The Force Awakens - Spoilerific Discussion.

[eldargal]

Oh my gosh. *flails*

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

After the rain comes the rainbow.


Sorry I killed your son.
-Kylo

[Cutter]

To be fair, it's 30 years on. In that time, we went from Spitfires to Harrier Jump Jets. Given the massive differences in capability between those two things, it's not unfeasible. Especially for an advances society that would, theoretically, have better design ability. If you're using the same chassis it could even be easy.

You're point is taken, but as a child of the original trilogy I liked the technological differences between the Empire and the Rebellion, they served as an elegant shorthand of their ideologies.

As an aside, can anyone pinpoint the moment, presumably in the EU, when 'they' decided TIE fighters could fly in atmosphere?

[Psychosplodge]

It's always been in the EU that TIEs can fly in atmosphere, though it's also generally noted their poor aerodynamics for doing so and these are exploited by anything fighting them in any kind of extended air combat scene, especially the X-wing series.

[Cutter]

It's always been in the EU that TIEs can fly in atmosphere, though it's also generally noted their poor aerodynamics for doing so and these are exploited by anything fighting them in any kind of extended air combat scene, especially the X-wing series.

I guess we better add kick-*** repulsorlift engine to the TIE/ms inventory then.

[Psychosplodge]

put a big enough rocket motor on something and you don't need wings to keep it airborne.

[Gotthammer]

As an aside, can anyone pinpoint the moment, presumably in the EU, when 'they' decided TIE fighters could fly in atmosphere?

Bespin.

[Erik Setzer]

It's always been in the EU that TIEs can fly in atmosphere, though it's also generally noted their poor aerodynamics for doing so and these are exploited by anything fighting them in any kind of extended air combat scene, especially the X-wing series.

Yep... Get those suckers flying perpendicular to the wind and it starts causing all kinds of trouble with their maneuvering as the wind buffets their panels.

And then there's the whole thing with remembering the profile of your fighter when chasing a smaller, thinner ship through a cityscape like Coruscant.

[odinsgrandson]

IIRC Han was also ex-military wasn't he?

In regards to any information not in the A-Cannon: Nothing is true (everything is permitted?)

By the way, I think this applies doubly so to things said in interviews or commentaries- if J. J. Abrams or George Lucas claim something is true about the setting, it is only their opinion until it actually gets into the film, or some other canonical work. (I subscribe to the "Author is Dead" mentality, and get really annoyed at people who like to expand their universe in interviews rather than writing a book about it).

But yeah, there was some EA about him being a storm trooper.

[Psychosplodge]

Someone suggested to me that the Han Solo trilogy was still cannon as it was the post yavin EU they killed.
I think that's wishful thinking. But he had been a TIE pilot and an imperial officer in that trilogy.