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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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 Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2023 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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Sounds like those problems only concerned the much larger ghtroc empress cargo ship. NOT the normal one that pc's can get..
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10434
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2023 11:18 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Which is a shame, because “sea turtle in space” has real aesthetic possibilities. It’d be nice to see an artist redo the Ghtroc into something players might actually want to be seen flying. |
Players like aquatic starships, but I certainly can't see the ship as being very hydrodynamic. So the most aquatic ability I can imagine it having is that is could have big inflatable pontoons for sea landings. I'll give them than in my SWU, but that is most sea turtle-inspired aspect I can see them having. The Bith homeworld does have swamps, and habitable worlds in general would commonly have bodies of surface water, so it would be a sensible design feature.
| Inquisitor1138 wrote: | | I have re-checked the notes i currently have, rechecked Pirates & Privateers, then searched online sources... |
The Cargo Empress sources Frank cited for the published deck plan (“Star Wars Adventure Journal”, Vol. 1, No. 9, page 69) and the published stock capsule (“Star Wars - Pirates & Privateers”, page 68) do not at all even hint to the Empire having a hand in downfall of Ghtroc Industries...
| Quote: | From Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter:
| Quote: | Optional Rules:
[a]Gamemaster's Back Story — The fall of Ghtroc Industries
Numerous rumors about the Cargo Empress have circulated after the demise of Ghtroc Industries. Most involve mechanical failures, or hull cracks formed from torsional stress, and some involve passengers and crew not making it to the escape pods in time, perishing with the ship. Most Cargo Empress captains keep the escape pods in the forward sections of the cargo hold not in their stock location in the aft upper deck. This procedure is common practice to facilitate a quick escape in an emergency. Rumors from the Rebel Alliance report imperial intelligence sabotaged the Cargo Empress program with slanderous Holonet news reports, and falsified fatality reports. Many theorize the empire saw the potential of these ships being converted into covert starfighter carriers, and were eliminated with financial warfare. Regardless the cause, the Cargo Empress was the last transport mass-produced by Ghtroc industries prior to the corporate collapse.
Please check with your Gamemaster to insure these optional rules are allowed and if any changes are needed to fit them into your campaign. |
Unlike the prior block of game stats which preceded it, this has no citation to any book, nor does it specify that it is an addition by the authors of the article, Frank V Bonura, “B.M.K”, and Sean Callahan. i am about to email Mister Bonura for clarification. |
No, it isn't explicit that it is an addition of the fan authors, but the facts that the "Gamemaster's Back Story" at the end of the Franks' stat block is not present in the published stat block and it is (oddly) labeled as "Optional Rules" make it extremely likely that the "lore" you were remembering about the Empire having a hand in the downfall of Ghtroc is actually fanon. It is very doubtful that the "Optional" gamemaster's backstory in his stats could be based on some different continuity somewhere. (In a forum setting it is easier to provide behind-the-scenes fan author commentary to make it extremely explicit what is canon and what is fanon in the capsule of a fan made/modified vessel, like I did for my MC-13v2.) Taken at face value, WEG (P&P) reads like it was the failure of the Cargo Empress itself that lead to Ghtroc industries going under. Their failure was trying to expand into the "super-freighter" market based solely on the success of the 720 light freighter. Frank's backstory certainly does call out what I agree is a bad design element of the deck plan in AJ.
As far as when Ghtroc's downfall happened, the canon sources or Frank's "optional rule" don't give a clear indication, but Frank implies that it is the Rebellion era, which in the EU was just a few years leading up the ANH. An early Empire timeframe would mean that Rebel Alliance reports were in regards to something Imperial Intelligence did over a decade before the Alliance existed. It's possible, but "rumors" implies it is more recent.
Regardless, I'm sure Frank would have an opinion on the matter so I hope he replies to you. Let us know what he says and if you agree.
| garhkal wrote: | | Sounds like those problems only concerned the much larger ghtroc empress cargo ship. NOT the normal one that pc's can get.. |
Sure. He wasn't talking about the 720. He's just trying to determine if canon sources ever indicated when Ghtroc Industries went under, because it is important for him to know that and he prefers to not contradict the canons.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2023 12:17 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| Whill wrote: | | Players like aquatic starships, but I certainly can't see the ship as being very hydrodynamic. |
I’m not saying it would actually be aquatic, just that the design would be less bulky and ungainly if its visual similarities to a sea turtle were more emphasized.
| Inquisitor1138 wrote: | | I have re-checked the notes i currently have, rechecked Pirates & Privateers, then searched online sources... |
| Whill wrote: | | The Cargo Empress sources Frank cited for the published deck plan (“Star Wars Adventure Journal”, Vol. 1, No. 9, page 69) and the published stock capsule (“Star Wars - Pirates & Privateers”, page 68) do not at all even hint to the Empire having a hand in downfall of Ghtroc Industries… |
I asked Frank directly re/ the Cargo Empress…
| Frank Bonura wrote: | | That was all me. It’s based on my reading of existing material and the time period that the company went out of business. I pieced the data together and came to the conclusion that the superstretch did have some technical issues because the company was trying to build a capital ship with starfighter scale components and ultimately quality suffered. And then there was the concern from the empire that the superstretch could be used as a carrier, so a propaganda campaign was launched against it, because not only would have been a good carrier, it was a starfighter scale carrier. The leftovers of this then easily link to the Thrawn trilogy, and the covert shroud freighter, which had to come from somewhere. So ultimately, Luke Skywalker gave the middle finger to the galactic empire, with a remnant of the company that the empire destroyed with the covert shroud freighter. Yes, there was a lot of story thinking in my write up. It’s even ironic. |
EDIT: I’ve double-checked the BBCoding, and I have no idea why it isn’t working.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2023 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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Though it looks turtilish.. I don't think the designers ever planned for it to actually be aquatic.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2023 8:53 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | Players like aquatic starships, but I certainly can't see the ship as being very hydrodynamic.... |
I’m not saying it would actually be aquatic, just that the design would be less bulky and ungainly if its visual similarities to a sea turtle were more emphasized. |
I know. I didn't think you were saying that. I was just using what you were saying to segue into what I was saying, that I thought it could stand to be more sea-turtle-like, so I added the most aquatic feature I feel it could possibly have. How much space would compressed inflatable sci-fi pontoon material take up in the ship? I don't figure much.
| garhkal wrote: | | Though it looks turtilish.. I don't think the designers ever planned for it to actually be aquatic. |
I don't think so either. I honestly think the artist's design was inspired by that turtle building that Inquisitor1138 linked to (and the building was inspired by a sea turtle). CRMcNeill wishes the ship would be redesigned more organically to more directly resemble an actual sea turtle, and it couldn't hurt. We know the in-universe designers did not intend it to have any aquatic features because no fluff or stats for the ship indicates that. The pontoons are a fan-modification in my re-statting of the ship.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | I asked Frank directly re/ the Cargo Empress…
| Frank Bonura wrote: | | That was all me. It’s based on my reading of existing material and the time period that the company went out of business. I pieced the data together and came to the conclusion that the superstretch did have some technical issues because the company was trying to build a capital ship with starfighter scale components and ultimately quality suffered. And then there was the concern from the empire that the superstretch could be used as a carrier, so a propaganda campaign was launched against it, because not only would have been a good carrier, it was a starfighter scale carrier. The leftovers of this then easily link to the Thrawn trilogy, and the covert shroud freighter, which had to come from somewhere. So ultimately, Luke Skywalker gave the middle finger to the galactic empire, with a remnant of the company that the empire destroyed with the covert shroud freighter. Yes, there was a lot of story thinking in my write up. It’s even ironic. |
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Thanks for sharing this. I can really appreciate that he was further fluffing out Ghtroc continuity to enhance its significance in a story.
Although I don't totally understand his comment about Luke's covert shroud freighter having "to come from somewhere", because it was firmly established by Zahn that it was a heavily modified Ghtroc 720, not the Cargo Empress ship. We know where the ship came from, and Zahn got the 720 directly out of a WEG book.
But it is apparent that Zahn's use of the 720 as Luke's covert shroud freighter inspired Frank's optional backstory for Ghtroc Industries and the Cargo Empress being feared by the Empire as potentially being used by the Alliance to carry starfighters.
| Quote: | | EDIT: I’ve double-checked the BBCoding, and I have no idea why it isn’t working. |
I fixed your post. It was the difference between smart quotes (“ ”) and straight quotes (" "). Smart quotes render here in text, but they do not work with the quote tag feature.
Did you create the post in another application and paste it here? When I type a quotation mark in the text field here, it renders correctly as a strait quote. I only ever get a smart quote mark when I copy text in from somewhere else. I hope this helps.
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Inquisitor1138
Captain
Joined: 28 Nov 2021
Posts: 607
Location: Hoth. Or Ilum...
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2023 2:26 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | I asked Frank directly re/ the Cargo Empress…
| Frank Bonura wrote: | | That was all me. It’s based on my reading of existing material and the time period that the company went out of business. I pieced the data together and came to the conclusion that the superstretch did have some technical issues because the company was trying to build a capital ship with starfighter scale components and ultimately quality suffered. And then there was the concern from the empire that the superstretch could be used as a carrier, so a propaganda campaign was launched against it, because not only would have been a good carrier, it was a starfighter scale carrier. The leftovers of this then easily link to the Thrawn trilogy, and the covert shroud freighter, which had to come from somewhere. So ultimately, Luke Skywalker gave the middle finger to the galactic empire, with a remnant of the company that the empire destroyed with the covert shroud freighter. Yes, there was a lot of story thinking in my write up. It’s even ironic. |
-snip- |
Ah, thank you! i've been having awful time the last few days with browser crashes & glitches, so i haven't finished drafting the letter to him. With one of the main questions answered, it clears up my confusion, so thanks for that!
*side note* my reply was interrupted by a call from a Florida #, claiming to be AMAZON CUSTOMER CARE, wanting to verify it was me that had purchased a NEW COMPUTER. They alleged my account was accessed in several different states, citing many specific details. When they wanted me to stay on the line with them to email my bank/debit card, my 'Spider Sense' went off & i politely ended the call.
I checked my card/account first; no charges, alerts or other activity.
I then logged into my AMAZON account, no orders for 2023, & no alerts.
I reported the # to Verizon, as spam.
Filled a scam report with AMAZON.
**personal edit: This is my 501st post; how to celebrate?
i want some cake...
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Last edited by Inquisitor1138 on Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:42 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2023 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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I do that periodically. If i keep seeing emails "looking" from proper vendors etc, i check the vendors i actually have and see what activitiy i have had... This helps ensure that i am not spooffed/spammed.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10434
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2023 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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This is an age old scam. Gmail and my Rancor Pit provider are good at filtering those out so I never see them by email, but Verizon is sh!tty because they want you to subscribe to a spam-killing service to do it automatically, so scammers occasionally email my phone # (all Verizon phone #s have a "...@vtext.com" email address that comes through as a text message). I've heard these scammers also call people but I don't answer my phone if the # is not in my phone.
They say there was suspicious activity on your account and when you say that wasn't you, they ask for your bank account info to refund you. If your bank account got charged through Amazon, they would already have it so wouldn't need you to give it to them. When I get those texts, it is easy to report them as scammers since the text came from an email address. But I can't prevent the messages in the first place without paying Verizon to pre-block them. What a racket.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2023 10:21 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| Whill wrote: | | I don't totally understand his comment about Luke's covert shroud freighter having "to come from somewhere", because it was firmly established by Zahn that it was a heavily modified Ghtroc 720, not the Cargo Empress ship. We know where the ship came from, and Zahn got the 720 directly out of a WEG book. |
I think his point was that, in universe, the Cargo Empress had the capacity to be modified into an ultra-light carrier, with enough room onboard for a starfighter squadron. This capacity in turn is what led the Empire (in his headcanon) to move against Ghtroc to shut them down. However, the idea itself survived, and was the genesis for the Covert Shroud modified 720 (as in, “we fit starfighters in the Empress; what can we do with the same concept for our smaller ships?)
| Quote: | I fixed your post. It was the difference between smart quotes (“ ”) and straight quotes (" "). Smart quotes render here in text, but they do not work with the quote tag feature.
Did you create the post in another application and paste it here? When I type a quotation mark in the text field here, it renders correctly as a strait quote. I only ever get a smart quote mark when I copy text in from somewhere else. I hope this helps. |
Thanks. I manually entered the BBCoding to quote you and Frank, but apparently iPhone’s keyboard defaults to smart quotes, not straight quotes. Such an odd thing to lock up on…
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2023 12:50 am Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I think his point was that, in universe, the Cargo Empress had the capacity to be modified into an ultra-light carrier, with enough room onboard for a starfighter squadron. This capacity in turn is what led the Empire (in his headcanon) to move against Ghtroc to shut them down. However, the idea itself survived, and was the genesis for the Covert Shroud modified 720 (as in, “we fit starfighters in the Empress; what can we do with the same concept for our smaller ships?) |
I see. Where the idea for making a 720 into a covert shroud came from.
| Quote: | | Thanks. I manually entered the BBCoding to quote you and Frank, but apparently iPhone’s keyboard defaults to smart quotes, not straight quotes. Such an odd thing to lock up on… |
Good to know. It's definitely not an Apple thing in general because I have a macbook pro. The browser I primarily use Google Chrome for Mac, so I just tested it in Safari and the typed quotation mark rendered as a straight quote there too.
The straight quotes thing is an issue in my web host's HTML editor I used to make non-forum pages of this website. Star Wars D6 Damage uses the Times New Roman font, and proper rendering on that font requires smart quotes. But when I open type in the editor, everything renders in the font except quotation marks which render a straight quotes. So I had to go through the whole site and paste the left and right smart quote marks over the straight quotes.
What browser do you use for the Pit on your iPhone? The Safari app? You might have to copy-paste the straight quote marks when using the quote tags referring to named writers. Smart quotes outside of the BB coding are fine here since they do render in text.
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Inquisitor1138
Captain
Joined: 28 Nov 2021
Posts: 607
Location: Hoth. Or Ilum...
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:44 am Post subject: Covert Shroud |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I forget. Did they ever put the rules anywhere FOR the covert shroud?? |
The Covert Shroud is in the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook.
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Bounty Hunting is a Complicated Profession... Wouldn't you agree?
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2023 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| Whill wrote: | | It's definitely not an Apple thing in general because I have a macbook pro. The browser I primarily use Google Chrome for Mac, so I just tested it in Safari and the typed quotation mark rendered as a straight quote there too. |
I use Chrome on my iPhone and Edge on my laptop, although I’ve been considering dropping Chrome and going back to Safari (which I still have set as the default). My original motivation to use Chrome was (IIRC) that Safari would auto-refresh pages I had open and cause me to lose my place, especially if reading a story on FanFiction.Net or the like. Now that most of the websites I used to go to have their own apps, it won’t be as big an issue, and consolidating to a single browser will simplify other.
As far as quotation marks, Apple does have a pop-up menu on their keyboard that offers a selection of various styles of quotation marks, including straight quotes, but it appears to default to smart quotes, and there isn’t an obvious way to change the default. I also don’t recall ever having this issue before, so it may be the result of a recent update or something similar. I guess I’ll just have to double-check which quotation marks I use in BBCode from now on.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2023 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Superfreighter |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I use Chrome on my iPhone and Edge on my laptop, although I’ve been considering dropping Chrome and going back to Safari (which I still have set as the default). My original motivation to use Chrome was (IIRC) that Safari would auto-refresh pages I had open and cause me to lose my place, especially if reading a story on FanFiction.Net or the like. Now that most of the websites I used to go to have their own apps, it won’t be as big an issue, and consolidating to a single browser will simplify other. |
I primarily use Edge on my work laptop. I have no experience with the Safari app or iPhones, but I never use the Safari browser on my macbook. There was one website that used to not work on Chrome and I had to use Safari for that, but that has since been fixed so I don't need Safari. Chrome for Mac is convenient because I can use the same Google account with Android Chrome and all the Google apps on my android phone.
| Quote: | | As far as quotation marks, Apple does have a pop-up menu on their keyboard that offers a selection of various styles of quotation marks, including straight quotes, but it appears to default to smart quotes, and there isn’t an obvious way to change the default. I also don’t recall ever having this issue before, so it may be the result of a recent update or something similar. I guess I’ll just have to double-check which quotation marks I use in BBCode from now on. |
Glad to hear you have the option to select straight quotes when manually creating named quote tags.
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Argentsaber
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 07 Oct 2017
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2023 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know if it will help anybody, but my personal lore has the company being founded sometime near the end of the "old republic," or roughly at the start of what the new canon calls "high republic," and folding sometime a decade or more before Phantom Menace, as the Trade Federation and similar companies got difficult to compete with.
I also have a small Bith run concern that purchased one of the smaller factory sites from them and run it making spare parts, mostly for the 720-cargo queen line to make it more reasonable that these ships might still be around by the time Luke uses one for the covert shroud maneuver.
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FVBonura
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 137
Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2024 12:35 am Post subject: |
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It's nice to see my work being mistaken for published material.
It should be noted my factory production numbers for the Ghtroc 720, that were on my website for years, were then "borrowed" by WOTC for "Starships of the Galaxy" page 88. 
http://deckplans.00sf.com/Forum/Starships_of_the_Galaxy_p88_marked.jpg |
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