They didn’t survive it, though. The destruction of Alderaan followed by the loss of the Death Star sealed the fate of the Empire. It just takes something as big as the Empire a long time to die. But once the Emperor showed his cards, and then immediately lost his big gun, it wasn’t long until the rest of the galaxy started falling in line behind the Rebellion. That’s why the Rebel fleet went from a couple dozen one-man fighters in Star Wars, to a couple dozen capital-class starships and hundreds of fighters in Jedi.
As an example, let’s say you build a huge mansion, but your construction site is way up in northern Labrador somewhere. Unless you publicise what you’re doing, nobody will ever notice.
Except they weren’t limited to just a handful of one-man fighters, that’s just what the analysis of the defenses said would have the best shot at getting in. Capital ships would have been sitting ducks for the Death Star, which we saw in Jedi.
But it does appear that the Rebellion grew over time, and Jedi is a larger fleet than we’ve seen than before. But consider that maybe the Rebellion wasn’t all consolidated at Yavin, either. That was one base - maybe a network headquarters, but not everything.
We really don’t have any good measure for how big the Rebellion is at any time, save that we can surmise the fleet in Jedi is a reasonable approximation of everything they can muster.
Regarding the OP, if you ignore the prequels, then you don’t have to consider the 20 years of building. It can be something that was designed and built faster, using the amassed resources of a Galactic Empire. Consider that the Republic was crumbling for a long time, but it was only at the beginning of SW that the Senate was dissolved. That speaks to a turning point in the Emperor’s power consolidation.
[QUOTE=Miller]
They didn’t survive it, though. The destruction of Alderaan followed by the loss of the Death Star sealed the fate of the Empire.
[/QUOTE]
Uh, there’s this little thing about a Second Death Star, which apparently was able to be built despite the first being destroyed, and furthermore, there was that tiny bit about the Emperor getting toasted in the process, and losing his #1 personal thug and fear spreader in the process. I think the loss of the Emperor was the real point. Losing one Death Star didn’t crimp his power - Empire showed him continuing to consolidate and run amok without a DS. Bespin didn’t need a Death Star to fall prey.
I’m not sure that the first Death Star was capable of targeting something as small as a capital ship. ISTR something in the EU about that being an upgrade to the second Death Star. At any rate, while the Alliance probably had some larger ships out there, they don’t seem to have enough to spare for guard duty on their headquarters - even if they kept them out of the fight with the DS deliberately, they’d still have been in orbit around Yavin.
I suspect they didn’t bother with anything other than a token fighter screen on the simple assumption that, Death Star or not, if the Empire figure out where they were, they could just send a small portion of their regular fleet and smash them flat anyway.
I think, at that point, that’s pretty much was their only base. Maybe they have a few other outposts, but both sides in the conflict seem to think that if the Death Star was successful, that’s it for the Rebellion.
Bespin was just a single city in low orbit over a gas giant. You don’t need a Star Destroyer to conquer it, much less a Death Star. Vader took it over with a couple of squads of Stormtroopers. Saying the loss of the first Death Star “sealed the Empire’s fate” was overstating things: certainly, if he’d gotten the second Death Star out there, he’d have been able to pick up from where he left off at Yavin. But before Alderaan, the Emperor didn’t have to rely solely on fear to keep the planets in line: he still had an illusion of legitimacy around him. After Alderaan, the Empire basically had two kinds of supporters: people too corrupt to survive a regime change, and people too scared of him to break away. Without the active threat of the Death Star, that second group would keep getting smaller as people saw more and more planets rebel, and not be crushed.
I’ve always thought the Rebellion should have left the Death Star alone. Look at the thing, it’s an OSHA nightmare; gaping holes with no safety railings, doors that will crush anyone standing in their way, that planet killing beam that goes right by where people are working… Better to just leave it; the Empire would have suffered huge casualties just trying to keep it staffed.
The other thing I notice about it is that they’re wasting a huge amount of power on artificial gravity. Something that big would generate gravity just by its own mass, but only toward the center. The working levels should have been concentric, like the layers of an onion. But when the Millennium Falcon lands there, you can see that they’re not.
I think it’s pretty clear that the base at Yavin was meant to be an ambush. Leia assumed, correctly, that there was a tracking beacon on board the Millennium Falcon after her escape. It would have been simple enough to fly to any other system, contact the rebels, and and board another ship to travel to their base. That she didn’t means that she wanted the Death Star to follow her. They’d have only the ships and personnel at Yavin that they could afford to risk in this one attack; it certainly wasn’t their headquarters.
Though Lucas almost certainly didn’t intend it…the Emperors failing is to rely “Too much on that technological terror” he created.
Shit, he probably had half the fleet captains that annoyed him executed and started to mothball the fleet as soon as the Death Star was activated.
I agree wholeheartedly with this.
I was so disappointed with the Empire in episode VI.
They were so pantsed by the rebels in episode IV. (They lost their big 20 year project just as they thought they were going to crush the rebellion.)
They totally dominated in episode V, using traditional fleet tactics. (The good guys’ only successes were more on the scale of Dunkirk than D-Day.)
So, in episode VI, their natural response is to … repeat plan A from episode IV???
I guess soul crushing evil emperors gotta bust big things.
I’m guessing this isn’t supposed to be a thread about bashing Lucas and the first three episodes*, but I sighed audibly when the plans for the Death Star were delivered in episode III.
- The sheer mass of the bits required to discuss this would create a black hole that … meh, I’ve bored myself already.
You could just as easily say the opposite; that they were mobilized by the destruction of Alderan.
True that. Darth Vader never shot his friend in the face.
I think the DS having hyperspace capability is a given. Imagine the conversation:
Emperor: Tarkin, take the Death Star tp Bogostan IV and blow it to smithereens.
Tarkin: Sure thing your Imperialness. Give me about a thousand years …
A Death Star without ftl capability is pretty useless. And we don’t know how much energy it takes to get into hyperspace. Clearly fighters can do it, so not much.
That’s not the opposite of what I’m saying, that is what I’m saying.
But if the Emperor still had the Death Star, the Rebellion wouldn’t even be that.
According to the blueprints, the hyperdrive is close to 50 km long and ties drectly into the hyperreactor.
Yeah, it can move.
Maybe not with the main gun, but it had lots of defenses, no EU required. The analysts on Yavin take the plans and announce there is a flaw for small personal fighters. That means other ships wouldn’t have even that chance.
Now maybe you can argue bigger ships would give them more cover from Tie fighters or something, but I think it speaks to the presumed superiority of the DS weapons overall. No point getting your few bigger ships decimated for no benefit.
Agreed, stealth was their ally at that point.
Possibly. Tarkin wants the location of their base, not their bases. It’s still early in the rebellion game. Combine the still nominal Senate up until the opening of the movie with complacency and resentment that is building but not yet so strong that, for instance, Tatooine cares enough to organize.
Ok, fair enough. Bespin was a tiny speck.
Good point.
Amusing, but there is some thought to the argument of cost of keeping the thing running. The counter argument is that it could wipe out a planet in minutes (counting arming time). Not that super Star Destroyers couldn’t effectively lay waste to a planet fairly quickly, it’s still rather demoralizing to watch your home world go boom on one poof of smoke.
Artificial gravity is apparently cheap enough for a small freight hauler to run, I think that’s not really a concern. Plus, steady consistent 1 g rather than variable gravity by floor. Design to meet other form factors rather than power savings of some AG.
Well it’s certainly more reasonable to explain it that way. Flipside, you are betting that the analysts can actually find an exploitable flaw in limited time. Far more sensible to get away cleanly, then plan your attack under more favorable timing and circumstances.
Yep, undetected weakness to small fighters in close proximity. But even then, they were smashing the hell or of the assault force, and targeting computers were struggling under the crazy maneuvers required. It was a lucky shot.
Rebel base found, had to fold and run. Escape from Bespin during a revolt.
Clearly it had a twist. They wanted a crushing blow against the Rebel fleet, so the Emperor’s plan was to sucker them into thinking they could repeat. Plus, Once done, you’re back to having your super terror weapon again.
And it nearly worked, except for underestimating the strength of ground forces that could be brought to bear on Endor. Lucky break there for the Rebellion. Plus, Vader flip flopping. Too bad the Emporer didn’t foresee that.
Well, he did hold a lightsaber duel with his last friend. After that, he didn’t have any friends left to shoot in the face.
I see what you did there.
Seems to me the question of how it was kept quiet may well be answered by the new Star Wars movie coming out in 2016 - Rogue One. Leia and the Senate knew about it, while it had been quietly built over the previous 20 years, as they probably had official meetings as it developed, but the ordinary citizen would be in the dark.
What always bugged me about that line, and what the Thread title made me think this Thread would be about, is that the Death Star clearly wasn’t a satellite of anything …and, so, couldn’t be a moon.
Should have been “Looks like he’s headed for that Small Solar System body!”, “That’s no Small Solar System body, that’s a space station!”
Or “Looks like he’s headed for that big-ass asteroid!”, “That’s no big-ass asteroid, that’s a space station!”
But, a moon? Clearly it wasn’t a moon!
Surprised no one else in the Thread had the same complaint.
There used to be a planet there named Alderaan.
“That’s no dwarf planet…”