Part 8: XWA: Capture the Freighter Suprosa

What the shit? Why are we suddenly playing a completely different game?

Glad you asked. You’re right, this isn’t the N64 version of Shadows of the Empire—HOWEVER! It is directly connected to the Shadows meta-storyline. The lone mission from X-Wing Alliance we’re going to be showing off deals with the mission to capture freighter Suprosa, hence why it’s coming hot on the heels of our Suprosa runthrough on the N64 version.

Okay, you sold me Crow, so what’s so special about this mission?

The X-Wing Alliance mission “Capture the Freighter Suprosa” takes place approximately half-way through the game and features both Luke Skywalker (in Rouge One), Dash Rendar (in the Outrider) and of course the titular freighter Suprosa. We’re using it as yet another piece of evidence in our “Dash is a self-important lying shitheel bitplayer” thesis, for reasons that will be patently clear in the video itself.

Wait, YOU’RE LPing this mission? What happened to Blind Sally?

Blind Sally’s dead, he’s locked in my basement. Ha hah.

I’m LPing the XWA Suprosa mission for practicality purposes. It’s my copy of X-Wing Alliance that we’re using, it’s my hardware that we did all our footage capture on, and I also had the experience with starfighter sims and the knowledge of where XWA fits into the Star Wars/Shadows of the Empire timeline that Blind Sally didn’t.

Ergo, this is my only gameplay contribution to this LP.

But anyway, how’s about some background on the game itself?



X-Wing Alliance

Released in 1999 for the PC and Mac (lol mac gaming), X-Wing Alliance was the last of LucasArts’s four great starfighter sim games, which also included its predecessors: X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. An imaginative progression, I know. The X-Wing series was lauded in its day for being the go-to space combat sim right behind Wing Commander. It was co-developed with Totally Games, who also went on to create another much-beloved franchise-based space sim, Star Trek: Bridge Commander, which is currently being LP’d by mateo360 and can be found right here for your viewing pleasure.

X-Wing Alliance tells the story of Ace Azzameen, the youngest of Tomaas Azzameen’s four children. Ace works for a transport company run by his father and his uncle, Antan Azzameen, called Twin Suns Shipping Corporation (because Tomaas and Antan are twin sons, get it? ). However, Ace’s peaceful civilian life is upended when his father begins supporting the Rebellion and gets caught escaping from Echo Base on Hoth during the rebel evacuation (as seen in The Empire Strikes Back and in our own LP “Escape from Echo Base”).

After that the Empire comes crashing down on the Azzameen family with the righteous fury of the Emperor’s justice and they are scattered to the four corners of the galaxy when they’re forced to flee their home. Ace joins the Rebellion to put his skills as a pilot to good use and to make recompense for the Alliance taking him and his siblings in after they ran.

You fly missions set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (the time period covered by Shadows of the Empire) that are loaded with continuity porn cameos from stuff like passing encounters with Slave I, the Wild Karde, and Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced, to a set of missions squaring off against Admiral Zaarin from TIE Fighter, to the aforementioned encounter with the Suprosa, culminating in you piloting the Millennium Falcon during the Battle of Endor.

Yep. One of those non-descript guys in beige behind Lando and the Space Mexican Nien Nunb has been canonized as being Ace Azzameen by LucasFilm.

Oh my god! They’re just like George Luca—wait.

That’s it?

What part of ‘you got to fly the Millennium Falcon during the Battle of Endor’ are you not getting? It was also the first X-Wing PC game that let you fly other Corellian transports, like the YT-1300 (the generic retail version of the Falcon), and the game-exclusive YT-2000 Otana.



Seriously. Look at this beauty. Out-what-er? Dash who?
(Image courtesy of the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project)

How does it fit into Shadows of the Empire?

Like a glove. The X-Wing Alliance mission shows you how things actually played out, as opposed to how they played out in Dash’s wild cantina embellishments as seen in the N64 Shadows of the Empire. Dash and the Outrider are a minor part of the mission as a whole, which also involved an entire flight of Y-Wing fighters of which Ace Azzameen (the player character) was a part of. Ace is the one who disables the Suprosa after a hard-fought battle, as opposed to Dash just moseying on up to it in the Outrider unmolested as seen in the N64 footage. This is backed up by the SotE novel and comic canon, too.

As for Dash’s involvement in the rest of the mission. Well? Watch the video. Seriously, watch the video. I worked too goddamn hard on this joke for it to go uncommented on.

So why does a PC space sim from 1999 look so good (relatively speaking)?

Because we only want the best for you, our loyal audience.

We’re playing a modded version of the original Windows release of XWA. The mod in question is called the “X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project” and is a ground-up graphical enhancement mod for the game. You can visit the mod’s home page here to see all the nifty things it entails: http://www.xwaupgrade.com/. The mod isn’t completely finished yet, however. It’s only 70% complete according to the website, but for the purposes of the LP, that’s good enough as most of the unmodded stuff are essentially background objects or minor mission-specific elements that only appear once and never again. Yeah, this was back when game designers used to put some actual effort into their worldbuilding.

You can also download the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project from Modd DB, as well as check out several other cool related projects there too for the other X-Wing games.

Also, not to shill for the guys or anything, but the XWAUP is an open-source project and is still very much active and looking for new modders, so if after all this you feel like giving them a hand to get to 100%, don’t hesitate to contact them. Contact details are available on their webzone.

Hey! I have a copy of XWA, but I’m running Windows Vista/7/8, can I play it on my computer?

…Technically. X-Wing Alliance’s installer program throws a shitfit on x64 operating systems (especially Windows 7/8), without fail, so you can’t install it that way. There is a workaround for it though. This guy has written a giant tutorial on how to do it, but it’s crap. DON’T READ IT, I’m only posting it for posterity’s sake so that no one brings it up in the thread. His method involves downloading a bunch of unneeded riskware like DaemonTools and is a sure-fire way to end up with a virus of some sort or another.

INSTEAD what you want to do is download this. It’s an installer program written by one of the guys behind the XWAUP meant to act as a workaround for the x64 problem.

You will need:
• The installer
• A blank CD/DVD
• A CD/DVD-R or RW drive
• Disc 1 of X-Wing Alliance

After downloading the installer, create a temporary folder anywhere on your hard drive and paste the installer into it. Then put Disc 1 of X-Wing Alliance into your CD drive, open it in Windows Explorer, highlight everything on the disc and copy it into the temporary folder where you placed the installer.

Then swap out the actual disc for your blank CD/DVD, and then burn everything inside the folder (but not the folder itself) onto the disc. You don’t need any fancy disc burning programs or anything, Window’s onboard disc burner is sufficient. It’s what I used.

Once it’s done burninating the countryside, open the disc in Windows Explorer and run the custom installer. Then swap out the burned disc for the actual game disc, and enjoy your now-working copy of X-Wing Alliance.

You WILL need a joystick of some sort to operate play the game, however. That part is pretty much non-negotiable. However, while XWA is stingy when it comes to what sort of operating systems it will install on, it is quite liberal in terms of what it counts as a joystick. For example, in lieu of a traditional joystick, I played through my footage capture runs using the USB-wired controller that came with my original Xbox 360, and as you can see by looking at the video it works flawlessly.

Crow! I have to have this amazing game! Where can I get a copy of it?

Sadly, the X-Wing games are part of a large number of LucasArts games that aren’t available through either Steam or Good Old Games (or any other digital distribution platform, for that matter). They may be sometime in the future, but I wouldn’t hold my breath now that LucasArts has been dismantled and assimilated by Disney.

Your only real options at this point are to buy a used physical copy from either Amazon or EBay and then apply the installation method I covered up there. Unless you’re one of those diehard hold outs who are somehow still running a Windows 98/XP machine in the year of our Lord two-thousand and thirteen. It should run you about $25.00 USD before taxes and shipping to pick up a copy online.

Greetings from 2016!

Well, time has a way of making people look like asses, and in the three years since I said "I wouldn't hold my breath", well, the entire LucasArts Star Wars catalog, including X-Wing Alliance and Shadows of the Empire has been released through Good Old Games and Steam for your digital downloading convenience. So hooray Disney, thank you for actually caring about Star Wars.

And for the record, yes, the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project is compatible with the Steam and GOG versions of XWA.

Now go forth and enjoy the nostalgia. Of if you were too young the first time around, go forth and witness the era of actual good Star Wars video games.

Back to the LP.

Are you going to LP X-Wing Alliance now?

Don’t push your luck.




Dash Rendar – 10
Han Solo – 8








Alliance Starfighter Pilot, Ace Azzameen
Ace is the youngest of Tomaas Azzameen’s four children. He worked for his father and uncle Antan’s transport company, Twin Suns Shipping Corporation, until his father and eldest brother were caught aiding the Rebellion after the Battle of Hoth. The Empire declared the entire Azzameen family traitors, forcing them to flee after the Imperial Navy impounded their corporate headquarters, executed Tomaas and Galen, and imprisoned Antan. Rather than live as a war refugee, Ace joined the Alliance as a pilot and quickly rose through the ranks of their starfighter crops, to the point where he was hand-picked to fly the Suprosa capture mission after the Bothan pilot slated to fly Y-Wing Blue Six was forced to withdraw.

And yes, the name Ace is a play on the term “ace” as in “ace pilot,” ha hah, very clever LucasArts. As you can see by the crappy in-game model, there is no canonical graphical depiction of Ace, as he’s intended to be a cipher the player can imagine themselves into whilst playing XWA.


Now, here comes the rest of Blind Sally’s Post…



: : :C H A P T E R 2 5: : :

Vader is mildly annoyed that the bounty hunters failed to contain Luke, but swells with pride at his son's expertise. He interrogates the bounty hunters and they let slip that they suspect Black Sun of releasing the "death" bounty. Vader isn't surprised, but he still needs to gather evidence. As Luke and Lando are about to jump to hyperspace, the Millenium Falcon dies. It's the hyperdrive again. It never works. Come on, Han, get with the program. They hide in a small asteroid to do field work. Back on Coruscant, Leia and Chewie are driven to Xizor's palace in a bullet car. They arrive and meet Xizor and Leia is--she's... well, uh...




: : :C H A P T E R 2 6: : :

Luke feels a dark disturbance in the Force. Vader senses him right back and sends some fighters into the asteroid field. Xizor is "pleased" by Leia's beauty. She responds to his pheromones and gets a bit flustered. After some small talk, Xizor has her taken to her quarters.


x1,000,000

Howzmin, Xizor's cyborg assistant, takes Leia to her room. She is a bit shaken by the attraction she felt to Xizor. She gets confused, starts thinking about Han, then arrives at her suite. Chewie is taken to the adjacent room and she's left to look around her own extravagant lodgings. She finds the closet stocked with high quality clothing--most of which are quite revealing...


x1,000,000,000,000

She then takes a bath. Afterwards...


x1,000,000,000,000,000,000

The POV shifts back to Xizor. He is back in his office making a note to himself--


There is not a big enough...

: : :C H A P T E R 2 7: : :

Luke and Lando fix the Falcon and finally get off to Tatooine, cause that's what Leia would have wanted. Vader is perpetually annoyed, but whatever. He goes to Kothlis and attacks a suspected Rebel base as a show of force so that the Rebels think the computer they stole was important--which it is. Leia is dressing sexy for Xizor. Yup. She is dressing sexy for Xizor. On her way out she bumps into Chewie. Chewie is disappointed and gives her the look. She feels guilty and thinks about Han again, but goes to Xizor sexily dressed anyways. Xizor turns red with pheromones and gets her to make Chewie wait outside.

Then things get creepy. Really creepy...


Remember: Xizor is using his pheromones to force Leia into this. Steve Perry is shipping his ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL Xizor with Princess Leia, non-consensually, in a harlequin fan fiction.

: : :C H A P T E R 2 8: : :

Xizor is enjoying this, because eww, when Chewie knocks on the door. Xizor is annoyed, but Leia goes to check on him anyways. Once outside, Chewie points out to Leia that there are hidden cameras and microphones everywhere. She feels shameful, reassesses what she's doing with her life, and resolves to kick Xizor in the balls. She goes back in and is immediately aware of the psychological effect that occurs when Xizor is near her. Piecing things together, she figures that there's some kind of pheromone thing going on and finds it easier to ignore. Xizor orders her to take off her clothes. She complies, but only takes off the outer, translucent layer, leaving behind the bodysuit. He then tries to kiss her and SHE KNEES HIM RIGHT IN THE FALLEN FAMILY JEWELS. Guri pops out of a hidden alcove, because I guess Xizor wanted her to watch, and it's revealed that Leia was acting as a distraction to allow Chewie a chance to escape.

Elsewhere on Coruscant, Vader is home. He admits to himself that patience has never been a strong suit--pfft, no kidding. He vents his frustrations to the Emperor, gets chastised for having a petty grudge against Xizor, BUT is given leave to pursue Luke.

: : :C H A P T E R 2 9: : :

It's revealed that Xizor planned to let Chewie escape the whole time. Welp. I guess you just have everything under control, don't you, Xizor? He receives news about Luke being captured by bounty hunters, news that the other bidder for Luke has Imperial connections, and then is further updated that Luke has escaped the bounty hunters and Vader. Upon discovering that Vader is personally involved, Xizor gets unreasonably excited. Anyways, he figures that as long as he holds Leia, Luke will come knocking on his doorstep. Leia is locked in her suite. Luke uses the Force to discover that Leia is in trouble. He and Lando call Dash, but get no response, just a recorded message of Chewie talking about Leia being captured. So, they head off to Coruscant instead. In order to pass shipping lanes without being picked up by Imperial scanners, they do that trick that Han did in the movies where he ghosted the Falcon by landing it on a Star Destroyer before jettisoning into a bit of debris to blend in with the garbage. It works, they land. Vader senses something Force-related nearby.

: : :C H A P T E R 3 0: : :

The droids stay on the Falcon while Luke and Lando go to the Southern Underground. On their way, they snag some elite Stormtrooper uniforms. Xizor tries to enjoy a private bath but is disturbed by Guri--the Emperor's on the phone. Turns out the Emperor now knows of his interest in Luke (Vader, you snitch!). Ah well, Xizor figured that was inevitable. Palpatine informs him that he's leaving Coruscant to go inspect the Death Star project and hangs up. Leia eats some food. The Emperor also speaks to Vader before he leaves, and notes that he might find Skywalker soon. Vader figures the Emperor also felt something.

: : :C H A P T E R 3 1: : :

Luke and Lando go to the shop where Spero is and are jumped by Chewie. They reveal who they are beneath the armour and are informed on what's going on, when suddenly the shop falls under attack. They take cover and prepare for a drawn out defensive when Dash Rendar appears and saves the maw-fuggin' day. Dash leads them deeper into the Southern Underground, into the lowest depths of Coruscant, and into a safehouse. They wonder why Dash is still hanging around, and he says that he feels he now has something to prove for his earlier mistake. Fair enough. Vader receives a recording from one of his spies of the Rogue's crew chief (remember Viera Cheran? No? Nobody does) being paid an exorbitant amount of money to kill Luke. There's no direct connection to Xizor, but Vader is pleased to have the evidence nonetheless. Leia is invited to breakfast with Xizor. When she refuses, he reveals that he let Chewie escape and that he plans to use her as bait to capture Luke--you know, just in case she wasn't feeling bad enough. Meanwhile, Guri reveals to Xizor that the Falcon has been spotted on Coruscant. He's a bit surprised that Luke got there so soon, but oh well. He looks forward to killing him under Vader's nose. Xizor loves his job!

: : :C H A P T E R 3 2: : :

Luke uses the Force to contact Leia, she receives the message, is stoked, and responds. Vader feels the connection and is a little surprised to discover that Luke is on Coruscant--however, he's also confused because it feels like his power is emanating from two different places simultaneously.

: : :C H A P T E R 3 3: : :

Xizor is doing another dumb anime thing. He's eating a rare fruit that is poisonous if cooked incorrectly--but he likes the danger, because

--anyways, he has the best anime death fruit chef in the galaxy so I guess that's fine. But seriously, look at this nonsense:


During the dinner, he feels a bit nervous (unrelated to actually consuming moonglow). He isn't sure what's bothering him, but has Guri double-check the security.

Meanwhile, Dash reveals to Luke his brilliant idea to bribe an engineer to get into Xizor's palace--through the sewage system. Leia feels impatient waiting for the breakout. Vader practices healing himself with the Dark Side.



When Leia finally meets Xizor, she is stunned by his "exotic beauty." The comic really reinforces just how much of a creep Xizor really is. Observe how he looms over Leia, standing waaaaaay closer than any reasonable being would need to:



Good ol'Howzmin gets a line--



Aaaaand fast-forward to the comic's rendition of the awkward Xizor/Leia romance scene:



"War does make strange bedfellows." I see what you did there, Xizor. That's not clever, it's just creepy.



God, thank you, Chewie! He points out all the hidden microphones and cameras in the hallway to Leia. She finally cools off and resolves to not let Xizor get the better of her, then heads back inside to distract him, allowing Chewie an opportunity to escape. This results in this hilarious splash page of Chewie with a bad haircut beating up Xizor's ridiculously purple-and-gold armoured guards:



But seriously, those uniforms are awesome.



Leia's "it isn't proper" comment always gets a chuckle out of me. Xizor's pink/red flashes are kind of creepy too. His species really wears their emotions on their sleeves.



Anyways, Xizor tries to go in for another kiss and Leia gives him the what for:



Seriously, this is the best panel. Look at this. Look at how glorious this is:



Suck it down, Xizor!!

Elsewhere, Vader begins building his case against Xizor so he can try him in an Imperial Court so he can justify killing him to the Emperor:



Our old pal Jix makes an appearance too. He had nearly been caught by one of Jabba's soldiers trying to get this call off, but luckily was the faster shooter:





Track 7 - The Seduction of Princess Leia


"One of the most unusual?" Yeah, you said it, McNeely.



Aaaaaand, we’re back to me…




PARTS 7 & 7A – Imperial Freighter Suprosa / Capture the Freighter Suprosa
The Suprosa

A heavily modified Mobquet medium transport licenced to the Black Sun front corporation Xizor Transport Systems and operated secretly by the Galactic Empire. The Suprosa was the bait in the first stage of a long con trap by Emperor Palpatine to destroy the Rebel Alliance using the reconstructed Death Star superweapon over moon of Endor.

The Suprosa makes use of the MMT’s modular hull design, sporting a modified bridge module, two laser cannons for offensive purposes, and at least one concealed diamond boron missile launcher. Standard MMTs are notable for being slow, but heavily armored with only light armaments, making them perfect targets for determined smugglers. In hindsight, Palpy was practically gift-wrapping the Suprosa for the Alliance.

Despite it being the centrepiece of the two videos, there’s not that much to say about the Suprosa from a technical standpoint, because a) there’s not a lot of hard facts about it as a ship and b) it’s honestly not all that interesting.

The image above comes from Star Wars: The Essential Chronology, written by Kevin J. Anderson and Daniel Wallace, and was illustrated by Bill Hughes.

Y-Wing Starfighter

The Koensayr BTL Y-Wing starfighter is the workhorse of the Rebel Alliance starfighter fleet. Y-Wings are primarily deployed in large numbers as anti-capital ship heavy bombers. Equipped with a pair of twin-linked laser cannons and a twin-linked ion cannon turret mounted over the cockpit, the Y-Wing is typically deployed in situations where capturing a craft intact is the primary objective. The Alliance has essentially built the bulk of its fleet using Y-Wings to disable and capture Imperial starships such as the Nebulon-B frigate and the Lambda-class shuttle.

Y-Wings, however, are notoriously slow craft, and are often deployed with X-Wing or A-Wing fighters for close support in situations where TIE Fighters or TIE Interceptors are present, lest they be picked off by the Empire’s more maneuverable fighter craft. Y-Wings also require prohibitively high levels of maintenance to remain in operation for long, leading to Alliance technical crews to often leave part housing stripped for easy repeat access. The engine modules, for example, are intended to be a pair of fully encased cylinders, and are often left with only the spaceframe intact, contributing to the Y-Wing’s famous profile.

There are many variants of Y-Wing starfighters, including one-man and two-man configurations.

X-Wing Starfighter

If there was any single ship more emblematic of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, it is the Incom T-65 X-Wing Starfighter. The four-engine starfighter with its unique quad-wing S-Foil set up is one of the fastest and most durable fighter craft currently in service. Only the TIE/In Interceptor is faster, although several rumoured Imperial starfighters (such as the TIE/D Defender and the V-38 TIE Phantom) are alleged to have posted faster speeds. One factor that has contributed to the X-Wing’s general success is that the bulk of its flight computer power is provided by an attached astromech droid mounted directly behind the cockpit.

The X-Wing is indicative of the Alliance’s operation style, preferring to spend its capital on reusable and modular equipment which puts pilot survivability above cost-per-unit replacability. And given the manpower struggles of the Alliance as an entity compared to the titanic Imperial Army and Navy, it’s obvious that Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar would like every pilot who sorties in an X-Wing to return in one as well. The X-Wing is also well suited towards the Rebellion’s patented “hit-and-fade” style attacks, being equipped with a small scale hyperdrive, allowing squadrons of X-Wings to conduct detached operations with minimal (if any) support from larger capital ships.

X-Wing pilots such as Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antillies, Olin Garn, and Ace Azzameen have done incredible feats with the X-Wing fighter holding their own against entire TIE Fighter squadrons, Imperial capital ships, and even massive battlestations like the Death Star superweapon.

X-Wings were famously modeled after old World War II propeller-driven fighter craft. George Lucas was fascinated by WWII fighter planes and dogfights and very pointedly decided to include scenes involving fighter craft dogfighting in outer space in his early drafts of A New Hope. Although series creator Glen Larson vehemently disputes it, the X-Wing design served as a model for the Viper starfighter of both the original and re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.

The Liberty

A Mon Calamari MC80 heavy cruiser employed by the Rebel Alliance as one of its primary battlecruisers. Notable for its “winged” configuration, the Liberty is one of the most famous cruisers in the Alliance fleet, being present at battles ranging from the evacuation of Hoth, to the assault on the second Death Star, where it was destroyed by inaugural shot of the battlestation’s fully operational superlaser.

Before being destroyed, however, it served as the home base for the Bothan-led operation to capture the Imperial supercomputer with the second Death Star plans being transported aboard the freighter Suprosa.

With an armament of 36 turbo laser cannons and 36 heavy ion cannons, MC80s like the Liberty are roughly on par with the Imperial-I class Star Destroyer. The Liberty and her fighter compliment are credited with the destruction of the Executor-class Star Dreadnaught Vengence at the Battle of Nocto. However, it was a pyrrhic victory of sorts, as the shipyard the Alliance was defending from the Vengence and her taskforce was also destroyed in the battle.

I’m including it on this list because its interior plays a big part in the X-Wing Alliance mission, and it’s also briefly glimpsed in the mission proper as well.

Victory-Class Star Destroyer

The Victory II-class Star Destroyer or VSD for the longest time was exclusive to the LucasArts video game universe, but has slowly worked its way into the broader Original Trilogy EU canon. At half the size of an Imperial II-class, the Victory II is one of the largest starships capable of operating inside a planet’s atmosphere as well as in space. The wing-like protrusions on either side of the ship are actually atmospheric maneuvering surfaces. When inside of a planet’s atmosphere they open into a >< shape, otherwise they remain closed in a <> shape while out in deep space.

The VSD is also one of the oldest starships manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards for the newly minted Galactic Empire, with a service history dating back to the mid-to-late Clone Wars. Aside from the atmospheric wings, VSDs also have a number of design features not present on modern Imperial and Imperial II-class Star Destroyers such as a protruding bridge section and communication and sensor spires on the top and front of its command tower.

VSDs are often paired with Interdictor cruisers in order to compensate for their slower sublight engines. With the Interdictor preventing a target craft from escaping into hyperspace or pulling craft out of hyperspace with its gravity well projectors, the VSD and its fighter compliment can easily rundown its prey and force them to surrender or destroy them. At FTL speeds, however, the VSD is faster than the Imperial and Imperial II-class Star Destroyers, possessing a full Class 1 hyperdrive.

At 900 meters long, Victory-class Star Destroyers are manned by a crew of 5,000, with an additional 2,000 ground assault troops stationed on each ship. The standard fighter compliment of a VSD is two squadrons of TIE Fighters (24 craft total).

The VSD’s design was based off of one of the original design ideas for the Imperial Star Destroyer in A New Hope. The sketch shows a ship resembling what would eventually become the VSD, sporting a par of wing-like protrusions from its sides, an elongated bridge, and a tall communications tower on top. These elements were eventually stripped away from the streamlined ISD design, but went on to live again as part of the Victory-class Star Destroyer.

Interdictor Cruiser

The Immobilizer 418 cruiser, commonly known as the ‘Interdictor’ cruiser is a medium-sized frigate craft employed by the Galactic Empire and is the terror of hyperspace-faring smugglers, pirates and rebels alike. Built on a Sienar Fleet Systems Vindicator-class chassis, the 418 was modeled after the much larger Imperial-II class Star Destroyer.

The Interdictor sports a quartet of bulbous spheres on its midship hull. These spheres are its gravity well projectors, which enable the Interdictor to disrupt hyperspace within a specific range of the cruiser. These gravity wells create navigational hazards which cause navicomputers of craft traveling through hyperspace to automatically engage their emergency stop protocols, effectively pulling ships out of hyperspace, and preventing them from re-entering hyperspace.

Although Interdictors are an invaluable part of the Imperial fleet, and are often used to capture smugglers and Rebel fighters, they have significant disadvantages too. Interdictors are very slow, very poorly armed and their gravity well projectors are slow to power up, allowing pilots with fast sublight ships, such as the Outrider or the Millennium Falcon to effectively outrun the cruiser’s gravity wells and escape into hyperspace. As such, Interdictors are often pared with faster cruisers and fighter craft such as the Victory II-class Star Destroyer, which are capable of running down and disabling craft otherwise capable of escaping Interdictors through conventional means.

Grand Admiral Thwarn popularized the tactical use of Interdictors, creating a tactic commonly referred to by both Alliance and Imperial forces as the “Thwarn Pincer” maneuver.

Interdictor cruisers were alluded to in numerous Star Wars-related materials going all the way back to a later-revised draft of A New Hope, but made their official debut in the Star Wars: X-Wing PC game.

Diamond Boron Missile

Originally designed and employed during the Clone Wars, diamond boron missiles are heavily armored, high-yield warheads which are nearly impervious to standard starship laser blaster fire. They are of a comparable size to concussion missiles and can be fired from standard concussion missile launchers aboard a properly equipped starship.

One of these missiles was fired by the Suprosa during the Alliance’s attempt to capture it. Dash Rendar attempted to intercept the missile, but was unable to destroy it before it detonates thanks to its armor and shielding. When the warhead detonated, it destroyed six of the twelve Y-Wings that comprised Blue Squadron in an instant. Two other Y-Wings were lost in the subsequent skirmish with the VSD Hunter and the Interdictor Claw as Rendar attempted to deliver the computer and Bothan operative Koth Melan to the Bothan colony world of Kothlis. When Mon Mothma says “many Bothans died to bring us this information [the Death Star II schematics],” in Return of the Jedi, she is referring to this incident. Dash never forgave himself for thinking he let all those Bothan pilots die in the encounter, and ultimately never learned the truth there wasn’t anything he could have done to affect the situation anyway.

That’s probably why he whitewashes it out of his account of the Suprosa’s capture as seen in the Nintendo 64 version of Shadows.

Loader Droid

A heavy duty labor droid designed to load and unload large volumes of cargo from medium-to-large transport craft. The droid’s spring-loaded telescoping arm assemblies are capable of lifting several tonnes of cargo over large distances.

Not intended for combat, the panicked crew of the Surprosa allegedly turned their loader droid loose on Dash Rendar in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Corellian mercenary from acquiring the Imperial supercomputer and murdering everyone aboard the ship. …Though given the speed at which Dash acquires the computer when viewed from an outside source (Ace Azzameen), it is more than likely that the Suprosa did not even have a loader droid onboard at the time of its commandeering over Bothawui.

R2-FU

These shitlords can go straight to hell. Whose bright idea was it to mount a blaster cannon on an astromech droid? Paply! I’m looking at you, you evil motherfucker.


Yes. Good. Give into your anger. I can feel your hatred. …It gives me a boner.


Ew, you sick fuck.





More artwork from the Brothers Hildebrant, this time of Dash comically running and gunning his way through the Suprosa’s innards, chased by a whole swarm of Stormtroopers. As usual, I honestly don’t know what the actual fuck is going on in this image. It looks like Dash is a running back making a run for the 10 yard line, only instead of a football, he’s got a blaster pistol.

I mean… just… for god’s sake! You also might recognize it from the brief visual gag about half way through the Shadows of the Empire Suprosa video.

And also this: fan art of Leia kneeing Xizor from a Star Wars fan comic. This is the best kind of EU fan art: