Hey, I also want to leave it clear that I love Rebels. In my opinion, it's probably the best Star Wars we have had in the past 30 years (except for Rogue One, that is just better).

But what Hera did there was basically what... send a lot of garbage data until their computer crashed, and the power cells blew up? That is so so stupid, that I don't know from where to start.

It basically means that networking and computing in Star Wars is so primitive and sloppy that would be on par to how computers worked on Earth in the 50's.
You cannot just send a lot of data to a computer until it crashes. The computer would just fill up its buffers and stop reading until the buffers are processed.
Why the h3ll would the power cells system be wired to the communication computers? As DEX said, it's like you buy a Tesla car, and a local radio station broadcasts white noise, and then all cars tuned to that station get their power cells to explode!
Could you twist this in a way that Hera hacks into the imperials' computer thru the data sent? Perhaps. But Hera has not been established as a computer specialist. She's a pilot. And since they didn't have any computer expert character handy, they just went the Doctor Who way and said

"Let's increase the flux!" (Brings out the sonic screw driver and plugs it into the power cable)

Geez, even that data spike thingie looked like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

Now, what itches me is why the writers did that? Was it necessary? Probably they go thru through several iterations of the script before they, you know, actually film it/render it. So why not just add a convenient computer expert character at some point during the chapter. Any random droid would have been good enough. A golden opportunity to introduce R3-A2 as a background character!
Why not just cause the data overflow to delete all records on the imperial ship, so that they end empty handed? Or Hera just sending thousands of copies of the data about the base location, but with different planets in each copy, rendering the data essentially useless?

Why go the stupid "And they all die... In a big explossion, even... And they suffer!".

You ever see what happens to a disc in a disc drive when the drive is sped too high? I sort of took this as the Star Wars version of that.

The funniest episode yet!

Yeah, the destruction of the Gozanti was lame, but that´s the kid´s show aspect coming through and it leaves no thoughts about how the Empire should be monitoring communications in future operations.

I enjoyed it (as a forty something man wathcing with his daughter).

Roll on Maul!

This is my fundamental problem with the show. They NEEDLESSLY makes the Empire lose. It's like everytime an Arquietens gets blown up from a single salvo from a fighter. That's not necessary. Just show the ship being disabled and save budget from animating an explosion.

The reason this sort've thing upsets me is as a writer, i'm in uni so i'm not professional, it frustrates me to no end to see this kind of lazy resolution. I should'nt feel as a viewer I could write something better. That isn't good writing for a kid show and I hate the argument that things have to be dumbed down for a younger audience. I grew up on Avatar the Last Airbender, which rarely ever stooped to such contrivances. Adventure Time doesn't do this. Courage the Cowardly Dog doesn't do this. Great kids shows don't do this.

I do actually love a lot about the show, I loved the episode despite the destruction of the gozanti, but its moments like that which reveal the show's underlying weakness, something we have thankfully seen less of due to Thrawn.

7 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

AP-5 > C-3P0

This might be the filthiest thing I've ever seen in this forum. A few minutes of comic-relief redemption in one episode does not remotely compare to C-3PO by any standard. C-3PO established the basis in Star Wars for near-human robot characters. I understand how some people find C-3PO annoying. I did too until I understood artistic tools like irony. Example: A machine programmed for ettiquette makes derogatory remarks about a sentient species? That's hilarious and it makes a statement about the way people really treat each other in spite of our artificial constructs of tolerance.

1 hour ago, jmswood said:

I did too until I understood artistic tools like irony. Example: A machine programmed for ettiquette makes derogatory remarks about a sentient species? That's hilarious and it makes a statement about the way people really treat each other in spite of our artificial constructs of tolerance.

I might agree with you if I thought George Lucas was a nuanced enough writer for that to actually be intentional.

I loved it. It was a great episode. The destruction of the spy ship was a bit silly. Could easily have been melted data core or some other something. Total destruction was like whaaaaa? ?

But otherwise very solid episode. I want an AP 5 crew card now!

5 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

I might agree with you if I thought George Lucas was a nuanced enough writer for that to actually be intentional.

The best things in any art are not necessarily intentional. One of the things I hate most about art and literature academics is the question: "What did the artist/author mean by..."

33 minutes ago, jmswood said:

The best things in any art are not necessarily intentional. One of the things I hate most about art and literature academics is the question: "What did the artist/author mean by..."

As a hobby artist, who thought long and hard about pursuing that career I can only agree with your statement.

If you look at Van Gogh, he just wanted to create art and he is one of the greatest artists to have ever lived

But with writing, often great writing, the author IS putting subtext in that requires a bit more thought.

Read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy for example, the author is telling a story about the chaos and lawlessness of the pre civil war West. But there is a whole hell of a lot more there. Or Mobu **** by Mellville, etc.

Ha it censored Moby D I C K.

1 hour ago, jmswood said:

The best things in any art are not necessarily intentional. One of the things I hate most about art and literature academics is the question: "What did the artist/author mean by..."

Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory.



Also concerning Lucas,

I've done a bit of writing myself, and from personal experience I can tell you that (at least for me) it's not a single planned process.

Oh I do have plans; I come up with side stories and intricate plot-lines, nice metaphors, and so on. And I just as often move on, choose differently, or forget the original idea in favor of a better one. By the time it's done the story is a mesh of clever idioms, meaningless quips, and half-lies from previous iterations re-purposed and beaten into a recognizable shape. Some ideas become background hints, others are Flanderized into primary traits; complex characters are flattened, flat characters are given hidden depths. It's messy that way.

I've more than gone through my notes on a story only to discover that I've forgotten old ideas that were used to define the current story.

So, yeah. I think Lucas very well might have put some deep stuff into Star Wars and either moved by it, forgot to develop it, or just left it to be subtle. It isn't hard to be deep on a subject, you just have to obsess over it for a long, long, time: and Lucas definitely did that.

15 hours ago, DailyRich said:

Did the Imperial intelligence agents remind anyone else of these guys?

Yep. And there is a reference to the Borgs as well, when the Imperial takes control of Chopper. "...Resistance (...) is futile"

1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

I loved it. It was a great episode. The destruction of the spy ship was a bit silly. Could easily have been melted data core or some other something. Total destruction was like whaaaaa? ?

But otherwise very solid episode. I want an AP 5 crew card now!

4 hours ago, DailyRich said:

You ever see what happens to a disc in a disc drive when the drive is sped too high? I sort of took this as the Star Wars version of that.

6 hours ago, Azrapse said:

Hey, I also want to leave it clear that I love Rebels. In my opinion, it's probably the best Star Wars we have had in the past 30 years (except for Rogue One, that is just better).

But what Hera did there was basically what... send a lot of garbage data until their computer crashed, and the power cells blew up? That is so so stupid, that I don't know from where to start.

It basically means that networking and computing in Star Wars is so primitive and sloppy that would be on par to how computers worked on Earth in the 50's.
You cannot just send a lot of data to a computer until it crashes. The computer would just fill up its buffers and stop reading until the buffers are processed.
Why the h3ll would the power cells system be wired to the communication computers? As DEX said, it's like you buy a Tesla car, and a local radio station broadcasts white noise, and then all cars tuned to that station get their power cells to explode!
Could you twist this in a way that Hera hacks into the imperials' computer thru the data sent? Perhaps. But Hera has not been established as a computer specialist. She's a pilot. And since they didn't have any computer expert character handy, they just went the Doctor Who way and said

"Let's increase the flux!" (Brings out the sonic screw driver and plugs it into the power cable)

Geez, even that data spike thingie looked like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

Now, what itches me is why the writers did that? Was it necessary? Probably they go thru through several iterations of the script before they, you know, actually film it/render it. So why not just add a convenient computer expert character at some point during the chapter. Any random droid would have been good enough. A golden opportunity to introduce R3-A2 as a background character!
Why not just cause the data overflow to delete all records on the imperial ship, so that they end empty handed? Or Hera just sending thousands of copies of the data about the base location, but with different planets in each copy, rendering the data essentially useless?

Why go the stupid "And they all die... In a big explossion, even... And they suffer!".

Actually most espionage vehicles IRL have explosives and incendiaries built into them to protect sensitive information and equipment from capture. Such as firebombs in document storage, thermite charges in computers and special sensors/systems, etc. These are usually on their own separate circuits to prevent accidental activation in the course of normal operations, but severe malfunctions could easily trigger them. (Voltage surges jumping between the wiring, hardware problems triggering anti-tamper sensors, etc)

There has been a lot of Intel lost over the years due to flukes causing the security charges to trigger. (Before sattelite spying went digital for example, they had to drop physical film cannisters. The majority of which wound up destroyed when the cannisters hit the ground a little hard after reentry and parachuting down. The impacts triggered the anti-tamper charges..)

BTW, Hera explicitly stated that she is using an exploit in the system. I find it highly ironic that people complain about the realism of using an exploit to blow up the batteries within communication equipment via an exploit right after the year which brought us exploding notebooks via cheap usb-C cables and exploding phones made by samsung.

The whole "software can't kill hardwar" thing is a myth. Software should not kill hardware, because hardware's basic firmware software should preventing higher level software from damaging hardware, but bugs are a constant thing on this, from a bug in starcraft, nvidia firmware and hardware which could fry your GPU to silly stuff like usb charger and devices screwing up their handshake and use an in appropriate loading charge which makes makes your battery go boom. It just happens sometimes.

The silly part is not that there was a way to make the ship go boom by hacking, the silly part was the Hera had knowledge of such an exploit is now not only phoenix leader, ace pilot, but as as well intimately familiar with imperial listing ships and their systems. But that is something people complain about Sabine all the time as well, the "we can do anything" approach to the skillset of the rebels main cast.

On 08/03/2017 at 2:30 AM, Underachiever599 said:

I actually have a video in the works for my YouTube channel about the 0-0-0/HK connection. Glad more people are noticing it.

Must be having a shallow life as I've not heard of either of these

1 hour ago, Odanan said:

Yep. And there is a reference to the Borgs as well, when the Imperial takes control of Chopper. "...Resistance (...) is futile"

They literally sing this song...

Well, when the hardware is designed to transmit a live feed of sensitive data between two very specific moving points over a distance of many hundreds of light-years and at speeds much higher than the maximum speed of the universe...

I think a base understanding of how amazing these things would be in real life makes it easier appreciate them in fiction even with the flaws.

Play Children of a Dead Earth sometime, then imagine how wonderful it would be if you could jump directly to your target, or how fantastic it would be if you didn't deed to make 60% of your ship just engine and fuel. Or for that matter how nice it would be if you could engage ships at visual range rather than sending in waves of drones because your railguns are painfully slow when matched to the distances they must travel, and your strongest lasers don't cut armor fast enough. Or if you had access to cohesive plasma weapons. Or shields.

Now if I told you that the only downside to this ship design was that it would explode on critical hits rather than just break apart, how many of you would still go with the lighting bruiser build?

I would. The real-physics ships wouldn't stand a chance; it'd be like pitting a sniper against a teleporting bear.

Star Wars starships are almost magical in function. I'll hypothesize the mechanics, but I wouldn't argue them because there are so many ways to interpret the magic. If they say that feedback into that specific mechanical setup will make it explode, then explode it does. I just want consistency, if I see another ship like that then I expect to hear some mention of them exploding due to feedback.

1 hour ago, Brother Petius said:

Must be having a shallow life as I've not heard of either of these

On 11/03/2017 at 6:34 PM, OneKelvin said:

Que flock of baby neebrays.

Actually my brother said it was closer to the frozen Commander Powell from the end of Dark Star.

And is this the first time on screen they've used the term Refresher Station (apart from the novels)?

Do Lambda's even exist anymore?! Or is everything just Sentinel's now?

14 hours ago, flyboymb said:

Man, just watched the Hera hack scene. Tesla is banging his head against his casket lid for failing to realize that if he had just plugged a radio transmitter directly into a dynamo he could have transmitted electricity to everybody tuned into that station. Don't know how they would have resolved the story otherwise, but that was a SMH moment of 'well, looks like THAT is canon now'. I'm off to kiss my circuit breaker box.

But to keep myself from garnering a reputation of only poo pooing Rebels, everything about the nebula fight two episodes ago was epic, the Defender certainly lived up to its Legends... legend, and finally some ISD action even if only the anti-fighter batteries.

No, dude. Really.

It's okay.

The way Hera straight up murdered those Imperials was absolutely daft. There is no justification for how she pulled that off at all.

2 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

Do Lambda's even exist anymore?! Or is everything just Sentinel's now?

It's probably just a matter of which model is rendered and ready for the show. From a story perspective, I've been thinking the Lambda is probably more of a VIP transport, while the Sentinel is a troop transport.

Not to mention, it was completely unnecessary to begin with.

They already interrupted the transmission. So the Imperials had already failed to get the location of their base.

This entire stupid scene that everyone is pissed about never needed to happen in the first place from a plot perspective.

2 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

Not to mention, it was completely unnecessary to begin with.

The already interrupted the transmission. So the Imperials had already failed to get the location of their base.

This entire stupid scene that everyone is pissed about never needed to happen in the first place from a plot perspective.

It was really, really stupid. I feel bad that page 300 will be tattered with this, but it is wholly deserved. This is without a doubt the dumbest, dumbest thing that has EVER happened in Rebels.

7 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

Do Lambda's even exist anymore?! Or is everything just Sentinel's now?

I'm just gonna say they don't exist yet.