My boys the b1s are the only reason that ship was a menace. No b1s, no ship.

The funniest part about this ship was how it completely and cartoonishly annihilated all 3 of those ships in the first episode it was seen

The Malevolence in general is pretty much star wars' version of the Bismarck.

They really played into the Bismarck and Tirpitz comparison didnt they. After the Bismarck sank the Germans where to scared to deploy Tirpitz and just sailed it around Norway. Despite never seing battle Britian was terified of it and spent ages tring to hunt it down while in dock.

A subjugator's giant ion cannon seems better served as a planetary defense platform weapon. Place it floating off a main hyperspace lane exit and fry anything you don't like popping in

Just one of the most imposing ships in Star Wars that ultimately was destroyed because of a torpedo hitting one specific part of the ship. I wonder where they got that idea from🤔

Picture a death-star wrapped in the malevolence weapons. Endor would have been real different.

Super Star Destroyer looks like a knife cutting across the galaxy. This looks like a giant pincer breaking everything apart with brute force. Love the designs.

The Malevolence episode serving as a Star Wars version of "Sink the Bismarck!" and Landing At Point Rain likewise being a Star Wars version of "A Bridge Too Far" are two of my favorite elements of The Clone Wars.

I'm surprised the Empire didn't at least have a superweapon project focused around refining the ion cannon design. It could've helped to have a specialised Star Destroyer equipped with one at the Battle of Endor, stick it at the front of the Imperial Fleet, use it once the Rebel Alliance get boxed in and then let the rest of the Star Destroyers mop up everything.

I feel like super ion weaponry - purely for shield destruction as a variant of the chiss peltast - would be cool. Like a modern, updated subjugator or i’d like to see a pirate group that has taken and heavily modified one of these bad boys and uses it for capture raids

Loved the Malevolence episodes. That thing was so ridiculously huge and tough. It was on fire near the end and. Just. Kept. Going. It had its own internal transport rail system, which you would need to move supplies and droids around something that large. And it sorta kinda looks like the Nautilus from Disney's 20.000 Leagues Under The Sea.

The subjugator line never fails to inspire my own creative process, but sadly my imagination put paces my artistic skill to put the ideas to the page I enjoyed the discussion of the comic at the start as well, I had similar memories of finding cool stuff and realising I didn’t really have anyone to share those discoveries with

My friend...You didn't mention the Devastator from the SW Jedi alliance game, the sister ship to the subjugator which was tasked to literally nuke Courosaunt. a rogue nightsister literally tried to kill sidious after he told Douku to nuke dathomir

In the era before hyperspace interdiction, the malevolence would be a god teir ship for hit and run tactics. Imagine the Malevolence hyperspacing around diabling all republic hospital stations, hitting republic shipyards with a support fleet then dipping. In space battles, disabling an enemy ship is the same as destroying it as long as you clean up afterwords.

The “knocking out their own systems” reminds me of the KMS Bismarck and the early Tirpits.

There's another issue. That class of ship was primarily crewed by battle droids. Unless the Empire opted to continue that practice (unlikely), it's life support system and crew support network (crew berthing, food and waste services, medical, etc) would have to be redesigned from the ground, up.

I think the Devastation from the pretty bad ds game was a pretty cool concept for a sidegrade of the Subjugator-class

Something to point out - it was only Anakin's sabotaging on board the Malevolence while rescuing Padme that took it out. And even putting aside it's historical inspiration - truth is that it is a battleship, and to have it operate independently, when unlike reality it is known how effective fighters can be is actually completely stupid of them to do. Without the ion cannons, in terms of anti-ship Subjugator's have 25x as many turbolasers compared to a Venator - and while some sources say Malevolence only had 5 point defense guns the class as a whole got as high as 400. Thing is much as it'd take coordination to keep friendly ships out of the way, at the center of a proper fleet - it'd give the Republic a ton of trouble with just how outgunned it's Venators would be. Build around it a few more classic cruiser and destroyer type equivalents - the typical 3 Venator fleets would be mopped up or fleeing in most cases probably given the losses and damage we see them take in fights with lesser ships. In the Civil War/New Republic era - yeah the advancement of fighters, much like reality, makes 'battleship' type ships somewhat archaic outside certain uses - but Clone Wars era, nah the ship makes sense to build beyond a symbol, it just needs to be used better, and maybe have omitted the ion cannons on later ships/removed them.

The Malevolence arc was my favorite arc of the show until Umbara and Siege of Mandalore (I'm basic, I know), and I think it would have worked much better as the pilot movie than the movie we got. It would have eased the transition and made it more palatable because Star Wars audiences are already used to superweapons like this. They'd just have needed to slap on the Christphsis chunk to the beginning to explain where Ahsoka came from, then they go after Plo and the Malevolence instead of Rotta

The Malevolence is awesome but completely impractical warship of the Separatists due to how massive it is and how it's gonna be a pain to maintain, refuel and repair it.

If I'm not mistaken, the GAR high command made all subjugator class heavy cruiser a priority target during the clone wars

Having actually played Jedi Alliance, B-tier is the right word to describe it. There were certainly some pretty cool elements, but there were also a lot of repetitive ones and little kid me could not keep up with the quick-time events or solve the puzzles beyond the Aurebesh one on Rodia to save her life.

I could be wrong about this, but I remember seeing a giant forward facing plasma cannon variant somewhere. It was from some comic and Metanerdz did a video on it years ago. Must be incredibly obscure because that's the only place I've seen and heard of it.

I just wish Hot Wheels would remake some of the old titanium line like they have been doing with the 3 inch ships. This included. A Venator alone goes for over 100.

Despite the many flaws of the Subjugators....they are undeniably my favorite starship in Star Wars.

The huge ion cannon could be impractical in some battles. For example, if it was fired in the battle over Coruscant, it would likely hit several allied ships as well.

For some reason as a kid I always thought the ship was supposed to be a special Republic ship stolen by the CIS and not because of the ion super weapon. Thinking back that would be a cool story though

Back when I was in either Elementary School or Middle School, there was a Star Wars Club run by Scholastic or something. Every month they sent members a new issue of their magazine which contained various articles, factoids, puzzles, and often a comic at the end. But there was also a book-and-card based adventure game series that came with it. The book had the adventure as well as what limitations were placed on the characters/weapons/vehicles you could use, all of which had their own card. I remember being so obsessed with this club and game when I was a kid. Towards the end of it's run, it was giving behind the scenes info for the then upcoming/newly released Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

I like the obscure comic segment, alwasy a fan when obscure pieces of media get spotlight, nice video.

Hey loved the video, always wanted some more information on why this ship was a one off thing. I would love to hear some more about the mandator class ship you mentioned at the end, it really looks like a potentially amazing concept but I’ve never heard anything about it!

The question is… how many heifers can we haul in it?

Great video, thanks for talking about the comic I don't think I'd ever heard of it!

That bit what you said about about the Star Destroyer and around that, reminded me of what I like about the Venator, it was a well armed battlecruiser yet also a carrier.

It's always great to hear about these little small comics from various magazines. I would love to see more if they can tie into another video.

the problem with a lot of these animated shows and their new technologies is that they're so op but never used again or expanded upon. palpatine just sits on all these designs for super weapons

I think Malevolance was a great start for the Clone Wars. It's similar enough to ANH to be easily digestible, but has enough fresh ideas that the arc keeps you on your toes. Honestly, I wish they'd released the Malevolance arc in theaters instead of the clone wars movie, and I remember them using clips of the ion cannon charging in the movie trailers.

The most interesting thing about the Malevolence in the clone wars episode if you know your history of WWII battles. Its base off the Last battle of Bismarck. The German built Bismarck-class battleships. There were only two made, they were massive for a battleship. And its whole deployment in the Atlantic ocean during Operation Rheinubung only work when the Allie forces didn't know the ship existed. Thinking that a column of normal sizes battleships were the cause of the damage to the supply convoy ships. Only when finding out about the Bismarck existence did a British task force using a 4 stage plan, which started out with torpedo bombers making a first run at the ship disabling the steering. The second phase where the British and Polish battleship following and harassing the Bismarck. With the 3rd phase using the King George V sinking the Bismarck. Again, another case of WWII influence in Star Wars story writers.

I assume nobody believed the Subjugator-class could exist not because it was impossible to build, but because it was believed that the Separatists could never be capable of it.

Deep dives into lore is why I like and subscribe. I still will never understand the need for externally located bridges, especially during battles.

Great vid, the rare comic part was awesome too!

Roger Roger

The Malevolence has always been one of my favorite ships, and I see your point with it’s practicality. In my opinion I think it could’ve been used pretty effectively in maybe hit and run tactics, and I think this ship only thrives through secrecy. Either way, awesome breakdown Eck!

I love you talking about obscure star wars stories

Im not fully versed in the subjugators lore, but if I didn’t know any better, I would say that that ion cannon looks like an afterthought, kinda a tacked on kind of look, makes me think that the class might have fared better without the super weapon feature.

Those "nearly lost" comics like that would be a really interesting video/series of videos!

It looks like a well engineered and well balanced hand tool of some sort.

Imagine the rebels capturing a Malevolence of their own, just to use it on Vader

I find it fascinating that in an interview it was revealed that the Subjugater was supposed to be 3 times as long as it actually ended up being but it had to be made smaller due to budget and time constraints, which is why the interior seems to be so much larger then the exterior.

I remember staying up "late" as a kid to catch the Malevolence episodes. I was so invested lol!

Makes absolute sense. Once the cat was out of the bag with the Malevolence, the Republic pooled it’s extensive special operations resources together to have any new ships of that class identified and destroyed before construction could be completed or before they could deal significant damage to Republic forces. This is likely why Doku didn’t want any survivors and ordered Grevieous to keep the ship illusive and intangible. The General‘s hubris was a major blessing for the Republic, as well as Skywalker and Ahsoka‘s loyalty to Master Plo and their Clone subordinates.

The outro is everything

For me I think they'd went into the road of miniaturizing the tech, thus creating the Ion cannons built into a ship's turret or surface to space like in hoth. Afaik, ion tech wasn't prevalent during clone wars (mostly emp for droids but no dedicated ion weapons for shields)

My head canon is that there are easy tactics/methods to deal with them, when you know what you were up to. Before I saw the episode, I heard only the audio book version, and the ship seemed like a menace. But not only because it is a powerful warship. Compared to other fleets fights, there were no survivors, and no coms left, as if the republic fleets just vanished. For the admirals it must have felt like being attacked by an unstoppable ghost, and I think it is fair to assume every clone on every ship in the entire navy felt unsafe just knowing this beast is out there somewhere just ready to kill the next small fleet

I loved the design of this ship and episode. Shame it was so short.

5:21 I'm one with the FPS drops and the FPS drops are with me

Great video!👍

Was unusual since that critter sometimes (like on the show) even flew sideways to have its weapon facing a ship they were pursuing.

the Subjugator could also have been seen as a CiS Answer to Republic dreadnboughts like the mandators with it's giant ion cannons being able cripple them

It would be a sick Bad Batch plot if the Batch discovered the Empire working on a partially-complete Subjugator.

Another great vidv

I honestly find this ship to be one of the best Fleet leads in star wars. It needs a fleet around it to capitalize on the giant fleet breaking power of its Ion cannon, its a massive multiplier to the danger of a fleet and a great support tool.

That comic plotline makes me wonder if during RotJ Vader was thinking "Man, I'm having serious Deja vu... Wait a minute... OH, SHI-!"

love the comic reading

What about the devastation/devastator? It was a subjugator class ship but it had a super-laser instead of ion cannons

if you can find more of those comics that’s awesome

Okay right away, the comic, at least this one, isn’t UK only! I recognized it right away on the first panel. I’ve got the German version of it. Now of course the text would be different, but the illustrations are the same. Also, a concept art thingy for the malevolence does exist, I’m not sure wether any of the pages from the original booklet are online but I might’ve taken pictures of it in the local library and would be happy to share them somehow

Nice video I used to collect thoes comics but I sold them off to a collector years ago so I'm not sure what happened to them

Hey can you make a video on how to improve the malevolence and how it could have been better to uses and not had been destroyed

Ironically, a giant ion weapon would be useful against the shield-heavy Mon Calamari cruisers. But really, the Malevolence was dependent on secrecy and surprise. If the Republic fleets just spread their ships out, the ion cannon would become far less effective, and the fact that the ship has to broadside to use the superweapon rather than attack from the front makes it inconvenient to use or vulnerable to kiting - there's no way that thing can turn on a dime.

I have the comic book so I remember this comic, and I still didn’t know where this was going.

The Subjugator-class wasn’t more prominently used because the first couple ships were destroyed by sabotage. Also they were in a way testbeds forced into combat. And the Empire didn’t want it as they were more interested in blowing up planets.

I would like a movie about the criminal underworld locating a subjugator that was constructed at the end of the war but was shut off when the droids were decommissioned and is now floating in an astroid belt. And when they get it, they wreak havoc on trade stations and have to be stopped by the new republic.

I feel like a Subjugator should be paired with an Indicator. One pulls the prey out of hyperspace unexpectedly, and before they can react, the other knocks out it's systems. Add a Lucrehulk to then dump Vulture droids out and swarm the sitting duck and pick them apart and then drag resources back to the Lucrehulk. I might have just made a droid pirate fleet ...

Maybe the Subjugator class was primarily expensive because of it's generators'/energy potential outstripping even a Mandater's energy production/needs for the ion cannon. Maybe those power systems were not useful for star destroyers in general but eventually adapted for the Imperial-class to provide more room for other systems, and extremely scaled down for Tie Fighters to maximize their laser power and minimize their expense for materials and minimize their size around the cockpit/generators. Maybe the systems were extremely expensive like trying to buy a hadron collider in modern-day or some as of yet to be mass produced super battery.

The Mandator II class was also in service in the clone wars, being the only battleship of the war but never seen on screen.

The weirdest things about this ship to me were 1: It needed to be kept a secret, since ion weapons are anything but new 2: It wasn't reproduced and used more, considering how impossibly surprised the republic was by its existence. This is like dropping napalm and finding that it's incredibly effective because somehow the enemy has never heard of it, then just giving up on it once they shoot down your only napalm armed plane Similar to the virtually identical emp bomb that the republic used exactly once, found it to be ridiculously effective, instantly destroying hundreds of droids with no collateral damage, and then never again.

Scale down the main ion weapon by a third and only have one mounted forwards out the front and down the spine of the shul, and it would be significantly more practical. Even for the empire as a large policing vessel.

Nice, they just brought the subjagator to star wars combine for CPs. amazing game...lol so this video was very well timed

A vcery interesting video and totally agree that the subjugator class had lost its value as a weapon of terror, the CIS would have been much better off using the credits and resources pumped into creating the other vessels of that class and use them to build several dozen or so of the providence class dreadnaught instead..

One thing is that it's harder for this ship to operate in a fleet because of the risk of friendly fire. And when your fleet is mostly droids and ion weapon would probably be more damaging to CIS vessels than Republic ones.

In all seriousness I’d love to hear more about the magazine comics.

My understanding about the Malevolence’s weapons was that it was thought that a ship large enough to power such an ion cannon would be several times larger, and would be very expensive to build. Clever engineering (recycling waste heat) allowed the fitting of the enormous ion cannons to a Subjugator-class ship instead of something even more enormous.

OK, so it would have been a nice addition for those of us not so steeped in SW lore to have an explanation of just what the weapon on this ship did.

the gameplay was a weird flashback, I completely forgot that this game existed and just now I remember how clunky it could be from time to time, especially that escape from the reactor.

i love you eckharts

How I see it, lager ships can and could exist, the only real hinderance is the power production and resource sink into making the power reactors actually produce power. As far as I know, some ships also have multiple power reactors giving power to different systems, such as communication, weapon arrays the kitchen so on so forth.

Imagine having the best outro on youtube 🤔

Subjugator as well as immobilizer are specialized ships. They need escort for effective use and admiral should have brains to use such fleet. Unfortunately brains and experience is lacking in imperial fleet management. Everytime they need to solve problems they use imperial without planning

It wasn’t a super ship it was a battleship class ship, one of the rare few battleships in starwars. For anyone curious battleship is a particular designation for large attack ships, normally when referring to ships used by a navy they would be referred to as warships as a generalisation.

the first ship to be used in a holdo maneuver and nobody complained about it when it happened.

This ship kind of reminds me of the Sa-matra from star control 2/The Ur-quan masters

Star Wars takes a lotta inspiration from historical naval warfare. As others on here have pointed out, the class is based on Second World War German surface raiders. Specifically "pocket battleships", which have the firepower to ambush and overwhelm smaller craft, while being able to outrun anything that can threaten them. However, at the sacrifice of not having any sort of adequate escort. The last thing you want to do with that style of ship is get caught in a drawn-out engagement in enemy space. This, and without screens to protect from enemy fighter craft, proved to be the downfall of most of the Subjugators.

A dreadnought with the capability to completely disable ships with an ion blast is a great concept in and of itself. Sending it out with zero support to screen enemy ships or to go in for the kill after disabling a ship is _not_

I just got an idea, what if there was a movie called "Kix: a Star Wars story" sound promising, plus Kix survived into the First Order/Sequel trilogy era, it'd be interestin to see how he adapts and realizes the things that happened while he was in cryo

I'll never understand why droids were needed to make stations on a ship. If a computer intelligence is capable enough, why not just build it into the ship?

It's like the Bismarck class, scary but ineffective.

I loved this episode.

I like the parallels one can draw between the Malevolence and the history of naval warfare on Earth. It really just made more sense for the resources going into a single battleship, or even super-battleships in the case of the Yamamoto, to instead be used in creating more cruisers or carriers. It also just reflects on the idea of superweapons in general, alongside the Death Stars. Both in Star Wars and real life, creating superweapons looks good on paper, but ignores the fact that to create one, you have to take resources away from other weaponry. And while yes, quality is almost always superior to quality in war (look at literally any war in the last 200 years), having several good weapons is almost always better than one fantastic one. Unless that fantastic one is several times more useful than one of the lesser-quality weapons, its not worth it. We've seen this with ship designs, tanks, infantry weapons, and planes. And the biggest flaw of a superweapon? The enemy will really, really, really want to destroy it. And it doesn't matter how good you make something, it will always have a weakness. Unless your superweapon deals more damage to the enemy than it cost to make, it wasn't worth it. And due to depreciating returns (a weapon made pretty good is still probably going to have most of the usefulness as a perfect weapon that's several times more expensive), its unlikely that your weapon will kill more than it cost.

Ah, the Panini Clone Wars magazines. I also had that issue, but in german. I remember it well.