WRT the droid pilots, I believe I read or heard somewhere (in the movie?) that the clone army was built simply because the droid army had no initiative and no independence, and therefore could not adapt and improvise in combat situations, therefore they were totally predictable and easily dealt with.
About the “plans” to the death star. Anyone who has ever been involved in a large construction project knows the origional plans and drawings have no relation to the structure you end up with. If you are really, really, lucky, at the end of the project you end up with a new set of “as built” drawings that are close. I can’t imagine the change orders on a structure that large, i/e the plans on the death star changed many, many times, and someone possibly missed the critical change. I am not saying the structure itself changes, although that happens, but the mechanicals did constantly on every project I have ever been on. And the death star is considerably bigger than any build I have been invloved in.
But really, without heavy oversite, some contractor is not going to catch that there is no cover on that vent. I have had faceplates ignored because it was someone else’s problem, or not in the RFQ, or spec’d somewhere, or whatever. Even in the empire (maybe especially), the contractors are going to do only what they have to and blame someone else for the errors.
If slave labor was used, the problem is only magnified. Dictatorships do not inspire quality work, see soviet Russia, and nazi Germany.
That might have had something to do with the fact that the Battle Droids were mass produced, basically cannon fodder. (Hell, in Phantom Menace, all the droids on a planet apparently had to be remotely controlled by a ship-borne spacecraft, rather than making them all independant AIs.) I’d guess that to make huge numbers of infantry droids cost-effective enough to build, they had to make sacrifices in intelligence and combat skills.
When the Death Star was designed, prior to Episode II, the state of the art in non-beam weapons seemed to be “self-guiding missiles that (if they hit) pop out a number of small and easily disabled/destroyed droids that slowly poke holes in or dissassemble the target”. Nothing that would immediately cause a crisis for a station the size of the Death Star.
It is presumably during the intervening two decades that someone came up with the idea of a missile or torpedo that - get this - explodes, causing massive damage, especially if it hits a vulnerable area.
By that point Vader and Palpatine would get imperial on the ass of anyone who proposed yet another redesign/refit of their ultimate weapon. Best just to put a memo in the file for CYA purposes, cash the check and go home.
Well, I’m pretty sure Jango Fett was firing exploding missiles at Obi-Wan in EpII, but I interpreted the missiles in question from EpIII to be more of a psychological thing, there to just annoy the hell out of and distract the pilot. That said, just having the missiles pop out a bunch of little warheads into space would have probably been a lot more effective for that purpose. You’d be AMAZED at how distracting it is to have chunks of your ship get blown off by explosions.
For some reason, I’m now imagining* Duck Soup * with the cast of Star Wars, or Star Wars * with the cast of Duck Soup*.
Tarkin is eating his lunch when he looks perturbed and calls Darth Vader into the Room
Tarkin: Lord Vader, why weren’t the Death Star plans placed in my Portfolio?
Darth Vader: I didn’t think they were important at this time.
Tarkin: You didn’t think they were Important? Do you realize I had my dessert wrapped in those plans? Hands Vader an Empty Milk Bottle
Tarkin: Here. Take this and get 2 cents for it.
The first Star Wars Tales TPB has a comic called “A Death Star is Born,” detailing the final meeting finalizing the plans. It hints that Vader himself was responsible for leaking the plans, to humiliate Tarkin.
Of course, it also has Vader using his force powers to serve Tarkin and the chief DS engineer tea and coffee, so I’m not entirely sure how canon the comic is supposed to be.
Tarkin: choke gag sputter
Emperor: Vader!
Vader: Don’t look at me. I’m not doing anything!
Tarkin: cough Sorry. Went down the wrong pipe.
I only saw Rogue One once but as I recall they beamed the plans up to a ship and then the physical disk containing them was delivered to the Princess right?
Just saw it last night. Yes, a group of rebels infiltrated an Imperial data storage facility, retrieved a box-type thing from a big Matrix-like storage room, and went to the top of the facility and moved the “align dish” lever to transmit the plans up to the rebel fleet in orbit. Those plans were handed to CGI Princess Leia. Roll credits.
