Victory 2?

[Evaders99]

This was posted in another forum.. but since I don't have the answer, I figured someone here may

Star Wars: Dark Lord

Page 97

 

"None of the artistry that went into the old Acclamators and Venators - even the Victory Two's."

 

- Brudi Gayne, to Jedi Knight Raon Shryne, referring to Darth Vader's command vessel, a new Imperator-class Star Destroyer, Exactor.

 

Now, as I read it, that pretty clearly states that the Victory-II class Star Destroyer is already around, and has been for a while. This conversation takes place approximately a few weeks after order 66 has been issued and completed. I was under the impression that the Victory-II came out later in the war, not prior to the beginning of the Galactic Civil War. Was I mistaken, or did I read a wrong impression, or was the author mistaken? Anyone have an idea?

[EvilleJedi]

well venators were relatively new in the CW, VIctory II's saw limited service at the very end and would be more rounded vessels than venators

 

I don't think it implies that victory II's were old, just that they were around and known.

[shadowlegion421]

the fact that the final addendum is "even the victory two's" suggests to me that they would be much newer, and therefore held to a higher standard. since ANH begins immediately after the start of the gcw, and vader is on an ISD, and not his later SSD command ship, i would say that at that point, the ISD's are the newest and best in the imperial navy, in which case they would be replacing the VSD 2's as the primary capital ship of the Empire. since the gcw started just about immediately after the conclusion of the clone wars, it makes sense that a lot of clone wars ships would be used in it. its not economically feasible the completely replace one ship class with a newer all at once, even if the empire had the shipyard facilities to do such a thing, which i dont believe they did.

[EvilleJedi]

well considering kuat drive yards could drop out hundreds of star destroyer sized ships a year and the build up of other KDY properties, the CEC yards and the fondor yards, all capable of constructing dreadnoughts by ESB I think the change over was quite rapid. If the ISD I was introduced months after the clone wars ended which we see in the first vader book by the end of that year a few hundred ISD I's would be in service, (remember that during the clone wars Venators, about 1/6th the size of an ISD but otherwise very similar, were produced in the thousands per year) this would be more than enough to cover the main core worlds and start giving each sector one ISD I as a command ship. The Venators and victories would be rotated to the rim to replace acclamators and the acclamators would be rotated to the strategic reserves in the core. As the ISD I population reached its 25 K mark the victories and venators would also be scrapped or sent to the deep core to be mothballed (and probably later used during dark empire and by warlords)  around ESB the first ISD II came out along with the Executor so at the time of ANH the most well rounded ship was still probably an ISD I (because the cruisers like mandators and Praetors would be old battlewagons playing nanny duty over core worlds)

[shadowlegion421]

i hadnt realized that kuat had that sort of production power, i had been assuming it was somewhat more than sluis van, bilbringi, and mon calamari, just judging from the descriptions in a lot of the books, but not that much more. any idea why, since they had the capability to produce thousands of isd's per year, there werent more SSD's produced? i would think that a lot more than the 4 or 5 encountered would have been possible, and as a sector fleet command ship, there would have been nothing better than a fleet killing monster like those

[chrlsthgreat]

Correct me if I am wrong, but KDY was an entire ring, encircling the entire planet. Since the Empire also employed slaves, it seems possible to me that they be able to churn out ISDs (although thousands per year seems a little farfetched). As to the SSDs, I think that there were a limited supply for two main reasons: 1) the enormous amount of credits and manpower (250,000 for the crew according to Captain Pellaeon in Heir to the Empire) and 2) Because the Emperor liked to control the Fleet and Army himself. Having 20 or 30 SSDs running around the galaxy would probably encourage more than one fleet officer to try and gang up to take the throne. Edited June 17, 2007 by chrlsthgreat

[shadowlegion421]

i suppose its possible he was worried about officers going freelance, but taking the throne would have been impossible, i would think, because of the limited mind control the empeor used on his forces at least in the same system as him. even if there had been 30, between the grand admirals, the grand moffs, and a few other hand picked imperials, i would think the emperor could have come up with suitable and trustworthy commanders for all of them. the manpower issue might be possible, but at the time, the empire controlled most of the galaxy. even with forced conscription in the regular army, (and i think on board planetary occupation forces were taken in to consideration in Pellaeon's figure, since the SSD's were said to regularly hold such a force) it shouldnt have been difficult to come up with the officers required to crew the ships. it just seemed strange that, with his near-limitless resources, the emperor only had 4, i think, commisioned, 1 of which was after his death.

[EvilleJedi]

I think there are around 12 documented SSDs that could have existed during the empire, Personally I like to think of them as oversector command ships, they only go where the grand admirals and grand moffs put them, vader of course gets one, coruscant probably had 1 if not 2 or 3 close by. so 25 or so SSDs at the point of ROTJ seems reasonable to me (even though they haven't been named or found) given that only a few yards could build them and they really didn't come under construction until ESB there are only 2 years to build the ships at a limited number of yards. Besides ISDs are capable of most everything you need and if the standard sector group is 25 ISDs you can hit 25 locations at once. THe real value of the SSD is as a base of operations, a terror symbol and just massively fing things up. the rebels never concentrated enough to justify running an SSD everywhere when 1-2 ISDs could do the job. Most SSDs were probably parked next to a moffs palace and stayed there.