three planets on schedule but never showed up at the fourth.  

"Han thought for a moment about the old man with work-hardened hands, a quick , crusty grin, and a halo of frizzy white hair. Han had liked him, but if Doc was gone, that was that.  Few people who vanished under circumstances like that ever showed up again. Luck of the draw.  Han had always traveled light, with emotional baggage the first thing he jettisoned, and grief was too heavy to lug around among the stars. 

So that only left thinking 'Goodbye, Doc', and dealing with Jessa. .. But when his brief distraction broke, he saw that she'd studied the entire play of emotions on his face. 'You got through that eulogy pretty quickly, didn't you, Solo? Nobody gets too far under that precious skin of yours , do they?'

That pricked him. 'If it was me who checked out, would Doc have gone on a crying jag for me, Jess? Would you? I'm sorry, but life goes on, and if you lose sight of that, sweetheart, you're asking to be dealt out of the game. " 

Fine. To business. Jessa has had Han thoroughly checked out, and so she knows just what he wants, why he's here, and that he doesn't have the money to pay for it. 

Han wonders why he's been brought here if she knows this already. he'd been intending to work out a long-term payment plan with Doc, but Jessa has a better idea.  "I'll give you your upgrades and you're waiver if you do a little job for me... pick up 20 pocoballs and bring them back."

Han: "Gorramit , I hate side quests." 

Okay, that isn't exactly what they say, but , yeah,  it's plot hook for the quest time!  Jessa will trade in kind: Han does a job for her, she upgrades his ship and gets him on the Waivers list.  

After the typical grousing about not wanting danger, Han and Chewie are both of course up for danger.  

The objective is to travel to the planet  Orron III , an agricultural planet which happens to have an Authority Data Center. 

Han balks; that's quite dangerous. Of COURSE it's dangerous! That's why she's using you rather than hiring someone; this isn't a job someone will take for any money. But Han meets the unique qualifications of being both skilled enough to pull it off yet desperate enough financially to not walk away.  

We can minimize the risk, though.  Only Authority ships and grain barges are given clearance to land here, so groundside security is light.   They'll rig up the _Millenium Falcon_ with a grain barge shell , and that is how they will receive landing clearance.  Once this is done they are to take two passengers to meet contacts groundside, pickup those contacts, and take them where they want to go. If the pickups want Han to know more than that, it's their business and not hers.  

let's meet our passengers. First, Bollux:
 

Bollux is a general purpose labor droid who has been knocking about the galaxy for more than a century; apparently he's never been mem-wiped.  They call him Bollux for all the trouble they had restructuring him for this job, which is to carry this little wonder in his chest cavity: 



Say hello to  Blue Max , who is a top of the line security breaker and slicing unit. Very intelligent, Blue Max has the personality of a precocious ten-year-old, with the foul mouth to match.  

So .. is Han going to take the deal? Or is he going to show the galaxy the folly of crime by starving. 

Han takes the deal, and now we have an adventuring party! 

BOLLUX JOINED THE ALLY! 
BLUE MAX JOINED THE ALLY! 


However, before we can act on this further,  the base's early warning triggers; a strange ship has entered the system and deployed four snub fighters to scout the planet. The mother ship returns to hyperspaces, leaving the scouts behind both to explore and to harass. 

These four ships are  Authority IRDs  , which is short for Intercept, Reconnaissance, Defense. 


I've encountered these in  X-wing alliance . They're fast, maneuverable, very similar to the TIE but they have shields. Perhaps the Authority is more interested in protecting the lives of its pilots than the Empire is; trained personnel are expensive, after all. 

They'll be here in 20 minutes. 

The reason the mother ship bugged out was to send a report home -- the reason the outlaw techs are in this location in the first place is because there are a number of black holes in the stellar region which mask transmissions.  It means that anyone who finds them has to travel some distance away to holler for help ... and it also gives the techs a chance to disappear them before the word gets out.  

Jessa asks Han to lead the defense of the base, since they only have snub fighters themselves; in a throw back to WWII the ground-based weapons targeting the falcon are too slow and clumsy to hit fighters.  Han again complains about the odds, and Jessa  points out that if the base isn't defended his ship will be blown up with it. 

Ah, the ship! That must be it.  That's why he wants to defend this base against his better judgement. That niggling feeling in the back of his mind has to be nothing but concern for his own ships and it couldn't possibly be the beginning of a conscience -- could it? 

Han sighs and asks Jessa for a flight helmet. He's going to need it. 

Join us next chapter for some aerial combat and fighter-on-fighter action! 


 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## runeghost

I first read the Han Solo Adventures in the early 80s, during my formative years as a reader (and as a young Star Wars fan, who was thrilled to find out that they existed at all). 

Looking back at this chapter makes me realize that in the decades since, a great deal of my roleplaying of "fixer"-type NPCs probably has its roots in these novels.

----------


## Fyraltari

> You got through that eulogy pretty quickly, didn't you, Solo? Nobody gets too far under that precious skin of yours , do they?'
> 
> That pricked him. 'If it was me who checked out, would Doc have gone on a crying jag for me, Jess? Would you? I'm sorry, but life goes on, and if you lose sight of that, sweetheart, you're asking to be dealt out of the game. "


"Your dad's dead? Well, sucks to be you."
Han Solo, everybody.

Edit: Also, question. Is Chewie's dilaog translated or does the novel does the usual schtick of Han repearing everything his friend says for no apparent reason?

----------


## pendell

> Edit: Also, question. Is Chewie's dialog translated or does the novel does the usual schtick of Han repearing everything his friend says for no apparent reason?


Some of the usual schtick, but for the most part Brian Daley will use a third option: telling us what Chewbacca said in English, without directly quoting him. Something like "Chewbacca made no secret of his dislike for the plan."  Occasionally you'll get some untranslated dialog, but we'll also sometimes get third-person omniscient view of his thoughts; on those occasions, it'll be in English.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

----------


## Saintheart

I love some of the dialogue in this novel.

*Spoiler*
Show

When Han looks at the Z-95 headhunters: "What'd you do, knock over a museum?"

----------


## runeghost

> I love some of the dialogue in this novel.
> 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> When Han looks at the Z-95 headhunters: "What'd you do, knock over a museum?"


You can practically hear Harrison Ford's voice.

----------


## pendell

I admit this is early, but I want to see what happens next! 

*Spoiler: Chapter 4*
Show


So let's review our assets for The Show as Han calls it. And we have six Z-95 headhunters. 



In the legends continuity, The Z-95 is the super hot ship of the Clone Wars, the ship that defined starfighter combat for its generation.  Fast, maneuverable, rugged (for its time) , they've been common as dirt throughout the galaxy. Apparently some fought at the  Battle of Exegol  in the Sequel Trilogy. 

It's weaknesses are that it is obsolescent by this time , and it doesn't have an onboard astromech, so the pilot has to do all the computation and other functions personally, which is quite a workload.  

I've encountered the Z-95 as an adversary in  TIE Fighter (video) , and as a flyable craft in  X-wing alliance (video)  .  I dread flying the things because, for all the durability they have in other canon, in these games they have exactly half the durability of an X-wing, meaning you're dead in two hits; first shot blows away the shields , second shot dusts the ships. This is in part because the cannons in the Yavin era are significantly more powerful than in the clone wars era, so the big Z is a lot less durable than its reputation would make it.  

It actually is a strong argument for the TIE Fighter , which I suspect was designed as a counter to the Z-95 and the Y-wing; what's the point of a shield generator if it blows out after one shot?  Might as well save the mass and make a faster, more maneuverable ship -- and make no mistake, both the TIE and the TIE/In will give the Z-95 a _very_ hard time. 

Another point is that the Z-95 here is different from the cut-in-half x-wing of later lore: Described as "compact twin-engined swing-wing craft. Their external hardpoints, were rockets and pylons had been mounted, were bare." 

Swing-wing with hardpoints? That sounds like an  F-14 or a  MIG-23 , which were the Super Hot ships of the 1970s. Variable geometry wings were all the rage when this book was written, until we realized that VGW didn't buy you all that much for the weight and complexity it added to the airframe; that's why we don't build them any more. 

Even so, the Z is still a great little ship, and much, much better than nothing. These six were bought from a planetary constabulary which was, ironically, using them for anti-smuggling patrol . They outlaws fixed them up for resale but have held onto them because they don't have any other fighters just at the moment.  Now it's Han, Jess, and 4 mechanics pressed into the role of fighter pilot.  


We get a bit of a glimpse into Solo's backstory:  "Once, Han had lived, eaten and slept high-speed flying. He'd trained under men who thought of little else. Even off-duty life had revolved around hand-eye skills, control, balance. Drunk, he'd stood on his head and played ring-toss and been flung aloft from a blanket with a handful of darts to twist in mid-air and throw bulls-eyes time and again.  He'd flown ships like this one, and ships a good deal faster, through every conceivable maneuver. Once. "  

This rings a bell with the death star novelization where we see a tie fighter pilot playing one of these games: Holding his arm up at an angle, balancing coins on his elbow, then snapping his hand down to see how many he can catch at once before they spread and scatter.  

CHARACTER NOTE: Han Solo was active-duty military at one point, and a fighter pilot, though he's out of the prime age for the show. That doesn't mean he was Imperial Navy or that he flew TIE fighters, though. He might have been in the  Corellian Defense Force , or some other small outfit.  

Jess steps up and Han realizes she intends to fly in the defense. This being the 70s, he gives her some sexist no-can-do nonsense which she quickly shuts down; she's the best pilot here aside from Han, and moreover it's _her_ investment.  So, yeah, she's flying. 

He reviews the situation, and briefs his flight: 

"IRD fighters have an edge in speed, but these old Headhunters can take a tighter turn and take a real beating, which is why they're still around. IRD's aren't very aerodynamic; that's their nature. Their pilots hate to come down and lock horns in a planetary atmosphere; they call it goo. These guys will have to, though, to hit the base, but we can't wait until they get down to hit them, or some might get through. 

We've got six ships. That's three two-ship elements. If you've got anything worth protecting with those flight helmets, you'll remember this: _Stay with your wingman_ .  Two ships together are five times as powerful as they are on their own, and they're ten times safer." 

"I'll keep this simple. Keep your eyes open and make sure it's your guns, not your tail, that's pointed at the enemy. Since we're protecting a ground installation, we'll have to ride our kills. That means if you're not sure whether the opposition is hit or faking, you sit on his tail and goes down and stays down. Don't think just because he's nosediving and leaving a vapor trail that he's out of it. That's an old trick. If you get an explosion from him, fine.  If you get a flamer, let him go, he's finished.  But otherwise you ride your kill all the way to the cellar; we've got too much to lose here.  ... If the bandits offer a head-on pass, take them up on it; you can pitch as hard as they can. " 

SPOILER ALERT: Every one of these dicta will be ignored by himself or his green pilots, and it will cost them. 

Jess divides them up into three two-ship elements: 

HEADHUNTER-1: Han Solo, lead. 
HEADHUNTER-2: "a lanky, soft-spoken man". 

HEADHUNTER-3: Jess, the team's flight instructor and who's done some fighting in this ship. She's our second combat veteran. 
HEADHUNTER-4: A  Lafarian  pilot who has been through 4 minutes of combat. Solo considers him a veteran, as a lot of fighter pilots don't survive even one. 

HEADHUNTER-5: A mechanic. 
HEADHUNTER-6: Also a mechanic, noted as the brother of HeadHunter-5. They are inseparable and practically know what the other thinks, which is why they're in our third wing.  

None of them save Solo have any academy training; they've taken the ships up for basic maneuvers, but they've never fought as a unit. 

So we're on our way up now, heading for the merge; we're call them BANDIT-1 through BANDIT-4.  

Jess has the first two elements (Headhunter 1-4) to engage the bad guys up close while HEADHUNTER-5, and -6, her weakest flyers, will hang back and engage anyone who makes it past. 

Let's see if I can ASCII art this 

============
^  ^               ^ ^
B1 B2             B3  B4

( (                    ( ( 
H1(han) H2    H3 (Jess) H4


              ((
           H5 H6

================

well, hopefully that makes a little sense. 

This engagement will take place entirely within visual range, ACM  or dogfighting.  The explanation given is that, in a sense, ALL the fighters are stealth fighters , the ECM and ECCM on each side cancelling the other out, so they don't have the option of simply blasting each other down with missiles BVR.  This has echoes with the US  Vietnam Air War , which concluded in the early 1970s. Long-range missiles such as the AIM-7 and BVR identification wasn't quite there yet, with the result that sophisticated American jets wound up in dogfights -- which, as interceptors, they were not intended for -- with vehicles a generation older. We still "won", but the casualty rate was such that the Air Force and Navy took notice. 

With that digression aside.. 

FIGHT'S ON! We're in the merge! 

The bandits break every rule of good flight by splitting their elements,  two of them peeling off and way in an obvious bait maneuver. 

Han's wingman falls for it and chases him , despite Han hollering for him to not leave Han. Yup,  goin' after Viper  . 

Works out the same way. Han's wing is baited out all by himself, BANDIT-1 slides in behind him and slaps him down. Chalk one up for the bad guys. Han realizes he never even knew the young man's name. 

At this point , the book tells us Han makes a tactical error. He _should_ (according to our author) form a  Lufberry circle  with his remaining fighters for mutual support. But he's berserk. _No one cuts in on me for a wingman , pal_, and he leaps into the furball with BANDIT-1.  

Meanwhile , it isn't working on HEADHUNTER-3 element.  Sure enough, BANDIT-3 goes zipping off into never land where it is joined by BANDIT-2, as they head down to the surface and the brothers.    The Lafarian wingman declines to chase, and when BANDIT-4 tries to zero Jess the HEADHUNTER pair scissor and this gives HEADHUNTER-4 a kill shot.  BRRRRT.   Score is 1-1. 

BANDIT-2 and -3 join as a new element and get into it with the brothers. Two novices whose total flight time is measured in the single-digits versus trained professionals. HEADHUNTER-3 and -4 dive down to assist but it is much, MUCH too late.   1-3. 

BANDIT-2 comes back and heads directly at Headhunter-4. He gets some shots into the frame before Jess is able to clean him off.   He power dives away and Jess, disregarding Han's advice , lets him go because she's more concerned about her wingmate. 

There's nothing she can do for him; he's flyable but crippled, she instructs him to nurse the ship home and he does, alive, but out of the fight. 1-4.  She goes in pursuit of BANDIT-3, who is busy executing  SEAD  runs on the airstrip's turbolaser emplacements; doing a pretty thorough job of wrecking them , too.  

Meanwhile, Han follows his own advice and uses his craft's strength against BANDIT-1's weakness, suckering him into a lower-altitude  Two-circle rate fight , faking incompetence with the vehicle and until he can turn really well and BANDIT-1 just sort of floats in front of him. Bang you're dead. 2-4. 

"Happy Graduation day, _sucker_!" Han bellows as he heads back to the rest of the fight.  

Jess is in trouble; she's trying to latch onto BANDIT-3 and almost has him when she suddenly starts eating blaster bolts herself. BANDIT-2 isn't as dead as she thought and is now trying to cash in her chips. Her ship takes damage, but just then Han arrives and clears her tail with some well-aimed fire, and BANDIT-2 goes to whatever Valhalla awaits fast movers. 3-4.  

Jess is at this point in the perfect position and takes the shot, sending BANDIT-3 down in fire.  4-4. That's it for the threat;  the outlaws can evacuate their base before the Authority returns. But it's not over yet. 

Fires spread across her ship and kill her controls; she has no control of the vehicle and is flying upside down only a very small distance above the ground.  If she ejects now, the ejection seat will fire her directly into the ground.  

Han has a plan. He tells Jess to be prepared to eject on the count of three. 

ONE.  brings his Headhunter very, _very_ close to HEADHUNTER-3.   

TWO . He swings his wing up to tap hers, flpping her spacecraft over.

THREE! PUNCH OUT, JESS! 

She does, hitting the button just as the cockpit is facing directly away from the ground. Her chute deploys and she lands safely while her fighter spirals into a fiery ending.  Final score 4-5, which isn't all that bad considering these are outlaw novices against trained pilots. 

If that sounds crazy, well, it is. But  There's precedent . During the battle of Britain it was not entirely unknown for Spitfire pilots to destroy V-1s by tipping them with the wing, sending them out of control. It's a rare occurrence (dozens of tipped rockets destroyed versus thousands the more conventional way , but it has been done.  

Back on the ground. Jess thanks Han and wishes he would have done this for a better reason than saving his ship. 

BACKSTORY-RIFFIC CHARACTER NOTE: 

Han replies: 

"I already know all about morality, Jess. A friend of mine made a decision once, thought he was doing the moral thing.  Hell, he _was_.  But he'd been conned. He lost his career, his girl, everything. This friend of mine, he ended up standing there while they ripped the rank and insignia off his tunic. The people who didn't want him stood up against a wall and shot were laughing at him. A whole planet. He shipped out of there and never went back... his own commanding officer committed perjury against him. There was only one witness in his defense ... and who's going to believe a wookie?" 

So. Han was  Cashiered , which is a different thing from being discharged.  Dishonorable discharge happens to an enlisted person. An officer who has so disgraced themselves as to be unfit to serve in any capacity whatever, at least in the  old days, would have to stand on parade in front of their unit while their fellow soldiers broke their sword, tore off every decoration, every badge, then the unit marches away, leaving the unfortunate alone, forever. It's the sort of thing which is done when it's not quite bad enough to be the death penalty, but right up there.  

So Han was thrown of the military. Not deserted.  Cast out, like a clipped nail.  And he never forgot it.. at least, in this version of the story. 

Jess finally responds. "It's lucky I know you're a mercenary, Solo. It's lucky I know you only flew that headhunter to protect the _Falcon_, not to protect lives. And that you saved me so I could hold up my end of our bargain. It's lucky you'll probably never do a single selfless decent thing in your life, and that everything that happened to day fits in , in some crazy way, with that greedy, [stupid] behavioral pattern of yours. Lucky... for me."  

And she walks away. We can't quite see her face. 





And that was quite, QUITE a ride. I hope you enjoyed that chapter as much as I did writing it! 

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

----------


## Keltest

I believe that Han was nominally a TIE pilot during his stint in the military, but never really did anything interesting with the craft. He got cashiered pretty early into his actual service because the Imperial military is just the absolute worst and managed to cross his moral line really quickly.

As for the headhunters, theyre basically the grandfather design for the X-wing, which came about more or less from the idea of giving the headhunter some protein, some time in the gym, and the iconic S-foils for some extra oomph. They behave similarly to an X-wing in terms of what you do with them, theyre just older.

----------


## Peelee

> I believe that Han was nominally a TIE pilot during his stint in the military, but never really did anything interesting with the craft.


In legends he set records flying a TIE and greatly enjoyed it. I'm trying to remember the comics where he's a flight cadet but blanking at the moment.

----------


## PontificatusRex

Hey, just discovering this thread. I read these as a young lad multiple times and totally loved them, they definitely shaped my view of the character Han Solo. It was years later before I realized that my view of Solo from the books was seriously more competent and badass than the guy in the movies. 

Interesting note - the author Brian Daley was a Vietnam vet (his first novel, 'The Doomfarers of Coramonde', is about a squad of soldiers in Vietnam summoned to a fantasy world to help kill a dragon (and then do other stuff)), and I think that shows in his writing. In my observation veterans who have experienced real life combat write about it on a different level than people who haven't, and in these books Daley definitely showed he understood what it meant to be in a fight for your life.

It's kind of amazing that he was inventing worlds and situations set in Lucas's universe while having almost no info about said universe. It's been fun reading this thread and seeing which of his inventions made it into the larger canon.

Cool trivia note: Daley also adapted the original trilogy as a series of radio dramas for NPR. I need to track those down and give them a listen. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996 - RIP.

----------


## Dire_Flumph

> Cool trivia note: Daley also adapted the original trilogy as a series of radio dramas for NPR. I need to track those down and give them a listen. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996 - RIP.


Those have been out of print for awhile and as far as I know have never had an official digital release, though they have been pretty consistently uploaded to YouTube.  Great stuff, always enjoyed Brock Peters' take on Darth Vader in particular.

----------


## Velaryon

Finding this Let's Read has been one of the best unexpected surprises of the year so far for me. The third book in this trilogy, _Han Solo and the Lost Legacy_, was one of the first Star Wars novels I ever read. Eventually I was able to track down the earlier books, and they did not disappoint. 

It amazes me not only that Brian Daley nailed the character of Han Solo so well despite two thirds of the original trilogy not even existing yet when he wrote them, but also that they hold up so well when literally hundreds of other books have followed featuring these characters. The specific characters and places of these books rarely if ever popped up again in later Legends books, certainly not as much as those created by authors like Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, or Kevin J. Anderson, or several others. But I really feel like Daley nailed the vibe of Han Solo almost perfectly, so well that it holds up all the way til the present day.

I won't go as far as to say these are among the best the Legends continuity had to offer, but I think they stand head and shoulders above the other stuff that came out around the same time. Stars End, Revenge, and Lost Legacy have all aged FAR better than Splinter of the Mind's Eye, or those atrocious 80s Star Wars comics, or pretty much anything else I can think of in the pre-Thrawn Trilogy EU.

I look forward to following this thread all the way through the trilogy.

----------


## pendell

So let's do the thing, shall we? 

*Spoiler: Han Solo at Star's End, Chapter 5*
Show


We're back on the _Millenium Falcon_ which has all its upgrades but not the waiver yet, encased in a barge shell put-putting along towards the destination planet. Han Solo is playing Dejarik against Chewbacca, who has spotted Han two pieces but is still, nonetheless, wiping the floor with Han. 

CHARACTER NOTE: Chewbacca is actually very intelligent, quite a bit more intelligent than Han, as evidenced by his ability to solve mechanical problems Han can't.  Pity this story hasn't shown how the two wound up together ... or why Han is the Captain when Chewie is decades older.  

Blue max, sitting in Bollux's now-open chest cavity, is helpfully kibitzing Han's every move, more than happy to point out all his errors after the fact.  This results in a sarcastic rejoinder from Han, who notes that Blue Max must learn everything he knows about humans from Bollux, and what does a labour droid know? 

Glad you asked. BACKSTORY GO! 




> The Great Starship Yards of Fondor is where I was activated. Then, for a time, I worked for a planetary survey Alpha Team, and after that, for a construction gang on weather-control systems. I had a job as general roustabout for Gan Jan Rue's traveling menagerie,  and as maintenance helper in the Trigdale Foundries. But one by one, the jobs have been taken over by newer models. I volunteered for all the modifications and reprogramming I could, but eventually I simply couldn't compete with the newer, more capable droids. 
> 
> I requested "this mission".  Three was word that a droid would be selected from the general labor pool for an unstated modification. I was there, having been purchased at open auction .. it has its disadvantages, but it keeps me functioning at a relatively high level of activity, for the time being, I have avoided obsolescence.


At this discussion of age, Chewbacca pays close attention.  He is, after all, "far older than any human." 




> Obsolescence for a droid, sirs, is much like death for a human or a wookie. It is the end of function, which means the end of significance. So it is to be avoided at all costs. So it is to be avoided at all costs, Captain. After all, what value is there to existence without purpose?


A bit of a philosopher is our Bollux.  Evidently he's never heard it argued that intelligent life has intrinsic value, separate from work. But then, droids most likely have a different outlook on life. Organics don't really know why they were created and , as a rule, we tend to invent a purpose in life. A droid doesn't have any such ambiguities. They are created for a specific purpose, to labor, and if they cannot meet that purpose they are discarded. It doesn't help that we're in the Corporate Sector, where even human lives matter only to the extent they are assets to a bank account rather than liabilities. I wonder if other droids think in other terms in the Star Wars Universe? And if there's ever been a droid revolt in the hopes of achieving the same degree of dignity as their meatbag colleagues? 

Han responds acerbically, but catastrophically loses his second battle of wits of the day -- the first against Chewbacca, the second against a labor droid. He's beginning to feel a bit hard done by, but the conversation is terminated by the landing beep -- we've arrived at  Orron III 

 Image Source  

"A planet generous to man, its axial tilt negligible, its seasons stable and , throughout most of its latitudes, conducive to good crop production, and its soil rich and fertile.

The barge touches down with thousands of other barges, all identical, ready to receive their cargos of grain. 

And we wait for our contacts to find us. The first one does and ... stars above, it's Morgan Freeman! 




"A man of incongruities, he wore the drab green coveralls of a port worker and had a tool belt at his waste. Yet he radiated a different aura ... He was native to a sun-plentiful world, that much was apparent, for his skin was so dark that its black approached indigo. He was half a head taller than Han, with broad shoulders that strains the tissue of his broad coveralls, and a body that spoke of waiting, abundant power. His tightly curled black hair and sweeping beard were shot through with streaks of gray and white. For all the size and dignity of him, he had a lively glint of humor in his black eyes."

He introduces himself as Rekkon.

As an aside, SF like this as a child is part of why classic racism never had much appeal to me -- when you grow up reading about a universe surrounded by things with tentacles, intelligent slugs, green bug-things like Greedo,  encountering a human makes one feel a sense of kinship, even if their skin color is different. Encountering a Lando Calrissien, a child of my age would be more likely to think "fellow human in a crazy galaxy" (had no doubt at that age there were other intelligent species out there, somewhere) and not ... some of the uncomplimentary thoughts more common in the early 1900s. 

I wonder if Star Trek and Star Wars affected other kids the same way?  

Rekkon first shows he's more than what he appears by greeting Chewbacca in Shrywook, to Chewie's delight; few humans can speak Shrywook or form the sounds with their vocal cords, but Rekkon has put in the effort to do at least that much. Congratulations, Rekkon, you have a friend for life. 

Rekkon brings out ID tags for Solo and Chewie identifying them as short-term temporary labor workers, and invites them down to the authority complex with him; he is going to bring along Blue Max, concealed in Bollux, for some slicing. Han balks;  he's the getaway driver, has no reason or desire to go to the Complex.   Rekkon gives him two very good reasons to come along: First, the barges are going to be decontaminated and you don't want to be inside when that happens.  Second, he's the one who's giving them the waiver, and he has to be at the data center to make that happen.  There's a third reason but he won't divulge it yet. 

Han sighs and bows to the inevitable. He and Chewbacca throw their weapons in a tool bag and head out into a transport , driven by Rekkon, accompanied by Bollux and Blue Max.  

On the drive over, Han asks for more details about what this is all about. Rekkon fills him in a bit: He's actually an academic with a string of degrees, more than qualified to run this data center, but he and his confederates are hear for a different purpose. 

It seems the Authority has been running its own  Nacht Und Nebel  program, disappearing politially inconvenient or outspoken individuals. Rekkon, a professor at a university, got involved when his nephew, a student, got a little too outspoken at uni and went poof. He's been collecting accomplices, all of whom have also lost someone , so they can track down their loved ones and set them free. 

These accomplices are: 
Torm, undercover as contract labor.  His family owns large ranches on the planet Kail.  Two of his family members got involved in a land dispute with authority, and now they're vanished. 

Atuarre, a  Trianii  undercover here as an apprentice agronomist. Everyone's seen Avatar. The Corporate Sector is repeating that story on thousands of small worlds which they plunder for profit. Only in Atuarre's case there was no world tree to deus ex machina all the corporate mercenaries off their planet; they are firmly under the boot of the Authority. Her husband was an indigenous resistance leader, and now he's gone.  There's also ...

Pakka, Atuarre's son.  He's a child, and almost disappeared like his father. Through means unexplained Atuarre _was_ able to recover Pakka but, when she did, the Authority had so damaged him that he can no longer speak. Terrible things were done to that child. The child is the fourth member of our conspiracy. 

Engret, a young man whose sister was a brilliant legal scholar, also missing. 

And of course Jess supports their group, because she also is missing someone she care about : Doc, her father, the man Han Solo was originally trying to contact. 

There were other members of the group, but one by one they have disappeared.  Han interrupts at this point and suggest there must be a traitor in the group.  Rekkon agrees, and is surprised. Han is not guessing. Remember the Authority ship which dumped fighters on us in the last chapter?  The out-of-the-way system is an extremely unlikely place for a chance encounter; the Authority had been tipped to the outlaws, but the tipper couldn't have been on the base or known its exact location, or the Authority wouldn't have been scouting; they'd have come in force. That means a leak, and that points back to Rekkon's group.  

Rekkon agrees. 

So it always is with conspiracies. Where two or three are gathered together, at least one is in the pay of the secret police. 

They arrive in the garage of the center and take a lift chute up several decks, wafted through the air as if standing on nothing. Various techs enter and exit the shaft, but pay no mind to a supervisor and his technical crew. 

As an aside, you can tell this is definitely a pre-2001 story, as this is supposed to be the most important authority installation on the entire planet but our heroes don't even have to walk through a metal detector to step in; this allows them to smuggle in their fully assembled weapons in a simple tool bag.    I don't think that would fly even at a 21st century airport, let alone a high-security installation. 

They arrive at a large room, three walls of which are covered with computer terminals and the fourth gives a panoramic view of the cultivating fields of Orran III. Bollox opens up, and Rekkon gets to work with Blue Max. This will be the last of several illegal slices, which he and the group have been working on for the past month, which should allow them to pinpoint the Authority's Space-Guantanamo. 

He also hands over an ID plaque to Han: A false ID for his ship which places it on the Waivers list, thereby exempting them from any more hassle by Authority functionaries in their spaceports over things like lift-mass ratios or being equipped with more guns than some warships.  

As an aside, the question may be asked: Why wasn't the Millenium Falcon in the fight last chapter? The answer is simple: By the time the Authority ship arrived in-system, the techs had already opened it up for inspection, customization, and the fitting of the barge shell. She wasn't in a flyable state. 

Rekkon tells Solo that he has asked each of his fellow team-members to this room as well, while telling none of them why, or that he has invited any of the others, or that this is the moment they all leave the planet.  He does not want the Authority tipped off either to the getaway or to the Falcon's location, so all of this has been kept closely under wraps. 

As Rekkon and Blue Max continue slicing, Han banteringly argues with him that their cause is hopeless: The authority has an entire sector's worth of ships, gunmen, and money. What chance do clean hands and pure thoughts have against that?  Rekkon responds: If Han is so convinced the Authority is the winning side, why isn't he playing their game, Mr. Look-out-for-number-one? 

Before Han can answer, there is a loud pounding on the door and a shouted "Rekkon! Open this door!"

Han opens the tool bag, pulls out his blaster, and tosses the bowcaster to Chewie. 

CHAPTER END CLIFFHANGER GO! 



So some exposition here, along with a little philosophy, a little SF, and a bit of tension to end the chapter on a cliffhanger. For those who don't already know how this turns out, do you think there really is a traitor, and if so who is it? 

That'll be an interesting guessing game to keep us occupied until Chapter 4, next time!

Respectfully, 

Brian P.

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## Saintheart

*Spoiler*
Show

"Bollux, do you know what you are?"
"Yessir, a smuggler, sir. ... one who engages in the transport of," he indicated his chest cavity, "--concealed goods."

Remembering that exchange always brings a smile to my face, especially given Chewbacca just about has a heart attack laughing right afterward.  And topped only by Han shouting at Bollux to "Shut up!" which Bollux does by closing his chest cavity, prompting further paralysis from amusement to our Wookiee friend.

I also rather liked a one-liner in that scene where we're told Chewbacca gets interested in Bollux's perspective on obsolescence since the Wookiee is getting on a century old himself (if I remember the scene right).  To that point Chewie doesn't get a lot of character development or real attention, and it's a nice dash of water to the face to remind you that, yeah, he's not a walking dog, he's actually a wholly alien species with his own perspectives on the universe.  Great bit of actual science fiction in space opera.

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## runeghost

> Yeah, thats the F variant I had mentioned. I think that's also the one with the external cargo hooks.
> 
> So now I have to wonder - what exactly did Lando stuff into all that vacant space to make his design so comparatively cramped?





> Looking at the specs, it also has 3 shield generators, two hyperdrives, and salvaged capital ship-grade armor playing in addition to its souped up engine. That's probably all pretty bulky stuff.


This matches my own headcanon/gaming references/eclectic StarWars EU reading over the years - that the Falcon's biggest advantage is that it has the shielding of a capital ship (although not the power generation, meaning that it can't run the overpowered shields forever).

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## Fyraltari

> For those who don't already know how this turns out, do you think there really is a traitor, and if so who is it?


Well, Rekkon is the only member of the group we've met so far, so it's hard to suspect anyone else.

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