Why Star Wars ships always face "up" in space

[@demi-femme4821]

Because it looks weirder when they aren't. It's like this, George Lucas once said "in my world, there is air in space, when I want it to be." This is the franchise we're dealing with.

[@AndrewAce.]

Lmao

[@mayro4803]

Air Wars

[@AndrewAce.]

​@@mayro4803🤣

[@Osekin7]

Yeah, my head-canon is that the SW galaxy is just more dense than ours and the presence of the Force increases the effective range of an object's gravity, so there is a greater concentration of particles around planets and within star-systems - hence, sound in space, ships slowing without using bought thrusters, etc. Though that doesn't account for 'Galactic Up'

[@reeceemms1643]

yeah I heard about that. Its that reason why ships have ejector seats though we don't see it much on screen its only mentioned in the books and shown in the comics. But its like George had it that when the plot needed it there is air in space.

[@Vidiocity92]

They have to be "up" otherwise you get the Tector-class again

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

What is up with the Tector-class?

[@baron7755]

@@newsaxonyproductions7871 nothing

[@ryan8850]

@@newsaxonyproductions7871There’s a scene in Return of the Jedi where the Falcon flies over an ISD which is upside down. The ISD has no visible hangar and led to creation of the Tector class to explain the discrepancy.

[@Aahmpower]

​@@ryan8850crazy to think of one small miss by the animation (were they physical models?) team led to the creation of a different class of Star Destroyer

[@daanvos194]

​@@Aahmpowerits kinfa cool, it features more and heavier guns and guns at its aft flaks underside

[@Kirhean]

There *is* a decent tactical reason for how they orient: Fields of fire and silhouettes. The shape of a ship means that the orientation of the ship can afffect how easy a target you are for your opponent. Furthermore, orienting all your weapons on one axis allows you to focus fire from your weapons, making them more effective. Many, if not most, ships in the Star Wars universe are notably wider than they are tall. This allows them to present a smaller silhouette to their opponent and makes it harder to land shots, as well as allowing them to limit damage to the overall ship structure by only exposing one side. The design of the Star Destroyer was intended to just be "intimidating" from a media perspective, but it's actually a pretty realistic layout. The wedge shape allows you to focus fire from your weapons on forward targets more easily, and makes your forward silhouette and rear silhouette smaller than dorsal or ventral. As a result, an approaching Star Destroyer is a serious threat that must be avoided...by exposing only your front or rear, or keeping them broadside. Star Destroyers can fire half of their dorsal and ventral weapons broaside, which means that at any given time a Star Destroyer can wield at least half of their firepower at any given target. Their biggest weakness is from behind, as that limits their firing arc severely...which is why competent Imperial officers orient themselves so aggressively...which fits with Imperial Doctrine of overwhelming force. Other starship designs follow similar logic, preferring either broadside focused, or aggression focused designs. This results in a battlefield that naturally orients itself as the engagement progresses. There are still no reasons why you wouldn't approach an enemy force from "below" or "above", except they also must contend with Hyperspace lanes, forcing them to approach targets from a specific direction. Deep space combat is very rare because the goal is to hold or take orbital infrastructure, it *does* happen...but because of the nature of hyperspace lanes it means the ambushing force can set the field and orient themselves for maximum effect...forcing their opponents into an expected set of orientations as a result. For the record, this also means that cylindrical designs are the *WORST* possible design for a warship, for much the same reason that we use sloped rather than curved armor on tanks. It means you present the same silhouette from broadside, ventral and dorsal. Worse, your more centrally mounted weapons cannot fire past your forward or aft weapons, so aggressive angles actually hurt your firepower, forcing you to expose the broadside silhouette. This means you maximize your profile, while minimizing your firepower, putting you at an immediate disadvantage versus a more angular design. It may not have been intentionally good design, but there is a reason that modern warships look the way they do, and Star Wars warships (and warships of other sci-fi universes) inherit the logic. Because physics and geometry are a bitch.

[@tbotalpha8133]

I'm reminded of the Homeworld games, where "up" is defined by a plane extending outwards from the equator of the fleet's mothership. Or at least, that's how the Hiigarans do it. I imagine it would make sense for the flagship of a fleet to be marked as the reference point, with every other ship in the fleet deriving their orientation from the flagship. And then wheeling around the flagship to maintain formation.

[@Arashmickey]

IIRC in the Lost Fleet, starward is defined as toward the primary star, port as away from it, up as the north pole of the star. The setting doesn't really venture into interstellar space since their FTL is requires some kind of gravity well to navigate to.

[@mattshelton7423]

And with ships as big as a flagship would be, I’d imagine they’d feel a gravitic aligning force with the system they’re in. Like imagine being a raft on white water, yeah there’s technically a ton of orientations your raft can be in to go down the river, but there’s only a handful of orientations that end up with you upright and heading the direction you want, you just have to stay on those. The water doesn’t care if you’re Empire, Rebel, Republic, CIS, everyone has to abide by its rules or get flipped

[@dparky1627]

@@Arashmickey You're correct. It's nice to see another fan of Black Jack.

[@rulosingmymind7635]

It honestly makes sense. If a particular arrangement is disorienting for your pilots, it would make sense that they would naturally adjust to orient themselves. I do this myself when I play space games and I don't even think of it.

[@kenbrown2808]

back in the day playing "X-Wing" they mapped the joystick to control pitch and yaw, and you had to do extra motions to do roll, which meant you pretty much had to ignore concepts of up and down if you wanted to maneuver as fast as possible.

[@GrimDim]

For me, it goes without saying. There must be just one agree upon "0" or "middle" or "center" or whatever the term in-universe in the middle of space to not disorientate the pilots and workers. Some things just don't really need explaining, because you can easily see us doing the same in our world once we reach that point.

[@Wastelandman7000]

This is true, but, also if you look at the SDs, this formation allows overlapping fields of fire. If you put the SDs in a diamond formation (viewed from the front or back) with one SD at the apex of each point, their weapons overlap fields of fire so they can fire, but not damage each other.

[@blackc1479]

I get the point, but at the same time, an intrinsically spacefaring galaxy should have gotten over that a long time ago. I guess the most sensible and easiest way to train pilots would be to artificially assign orientation based on . Their capital ship, the planet etc. The big brain part would be command having to come up with plans on the fly that made the best out of that.

[@kenbrown2808]

@blackc1479 thing is, there's no real advantage to arbitrarily being at a different orientation than other vessels you are interacting with. There may be a strategic reason to have a different orientation in a firefight, and the best example of that is the falcon's quad mounts. Both of them have gravitational "down" oriented to the center of the ship.

[@_fungaem_6109]

I had always chalked it up to because the empire/republic designed cruisers need to protect their underbelly they would obviously orient themselves in a manner where the top of the ship would be the big thing the enemy ships would see.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Because the enemy would never attack from two vectors, right?

[@daanvos194]

​@@williamchamberlain2263no not when exiting a hyperlane

[@jefferydraper4019]

They would be oriented in a globular posture in a real space battle based on there current designs. Some would look upside down to others in order to provide the best protection from all angles. And it wouldnt matter to them due to artificial gravity.

[@vic5015]

Or they could just put weapons emplacements on the underside. Otherwise it's a glaring weakness and oversight. "Why not just attack from below" becomes a *very* reasonable question.

[@_fungaem_6109]

@vic5015 Hey I'm not the writer or designer of the way they write and script space battles I'm just trying to put thoughts out there, I understand it's obsurd 😂

[@serillen1904]

I guess a fitting in universe reason might be to make it easier for a fleet to maneuver together if theyre all in the same orientation. A command like turn to starboard is easier if starboard is the same direction for every ship in relation to each other.

[@dparky1627]

Maybe, but then couldn't you just make the star the point of reference? Everything above the plane of the ecliptic is "up" and everything below it is "down." Any direction toward the star is starward, or starboard, and any direction away from the star is port.

[@Cyn_likes_corpses]

​@@dparky1627yes but it's in a galaxy, you'd have to continuously change star depending on where you are which isn't very useful, and if you're in a system, the planets and sun(s) move so bruh

[@mnmnrt]

If you're in a system, your motion is measured relative to its star, so the star is stationary. If you're not in a system, you can measure your motion relative to the fixed stars (those stars which are sufficiently distant that they appear not to move relative to each other). Alternatively, you can measure your velocity relative to the local CMB, which is the same for everyone. In any fleet, there is always going to be a single highest-ranking ship (the capital ship). Since the ships have communication abilities, we can assume that every ship knows the location and orientation of every other ship. A fleet never maneuvers by just "turning to starboard" or whatever. Those kinds of maneuvers are for individual ships avoiding obstacles. The capital ship only needs to issue commands for moving from one location to another. With the capital ship as the point of origin, you only need three numbers to uniquely identify any point in three dimensional space : a horizontal heading, a vertical heading, and a range. Headings are measured using the capital ship's orientation. Wherever its bow is pointing is bearing ( 0 , 0 ). Thus, we have a convenient reason for the whole fleet to be oriented the same way as the capital ship. Of course, if a ship does get rotated out of alignment, as from damage or malfunction or whatever, you can easily calculate the difference - the capital ship just sends you your bearing relative to theirs. If you're 15 SB and 75 DI, you turn 15 PT and 75 CL. Roll can be corrected visually and doesn't matter for transiting; you roll your ship until the capital ship appears righted from your perspective.

[@dparky1627]

@@mnmnrt True, the flag ship would be the formation guide ship for the fleet. And if you're talking about a fleet that's separated by distance, even if that distance is only a few light seconds, the commander needs to be able to call manoeuvres while taking that time delay into account. You can use starboard, or port while giving general directions in a fleet manoeuvre. But individual ships will still have to make sure that they're out of the way of debris or other ships while following fleet commands. If you'll permit me to borrow a snippet from "The Lost Fleet: Relentless" by Jack Campbell, Captain Geary on the flag ship gave this kind of order: "Formation Indigo One, come right two zero degrees, up one five degrees at time zero six." The Alliance battle cruisers raised their bows slightly as they turned, sliding around to aim for an intercept of one side of the flailing Syndic flotilla. "Formation Indigo Two, come left two eight five degrees, up two one zero degrees at time zero eight." The battleships, now well below the Syndics, began turning upwards as the Alliance battle cruisers closed on the enemy again."

[@mnmnrt]

@dparky1627 The fleet isn't separated by light seconds.

[@kaspedkk]

Another argument is formation flying. If a fleet is travelling together it makes sense to have a common field of reference for commands and communication.

[@jefferydraper4019]

In a real space warship, the bridge would be at the center of the ship and resemble what we call the Combat Information Center in current warships. There would likely be two of them like David Weber talks about in many of his books with duplicate positions in case of damage. Weapons would be extendable in many cases and usable from many angles. I finally started watching The Expanse recently and am happy to see someone actually design space warships with a little common sense.

[@blackc1479]

I was gonna mention the expanse. Welcome to that universe, you're gonna love the attention to detail

[@jefferydraper4019]

@@blackc1479 So far I have only had a few points that I had a little "whoa...thats not logical science" with. Mostly deaing with gravity on stations. I know most of that is just its hard to reproduce actual microgravity environments. I do love the mag-boots usage, and the "clicking of your heels" to activate. Although I can see that being turned off by accident very easily.

[@blackc1479]

@jefferydraper4019 yeah, some of it had to be toned down just for filming, but they at least make an effort, like a shot where someone pours a drink, and you see them taking centrifugal gravity into the pour. Or one I didn't notice at first, whenever a PDC fires, it has a tiny retro thruster on the back of the gun to balance the force out. The books are able to take a lot more time to be accurate just because of the different format, obviously.

[@jefferydraper4019]

@@blackc1479 Yes I noticed both of those and was like..."Very cool." I was hoping they would have more hand weapons that looked like recoilless versions. I can see a possible market for those old gyro-jet type weapons in space.

[@InvictusMatrix]

​@@jefferydraper4019 Not sure where I heard this but bullets in the Expanse are made of materials that allow them to pierce flesh and armor but not the hulls of spacecraft, which prevents depressurization.

[@justagecko]

I remember seeing a few shots in Star Wars Squadrons where ISDs and other ships would appear "upside down" or in other orientations It looked a little silly, but it made sense and it forced me to be aware of my surroundings

[@mattcat83]

I like the idea that space in Star Wars is just radically different than space IRL despite the superficial similarities.

[@ninjalectualx]

"The enemy base is down"

[@Ken_Koonz]

A fellow person of culture!

[@djcollectors3249]

There it is

[@stevekerr8920]

All your base belong to us

[@robertmaniac]

First thing that pop in my mind. They had a similar dilema, how to orient themselves, and that's the solution they came with.

[@jefferydraper4019]

Enders Game as a short story was so much better than the whole book or the movie. Read the original short story published in There Will be War.

[@bluehero-96]

Darth Nihilus is basically living robes and armor, eating the Force out of everything until it's gone, typically killing everything left in his wake.

[@Wastelandman7000]

As I said in my comment, he's a Force vampire.

[@fatenabu1]

Someone told me, much like Star Trek, they don't. Instead our cameras are just positioned to where they look like they are up and they face the same direction for consistency and the same form of artificial gravity as other ships in their galaxy.

[@Quintus_Fontane]

I always assumed that systems with regular space traffic would broadcast a standardized XYZ axis system-wide so that said traffic could orient appropriately for stations and such, and that the flagship of fleets would do the same for the accompanying ships to coordinate the formation, but I suppose psychological reasons work too 😅

[@Wolters1867]

It's been my working space theory that space ships orient themselves with an "up" and "down" when near stars because of two reasons. The top gathers energy from the nearest star (like solar power)... the bottom is where all the cooling dumps are. Being a ship in space generates a ton of excess heat energy that needs to be vented or radiated, hence the need for cooling. It would be cheaper to dedicate one side each to gathering energy and one to do the cooling. Just a thought. LOL.

[@KoneSkirata]

I will accept this as my headcanon now.

[@196cupcake]

1) Having the same orientation makes it easier to give "carrier strike group" number of ships maneuver commands, and do it quickly. "Go left" is easier. 2) I think it would look cool if some were "upside down." You'd want ventral / belly sides pointed together, tops pointed out, so that fighters entering and leaving the hanger are safer, and so that you have guns pointed in all directions. "Circle the wagons" sort of thing. 3) Why even have them pointy? IMO, pointy lets you point all guns in a specific direction. If doing a planetary bombardment, the pointy end should always be pointed towards the surface of the planet.

[@Talon1124]

Kinda like how the Outbound Flight was arranged? A big torus of Dreadnought cruisers surrounding a central cargo spire?

[@goldenhorde6944]

Just use the nearest star's orbital plane as a reference. North and South for perpendicular, retro and antero for the direction of the orbit, and in and out for distance from the star.

[@blackc1479]

You just nailed the majority of what I was going to point out too. Worth noting too, as far as I recall, the only time somebody tried something like that was flipping a ship on its side to shield fighters being launched. (Iirc they were going up against thrawn, and it didn't turn out well) Which like noted, should be SOP.

[@ChristopherHueskes-kj6dt]

I always chalked it up to ships being in formation. Like a battle between groups of airplanes. The planes would keep formation until engaged in battle

[@Wastelandman7000]

Well, think heavy bombers in WWII. They had gun emplacements for self defense. Their formation was to give overlapping fields of fire without endangering their own force. A consistent formation minimizes friendly fire incidents.

[@Molfra]

Day thirty two of asking Eck my question: #AskEck Why do you think the pirates kept grogu, there was quite obviously a bounty on him considering all the hunters with tracking fobes and I doubt they wouldn't have known about it, so we're actually protecting him. My theory is that after he was saved after the purge, so senator or rebel group hired these pirates to protect him, but was eventually captured by the empire or forgot about grogu, (why he was never given to the new republic after the war), and the pirates not knowing he was a jedi just kept and raised him till mando showed up, killed them and stole their kid.

[@SunnyBunnyAcres]

Orson Scott Card handled battle orientation exploitation wonderfully in Ender's Game with the Battle Room scenes. "The enemy's gate is DOWN!"

[@HistorysRaven]

If anyone is interested, 120 kilometers is slightly more than 74.5 miles. To give this a real world reference, the 16" guns on the USS South Dakota, in service between 1941 and 1956, had a maximum range of just under 23 miles.

[@marrqi7wini54]

That's interesting to know. Though I suspect with us, during WW2, our propellant for ship based gun munitions was on the primitive side than what we have and you must deal with things such as manual firing with analog computation, gravity, visual diffraction due to the atmosphere, and a curvature of the earth. That 75mi + could be done today by missiles and it is realistic or at least, theoretically possible to do it with dumber munitions like rocket propelled rounds or (if this ever works), rail/coil slugs.

[@PaulCashman]

In Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's brilliant novel "The Mote In God's Eye," one way the aliens were shown to be VERY different from humans was that they did NOT orient their ships the same way, but the humans oriented their ships on the same plane. That was nifty.

[@otminealnamer1385]

I think the orientation could be rationalized a few ways: 1)coordination. It is tremendously easier to coordinate a fleet when they are all in a coherent formation, and angles of azimuth can be directed much more efficiently, so you don't end up with "your left, or my left?" type confusion. 2)In the event other ships do attack from odd angles, the defending ship can always just orient itself to face elsewhere, rendering it kind of a moot advantage for any pitched battle. 3)Hyperlanes. Hyperlanes tend to dictate where ships exit hyperspace in systems, so these hyperlanes could very well dictate which facing(but not necessarily rotation) ships have. Defensive space stations are often placed in the path of hyperlane exits, so it stands to reason there is a generally predictable way ships will appear in a system. 4)Early era standardization becoming tradition. Epochs of civilization in SW are thousands of years long compared to our mere hundreds in the real world, meaning even if there is no true reason why ships orient themselves in such a way in the present, there was a past reason why they did so, and that reason led to ship development which capitalized on/enforced the rationale, which perpetuates the cycle. 5)The nature of space in SW itself. Space in SW is already a bit different than the way it is in reality, so there could be a physics reason why ships in a given system or part of space tend to orient themselves in the same ways. It could very well be force-related as well, tied to the sun and planets of a system determining the strongest way to orient larger starships, where operating outside of this makes certain ship capabilities weaker. There's a number of reasons why ships might orient themselves in the 'cooler' fashion they do in SW. There's just no hard "yeah, that's the one" answer provided yet.

[@notsalty001]

In Star Wars my personal justification is that their space physics are much different than our universe, more like a giant ocean maybe.

[@Wastelandman7000]

Ether to use the old school sci-fi term? If you go back to the 40's-50's that concept came up a lot. I first ran into it in EE "Doc" Smith's Lensman series.

[@InvictusMatrix]

One of the thrawn books mentions "etheric rudders", which could explain why they turn like they're in an atmosphere. We could go further and say that this ether is contained to their galaxy by the galactic/hyperspace barrier, which allows it to still take place in our universe.

[@forgottenfamily]

While it doesn't matter when you're in deep space, it's worth mentioning that Halo books discuss gravity wells a lot - ie: they spend most of their time not thinking in terms of cartesian coordinates but rather relative to the local gravity well. Interesting to think about....

[@valdotorg]

I think the in lore explanation aligns well with the reasoning that Jedi and Sith don’t pull dirty tricks with turning lightsabers on and off during combat to sneak in a hit. What we’re seeing is a galactic civilization that appears to stand on certain unspoken conventions and traditions, regardless of what side of a conflict someone is on.

[@blackc1479]

I can see it, but it's also rather amusing that the sith would stand on ANY principle or convention.

[@dive107]

#AskEck Sometimes the difference in technology in Star Wars between the various time periods isn't always obvious, particularly with ships. How would some of the famous ships from the past fare against an Imperial Star Destroyer, or a 'modern' ship closer to their size?

[@jagd7102]

From what I can tell. It Depends on the era. Basically the issue was that tech progressed normally from the time of the hyperspace wars onwards, by the time of the great galatic war tech was on par with or slightly ahead of galatic civil war era tech. But then the new Sith wars happened, and the galaxy entered what was essentially a thousand year dark age where galatic civilization collapsed. This degraded technology to such a degree that by the time of Russan things had almost slid back closer to Hyperspace War era tech. In the thousand years of peace things stabilized back to the level we see in the films, but also stagnated due to the lack of conflict. Until the clone wars reignited things.

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

I think seeing V-Wing vs TIE, Z-95 vs X-Wing, or even Clone Wars Y-Wing vs Galactic Civil War Y-Wing comparisons would be really interesting

[@jagd7102]

@@newsaxonyproductions7871 that's not really a different era lol

[@sikliztailbunch]

my guess at the start of the clip: It is because a 2D tactical map is easier to read and strategies tactics on a plane are easier to plan and execute. Also staying mostly on a plane is also easier to navigate. But maybe it is just an esthetic reason. It look more organized and impressive and hence, more intimidating to the enemy.

[@zhop951]

An explanation from the Bread Circus I really like is that: - Allied ships like to stay in formation, and thus use the same up and down - They need an objective reference point, which could be: - The Planet below - The Poles of a planet - The average orbit of the planets around a given star - The Galaxy's orbital plane - In addition to this, their enemies use the same objective reference points, thus all ships have the same up and down

[@KoneSkirata]

That's a very good one.

[@Wastelandman7000]

I always figured the ships positioned in formations it was a matter of convenience for docking. If you look at the ship design the artificial gravity is consistently oriented in a downward pull from the top decks to the "keel". If you dock and your deck is on level with the other ship's ceiling coming on board will be....a problem. And if you're boarding in combat jumping off your ship's deck and falling 6'+ to the other ship's deck because you're oriented weird is less than optimal. And you have the same issue if you're trying to evac personnel from a stricken ship. Having your wounded suddenly fall the height of the boarding tube is counter productive.

[@Anonymous_glitch]

I have always been curious about this because it doesn't make sense entirely until you look into it more. It, but I feel like it could also be a legitimate safety thing as stated. But as you also said, the bottom and the top of destroyers and other vessels typically have a difference. Our bottoms tend to be more flat and can carry more weapons when it comes to Anti ship rolls. So if you were to flip imperial star destroyer on its bottom, and it to could completely destroy a rebel ship, and I only say this, because imperial star destroyers could this completely destroy cities just from there are heavy guns on the bottom. So I think this makes it more even proportionally when it comes to capital ship to capital ship, not really about smaller starships

[@erikgilson1687]

It's actually a good explanation cause when I'd play Tie Fighter it was always a little disorienting playing upside down or sideways vs how other ships were flying

[@GojiraGekirinVA]

#AskEck Do blaster rifles like E-11s come with full auto then why isn’t it used in the movies?

[@Lightning_Fox]

Full-auto has you lose a lot of accuracy, so I would assume that is most of the reason. Also blasters tend to overheat like the other reply says

[@347Jimmy]

The only full-auto blasters we've seen in the movies were the one in Rogue One (which came with a whole backpack) and the little blaster turret that pops out of the bottom of the Falcon And only one of those was man-portable It's fair to assume that blasters like the E-11 simply don't have full auto 🤷🏻‍♂️ or we'd see it used

[@Lightning_Fox]

@@347Jimmy If that Falcon one counts then a lot of starfighter and ship ones would be included right?

[@347Jimmy]

@Lightning_Fox I was only really considering the Falcon one because it looks about the same size/similar design to an E-WEB, which is usable by a crew (as an illustration of it not being man-portable) But yeah, the guns on X-wings and even the quad turrets on the top and bottom of the Falcon do full auto If I recall correctly, full auto in SW blaster context gets labelled as "repeating blasters", yeah that's very different to the real-world historical meaning of repeating firearms (but oh well) My real point was that "repeating"/full auto blasters always seem to be big honking weapons PS- there was also that wicked 6-barreled rotary blaster that Heavy used in the Clone Wars cartoon, another BFG

[@justagecko]

I think I remember reading that it would drain both the blaster's gas (the ammo) and its power pack (which is much more time-consuming to reload)

[@NotPomfe]

#AskEck What's the most profitable *legal* profession in the star wars universe that wasn't working for the government?

[@lpg12338]

Probably “Weapons Dealer”.

[@Strideo1]

The most profitable legal profession is being a lawyer, duh!

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

Probably a corporate overlord

[@captainfreedom3649]

Intergalactic banking clan member

[@robertnelson9599]

The designer of those Gonk droids, they're everywhere.

[@Zixor_]

This explanation for 2D ship orientation seemed silly to me at first but I think it actually works if you think of it as an in-universe skill issue. The most elite fighter pilots and captains have overcome the disorientation factor of 3D combat and can use it against less spatially aware opponents. In the Stackpole x-wing novels there are quite a few battles where 3D orientation matters like capital ships rolling to preserve shield integrity.

[@NovaScotiaMicrodrones]

#AskEck Why did the Rebels bring all their capital ships to the Battle of Endor? They thought the superlaser nonfunctional and planned to destroy it by sending starfighters into the unfinished structure. Why bring big ships? Love the Katamari Damacy music outro in your recent vid!

[@Discount_Jesus]

They actually didn’t bring every capital ship they had, if I remember correctly Eck even already has a video about this somewhere

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

Such a good point fr

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

​@@Discount_JesusI know they didn't bring every couple ship they had, but the presence of them at all is interesting. Maybe it was to fight the few Star Destroyers they figured would be there to defend the supposedly nonfunctional DS2?

[@ahaloburnout]

Either that or if the super laser and shield were down then they may have been able to bombard through the open construction. The most pragmatic answer though is that they were there to stall reinforcements.

[@DisFantasy]

The attack was as much about the Emperor as it was about the Death Star. The larger ships were to form a blockade to thwart any attempt to escape it's destruction.

[@benjaminepstein5856]

Really digging the wildcard outro music

[@carlosdgutierrez6570]

I would argue that it is relatively easy to devide "up", just use either the nearest planet to decide where down is, and orient yourselves in a way that the ship's belly is towards the planetsry surface or use the plane of the solar system in which you are located, yeah that would have as consequence that the enemy might be upside down but that woudl still be easier than just poping at random directions. All that would be useful because as beings who evolved on the surface of planets where there is an up and down, it would be harder for any other sapient species to deal with 3D combat without defining a clear coordinate system witout defined X, Y and Z axis.

[@panderbander8916]

The orientation thing was a big problem for me when I first started playing Elite Dangerous but it wasn't long before I got comfortable with the fact that orientation really doesn't matter in a 3D space with minimal gravity

[@kevmccarthy8311]

They are in planetary systems which have a plane. The “standard” would be to match that plane for navigation purposes. So it’s not weird that they appear like that at first It’s weird that they stay like that

[@GrandInfernoElite]

Ships in a single fleet will orient themselves to the flagship to make directions easier give. With every ship facing the same way, it's easy to say portside. But if ships are facing every which way, port will have to be specified to each ship

[@adamantu]

Well, in Star Wars Legends there are some occasions in battles where Mon Cala Ships "roll", most noticeably in "X-Wing: Iron Fist" where the Mon Remonda is put in the flightpath of the Iron Fist and starts rolling to disperse the damage to shields and weapons. We just rarley see it in TV or movie Star Wars because we mostly get larger fleets and not those small scale battles like in the X-Wing series books where you get an ISD II and a Dreadnought Class cruiser vs an 2 ISD IIs and a Victory, or an SSD vs two ISDs, some freighters and a alderaanian Thranta-class war cruiser,, or a one-one one between the Mon Cal Mon Remonda and the SSD Iron fist. I think visually you could derive from having the ships face up in smaller engagements, but with the big fleets usually portrayed in Star Wars (but you get the same in Star Trek and Babylon 5 to a degree as well) it gets confusing to the audience if there is no clear indication of a 2D battlefield plane

[@TheMaskedArcanum]

Surface area minimization, glancing blows are easier when you point in a way that makes your armor angled towards the enemy.

[@NWR_astrotrain]

I’ve always figured that because the galaxy has a agreed upon compass that they would have “elevation” within the thickness of the galaxy and that there is an agreed top and bottom of the galaxy

[@sikliztailbunch]

Lasers losing effectiviveness over distance is quite realistic. It is basically impossible to create entirely parallel laser beams. We can approximate a perfectly straight beam but eventually over distance it will spread. Even the best lasers we have spread over miles when pointed only at the moon. The moon is further away than 120 miles but to lose effective power a laser point only has to get 50% bigger in radius since the effective area is getting bigger exponentially squared. And even if we consider, the fact that all "lasers" in star wars that are moving at a significantly slower speed as light are in fact plasma blasters, the dissipation of a plasma bolt is even much stronger over distance. How these are even able to fly straight is obviously star wars universe exclusive physics.

[@Jedi_Spartan]

3:39 I wonder if - in universe - that was an intentional decision during the development of space combat out of a concern of 'collateral damage' to prevent shots from Starfighters or Capital Ships that miss from just continuing through space forever and becoming a danger to random ships decades or centuries later (no matter how unlikely such a thing would be to happen). Although it's more likely just a limitation of the technology that couldn't be moved beyond...

[@Wastelandman7000]

That would only be true for torpedoes or missiles. (which should have self destruct modes if they don't hit the selected target) Plasma (blaster) and laser fire won't travel forever. The beams will eventually spread out so much you wouldn't even notice if you flew through them. This is called beam scattering. I think Space Dock gives a good explanation of this. I'll try and give you my bad explanation. Basically both blasters and lasers are "compressed" into coherent beams/bolts in the weapon. After the beam/bolt leaves the weapon the light or plasma has nothing to hold it together and the particles tend to push away from each other. This is why blasters and lasers have limited range. And why Starkiller base annoys me so much. At least the Death Stars were in the same system as what they were destroying. I still have no clear idea how Starkiller functioned destroying planets LIGHT YEARS away.. Its a glaring consistency problem for me that pushed me right out of the franchise. I still love the originals and I'm OK with the prequels. But that and their shenanigans with Hyperspace are a bridge too far.

[@bluehero-96]

I always thought that for the sake of simplicity, most planets in Star Wars shared similar polar axis, and North was officially and universally accepted as "up."

[@matt1178]

Hey man congrats on 1 mil subs!🎉🥳🎊

[@steverobertson1729]

This is something that just blows me away about the Universe, that it goes infinitely in ALL directions. In space there is no "up" or "down" because theres usually no reference point to judge anything by.

[@ryanedgerton9664]

There's actually a very good reason why most ship travel would lead to relatively same "up" facings, and that's the galactic disc itself and mapping of it. Yes, space is vast and three dimensional, but our understanding of such things always leans towards 2D because reference maps will generally be viewed "flat", even when 3D holoprojectors are available. Because the SW galaxy (like out galaxy) is vastly more "wide" and "long" than it is "tall", it's reasonable that travel would predominantly follow the X or Y axis instead of the Z axis -- that is, if you're travelling from one solar system to another you will *mostly* be moving "along" the plane of the galaxy, not above or below it. Again, yes, I know that "vertical" distances in galactic space are still huge when compared to even the largest starships SW has to offer. Doesn't change the fact that most inter-system travel is going to be "flat" to the galactic plane, and -- this bit is important -- the orientation of most ships to that plane is likely to align with the orientation of the most widely distributed maps. That's just psychology. TLDR: logically, ships face "up" in space because the galaxy is a disk and map-makers will follow each others' precedent.

[@DasVadderr]

The SW galaxy is inhabited by intelligent beings. They managed to install a currency across most of the known regions, they managed to create a language that is called "Basic" for a reason. If there wasn´t this short passage in the book, we could assume that it´s simply a galaxy-wide agreement where "up" is. The galaxy is roughly a disc so the "up" and "down" can always be idetified in relation to the direction of the galaxy´s rotation. It´s essential to have such standards if you want to have a well coordinated system of traffic. It´s the same agreement that we humans have regarding where north, south, west and east are. A simple naming convention to prevent miscommunication that is shared by everybody across all religious, social, ethnic or ideological groups. A galactic standard regarding up and down also helps to assign every planet a standard north/south.

[@DarkLorde]

I always thought that when a fleet of ships were initially coming together that they might be in all sorts of orientations but take on the orientation of whatever ship was the flagship of that fleet. It only makes sense to my mind that the guy in charge would have the say in which direction the fleet faces.

[@johnb3587]

I would think we just assign an “up” so we have a point of reference that we can rely on, like in Ender’s game “the enemy’s gate is down” and all that

[@Eagledelta3]

@EchhartsLadder - it's really important to note that as a Laser or Particle beam travels they will inevitably spread out more and more over time. This would increase the surface of what it can it, but also weakens significantly. So, there is a real-world scientific reason for Energy Weapon ranges. In all likelihood, missiles and projectiles would have a longer range than energy weapons without a massive power source to maintain beam intensity over distance. Granted random gravitational effects and anomalies can affect unguided projectiles. So, realistically, missiles should have the longest range (though also most easily detectable and, thus, defended against)

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

Like you say in the end of your comment, a big issue with missiles is that they can be detected and dodged by the time they reach their target, so to send one effectively, you would have to send it through hyperspace, but then at that point, I think the reasoning is that "why wouldn't you just send a bomber?"

[@michaelevans7464]

I like the lore answer to the ship orientation question but I think you missed the most basic answer, navigation. To navigate one needs proper coordinates . to have proper coordinates in a 3d space there must be a reference point. I've never seen it explained in lore but it is implied. All maps and navigation routes are standardized meaning there is an "Up" and a "North" to properly orient your ship. I've seen this addressed in other sci-fi but it seems to be the best explanation.

[@notsorrybricksanimationstu4917]

#AskEck Could you do a Galactic Versus of the Eternal Empire vs the Imperium of Man. I think it is one of the few factions in Star Wars that might be able to match some of what the IOM has.

[@Ham_Strokers_Ejacula]

It also provides a smaller target. The front/sides have a smaller cross section vs the top/bottom.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

That's fine, but you can get the same 'smallest target' if the ship is rotated on its fore-to-aft axis to any angle from "horizontal".

[@williamchamberlain2263]

That's daft : the enemy aren't going to attack from two angles?

[@scooble]

As shown on Revenge of the Sith, if a ship tips down, all the passengers slide to one end

[@matthewjay660]

Eck, it flummoxes me how capital ships DON'T ROTATE on their roll axis to present stronger shields to the enemy and to give weakened shields a chance to recharge. 🛡️

[@selenefrost6267]

I always assumed it was to maintain visual contact and relative vectors for easy communication and maneuvering, and to cut out glare when near planets

[@MrDbmcknight]

What naval commanders in lore could defeat Thrawn? He’s brilliant, but who else was in his league?

[@marrqi7wini54]

Another good question would be how good is Thrawn in comparison to other sci-fi commanders throughout media?

[@grandmyotismon]

Wasnt the death star upside down above jeddah?

[@Anchstyle907]

In my head cannon, ships face each other in the same 2D direction for defensive purposes. They position to have a certain part of a ship towards the threat where less critical equipment are placed, while more critical equipment, like engines or life support systems, away from a threat. In a scenario where combat is about to happen, it is similar to a medieval battle with a shield holders turn to face the oncoming enemy. Large ships are the shield wall while small fighters are the thrown projectiles like arrows, spears, slingshots and ballistas.

[@teemusid]

I'm not making fun of your comment, because auto-correct is both wonderful and terrible. However, 'head cannon' sent my brain off in a literal direction, and I will now refer to my nose as my head cannon.

[@Anchstyle907]

@@teemusid oh my, I didn’t even notice. Haha I was deep into my thoughts about ships, guns, blasters and battles to see the typo. I will do the same also, my nose will be a head cannon with an equipped green dual turbolaser.

[@Wastelandman7000]

As for Darth Nihilus, my best analog is a vampire. He lives by sucking the Force out of others. He's just a hungry hungry Dracula only he skips blood and goes straight for the life force.

[@usg1862]

I noticed he has changed the intro and outro music, but I didn't see a post as to why. Is Eck having false copyright claims again?

[@Adverbal27]

#AskEck who do you think would be a better commander in chief for a campaign to conquer the galaxy, Thrawn with his unmatched tactical capabilities and pure logic or Revan with his charisma, will to fight and win, and the force?

[@nope1918]

Having a range on "laser" weapons makes sense. Lasers need to be focused to hit something, and would naturally become less focused the further away a target is. As for ballistic weapons, it also makes sense that they would have a maximum range. An "effective maximum" that is, since projectiles take time to travel, so assuming the target knew it was being fired at it could just move out of the way if it had adequate time to do so. Which also applies to star wars "lasers" since they do not travel at the speed of light for some reason. So yeah, it does actually make sense why the ships don't start firing at each other until they are close enough. Even the slowest ships could change course and avoid the incoming fire if they are far enough away.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

No it doesn't - if the lasers are diverging then the energy will drop as some proportion of distance squared, so 50km will be 1/4 the energy density of 25km - it'll just fall off. A fixed distance is just lazy writing. Consider tank guns: their maximum effective range is huge, but armor penetration _falls off_ over lower distances. _But_ it depends on the target - against a heavy tank a gun might only be 50% chance of penetration at 300m vs 100mm armor, but 50% chance at 500m vs 75mm armor, and be able to take a self-propelled gun's splinter shielding at 1200m.

[@_Fulgur_]

Pretty sure darth nihilus was a force ghost by the time of his death but much like how darth sion used the dark side to keep his decaying body intact, nihilus also imbued his armor and equipment to keep himself(as a force ghost) tethered to the living

[@runakovacs4759]

Nihilus isn't actually defeated by conventional means. He was defeated by being baited into draining Meetra Surik and having Visas nearby to make him vulnerable. He was kinda beaten like you'd beat a lich.

[@mace1234]

it would definitely be advantageous to arrange your ships so that you reduce your cross-sectional area! if you broadside your ship, you make a bigger target

[@mace1234]

yeah lasers (if we’re considering gaussian beams) would lose coherence, similar issues with a plasma at nonzero temperature. i think maybe physical slugs just aren’t popular in star wars

[@Ukrainadian]

I assume there is some intergalactic consensus base coordinates that large ship pilots input to orient themselves “optimally”, especially when you come out of hyperspace and need to get to port.

[@ShawnHCorey]

Dark Force users do not become Force ghosts. But they can place their thoughts in physical objects that can influence other Force users. These objects do not think for themselves. But when a Force user interacts with them, it is the Force user that is doing the thinking, to understand the captured thoughts contained within.

[@ProductivityAccount-wl3ik]

In my headcanon most Star Wars ships can’t be “orbiting”. They gotta be just hovering very high above the ground. They already possess this capability and it’s tbe only way you could have things like bombers work. Orbital space battles are very interesting and are way different than normal air combat or naval combat, fought at engagement ranges of thousands or even millions of kilometers, with the immense kinetic energy involved meaning that you don’t really need to add velocity to your slug weapons, you can just use the inclination or velocity difference in your orbits to do most of the work, and primarily focus on accuracy

[@foxtrotx-ray5283]

Most sentient life forms evolved on planets... Up/down are the way we THINK. Ask yourself where the enemy fighter is, and your mind will perceive the location in terms of up and down. (And left & Right, of course) First. It's either set in common doctrine, instinct, or just something programmed into the shops' systems for convenience. Or a combination of the above.

[@kjodleken8810]

Yes, but on a planet we all have the same up/down because of gravity. Gravity in space is minimal, so that baseline is no longer a thing. It's up to each ship to determine their up/down. That's the point of the question. (And it's a good one, because even in submarine warfare, up/down is still a factor.)

[@Elangelexterminador666]

Me, 0.7 seconds after reading the title: "They didn't do that on the battle of Endor..."

[@Salamandra40k]

It would make sense to orient starships CLOSE to planets as "up" where the planet is directly beneath them. Further away from planets, it would make sense to have ship-based scanners or systems whereby they can auto-detect which way is aligned with the orbital plane of the specific systems planets you're in. Most star systems do have a "flat" orbital plane, due to the nature of planet formation. FAR away from planets or systems even, you could have ship-based scanners or auto-detection systems to orient your ship with the galactic plane- here in real life we have a relatively flat galaxy and have mapped a "north" and "south" to the milky way. Its saying that all these kinds of orientation guides could be implemented rather easily and based on a very logical system

[@gergofordospecs7475]

"We're evacuating into outer space ,with litterally infinite diretions in which to flee. However, we have decided that our tansports will traveld directy toward the fleet of Star Destroyers " - Leia(Lois) , Something, Something, Something, Dark Side

[@wilcovanwinden6581]

There is a scene in one of the Legends novels, i don't remember which right now but i think it's one of the X-wing ones, where a female admiral asks her bridge crew to roll her ship.

[@theindooroutdoorsman]

Nihilus was just energy. He poured his essence into his mask and uses the force to hold the mask and robes in the form of a body.

[@tyson31415]

Star wars replicates the "Age of Sail" where ships came along side to use a "broadside" because all of their guns where (like on a Star Destroyer) lined up in the side of the hull. Then they would try to board the other ship with literal sabres. Where do you think "Light Sabre" came from!?

[@supertec2023]

Because that's the way the special effects artists set up😊😊😊😊😊

[@ktwei]

But I'm not ever gonna know if I'm right or wrong Cause we're all going in the same direction And I'm not sure which way to go Because all along, we've been going in the same direction

[@jediknight8886]

#AskEck You should cover the recent UFO congressional hearing that happened on the 13th, I quite enjoyed the last video that you did on the Grusch hearing from last year and would be interested to see you cover any further hearings!

[@IdleLancer]

I always thought it was kind of a set glactic transponder. Kind of like how we know North because the North Star is always above it. If you have to calculate hyperspace routes you have to know where you are, where you are going and the relation to hyperspace equivalent of 0,0,0. Then choose one axis to be up and set that a a glactic starndard.

[@SephirothRyu]

Didn't we already do this one?

[@Anonymous_glitch]

I completely forgot to add my clear 2 cents on darth nilus. Things I have read and from the games I have played. he practically relies on his cloak and his mask to keep his actual form. Like without them he essentially is nothing, because he has completely destroyed his body. It's like if some species was made of only gas and they needed something to contain their form similar to a gas tank. Even though he is not able to pass through solid objects, he is just energy that is stored within things he wears. It's like why a Gen'Dai where is armor, while it is theoretically impossible, if they do it right, they can keep a humanoid form, it's not really likely. I think that because he has absorbed so much energy and ruined his body. Like other sif, he has inhabited the physical objects of what he wore, like a possession of a ghost, he is forever bound to these objects, and when they are separated from each other, he can no longer be.

[@Cthulhu357]

I always assumed ships tap into magnetic fields of near by planets to give them a sense of orientation when it comes to up and down

[@jacksonbrummett2074]

#AskEck I’ve had this question about Galen Marek, I’ve heard people say that it the books he’s around obi wan scale. Does this mean he’s ep4 obi wan level and in saying that, is obi wan more powerful than what we are led to believe?

[@FinrodFelagundTheFair]

"Been doing KZbin for how long, and I can't nail an intro." Justin, my brother, that wasn't an Intro, that was supposed to be the outro...

[@jimtilley1158]

because the galactic plane established an up and down for navigational reasons. Ships sensors detect each other at great ranges, so it makes sense that ships approach each other at their optimum angle of attack, defense. So normally ships meet face to face. on the same plane as each other. There is also a reason why ships "sink" in Star Wars too. but that's a different question. :)

[@karlmueller1980]

From my understanding, Darth Nilus is much like a force wrath or force leach. He drains off and feeds off of force energy from living beings and people and things.

[@CivilMind117]

I feel like there was a scene in one of the films where a star destroyer was seen “upside down” relative to the other ships around it, but for the life of me I cannot remember which movie 😅

[@plutoidrepublic2765]

Howabout "Why do star wars ships not orbit planets why waste energy sitting still under gravity"

[@Cthulhu357]

Lol ik this might sound weird.. but im high listening to the nihilus discussion and i instantly think about how his body is almost like reapers body from ow2 but more unstable with a mix of gale from bg3 and the netherese orb inside him

[@343bungie]

Thank you so much for answering my question!!!!

[@QuentinStephens]

We only really see ships near planets, in which case they are in the planet's exosphere, where there is still a very tenuous atmosphere - given the density of the so-called asteroid belts I recast them as planetary rings.

[@pavelmarchand9458]

I am surprised that no one is talking about Star Wars visions 3 been announced for 2025. I am not sure if there hasn’t been a proper announcement but the fact I check my anime list for news it was announced on Nov 19 that it was premiere on 2025

[@lordMartiya]

I thought the range was a result of the weapons not being lightspeed, thus ships being unable to hit a moving target over a certain distance.

[@itsLeels]

#AskEck During the Clone Wars (if I remember right) The Acclamator was an assault vehicle to move thousands of troops. Pretty much almost like a Core Ship. Wasn’t it supposed to be a heavy brawler too with good armor? But in every case the Republic uses the Venator. Why? 😵‍💫

[@kart4413]

In rotj, a tector class star destroyer was “upside down”