Corellian YT-1930 Deckplan

Corellian YT-1930 Deckplan
Digital composite
2015

A long time ago, on a college campus not really all that far away...  

So, 'round about 1994, I was inspired by a police traffic barricade (no, really) to create a design for a Corellian YT-series transport (from Star Wars, obviously) that was triangular in design instead of round.  I initially created a small design drawing of the ship, including a basic interior, called it (pretty much at random) the YT-1930, and made up its RPG stats in the D6 system, the only official Star Wars RPG at the time.  Later, I created an NPC named Lynnori who would captain a YT-1930 called the Starbound Misfit a name inspired by a lyric from the Pink Floyd song, "Learning to Fly" ("Tongue-tied and twisted/Just an earth-bound misfit, I"). While she never played a large role in any of my games, it was still a starship design that I was always quite proud of and felt had a lot of potential.

Not long after that, Paul Danner, a friend of mine from high-school, was hired by West End Games to write, Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, a Star Wars RPG book detailing bars, clubs, and cantinas from around the galaxy.  As one of my former Star Wars RPG players, Paul was aware of my predilection for creating random NPCs for my games, so when his editor asked him to fill the book with additional characters, Paul called me and asked if I would be willing to share my creations with him.  I agreed on the condition that I get a "special thanks" credit in the book and then I sent him my entire collection of characters (more than a dozen, at least), including copies of hand-drawn deck plans for two YT-class freighters, the Starboard Misfit, and a modified YT-1300 called Tequila Sunrise (after the Eagles song of the same name -I have a habit of naming ships after song titles and lyrics).  When the book was released in early 1997, I was both excited and dismayed to find my starship designs, in their entirety, laid out on removable pages in the back of the book.  They had been rendered digitally and cleaned up, and the Tequila Sunrise had been renamed Chaser (there's no tequila in Star Wars), but both interior and exterior designs matched my drawings almost perfectly.  Even the cover art featured one of my characters, a twi'lek mechanic named Sil Vatura, illustrated very similarly to the portrait I'd drawn on her character sheet.  Unfortunately, I had received no credit whatsoever.

When I called Paul about it, he told me that his editor had refused to allow him to add a "special thanks" credit, and due to contractural reasons, he wasn't able to admit that he had solicited outside help for the book.  Although I didn't blame my friend, I was justifiably annoyed.  I had finally gotten to contribute something to (what was then) official Star Wars canon, and couldn't get credit for it.  So, to make up for it, Paul offered to put in a good word for me at West End and make sure my portfolio got in front of WEG's art director.  Within the month, I was working on my first professional art assignment illustrating the book Tapani Instant Adventures for the Star Wars RPG.

But I never got credit for designing the YT-1930.

Fast-forward to 2012.  I picked up a copy of the book Star Wars Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual at my local Barnes & Noble, and was surprised to find a page dedicated to the YT-1930, complete with a new (but mostly identical to the original) technical illustration of the dorsal and port exterior, and an in-world history of the starship model (which was based in part on Paul's original writeup, which was based, of course, on my original game-notes).  A Google search revealed a number of fan-designs and deck pans as well, which was exciting as it showed that there was still an interest in my ship.  In 2015, my gaming group began a campaign using the new Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG, Edge of the Empire, and, upon hearing my story, the GameMaster decided that our group would crew a 1930.  I designed a character (a female twi'lek named Cessi Baran -a recreation of an old D6 PC) and found fan-made stats for the ship online using that system.  I named this new ship, Empty Sky (after the song by Bruce Springsteen).  Looking back over my original deck plans, however, I found myself rather disappointed in my simplistic, uninteresting, and incorrectly scaled design.  Despite having no real need for it in-game, I decided to completely redesign the interior of the YT-1930, rendering it in Photoshop using components scanned from the Star Wars Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual and other bits found online.  The result is, I think, a much better interior layout than the one that originally appeared in Wretched Hives 20 years ago.  While this design may not be the "official" design, with the RPG material now classified as non-canon under the "Legends" moniker anyway, I figure that, as the ship's original designer, my interior is as "official" as West End's.  Of course, without an official credit, I have no way to back my claim, but, hey, at least it makes for a nice story.

Update: in 2018, Insight Editions published a new edition of the Star Wars YT-1300 Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual as promotion for Solo: A Star Wars Story.  Like the original edition, this book contains a page dedicated to the YT-1930.  Although, Disney/Lucasfilm remains tight-lipped on whether these kinds of sourcebooks are "Disney Canon," it seems that most fans tend to accept them as such until Disney releases something that contradicts them.  So, for now, I'd like to believe that the YT-1930 is, once again, canonical.

Here's a few relevant links on Wookieepedia:
Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wretch…
YT-1930 Transport: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/YT-193…
The Starbound Misfit: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Starbo…
The Chaser: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Chaser
Sil Vaturha: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sil_Va…
Lynnori: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lynnor…

   
Cessi Baran (EOtE) and  Cessi Baran (D6)