Nebula-class Star Destroyer

Nebula-class Star Destroyer The Nebula-class Star Destroyer, also known as the Defender-class Star Destroyer was the largest, most powerful warship design in the New Republic's New Class modernization program.

Originally part of the Defender design program developed soon after the battle of Endor, the "NSD" or "pocket Star Destroyer" eventually entered service almost a decade later, but even during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, it represented the peak of modern, efficient Star Destroyer design.

Although it was only 1,040 meters long (65% of the length of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer), the Nebula was a match for an Imperial II. It was designed to be able to defeat any one enemy Star Destroyer, two heavy cruisers (probably 600-meter-long ships such as the Dreadnaught and Vindicator), or an entire line of smaller Imperial support ships.

Following the New Class practice of using the same hull for multiple configurations, the same spaceframe was used for multiple variants - Nebula-class Star Destroyers and the Endurance-class fleet carriers.

The armament of the Nebula-class Star Destroyer consisted of 40 heavy turbolaser cannons, 40 turbolaser cannons, 20 ion cannons, 8 tractor beam projectors, and 8 assault concussion missile tubes, each equipped with 30 missiles. The ships could carry up to sixty starfighters and shuttles, normally including one wing of three fighter squadrons, plus support ships. Fighters deployed included short-range K-wing bombers and Defender starfighter, as well as hyperdrive-equipped E-wings, A-wings, or upgraded X-wings. Nebula-class Star Destroyers were equipped with a Class 1 hyperdrive, and they carried 1,600 troops and enough consumables for five to six months, depending on configuration.

Only a small number of Nebula-class ships were initially built, with ten being in service c. 17 ABY, and one more being launched every year thenafter, so that less than twenty were projected to be completed by the outbreak of the Yuuzhan Vong conflict.

The Nebula and Endurance-class development and deployment mimics that of the Victory-class Star Destroyer and Venator-class Star Destroyer&mdash;two Star Destroyers of similar power, with one serving as a dedicated combatant, while the other can fight but primarily serves as an escort carrier. Presumably the New Republic was attempting to repeat the success this strategy brought to the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars.

Behind the Scenes
Official Expanded Universe information on this ship class has a long and twisted history. Michael P. Kube-McDowell, the author of the Black Fleet Crisis novels, called the Star Destroyer twin for the Endurance-class carrier the "Nebula-class", but the RPG sourcebook Cracken's Threat Dossier named this ship the Defender-class Star Destroyer, and gave it a complicated in-universe history as part of a "Defender" project, along with the Defender-class assault carrier (another "New Class" design created by Kube-McDowell) and the Defender starfighter (an older WEG ship based on a toy from the animated series Star Wars: Droids). The sourcebook also included the only official images (at the time) of the Nebula and Endurance. Unlike the pictures of the other New Class ships in the book, these two ship classes actually looked like they could have been built on the same spaceframe, with a tall, fin-like command tower mounted on a roughly dagger-shaped hull formed from a blocky engineering section, an approximately triangular hammerhead bow, and a narrower connecting section. This meant that they could not be dismissed as easily as the other pictures of New Class ships, although it was hard to see how the Endurance-class matched the description of Intrepid as "flat-hulled" in Before the Storm.



In a later RPG sourcebook, Starships of the Galaxy, the Defender-class appeared once again, but with slightly changed statistics: the ship's consumables were increased from 5 to 6 months, and it now carried 60 "starfighters and shuttles" rather than the single wing of the earlier resource. Starships of the Galaxy also had a new picture of the Defender, which was sleek, dagger-shaped, and far more similar to other Star Destroyer designs. One notable difference was that the Defender lacked the large dorsal superstructure and bridge tower common in other Star Destroyers. Many fans happily accepted this retcon in the ship's appearance, feeling that it was far more aesthetically pleasing than the original picture seen in Cracken's Threat Dossier.

Adding to the confusion among fans is the fact that the first Nebula/Defender-class Star Destroyer was named the Obi-wan. It is often thought naming conventions would imply that this Star Destroyer should be called Obi-Wan-class, after the first ship of its class; but in reality, many warship classes (especially in the British Royal Navy) are named not for their first ship, but with a common noun that unites the names of the ships, at least in the initial batch; historical examples include the Surveyors of the Navy-class 74-gun ships of c. 1800, various twentieth-century classes such as County-class, Hunt-class, Weapon-class, etc., and most recently, the Duke-class frigates. Under this system, the Obi-Wan is a very appropriate name for a Defender-class ship.

Most recently The New Essential Chronology added more confusion to the dabte by saying that the name is the Nebula class New Republic Star Destroyer, retconing its name to the scheme originally set down Michael P. Kube-McDowell.