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Many times in the Star Wars movies we hear reference to "Corellian" space ships.

An example, Han Solo says in the cantina: Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now.

Now in Solo: A Star Wars Story, we see the planet Corellia.

There is a lot of ship building, but otherwise the planet seems pretty terrible. In the movie, it is said "no-one wants to go back to Corellia".

Han's own father worked on the "CEC" construction line to make ships like the Millennium Falcon.

So, why are "Corellian" ships so good, given that they are they mentioned, almost revered, at so many points in the movies?

Sure, I can imagine some of the best star ships were made on Corellia, but aren't there other ship building planets in the galaxy?

It seems unlikely that all the best ships (both alliance, like Princess Leia's ship, and Empire, like Star Destroyers) are made in the one place.

Is there some local advantage (for example, plentiful resources of a certain type, or low gravity, or proximity to mining colonies, or whatever) that make ship building there ideal?

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    "It seems unlikely that all the best ships ... are made in the one place." I would say it's highly likely - synergy effects and preservation of knowledge come to help. Real world examples: Silicon valley is the center of IT in the US, Swiss clocks are the best as well as Belgium beer, the best movies (or rather most expensive) are made in Hollywood, ... and all these things do not rely on anything special about the place in which they are situated.
    – Trilarion
    Jun 22 '18 at 12:08
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    And you also have BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, so I guess its a good analogy.
    – vikingsteve
    Jun 22 '18 at 12:09
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    Just to add to the responses, the Legacy universe includes a wealth of manufacturers from different parts of the galaxy, notably Kuat Drive Yards, Fondor Shipyards and Corellian Engineering all produce star destroyers, the design comes from Kuat but is licenced to the other two. Corellian Engineering have a reputation for building rugged and reliable ships that are easily modified by their owners, Kuat are usually more "polished" in their manufacturing, producing equipment to tighter tolerances, while Fondor are primarily a Military contractor.
    – Ruadhan2300
    Jun 22 '18 at 12:15
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    From roughly the late 1800s to the early 1900s if you wanted a great ship you bought it from Britain.
    – Schwern
    Jun 22 '18 at 16:34
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    @Trilarion many companies might be located in Silicon Valley but they're not at war. More like if all the best US, Russian, EU, and Chinese IT minds were locate din Silicon Valley. Seems unlikely.
    – Brad
    Jun 22 '18 at 18:15
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The CEC megacorporation

When people say "Corellian ships", they don't mean "ships made on Corellia", they mean "Ships made by the Corellian Engineering Corporation".

It's a massive corporation that has existed since before the current Republic and the Empire, and has made a plethora of highly popular lines of starships.

The CEC doesn't produce exclusively on Corellia, but it's where their headquarters are stationed. Imagine if Apple had called themselves the 'American Phone Corporation", people might have wanted "American phones", even though most of their production is done in other countries.

People don't want "ships produced on Corellia", they want "ships made by the CEC".

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    e.g. "We're flying American". It's understood that there's a trailing "Airlines" omitted.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Jun 22 '18 at 9:58
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    . or your BMW might have been built in the US
    – Hagen von Eitzen
    Jun 22 '18 at 21:51
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    I only recognize two of those ships by name. Why do people want them made by CEC? Why are they popular?
    – Mazura
    Jun 22 '18 at 23:29
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Corellian shipbuilders specialize in one particular flavor of ships - fast, rugged, small-to-medium freighters and scoutships, the type of ships that people like Han live and die by. The reason for this specialization is demand: Corellia sits astride two of the major hyperspace trade routes in the galaxy, the Corellian Run and the Corellian Trade Spine, and has been a trading hub for thousands of years.

Though Corellia manufactures other starships, they are not especially well-known. For instance, the big names in fighters around the time of the original movies are Sienar Fleet Systems (which manufactures TIEs), Incom Corp. (X-Wings), and Koensayr Manufacturing (Y-Wings). Star Destroyers and other large craft were produced by groups such as Kuat Drive Yards or the Mon Calamari shipyards. None of these corporations were based on Corellia (although some of them had factories and yards there, to take advantage of the convenient location).

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    I don't really agree with this. The TIE Fighter is not the SFS Fighter, and they aren't KDY Star Destroyers. But the Corellian Corvette is a CORELLIAN Corvette. The only ship we see in the series whose name has the manufacturer is a Corellian ship, and the only time we get a reference to a ship manufacture in the movies is also a reference to "the big Corellian ships". X-Wings, TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers, Mon Cal, are never referenced on screen by name, and the one reference we get certainly implies that Han has an expectation even a farmboy will understand the difference.
    – Mark
    Jun 22 '18 at 15:09
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    @Mark I'm reasonably certain that the Corelian Corvette is never named as such on screen, either, unless it was in one of the recent movies. They just call it a conciliar ship, without mentioning the model at all. They're certainly not what Han was referring to as "the big Corelian ships"; from the context, he was probably talking about Star Destroyers. The corvette's manufacturer was named in the tabletop and video games, same as the rest of those examples.
    – Ray
    Jun 22 '18 at 20:52
  • AKA, Chevrolet. A company known for reliability, and Corvettes. If you see an auto on the street with rust on it, that hasn't had a complete engine overhaul, it's probably a Chevy. They've got it where it counts: drive train and engine. Buckets-of-bolts are easy to fix too, and that's what I literally used to replace my door handle after the second time it broke; "special modification" : a bolt.
    – Mazura
    Jun 22 '18 at 23:27
  • If Corellian ships are known for being "small-to-medium freighters and scoutships", then why did Han brag about being able to outrun "the big Corellian ships"?
    – Dave Sherohman
    Jun 24 '18 at 9:35
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CEC, whose shipyards were located in the Corellian system, owed much of its success to the abnormally high numbers of skilled designers, engineers, and shipwrights the system produced. The shipyards were well known for their modular freighters which could be upgraded for combat with both legal and illegal after-market kits.

Star Wars: Exodus Visual Encyclopedia, Corellian Engineering Corporation

Its reputation worked against it as by the time of the Battle of Scarif, CEC had been Imperialized by the Galactic Empire unlike the company's main competitors (Kuat Drive Yards and Sienar Fleet Systems), CEC relied almost solely on civilian sales rather than military contracts.

Even so, CEC's reputation for solid spaceframes and excellent engines meant that it was often subcontracted to build warships using other companies' designs: Star Destroyers built by CEC had a reputation for being the fastest ships in the Imperial Navy, both at sublight and hyperspace speeds.

We must remember that before the end of the Clone Wars it was a member of the Techno Union meaning the ship that he was talking about might be a Providence-class dreadnought, or other ship held over by the sector police cor-sec and the local defences that captain solo might be talking about Venator class star destroyer as they where being sent to sector defense being slower than the new victory class.

And if you have seen Solo: a Star Wars story, you saw shield generators for Imperial-class Star Destroyer, and like the tiger tank of WW2 being made by slave labor but designed by Porsche to a supper high level of German engineering so to is the CEC star ships weather a droid or a slave quality is quality.

Then again it might be just a lil home town barging, like any red-blooded American will tell you American muscle cars are the best and Italians will say it is Ferrari and any one from Japan will say Honda, but there you go and you should know that the Clone Wars and any cartoon released by Disney are cannon so...

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    I've put part of the quote into quote markdown and sourced it but it appears you may have gotten some more of this from elsewhere. Could you edit to show what is from an external source and provide links where needeD?
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Jan 31 '19 at 11:42

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