# Death Star vs. Starkiller Base: both are unrealistic, the latter especially so (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934 "2016-01-01T19:48:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/41 "2016-01-01T22:51:47Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > It seems to be a big coincidence that Han’s ship is sucked in anywhere near where Leia is being held. Again, the Empire parked a ship full of detainees next to the detention block. _That’s not a coincidence._ > [@Aeschines](#): > > The idea that anything of that size could be taken out with one bomb doesn’t make sense. The thing is so big that even a Hiroshima-size nuke would just put a dent in it. Yeah, I get that the port leads to a key reactor (which is a dumb design flaw, but anyway), but the X-wing’s bombs, whatever they are, are not that powerful. That’s throwing a couple AA batteries into a fission reactor and expecting it to blow it up. It’s not like gunpowder, which has a lot of potential energy that you don’t want to access until it’s in guns. It’s a reactor–it’s already reacting. Throwing a ultra-miniscule fraction of its power into it or onto it should do absolutely nothing. How much power do you think it took the technicians at Chernobyl to disable the automatic control rod management? Here’s a hint: not a lot. A little bit of power in the wrong place can absolutely cause a catastrophic failure of a reactor. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/42 "2016-01-01T23:01:28Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Again, the Empire parked a ship full of detainees next to the detention block. _That’s not a coincidence._ There is no coincidence. There is only the Force. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/43 "2016-01-01T23:15:14Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Starkiller Base is pretty similar to the Galaxy Gun from the EU](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galaxy_Gun), so it’s hardly as if Abrams were the inventor of this idea. It’s still a bad idea. I’ve seen the movie (and enjoyed it) and I defend almost all of what **Aeschines** has said about it. The writers did NOT articulate the current state of politics in the galaxy well _at all_. For the last 30+ years we’ve all been under the impression that the rebels won. There was a sense at the end of ROTJ that the empire was dead. In the movie what we see is right back to the status quo, which doesn’t make much sense given the events of ROTJ, but then they muck it up even worse by talking about a Republic/Senate as a separate entity to this resistance. Look, if your enemy builds something called the fucking Starkiller that can literally consume a star and use it to destroy multiple planets at once, it’s no longer time to arm the resistance and hope they can take it out with some well placed proton torpedoes. No, that’s when you send in the fucking Star Destroyers that you seized when you destroyed the Empire and took the galaxy back over. You did do that, right? I mean, the Republic should have an army or something. I understand this is Star Wars and the details don’t so much matter, but I can’t understand how any of this made it through the first draft. Just have Snoke et al find some unfinished secret weapon from the time of the Empire and explain that they’ve spent the last 30 years just trying to get it to work. It shouldn’t look polished and menacing like the Starkiller base because they shouldn’t have the resources to do so. Have it look like it’s been patched together and then have them suddenly start blowing up planets, like one after the other, at an alarming rate (say, they figure out how to send massive “blaster” shots through hyperspace). So fast, in fact, that their plan is clearly a Blitzkrieg attempt (hello Nazi imagery) to catch the Republic off guard. The Republic would have, of course, scrambled Star Destroyers to try and stop it but our plucky heroes find themselves, by dint of luck, in the right place at the right time to save the day before the Republic is completely destroyed. This sets up Episode 8 to explain why Luke is needed all of a sudden. As it is, we’re left wondering why he’s been sitting on his ass while the First Order has seemingly been growing unchecked, and why _now_ everyone wants to find him now that the crisis of the Starkiller base has been apparently averted. It just seems that any Star Wars fan with a decent head on their shoulders could have come up with a cleaner plot that wouldn’t have detracted at all from the spectacle. It’s not so much that they ruined it, it’s just hard to understand why it wasn’t a hair better. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/44 "2016-01-01T23:38:58Z")
I think that there was enough evidence in the movies to infer the answers to most of these questions. In RotJ, it appeared that the Emperor was directing the battle from the Death Star, using the Force. When he dies, it appears that the Empire Fleet no longer has any coordination, and the battle starts going bad for them pretty quickly. From that, I infer that the Emperor was holding his Empire together through sheer force of will, and that when he died there was nothing to keep his regional governors together. The Empire splintered into a myriad of Regional governments, all competing to either bring back the Empire, or to form the New Republic. By the point of TFA, The New Republic has built back up, and now has a new Senate, but it does not control Cosuscant, as the Senate is in another system. The First Order is one of the splinter groups of the Empire, and it led by Snoke, who is a force user, but not a Sith. He has brought together a significant portion of the old Empire fleet and resources. The New Republic and First Order are roughly equal in power. They can hold their own territory, but cannot make serious inroads against the other without leaving their own area in danger. The New Republic resorts to the strategy it knows the best, supporting a group of partisans within First Order territory, the Resistance. Meanwhile, the First Order resorts to the strategy it knows best, and builds a giant super weapon to force the rest of the Galaxy into line. There, a self-consistent back story that ties the movies together… ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/45 "2016-01-02T00:09:02Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I think you should actually see movies before you start talking about them. To be fair, there isn’t anything in the movie that actually explains the Starkiller or goes to any length to justify its existence. It’s not any deeper than: “You guys liked the Empire and the Death Star, right? Ummmm… here’s Empire v2.0 and a bigger Death Star! That one was like a moon but _this one_ is a planet!” ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/46 "2016-01-02T00:57:15Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > The writers did NOT articulate the current state of politics in the galaxy well _at all_. Yes, because attempts at detailed descriptions of complex political systems worked so well in the prequels. I mean, could there have been more info? Sure. But the movie was already over 2 hours long, and most of it can be reasonably extrapolated. > [@](#): > > For the last 30+ years we’ve all been under the impression that the rebels won. There was a sense at the end of ROTJ that the empire was dead. We did get the sense that victory would be inevitable, perhaps, but not necessarily instant. I know when the enhanced RotJ came out with the celebration scene on Coruscant, my first thought was “yeah, and 10 minutes after the camera cuts away, the gunships come in and start firing on the crowds.” In the movie what we see is right back to the status quo, which doesn’t make much sense given the events of ROTJ, but then they muck it up even worse by talking about a Republic/Senate as a separate entity to this resistance. > [@](#): > > Look, if your enemy builds something called the fucking Starkiller that can literally consume a star and use it to destroy multiple planets at once, it’s no longer time to arm the resistance and hope they can take it out with some well placed proton torpedoes. No, that’s when you send in the fucking Star Destroyers that you seized when you destroyed the Empire and took the galaxy back over. You did do that, right? I mean, the Republic should have an army or something. Do we have evidence that the Republic knew/believed the weapon existed or worked? Or was it more like “Yeah, I’ve heard that the First Order is spending most of their GDP on some boondongle that will never work.” ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/47 "2016-01-02T01:04:34Z")
Here is another point that rather irritated me about Starkiller base. First, I’m very confused about how they fire this thing _twice_. The first time they used it, they didn’t apparently drain the sun dry as it was quite bright. So why did it eat the star the second time? Would it have gone back to being bright? Or did they plan to move the entire planet… somehow? It would have been rather funny had the Resistance just up and moved, letting the First Order use their second and final shot to blow up an empty planet. Also, apparently the star system blown up in the film was the Hosnian system, and apparently this was supposed to be the headquarters of the Republic. It would have been nice had the _actual movie_ told us that, instead of having it be something that showed up on a wiki because it was in a book sold separately. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/48 "2016-01-02T01:29:12Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I’m guessing that by Episode IX, they’ll be fighting a star with a complete, fully armed and armored Dyson Sphere built around it. The Lucasphere. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/49 "2016-01-02T01:47:42Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I’m guessing that by Episode IX, they’ll be fighting a star with a complete, fully armed and armored Dyson Sphere built around it. Now that’s just silly. I mean, what would you even _call_ such wars? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/50 "2016-01-02T03:29:09Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > Yes, because attempts at detailed descriptions of complex political systems worked so well in the prequels. There’s probably a middle ground between no info and two hours of intergalactic C-SPAN. A good director would find it instead of relying on “But the prequels!” as an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/51 "2016-01-02T03:30:06Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > For the last 30+ years we’ve all been under the impression that the rebels won. There was a sense at the end of ROTJ that the empire was dead. In the movie what we see is right back to the status quo, which doesn’t make much sense given the events of ROTJ, but then they muck it up even worse by talking about a Republic/Senate as a separate entity to this resistance. Maybe _you_ had that sense at the end of ROTJ, but I happen to remember the first Star Wars movie: > [@](#): > > **Governor Tarkin:** The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away forever. > **General Tagge:** But that’s impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy? > **Governor Tarkin:** The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station. In other words: the Emperor just intentionally de-centralized the Empire. At the end of A New Hope, the Death Star was destroyed, which means no more “fear of this battle station.” Yet, at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, we are given no reason to think that the Empire has been weakened in the slightest. We see a bigger flagship and a bigger fleet than we ever saw before. ROTJ differs from ANH in that it killed Vader and the Emperor as well as a Death Star, but let’s go back to that quote. It doesn’t say “The Emperor is so beloved that he’ll hold it together through force of personality alone!” No, it clearly explains that regional governors have control. (Furthermore, the Death Star’s leadership is willing to mock Vader to his face; the rubber-meets-the-road leadership of the Empire doesn’t give a damn about him when he’s not choking them.) All that ROTJ buys the Rebellion is hope that regional governors won’t unite under new leadership and finish them off. The Rebellion would benefit from Imperial disunity, but was in no position to initiate anything on a big scale. Which is kind of where Episode 7 puts us… though you’re correct that the movie is so incredibly vague you could explain it in just about any way _except_ by thinking that ROTJ mattered. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/52 "2016-01-02T05:22:21Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > It seems to be a big coincidence that Han’s ship is sucked in anywhere near where Leia is being held. Would they only have tractor beams right in that one spot? Theoretically, they would need them evenly dispersed across he surface area of the sphere, since a ship could come from any direction. > > But Leia seems to be held near the actual command center, since that’s where she views the destruction of her home planet, and it doesn’t _seem_ as though it takes her a long time to be brought there. There is no real reason why she should be held near where her ship is first sucked in. > > But let’s assume that her cell is near that original area and Han’s ship just happens to be sucked into that area. Even granting all this, the scale of the base seems pretty darn small. You never see the characters have to run across vast hangars or anything. Heck, I have done interpretation in large factories where I was probably walking a couple miles a day inside. Just getting from the production area to an area where we were measuring samples was a brisk walk of several minutes. And this is building that is a tiny fraction of the Death Star’s size. It only seems like they are close because nobody wants to watch 3 hours of trekking across the station. It’s the same reason they never show people circling 30 minutes for a parking spot. It’s foolish to think they would show the entire journey; even a pastiche would detract from the pacing. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/53 "2016-01-02T05:45:58Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Here is another point that rather irritated me about Starkiller base. First, I’m very confused about how they fire this thing _twice_. The first time they used it, they didn’t apparently drain the sun dry as it was quite bright. So why did it eat the star the second time? Would it have gone back to being bright? Or did they plan to move the entire planet… somehow? This was the part of the movie that lost me. Okay, I can swallow a planet-sized gun sucking energy off of its host star to fire a hyper-luminous weapon at other planets many light years away. Whatever. But then the gun has to go and suck up ALL THE STELLAR MATERIAL before its planned second shot. Umm… did anyone bother to calculate just how much MASS that would be??? Assuming an Earth-like solar system, the sun would be 3.3 million times larger than the planet itself!! And even if you fanwank some method of compression into a neutronium-like substance, the actual mass would remain unchanged. This would make the planet’s gravity TWENTY-EIGHT times stronger than normal Earth gravity – way strong enough to kill everyone on the planet, since your blood could no longer reach your brain. And what was the point of sucking up all the solar mass, anyway? How would they manage to fire the gun a third time? That makes no sense at all. And after all that, we got cheated out of witnessing a supernova-sized explosion when Starkiller was destroyed. Instead, the planet merely collapsed to form – a star. More or less where the former star was. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/54 "2016-01-02T06:01:25Z")
I just figured they travelled to another system to drain another star. Just because they don’t show transit doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur nor that it takes no time. I’m pretty sure (but not certain) that nothing contradicted an ability to move. Beyond that, I try not to figure out SW physics. My big issue was that Solo never had the opportunity to fire Chewie’s bowcaster before? Really? ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/55 "2016-01-02T07:48:03Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > My big issue was that Solo never had the opportunity to fire Chewie’s bowcaster before? Really? It was on his Bucket List. Nick of time, too. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/56 "2016-01-02T08:26:07Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > It only seems like they are close because nobody wants to watch 3 hours of trekking across the station. It’s the same reason they never show people circling 30 minutes for a parking spot. It’s foolish to think they would show the entire journey; even a pastiche would detract from the pacing. That’s fine, except they are a few people in the ultimate hostile territory. They have no hope of surviving a huge trek in which, you know, everyone knows who they are and is firing on them. I know stormtroopers can’t hit the side of a barn, but… ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/57 "2016-01-02T08:40:56Z")
Re the state of politics, just because you can, in your mind, connect the dots between RotJ and TFA doesn’t justify the necessity of extrapolating that connection, nor does it make the TFA’s story any damn good. The logic of diehard Star Wars fans seems to be that, if some sort of explanation for a given criticism is remotely plausible, then everything is just fine and the person who made the criticism is an idiot. The EU canon had already dealt with the defeat and breakup of the Empire in a plausible way, spinning many stories in the process, such as the Grand Admiral Thrawn series, which has a lot of fans. And you get the further adventures of Luke Skywalker as well–you know your _already successful main character._ (I’m not saying the EU content was perfect, and it does diminish the ostensibly clean ending of RotJ, but it’s not garbage either.) The reason why the EU content was thrown out seems pretty obvious to me: they wanted to have Ford, Fisher, and Hamill in the new movie, so they couldn’t start with events proximate to RotJ. Thus, they couldn’t avail themselves of the well-hammered politics that were already in place in the EU but had to make up their own. IMO, Ep. VII should have been about Luke following the events of RotJ with a new actor in the role. There was also plenty of meaty content about Han and Leia ready to go, but instead we get to see them as geezers. A pity. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/58 "2016-01-02T09:27:35Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > That’s fine, except they are a few people in the ultimate hostile territory. They have no hope of surviving a huge trek in which, you know, everyone knows who they are and is firing on them. I know stormtroopers can’t hit the side of a barn, but… Peachy keen neato. That’s a different movie, one not named Star Wars. Maybe The Raid: Star Wars? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/59 "2016-01-02T10:44:44Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Peachy keen neato. That’s a different movie, one not named Star Wars. Maybe The Raid: Star Wars? I’m not suggesting a different movie. I’m saying that battling through the Death Star on foot for any significant distance would be highly unrealistic. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934/60 "2016-01-02T12:02:33Z")
So your gripe with Star Wars is its realism, or lack thereof. Remember, our intrepid heroes were allowed to escape. Grand Moff Tarkin was playing the long con. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-star-vs-starkiller-base-both-are-unrealistic-the-latter-especially-so-open-spoilers/741934.md?page=4)