[Star Wars] If aliens have faster reflexes than humans, why are the best starfighter pilots (e.g. Wedge Antilles, Soontir Fel) human?

r/

Humans don’t have fast enough reflexes for podracing so shouldn’t the other species that can actually do podracing be better starfighter pilots?

Comments

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  2. PermaDerpFace Avatar

    Maybe that guy was just being a spacist

  3. nicholasktu Avatar

    Humans are the most numerous species so most pilots will be human just on a numbers basis. Also of you have a fleet you want your fighters to be standard so better to have all one species.

  4. TheType95 Avatar

    Here’s my guess.

    Starfighters have computers and avionics to do a lot of the work, the pilot may be more a high-level decision-maker with the right setup. It would be an advantage to have faster reflexes etc but not as crucial.

    A podracer may not have those systems, maybe it’s part of the rules that everything is very much on manual control. Faster reflexes are crucial in that case.

  5. goldblumspowerbook Avatar

    They’re the best pilots working for major governments or wartime powers. Han Solo showed us that there’s some killer pilots off the grid. And in some ways the criminal underworld is more expansive than any government powers. I bet there’s some Dug working for the Hutts who could smoke Antilles but just didn’t fight in the Galactic Civil War.

  6. Noe_b0dy Avatar

    Maybe Anakin was full of shit, he’s a nine year old slave. How’s he supposed to know if other humans somewhere else aren’t capable of podraceing?

    Or maybe you need to be a certain size to podrace, all the other podracers look to be about human child sized, maybe an adult human is simply to heavy to podrace so the only humans who ever tried were children who if they weren’t force sensitive didn’t have the reflexes to not immediately drive into a cliff.

  7. QUEWEX Avatar

    Starfighting isn’t generally about reflexes. It’s more about controlling your opponent, or at least anticipating him better than he does you, so he ends up in your sights.

    There’s a big difference between engaging a squad of TIEs at 2 KM in a more robust fighter with shields in open space and flying in a claustrophobic tunnel where collisions with the terrain are less than a meter away. Possibly in a route that you haven’t run before (I’m not sure if podracing permits racers to run the track beforehand).

  8. DrSpacemanSpliff Avatar

    Who said that humans don’t have fast enough reflexes? Do we know enough about this character to take what they say as a fact?

  9. Colink101 Avatar

    It’s actually stated by Wedge himself, what makes a good fighter pilot isn’t reflexes, it’s the ability to mentally track and anticipate opponents, the better pilots can track a messier furball with more fighters in it.

  10. Vawned Avatar

    Isn’t Ploo-Kun the best Jedi pilot?