A Geek History of Time - Episode 360 - Dune vs Star Wars Part II

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the pale... That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because, you know, who's the boss? You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can to many. to everybody possible.

And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. Is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

And my son. son last week I had a family extended family event that I went out of town for during the day. It was a day trip. And I headed out and I came back. And while I was gone, my wife and my son stayed home and had a stay on the couch and watch movies day. And my wife introduced my son to the film Mama Mia. I have been listening to Abba basically nonstop for the last week. I have driven to work with my radio off and have out of nowhere begun humming.

Oh, son of a. Okay, and that's a transcript right there, because that's exactly how it winds up. going. This morning I woke up and overheard my wife talking to my in-laws about my son's interest in the soundtrack and

the song Super Trooper just immediately popped into my head because I've heard it in the background enough and I am so glad that my son is getting so much joy out of this but I am so tired of it like oh my god we never we never really went through a phase with like frozen you know where like oh my god

you're gonna get so sick of hearing let it go for the thousandth time that was never a thing um and contel he never like none of the none of the songs out of that but but abba it it had to be abba so Oh, yeah, that's what I've been dealing with as the literal background noise of my life. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a U.S. history and government teacher by the time of this recording up here in Northern California at the high school level. And I have undertaken to, and I will say, this has affected the algorithm that I have on social media sites that, show short videos, not TikTok, but like Instagram and things like that.

Anyway, I have taken to sending friends of mine oddly mundane videos. So I sent a video of how to move a donut from a green bowl to a blue bowl. Okay. So we're getting, we're rediscovering. Dada. Dada. Yeah. Or what was another one?

a tutorial video on how to close your hand. And there's been some where it's like the AI voice, the, you know, how to do da-da-da. And so just like, you know, instead of trying to peel a potato by using a lint roller, which will not work because a lint roller is made to grab debris off of your clothes, use a spoon instead. It just, or, you know, don't use a curing to flip the sausages in your pan because it will be too big and unwieldy. Instead, use a balloon, a balloon blower upper.

So just. Yeah. So, so, yes, as a matter of fact, you have, you are trying to reignite Dadaism within your friend's circle. So much more worthwhile than the shit that was coming across. Don't get me wrong. I love tits. But I don't need to see them like on Instagram. Like, no.

I don't give a shit on like Instagram. But what I love seeing apparently is things like I found a good nugget and I'm going to put it in my nugget binder. Or here's a binder for soup. and it's just these it's these mylar you know the sheet protectors filled with soup and it's labeled oh it's wonderful so

don't have a bookmark try using a rotissory chicken instead you know it's just so stupid oh I love it I absolutely love it we are we are clearly in the 20s again yeah and my friend says

to me number one she said why do I even try? And then she said, stop this. I can't resist and I hate it. And then she said, stop trying to fuck up my algorithm. What is a nugget binder? That plastic is now dirty and going to a landfill even earlier. So.

Oh, it's so good. Yeah. Yeah. I think, honestly, I'm going to start sending this shit to your wife. she already loved me i mean i can hear her already we're gonna test that shit in real time my friend what is wrong with him

yeah so i just i just i just want you to remember he's your friend well i don't know how much of my friend he is because he doesn't send me this shit So, like, I don't know where I rank now. Right. I don't send you this shit. In the one hand, I'm grateful. And on the other hand, like, it's my, my algorithm isn't getting fucked up.

Right. Well, and again, you know, the reason I don't send you this shit is because I do this to you on a weekly basis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Oh, yeah. I'm still getting over.

Use a rotisserie chicken. Yeah. Like in my head, this goes back. See, the thing is what's really insidious about this is in my head, this now goes back to the, I want you to visualize a person who has strapped a rubber chicken to their head. Exactly. Which direction is the rubber chicken pointing, right?

This is important. This is crucially important You know is the rotisserie chicken in the container it came from from the store or have you taken it out? Right God damn it Mm-hmm Oh, I feel like Roy Kent, what have you done to me? I'm sorry, no, the line is I hate what you've done to me

Um, yeah Yeah So, so yeah and now we wait. You've... Yes. Yeah, you've sent that to her and now I'm just going to watch my phone.

I've sent a few things, yeah. Okay, yeah, now I'm going to wait for the text message show up on my phone. What the fuck is wrong with him? No. So, speaking of, you know, surrealism and, you know,

pointlessness, let's get back to talking about, as we were last week, let's talk about, you know, which imaginary universe would kick the other one's ass. I love it. I'm here for it. Yeah. So this time around, we got the Imperium from Dune facing off against the galaxy of Star Wars.

And I had gotten into a kind of a bit of a segue, but a necessary one, into talking about shield technology. Right. Because it's a central part of all of the culture and politics. of Dune because, you know, in that way that, you know, military technology affects political reality and diplomacy, it's, it's

a critical part of understanding how how the whole system in Dune operates, right? So the house, all of the house soldiery of Dune use Holtzman fields, use shield generators. Right.

As a matter of course. Now, um, on Aracas, that they don't use them and that actually winds up putting house house troopers at a disadvantage because they are used to fighting with a shield and now on Iraqis they don't have them the reason they don't get used on

Arachus is because the hypersonic vibrations created by a Holtzman field will attract sandworms. Okay. Oh, okay, okay, yeah. So now I'm going to pay a bunch of people

Yeah Take care of their families Yeah And and problem solved Like I will use the terrain to my advantage It's fine Okay Yeah

All right yeah So now also So so Paul Atradis has directly loyal to him All of the surviving Atradis house troops who managed to not get killed by the Harkinans and the Sardicar of the emperor back earlier in the first novel.

At the time of the thought experiment, we're doing. Right, right, right. So any of the remaining house troops who went to ground and survived, they are the core of Paul's army. And now also, under his command, are the men who do not call him Paul Atreides. These men call him Mwadib.

Also they call him Lysan Al-Gaib, the voice from the outer world. These are his Fremen religious fanatic followers who make up the ranks. And then this group gets introduced late. I don't know if it's codified as them being the Fedekine in the first book or if it's in the second book. they are they're they're explicitly named as his fedakin death commandos and they are another cut above house troops these are these men are not merely loyal but they are fanatical these are uh hard-bitten comikaze mindset you know if i like you're talking about you know i need i need a bunch of guys i'm going to take care of yeah they're the ones that'll do it shoot lasers at

shields these guys will fucking do it right right right Um, without, without question, without thought. Because for them, Paul is not merely the emperor. Paul is not merely the head of the house to which they are loyal. He is the Lysan al-Gaiib. He is the Mahdi. Uh, he is a Messiah figure. Sure.

And house troops are brave. The Fittakin are utterly fearless. Mm-hmm. And, and completely ruthless. Um, they come, from a tribal culture in the desert that is

similarly ruthless. These men do not use shields again because they're natives to Iraqis and that's going to attract worms. They are consummate knife fighters. They come from an unimaginably harsh homeworld

that has shaped them into the toughest and most lethal some bitches in the galaxy. Their weapons of choice are similar to house troops, they carry stunter pistols, they carry other weapons that they either smuggle or steal off of dead

house troops. So they have pellet stunners, they have some of those ranged weapons, but their primary weapon is the Chris knife. Which is an exceptionally sharp blade made from the... Yeah, and made from the tooth of a sandworm. And so the Chris knife is not merely a weapon, it is a religious totem.

Well, not only that, but you have to have either merely defanged a sandworm or killed the sandworm and then defanged it. Yeah. Like that's right of passage times three. Like that's right of passage plus trophy. Yeah. Yeah. And so in the wake of the first book, the Fremen become the core of the crusade art. that that spreads out from

Aracas across the galaxy to to enforce the rule of the Mwadib. And there's a whole passage in the second book where we were introduced to a new character who is one of Paul's death commandos. He is Fittekine. He grew up in the desert as Fremen. He went on the crusade

and he saw an ocean for the first time. Oh, okay. And there is this, this remarkable exchange between him, and I want to say it's Paul's sister. And Paul's sister, for a variety of reasons, is utterly cynical. And she's like nine, but she talks like a 40-year-old adult. Right. and and she's an utter and complete cynic and I think it's her

it might be it might be another character but anyway it's this death command of talking to this much more cynical kind of figure and he is very clearly absolutely a hundred percent a true believer in Paul as the prophet and Messiah

and he is he has become a priest within the imperial cult and the mystical experience or the religious experience he had witnessing an ocean for the first time after growing up on a planet where there was no standing water anywhere is this very powerful moment and it gives you does he witness an ocean like from a beach does he fly over it is he in a boat Like, are there tides? He is on a planet. If I recall the description correctly, in the midst of making planet fall, it's like they land,

they come down on the planet and he wades through the ocean water. Okay, so he's walking to the beach. And he feels called to it. Yeah. So it's a missed it call. Yeah, it's this. Nice. Thank you.

But for him, it is clearly this profound religious experience. But again, this is a series about religion written by a non-theist author. And so the viewpoint from the other character is what we see is a portrait of this man's fanaticism. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's, it's, I have no experience whatsoever with, um, transcendent experiences. So to me, it's somebody experiencing something mundane and taken for granted by others. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and so the reason I, I bring that specifically up is, you know, this, this is the kind of character that we are brought to understand the Fedekina is, They are They are They are fanatics They are a thousand percent You know And they have developed

Their skills In an environment Where Up until Mouadib's ascendancy Up until Paul becomes emperor They have been

guerrilla fighters And so they are masters of camouflage And ambush And stealth Hit, move and fade away. Hit and fade. Right.

Makes sense. And so we don't see very much of them. Frank Herbert never writes like a major battle scene with the Fedekine on the crusade. The crusade happens at the backdrop of it's we know that it happens. And we know that, you know, his religious fanatic warriors are going across the galaxy, you know, uniting the planets in a welter of blood.

And we know that he didn't want this to happen, but he wound up running out of moves. And this was the only way to move forward without humanity destroying itself. And there's, again, all of these ideas about, you know, fate and precognition, all this kind of stuff. Right. I mean, okay, so what you're describing, just because I know that we're going to be. be comparing to Star Wars. Yeah. As we go.

What you're describing, real quick, are these Phidicene, are they all male? Are they, does it not matter? Because I know that the Benny Jeserate are all female.

Right. Herbert's universe, as he envisioned the far future, because he's writing in the 60s and he's a white dude. There is a very strong. Yes.

Yeah. There is a very strong gendered component. So the Fittekine are all male. Okay. Soldiers are all male in his universe. And, you know, if we look at the more recent, like the Villeneuve film, there are, we do see women within the ranks of the Fremen warriors. Okay. They're still a minority.

Yeah, but they're there. It's not. Yeah, it's kind of like when you watch the Jabari tribe join in the fight against the border tribe in Wakanda. Yeah, yeah. There's women there, but it's mostly male Jabari's. Right. Okay, so what you're describing so far in Star Wars, there's a couple different versions of these, but the one that comes to mind quickest is the mistral organization.

And this is Sani and Brea Tonica, actually. they were members of the next episode They're members of And it's basically these women Who are assassins, badass fighters Shada Ducal If I recall is her name

In the EU She takes down a no gree Hand to hand Fuck She does it using some cunning and guile Like she pretends to be drunk And like she's going to commit suicide And he's like

Why are you on top of this Administrative building I need to bring you down and when he like so he's ready to use force to like stop her from killing herself but she's also kind of disarmed him by making that a reality that he's reacting to and she tears him down right and that also does remind me of the no agree as well um talk about fanatical right so so there are several several groups that that okay this fits so yes there are there are there are mirror kind of groups

Oh sure Starved Galaxy for sure So And so that's Those those Those are the like Main kind of

kind of combatant types that we're They were going to be looking at here Now the spacing guild Is another faction That we kind of need to talk about Mostly because

They are a central part Of the way that Interstellar Travel operates in the Dune universe Everybody in the Dune universe uses cruisers or their own ships

which by themselves cannot travel faster than light. What they do when they need to travel between planets between star systems is they the smaller ships get inside an impossibly huge like dozens of miles long

guild highliner and then that highliner driven by a guild navigator folds space to move in the twinkling from one star system to another right okay and the guild does not arm their ships at all

house ships again carry some kind of projectal weapons and missiles but guild ships are not armed as a sign of how powerful the guild is. Right. It's the Roman setting a single legate with a stick. Right.

To negotiate. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's if you, if you cause any shit aboard a highliner, we're not going to take you anywhere. Yeah. And we're your only option.

Right. Right. So we don't need weapons. And there are very strict rules about, you know, there's no, there cannot be fighting between ships aboard a highliner and the ships aboard a highlighter don't know who the other ships aboard are. Okay, cool. Yeah. So, yeah. And so, Guild navigators are prescient.

They have precognition, which is a. which is a recurring thing. It's an important theme within Dune is people who are precognitive through whatever mechanism. And Guild Navigators, kind of like Mentat's, are calculating

probabilities. In the case of a Guild Navigator, they very specifically rely on Melange, the spice, in order to fire up and enhance their native precognitive abilities and extended long-term use of Melange. Number one, Melange is an anti-geriatric.

So use of it, small amounts of it, like amongst the noble classes, slows down the aging process and means that you can stay hailing hardy into your 70s and live to be, you know, well over, well over 100. Yeah. but Guild Navigators ingest it in such volume that not only do they become ageless and impossible to pin down but they also mutate like it has a mutagenic effect on their bodies and they navigators because of the changes that take place over time to them

navigators don't normally deal with normal humans the guild has other other functionaries and other people within it who handle dealing

with ordinary humans and a couple of times that an actual guild navigator shows up it's behind closed doors and you know they're always shown floating in a tank

full of spice gas. Okay. Using, you know, gravidic generators to, to counter the gravidic pull of the planet because they spend all their time in orbit, you know,

and so they've, their bones have all elongated and they've got webbed hands and feet and they look kind of fish-like. It's a whole thing. And they're, a huge part of the plot of the second and into the third books is, Paul

because of his development of his abilities and because he has become the Lee Son Al-Gai Yib and the Quiz Outta-Hawk and all that

he creates a blind spot in everybody's precognition and that scares the shit out. Yeah like they they can see probability everywhere else but they look at him

and there's just a hole and it And it terrifies them. We see something like this in Star Wars with the Ejean Vong. Yes. But also with, was her name, Lumaya? I think so. Where she basically finds a way to use the force to hide behind any doubts you might have.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So if you doubt your abilities, she occupies the space right behind that in your brain. and you can't see her all of a sudden. You can fucking, she just hides in plain sight because it fucks with her. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yep. So. And that's, that's, that's, that's a very,

a very Herbert kind of twist on use of the force. Sure. Because it relies on psychology. So that's the spacing guild. And the biggest reason they bring them up is to talk about how spaceships work. in Dune. Okay.

And we never, it's important to note, we never see space battles in the main novels. Okay. All the, all the fighting we hear about happens planet side. We don't hear about, you know,

ships shooting at each other and people dying in orbit. That doesn't happen. Okay. So now the next, next group from, from Dune is the Benny Jesuit. Okay. And when I first came up with the idea for the series,

this was, this mashup that we're talking about was was the one that really got me and Sean going. And he brought up the honored matres who show up later in the novel series and are a kind of a heretical many generations removed offshoot of the Benny Jesuit. I need to apologize to him personally now because for this episode we're not going to get into the honored matres because we're not dealing with Leto the second or anything past children of Dune. and that's that's to simplify things because otherwise this this would be an even longer series of episodes that it already is and like later on in another episode I might address the honored matres and the benjazzarit just talking about the gender politics of dune is a whole thing but the bened Jesuit themselves are an institution with an imperial society who act as mediators

thanks to their, again, spice-fueled, ability as truth-sayers. They study human physical stance and posture and breathing patterns and every, you know, they're able to observe so keenly

human behavior that they can listen to somebody and by the intonations in their voice and by everything else all at once, they can know whether someone is telling the truth or not. Okay. And so this makes them very, very useful to really anybody who needs to negotiate with anyone. And so they can act as mediators. They can act as counselors. They provide counselors and concubines to nobles.

So Lady Jessica. was provided to Duke Lito as a concubine. Right. And part of that relationship is she's also going to be, or truth-sayer, she's also going to be a counselor because of her ability to read people and do all of these things. And eventually, when she becomes a Reverend mother, if she becomes a Reverend mother,

she will have other memory and be able to tap into that to provide counsel and advice. Now behind the scenes, they are spies and manipulators, and they are working toward the achievement of the genetic goal of the Quizat's Hatterok. Right. The purpose bred Messiah, who they believe is going to lead humanity

toward realizing its full potential. Paul, of course, is the Quizade's Hotterrach, as it turns out, and he has come a generation early, and he doesn't like the Benijezeret. So they kind of managed to cook themselves there. And he's thrown their plans into utter chaos because part of their assumption was when he comes along, we're going to know about it and we're going to be in a position to groom him and

manipulate him and whatever. And he'll be our, he'll be our Messiah. And, you know, he, at the end of the first book, he tells Reverend Mother Gaias Mohayim that, yeah, Gaius Mohiam, that, you know, I am your cuizots hot to rock come early. and I am not your puppet and you know she has a freak out and so

for the purposes of this mashup what's important for us to understand is the Benny Jez written note the voice and the weirding way and now this poses a little bit of a problem for the exercise that we have to address in the books

the voice is psychoneurological via intonation and inflection. Sisters are capable of implanting psychic suggestions and exerting mental control over others. Like one of the examples out of the book is Jessica and Paul get captured by Harkinan troops. And the troops get told,

take them out into the desert, kill them. Because we can't have the concubine and the air alive. They need to die. Just take them out and kill them. And Lady Jessica, they realize that one of the two soldiers has been intentionally deafened

in order to make him immune to the voice, but the other one is still vulnerable. And Lady Jessica uses the voice at one point saying to him, you know, there's no need for you to fight over me and, and adds, you know, intonation to fight over me as a suggestion causing the one who can hear her to turn on the other one and crash land the vehicle they're in and all that. Gotcha. So that's kind of how it works.

It's not quite as overt as you don't need to see his identification. Right. These aren't the drives, you know, it isn't anything quite that. that direct. But it is, it is, you can, you can nudge people, right? And in the books,

the weirding way is a form of mental and physical training. Also that I believe relies a little bit on use of Melange, that allows one to shift your perception of space time in order to move and react with blinding speed. So it, It makes you a very, very fast fighter.

Now, in the David Lynch film, the voice and the weirding way get combined into a thing where the voice becomes the weirding way, and they use an amplifier on their chest, and that's where the whole thing about, my name is a killing word, comes from. Okay. Because, you know, Mwadib and, you know, stuff explodes.

and they're also using some kind of a blaster weapon which isn't in the books at all. There's a bunch of things in the Lynch movie that depart from the books sometimes in meaningful and good ways but it's not the same. And now since we're talking about

universes that both have books and movies involved we kind of have to make a choice for the sake of simplicity here and because this particular iteration of the weirding way only shows up in the Lynch movie the Villeneuve film

does not do this this way none of the novels do this we're going to keep the voice in the weirding way as separate disciplines okay um and the

the Fidakin um At the end of the first movie, or at the end of the first book, Paul has been teaching the Fremen warriors the weirding way. So they have been made even more frightening because now they are, they are faster and capable of entering this kind of trans-like fighting state, like the Benny Jesuit. So Benny Jesuit's sisters are more than capable of,

handling themselves in a fight because they often wind up going into dangerous places and they need to be able to but their role isn't intended to be won on the front lines so they're they're there and like if they get attacked they can wreck face to a certain point but they're not they're not mainline front line combatants now the last faction i have to talk about from dune are the tle laxu the tleu the Tala Laksu are possibly the ugliest and most problematic faction in the Dune universe

and that's an achievement again Herbert wrote a universe in which there really is no moral clarity but the Tulea Loxu are repugnant

even to everybody else in this universe they're repugnant but necessary because they are they are providers of high-tech and medical technology and all kinds of stuff.

Now, they work in genetic engineering. The Ben-Egeserate work in genetic engineering, but the Ben-A-Jeserate have been doing it through a generation's long breeding program through arranged marriages and all that kind of stuff. The Tlelox who do it in a much more

interventionist way, they actually tinker with the gene code. and they use rapid cloning to speed up generations. Okay. We discover over the course of the novel series that they use lobotomized and altered women as axolotal tanks for these experiments. So, and for their own reproduction.

Nobody outside of the planet X has ever seen a female Tle-Loxu. and everybody in the universe all has all their theories about why and it's like well because they have their own weird heretical religious devotion so we just never see their women no it's because female humans on on ix on on the tleu planet get get turned into machinery it's it's awful and and like yeah the tleuoxi are just are the worst of the worst. And so they gene engineer beings called face dancers, who are shape shifters and assassins. So a face dancer is capable of changing the shape of their body in order to become a perfect duplicate of anybody else. Okay. And through pseudoscientific, who's he what's it?

they're able to absorb memory so that so that they can better act out the role that they've taken on. So the face dancers are the spies

and assassins of the Thelai Loxu and they also create clones from dead tissue so they can take the corpse of somebody create a copy of that corpse and this is called a Gola and Golas

don't have any of the memories of the living person they once were it becomes a major plot point that the Gola so the Gleloxu are working with the Guild in the second novel to try to assassinate Paul okay

and one of their schemes is they create a Gola of Paul's friend and mentor Duncan Idaho who dies in the first novel and the Gola has no memory of who he was. They've trained him

up to be, you know, a mentat, I think. And they say, you know, this is our gift to you, emperor, you know, your beloved mentor, you know, we've, we give you this, you know, which is fucked up on a number of levels, but, you know,

that's, their scheme is that, you know, Paul is going to bring this guy close to them. And they have programmed this Gola to be a sleeper agent. So when they activate him, he's going to be close enough to kill Paul. Well, it's a plot point that when he gets activated, the psychic stress of killing Paul awakens his memories and he remembers who he is. Okay. So anyway, so they have Gola's face dancers are capable of flawlessly imitating anyone.

They have enhanced reflexes. they have all this kind of stuff. So these are, these are the forces that we have now. Okay. From Dune. So now Star Wars. We're,

we're both of us on more familiar ground. Yeah. So in the same way that we assumed Paul Atreides on the throne of the Imperium between Dune and Dune Messiah, I have pictured our, our mashup happening sometime between

empire and return of the Jedi. So Luke has not he's not got his full powers. I'm going to say... He hasn't even built his own lightsaber yet. I'm going to say it's after the point where he's built his own lightsaber. Okay. So this is...

I'm going to say it's like right before the beginning of Return of the Jedi. So Lando and the droids have gone to... They have infiltrated. on Tatouine. And is Leah there too? It's before Leia. I'm going to say it's before Leia shows. Okay.

Okay. So. So just to give us an idea of where we are in time. Okay. And who the cast of characters are. So the Empire. First thing, the Imperial Army as a force is huge. Yeah.

We only ever see ordinary imperial troops in a few contexts. like they're the crew of vehicles in some places. There's support for the stormtroopers. In Han Solo, a Star Wars story, we see the life of a ground pounder, and boy does it suck. But based on what we do see, there are a lot of soldiers

in the Imperial Armed Forces even before we consider stormtroopers. Now the Imperial Army and the shipboard soldiers, of the Imperial Navy, very much recognizable armies as we know them in modern society. Okay, the house troops from Dune are the product of a civilization and a warfare paradigm that is very, very different from what we were used to. We can look at the Imperial Army and say, yeah, no, that's their soldiers. They have, they have rifles and they're, you know, you know, they're wearing green.

uniforms like here we go yeah right every individual soldier has a helmet a blast vest or some other kind of armor and a blaster carbine or blaster rifle and they are trained they are a professional they are a paid full-time

soldiering force okay now stormtroopers as fans we love to shit on stormtrooper accuracy right but we need to remember that canonically

they're elite troops with upgraded armor and major indoctrination and all the things we like to pick on them about have to do with characters who are all wearing plot armor yeah right

so obviously they're going to miss when they're shooting at Luke and Leah because we need Luke and Laya to stay alive to get to you know the end of the story but also they're shooting at Luke and Leah through an aperture up a level

yeah how many of them can fit in there. Yeah. They're near equipment. Like, I mean, just real quick, there are 25,000 Star Destroyers in the Galactic Empire. The minimum complement of stormtroopers alone, never mind the ground pounders. Yeah. Is north or is just south of 10,000 per ship.

9700. I looked it up this week. Yeah. Okay. So you don't need accuracy. when you can cover a hemisphere. Like, and that's the thing is like, you know, they are made not for, I'm not even counting the granite ears, but they are made not for accuracy, but for volleys.

Yeah. And in the books, I believe it was Dark Sabre. When they are rebuilding the exoscar. skeleton to another Death Star. A whole bunch of them are ordered to go out in EV gear and reassemble the thing with the stuff

on it, right? Right. Massive amounts of fucking radiation. Not a single one of them questions what they're doing and they just go and do it. They're ants. Like there's like there is no questioning of the orders. Just go. And many of them see their comrades dial off and they keep going.

Right. So. Yeah, because they are, they are highly, highly indoctrinated. Yeah. So, so you got the massive indoctrination. You got just the sheer, and that's just the ones that are kept on,

what do you call it? Star Destroyers. Never mind the ones that are stationed on different planets. Never mind the ones that are guards for installations. Never mind the ones that are on the death Star.

Yeah. So, and by the way, since this is right before Luke gets to Java's Palace, the emperor has made a critical error aboard the Death Star. Like, they've got that fucking thing just about set up. Right. Yep. So, so you've got way more than the, I can't do the math. I guess I could round up 10,000 times 25,000, but you've got way more than that.

Yeah. on to that or existing. So, but okay. Yeah. Now, interesting, they should mention the number of stormtrovers aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Because the next group I'm going to talk about is the Imperial Fleet. Okay, yeah. A single Imperial One class Star Destroyer. So this is bigger than a victory class. This is the one kilometer long. Yes. This is the 1600 meter long.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It carried 60, 60, 60 turbo laser batteries. Mm-hmm. Six dual heavy turbo laser turrets. Mm-hmm. 60 ion cannon.

Mm-hmm. A suite of tractor beams. Right. And 72 Thai craft. Yeah. And amongst those 72 ties are Thai bombers. Yep. there are nine

I was going to say now please talk about their ability to land troops and add-ats yes there are 9,700 stormtroopers aboard nearly an entire modern army division just just to say how many troops

that is that's that's a division I couldn't find hard numbers for the number of non-storm trooper troops aboard okay but I remember for the West End Games days that there was canonically, or at least legendarily now, a complement of naval troops of a not insignificant size.

There are also, I didn't write down the numbers, but there are Adats, ATSs, and other groundcraft for Forged Projection Planet Side and troop transport landers specifically designed for getting from the ship to Planet Side with a bunch of dudes inside it. Oh, yeah. Like, it's a huge, huge. Like, when you think about an American, what do you call those things, aircraft carrier. Yeah. That and the floating city that that is. Yeah. Pails in comparison. Oh, yeah. Absolutely pales in comparison. By the way, I'm pulling up right now as we speak, the West End Games Imperial source book. So just look.

Looking at, let's see, now I'm into Army personnel. I need to get into the naval. Capital ships, here we go. Assault shuttles alone have a passengers of 40 space troopers. Yeah. Like that's for an assault shuttle. Those are 30 meters long. They're roughly the size of the Millennium Falcon.

That's their small shit. Now let's go to their big shit Strike cruisers They're 450 meters long Okay so not even the size Not even half the size Of This is about a quarter of the size

Of a Star Destroyer Right 340 troops on board of that Yeah And that doesn't That's the troops as passengers Nevermind the crew of 1,972

With a hundred and 40 gunners alone. Yeah. If we want to get to a Lancer class frigate, we're talking yeah, a crew of 810, 40 gunners, 40 troopers, interdictor cruisers. These are the ones with the blister bulbs

on them. Right, right. Yeah. Those seem to be 2,783 crew. Yeah. Dreadnots. A crew of 16,000 133, 97 gunners, 3,000 troops. Yeah. You know, like, it just is just the amount of holy fucking shit, are you kidding me? So victory class Star Destroyer, 900 meters long, okay?

So not quite a kilometer. They carry 2,040 troops. The Victory 2 Star Destroyer, also 900 meters long, they're going to be carrying 1,600 troops, and then we get to, yeah, 9,700 troops, 36,810 crew on the Imperial Star Destroyer. Yeah. 275 gunners alone. Yep. So, and that's, you know, yeah, there's, the superstar destroyer has 38,000 troops on it as passengers.

Yeah. Its crew is damn near 300,000 people. Yeah. Well, because the superstar destroyer is five miles long. Five miles long. Yeah. It casts a shadow on the rest of them. Yeah.

Like just the numbers alone. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's crazy. Yeah. So the fleet is a significant player. And that's just the fleet. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to look up the ground vehicles that Imperial Star Destroyer holds, and let's see.

It will carry up. Okay, here we go. 25 ATATs, 50 ATSTs, 12 squadrons of Thai fighters, including two squadrons made up of the Thai interceptors. Other vessels bring the total aboard the Super Star Destroyer to over 200. Now that's the Super Star Destroyer. The regular Star Destroyers are 20 Adats, 30 ATSTs, six tie fire squadrons for escort and patrol.

Whole systems whose GDP is less than the cost of a single Star Destroyer. Yeah. Just, yeah. So, yeah, it's crazy. That's nuts. Quote Scott Steiner, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, complete sidebar here, but I cannot think of House Steiner in Battle Tech anymore without thinking of the phrase Steiner Math. Oh, I love it. And, you know, you think of all. Yeah. You think of all the all the memes associated with you know a Steiner scout lances you know four atlases Oh I love it yeah um so for for those who you know aren't familiar um the atlas is one of the heaviest mecks in the game so for those is like not by any rational level it's not a scout lance at all but to Steiner it is sure um because that's their jam.

Anyway, so the rebellion is the next faction I want to talk about. At this point in Galactic history, there is, of course, a widespread rebellion underway. Now, Lucas clearly never read Che Guevara, and it kind of shows. Right. I say this because we see a rebel force

that can't quite make up its mind about whether it's fighting a guerrilla war or a more conventional one. Right. The possession of large-scale assets like starcruisers and squadrons of starfighters looks like a conventional military trying to achieve guerrilla-style goals. An argument can be made convincingly that Guevara's model is a part to map onto a civilization spread across multiple star systems.

And since the scale of the map is that much larger, so too must the scale of the weapons and organization. And yes, my master's degree in military history is coming along just fine. Thank you. Well, also, it's an alliance, so different folks are going to bring different things and have different priorities. This is true. Yeah. This is true.

But with everything that I just said about the scale of the rebellion, the rebellion is still, I mean, as you can tell from what you just read to our audience about the scale of the imperial fleet, the rebellion is outgunned and overall outnumbered by the empire. Oh, yeah. But a very large number of rebellion troops are veterans who've either as resistance fighters or honest to God soldier, you know, front line combatants have been doing this for, or both have been doing this for a long time by this time. Yes. And as an organization, they're used to finding ways to adapt and overcome. Yeah. I mean, their number one admiral is a man who was made slave to Governor Tarkin. Yeah.

And he. like takes everything that he learned and he puts it into how he leads the uh the rebellion by the way the largest ship the rebellion has is the montcal star cruiser right the mc80s uh 1,200 meters so 400 meters shy of a victory or of a standard star destroyer yeah crew of 5100 200 245 gunners and 246 gunners pardon me and can only carry about 1,200 troops yeah The Rebel Assault Frigot, 700 meters, so half the fucking size. Yeah. And total of 100 troops.

Yeah. Their bulk cruisers can carry 200 troops. The Nebula B frigates, the ones that look really fucking weird. You know, where it's got the long spine in between. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A crew of 854, and they can carry a total of 75 troops. Like, we are not talking.

Like the Corellian gun ships can carry like, where am I seeing it? It's 120 meters, right? The Correlian Corvettes are 150 meters. That's, you know, you're Tant of, you're Tant of 4, right? Right. Up to 600 can be carried on those. Yeah. Depending on configuration.

Like it is so, they're so outgunned and so outmanned. Yeah. You know, and how many of them do they have in the fleet, et cetera, et cetera. Like it's just, yeah. Yeah, and they have to work very hard. One of the things that does show up as being, I mean, Lucas still didn't read Che Guevar, but one of the things they do that does match up with Guevara's, you know, doctrine for guerrilla warfare is they don't commit forces unless they know they have a goal they can achieve.

Right. with minimal loss of resources. They're Fabians. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so, trooper for trooper,

rebels are comparable to house soldiery, and in my opinion, I think trooper for trooper, they have a slight edge over Imperial Army troops. And again, just like everybody else in the Star Wars universe,

except force users, they are primarily armed with blaster weapons. I didn't mention this. in the Imperial part. I kind of did when I talked about the Imperial Army.

Stormtroopers, Imperial Army troopers, rebel troopers, anybody who is a soldier carries a blaster carbine or a blaster rifle or some heavier blaster weapon,

you know, that may wind up being a crew-served weapon or whatever, right? Sure. But blasters, blasters are ubiquitous. They are the thing.

Yes. So now, Mandalorians. Okay. Now, I've managed to write myself into an odd corner with these folks, because between zero A-B-Y and four-A-B-Y, there's no official line on exactly what was going on. This is before the purge. And after, with a question mark, the Mandalorian Civil War, as far as I can figure in the time that I'm imagining, Bo-Katan cries is the Mandalor. hasn't lost the dark saber to Gus Fring yet.

And so the Mandalrians are a group kind of doing their own thing. I don't, I am not 100% sure where, where they are or what they're doing at this point in the Star Wars universe because I couldn't find any clear sources. Yeah, the problem with it is that the purge is all canon and not legends. Legends had such a more cohesive timeline on all of this. Canon is kind of catch as catch can. Like you said, it's between four and five ABY. Well, that means the purge hasn't happened yet, and Bocatan is in charge.

But also, this is, Baskar is not as ubiquitous as we think it is. Cortosis is virtually unknown. BobaFet's not even. wearing he doesn't wear best car he's wearing durestil yeah um yeah you got all that stuff going on uh the like you said the um the civil war has already happened because that was during clone wars right um you know in many ways mandor is a fractured nation which previously hadn't been a nation like yeah there's there's so much that's that's now canon that was not and so you know deal with canon that's there that's there that's

That's fine. Yeah. But, yeah, it's Mandelor. In many ways, they've hired themselves out to various places, and there's very few of them who are on the side of the rebellion. Right. Hi, Ronald. The the efforts of Sabine have yielded some houses of Mandelore.

at least fighting the empire, if not helping the rebels. And in many ways, you could probably say that Mandalorians at this time are sitting things out. They're kind of dealing with their own shit. They're not a force to be reckoned with in the Galactic Civil War, except for a very few who are just straight up on the side of the rebels, you know, voiced by Tyson Kid. or not no by Kevin Kidd sorry Tyson Khrasler um so yeah yeah but that being said there is uh you know that production triangle you could have it good you could have it cheap you could have it quick pick two yeah it feels very similar uh when it comes to mandolarians Jedi and elite

Elite Imperial troops Troopers yeah well yeah or honestly Elite Imperial like dark saber troopers so like you know the the yeah clankers Right because mandolarians could beat the shit out of Jedi Jedi Jedi could table entire squadron of droids and the droids can fuck up a Mandalorian Yeah, it's like it's Rochambeau that's what it yeah yeah it's yeah rock paper scissors.

Yeah. So anyway. So yeah, Mandalorians person to person, if they're not, if they're dealing with a Jedi or a sentient, they're going to put up a really good fight and or win. Yeah.

Yeah. It's essentially my take on it. The way I put it down here is Mandalorians are highly trained, highly motivated, and frighteningly well equipped. Yes. Like everybody else in the galaxy,

they use blasters as primary weapons, but unlike most factions, they're keen on close quarters and hand-to-hand fighting. Oh, yeah. Vibro blades, regular blades, yeah. Triangle blades that are basically like, you know how like,

what do you call it, a bayonet? Yes. Does that? Imagine that, but it's filled in on all sides. So it's like he's stabbing you with like an architect's ruler.

You know those? Oh, Christ. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's toe darts. There's knee darts. There's grenade launchers, micro grenade launchers. There's flame thrower.

A rock of sparrows or whatever the whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The needle missile dart thing was. Yeah. There's there's garots. There's lassoes. There's a fucking rocket. Yeah.

Like. Yeah. And that's the normal guy. Never mind the heavies. The heavies now have, you know, a goddamn gatling gun. Yeah. Yeah. Pick your point.

also by the way there's a there's a better than 50% chance a mandorrean you're running to can fly right and they have little personal buckler shields half of them do yeah so and and again i'm not even looking at like best gar is being able to hold off a lightsaber attack or anything like that i'm just looking at all the offense then we need to get to their armor yeah and shall we talk about the sensors in their armor and their ability to track shit and to have a three six display and yeah oh yeah no they're they're terrifying individually they're terrifying there's a small number of them and depending on what faction they're part of you might only have to deal with one of them at a time yeah i mean you know that's another that that is a weakness and a strength

yeah in in one of the books um i think it would be fury or inferno um um Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, it would be Fury, Inferno, or Bloodlines from the legacy of the force octology. Not to be confused with the comic book, Legacy, but they have a discussion about how they are Mercury. You can smash them up into tiny little bits. They'll eventually come back together. Oh, that's a great analogy.

I really like that metaphor a lot. That's really good. So they're like, they're playing the 4,000-year-long, game. They don't give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and if you're dealing with children of the watch, let's talk about religious fanatics for a moment, shall we? Sure. Sure. You know. Or ones who have zero fanaticism, and they're like, who hired me? Yeah. That's also scary on a different level.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you bought me. I stay bought. That's how I do business. Yeah, contract. Yeah. So they're terrifying. And then we have to talk about force users. So it is now accepted, canon, that there are force users of many different stripes all over the galaxy besides Luke and Vader and Palpatine slash Sidious. Yes.

And this is at the time that I'm talking about our thought experiment happening. Like, you know, there's a bunch of other Jedi out there who survived Order 66. There's a bunch of would, could have been Sith who got, you know, abandoned. Right. You know, in the process of, you know, Sidious, you know, coming into power. There's Inquisitors that Sidious turns Jedi into. Yeah. There's the hand.

Yeah. There's also there's other force users like the flow or the white current rather. Right. Yeah. You know, there's also other warrior type groups, by the way. I mean, you have, I forget what Zeb's people are called right now, the LaSotte Power Rangers. I forget what their actual group is. But you've got them, you've got coinites, you've got just fucking, there's a lot of Marshall.

It's a big galaxy. Yeah, martial organizations. Yeah. When you have a galaxy of, you know, 3,000 worlds that are part of the Republic and then, you know, who knows how many planets outside of that, you're going to have a lot of different organizations. But like we said last time, I think the no gree exist. They, because they're in rebels. So they do exist in the canon, not just the EU, but they are frightening as fuck. So.

Yeah. And that's that's a side note that I didn't even get into in my notes, but that, you know, bears mentioning, Dune does not involve aliens. The Tili Loxu kind of come close, but they are, they are human. They are just humans who have genetically experimented on themselves to the points that they're alien looking. Right. But everybody in Dune is an earth monkey with anxiety. Like that's that's it

Star Wars is every You know Zenos Kind of kind of critter under the sun You got Trandotion hunters And they specialize in hunting wookies But they hunt others as well Yes And they're really scary

You've got the GAND The huntsman Which they have their own culture Of like hunting shit And they're not bounty hunters at all Yeah You've got Um, you've got the wookies.

Just, like just by themselves. Wookies, I have a wookie with a spatha. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need anything else. Yeah.

Oh, this one, he's got a, what is that? A goddamn crossbow? But it's firing blaster bolts. Yeah. How odd.

But they're, but they're not ordinary blaster bolts. Like, like, they're like supercharged explosive blaster bolts. Yeah. What? There goes your shield.

Yeah. It's like I've got a Wiki brigade. That goes your fucking day. Like, yeah. So I got to get back to force users though because I want to make a point about them. Real quick. Before you do. Yeah. There's Ewoks.

They're going to win the whole thing for you because they use primitive weapons and they take down the empire. Yeah. Episodes over. I don't know what to tell you. Game over. Yeah, murder teddy bears. Yeah, murder teddy bears. Yeah.

They are, as a matter of fact, by the way, you know, I mentioned last episode that when Lucas wrote Star Wars, he had the Viet Cong on his mind. Yes. He turned them into teddy bears. He turned them into teddy bears and they murderated. Yes. And eight. The most, yes. Yes.

And. Devoured. Yeah. You know, I want to try to find a way to. compare it to cannibalism because they were eating sentience, but it's not technically cannibalism because it's different species. Right. Yeah.

The kind of conversations that we get into on this show. Anyway. Right. Like, how did I wind up here? To borrow from the kids, they ate and left no crumbs. This is true. Mm-hmm. Despite the empire being a bunch of crummy people.

Mm-hmm. So force users. are we see them they're the least of the problem really for Dune well I don't know about that like

Dune has a lot of problems and force users are are one of them so all of these folks that were talking about are running around the galaxy in various places they vary wildly

in level of combat training level of control of their powers you know how how how much they know how to do. But the notables amongst them are veterans of a bitter series of religious struggles, and their powers are kind of ridiculous. That's true. They can control their own bodily functions up to the point of ignoring injury and pain.

Yep. They can deflect blaster bolts, not just with lightsabers, but potentially their own hands. They can absorb them, too. Yes, yes. Oh, oh, joy, right? Yeah. They can go into a near-death trance so that they could survive the vacuum of space and then have you wake them with a word. Yes.

Yeah. They can leap higher, farther, and faster than any normal sabient. Mm-hmm. They have telekinesis powerful enough in a couple of cases to canonically hold a fucking starship in place with the power of their mind. But if they misstep and hit a slanted. surface, they're just going to die. They're just, they're fucked. Yeah, no, I know.

But yes. So, I mean, lightsabers at this point are almost an afterthought. Yeah. But a lightsaber is a weapon made up of energetic particles rather than a solid blade. So that, combined with the issue

of blasters, brings us to the point where we need to start looking at how the tech of the two universes will interact. Okay, so we spent a bunch of time last episode talking about shield physics from Dune. And now we need to note. And anybody listening to this who is anything like the level of geek about Star Wars, the two of us are, knows Star Wars doesn't use lasers.

Well, they do on ships. They don't personally personally. Well, hold on. I haven't actually about that in a moment. but blasters, the primary weapon that everybody in Star Wars universe is carrying is their first line. Yes. Yes. Is a plasma weapon.

Yes. Okay. Now we see this in the films. All we got to do is look at their behavior in the films to understand this because they don't fire beams. They fire bolts. Bolts. Exactly. It's also worth noting that those bolts move significantly faster than bullets do or significantly slower rather than bullets do in the real world.

that's a discussion for another time. And they light shit on fire. Yes. When they hit it. Like half the people have fire coming out of the wound. Yes. The other half, it's just charred as fuck. Yeah.

So it's, it is a burning heat, heat, blast, kinetic kind of, kind of hit. Right. So now, um, within the lore developed again for the West End role playing game. It has been established and never overwritten. that blasters operate by energizing and focusing Teabana gas. There are a few other kinds of gas, but yes, the concept remains the same. Yeah. And that's explicitly a plaza, that's what a plasma weapon would be.

That's what they're doing. They're flinging superheated plasma bolts at the enemy. And now I hear you thinking, and you started to bring up, what about ship-scale turbo lasers? Again, not actually lasers. They are super, and I got this off of, off of a wiki, utilizing Canon sources, or at least legend sources. They're supercharged megascale blasters that use laser power as the first stage of the energizing process. The actual projectile fired is, again, a massive bolt of energized gas. and again we can see this

if we watch the behavior of turbo laser batteries in the movies it operates on a different it's energized to a different spectrum level on the on the visual spectrum it's actually it's more energetic because green light has a tighter wavelength than red light

so there's more energy going on in them and they are larger and there's more being flung, but they are still a very high-powered supercharged plasma weapon. I am currently scrolling through the weapons descriptions of Y-Wings and X-Wings. And you are correct. They are all laser cannon.

Oh, laser cannon. Okay. So that's different than... It is different. Yeah. And because that and the tie fighter, and right now I'm switching between those... I'm in the cap ship section,

so you'll have to bear with me for a second. But laser cannons are different than turbo lasers. Yes. And now we get to a point where we have to think. about the visual evidence we have when they're referred to as laser cannons the visual effect we see is still a juiced up version of the bolt a juiced up version of a blaster bolt true now that that said the the fire that they receive from I bet you it's going to be after capital ships the fire that they receive from from from typhph

fighters yeah um those are ongoing shots that's a good point and that was that's what was tripping me up was that those if i recall correctly and i might well be wrong but those tends to be more of the jesus why is it not in this book um imperial navy oh this is all just all just organization chart. But they tend to be longer shots and therefore

that tells me could potentially actually be lasers that we're talking about. All right. That's entirely possible. But the capital ship weaponry is the turbo laser does not actually fire a laser beam. It fires a

supercharged bolt of superheated plasma. Yes. So whatever we find out about about Thai fighters. We also need to mention here that, as I mentioned before, lightsaber lore. Now, the lore for lightsaber, some parts of the lore has shifted since the great split, but essentially the basics of what a lightsaber blade is have not changed.

True. Once again, we owe the original explanation of a lightsaber to the West End game in which is, it was explained that a powerful energy source puts energy through a khyber crystal, which generates a beam of charged ions, is what I remember it being described as in the article, but that's still basically plasma in all but name, capable of cutting through nearly everything

except another stream of charged gas. Right. Okay. And I need to move a cat. All right. All right. In this explanation, interestingly, there is a distinct front and back to the weapon.

There is a path of particles going out and a path of particles coming back, which generates the idea of a long and short edge or true and false edge to the lightsaber, which is only interesting to me because I'm a sword nerd, but still I find it interesting. I am one, so you can all deal with it. Now, the amount of power directed into the crystal determines the blade's length, the color of the crystal affects the weapons color. And there's been plenty of stuff written about how those affect the things you can do with a trick,

lightsaber, and, you know, have a variable length and all that stuff. But for this exercise, that's all we need to understand. And so now, having established all of that, having set the ground rules and having described who the potential players all are. We kind of need to figure out how we're going to have this happen and how this is going to play out. What I imagine in my head is sometime shortly before the beginning of the second Dune Book, Dune Messiah. Shortly before the beginning of, yeah, shortly before the beginning of Dune Messiah. and as I said basically right before the beginning of Return of the Jedi somehow the separation between the Imperium of Dune and the Galaxy of Star Wars

gets thinned and we have a time stream galaxy conjunction and all of a sudden we have the two universes superimposed over one another. Okay, yeah. And we can consider the astrophysical ramifications of this

some other time, but for now, this means that all of a sudden Paul Mouadib, emperor, Paul Atreides Mouadib, onarakis, is overseeing the conduct of his armies of religious fanatics throughout the galaxy

when suddenly in the sky overhead a new moon appears over Arachus and that moon is oddly forested

and there is a strange object floating alongside that moon in another part of the galaxy a group of Fidakean warriors suddenly find themselves not on the

semi-tropical planet they had been sent to bring into compliance but they find themselves in the middle of a swamp Okay and and there's some odd

there's a hut ahead of them somewhere where a fire glows within Okay. And I don't know who the other group I want to throw at this. On some other planet being brought into compliance, we have a garrison of stormtroopers running into a battalion of mixed house troops and Phinekeen. Okay. So, first, because I want to see how they interact with this, how do you imagine a showdown between a Mandalorian and somebody from Dune.

And who do you want to have that fight be between? Let's go heavy versus heavy. Let's go Duncan, Idaho versus Boba Fett. Okay. get as iconic as we fucking can. Okay. All right. Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Is Han Solo anywhere in the area? If so, Duncan Idaho is going to win by default. Yeah. No. Solo. Oh, here's what we can have happen. Duncan Idaho, number one, somehow finds himself alive. Because he died in the first book, but we can overlook that.

It's his what you might call it thing. Gola. Okay. All right. The Gola. The Duncan Idaho Gola somehow finds himself separated from his emperor and standing at the front gates of Jabba's palace. And Solo is still. Obafed is on retainer.

Yes. And Solo is still a brick. Okay. So. Yeah. So where do you want to start with this? You want to start with that one? Yeah, yeah, let's start with that one.

All right. What armaments does Duncan Idaho come with? Duncan Idaho, if we want to just say, you know what, we're throwing down and it's just my miniature versus your miniature. Duncan Idaho is carrying a shield generator, has a, he spent time amongst the Fremen. and this is after the crusade has started. So we're going to give him a Chris knife. Okay. Because he impressed the Fremen while he was amongst them before the Atreides showed up.

So he has a Chris knife. He has a shield. Probably is carrying a stunner pistol, which is a pellet stunner pistol. And since he is a sword master of Ginnaz, I'm going to give him some. kind of longer blade. Okay. So some, in effect, some kind of rapier.

Now I'm going off of book, Duncan Idaho, not Villeneuve, Duncan Idaho. Sure. Just because as cool as Jason Momoa was in the role, that's not the one I'm picturing

in my head in this scenario. Okay. And so we're using Boba Fett from basically from episode six. Yes. Okay, pulling that up right now. So, yeah, got it. Idaho, at this point, calmly but assertively,

knocks on the gate because he has been separated from his emperor, and he needs somebody to tell him how the hell he can get back to Iraqis, because this looks like Iraqis, but it's clearly not. Yeah. This is Iraqis if Iraqis did Jeopardy first and then Wheel the Fortune. Yeah. Like, slightly different.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, Fett would have, you know, the knocking happens.

The little ball comes out. You do that kind of thing. I assume Idaho would have taken an issue with this and either like started attacking the building or. insisting that he stay put. Yes. And Jabba partly out of just a desire for entertainment and partly because whoever this individual is, they're being, what's the word I'm looking for?

Disrespectful. Yeah. And, you know, Fet go deal with it. All right. So real quick, what weapons does Idaho have? Because Fet would have scanned him. Oh, yeah. So he sees that Idaho is carrying some kind of a dagger, some kind of longer blade, and some kind of clearly projectile weapon.

And Idaho won't have the shield up yet. Right. So he would probably see that there is some kind of very powerful battery. and he's got a big bulky box on his on his waist that's some kind of battery yeah power source there are there are um

to ban a dispersal fields that exist in the star star star wars universe um so just just looking at that that fet would have would have scanned him out I will say okay so here's here's what you can expect from

Fet in terms of weapons at this time right he's got a blaster carbine right uh which he has ratcheted down the damage a little bit to ratchet up the the range um he has uh let's see well he's got his head to toe uh suit that is goddammed insane yeah he has wrist lasers actual lasers yes okay uh although i will say um given that nowhere in any of the tech specs have i been able to find them saying lasers besides that.

They might be, well, they're not blasters, though. Yeah. Yeah, so that's interesting. Okay, so he's also got- differentiated. Yeah, it is. He's got wrist lasers. He's got rocket dart launchers.

Right. He's got a flame projector. He's got a concussion grenade launcher. He has his backpack, or his jetpack. He has a sensor pod that would let him see all kinds of shit. He's got infrared motion sensors, so dude's not going to hide from him. He's got macro binoculars. He's got sound sensors.

He could call in for backup, but he's not going to. He's got a broadband antenna in case anybody's going to. He's got a winch. And he has an enviro filter. Like he's a human Swiss Army knife. Yeah, he's he's armed to the tits. Like, okay. So, and then beyond.

So that's that's Boba Fett's I'm trying to see if this is This source book. Yeah, it's special edition trilogy source book. Okay, so So now the gate opens Fett would have okay, yeah Fett's from above he would find out pretty quickly that the the blaster's not going to work now why do you say the blaster's not going to work well because when he opens fire he's going to the dude's going to turn on his shield i would imagine shield here's the thing um based on my uh earlier argument about how shields operated do we think the plasma effect is going to be stopped by the shield so the the impact of the black Masterbolt might be stopped. Right.

But the heat transfer and the energy being delivered through that. So it's it's it maybe we can treat it like it's a bulletproof vest as in or kind of effectively like a bulletproof vest. Like it's going to prevent this from killing you outright. Right. But your combat effectiveness has, has taken a serious hit. Right.

Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, he's going to try to hit from range, make his life easier. Yeah. I would assume it wouldn't work. Okay. And then he's figuring out pretty quickly. Then he's going to go through, okay, I'll try a projectile.

That don't work because it's too fast. He's going to basically fly above, come down, and just cook him with the flamethrower. Yeah, that's kind of how I see That's kind of how I see that one ending Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

No matter how powerful The Holtzman field The Flamethrows really gonna cramp your style Yeah As soon as you said The heat transfer is still gonna occur I'm like well Fett will have figured that

Now there's also Star Wars Well now it's legends It used to be canon One of the things that happened That radicalized Duku was years ago when he was a baby Jedi. I think he was actually, no, he was a knight on,

I think in charge of one of his first missions, ran into a bunch of Mandalorians when Django Fet was just a baby, a baby Mando. And the, the Mandalorians, like, they ran into him, and they're like, oh, it's Jedi, switch to projectiles. They fucking like that. Boom.

Let's not even bother with with blasters. We're just switching to projectiles. And they fucked up a bunch of Jedi. Yeah. So some of the Jedi started using telekinesis to fuck with their rockets. And then they were like, okay, switch to this other thing. And they started lighting shit on fire. Yeah.

Like it was just like, and by the way, a Jedi could absorb the fire. Right. But yeah, it's going to get hot fast. But yeah, I'd say it's 1-0 Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So,

a group of a mixed force of house troops and Fidequin find themselves facing off against an Empire garrison. Okay. Does the Empire get vehicles for this? Or is it just soldiers to soldiers? We don't know anything about combat vehicles in Degovies. So to keep things even, we're not we're not going to throw any kind of armored vehicles or anything like that into the mix. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, like if we're being realistic, we probably should. And that's that's kind of two oh. Yeah. That's Mo face. But, you know, for purposes of keeping this more interesting. Sure. So. So let's see.

Stormtroopers immediately open up. Massive volley. as you described. Yeah, yeah. And what the, and the Fittekine see this happening and immediately scatter. Yep. The house troops start taking hits. Some of them start going down.

And the rest of them run as fast as they can into close combat range. Right. Uh, once they get into close combat range, they have a major advantage over the stormtroopers. That's very true. They are, they are more heavily trained in hand-to-hand combat. Yep. Um, but by this time, they're also going to be really seriously outnumbered because of the, the thinning of their ranks on the way in. Yeah, because the stormtroopers, while they, they love their carbines.

Yeah. They also have, what do you call those, thermal debts? Yeah, and one or two tossed thermal detonators is going to fuck things up. Yeah. Even as you scatter, you're still going to be. Yeah. So some of the stormtroopers go down in the hand-to-hand fight, with the with the house troops

but the house troops eventually go down leaving leaving the remaining stormtroopers the stormtroopers continue on their on their patrol on their whatever and that's when the Phidokine

start really inflicting losses in my in my read of the situation oh hit and fade hit and fade yeah because Because anytime, you know, stormtroopers, we see their, their tactical behavior. Right. They move in file.

You know, they have, they have very, very specific kind of strict, you know, methodological doctrine that they follow. They take the middle of the road. They take the middle of the town street and then they just walk down. Now, I got a quick question for you. What is the goal of the fetakine? Because the goal of the rebels is to get the fuck away. and usually with whatever McGuffin they went there for. Right.

So a victory for the rebels is, did we get the thing out of the place? Yes, we know we lost 90%. It's still a victory. Yeah. So what's the goal of the Fedekine? If it's to wipe out the strongtroopers, I think they're going to lose. If it's any other goal, they're going to win. It is going to be inflict as much hurt as they can

and then get back to basically they are going to want to inflict as much hurt as they can because that's how they operate and these are clearly heretics but they're as far as getting away goes

I'm going to read their goal as whoever these invaders are we need to stop them because So is it we need to blow their shit up or is it? Yeah, we need to blow their shit up. We need to figure first off, figure out where they came from.

Uh-huh. Whatever ship they're going to try to use to get off planet, we blow up. See, I think that your Fedekine are going to probably end up winning if that's their goal because the Stormies can't defend against a hit and move. Saw Guerrera's tactics basically are going to carry the day.

Yeah. You know, Saul Guerrera won every goddamn time. Yeah. And he's a fanatic too. So I think the Fedekine are going to, again, take massive losses. But if they define their victory, not by body count, but by objective, I think they'll get their objective through. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We're going to find their lander. We're going to blow it up. Yeah, Fedekin win. Yeah. We're going to try to find. We're going to try to get a hold of their tech. Yeah. Because we saw what they did the House True.

and like this we need those toys right and and so yeah I'd say yeah this this round is going to go gonna go to the resistance fighters the phytokine yeah and again they will lose more men and and fighters yeah they will lose more material than they'll ever gain but because of the way that resistance people define victory, it's going to go against the Imperials. Yeah. Which is weird because defending is always easier, but that's when you know what you're defending.

Well, one, and again, we get back to Che Guevara. Yeah. If you have the initiative to determine when and where and how. Yes. And you define victory as anything other than body count. Yeah. You will still be able to melt away, replenish your numbers,

come back with different tactics each time. I'm giving it to them. Yeah. Yeah. And just the image of one phidicane turning to another one and going, these guys are like Sardicar only without the brains. Like I have that image in my head, like these like dumb Sartacar.

Now I will say this. Yeah. If the Imperials are allowed vehicles, they win. If they're allowed anything beyond personal weapons. Yeah. If they're allowed the might of the empire, they're going to win. Yeah. Because they will not stop and they will turn to glass an entire town.

Yes. The willingness to, yeah. And I'm not even calling down bombardment. I'm just talking about the local garrison yeah like okay I guess we're going to send the walkers after them now like they'll see us coming a mile away

and we're going to keep coming or just a fuck ton of speeder troops just I mean Jesus Christ or setting up ewebs and just blasting into their yeah you know like so if they're allowed their their full material they're going to win

Yeah. And if the Fedokine are taking on rebels, I don't think they'll win. I think the rebels would actually be able to, to, well, depending on which rebels. Rebel commandos, the guys that stormed Endor, those guys will win. Yeah. Rebels that were on the TAN of four, they're going to lose. They're going to be in trouble. Yeah.

Yeah. And when I'm imagining rebellion troopers, I'm imagining the, the commandos on on indoor that's that's who I'm that's who I'm picturing okay yeah there they would win so or or the the squad not quite platoon in um rogue one yeah yeah any any specialized or irregulars and they're going to win yeah so I think I think I think yeah no and I'm I'm in agreement with you um so now uh uh over Iraqis. Iraqis has now grown a new moon.

And just like they did in the movies, we're going to do a weird, you know, like spiral cut, you know, to that scene. And aboard the bridge of the executor, which captain was in command at that point? I'm trying to remember. Admiral Piet. Ah, yes. Admiral Piet.

I can't believe I ever get laid. I didn't even have to think about that. That was just like, you know. Just off the top of your head. Yeah. Yeah. Piet turns, turns, and we see him turn over his shoulder and say in a slightly nervous tone of voice, Lord Vader, we suddenly have a large number of anomalous readings.

and I'm not going to try to do Vader's voice sure but you know Vader says something about you know the emperor won't tolerate any interference with his program you know determine who they are at once

and take appropriate steps sure sure the guild navigator aboard or the guild navigators plural aboard the multiple hayliners in orbit around Arachas

shit themselves. Yeah. Because number one, they're probably having some kind of neurological lag from the universe literally shifting. But more than that,

they're suddenly in the company of a new moon, a new artificial moon-like object, which is bigger than any hailer they've ever seen. Haylanders are the biggest things, biggest man-made things in the universe. Right.

And an entire fleet of ships that they can tell are independently capable of faster than light travel. Yeah. Which, which, so they're, they all just blue screen. Like, psychically, psychologically, they, they, they are paralyzed.

And we're done. And the, and, and all of the house and imperial ships aboard the hayliners as they are passing to and from the surface of Iraqis, which is now the capital of the Imperium, they suddenly noticed, oh shit, where did that battle fleet come from?

Several of them assume it's some kind of trick from whoever they're feuding, you know, house opponent is, and some trigger-happy house captain opens fire on their rival.

You know, Atreid's is the imperial house so it's not them firing on Harkinen. It's not Harkinen is extinct, so it's not them. But two houses, alike in Dignity in Faireracus where we set our scene,

immediately immediately start gunning for each other because they figure this is got to be this is our one way or the other this is our chance and that gets reported to Vader and Vader being Vader

orders the imperial fleet to just obliterate all of them oh yeah whoever they are doesn't matter I don't care yeah there's a planet down there that wasn't there a few moments ago I'm going to go back to not being there it'll go back to not being there we don't have the giant giant planet

killing laser cannon ready yet but we'll figure out a way to glass it so and you said the this is the executor right yeah okay so the executor is also um its squadron consists of a mix of five imperial one and two star destroyers as well yeah okay uh like so not that it didn't have here's directly from the book Not that it didn't have adequate firepower to back up its impressive size. Over a thousand weapons batteries are capable of reducing any planetary surface to slag. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

So we'll deal with the planet momentarily. Mm-hmm. Right now, eliminate those ships. And the man that Vader killed, you remember Captain Nita? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That guy, he had over 436 planetary suppressions since he had been made captain of the executor.

And he was killed. Yeah. Like, Vader does not give a fuck? No, Vader does not give a fuck. So. So the fleet battle does not qualify as a fleet battle? No. all

It's a weapons test Yeah It's target It's a turkey shoot Yeah And and so yeah The Dune The Dune fleets just disintegrate into

Debris yeah In a matter of minutes So yeah The fleet battle is over very very quickly And now we're going to cut back to that swamp planet That I described it does though, like, Vader will be ultimately the

jokes on him because he blew up the Dune fleet which means in space there is just a ton of sand and it has gotten everywhere. Yes. And so next

again, pardon me, again we're going to head to that swamp planet. Yes. And we have Lusha. Hap. You find a bunch of clones shooting a blue woman going on 15 years now. Yeah.

So, hoie. So after a moment of... They're all crying, we respect you. We respect you. Not cool, man. Not cool. Well, what do you expect? They're 10-year-olds.

All right, fair. Yeah. Okay. So, Swamp Planet, we have a group of Fittachine who are momentarily very confused.

Mm-hmm. And some of them ascribe it to some kind of bizarre miracle, the intervention of the Madi and the

more experienced and level-headed among them realized something really weird just happened, but we need to focus on what's in front of us. Sure. And in front of them, they see a hut, the outline of a hut and flames flickering within. Within is a figure in a black cloak

who is hunched over a fire, contemplating I don't know what relic or item or personal effect Yoda might have left behind that might have become some kind of a focus.

It's a wooden spoon. Oh, there you go. The fish stew is probably still there. Yeah, it's probably right. All right. So there are signs in the room that this individual has been living there for a while. Yeah.

There are sacred texts to do a call forward sitting open in various places around the hut. Sure. And he immediately looks up and obviously immediately realizes that two universes have now superimposed over one another. The force is roiling. but he he takes a moment, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and when he reopens them, he is calm and has settled himself. And even before he hears the newcomers on their way,

he senses them. So he knows how many of them there are. He knows that they have immensely aggressive minds, sets. And being who he is, he throws the hood of his cloak up, steps outside and goes to meet them. And they have already split up into more than one group. And as far as they know, they have managed, a couple of them have managed to disappear. into the the shadows and the underbrush,

uh, not realizing that he can tell where all of them are. And he steps out and he looks to the leaders and says, my name is Luke Skywalker. I mean, you know harm. Uh, you know, don't, you, you, you do not need your weapons. Put, put down, put down your weapons and I'm, I'm peaceful. Right.

Or words to that effect. And he puts, he tries to put, he tries to put, a little bit of English on it, you know? Sure. Tries to, tries to do the, you know, you don't need your weapons. Right. And unfortunately for him, these are Finnequin. Again with the Finne.

Yeah. Okay. Because they're, they're, fundamentally, they are the baddest asses in, in Dune. Like as, as pound for pound, they're, you know. So to make this not, you know, completely boring. Yeah. You know, we have to find a way to do that. So they kind of, they shake their heads a little bit.

And one of them mutters witchery in, you know, 200, 2,000 years in the future Arabic. And unfortunately, instead of them all putting their weapons down, that just causes them to go into a fighting stance because he's, some kind of psychic warlock and they know how this shit works because they know about the Bedi Jesuit and one of them mutters something about he

he sounds like a man but he has the voice and you know back and forth about well you know the Madi is a man do you question the Madi's you know manfulness but he is the Madi

you don't mean to say that this one is another you know, is, you know, stands on the level of Muadim. Right. No, but he is some kind of warlock. Okay. And they pass signals to one another in, in Fidakin sign language, hand battle tongue. And they move to try to circle, and one of them draws a stunner pistol. Mm-hmm.

And in the moment of the moment of... between the stunter pistol coming up and the finikane being able to pull the trigger, Luke shifts forward. Oh, yeah, that's actually, that's more his style. What I was thinking was more, was more Vader.

The pistol comes up and Luke snatches it out of his hand and doesn't catch it, but just flings it off into the swamp. Yeah. I said, I mean you no harm. Something, I need, I need to learn from you,

you know, who you are, you know, Luke, Luke wants to try to get information because he's immediately worried about his friends and the rebellion and all of that. The Phidicene just see now this is, this guy's a threat. And so they, they, they realizing that he now has, you know, telekinetic abilities, they move to attack. And this is not going to go well for them. because at this point Luke ignites his lightsaber

and the two that were behind him find themselves disarmed literally and in two more swings another one of them is dead and he has used the force to fling two more of them

off into the swamp somewhere just to get them out of the way. Yeah. The fight goes on for a little bit longer, but it, it, it, it, it doesn't, the dynamic doesn't change. Um, and at the end of this one, Luke, Luke is the last man standing.

Yep. Um, now the thing is, Luke is very saddened by the fact that he can't use the Jedi tactic of disarmes, of disarming his opponents to stop them because even with only one arm, they just pick the Chris knife up with the other hand and keep coming. Right.

And so at the end of this, we have a dead squad of Phidicene and a very troubled Jedi who immediately rushes to his X-wing to try to, you know, get to his friends and try to figure out what's going on. Right, because he's assuming they would have been... Yeah.

Yeah. So that then brings us back to Aracas. Okay. Vader ponders the clouds of very small debris. They're now battering against the deflector shields of the executor as they pass in orbit now over the planet rather than the moon of Endor. And we'll ignore for a moment the actual effect. that would have happened to tidal forces. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because, you know, it's a space opera. And Vader is immediately aware, number one, he senses through the force, Luke, having some kind of conflict with somebody. And he tucks that back in the back of his brain. And he also senses a very powerful mind at work down below. and immediately orders that the full complement of troops aboard the ship make planet fall. And with a dramatic flouncing swoop of his cape, he rushes off to join them.

And now we go down to the planet's surface where we have Paul Mouadib witnessing all of all of the house fleets having been obliterated in a matter of minutes. And he casts his sight forward in time. And he can't see anything. Not only has the golden path been obliterated, the path forward for humanity that he had witnessed. All of the all of the ways forward that he sees in his. mind are are impossible they're they're they're they're ridiculous they're they're like something out of an ancient story because they're they're aliens and he sees

futures that involves thinking machines this is something I didn't even get into earlier Star Wars is full of droids and we can we can have a whole episode where we talk about the ethics of droids and Star Wars which I'm here for it a whole thing. But in the Dune universe, this is another reason why they may have never developed energized particle weaponry, the Dune universe is incredibly not technophobic, but innovation phobic. Sure. Because innovation led to the Butlerian jihad, where artificial intelligence fought a war to try to destroy

humanity. And so the very idea of a droid like C3PO as innocuous and ridiculous as C3PO is he would be a terrifying heretical abomination

to every inhabitant of the Dune Imperium. And so, you know, Paul cast about trying to find a solution, trying to, trying to find, you know, trying to map out what the path forward is for survival.

And every path he sees ends in a black cape and a blazing red sword. Yeah. So the stormtroopers land. And imperial officers being of the quality and mindset that they are, we're going to just say that about 25% of the landing force gets devoured by worms because they decide they're going to land in the desert outside the city and march in. Yep. And I assume this is what gets rid of most of the tech that they were going to use to glaze the city.

Yes. Yes. All the armored vehicles, all the tanks, all that stuff. Yep. Munch. Yeah. At ads. Gone.

Yeah. And so the stormtroopers that survive all of that managed to get. onto the rocky island on which the capital city is located and they go in blasting. Right. And now at this point, they have marched into a situation where they're actually going to have a very hard time because now they're engaging in house to house fighting against not only the Fedokine, the most, and these are going to be the most elite of the Fedekine, because they're going to be the Emperor's own bodyguards. So these Fedekine know the terrain.

They're literally on their home planet that they've known all their lives, and they're going to be constantly engaging in all kinds of ambush, hit and run, you know, pop out of a doorway, stick two guys in the neck with Chris Knives and fade. Oh, yeah. They're going to eat the stormies for lunch. lunch for hours. Yeah. Yeah.

Now the sheer numbers of the stormtrovers are going to, are going to, are going to, eventually are going to, are going to overwhelm them. Yes. And the out of 9700, we'll say about 2000, managed to make it to the gates of the palace. When they make it to the gates of the palace, a lone black tie fighter descends. and because it's Vader, he can't resist. He's standing on top of it as it comes down. Cape billowing in the dark way.

And Paul, realizing that he has no way forward other than to face this fate, steps forward. And Vader, I'm trying to find a way to modify this quote, because now we've told this story in a way that, takes away the ability for me to say that Vader says, all I'm surrounded by is fear and dead men, which is one of the most Vader quotes ever, but we can't use that one here.

Paul introduces himself and says, I am the emperor, Paul Atreides, Muaddeb. I am the Lissan al-Gaiib. Who are you? and he does his best to affect an imperious tone but he's facing he's facing the limit of his

future site standing in front of him and Vader's response is something along the lines of I am let's see the end of your reign I am I am the end of your reign I have arrived

I serve the true emperor. Or I serve, I serve a far greater emperor. I am the end of your reign. And I see no emperor before me. Only a scared child.

Because again, Paul is 17. So like, and, you know, Paul lines himself up, gets into, gets into, you know, a freman fighting position with his knife.

It says to, says to, Vader, Mayor, Mayor, Blade, Chip, and Shatter. And that's when Vader ignites the lightsaber, jumps off the top of the tie fighter, and floats down to the floor. Sure. Takes up a fighting stance, moves up toward Paul. The two circle one another, and Paul is rapidly trying to,

trying to calculate what the next moment is going to be. He's seeing half a second into the future, but he can't see any farther. And Vader is using force to read, you know, where, where Paul is moving. And Vader knows that he could just end this, but that's not in him to do it yet.

Because it's Vader and he's a drama queen and, you know, a prick. So finally, Paul, you know, sees what he thinks is a half-second opening and he lunges. And Vader, instead of just ending him with a single swipe of his, of his saber, which he could do, Vader instead puts Paul's Chris knife in half with a, with a swing. And then brings his other hand out and just launches Paul. backward with the force

slams him into the palace and into the next level of the palace steps behind him and then picks him up flings him upward and slams him into the pavement where he lies

still and I think that's kind of where this story for now ends like yeah because the the the overwhelming

nature of the story being told and the power scales involved in those stories are really such that as Sean pointed out when we were discussing this the Fidicine are going to murderate anybody who doesn't

who hasn't read their son Sue if the if the Fidicine are able to choose where the battle happens they're they're going to just mow face but the moment their opponent figures that out

or uses tactics that like ignore that or for whom that doesn't matter yeah they're they're not going to win yeah and you know shields aren't going to be

the the powerful thing they are against weaponry from Star Wars and just there are so many powerful individuals in Star Wars that, you know, it's going to be a lot of, of, you know, eight on one, one-sided, you know, as the kids say, no diff fights going on.

Yeah. So, yeah. Like, I don't think there's really any way you can call this, or envision this being a victory for Dune. Star Wars, because of the rule of cool,

being such a powerful force in its DNA. And, you know, it would be interesting to kind of carry this out over, like, if Paul realizes that, you know, facing Vader is, is not a path forward. if you somehow envisions that, okay, well, you know, I need to fade.

You know, imagining a longer kind of campaign and figuring out how factions are going to interact with each other could be interesting. But I still think in the end any alliance that anybody in Dune makes, they're going to be the junior partner in. I agree. You know, so. We haven't even gotten into like, I mean, you're, you. You were, you said it in a very specific time when the stormtroopers were like what they had in numbers they used to make up for what they lacked in everything else. Yeah. If you wanted to rewind it by 20 years, the clones are going to eat them up because the clone commandos are capable of thought and shit like that.

And they're bred to be and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like there's there's no time The only time I think that that Dune has any chance is if they go against a bunch of B1 battle droids Not even the B2s like Yeah

You know and even that like Fuck those guys kill Jedi Like yeah So yeah I I agree I think this is And you know Bring the Benny Jesuit down Have them fight

They go up against the death of Mary witches and they'd probably lose. Well, yeah, because I mean, the death of Mary Witch is throwing lightning. Like, you know, and one of the things that occurred to me as I was writing my notes, but we didn't even get into here is the moment anybody

shows up with an ion gun. Shield? What shield? Yeah, that was the other thing. It was like, you have ion cannons. Yeah. Yes. On ships and stuff. You don't have, you don't have ion guns, but, oh, no, you do as soon as the Jawa show up

yeah like yeah like the only thing the only thing that would stop uh Jawa's from from just completely wrecking anybody from Dune is like nobody from Dune has any interesting

deck right so yeah the only the only other thing I could see would be Vader would never land on Arachus Okay He would just send everybody else to do it

Because Iraqis is full of sand Yeah, that's true It's not about that life I hate it Yeah Yeah, that's true Especially since he's like mostly mechanical nice More machine now than man

And that shit clanks So yeah But yeah All right, well That was decidedly one-sided Like Yeah And what's

I think, what's a girl to do? You know, and, and as time goes on, part of what I'm going to have to think of is, is, you know, mashups that are going to be a little bit less this way. Because, you know, you think about throwing these universes against each other. And like, once you start thinking about it, it usually because, like in the Latin, these two people are being. It becomes very one-sided. It becomes really clear that, yeah, no, the physics of these universes work differently. Yeah, if we assume, if we assume,

everybody operates in the in the shared scenario the same way they do in their own universe then one side is is just kind of going to win yeah yeah yeah i i i there's there's nothing for it you know it's it's it's a damn shame and it's going to happen and that's okay but like because what are you going to be like okay well i always wondered how battle tech would size up against Star Wars. Like you don't, because when you think of Star Wars, you don't think of Ad-Ats. No, you don't. You know, you think of the Jedi. So it's one of those you would, you're going to think of things that compare parallel. Now, eventually Ad-Ats and ATSs versus Mex, I think might be something. I think the Mex would eat their lunch, to be perfectly honest, because of speed and

turrets. versatility yeah just the ability to turn 90 degrees and then do a circle around them like yeah adats are gonna yeah ad ads are gonna get are gonna get wrecked right

you know and ATSTs are too small to be able to handle it like you know what I'd kind of like to see ATSTs versus like a flea yeah ATST versus really light scout max the only different the only thing is ATSTs are actually more realistic in terms of how fast they move. Yeah.

And locusts, locusts are going to be like the roadrunner. Right. Yeah, yeah. You know, and ATST just isn't going to be able to keep up on any level. Yeah. No, yeah. I agree.

All right. Well, what what are you going to recommend for people to read? I am going to recommend that everybody read the first Dune novel. If you have read it before, read it again, because it rewards rereading. Like I said earlier, there's all kinds of layers to the onion that Frank Herbert created. And he was dealing with so many big ideas that he was trying to bring together. that, you know, re-reading it, you will notice things and you will see things differently each time you do.

And so I'm going to strongly recommend if you have read it, reread it. If you haven't read it, strongly recommend reading it. It is at this point a classic of the science fiction canon. And it deserves to be. So that's my recommendation. What about you? I'm going to recommend just like a coffee table book this time. It's going to be, what's it called?

Star Wars, the new essential guide to weapons and technology. Nice. Just, yeah, I mean, you know. But honestly, the other one is the art of Ralph McQuarrie, but that shit's expensive. So, yeah. Yeah. Worth it, but yeah. Yeah, totally, totally.

But, yeah, the new essential guide to weapons to technology. It gives you like a one pager on each weapon and stuff like that. So you can kind of understand better what we're talking about when we talk about Tabana Gas and shit like that. Nice. Yeah. So cool. Well, where can they find us?

We can be found on our website at wauba, wauba, wuba, www.gikhistorytime.com. And we can also be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, and on Spotify. Wherever you have found us, please take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And where, sir, can you be found? Well, first Friday of every month, per the usual at the Sacramento Comedy Spot, me and the crew of capital punishment. Me, Justine, Emily, and a whole slew of guests will be slinging puns.

And you should come and see it. 9 p.m., Sacramento Comedy Spot. bring your $15 or better yet get your tickets online at sackcomitomitop.com and bring money for some merch. If you are hearing this before April 9th, then you should also go to the Crocker Museum art mix and check it out there. So go to the Crocker Museum's website and look up the art mix and get your tickets for that and come CS perform at a museum. So that's it for me. For a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock.

And until next time, keep rolling, exploding sixes.