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.

Characteristics
Although it was only 1,040 meters long (65% of the length of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer), the Nebula-class was built to be a match for an Imperial II. It was designed to be able to defeat any one enemy Star Destroyer, two heavy cruisers, or an entire line of smaller Imperial support ships. It was designed with defenses strong enough to resist even some of the smaller Super Star Destroyers or analog warships.



Following the New Class practice of using the same hull for multiple configurations, the Nebula-class Star Destroyers shared their basic spaceframe design with the Endurance-class fleet carriers.

The armament of the Nebula-class Star Destroyer consisted of 40 heavy dual turbolaser cannons, 40 turbolaser cannons, 20 ion cannons, 8 tractor beam projectors, and 8 assault concussion missile tubes, each equipped with 30 missiles. Despite the touting of far superior firepower over the Republic-class, the two had nearly similar armaments: the difference was eight concussion missile launchers for the Nebula, and two additional tractor beams for the Republic. The power generation and model of guns was different enough to make the Nebula a far superior design to the Republic.

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.

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

Due to the process of building compact, yet powerful warships of this sort, only a small number of Nebula-class ships were built, with ten being in service c. 17 ABY, and one more being launched every year afterwards. When the Yuuzhan Vong invaded, the few ships of the New Republic's valuable Nebula-class were kept close to the Core Worlds in reserve fleets. Despite this, Nebulas performed well in clashes with the extra-galactic warships.

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 "fat-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 Obi-Wan. In some naming conventions, a class is named after the first ship approved for construction or the first ship commissioned. These naming conventions would imply that this Star Destroyer could be called "Obi-Wan-class"; but many warship classes (especially in the British Royal Navy, which operates a dual-naming system) are named not for a lead 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, Obi-Wan is a very appropriate name for a Defender-class ship, considering his mastery of the defensive Soresu lightsaber form.

The New Essential Chronology added more confusion to the debate by saying that the official name is the Nebula-class Star Destroyer, retconning its name to the scheme originally set down by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.

Most recently, Star Wars: Invasion 14: Revelations, Part 3 saw the appearance of a pair of ships specifically called Defender-class, using the appearance from Cracken's Threat Dossier, seemingly making the Nebula and Defender into two entirely separate classes of Star Destroyer.

The Nebula-class Destroyer shares its affectionate name of "pocket Star Destroyer" with the Turbulent-class Star Destroyer introduced in the Legacy of the Force novel Revelation by Karen Traviss.

Appearances

 * Before the Storm
 * Specter of the Past
 * Star Wars: Invasion 14: Revelations, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Invasion 16: Revelations, Part 5