Issues with Cannon

By HappyDaze, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Throughout the books, FFG has been inconsistent with the plural form of cannon (where both cannon and cannons can be acceptable). We get things like:

  • Forward-mounted twin light laser cannon (with Linked 1)
  • Forward-mounted twin light laser cannons (with Linked 1)
  • Forward-mounted light laser cannons (with Linked 1)

All of these mean essentially the same thing, but they switch between cannon and cannons when referring to two or more weapons.

They also often do the same when referring to one weapon with multiple barrels, like the famous twin weapons (exception, I have not found a quad laser cannon referred to as quad laser cannons except when multiples of the whole weapon are involved).

I know, this is a little thing to most people, but it bugs me.

Copy/paste errors.

5 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

Copy/paste errors.

I was gonna go with different writers, different writing styles.

Pretty sure even in non-RPG resources, or non-FFG RPG resources, there's not always been one consistent way to note things like that.

I've seen officially licensed Lucasfilm material using lightsabre instead of the more commonly accepted (and believe canon) light saber . Granted, those were in the 1990's when Lucasfilm wasn't nearly as concerned with such matters.

If you really want to follow Lucas' lead anyway the correct term is laser-sword.

I came here ready to correct you on the word of Canon, but it turns out you're actually talking about Cannons :P

56 minutes ago, LithiumBlossom said:

If you really want to follow Lucas' lead anyway the correct term is laser-sword.

Didn't Luke say "laser sword" in TLJ?

Twin laser cannons reads like 4 guns to me.

I thought this was a notification about a Star Wars magazine with a free cannon.... TAKEMYMONEY!!!

49 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Twin laser cannons reads like 4 guns to me.

That's the problem, as it doesn't always mean that. Some vehicles visually have either two weapon systems that are fire-linked (where the plural is accurate) or a single weapon system with two barrels. Most of the time, it seems they use "twin" as shorthand for "fire-linked," but other times they use plural language when referring to a single weapon.

7 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

That's the problem, as it doesn't always mean that. Some vehicles visually have either two weapon systems that are fire-linked (where the plural is accurate) or a single weapon system with two barrels. Most of the time, it seems they use "twin" as shorthand for "fire-linked," but other times they use plural language when referring to a single weapon.

Could it be that Twin Lasercannon is this:

--II--

While Twin Lasercannons is this:

I----I


?

(I hope that makes sense)

28 minutes ago, OddballE8 said:

Could it be that Twin Lasercannon is this:

--II--

While Twin Lasercannons is this:

I----I


?

(I hope that makes sense)

I see what you're getting at an no, not always. Sometimes it will do that, but other times it will say "fire-linked" instead, it it will say "2 laser cannons," and you only know it's linked because it has Linked 1.

It's just wildly inconsistent because different writers are handwriting every line of the profiles from scratch, which is how some errors get inserted into the books (examples being mixing up the order of the different stats in Age or Rebellion, or forgetting sensor ranges entirely for some vehicles in Strongholds). When I do my own vehicles, I at least have a template saved to a Word doc that I can copy/paste when needed.

It's not "the writers" so much as "the editor(s)" not keeping all the different writings consistent. Even then things will get through the cracks.