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some kind of a moodboard

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for those special people in your life this valentine’s day

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When is the Force in Balance?

So, I had a thought while studying perturbation theory for my physics exam.

The Force in Balance is often understood as the light side and dark side being equally strong like two people of equal strength pulling on a rope.

But since the existence of the a lot of light and dark side users at the same time or even only/mostly dark side users always seems to lead to conflict and war (read: chaos, the opposite of balance), how can that be the Force in Balance? The Jedi dont wage war when the dark side isn’t strong, they actively try to stop wars and conflicts. The Force is generated by life, so it should try to preserve life, right?

To me, it makes a lot more sense that the Force in Balance means that the galaxy is (mostly) at peace meaning the light side is stronger. Imagine a taut string as the balance of the Force. The dark side getting stronger causes the string to vibrate, perturbing the balance, while the Light tries to pull the string taut again. The light side “slacking off”, like the Jedi Order did after a thousand years of peace before the Prequels, makes it easier for the string to vibrate and big conflicts like the Clone Wars to happen.

When the dark side becomes as strong as it did with Palpatine and the vibrations of the string causes massive wounds in the Force, like the destruction of planets, the Force tries to help the Light to rebalance the string by spawning strong force sensitives like Anakin (and later Luke and Leia since Anakin didn’t really work out initially).

Tell me what you think about it.

@stardreamed, @gffa, @maptowhereialreadyam, @okadiah

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The TX-130 fighter tank was an impressive piece of technology made by Rothana Heavy Engineering that could have languished as a piece of Clone Wars and Jedi trivia. However, the same things that made the tank a favorite of the Jedi, combined with the success of the hot rodding, starfighter-first doctrine of many cells the Rebel Alliance, mean that the craft is finding its way back into the scopes of savvy Rebels and military technology enthusiasts.

A product of Rothana Heavy Engineering alongside the more famous AT-TE, LAAT/i and SPHA-T, the TX-130 was often referred to as the Jedi starfighter of the ground, and for good reason. The craft’s powerful repulsorlifts and shield generators lent it to agile, hit-and-run tactics similar to Delta-7 and Eta-2 starfighters, and the craft was also often operated by Jedi with an astromech droid for support, the two doing the job of three clone troopers in its standard deployment. The craft’s speed allowed a Jedi to cross battlefields to flashpoints quickly, and the sturdy shields and armor provided for many occasions where a tank could drop in as both weapons support and cover in infantry battles, allowing clone troopers to advance.

Like many Clone Wars era weapons, the TX-130 was a victim of its success. Once the Clone Wars ended, the Jedi Order was abolished, and the New Order was declared, the Empire no longer needed anti-armor craft designed for elite drivers with impossible reflexes; it needed durable craft for less specialized soldiers that could hold ground, rather than take it. Furthermore, the Empire’s new enemies exercised more guerrilla tactics, including improvised explosives and land mines that were capable of knocking repulsorcraft out of commission easily and cheaply. Instead, walkers with more durable, easy-to-repair systems like the AT-DP, AT-ST, and AT-AT came to the forefront of Imperial military doctrine.

Rebel Alliance tactics, however, more closely resemble the heroics of the Jedi than the swarm tactics of the Empire. TX-130s can still be found in junkyards, abandoned battlefields, and occasionally underfunded Imperial garrisons on the Outer Rim, and some Rebel commanders have put them to good use. The agility, durability, and astromech compatibility of the TX-130 mean that it has become a favorite of some Rebel starfighter pilots when they are called upon to provide ground vehicle support. While the missile launchers on the TX-130 are downright primitive compared to more modern military tech, at least one Rebel group has had success replacing them with modern starfighter concussion missile launchers. This heavy ordinance, combined with the tank’s maneuverability, have effectively made these modified TX-130s into shock cavalry, capable of flanking heavier, slower Imperial walkers and inflicting incredible damage, then retreating swiftly, or circling back for another salvo.

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The Rz-1 A-Wing Interceptor gained most of its fame, somewhat grimly, by crashing - the hull of Green Leader Arvel Crynyd’s ship tearing through the bridge of the Executor and leading to that ship’s destruction during the Battle of Endor. The kinds of A-Wings that gained this fame, the modified Rebel Alliance variants, have become famous for their borderline irresponsible straight-line speed, extremely limited pilot protection, and suicidally daring pilots. 

It’s hard for those that don’t know the history of the craft to picture, then, previous models of the ship as responsible, protective, and well rounded dogfighting craft, but the ships that rolled off the lines of Kuat Systems Engineering were exactly that. Inspired by the shape of the Delta-7 Aethersprite used by Jedi pilots years before, the Rz-1 was a competent, capable craft easily the match of Incom/Subpro’s Z-95 headhunter, while also being faster than previous generation ships. It was only after Rebel Alliance technicians would strip down the craft’s armor, lighten its weapons, and thin its shields that the A-Wing would gain its reputation as a lightning-fast death trap. 

Our view on the ships is colored by time. With the most fame coming to the modified variant of the craft used in the Battle of Endor, it’s easy to overlook the role the Rz-1 played in history, primarily as the starfighter of choice for Jun Sato’s resistance. While casualties for pilots there were high, that can be attributed to a lack of properly trained pilots. Whereas today we tend to think of the A-Wing as the lighter, faster counterpart to the ‘standard’ T-65 X-Wing, due to its deployment as such at Endor, the fact is that many Rebel cells did not have access to Incom’s ships, and the A-Wing served with distinction for many groups as their primary, well-rounded starfighter. 

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Ask a twelve year old Corellian child about Viridian Justice, and ask a career criminal in Coronet City about Viridian Justice, and you're likely to get two very different answers. 

Children are likely familiar with the varied pieces of media based on the adventures of the actress-by-day, vigilante-by-night named Kella Kando. Smart, rich, and occasionally seductive, the masked heroine is a constant force battling petty criminals and scheming villains across a fictionalized Corellia. Kids grow up loving the action on the page and on the holos. Adult fans may point out, in quiet tones, the subversive nature of the graphic serials and novels. They reason that since that material grabs less galactic attention than the animated series, it's free to depict more controversial subjects: corrupt Imperials, lack of faith in authority, and depictions of art so potentially subversive that fans still argue if the splash page of issue #104 was intentionally a negative-space Rebel Alliance starbird.

Ask a criminal in Coronet City about Viridian Justice, and they'll laugh at you. They'll laugh until you insist you're serious, and then they’ll add in a more serious voice that the notion this comic person is based on a real crime fighter is ridiculous, right? It has to be.

The real Viridian Justice doesn't have much more than a basic premise in common with the fictional one, but Mora Delsin can't exactly safely sue for defamation. She did drop in the window of a lead writer’s house for a brief chat one night when her fictional counterpart seemed to be taking a turn toward immorality, but other than vetoing that storyline, she's had no contact with the publishers of her fictional self. The real Viridian Justice is no actress trained in stage combat, but a civil lawyer that trained with a Selonian guerilla, a character trope sadly reduced to a sidekick role by the human authors of the fictional character. She also doesn't own a forest green starfighter, submarine, landspeeder, or any other vehicle easily marketed as a toy, but sticks to tamer equipment: a collapsible energy shield inspired by those of Gungan make and some of the finest non-lethal rifles money can buy. Like her comic counterpart, however, her main weapons are her hands, her feet, her unwavering devotion to law and order, and the sense of dread she can inspire in disloyal goons.

Like her fictional self, Viridian exclusively uses non-lethal methods to incapacitate her foes. Unlike her fictional counterpart, Mora understands the value of armor over skintight nylon, and typically wears snug leathers lined with ceramic and metallic weaves to deflect blaster fire and physical impacts, as well as delay incoming vibroblades.

Viridian Justice is provided as a resource to be dropped in during any kind of gang or street fight on Corellia, or reflavored to appear in any urban area, whether it be Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa, or anywhere else. Her morality is straightforward: non-lethal takedowns if at all possible, and a belief in the rule of law. She’s designed to be a complicating factor, a third faction that might appear when a party is dealing with criminals, a resource to be sought out by a party looking for help against any corrupt element, or a gut check for immoral PCs - what do you think of yourself if even Batman’s not on your side? 

(Hat tip to exvind for the splendid name!)

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Incom UT-60D U-Wing Starfighter/Support Craft

Never officially released, a so-called “lost shipment” of Incom U-Wings was acquired by the Rebel Alliance thanks to careful shipping and record manipulation. In these ships, the Rebels gained valuable craft to use for lightning-fast troop insertion and evacuation from hotzones. 

In a way, the story of Incom is the story of the Rebellion, especially Starfighter Command. Incom’s military offerings were famed for using nearly identical control interfaces to their civilian ones. Because of this, a civilian that grew up with a hotrodded T-16 Skyhopper, or who had worked with T-47 airspeeders, could easily transition to flying a Z-95 Headhunter or a T-65 X-Wing, and this would benefit the Rebellion immensely. The UT-60 was no exception, with the craft also boasting near-identical pilot and co-pilot controls. This allowed a single (often overworked or exhausted) pilot to control the craft if needed, but also gave the option of efficient teamwork during the task of feathering between thrusters and repulsorlifts, such as when dropping off troops, or for one of the flight crew to act as a gunner during vehicle-to-vehicle combat. 

The craft’s design also reflected Rebel sensibilities. Compared to similar craft, such as the T-4A Lambda-class shuttle, the U-Wing offered more agility and a sleeker profile. Though its armor and shields may not have been as heavy, the craft was loved by Rebel pilots for its ability to dogfight if absolutely necessary and outrun most non-starfighter craft when swift evacuations were needed. 

In addition to two forward laser cannons, most U-Wings carried turret emplacements behind their port and starboard doors. The adjacent power feeds were easily adaptable, allowing Rebel marines to mount nearly any repeating blaster, rotary cannon, or even, in one documented case, anti-vehicle ordinance launcher. 

As the war continued, and no new U-Wings were manufactured, the Alliance began hoarding the craft that remained. Many SpecForce squads and infiltration teams would use more durable commandeered freighters, or stolen Imperial shuttles, with UT-60Ds often being reserved only for teams with skilled pilots, or needing the speed and versatility the craft provided.

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The morality of fantasy and horror is, by and large, the strict morality of the fairy tale. The vampire is slain, the alien is blown out of the airlock, the Dark Lord is vanquished, and, perhaps at some loss, the good triumph - not because they are better armed but because Providence is on their side. Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.

“Let There Be Dragons” (1993), Terry Pratchett. (via the-library-and-step-on-it)

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I do take requests, if there are any ships, weapons, organizations, or other kinds of stat blocks you might be interested in seeing that haven’t yet been covered by official FFG sources. Would love to hear what people want to see!

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I don't like to commit myself to anything in a character's backstory until I have to... You can get lost in the weeds if you sit down and try to create an entire biography for your character. If this is what they were like when they were six years old, and this is what they did when they were seven years old, and they scraped their knee when they were eight years old. Your character, assuming your character is 50 years old, was never six years old, or seven years old or eight years old. Your character was born the moment the curtain goes up, the moment the movie begins, the moment the television show begins, and your character dies as soon as it's over. Your character only becomes seven years old when they say, "Well when I was seven years old, I fell in a well, and ever since then I've had terrible claustrophobia. Okay? Characters and people aren't the same thing. They only look alike.

Aaron Sorkin, in his AMA, on characterization

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Those Loveable Scomps: Crafting Astromech Droids

With the ubiquity of X-Wings and Y-Wings in the Rebel Alliance arsenal, the need for proper astromech droids to keep Alliance starfighters in the air is obvious to both the Rebellion and the Empire. Imperials usually move swiftly to keep key droids from making their way from Industrial Automaton to Rebel contacts, and as such, Alliance mechanics usually have their hands full keeping the Alliance’s fleet of countless droids up and running.

More enterprising Alliance technicians have attempted to build astromech droids from scratch - an exceedingly difficult task, given that mass-produced starfighters have very specific needs for interface, size, processing power, and so on. It’s not simply a matter of a roughly humanoid droid that can sit in a pilot’s seat and work controls designed for organics, but a standardized socket interface to directly transmit data. 

Astromech droids constitute a new chassis pattern alongside those detailed in Special Modifications. Parts for the chassis cost 4,500 credits and have rarity 3, and the chassis requires a Hard Mechanics check with 3 setback dice due to the specific operation parameter requirements and final body size limitations of the finished product. The construction takes 2.5 days (56 hours)

Astromech droid programming directives require a Hard Computers check with 3 setback dice in order to program the finished droid chassis, due to the difficulty jury-rigging standardized software to work on non-standardized parts, bypassing attempts at copy protection, and so forth. The directives add Astrogation 3, Computers 3, Cool 2, Mechanics 2, Piloting (Space) 2. The programming takes 72 hours. 

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Love to hear your feedback!

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MandalMotors Kom’rk-class fighter/transport

With Incom having been gutted, and many of its best technicians going to the Rebel Alliance, and Sienar Fleet Systems firmly in the Imperial manufacturing camp, MandalMotors may be the most prolific manufacturers not affiliated with any specific galactic power. While the company has many designs strongly associated with the Hutts, including the M3-A Scyk and M12-L Kimogila starfighters, most of their craft are sold to the general public. Designs for Mandalorians, though, tend to display a more distinct style, such as the Kom’rk-class hybrid fighter/transport. 

Often used by Mandalorians of the Death Watch as well as others, the Kom’rk sports a distinctive moving wing assembly that expands upon the vertical takeoff configuration of the Aka’jor-class shuttle to include wings rotating around the craft, a design that would later be repeated in the ‘Fang fighter’ design used by Mandalorian Protectors during the early Galactic Civil War. The design allowed for increased maneuverability, and while it could prove distracting to the pilot, it could also be beneficial as the wings of the craft caught incoming fire that would otherwise hit more vital components. 

While having good maneuverability, the Kom’rk was most distinctive for its use as a troop transport. The craft could carry two dozen armed and armored Mandalorian warriors and acted as a good fast deployment vehicle. However, the ship’s large size made it an easier target for anti-starfighter batteries on capital ships than a pure fighter would have been, and its devotion to agility compared to other transports left the craft extremely lightly armed for a ship of its size and cost. 

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ALL ABOARD THE WAYWARD SPIRIT LIVE STREAM TONIGHT AT 7:40 CST!

If you’re interested in seeing how Age of Rebellion works or just interested in listening to a story based in the Rebellion era, come check out the live stream of the Age of Rebellion game myself and @clifford-telegenic play in. The characters have nearly 600 earned XP, so it can get a little crazy and off the walls at times, but that is what makes Age of Rebellion so much fun!

So check us out tonight at 7:40 CST! We’d love to share the story with you all!

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I’m working at a system similar to the abstracted Mass Combat system in SWRPG for sending out named friendly NPCs to accomplish tasks with their own teams to accomplish secondary objectives for the party. The main discussion is there on reddit, and I’d love any feedback from SWRPG fans on the tumblr. The finished system will get tidied up and appear here before too long. Thanks!

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The MandalMotors StarViper-class attack platform is perhaps the most infamous starfighter design active during the Galactic Civil War that was not associated with either the Rebel Alliance or the Imperial Navy. Originally a unique prototype called the Virago designed exclusively for Prince Xizor, head of Black Sun, a pared down (though still incredibly expensive) design under the StarViper name was later mass-produced and released.

Due to the craft’s high cost, its deployments have largely been limited to small elite starfighter flights or personal craft of VIPs. The vehicle’s relative durability, as well as agility and built-in hyperdrive, make it well suited to this purpose. In addition, the craft’s unconventional and distinctively Mandalorian look, as well as its X-Wing’s worth of armaments, means it enjoys a reputation as an effective heavy attack starfighter. Unfortunately, due to the StarViper costing as much as two Y-Wings, three Z-95s or four (!) Cloakshape fighters, the fighters have limited appeal to the private market for all but the most heavily militarized pirate, mercenary, or crime lord. 

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Shower thought: Supreme Scathing Tirade should have the Burn quality.