From 'Freshers to Vacc Tubes: ‘Star Wars’ Sanitation Explained

Star Wars is such a huge universe that there are many questions that come up. Big questions that really make the fans think. Such burning questions like, how was the Death Star built? How long does it take to travel from this planet to that planet? Or, perhaps one of the most burning questions of all, how, when, and where do the characters use the toilet?

In the galaxy far, far away, some things that one would expect to have just the same exact name as in our world turn out to have a different one. A washroom, restroom, bathroom, or whatever you want to call it is generally referred to as "the refresher," or sometimes "'fresher" for short. A room where one can do their business and perhaps even take a shower, just like what we have in our world. It was mentioned in many Legends stories. Wookieepedia does not say when the term "refresher" was first used, but from what I can tell, it seems that it may have been featured in the 1995 video game Dark Forces, and supposedly in literature via Junior Jedi Knights: The Golden Globe later that year. There have also been other odd sci-fi-sounding names for it, like "waste-disposal unit" or "waste unit" in a couple of Star Wars Adventure Journal stories from 1994 to 1995. And then the 1996 novel X-Wing: Wedges' Gamble used the term "waste relief station."

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However, it was sometimes referred to with more Earth-sounding names. Dark Force Rising, the second installment of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy from the early 1990s, referred to it as a "bathroom." (This is the same trilogy where "hot chocolate" seemed like a hot new thing to Luke Skywalker.) 1997's Dark Forces tie-in Soldier for the Empire used "rest room." 2007's Darth Bane: Path of Destruction used the word "bathroom." Paul S. Kemp's 2011 novel Riptide refers to it as a "lavatory." But by and large, "refresher" was the term generally used in Legends.

In canon, we got our first onscreen appearance of a refresher via 2014 The Clone Wars episode "Orders." Fives, who is on the run, goes to the clone bar on Coruscant and speaks to Kix there. In this scene, we can see a sink and what appears to be a dryer. And of course, there is a mirror for one to look into. The term "refresher" is not said aloud, however. In fact, in the 2015 novel Dark Disciple, based on scripts for episodes of the show that never got produced, the term "restroom" is used. And earlier that year, the novel Heir to the Jedi used the term "bathroom," also used in the Star Wars Rebels junior novel spinoff series Servants of the Empire that year. The term "refresher" was not used in canon until the end of that year via the book Before the Awakening. The term "lavatory" was used at the end of 2016 via Star Wars Insider story "The Voice of the Empire," but "refresher" has stuck around.

Onscreen, we had a somewhat humorous moment in 2017 Rebels episode "Double Agent Droid" where Wedge Antilles has to use the refresher, and AP-5 follows him to what might be this galaxy's equivalent of a urinal, oblivious to privacy concerns as he is trying to tell Wedge that something is wrong with Chopper, who has been hacked into by Imperials.

As for the shower, which is obviously used by individuals to clean their bodies, its first appearance in Legends was via 1983 novel Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka. It appeared in various further stories in Legends and canon. While its first canonical appearance was via Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks, its first onscreen appearance in canon was via Solo: A Star Wars Story, in a humorous moment showing Han and Chewie sharing the shower as they try to get mud off of themselves. The shower does not seem to have had any fancy names in any stories.

The toilet also got its first appearance in a Lando novel, specifically 1983's Lando and the Flamewind of Oseon. Here, it's referred to as an "open-air toilet." The term "lavatory" was used in West End Games' Classic Adventures: Volume 3 in 1996. At the end of that year, the short story "The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett" referred to it as a "sanitation unit." And the 2007 novel Death Star referred to it as a "latrine." In canon, the toilet was mentioned as early as 2014 novel Tarkin. However, in the first episode of 2019 live-action series The Mandalorian, we got not only our first onscreen glimpse of it, but also a new name: "vacc tube." This is yet another way of sci-fi-ifying a normal term to make it seem more fitting for this galaxy, and it kind of works. Din Djarin has a vacc tube aboard his ship the Razor Crest.

So there you have it, a somewhat comprehensive history of appearances of lavatory-related stuff in Star Wars. What are your favorite terms? Was this stuff that we really needed to know? Feel free to leave a comment!

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Written By Steven Shinder

Source(s): Syfy, Wookieepedia

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