Star Wars: The Ship That Made You Hate The Disney Franchise – The Raddus Breakdown
No, not Reylo – but the STARship that made you think about fuel and how hyperspace works. Take a look at the MC85 Starcruiser aka the Raddus.
Some starships are known for their heroic exploits, and become symbols of hope and triumph in the galaxy, like the T-65b X-Wing Starfighter. Others are much more infamous, and have come to represent the terrors of the Galactic Empire and its reign of evil, like the DS-1 “Death Star” Orbital Battlestation.
And yet, there’s a third category of starships, who live on in ignominy, and no ship embodies that quite as much as the biggest ship the New Republic has ever built, the MC-85 Starcruiser, perhaps best known as the Raddus. Let’s take a look. The MC-85 was designed as part of the New Republic’s Military Disarmament act, and its loadout reflects this. The MC-85 was intended to be a modern flagship built to the standards of the New Republic. Built to transport military personnel and dignitaries across great distances, the primary focuses for the MC-85 were speed and defense.
The defensive shields took up the bulk of the ship’s systems. An advanced deflector system, capable of repelling firepower of incredible magnitudes, was developed in secret by New Republic scientist. These experimental shields enveloped the entire ship, leaving it without an easily exploitable vulnerability unlike other capital ships built during the same era.
This focus on defense, rather than offense, meant that the MC-85 was often under-gunned for a Flagship/Battleship. The Raddus only carried 18 heavy turbolasers, 18 heavy ion cannons, and a dozen or so point-defense laser cannon turrets, supplemented with a handful of proton torpedo launchers and tractor beam projectors. A squadron of fighters could put out more firepower–which is why the MC-85 carried a not-insubstantial fighter escort.
The Raddus was known to have 7 of the new T-70 X-wings, as well as 4 RZ-2 A-wing interceptors, and 4 full squadrons of MG-100 StarFortress SF-17s. But the problem for the New Republic was always personnel. Throughout the Resistance’s war against the First Order, the New Republic found itself understaffed–and to help compensate for this the MC-85 was designed to be heavily automated, able to operate at full capacity with only a skeleton crew.
The Raddus served as the flagship of the Resistance navy, and helped evacuate Resistance forces from D’Qar. However, a raid by First Order TIE fighters took out its bridge, despite the improved defenses, killing most of the Resistance High Command–including Admiral Gial Ackbar–in a single swoop. However, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo was able to step up and save the course of destiny in the Galaxy. During the pursuit of the Resistance navy by the First Order fleet, she singlehandedly saved the Resistance by conducting a hyperspace ramming maneuver, heretofore only theoretically possible, crashing through the Supremacy and many of its Resurgent-class Battlecruiser expert, allowing the Resistance to make good their escape and confront the returned Palpatine at Exegol.
And in this battle, the MC-85s visible carry an extra armament–a vertical blade attached like a bayonet to the front of the MC-85.
