Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 18:15:17 -0600
From: P & J Hidalgo <phidalgo@CYBERSPC.MB.CA>
Subject: [SW-RPG] Galaxy Guide 3 Stuff
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Mark Hudson wrote:
>
> You forgot the mention the hack who they got to write the 2nd Ed update.
>
> Oh, I kid.

Hey, I thought I was being rather gentlemanly in not blowing my own
horn! In case anyone missed Mark's remark, it was I who did the second
edition rewrite for GG3.

> I actually consider this the best of the 2nd Ed. Movie GG upgrades since it
> has plenty of new stuff and a nice little adventure in which the PCs are
> running around in the background of The Empire Strikes Back.

I know. When they gave me this book, the GG1 and GG5 rewrites were
already out, and I wanted to make this one better. I only wish I
could've gotten onboard 1 and 5 too.

My biggest complaint is that LFL would not let me use the word "hell"
even though it was spoken in the movie. The quote beginning the Hoth
chapter was supposed to be "I'll see you in hell!" Hmm... LFL won't let
WEG say "hell" but Mike Stackpole can use the word "crap" in his novels?
No fair!

> This book also features my all time favorite picture of Princess Leia on page
> 79. Anyone know if a better quality version of this picture has been printed
> elsewhere?

Hmmm... some of the old Topps cards may have printed that pic. I know,
it's a beaute!

> More Bad: Poor Wedge, doesn't even have the Repulsorlift Operations skill.

I tried! I honestly did! Here's what my manuscript says:

(((Note to editor: the below Wedge stats are extrapolated by looking at
his A New Hope and Jedi stats. Note that in his published stats, he does
not have a repulsorlift operation skill, which doesn’t make sense since
he did that complicated harpoon tow-cable thing with the walker in
Empire. The stats below give him the repulsorlift operation: airspeeder
skill, but this means that his Jedi stats published in Movie Trilogy
Sourcebook and Galaxy Guide 5: Second Edition are wrong.)))

Wedge Antilles
Type: Brash Pilot
DEXTERITY 3D
Blaster 4D+2, brawling parry 3D+1, dodge 5D+1, vehicle blasters 3D+2
KNOWLEDGE 2D
Alien species 4D, bureaucracy 5D, cultures 2D+2, languages 3D, planetary
systems 4D+2
MECHANICAL 4D
Astrogation 6D+1, space transports 5D+2, repulsorlift operation:
airspeeder 5D+2, starfighter piloting: X-wing 5D+2, starship gunnery 5D,
starship shields 4D+2
PERCEPTION 3D
Bargain 4D, gambling 4D+1
STRENGTH 3D
Stamina 4D
TECHNICAL 3D
Computer programming/repair 5D, repulsorlift repair 3D+2, space
transports repair 4D+1, starfighter repair 4D+1
Force Points: 1
Character Points: 5
Move: 10
Equipment: Blaster pistol (4D), flight suit, comlink, tool kit

---------

Other stuff that got cut out of GG3 included extrapolated stats for the
Hound's Tooth and the IG-2000 (which was a good idea, particularly for
the Hound's Tooth, which I wrote way before Tales From the Bounty
Hunters came out.)

--------

One thing I was dismayed was cut was my Captain K-3PO entry which
appears here. It was my attempt to explain what those red-dots on the
white threepio's chest signified:

(((Start NEW entry)))
CAPTAIN K-3PO (1)
The Empire has a long established policy of open racism against
non-humans, not allowing aliens to serve in officer positions in their
Army and Navy. The Rebel Alliance, by contrast, has many essential
military positions staffed by aliens, whose contributions are beyond
measure. To carry this example even further, the Alliance has given an
officer position to a life-form long ridiculed and discriminated against
throughout the galaxy; the Alliance has made a droid an officer in their
Support Services. (2)

While some droids, like Too-Onebee and the renowned Rebel spy code-named
Dagger, (3) have had roles of autonomous, important functioning within
the Alliance, K-3PO is the first droid to be given an actual rank and
command status. His appointment caused some furor in the higher Alliance
echelons, but since it wasn’t a vital military position, Kay-Threepio
received his commission.

Kay-Threepio originally belonged to Commander Narra, the veteran leader
of Renegade Flight, a group of X-wing starfighters attached to Alliance
High Command. Narra’s flight had the task of protecting vital Alliance
transport convoys that supplied the constantly-moving Command
Headquarters. (4) Narra, a military aficionado, had kept accurate
records and memoirs of his various missions and assignments. Because
these documents often had top secret Alliance information, Narra only
kept them in shielded files contained in Kay-Threepio.(5)

As the years passed, Narra neglected to regularly have Kay’s memory
wiped. This wasn’t because the droid was developing a pleasant
personality, far from it. Instead, Kay-Threepio didn’t develop any
personality at all. (6) Instead, the accumulated military tactics and
files Narra had installed in the droid began to somehow “bleed” into the
droid’s comprehension circuits. During the Battle of Ton-Falk, an
off-hand remark by Kay to Narra revealed an ingeniously simple tactic
that Narra and his forces exploited. The resulting losses by the Empire,
two frigates and a Dreadnaught, proved the Kay-Threepio’s value. (7)

Narra petitioned Kay-Threepio to be recognized by Alliance High Command,
and after some initial disputes, Kay was commissioned as a lieutenant in
the Support services branch of the Alliance. (5) Kay served as a
coordinator droid for all the droids in Alliance High Command, serving
at the Yavin base, and the temporary Thila outpost. (8) Kay concluded
his service at Echo Base, where See-Threepio considered him to be “an
officious dullard.” (6) Nonetheless, Kay fulfilled his duty well, and
was destroyed when the command center was hit during the Battle of Hoth.
(9)

Kay-Threepio
Type: Cybot Galactica 3P0 Human-Cyborg Relations Droid
DEXTERITY 1D
KNOWLEDGE 3D+2
Alien species 4D, bureaucracy 6D, cultures 5D, languages 11D, military
history 5D+2, planetary systems 5D, tactics: fleets 5D+1, tactics:
starfighters 6D+2
MECHANICAL 1D
PERCEPTION 2D+1
Command 4D, command: Alliance High Command droids 6D+2
STRENGTH 1D
TECHNICAL 1D
Equipped With:
*Humanoid body (two arms, two legs, head)
*Two visual and two audial sensors - human range (((Note to editor: is
audial a word?)))
*Broad-band antenna receiver
*AA-1 Verbo-brain
*TranLang III Communication module with over six million languages.
*Vocabulator speech/sound system capable of providing an
extraordinarily wide range of sound effects and exact  impersonation of
voices.
Character Points: 8
Move:8
Size: 1. 67 meters tall
Cost: Not available for sale

(((End New Entry)))

ENDNOTES
1) This is the white 3PO droid seen in the command center. The two red
dots on his chest are consistent with the captain rank marker, as
established on page 98 of Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, Second Edition from
West End Games
2) Support Services established in Chapter Nine of Rebel Alliance
Sourcebook, Second Edition
3) Dagger, or DM/C3, is from page 4 of Riders of the Maelstrom from West
End Games
4) Narra and Renegade Flight from pages 17-20 of The Empire Strikes
Back: The National Public Radio Dramatization by Del Rey Books
5) New information.
6) As established on page 31-32 of The Empire Strikes Back: The National
Public Radio Dramatization by Del Rey Books, since it is my contention
that K-3PO is the “Co-ordinator Droid”
7) The Battle of Ton-Falk from page 54 of ImperialSourcebook, Second
Edition. Narra and Kay’s role in the Battle is new information
8) Thila from page 72 of Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope, Second Edition by
West End Games
9) As witnessed in The Empire Strikes Back

--------

My favorite additions to GG3 include the scenes cut out of the movie,
like the wampa pens, and the battle between the probot and the wampa.
Also, getting the old Marvel Bespin storylines acknowledged was pretty
cool.


> Dark pictures. muddy printing of pictures and
> diagrams is my single biggest annoyance with many of WEG's recent >books.

It happened some time after 1993. Either WEG switched printers or
something happened to their current printer because their grayscale
pictures tend to run on the dark side. The Live Action Adventure books
suffer the most for this. Movie Trilogy Sourcebook didn't turn out that
bad.

Pablo "Hack" Hidalgo