I was today years old when I realized that the big sphere thing that drops onto Geonosis in Attack of the Clones is actually the same central part of the Trade Federation battleship we see in The Phantom Menace. I don’t know how I missed it all these years—I’ve seen both movies countless times—but it never clicked that they were literally the same ship, just separated.
You know that donut-shaped ship that blocks Naboo’s communications? The center core of that thing detaches—and that’s what crashes down onto the battlefield in Episode II. The Trade Federation didn’t just build one type of ship, they designed them to split apart and deploy droid armies straight to the surface.
I wanted to take a second and break this down for anyone else who somehow never noticed it either.
Trade Federation Core Ship and Lucrehulk-class Battleship Can Attach and Detach
Before we head into the main point, I want to clarify a little bit, just in case we don’t mix things up. The image below shows the Trade Federation Core Ship. This is the spherical command module that detaches from the full Lucrehulk-class battleship.
And this one here shows when the Core Ship is attached to the Lucrehulk-class battleship.
So, back to the main point: the Core Ship and the Lucrehulk-class battleship can attach and detach from each other whenever needed.
I honestly didn’t realize this until I came across a Wookieepedia entry that said:
“Core ships were huge autonomous Trade Federation command vessels modified from the central spheres of Lucrehulk-class Battleships. Core ships could detach and re-attach to the battleship ring.”
But let’s be real, it’s Wookieepedia. As useful as it is, I wanted something more official. So I dug deeper. In Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, it gives a much clearer and more direct explanation:
“The Trade Federation pretended to comply with this decree by seemingly disassembling many of the battleships, only to transform the centrispheres into detachable core ships that were used at the Battle of Geonosis and throughout the Clone Wars.”
How the Core Ship Connects to the Lucrehulk
Now that we’ve confirmed the Core Ship can detach and reattach, let’s talk about how that actually works.
If you’ve looked through a bunch of cross-section images like I have, you’ll notice there’s no clear visual of how exactly the Core Ship connects to the Lucrehulk. Most of the time, all we really see is a bridge stretching between the two, but not much else in terms of physical locking mechanisms.
Luckily, I found something way more helpful—a side-view image from the Star Wars Fact File that shows how the Core Ship actually docks. And it finally gives us something concrete.
The image highlights something called Locking Ridges, and the caption explains it like this:
“In order for Core Ships to plug neatly into their cargo arms, they had a number of vertical ridges to enable connection. Because of this standard design, it was possible for a Core Ship to connect to any class of Trade Federation craft, whether it be a warship or a common tanker.”
This means Core Ships weren’t locked to just one specific Lucrehulk—they could be swapped in and out between different ships across the fleet, which makes their modular setup even more impressive.