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The season finale Skeleton Crew brought with it something fans have been wanting to see ever since Return of the Jedi: B-wing bomber actually does something. The the legendary alphabet warrior it has stood firm for a long time Star Wars games, novels, and comics, but it took more than four decades to see it in action-packed live action. Still, despite all the excitement, you were a little surprised at how it would turn out Skeleton Crew‘s B-Wings fired up—because it has a newer origin story than the B-Wing itself.
A brief history of B-wing guns
A hybrid attack starfighter and heavy bomber, the B-Wing has always been considered one of the most heavily equipped fighters in the Alliance fleet. We never saw them in action Return of the Jedi— the thin profile of the fighter model made it especially difficult to shoot on blue screen, which means many shots planned with the new ship was ultimately cut from the film. After their footage at the Battle of Endor and scenes of the Rebels walking away from the still operational Death Star II, the B-Wings are barely visible in the final film.
That left the ancillary material, especially the early material Star Wars role-playing game, then in the 90s and early aughts as a series of video games X-wing, TIE Fighterand Rogue Squadron Games to fill the gaps that make the B-Wing stand out among the rebel arsenal. The answer was basically many firepower – if X-Wing was an all-round craft, then A-Wing the B-Wing, a fast dogfighter and the Y-Wing clearly a heavy bomber, operated in the niche of a heavy starfighter designed to strike above its weight class and target capital ships. The tips of each of its S-Foils, as well as two detonators under its cockpit, disabled the starfighter’s robust arsenal of both heavy laser cannons and, most importantly, the ion weapons that allowed the B-Wing to penetrate larger ships. volley fire that can penetrate the ship’s systems and shield. The B-Wing can then complement explosive ordnance in the form of a cavity to carry multiple proton torpedo launchers or even more destructive payloads.
Enter the Blade Wing
in the year Star Wars For the Expanded Universe, both the B-Wing and the A-Wing were introduced as ships produced by the Alliance and its allies after the Battle of Yavin – specifically the B-Wing, which was developed in part with the help of the then newly recruited Gial Ackbar. With the increased production of Project Shantipole capital ships seen as a necessity for the Alliance to upgrade its fighter complement as the Empire responded to the destruction of the Death Star, a starfighter wing was in hand. This was a partial in-universe explanation for why no warriors were seen during the events New Hope or The empire strikes backbut when Star Wars it was continuity It was relaunched in 2014both ships were included in the rebel fleet earlier in the timeline. The A-Wing first debuted during the climactic period Star Wars Rebels‘ first season as the main starfighter of the Phoenix Squadron, a rebel cell that draws the series’ heroes into a fledgling alliance, but the B-Wing has its own special introduction. Rebels “Wings of the Master” of the second season.
In some ways, the B-Wing grew out of a similar necessity—a lack of shipboard firepower to break through rebel blockades of capital ships—but otherwise its origins were radically reworked. As no Akbar was found, he was replaced by Quarrie, a lone Mon Calamari engineer secretly working on a B6 starfighter prototype nicknamed “Blade Wing”. Chantipole was no longer the name of the project and research station that spawned the ship, but of the planet where it was hidden. Instead of a ship developed in tandem with the top brass of the Union, she was now a single ship and won through negotiations. Hera Sindullathis would eventually pave the way for the development of the B-Wing on a larger scale.
Oh, and it also had a large laser beam. Although Blade Wing retains individual blaster hardpoints for traditional ion and laser weapons at the end of its s-foils, as in the expanded universe, Rebels introduced the composite beam laser as the Blade Wing’s primary anti-ship weapon: a quadruple heavy weapon capable of draining the power of the Blade Wing’s built-in hyperdrive to charge and fire a short-range targeting beam capable of piercing the deflector shields and hull. cover.
After successfully testing a point-defense craft to supply a Phoenix squadron sent to the beleaguered world of Ibaar, Senator Bail Organa secured a shipyard for both the Quarrie and the Blade Wing, leading to large-scale iterations of the design. Production of the B-Wing has begun. But during iteration, the composite beam was removed from the final design, along with the secondary gunner position at the opposite end of the Blade Wing’s main wing… until the gun appeared. in Skeleton Crew this week, that is.
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