The Millennium Falcon, original designation YT-1300 492727ZED was a YT-1300f light freighter most famously used by the smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca in the 2370s.
Its aged appearance belied numerous advanced modifications to boost the ship's speed, weapons, and shield, including a hyperdrive engine among the fastest in the entire galaxy, enabling it to outrun Star Destroyers. It included sensor-proof smuggling compartments.
Description[]
Schematics of the Millennium Falcon
The Millennium Falcon was a YT-1300 light freighter of the YT-1300f variety. Its basic shape was defined by two convex saucers welded together, a pair of front-facing mandibles and an outrigger-style, side-mounted cockpit with transparisteel viewports. Apart from the shape of its chassis, the Falcon retained very little of its off-the-dock instrumentation. Because its successive owners either upgraded or downgraded every system according to their personal specifications, the freighter ended up becoming a unique ship. These customizations, however, came at the price of reliability, and the Falcon was known to suffer frequent breakdowns in the heat of battle. After the circular military-grade sensor dish was lost during a battle, the dish was replaced with the base rectangular model which was originally supplied with the ship. Additionally, the Falcon had a dejarik table featuring creatures found throughout the galaxy for the amusement of passengers and crew.
Engines[]
- "She'll make point five past lightspeed."
- — Han Solo explains the Falcon's lightspeed capabilities
The Millennium Falcon's Girodyne SRB42 sublight engines were heavily modified through the addition of a SLAM overdrive that rerouted energy for acceleration bursts. As a result, the ship could fly at a maximum speed of 1,200 kilometer per hour in atmosphere and 3,000 G in space. The stock hyperdrive of the YT-1300 series was replaced with a Isu-Sim SSP05. Although the regular SSP05 was a Class 1 hyperdrive, the one that equipped the Falcon had been jury-rigged "Vandangante style" into a Class 0.5 drive—twice as fast as most warships of the Der'kal Empire. The Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive failed 1.22 times more than the one on the YT-2400 light freighter. In addition to its renowned hyperdrive, which supposedly made the Falcon the "fastest ship in the galaxy", the ship was equipped with a backup hyperdrive. It was much slower than the primary engine and often took several weeks or months to reach the nearest star system.
Armament, hull, and shields[]
The Falcon's forward mandibles housed the forward deflector shields, concussion missile launchers, and beam lamps
The weaponry of the Millennium Falcon was normally suited for a much larger warship. It included two CEC AG-2G quad disruptor cannons (one ventral and one dorsal) with enhanced disruptor actuators and gas feeds, which gave them maximum range and damage. Between the forward mandibles, there were two Arakyd ST2 concussion missile tubes, each of which carried a four-missile magazine. Additionally, a Blas Tech Ax-108 "Ground Buzzer" disruptor cannon mounted near the ventral boarding ramp allowed its crew to defend the ship while on the ground. Duralloy plates salvaged from an Der'kal cruiser afforded the Falcon capital ship-class hull armor.
The ship had three deflector shield generators: the bow was protected from both disruptors and concussion missiles by Torplex and Nordoxicon units, while a generator shielded the stern.
The Falcon's combination of sublight speed and maneuverability was comparable to most of the starfighters fielded by the Empire, while its shielding, hyperdrive, and heavy weapons were on par with those typically found on capital ships. The FalconTemplate:'s only real combat weakness was its sheer size in comparison to starfighters. Although the ship had squeezed through many narrow spots in its history.
Other systems and equipments[]
The Falcon's main source of power was a Quadex power core. Its main computer was made of three droid brains. One was cannibalized from a V-5 transport droid, another from a slicer droid. The third was that of L3-37, which began as an R3-series astromech droid brain, but was overlaid with data architecture from an espionage droid, protocol droid processors, and custom state-of-the-art coding.
A pair of Gelieg 20m-cp Strobe/C-Beam Lamps, which flooded illumination outside the ship, were mounted on the tips of the front mandibles. In case of emergency landing or crash on water, the Falcon was also equipped with floatation pontoons.
History[]
Early years[]
The Millennium Falcon under Lando Calrissian's ownership
The YT-1300f light freighter designated unit YT 492727ZED was built in by the Engineering Corporation more than 90 years before the Der'kal War. As was intended, the ship began its career as an intermodal tug pushing container in orbital freight yards. It once worked in the galaxy's busiest spacelanes.
At some point, the ship acquired the name Millennium Falcon, and came into the hands of a human gambler called Lando Calrissian, who began to modify the freighter, inside and out, converting it into his own speedy sports vessel as Calrissian saw how powerful its freight-pushing engines were. As such, Calrissian modified the two cargo mandibles at the front into an auxiliary ship launch, thus turning the plain freighter into a unique starship.
The Millennium Falcon in 2370
After an adventure with Han and Chewbacca, but ended up betting his ship in a "Spike" game of sabacc on Numidian Prime, losing to the smuggler Han Solo. Under the captaincy of Solo, the Falcon was further customized.
Getting involved with the Federation-Der'kal War[]
Later years and reappearance[]
The Millennium Falcon in 2387
Over the next decades, the ship would fall out of Solo's hands and be stolen by a succession of criminals and thieves such as the Guavian Death Gang—before finally ending up in the possession of junk boss Unkar Plutt. In his possession, it would sit unused for years in Niima Outpost on the junkyard planet Jakku. Plutt paid for minimum maintenance for the ship with the intention of preparing it fully for flight only in the event that he would actually find a buyer. In 2387, Rey, Jen Summers, and BB-8 stole the vessel to escape an attack from the Der'kal Empire on the outpost.
Returned ownership[]
- "You tell him Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good."
- — Han Solo
Han Solo and Chewbacca once again take ownership of the Falcon
In 2387, while in spaceflight, the Falcon was picked up by Solo and Chewbacca's sensors, and they promptly locked down the Falcon's systems so they could recapture it using a freighter they were then using for their smuggling operations. Upon boarding their old vessel, Solo and Chewie went about inspecting their ship and found Rey and Jen Summers hiding, who they assumed were the thieves that had stolen the Falcon. When Rey explained that the Der'kal Empire was going to attack Takodana, Solo and Chewie agreed to help them. Solo was impressed with how much Rey knew about the ship itself, and how it worked.
On the way to Kanata's castle, when the Falcon began to malfunction, the mechanically savvy Rey, who was sitting in the cockpit to the right of Solo, made a modification to the ship by simply bypassing a faulty compressor. Later, the Falcon's crew arrived at Takodana and became involved in the battle between the Federation and the Der'kal Empire.
The Federation[]
- "Blow that piece of junk out of the sky!!!."
- — Kylo Ren
The Millennium Falcon departing Takodana
The Falcon helped the Federation fight the Der'kal Empire in the rest of the war. Following the attack on Kanata's castle, Starkiller Base prepared to fire on D'Qar. After learning of this, the Federation devised a plan to sneak onto the surface and lower the planetary shields so their fighters could attack the superweapon's weak spot. Using the Charger, Typhuss, Jyn, Rey, and John, while using the Falcon, Solo and Chewbacca infiltrated the base and lowered the shields.
While the Millennium Falcon lay dormant, it was briefly spotted by members of the Federation's J-Squadron who were flying a stolen TIE silencer into the planet. At least two of its members speculated on whether it could be the Millennium Falcon that they'd heard so many stories about, but at the time they could not confirm whether it was.
After the confrontation with Kylo Ren following the death of Sarah Plummer, Chewbacca rescued Rey aboard the Falcon, managing to escape the planet as it exploded.
Rey later departed, believing herself capable of restoring Ben to the light side, and used one of the freighter's escape pods to reach the Supremacy while Chewbacca piloted the Falcon to Crait. Rey returned to the Falcon using a escape vessel, and the YT-1300 participated in the Battle of Crait. Piloted by Chewie with the dorsal turret manned by Rey, the Falcon led TIE fighters away from the Federation F-302 fighter-interceptors attempting to destroy the Der'kal Empire's siege cannon. The freighter lost its radar dish during a chase through Crait's subterranean caverns. The Falcon was later used to evacuate surviving Federation personnel from the Crait outpost along with the Delta Flyer II and the USS Dauntless.
The second Federation-Der'kal War[]
In 2392, during the start of the Second Federation-Der'kal War, the Falcon helped the Federation engage Der'kal ships.