MC80a Star Cruiser

The MC80A Star Cruiser was a variant of the MC80 Mon Calamari Star Cruiser produced by Mon Calamari shipyards following their liberation from Imperial occupation in 1 BBY. Unlike earlier MC80 variants, converted from exploration vessels and luxury liners into cruisers for the Rebel Alliance, the MC80A was designed as a warship, leaner and more powerful than its predecessors.

The MC80a cruiser was a 1,200 meter-long capital ship with a 5,402-person crew, and had an additional troop complement of 1,200. The vessels' 48 Taim & Bak XV9 turbolaser batteries were guided by a Plat Dromma targeting computer, and their three fighter bays carried six starfighter squadrons: three of BTL Y-wing starfighters, one of RZ-1 A-wing interceptors, and two of T-65 X-wing starfighters. The MC80a was equipped with a Serridge SEAL shielding system and TriLuna 400MGS stardrive and hyperdrive system, reaching a 60 megalight top sublight speed via ten clustered engine thrusters at the ventral stern of their rounded, oblong, gray-colored exterior, which was dotted with pods and bulges, and featured a single elevated pod located midship on certain examples of the craft, and further stern on others. Its scalloped hull had an organic, nature-mimicking appearance resembling the ray, a species of fish.

By the time of the buildup to the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, this starship was incorporated into the fleet of the Rebel Alliance and was active during the Galactic Civil War. After the rescue of newly-minted Rebel general Han Solo on Tatooine, a fleet of Alliance starships converged near Sullust, while personnel gathered on the flagship Star Cruiser Home One to establish the plan of attack against the Empire's second Death Star in orbit over the forest moon of Endor.

One of these vessels was in formation near Home One prior to the fleet's hyperspace jump to Endor. At least ten MC80A cruisers participated in the attack, which was in reality an Imperial trap and erupted into a battle resulting in an Alliance victory, with at least six of the cruisers surviving the engagement.

The MC80A remained in use following the transformation of the Rebel Alliance into the New Republic. One such cruiser, the Naritus, was dispatched to the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories on anti-piracy missions, during which the ship's Calamarian captain, Genkal, was personally responsible for putting down the pirate band the Khuiumin Survivors.

During the Corellian Crisis of 18 ABY, the Naritus, now considered "aging" by retired New Republic Vice Admiral Kursk Mal'ia, was among the Republic's few active capital ships. While assigned to patrol duty in the Coruscant system, the Naritus used a tractor beam to apprehend an unidentified X-TIE Fighter. The starfighter's pilot, undercover New Republic Intelligence agent Belindi Kalenda, was detained aboard the cruiser before being turned over to Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, to whom she revealed a plot to to trigger a supernova in the star Thanta Zilbra. The Naritus was the flagship of an evacuation force sent to the Thanta Zilbra system in response, ferrying as many of the system's inhabitants aboard the New Republic warships and transports as possible before the destruction of Thanta Zilbra by the pre-Republic era Centerpoint Station superweapon, activated by the crisis' masterminds, the Sacorrian Triad.

The MC80A cruiser remained in use by the New Republic Fleet by the time of the Yuuzhan Vong War, during which one MC80A caught a Yuuzhan Vong escape pod carrying the Jedi apprentice Jacen Solo in a tractor beam over the shipyards of the Calamari system.

The wingless Mon Calamari starship first appeared, albeit unidentified, in the 1983 Star Wars saga film, Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. While working on the film, Industrial Light & Magic model artists wanted to pad out the Rebel fleet, which was achieved by modifying their original wingless model into the Liberty type by adding wings and replacing one engine with another pod.

The name "MC80a Star Cruiser" first appeared in West End Games' 1990 The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, in reference to a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser with undersized wings and dorsal thrusters that otherwise resembles the Liberty type model, previously identified as an MC80 Star Cruiser by The Star Wars Sourcebook in 1987. Subsequent publications such as the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook, X-Wing: The Official Strategy Guide, and The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook used the terms "MC80" and "MC80a" interchangeably, while the 1994 second edition of The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook replaced its reference to the MC80a with the MC80.

The 1993 LucasArts video game Star Wars: X-Wing and its 1999 sequel Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance feature Mon Calamari cruisers identified in-game as MC80a models, but visually modeled on the Home One type Star Cruiser seen in Return of the Jedi. The intermediate X-Wing game Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter applied the MC80a identifier to another model of Star Cruiser, also featured in the preceding Star Wars: TIE Fighter, resembling the illustration of the winged model used for the MC80 and MC80a in West End Games' sourcebooks.

Del Rey's 1996 reference book The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, written by Bill Smith, redefined the MC80a as a distinct, more powerful variant of the standard MC80 Star Cruiser. This differentiation was repeated by the twelfth issue of The Official Star Wars Fact File, and was elaborated on in the 2012's The Essential Guide to Warfare, in the endnotes of which co-author Paul R. Urquhart established that the MC80a corresponded to the "wingless" cruisers seen in Return of the Jedi.

• The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook
• Heir to the Empire Sourcebook
• X-Wing: The Official Strategy Guide
• Star Wars Screen Entertainment
• Star Wars Technical Journal of the Rebel Forces
• The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
• The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook
• Cracken's Threat Dossier
• The Official Star Wars Fact File12
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
• The Essential Guide to Warfare
• Strongholds of Resistance