The reason for the deathstar

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

I thought luke mentioned that him and his buddies bombed some sort of animal that was the same size, so unless his buddies were all jedi and for some reason the targeting systems on whatever they did it with are better than the ones on the rebels ships id say it was doable just difficult.

[KirkSkyWalker]

I thought luke mentioned that him and his buddies bombed some sort of animal that was the same size, so unless his buddies were all jedi and for some reason the targeting systems on whatever they did it with are better than the ones on the rebels ships id say it was doable just difficult.

Pfft, some fan you are; the exact quote was "We used to bullseye womp-rats in my T-16 back home, and they're not much bigger than 2 meters." So if it was only one vehicle, and it was Luke's, then you have to consider that he did have Jedi-reflexes, just like Anakin did in the pod-races.

Also there's a big difference between simply hitting a target, and firing a torpedo into a tunnel without detonating on the surface-- huge, in fact, particularly when they were moving too fast to avoid the turbo-lasers (since in the novelization, Wedge's response was "did those womp-rats have a thousand guns, all aimed right at you?")


I sincerely doubt that Luke's speeder was moving that fast and close to the womp-rats.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Pfft, some fan you are; the exact quote was "We used to bullseye womp-rats in my T-16 back home, and they're not much bigger than 2 meters." So if it was only one vehicle, and it was Luke's, then you have to consider that he did have Jedi-reflexes, just like Anakin did in the pod-races.

The word "WE" pretty much tells us him and others were capable of it, unless he considers himself royalty.

Also there's a big difference between simply hitting a target, and firing a torpedo into a tunnel without detonating on the surface-- huge, in fact, particularly when they were moving too fast to avoid the turbo-lasers (since in the novelization, Wedge's response was "did those womp-rats have a thousand guns, all aimed right at you?")

They were in a trench flying in a str line and they were not moving particularly fast.

The trench they flew down was a minor one and not very long but they spent over 3 minutes flying down it before firing.

Now even with a high end estimate of 50km for the trench the 3+ mins means they were traveling at a max of 1000kmh.

1000kmh is slower than most fighter aircraft we have right now.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The (pardon the pun) FEAR factor was mentioned once or twice on this site, but the general rebuttal was:
"If you build the million ISD instead of the equal volume of DS, then you'd have a million ISDs that could cover the entire galaxy in minutes, and instead of 1 DS, you could have a force of 1000 ISD flying around the Galaxy quelling rebellions.
We see how scary 1 ISD is in SW, imagine a planet knowing 1000 of these monsters are in space above you, telling you to surrender?
I'd be scared just as much as knowing 1 single planet blowing monster was out there...

Unless your planet has an itty-bitty shield-generator and an itty-bitty ion-cannon like on Hoth, which together render IDS's fairly useless except for dispensing AT-AT's.

A planetary shield would just prevent a superlaser from doing its magic thing to a planet, but would still rape-fuck a continent with pious fire.

But now, with the Death Star, he could send it with a complement of a few dozen warships and threaten the very core of the enemy group, even if it would take some time to reach any meaningful world.

You're forgetting the main issue: terror from ruthlessness: i.e. deliberately targeting civilians and non-military targets via destroying entire planets that resisted the empire.

This was the MO of the many ruthless tyrants in history, including Lincoln's appointment of Sherman, and those atrocities are always glossed over by the victors as "unfortunate necessity which the rebels sadly chose to have brought on themselves." And this is exactly how Chancellor Palpatine rationalized the destruction of Alderaan afterward.

I'm not forgetting it. It's the Tarkin doctrine in a nutshell. See former posts.

Rebels there were, and that was as far as you could go. Only capable of guerrilla, hit and run tactics. They could never threaten a large fleet, even less one that's about ten thousand SDs, and certainly not the Death Star.
No world will certainly openly defy the Empire, as simple as that. Alderaan and Chandrilla were walking a fine line, and they didn't have full political support.

The difference between rebels and terrorists is only difficult, if at all, to determine. The methods of both are always very similar because both can not afford open field battles. They have to choose their targets carefully - targets they can destroy with a minimum effort and maximum effect.

But the problem here is, that those, who are willing to rebel, are willing to take the risk that others are punished. The Emperor has no qualms with punishing the population of a whole planet for the misdeeds of a few.

The rebels do know that.

That's why obvious ties to the Rebels were not so obvious. That's also why the Rebels were struggling for resources, forced to pirate Imperial lanes, and without the Mon Cal, they would have never grown to what they became.
Of course, without the destruction of the Death Star, Mon Cal would be gone as well.

Besides, if Palpatine hypermilitarized the Empire, there always a risk of boosting the force of the opposition, in that he would obviously increase the number of traitors and force other worlds to boost their military production, if only to remain more or less independent.
Although he was smart in that he destroyed numerous military and banking groups during the Clone Wars, and made deals with allies who could never break free.

But there were many independent regions of space that would certainly react to an increase of the navy with their own increase of forces.
However, by keeping numbers "low", Palpatine would not trigger that boost in his opposition (the opposition being all those alien groups and confederations sitting outside of the Empire's reach), and by the time the Death Star would be ready, no one could oppose the battle station as there would never be any fleet capable of defeating it.

While I agree that it is wise to prevent an arms race, I do not agree that this is the reason why the Emperor decided to build the Death Star instead of millions of Star Destroyers. He could have needed the Star Destroyers to fight the rebellion.

And smash them?
The rebellion were a good excuse to maintain the Empire in place: trouble, and with enough propaganda and spin, the uneducated masses would fall for it. You just need to look what was sold to the world about Irak, then the Hamas (and still going on) and now Iran, and you get an idea of what can happen at the scale of an Empire that's far more powerful and much more in control of the media and hyperspace transceivers - that's like if the controlled all satellites, networks, Internet providers and fiber optics tubes.
With such a lock-down, it's party time anytime, anywhere.

No, the Rebels were a nuisance - albeit an "efficient" one with the resources the Empire devoted to war and order - but were not a menace. Well, that was before the impossible odds Palpatine didn't foresee. That, and giving too much leeway to the Rebellion allowed it to spread to a scale a notch above a nuisance. They were getting militarized and now had the support of the Mon Cal (and even were getting larger ships from elsewhere), and the Empire couldn't dent a path into the core of the Mon Cal's sector, and if they'd do that, they'd let other sectors open to attack and runs.
I'm sure Palpatine was effing pissed when the DS was destroyed, it was a clear gamble.

Besides, the Rebels were giving a glint of hope, and that would also help root out potential dissidents, making it easier for the Empire to know which worlds would represent a problem, and which one would need to be erased once the Death Star were ready.

Of course, dumb luck (the Force some say) just messed up things at Yavin IV. But frankly, who could imagine that ever happening?
My opinion is that if Vader could sense that Luke was somehow "protected" by the Force while we know Ben's spirit was looming around, I think it's clear that Ben did help more than we think.
He did help protect to some degree Luke's own fighter despite having Anakin right on his talons, and I'm sure he helped those two little torpedoes by giving them a push at the right moment, when no hyper-calculated and predetermined path would fail to drive torpedoes into that aperture at the right speed and right angle, no matter what.

It destroyed the Death Star, gave the Mon Cal, heroes and peace a chance, and put into motion an entire chain of events which would bring Luke as a leader of the Rebellion and who would, ultimately, play a large role into the Empire's demise.
The thing Ben didn't see is that Luke would refuse to be turned into a killing machine like Ben and Yoda wanted him to be, an equivalent to Mace Windu if you want.

But that's a lot of pet theory, but it just seems to work so well, so why not?

Furthermore, you are right, that no fleet could destroy the Death Star - although that is a no limit fallacy - a big enough fleet could destroy the Death Star - and we can assume that, when they said that no fleet could destroy the Death Star, they had the fleets in mind, a planet that is supposed to get destroyed, could field against the Death Star.

Well there's surely a degree of NLF here, but that scenario of a a super fleet against the Death Star is odd. We know it's never going to happen. It's only useful in terms of comparison of power, and I think it's absolutely clear that the Death Star just beats all possible combination of Star Destroyers until the point you bring enough of them to provide a sufficient concentration of fire in order to destroy most of the surface weapons, damage the superlaser dish and to melt through the armoured crust.
But again, never even a billion ISDs will have the superior range and technobabble boosted destruction the superlaser had when it fired at a planet with full two digits percents of its maximum firepower, or at full firepower.

The Death Star is logical to me with the Empire as it is. Would have it been, say, an Empire ruled by Thrawn (putting the artsy armchair general wank aside), you'd have surely gotten that japanime super navy.

See, if the Empire decided to build enough academies and shipyards to get +10,000s ships, ready for an extra-imperial invasion, there would have always been the possibility that the enemy, notably having access to their own hyperlanes and knowing their territory better, to keep the Empire at bay.

But now, with the Death Star, he could send it with a complement of a few dozen warships and threaten the very core of the enemy group, even if it would take some time to reach any meaningful world.

The Death Star was not build to fight other affiliations but to keep order in the Empire.

I don't think so. In the EU, it's no secret that there were entire groups which didn't want to have anything to do with the Empire, and which could build their own forces.
The Death Star would simply take its sweet slow time to get to any world of importance to such a group, point the gun and menace to pull the trigger. They wouldn't even need to fight. Just, for example, show how the station could sway a fleet of warships and eventually shoot low powered shots at the planet in question.
If things didn't work, then big blast and voila. Any questions? :]

But even if the Death Star would have been build to fight other affiliations, the problem is the same as already described. With the Death Star, they can only destroy one planet at a time.

The point is that they don't want to blow all the worlds. They want to control them by making one example for all, with the rule of fear.

With a big fleet, they could wipe out the population of several planets at a time.

Yes, they could, but they'd still rely on a traditional navy and take the risks of betrayals. Attacking a world would always expose a percent of the navy to casualties. Some generals might get pissed off with that.

The Death Star is totally different, and by definition no one can really be harmed on the side of the Empire to any significant extent as long as you sit inside the big ball.
And if the Death Star dies, well some generals will be more than happy to see this silly thing fall anyway, and they'll treat it as an expandable madboy fuse which they're more than happy to let take all the fire and blow shit up if the emperor wants to do so.

We know that old Republican generals and officers were part of the navy. We've seen Fell be very, very reluctant to the idea of a BDZ.

In a way, such people would be more than "happy" of letting the Death Star do it for them. It wouldn't be their "business", it would eventually give them more reasons to hate it or mock it, while at the same time possibly appealing to their image of a truly strong empire no one would dare to defy.

The problem with a large navy is that it's just too large for people to compute.

However, one moon versus one planet, with the planet that loses every time, that's quite easy to understand.
It's simple, it's dumb, and it's terrifying.

It's also easy to sell on the Imperial media.

And it also makes commercial deals easier. :)

And a big enough fleet is as difficult to destroy as the Death Star is.

Imagine a total war of annihilation between the Empire and another affiliation. The Empire built the Death Star, the other affiliation built a fleet of several million Star Destroyers instead. This fleet, let us assume that it consists of 10 million Star Destroyers, operates in flotillas a thousand Star Destroyers. That are 10.000 flotillas, each able to wipe out the entire population of a planet.
The war begins and the Empire sends out the Death Star and the other affiliations its fleet. At the first day, the Empire looses 10.000 planets, the other affiliation has lost one planet.

I'm sure we can imagine that, but no force ever had that power by the time of the Empire.
Besides the Empire has about 25,000 SDs and much more smaller ships which will still manage to eat a portion of that million of SDs.
In this case, the best defense being the offense, they'll have to concentrate a fraction of their force into an assault force which will go hit the enemy right where it hurts.
Suddenly the enemy can't really afford destroying worlds because its own logistic chain is hurt at the base, shipyards are destroyed, core worlds are menaced and there's just nothing that enemy can do.
They have two options: surrender, or simply lose their planets at a rate of seven per week (full charge = best part of a day, plus a couple hours in hyperspace to hop from one system to another).
The Death Star, after all, is certainly not a weapon of defense.

Either they both calm down, or they go at mutual destruction. However, if they sign a truce of some kind, the Empire wins, since it will obviously pump its production and will have the advantage of a considerably higher potential to tap.

This of course dismisses the political spectrum within the enemy's domain. The moment they see that even their mighty fleet can't prevent them from losing a planet, they're screwed. Besides you can count on surprise, since only the Rebels knew about the Death Star and there's no reason why the Rebels would go with a force that destroys worlds indiscriminately.

Sonofccn's analogy is right. No one will ever take the risk, as enough risks to challenge such a power. A very few worlds defied the Empire, like Mon Calamari.

Obviously there were enough willing to take the risk to challenge such a power.

They weren't aware of the Death Star. By the time it was known by the Rebellion, all they could was try everything - anything - they could to destroy it. And they were damn lucky that no one put a lid somewhere down that shaft.

They only survived because the Empire didn't have enough ships, and 10% reserve fleet kept around Byss was obviously not ready to go to war (Wookieepedia says that Palpatine had to rebuild his forces, likely training men and growing clones, just to man and defend those thousands of Star Destroyers and hundreds of thousands smaller ships).

Exactly. Several million Star Destroyers are better than one Death Star.

No, since this is not my point at all.

[KirkSkyWalker]

The (pardon the pun) FEAR factor was mentioned once or twice on this site, but the general rebuttal was:
"If you build the million ISD instead of the equal volume of DS, then you'd have a million ISDs that could cover the entire galaxy in minutes, and instead of 1 DS, you could have a force of 1000 ISD flying around the Galaxy quelling rebellions.
We see how scary 1 ISD is in SW, imagine a planet knowing 1000 of these monsters are in space above you, telling you to surrender?
I'd be scared just as much as knowing 1 single planet blowing monster was out there...

Unless your planet has an itty-bitty shield-generator and an itty-bitty ion-cannon like on Hoth, which together render IDS's fairly useless except for dispensing AT-AT's.

A planetary shield would just prevent a superlaser from doing its magic thing to a planet, but would still rape-fuck a continent with pious fire.

I was clearly talking about the shield stopping the ISD's. And who says that a shield would stop a Superlaser from blowing up the planet, when you don't even know how it works-- but it's clearly NOT a DET weapon, as proven by simple on-screen evidence by a factor of 1 billion times over?

But now, with the Death Star, he could send it with a complement of a few dozen warships and threaten the very core of the enemy group, even if it would take some time to reach any meaningful world.

You're forgetting the main issue: terror from ruthlessness: i.e. deliberately targeting civilians and non-military targets via destroying entire planets that resisted the empire.

This was the MO of the many ruthless tyrants in history, including Lincoln's appointment of Sherman, and those atrocities are always glossed over by the victors as "unfortunate necessity which the rebels sadly chose to have brought on themselves." And this is exactly how Chancellor Palpatine rationalized the destruction of Alderaan afterward.

I'm not forgetting it. It's the Tarkin doctrine in a nutshell. See former posts.

You forgot to mention it as the main point, it's not my job to research your opinions to keep them consistent vs. what you actually write.
Even today, people rationalize Sherman's March by saying "it ended the war faster by terror, and so it was the lesser of 2 evils." and "War is hell, deal with it" etc. When history is written by the victors, only a fool would believe it-- but there's clearly no shortage of those, since it seems that the majority does just that.
SW is a good reflection of actual Earth history-- which is why it's not realistic without The Force to give one person such abnormal power (Of course, Lucky will deny this by saying that SW characters are "just STOOPID")—and it’s why Star Trek has a better take on how things in a space-based culture would progress to the point where even the most well-intended and capable dictators, like Khan, would be rejected by all but the most retro of humans, as they in "Space Seed."
Rather, this is where the Federation shines—i.e. they’re more civilized and would simply refuse to follow Palpatine even if he killed every one of them, one by one, just like they refused to follow Khan when he threatened to do the same.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Unless your planet has an itty-bitty shield-generator and an itty-bitty ion-cannon like on Hoth, which together render IDS's fairly useless except for dispensing AT-AT's.

A planetary shield would just prevent a superlaser from doing its magic thing to a planet, but would still rape-fuck a continent with pious fire.

I was clearly talking about the shield stopping the ISD's. And who says that a shield would stop a Superlaser from blowing up the planet, when you don't even know how it works-- but it's clearly NOT a DET weapon, as proven by simple on-screen evidence by a factor of 1 billion times over?

It's the EU that says it squarely in some source. It also speaks of neutrinos and what have you.

You're forgetting the main issue: terror from ruthlessness: i.e. deliberately targeting civilians and non-military targets via destroying entire planets that resisted the empire.

This was the MO of the many ruthless tyrants in history, including Lincoln's appointment of Sherman, and those atrocities are always glossed over by the victors as "unfortunate necessity which the rebels sadly chose to have brought on themselves." And this is exactly how Chancellor Palpatine rationalized the destruction of Alderaan afterward.

I'm not forgetting it. It's the Tarkin doctrine in a nutshell. See former posts.

You forgot to mention it as the main point, it's not my job to research your opinions to keep them consistent vs. what you actually write.

First, you really need to chill.
Secondly, go read my posts. I said it's behind the Death Star idea, and it's fairly obvious for anyone who pays attention to what I typed that it was not pointed out as some minor factor.

[Praeothmin]

@Wilga: The way I see it the best comparision would be how a single gunman can hold an entire bank hostage despite not having nearly enough bullets to kill everyone. Yes the odds of your planet out of a galaxy of millions being destroyed is small but if there is a rebellion some worlds are going to be destroyed and no one wants it to be theirs. So yes if the entire galaxy revolted the Empire would lose but the fear of such tremendous weapon keeps each planet in line individually, less they be atomized, which the Empire likely couldn't do if it tried to go with a pure naval approach.

While the lone gunman with the RPG can hold an entire bank hostage, 10 000 gunman with simple pistols can rob a lot more banks and instill a lot more fear in people, because now you have increased the probability of your bank being hit...

100 ISDs bombarding a planet, while not destroying it completely, will create widespread destruction like nothing ever seen, and if you have 100 such fleets attacking worlds, for every DS shot, you have 100 ravaged and destroyed planets, that you can still mine later for ressources...

[Lucky]

Do you NOT realize how you just answered your own question? The Force controls everything!
And Midichlorians create the Force, so my statement stands.

The contradictory words of flawed characters is hardly proof.

If you were right, then they wouldn't have any power to begin with.; it could just take their power away, and they'd be blind and powerless in using the Force.

According to you all the characters in Star Wars are mindless meat puppets .

I find it far more likely the Foce is just being inaccurately being described by people who don't know.

What Wedge said himself--- i.e. "that's impossible, even for a computer." But I guess you know more than he did, him just being an Academy graduate and all.

Then Luke points out he and his buddies back home used to do something similar to what they are being asked to do, and no one disagrees that such a thing is possible.

Wedge did not mean it was literally impossible. He just meant the mission would be very difficult.

Thus the phrase "NORMAL MEANS." What Luke used was far from "normal."

If it was just Luke doing it I might agree.

It is just a matter of timing, and something we could do in the real world. Difficult =/= Impossible.

They couldn't do it-- even using a computer, Red Leader's torpedo simply impacted on the surface. Know why? IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT!

If it was impossible then Luke would have failed as well. It is just a matter of timing, and something we could do in the real world. Difficult =/= Impossible.

Red leader nearly making the shot proves it is possible for a normal to do it.

Sure, they would have just ignored fighters blasting away at their ship.

That was Tarken's plan, but he wasn't a sane rational person.

And MISSED-- hello?

Nearly made it on his first try.

The reason that the port wasn't particle-shielded, was that the engineers obviously figured it wasn't a viable target within any realistic parameters.
And guess what: it wasnt!

More like the Death Star was a huge bleeping thing, and the designers were not perfect. The port was a major weakness that could easily be exploited, but only if you had something like the blue prints to study.

Try IMPOSSIBLE. There was no way that Luke could have known what he did without using the Force; only a Force-user is that accurate. But I guess you know more than Obi-wan as well, who told Luke to use the Force, when you're so cocksure that Luke could have done it using the computer.

If the mission was impossible the Rebels would have just tried to run as best they could.

Since you insist on taking what characters say literally, Han said Lukes shot was only something like one in a million. That means Luke's did nothing anyone else could have done.

[KirkSkyWalker]

Do you NOT realize how you just answered your own question? The Force controls everything!
And Midichlorians create the Force, so my statement stands.

The contradictory words of flawed characters is hardly proof.

But the fact that the Force empowers them IS.

If you were right, then they wouldn't have any power to begin with.; it could just take their power away, and they'd be blind and powerless in using the Force.

According to you all the characters in Star Wars are mindless meat puppets .

Think “Day of the Dove;” they think that they’re making their own choices, but clearly they’re being manipulated and controlled.

(CUE: here’s the part where you deny it, saying that this was all just people being stupid and crazy. Go on, say it, it’s your only line.)

I find it far more likely the Force is just being inaccurately being described by people who don't know.

That’s nice— but it’s just your opinion, nothing more. It’s also your knee-jerk response to everything where you can’t provide evidence—that, and your little claim that everyone’s crazy or stupid.
Guess what—no one gives a damn what you find “likely” when you have no viable evidence to support it.

Wedge did not mean it was literally impossible. He just meant the mission would be very difficult.

Prove it—no, on second thought, don’t bother (see below).

Thus the phrase "NORMAL MEANS." What Luke used was far from "normal."

If it was just Luke doing it I might agree.

Then you must agree, because Luke was the only one who DID it. There’s no such thing as probability in hindsight, when you know that something did or didn’t happen. Any belief you have to contrary is purely hypothetical, and you have no evidence to support such—it’s just your opinion that Red Leader’s torpedo “nearly” did it, i.e. that it only missed due to random chance vs. Luke’s hitting it.
And your opinion here has utterly no merit or evidence.

It is just a matter of timing, and something we could do in the real world. Difficult =/= Impossible.

Quibble away, the fact is that, again, there’s no such thing as probability in hindsight; and the point is that they COULDN’T DO IT with the means at their disposal, and so they didn’t—only Luke could and did. Your theories as to what “might have been” are purely opinion-based and irrelevant.

They couldn't do it-- even using a computer, Red Leader's torpedo simply impacted on the surface. Know why? IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT!

If it was impossible then Luke would have failed as well.

That does it—you’re either deliberately trying to play games to piss me off, or you’re the most absent-minded person I’ve ever chatted with. Either way, this is our last conversation.
HELLO? Aren’t you reading a WORD of what I’m saying? What part of NORMAL MEANS did you forget within the last 10 seconds?

Obviously Luke doesn’t count, as Tarkin himself told Vader that the Jedi were vanquished, and that Vader was all that remained of them. If Tarkin believed this, then obviously he wouldn’t Jedi-proof the Death-Star while he was in charge of building it for all those years.
And here he failed, since he was wrong about the Jedi—and only a Jedi could destroy it, as it proved, with Obi-wan and Luke acting together.

Red leader nearly making the shot proves it is possible for a normal to do it.

Sure, when “nearly” counts for more than the 2 presidential candidates of the 1960 election, Dick Nixon and Jack Kennedy—but it doesn’t mean more than dick or jack, so you’re SOL.

He said “it didn’t go in, it just impacted on the surface—“ and he had a perfect tone on his computer. That means that the computer missed even when perfectly locked in, and so would do it every time since the computers simply couldn’t time it perfectly enough, it required prescience and perception that were impossible for a computer to have.
Otherwise Obi-wan could say “Use the COMPUTER, Luke! It just failed due to a fluke, it’ll work fine if you keep trying!”
Neh-eh.

Sure, they would have just ignored fighters blasting away at their ship.

That was Tarken's plan, but he wasn't a sane rational person.

Sure, that’s why he ordered Vader to stay put—NOT. They went out and destroyed the rebels ship-to-ship just like Vader said.

Likewise, your typical trick of simply saying that everyone was “stupid” and “crazy" when you can’t explain their logic, is simple arrogance-- no proof whatsoever.

The reason that the port wasn't particle-shielded, was that the engineers obviously figured it wasn't a viable target within any realistic parameters.
And guess what: it wasnt!

More like the Death Star was a huge bleeping thing, and the designers were not perfect. The port was a major weakness that could easily be exploited, but only if you had something like the blue prints to study.

Sha right, they HAD the blueprints, and it didn’t help without the Force.
If it was destroyed by normal means then you’d have a point—but it wasn’t, so you don’t.
(And again, “almost” doesn’t count, except in horse-shoes, hand-grenades and your opinion—and since all but three of those apply here, you’re out of luck.)

Try IMPOSSIBLE. There was no way that Luke could have known what he did without using the Force; only a Force-user is that accurate. But I guess you know more than Obi-wan as well, who told Luke to use the Force, when you're so cocksure that Luke could have done it using the computer.

If the mission was impossible the Rebels would have just tried to run as best they could.

Sure, assuming they KNEW it was impossible— but clearly they couldn’t have known until after the fact. You’re forgetting that only the Force gives that kind of prescience, but it also was the only thing that gave the ability to hit the target.

Since you insist on taking what characters say literally, Han said Lukes shot was only something like one in a million. That means Luke's did nothing anyone else could have done.

So you equate million-to-one odds as “possible—“ clearly you’re the one taking things too literally.
You’re making no sense, just noise- so we’re done here—you don’t get infinite re-matches after you’re pounded through the pavement.
***===GAME OVER===***

[Mr. Oragahn]

The torpedoes missed by a wide margin, and that's not because they didn't turn sharp enough. They just didn't even enter the hole. Call that jamming or what you want, but clearly there's been like a huge deal of luck there.
Some say the Force.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:The ... t_port.jpg

The dark splotches are part of the large scorch mark that's off screen on the left.
It's likely that the torpedoes didn't get armed, and I think it's logical, since a miss would mean no one would get a second chance.

[Lucky]

But the fact that the Force empowers them IS.

And, That makes the Force intellect in any way way how? It's no Cosmic Forge.

Think “Day of the Dove;” they think that they’re making their own choices, but clearly they’re being manipulated and controlled.

(CUE: here’s the part where you deny it, saying that this was all just people being stupid and crazy. Go on, say it, it’s your only line.)

I'm waiting for you to back up your claim.

What is "Day of the dove"?

That’s nice— but it’s just your opinion, nothing more. It’s also your knee-jerk response to everything where you can’t provide evidence—that, and your little claim that everyone’s crazy or stupid.
Guess what—no one gives a damn what you find “likely” when you have no viable evidence to support it.

I'm not the one making the claims of things never shown.

All you have is some flowery talk from characters trying to describe something they barely understand.

I have the ending of The Return Of The Jadi, and some EU I've read.

Prove it—no, on second thought, don’t bother (see below).

If Wedge truly beleived the mission was impossible why would he do it?

Then you must agree, because Luke was the only one who DID it. There’s no such thing as probability in hindsight, when you know that something did or didn’t happen. Any belief you have to contrary is purely hypothetical, and you have no evidence to support such—it’s just your opinion that Red Leader’s torpedo “nearly” did it, i.e. that it only missed due to random chance vs. Luke’s hitting it.
And your opinion here has utterly no merit or evidence.

I was talking about bombing the rat things. It's just like what the Rebels had to do at the end of A New Hope, but without people shooting back from what we are told.

The mission was clearly within the capabilities of the equipment the Rebels had, or the would not have even bothered with the attack.

Quibble away, the fact is that, again, there’s no such thing as probability in hindsight; and the point is that they COULDN’T DO IT with the means at their disposal, and so they didn’t—only Luke could and did. Your theories as to what “might have been” are purely opinion-based and irrelevant.

They would not have planned the mission at all if they did not have the means to accomplish it.

That does it—you’re either deliberately trying to play games to piss me off, or you’re the most absent-minded person I’ve ever chatted with. Either way, this is our last conversation.
HELLO? Aren’t you reading a WORD of what I’m saying? What part of NORMAL MEANS did you forget within the last 10 seconds?

Obviously Luke doesn’t count, as Tarkin himself told Vader that the Jedi were vanquished, and that Vader was all that remained of them. If Tarkin believed this, then obviously he wouldn’t Jedi-proof the Death-Star while he was in charge of building it for all those years.
And here he failed, since he was wrong about the Jedi—and only a Jedi could destroy it, as it proved, with Obi-wan and Luke acting together.

The only thing Luke did was turn off his targeting computer and fire when it felt right. The Torpedos did exactly what they had been programed to do.

You did not need to be a Force user to pull it off, but it helps.

Sure, when “nearly” counts for more than the 2 presidential candidates of the 1960 election, Dick Nixon and Jack Kennedy—but it doesn’t mean more than dick or jack, so you’re SOL.

He said “it didn’t go in, it just impacted on the surface—“ and he had a perfect tone on his computer. That means that the computer missed even when perfectly locked in, and so would do it every time since the computers simply couldn’t time it perfectly enough, it required prescience and perception that were impossible for a computer to have.
Otherwise Obi-wan could say “Use the COMPUTER, Luke! It just failed due to a fluke, it’ll work fine if you keep trying!”
Neh-eh.

It was a matter of timing, and not being shot down. The Rebels had all the tools needed to take out the Death Star once they knew it's weakness.

Sure, that’s why he ordered Vader to stay put—NOT. They went out and destroyed the rebels ship-to-ship just like Vader said.

Vader was not under Tarken's command, and the fighters launched were under Vader's command as I recall.

Likewise, your typical trick of simply saying that everyone was “stupid” and “crazy" when you can’t explain their logic, is simple arrogance-- no proof whatsoever.

If the shoe fits. Vader certainly was thinking clearly.

Sha right, they HAD the blueprints, and it didn’t help without the Force.
If it was destroyed by normal means then you’d have a point—but it wasn’t, so you don’t.
(And again, “almost” doesn’t count, except in horse-shoes, hand-grenades and your opinion—and since all but three of those apply here, you’re out of luck.)

The Death Star was a huge project, and a prototype. Mistakes are expected to be made.

Show the quote that says it could only be done with the force.

Show the quote that says Luke personally guide the torpedos into the port.

Show the quote that proves the mission was impossible without active use of the force.

Sure, assuming they KNEW it was impossible— but clearly they couldn’t have known until after the fact. You’re forgetting that only the Force gives that kind of prescience, but it also was the only thing that gave the ability to hit the target.

I thought you didn't like to argue the characters are insane and or stupid.

The rebels knew what the Death Star's defenses could do.

The rebels knew what their equipment could do.

The Rebels had a good idea of what their pilots could do.

The Rebels had all the information to know if the mission was possible.

So you equate million-to-one odds as “possible—“ clearly you’re the one taking things too literally.
You’re making no sense, just noise- so we’re done here—you don’t get infinite re-matches after you’re pounded through the pavement.
***===GAME OVER===***

So it's only okay to take things literally when it helps your argument? That's not how things work.

Given the context we can't take Wedge's that impossible. The Rebel command knew it was possible because they had all the information to know, but Wedge did not.

Impossible is a long way from the odds are really against you.

[Lucky]

Is there ever a reason given for why they didn't just attack the Super-Laser?

The torpedoes missed by a wide margin, and that's not because they didn't turn sharp enough. They just didn't even enter the hole. Call that jamming or what you want, but clearly there's been like a huge deal of luck there.
Some say the Force.

It's stated it is a difficult shot, and canon does say there was jamming, but what makes you think the torpedo missed by a wide margin?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:The ... t_port.jpg

The dark splotches are part of the large scorch mark that's off screen on the left.
It's likely that the torpedoes didn't get armed, and I think it's logical, since a miss would mean no one would get a second chance.

Do you have an image that shows more of the scorch marks? You can't really tell how much the Torpedo was off by.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

The whole torpedo turning issue is daft anyway, if it was a issue they could have just flown directly towards the hole from altitude instead of flying down the trench.

[KirkSkyWalker]

The whole torpedo turning issue is daft anyway, if it was a issue they could have just flown directly towards the hole from altitude instead of flying down the trench.

Yes. "damn the turbolasers, full speed--" *zap zap KABOOM*

This is like the "why not just use an eagle" argument in Lord of the Rings, i.e. when something's that glaringly obvious then it's probably glaringly impossible as well.

If you recall, they had to fly directly parallell to the DS's surface in orer to outrun the turbolasers; if they tried flying perpendicular to it then they'd be zapped long before.
So no, that clearly wouldn't work.

[KirkSkyWalker]

The torpedoes missed by a wide margin, and that's not because they didn't turn sharp enough. They just didn't even enter the hole. Call that jamming or what you want, but clearly there's been like a huge deal of luck there.
Some say the Force.

Or more like the computers couldn't time it taccurately enough to make it possible-- just like Wedge SAID.
But Wedge was the only rebel-pilot other than Luke or Han to make it through the trilogy, so what would he know?