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In The Last Jedi the Resistance ships are in a situation where their fuel reserves get gradually depleted.

Has this ever happened in Star Wars before? Has anyone else ever run out of fuel? I'm thinking primarily of ships which are in normal operational condition rather than those which have been shot or damaged.

My preference would be for answers from Disney canon but failing that I'll accept answers from Legends.

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    What fuel do those ships use anyway? – einpoklum Jan 25 '18 at 13:52
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    @einpoklum Plot fuel – Steven Rands Jan 25 '18 at 14:11
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    @einpoklum Liquid Schwartz? – J... Jan 25 '18 at 23:44
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    @StevenRands: Come on now, no need to be fuelish. – einpoklum Jan 25 '18 at 23:57
  • does actually needing to fuel, as opposed to running out count? – Aibobot Jan 26 '18 at 00:59
  • Note that in the new trilogy, the "Rebellion" is in a worse shape than at the beginning of A New Hope. Given that capital ship fuel logistics seem to largely be negligible (next to normal maintenance etc.) in both cannon and EU, this is one of the hints of just how low the rebels have fallen. – Luaan Jan 26 '18 at 12:29
  • Based on the movies alone (not seen Last Jedi yet), it always seemed to me that such details were handwaved away. As space opera, Star Wars is more about character and plot that just happens to be in a sci-fi setting. rather than a world of believable space technology. – Anthony X Jan 28 '18 at 02:21
  • Why do you expect this to be a common occurrence? In the real world, how often do you hear about planes that run out of fuel? I assume people are very, very, careful when it is a matter of life of death. – Federico Poloni Jan 28 '18 at 13:21
  • @FedericoPoloni but in a society built around faster than light travel, the space craft would be closer to cars in terms of usage and functionality. And how many people run out of gas in their cars on a regular basis. – psubsee2003 Feb 01 '18 at 18:53
  • @psubsee2003 The main difference is that when a car runs out of fuel you won't die a horrible death. Planes are a better comparison (although they can land even if they run out of fuel). – Federico Poloni Feb 01 '18 at 19:11
  • @FedericoPoloni except when you are being shot at, you won't necessarily die a horrible death. You sit and wait for the local equivilant to the Auto club to show up with more fuel :-) – psubsee2003 Feb 01 '18 at 19:19

3 Answers3

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In Episode I, Queen Amidala's Naboo cruiser has too little power to reach Coruscant and has to make an unscheduled stop on Tatooine for supplies.

RIC OLIE: There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant - the hyperdrive is leaking.

QUI-GON: We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship.

Later the whole hyperdrive is replaced, yet oddly there is no further mention of fuel.

The only other time that refuelling of a spacecraft is mentioned in the films (that I can think of) is during Episode III, when Obi Wan travels to Utapau to determine the Seperatist presence there. On arrival, he requests some fuel for his starfighter.

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Cooper
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    RIC OLIE : There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant...the hyperdrive is leaking. QUI-GON : We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship. They specifically mention fuel. source – phantom42 Jan 25 '18 at 13:14
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    @phantom42 Yeah but the only reason they needed to refuel was because the hyperdrive was leaking. I know I didn't specify but I had healthy, operational ships in mind. – The Dark Lord Jan 25 '18 at 13:20
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    @TheDarkLord I'm not sure I'd limit it to just "healthy" ships. The reason this is a good question in general is that fuel (which is an important logistic in the real world) seems to be an incredibly unimportant logistic in Star Wars (prior to TLJ). Limiting this to just healthy ships is going to make a short list even shorter – Machavity Jan 25 '18 at 13:24
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    Thanks @phantom42, added the correct quotes. I just rewatched the relevant scenes and noticed that they oddly don't barter for any fuel from Watto. – Cooper Jan 25 '18 at 13:46
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    Probably fuel was inexpensive, unlike spare parts – TimSparrow Jan 25 '18 at 13:46
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    In RotS, Obi-Wan and Anakin are literally swimming in fuel aboard the federation cruiser, but it's unclear which ship(s) the fuel is for. – phantom42 Jan 25 '18 at 14:15
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    @phantom42 True, but this was a deleted scene wasn't it? I don't know if that counts as canon, unless the scene was included in an extended cut. – Cooper Jan 25 '18 at 14:25
  • I don't know if all of that is in there, but I seem to recall the scene with them swimming in a sort of liquid - I just don't remember them specifying that it was fuel. It's been quite a while since I last watched. – phantom42 Jan 25 '18 at 14:27
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    @phantom42 R2-D2 squirts the droids with oil during that battle as well, but then again he isn't a spaceship. I think he also seemed to run off electricity, which is why Luke plugged him in in A New Hope. – The Dark Lord Jan 25 '18 at 14:38
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    They mention both "Power" and "refuel" in TPM... I'm not surprised that they used hybrids on Naboo, though. (: – xDaizu Jan 25 '18 at 15:55
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    @TimSparrow: Depends on whether or not they were able to pay for the fuel with Republic credits. – tonysdg Jan 25 '18 at 19:23
  • Fuel is unimportant in Star Wars because technology is there mostly for cosmetic reasons. – Three Diag Jan 25 '18 at 19:28
  • I'm fairly sure they mentioned that they can't repair the hyperdrive shortly after landing on Tatooine in TPM. – IG_42 Jan 25 '18 at 22:22
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    If I pulled into an out of the way village that had more than one car in it when I arrived, and I needed both fuel and a new engine, I'd expect the former to be easier to obtain than the latter. – Jon Hanna Jan 26 '18 at 13:52
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In the second season of Star Wars Rebels, fuel supply was a common theme. There are 2 specific episodes in which ships were either out of fuel or running so extremely low that it hindered operation of the ship

S02E15 - "The Call"

The Ghost is essentially running on fumes to the point that they barely have enough fuel reserves to run the heating systems or use the weapons. When they find a Imperial fuel refinery, Hera indicates that they don't even have enough fuel to take off if they land, so the crew has to do some sub-orbital skydiving to secure the landing area and steal the fuel before Hera can make an attempt at landing.

S02E19 - "The Forgotten Droid"

Chopper gets separated from the rest of crew when they stage a raid on an Imperial fuel depot. The main story is Chopper's, but the B-story is the Rebel capital ships are unable to jump to hyperspace to flee from the Empire until the Ghost returns with the stolen fuel.

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    I swear they made Rebels to set up precedents for The Last Jedi. Every time people complain about something completely new or seemingly never-done-before from Episode 8, the response is always pointing at one or another episode from Rebels as justification. Very intriguing. – Ghoti and Chips Jan 25 '18 at 22:20
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    @GhotiandChips Except the surviving in space thing. That has precedence in Clone Wars – Logarr Jan 26 '18 at 17:18
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    @Logarr That just has precedent in reality. Though it's never been attempted, it seems likely that humans could survive brief exposure to space. – user2752467 Jan 27 '18 at 09:25
  • @JustinLardinois Indeed. You'll die of suffocation before anything else, and in a space suit or something you'd die of overheating before anything else. The whole "body starts icing over in seconds" you see in Last Jedi and GotG2 is Hollywood Science. In reality you can only lose heat in space through radiative transfer, which is wildly less efficient than the convective transfer we're used to on Earth. The biggest threat to Leia in that sequence was the concussive wave of the blast. – zibadawa timmy Jan 27 '18 at 22:02
  • @zibadawatimmy It was actually GotG 1 where Star Lord freezes in space. – WakeDemons3 Feb 09 '18 at 21:49
  • @WakeDemons3 Yandu rapidly freezes in space near the end of the second. Spoiler alert! – zibadawa timmy Feb 10 '18 at 02:48
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In Legends, there are at least two incidents in the X-Wing series where low fuel was a threat, although they didn't run out of fuel in either case.

In the first incident, Gavin Darklighter blind jumped (in his X-wing) to escape a Star Destroyer; he didn't have enough fuel to return directly to base and had to resupply at the remote colony of Halanit.

In the second, the entirety of Wraith Squadron (twelve X-wings and a shuttle) are trapped in an uninhabited system when their navigation computers are wiped. Commander Antilles has to face a choice: he can either abandon the X-wings and use the shuttle's fuel supply to explore neighboring systems until they get back to civilization, or use it to run the shuttle's tractor beam to get their disabled ships under cover and make repairs. There isn't enough fuel to do both, or to go exploring with the X-wings.

Similarly, fuel supplies are a critical plot point in The Old Republic's Onslaught expansion. The Empire has stockpiled a large number of fuel tenders that allow their fleet to make a deep strike into Republic territory. The Republic fleets rushing to engage them need to make refueling stops, which sets up two of the main story missions as players are trying to protect or sabotage these stops.

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