Jax is back: Galactic Gear returns at IAE 2956 and puts the RSI Galaxy through its paces

Jax is back. The official Star Citizen channel dropped a new Galactic Gear: RSI Galaxy episode this morning as IAE opened, and @RobertsSpaceInd followed it up just after 1 p.m. ET: “Jax and Jimmy are back with a brand-new series of Galactic Gear.” To kick the show off, they’re taking “the mighty, modular RSI Galaxy for a spin.”

That’s Jax McCleary, the silver-tongued host who used to walk us through ships with Jimmy at his side, and I have not heard that intro in a long time. The YouTube blurb sets the scene for IAE 2956: join Jax and Jimmy as they bid a fine “holy moly” to the “marvelous, mobilized, modular” RSI Galaxy.

Watch it here: Star Citizen | Galactic Gear: RSI Galaxy (about 7 minutes).

A reboot, a new Jimmy, and a med-ship showdown

Jax opens by savoring the line. This is “the triumphant, yearned for soon to be sensational return of Galactic Gear.” He says the old IP “was worth about as much as I could pay for it,” and now it’s “back where it belongs” with him and Jimmy (“the mute in a suit”), and waves off the obvious question of where he’s been “in the hellscapes of Pyro” as a long story. What matters, he says, is that they’re back at this year’s IAE, here to “fly the latest ships and separate true potential from unfounded malarkey.”

He starts with RSI, “a manufacturer as old as space travel itself,” and calls the Galaxy this year’s show starter. In Jax’s pitch, she’s “the epitome of a flying toolkit,” and “it’s in the modularity that the Galaxy really shines.” She can be a cargo hauler, a medical facility, “or whatever else RSI decides to sell you next.” Then the wink: “Do I hear base building anyone?”

Because this is a reboot, they add a new collaborator instead of pitting Jimmy against Jax: Jimmy Two. They skip a cargo demo on purpose. “Watching somebody move cargo around for 20 minutes is. Well, it’s cargo.” So they go straight to the medical module. The bit is a head-to-head: two medical ships, two disaster zones, most lives saved wins. Jimmy takes a specialist Apollo, “suited, armed and backed by two dedicated medical rooms.” Jimmy Two takes the Galaxy, which Jax says boasts eight medbeds, including two Tier 1s, plus enough armor and weaponry “to keep you in the thick of it.” His money is on the Galaxy.

It’s a Galactic Gear sketch, not a spec sheet, and it goes about how you’d expect. Team Apollo does not have a good day. Jimmy Two stays “calm, collected,” if a little heavy-handed with the dosage, and barely breaks a sweat. Jax’s verdict: can the Galaxy hold its own against a purpose-built specialist? “Absolutely it can.”

He also takes a swing at the usual knock on modular ships, that you can’t carry every module at once so the versatility is “done away with before it even reaches your hangar.” His answer is classic Jax. If you need a hospital-grade medical facility to haul Laranite, “it’s probably time to switch careers,” and that criticism is “rather missing the point.” Today it’s the Apollo, tomorrow a dedicated freighter, “the day after that, a refinery. And who knows what the future will bring.”

The closer is pure showbiz chaos, with the set starting to move and Jax joking that at this rate, episode two will be a podcast…then adding, “Oh don’t worry we wouldn’t do that to you again.”

If you want the dry numbers on cargo, beds, and the hangar, we already walked those in the Behind the Ships episode. And if you haven’t rented her yet, RSI Day is open at Tobin and the Galaxy is on the floor now.

PPR take: I’ve missed this show. Behind the Ships is great for the nuts and bolts, but Galactic Gear is the one that makes a new hull feel like an event, and hearing Jax say that intro again on IAE opening day actually got me. The Apollo bit is silly in the best way, and the modularity jab is fair: you pick a module for the job, you don’t get every career at once. CIG is calling this a brand-new series, so I’m already looking forward to whatever they throw at episode two. Go watch it, then go fly the ship yourself. o7