I recently purchased a great Star Wars book, in fact I would consider it one of the best I have in my collection: the Haynes Millenium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual. It's written partly as a generic reference document from the Corellian Engineering Corporation, suitable for all YT-series freighters, and partly as a history lesson into the past of the most famous YT-1300 around. I have found this to be a very entertaining read which strikes the perfect balance between techno-babble and legitimate physics; between style and substance; between fluff and crunch.I am very interested in learning more about Star Wars technology, from hyperdrives to sublight propulsion systems, but I don't really want to know that much. Particularly if the authors are not physicists or nuclear engineers. An appropriate Star Wars level of detail is tricky to get just right. This book seems to have nailed it, and I very much appreciate it. In fact, it is a good guide for the sort of thing I'd like to pull off with this site. I am very interested in a quasi-realistic background in order to enhance verisimilitude, but I must remain wary about drowning out the free-and-easy nature so key to space opera like Star Wars. Ranks and badges and specific military units and named NPCs all have their place, but the goal is to use them to enhance the connectedness and continuity of plots, not drown in pages and pages of boring details.
Star Wars: The Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual (Haynes Manuals), LucasBooks, 2012, written by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, and Chis Trevas
I am sitting here in my red Millenium Falcon T-shirt, writing about a Millenium Falcon Owner's Manual. I have to say, something about this ship speaks to me. We're talking about something like a cross between a flying house, a Winnebago, a semi tractor trailer, and a WWII bomber (complete with gun positions). The smuggler/space trader culture is a bit like truck drivers in space, in the Wild West. In an RPG setting, there is something magical about the party's ship. A mobile base of operations and a place to spend a lot of time. Add in a few droids, strap on a heavy blaster pistol, and I am set, personally.
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