Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

[Hlaalu Agent]

Sonic weapons are also highly effective.
You can't deflect them at all with a lightsaber.

Or just running them over *truck blares La Cucaracha before slamming a jedi against the wall* might work. For all we know, guided munitions might not be as effected by the force, since there is a living will to contest the forcer user's. Or maybe like HK suggested you take them from range...or combine range with another approach. Proper saturation bombing might be useful against a force user.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Or just running them over *truck blares La Cucaracha before slamming a jedi against the wall* might work. For all we know, guided munitions might not be as effected by the force, since there is a living will to contest the forcer user's. Or maybe like HK suggested you take them from range...or combine range with another approach. Proper saturation bombing might be useful against a force user.

Or just use assassin droids like HK, the IG models and commando droids.

Droids can't be detected in the Force, unlike organics.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Or just use assassin droids like HK, the IG models and commando droids.

Droids can't be detected in the Force, unlike organics.

Actually, they can be detected with the force. They just don't have as large a signature as a living sentient.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Actually, they can be detected with the force. They just don't have as large a signature as a living sentient.

Then I might have mistaken the facts.

The intention of a droid can't be sensed, at least in Legends.

 

[f1onagher]

Consult the expert:

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Absolutely. Flamers rock and launched grenades with a timed fuse, not an impact one (b/c this way it blows up in the Jedi's face even if the Jedi tries to TK the grenade back at ya'), and Turbolaser batteries. You can't deflect a beam that's as wide as your light saber is long.

In addition to HK-47's 'tutorial', Atton Rand gives a canon spiel about this in KOTOR II from his Sith Empire days, mentioning targeting Padawans and innocent bystanders to put the Jedi off balance, heavy use of mines and gas weapons with "magnetic lock targeters" (implied to be some kind of smart-fuse) to prevent TK throw backs.

 

[Bacle]

Hayden confirmed for Ashoka series.

Not clear if he's there for flashbacks or Force Ghost duties, but he's back.

 

[gral]

Hayden confirmed for Ashoka series.

Not clear if he's there for flashbacks or Force Ghost duties, but he's back.

Yeah, heard this yesterday.

Funny enough, I think that now he would be a better fit for Anakin, as the original trilogy pictures him - the Return of the Jedi force ghost.

 

[Navarro]

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Fundamentally misunderstands the issue(s) involved.

Planetary destruction has been a thing for tens of thousands of years. Hell, anyone with a freighter is able to depopulate a planet if they want merely by crashing into it at relativistic speeds.

Three ISD's had the firepower to carry out a Base Delta Zero in a matter of hours while also preventing flight from the planet. One on their own could do it if they didn't care about fleeing residents.

Defending against these kinds of attacks generally takes having planetary shields, and those were both incredible expensive and uncommon installations.

What made the Death Star special (well its superlaser at least) was that it could blow up worlds even if they were protected by the strongest possible shield generators.

More realistically, the Death Star was a fully mobile fleet base, dry dock, construction facility, etc. Once it proved the ability to blow up a planet through its shields, all the DS needed to do was show up in orbit and order the planet to lower its shields so that the invasion can commence because the other option is that the DS just blows up the planet and gets on with life. Drop the shields and the DS launches the kind of invasion and suppression force that can take and hold even core worlds with trillions of residents.

The other issue with the video is underestimating the sheer expense involved in building and maintaining a Death Star. Even if you have the plans, the DS 1 cost a noticeable percentage of the Galactic Empires total budget, took more than a decade to build, and required all manner of infrastructure. The DS-2 was faster and better (most of the infrastructure already being in place) but it still cost a staggering amount of resources.

Building a DS from scratch, even a crude one, is something that only a handful of entities in the galaxy are really capable of. Even fewer would be able to pull it off in secret or with any kind of speed.

And then, you have a Death Star. Good luck fueling the thing.

----
I mean the New Republic was a horrid government with a great many issues, but Death Star proliferation was never really a serious issue or game changer. It was just a fact of life that living in the SW galaxy, your planet might get blown to bits by a madman.

 

[Navarro]

I mean, now you don't need a DS for planetary destruction capabilities ...

 

[Bear Ribs]

Yeah, I think the issue wasn't the DS so much as the thousands of planet-killing Star Destroyers. It was hand-wave-able when there were only super-expensive one-off superweapons capable of it, less so when entire fleets of them can be constructed readily.

 

[Navarro]

Yeah, I think the issue wasn't the DS so much as the thousands of planet-killing Star Destroyers. It was hand-wave-able when there were only super-expensive one-off superweapons capable of it, less so when entire fleets of them can be constructed readily.

I mean, some kooky cult on an uncharted planet can create an armada of those things. Imagine what the Hutts could do!

 

[Emperor Tippy]

I mean, now you don't need a DS for planetary destruction capabilities ...

You never did.

I mean, some kooky cult on an uncharted planet can create an armada of those things. Imagine what the Hutts could do!

"Kooky cult"? It was one of Palpatine's contingency plans. I.e. the man who ruled the entire galaxy as absolute dictator for twenty plus years.

---
One of the biggest weaknesses of a lot of SW world building, especially the Disney trilogy, is an utter inability to understand the sheer scale of the galaxy or what it meant.

Just going with movie canon you are looking at twenty five thousand ISD's, two Death Stars, the Executor, Coruscant, Lucrehulks, etc.

The energy budget needed to move a capital ship is more than sufficient to scour a planet clean of life in very short order. The construction capabilities needed to build a Death Star - much less in secret - are mindboggling.

Palpatine disappearing a full shipyard and seed population in some out of the way system(s) as a contingency plan doesn't even rate a mention in comparison.

And remember, he had control over the CIS and their entire droid force after they were defeated. Using the droids to mine, process, and disappear entire armies worth of valuable raw materials is something that he could have easily hidden; along with the needed manufacturing facilities to utilize those raw materials. If he gets outed as the Sith and escapes, well he has a power base to potentially rebuild from. If he becomes Emperor then, well he has a secret manufacturing plant that no one else knows about.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

Planetary destruction has been a thing for tens of thousands of years. Hell, anyone with a freighter is able to depopulate a planet if they want merely by crashing into it at relativistic speeds.

Until Starkiller Base and the Holdo Maneuver... no they couldn't. Nothing in Star Wars ever actually moves that fast in real space. Maybe they could strap engines to an Asteroid and do some 1g acceleration to do it... buuuuut, given sensor tech that'd probably be intercepted by any planet worth doing it to.

The energy budget needed to move a capital ship is more than sufficient to scour a planet clean of life in very short order. The construction capabilities needed to build a Death Star - much less in secret - are mindboggling.

Depends a lot on acceleration... and, for that matter, how the energy is being applied. A Heavy Crossbow with a ~600 lb draw weight is lucky to achieve the same energy to projectile as a ~150 lb warbow.

And remember, he had control over the CIS and their entire droid force after they were defeated.

Except the droids were off. Like, that even comes up several times, the droids were off.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Until Starkiller Base and the Holdo Maneuver... no they couldn't. Nothing in Star Wars ever actually moves that fast in real space. Maybe they could strap engines to an Asteroid and do some 1g acceleration to do it... buuuuut, given sensor tech that'd probably be intercepted by any planet worth doing it to.

Depends a lot on acceleration... and, for that matter, how the energy is being applied. A Heavy Crossbow with a ~600 lb draw weight is lucky to achieve the same energy to projectile as a ~150 lb warbow.

An ISD has an acceleration rate in the thousands of g. Even the crappiest freighters around are rocking dozens to hundreds of g of acceleration. C fractional bombardment is entirely within the ability of anyone with a freighter, an understanding of orbital mechanics, and a calculator.

Then you have the entire litany of planet destroying superweapons going back to at least the KOTOR era.

And then you get to actual ship to ship weapons. The ones whose conservative yield is measured in the hundreds of megatons per second, and the ones who can be credibly argued go all the way up to the petaton range.

I really don't think you get the kind of energy budget that starships are working with in SW. Or even the sheer scale that a world like Coruscant implies.

And go fully into legends? Well when Palpatine decided that he disliked a world, he literally had its oceans flown off planet in short order (a matter of a year or two) without any great diversion of transport resources.

Wrecking planets is easy. Hell, we could do it to ourselves today if we really wanted. A few thousand ten megaton nuclear detonations appropriately spread is enough for a dead world.

Except the droids were off. Like, that even comes up several times, the droids were off.

They were off because Palpatine gave Vader their built in shutdown code. They weren't fried or destroyed, just turned off. In other words, anyone who had the appropriate code could turn them back on again at will.

 

[BlackDragon98]

An ISD has an acceleration rate in the thousands of g. Even the crappiest freighters around are rocking dozens to hundreds of g of acceleration. C fractional bombardment is entirely within the ability of anyone with a freighter, an understanding of orbital mechanics, and a calculator.

Then you have the entire litany of planet destroying superweapons going back to at least the KOTOR era.

And then you get to actual ship to ship weapons. The ones whose conservative yield is measured in the hundreds of megatons per second, and the ones who can be credibly argued go all the way up to the petaton range.

I really don't think you get the kind of energy budget that starships are working with in SW. Or even the sheer scale that a world like Coruscant implies.

And go fully into legends? Well when Palpatine decided that he disliked a world, he literally had its oceans flown off planet in short order (a matter of a year or two) without any great diversion of transport resources.

Wrecking planets is easy. Hell, we could do it to ourselves today if we really wanted. A few thousand ten megaton nuclear detonations appropriately spread is enough for a dead world.

People often forget this, but the Empire had neutron bombs (the same kind we have) as well and used them often enough.

Hence why they had radtroopers

They were off because Palpatine gave Vader their built in shutdown code. They weren't fried or destroyed, just turned off. In other words, anyone who had the appropriate code could turn them back on again at will.

I can confirm this because in Legends, some Seppie holdouts swiftly rebuilt their armies and fleets by reactivating former CIS droids.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

An ISD has an acceleration rate in the thousands of g. Even the crappiest freighters around are rocking dozens to hundreds of g of acceleration

Where when you get those numbers from?

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Where when you get those numbers from?

The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels for one.

But it's actually pretty consistent across most sources. At least ignoring the ones that think it a good idea to provide in-atmosphere top speeds for ISD's but not actually talk about acceleration in space.

 

[Husky_Khan]

The Death Star was a revolutionary weapon for sure but yeah I'd agree with the video. It's not a Universe Dooming one. But it might be a major step up like Nuclear Weapons or Gunpowder or something like that. Not just in taking out a planet regardless of shielding... but reducing it to little itty bits.

Planets in Star Wars, Legends and otherwise, get destroyed all the time unfortunately. How many times was Coruscant devastated in Legends or its prehistory from various invasions or usurpations or whatnot? But it's important to treat planets in Star Wars like cities on Earth I suppose.

Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem or even humble little Palermo or Hormuz have been ravaged and razed repeatedly, but they keep coming back. Even the nuked cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it wasn't a be all/end all of those cities. Same with Dresden or Volgograd.

There's millions or billions of planets, many of them inhabited, in the Star Wars galaxy and even a Base Delta Zero or orbital bombardment can permanently remove a planet from the running. Star Wars is a timeline that spans millenia... thousands of years and there's multitudes of lost empires, lost ruins, and lost civilizations. Plus things like terraforming and highly advanced construction (or reconstruction) technology.

Remember how Taris, an ecumenopolis, got blasted into oblivion by Malak's Sith Empire? Then a generation later it was a ruin overcome with scavengers and evolved rakghouls and yet... in a mere four thousand years, it was a populated (and polluted) ecumenopolis all over again!

If it was a Death Star though, building Taris back would be a weee bit more difficult. So the video does have some point. But there's so many planets that it'd take generations or centuries of conflict with Death Star style weapons to truly have a profound impact on the Star Wars galaxy and leaving a dead galaxy... Vong style.