The reason for the deathstar

[User1442]

I have heard many people talk about how stupid it was to build the death star. That it was a waste of money. Well......truth be told it was a bad idea. The empire choice to use brute force and massive numbers over efficient and quality. I.E. why tie fighters did not have shields or hyperspace drivers.

The reason for the death star was FEAR. In almost every post i have come across this has never been mentioned. The dialogue says it all.

Wilhuff Tarkin: [walking in with Darth Vader] 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.
Tagge: That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.

The Death Star was not destroyed because it was weak, it was not built on a whim, and the reason no one opposed it was because no one was ABLE TO. Notice how the Death star has not been used before this, its construction is vastly unknown to the general population. They finally revealed it because the senate wasn't there to cause any discord. And the fear of a planet being destroyed was too great for anyone to informally oppose it.

[Praeothmin]

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...

[Enterprise E]

Maybe they didn't have the people necessary to crew those million, or even extra tens of thousands of Imperial Star Destroyers. From what I remember, the EU placed the Death Star crew compliment at a million or so. If there's any higher information that contradicts that and places it higher, or even any EU data that does the same, please tell me. Also, I do think that the intimidation factor was present. We're talking about something that can destroy an entire planet with a single shot, and ward off a large scale attack from a whole fleet of enemy vessels so there's no possibility that anyone would be able to flee or escape. It's one shot, one kill.

On a side note, I also wouldn't be surprised if the weakness was intentional, even though the EU implies, if not outright states that it was not, due to the Emperor needing to have a way of destroying it should Tarkin or Vader ever go rogue. The reason that the DS II would not have that weakness is because the Emperor was on the station and may well have been his new home or headquarters if he had survived Endor and the Rebel fleet had been destroyed, as he expected.

[Mr. Oragahn]

There's a quote I've recently read from the EU which says that no matter how large the Imperial fleet was with its actual resources, it could never cover the Empire's entire territory efficiently. The quote may not be old, it's just that I read it recently, but forgot to note the source. It could be located somewhere in the recent SW weapon yields thread at SBC.

What it said in substance anyway is that the firepower of several fleet was concentrated into a battle station which would never be defeated, and which would send a clear message, which is the textbook "Tarkin doctrine".

[Praeothmin]

I doubt a Galaxy with Trillions upon Trillions of inhabitants cold not crew a few thousand ships.
And the DS being inpregnable?
Rubbish.
All you need are a few ISDs firing at the Superlaser Structure and it would no longer be able to do anything except fire at the incoming ships with its Turbolasers.
Let's be honest:
What is more maneuverable, and has a greater chance of winning a fight?
The DS, or it's equivalent volumre in ISDs?
I say the ISDs, easily.
Once the SL is taken care of, you simply need to keep firing all you have at the structure, and you'll eventually hit something vital that can do some real damage, or even allow you to take it over...

[User1442]

I doubt a Galaxy with Trillions upon Trillions of inhabitants cold not crew a few thousand ships.
And the DS being inpregnable?
Rubbish.
All you need are a few ISDs firing at the Superlaser Structure and it would no longer be able to do anything except fire at the incoming ships with its Turbolasers.
Let's be honest:
What is more maneuverable, and has a greater chance of winning a fight?
The DS, or it's equivalent volumre in ISDs?
I say the ISDs, easily.
Once the SL is taken care of, you simply need to keep firing all you have at the structure, and you'll eventually hit something vital that can do some real damage, or even allow you to take it over...

Throughout history, even when vastly outnumbered people have fought to the death. Look at the 300 spartans (although they did have 2000 phoneticians or whatever allies with them) against xerxes army of over a million. Yes a fleet of 1000's of star destroyers would be scary, but it wouldn't even help with the guerrilla warfare tactics of the rebellion. The death star was mean't to be a symbol. I mean its not a matter of "Don't screw with us or we'll send the fleet after you to try to annihilate you." It was "You mess with us and we will blow your planet up! We WILL annihilate you."

[Mr. Oragahn]

I doubt a Galaxy with Trillions upon Trillions of inhabitants cold not crew a few thousand ships.

Depends on how far you militarize your society. Most people don't want to be involved in wars. SW ships need large crews. Get tens of thousands of larger ships, plenty millions of small patrol crafts, and you can easily get your billion of crew members.
Against a population in the trillion-quadrillion range, it's a fair ratio.

And the DS being inpregnable?
Rubbish.
All you need are a few ISDs firing at the Superlaser Structure and it would no longer be able to do anything except fire at the incoming ships with its Turbolasers.

How in Star Wars do you get that?
The Death Star is described as precisely being able to defeat a fleet of Star Destroyers, even if it included Super Star Destroyers!
It can fire shots which instantly vaporize 3 km wide ships and the cloud of fighters already launched several seconds ago.
The battle station, when it takes its threat seriously, also has plenty of small starships capable of harassing the larger fish while clouds of starfighters can take care of the short range defense perimeter:

... given the surface-to-vacuum defenses, the number of fighters, turbolaser batteries,
charged-particle blasters, magnetic railguns, proton torpedo banks, ion cannons, and a host of
other protective devices, no naval ship of any size would be even a remote threat. A fleet of
Imperial-class Star Destroyers-even a fleet of Super-class Star Destroyers, should such a thing
ever exist-would offer no real danger to the battle station once it was fully operational.

And the shield could still be arranged to deflect mountain sized debris: missiles without enough thrust wouldn't make it through (they're not built with going through such a field in mind, and it really took its toll on the engines of the Rebel sunbfighters), and I see no reason why the obviously not-massless bolts of turbolasers would be able to advance through that. When you can deflect mountains, I say you can deflect bottled soups of photons and gases.

Let's be honest:
What is more maneuverable, and has a greater chance of winning a fight?
The DS, or it's equivalent volumre in ISDs?
I say the ISDs, easily.

It totally depends on the fight you speak of. Where is it shown that the Empire can build a fleet of SDs equal in total volume to the volume of the Death Star?
Above all, what about the logistics?
Respectively, volume wise, they're largely in favour of the Death Star, with not so much troops, not so much crews, lots of uninhabited space and plenty of droids.
When one thing moves, everything moves in the station, and the station doesn't need to be constantly moving at the four corners of the galaxy because it's not its point. It simply sits there, waiting for an order of demonstrative firepower.

In comparison, the constant strain on logistics of such a fleet we've never seen is absolutely daunting, as Star Destroyers always need to be there and patrol, otherwise Rebel forces attack less or undefended Imperial systems.

Once the SL is taken care of, you simply need to keep firing all you have at the structure, and you'll eventually hit something vital that can do some real damage, or even allow you to take it over...

You'd damage the surface. The station's weapons would have toasted the ships long before they could even dig down one kilometer into the station, which is still far from enough to reach any system as ever described in any EU source.

[Praeothmin]

The "million ISDs" in volume is something I've always seen Warsies spout to indicate a large industrial capacity for the Empire.
But even a fleet of 10 000 ISDs would be better then 1 DS, IMO.
And while it would definitely take more the 1 million people to crew these ships, again, with conscription, you could easily fill them with crew, even the minimum necessary crew...

How in Star Wars do you get that?
The Death Star is described as precisely being able to defeat a fleet of Star Destroyers, even if it included Super Star Destroyers!

I doubt it was designed to defend itself against a fleet of 10 000 ISDs, which is what I say should have been built.
And as we saw, the Turbolasers aren't that big, and the ships could ceertainly fly under the shield, and the DS I wasn't able to fire on ships, only the DS II.

The battle station, when it takes its threat seriously, also has plenty of small starships capable of harassing the larger fish while clouds of starfighters can take care of the short range defense perimeter

I serioulsy doubt they would have enough ships to defend against 10 000 ISDs...

In comparison, the constant strain on logistics of such a fleet we've never seen is absolutely daunting, as Star Destroyers always need to be there and patrol, otherwise Rebel forces attack less or undefended Imperial systems.

Yes, but since we see in the movies that even 2 ISDs are considered an impressive force, and in RotJ that a fleet of 30 ships is also impressive, with 10 000 more ISDs the Empire could cover even more territory, a lot more easily than with one super battle station...

You'd damage the surface. The station's weapons would have toasted the ships long before they could even dig down one kilometer into the station, which is still far from enough to reach any system as ever described in any EU source.

You don't need to get 1 km into the station, you only need to destroy enough of it to render it helpless.
Anyway, we'd never see such a fight, I simply mentioned it beacuse I felt having 10 000 ships was better then having 1 super station...

[Who is like God arbour]

I already said it and I'll say it again:

The concept of the Death Star makes only sense, if one assumes that the Star Wars galaxy is pretty small and that Star Destroyers don't have the ability to effectively bombard a planet from orbit.

If there were millions and millions of inhabited planets, the power to destroy a planet would be insignificant: Imagine that the Death Star would be able to destroy one planet a day - including travel and recharging time. In a year the Death Star could destroy 365 worlds. In ten years - and that's longer than the Clone Wars have lasted - 3650 worlds could be destroyed. And, if there were only one million inhabited planets in the galaxy, it would be only 0,365 per cent of all inhabited planets. Insofar, the ability of the Death Star to destroy a planet in a galaxy consisting of millions and millions of habitable planets is not more terrifying than bombs from today which are able to destroy a district from a city.

And then there is still the fact, that millions of Star Destroyers could have been build instead of the Death Star. But considering their limited weapon range and accuracy, these would have real problems to effectively shoot from orbit on targets on ground, while planetary weapons with longer range and better accuracy would have it easy to shoot them down. The Death Star with its higher weapon range does not have these problems.

And of course, if we accept a smaller galaxy, a galaxy where the Death Star would be significant, the argument of Enterprise E, that it takes less crew to operate the Death Star than would be necessary to operate the number of Star Destroyers that could have been build instead of the Death Star, makes sense too.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I disagree WILGA, the point about the Death Star is clear:
- it has superior firepower, enough to puncture any planetary shield, and still burn a whole continent while going through it, or simply have the beam react with the planet somehow and blast it apart, to a point where you can't even hope terraforming it.
- it has a much greater range. No planetary weapon can seriously hope to reach it.
- shields which allow it to take mountain sized debris, which none of the ISD of even the largest fleet imaginable could do.

No, to look at Praeothmin's argument, it's also clear that a bonus of ten thousand ISDs would have possibly been achievable.
But let's not forget that all diagrams of the Death Star, even when disagreeing, show that a large percentage of the station is made of parts which are absolutely unique to it. So even if parts usually used in starships were diverted to the DS production (the plot used to mask its construction), these parts could only fit where they could be cobbled together in areas which would obey the same functions as found on starships. Tunnels, corridors, quarters, warehouses, turbolaser and missile positions and other shooting "windows".
So you cannot take the DS' volume and arbitrarily convert it into starships. You will surely be able to take the crust, which I think is like 2 km thick, and work from that.

But, then, again, 10,000 ISDs or more would be achievable by the Empire, in theory.
However, the quality of crews would be vastly lower, and it would take likely a full decade to produce enough high quality training centers to get and new crews to man those new ships.
Which, funnily, I think they could achieved if they had decided not to go for the Death Star instead.
The thing is, the Empire was the toy of madmen, and their decisions didn't have to reflect that "logic".

[Who is like God arbour]

Please explain, where you are disagreeing.

Because, that the Death Star has superior fire power and weapons range was not disputed by me. Quite the contrary: I have explicit stated this.

But the fact remains, that the Death Star can only be at one place in one time.

And this fact leads to the questions of its significance in a galaxy. To quote Wookieepedia: » There were approximately 400 billion stars and around half of these had planets that could support life. Ten percent of those planets developed life, while sentient life developed in 1/1,000 of those (about 20 million). The galaxy was populated by approximately 100 quadrillion different life forms. «

• • • • Let us assume that the Empire consists of half of these planets.
        
        That would mean that the Empire has 10 million home worlds and 100 billion habitable planets in 200 billion star systems. Many of these habitable planets are colonized or settled.
        
        Now imagine that ten percent of the Empire are part of a rebellion against the Empire.
        
        That would be one million home worlds and their many colonies and settlements and 10 billion uninhabited but habitable planets in 20 billion star systems.
        
        In ten years, the Death Star could only destroy 0.365 per cent of the home worlds.
        
        That's not very effective.
        
        In World War II, the USA lost 0.32 per cent of its total population from 1939 to the war, United Kingdom 0.94 per cent, France 1.35 per cent, Japan 3,78 per cent, Germany at least 7.7 per cent, USSR at least 14 per cent and Poland at least 16.1 per cent [O].
        
        With other words, the probability to get your home world destroyed by a Death Star in such a rebellion is even less high than the probability of an individual from 1939 to survive World War II.
        
        Even if you say, that only one percent of these worlds are partaking in the revolution, a Death Star could destroy in ten years only 3,65 per cent of their home worlds. That does not even consider their colonies and settlements.

What significance could the Death Star have in such a galaxy?

Why would the Death Star be more terrifying than bombs from today which are able to destroy a district from a city?

Why would the Death Star be more terrifying than a fleet of thousand Star Destroyers, whom which every one alone is, according to some, supposed to be able to execute a BDZ?

For the habitants of a planet, it probable makes no difference, if they are killed while their planet is destroyed or if they are killed while the surface of their planet is glazed.



Then you objected Praeothmin's argument. But your argument is fallacious. Because Praethomin did not argue that you can take the Death Star apart and build with its pieces millions of Star Destroyer.

But to build the Death Star, the Empire had to invest effort, energy and resources. And these could have been used to build millions of Star Destroyers.

Your argument, that the Death Star has many parts that were only build for it and can not be used to build Star Destroyers, even supports Praeothmin's argument. It is easier and costs less effort and energy per piece to build pieces a few million times than to build a piece only one time.



Furthermore, Palpatine and Darth Vader were not mad. They were bad. But I haven't seen any evidence that they were mentally ill or insane and were not able to make logical or reasonable decisions to such an extent that they were not able to evaluate the tactical and strategical advantage a Death Star might have (or not) against a few million Star Destroyers.

[User1442]

Please explain, where you are disagreeing.

Because, that the Death Star has superior fire power and weapons range was not disputed by me. Quite the contrary: I have explicit stated this.

But the fact remains, that the Death Star can only be at one place in one time.

And this fact leads to the questions of its significance in a galaxy. To quote Wookieepedia: » There were approximately 400 billion stars and around half of these had planets that could support life. Ten percent of those planets developed life, while sentient life developed in 1/1,000 of those (about 20 million). The galaxy was populated by approximately 100 quadrillion different life forms. «

• • • • Let us assume that the Empire consists of half of these planets.
        
        That would mean that the Empire has 10 million home worlds and 100 billion habitable planets in 200 billion star systems. Many of these habitable planets are colonized or settled.
        
        Now imagine that ten percent of the Empire are part of a rebellion against the Empire.
        
        That would be one million home worlds and their many colonies and settlements and 10 billion uninhabited but habitable planets in 20 billion star systems.
        
        In ten years, the Death Star could only destroy 0.365 per cent of the home worlds.
        
        That's not very effective.
        
        In World War II, the USA lost 0.32 per cent of its total population from 1939 to the war, United Kingdom 0.94 per cent, France 1.35 per cent, Japan 3,78 per cent, Germany at least 7.7 per cent, USSR at least 14 per cent and Poland at least 16.1 per cent [O].
        
        With other words, the probability to get your home world destroyed by a Death Star in such a rebellion is even less high than the probability of an individual from 1939 to survive World War II.
        
        Even if you say, that only one percent of these worlds are partaking in the revolution, a Death Star could destroy in ten years only 3,65 per cent of their home worlds. That does not even consider their colonies and settlements.

What significance could the Death Star have in such a galaxy?

Why would the Death Star be more terrifying than bombs from today which are able to destroy a district from a city?

Why would the Death Star be more terrifying than a fleet of thousand Star Destroyers, whom which every one alone is, according to some, supposed to be able to execute a BDZ?

For the habitants of a planet, it probable makes no difference, if they are killed while their planet is destroyed or if they are killed while the surface of their planet is glazed.



Then you objected Praeothmin's argument. But your argument is fallacious. Because Praethomin did not argue that you can take the Death Star apart and build with its pieces millions of Star Destroyer.

But to build the Death Star, the Empire had to invest effort, energy and resources. And these could have been used to build millions of Star Destroyers.

Your argument, that the Death Star has many parts that were only build for it and can not be used to build Star Destroyers, even supports Praeothmin's argument. It is easier and costs less effort and energy per piece to build pieces a few million times than to build a piece only one time.



Furthermore, Palpatine and Darth Vader were not mad. They were bad. But I haven't seen any evidence that they were mentally ill or insane and were not able to make logical or reasonable decisions to such an extent that they were not able to evaluate the tactical and strategical advantage a Death Star might have (or not) against a few million Star Destroyers.

Yes the deathstar could only be in one place at one time. But the point of it being built was to make people to afraid to fall out of line. It wasn't meant to be used in every major engagement. By blowing up alderaan the entire galaxy would be aware of its power. Had it suceeded in destroying yavin, then it would have been a huge blow to the rebellion. The rebellion would lose its main base, and morale would plummet. Most people would see that and say "ya.....we ain't gonna do nothing against the empire."

The fleet would still have a major role in policing the galaxy, but anytime a planet went out of line, the deathstar would make an example of it.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Why is it impossible to consider that the absolute destruction of a single planet beyond anything people can imagine, in an age of information spreading across all four corners of the universe, under the supervision of the ever expanding and controlling Empire, wouldn't shock everyone?

It's the same way how media and propaganda can make the death of one single person on Earth appear important, and even have dire consequences for millions, on a planet populated by billions.

The destruction of a Core world is an extremely powerful act. It just cannot go unnoticed, especially when the Empire will make sure it doesn't get unnoticed.

In comparison a traditional deployment of a force, albeit large, wouldn't shock as much.

And then, again, there is the problem of logistics. There a very few million people on the Death Star in total. If you divide that into security forces and crews, it doesn't translate into many ships (as pointed above, certainly not a million ISDs), and that many ships will have, in total, neither the firepower nor the range of the single Death Star, as simple as that.
Even piling up a million ISDs doesn't increase the firing range of each ship like some cumulative magic buff, and a million... strike that, a billion times the firepower of a single ISD is still nowhere enough to blast a planet to smithereens with the violence displayed in ANH. The sheer size of the Death Star allowed an exponential gain which made a difference in the ever lasting image imprinted in the minds of the people of the Empire, through the obliteration of Alderaan.

So yes, the Empire could have decided to be much more militarized in a traditional way - and that's covered by the EU, with those generals who believed in a stronger order but who still had good memories of the Republic, and praised the traditional navy, against the likes of lackeys buzzing around Tarkin and Palpatine who really went into big villain mode.
But the Empire never went that way, as we can see right from ROTS. The planets remained more or less "free" as long as they totally espoused the Empire's dogma and cast its propaganda. It's only by the time of ANH that the Empire did without the Senate and gave much more power to Moffs, destroying whatever remained, even in the bureaucracy, of the Republic.

Besides, you can draw a parallel between the Sith politician that Palpatine was, loving centralizing all power into one hand, and the existence of the Death Star.
The traditions and large navies obviously were not his style, and he kept with "traditions" as long as it fitted his agenda.

[Who is like God arbour]

[...]

Yes the deathstar could only be in one place at one time. But the point of it being built was to make people to afraid to fall out of line. It wasn't meant to be used in every major engagement. By blowing up alderaan the entire galaxy would be aware of its power. Had it suceeded in destroying yavin, then it would have been a huge blow to the rebellion. The rebellion would lose its main base, and morale would plummet. Most people would see that and say "ya.....we ain't gonna do nothing against the empire."

The fleet would still have a major role in policing the galaxy, but anytime a planet went out of line, the deathstar would make an example of it.

1. If you are replying to a post, when no other has written something since that post was written, there is no need to quote the whole post. Especially if there are several points in that post but you are replying only to one point.
   It's different if you want to reply to several points and are quoting these points to make it clear to what you are replying. But that was not the case here.
2. You are missing the point. It is out of question that the Death Star is able to destroy a planet what the whole imperial fleet couldn't do. But the Death Star is only one ship / station and it's possibilities are limited.
   The Death Star was build to deter planets from a rebellion. But if there would be a rebellion, the chances that your planet will be destroyed by the Death Star are very small. The chances that a fleet of Star Destroyers would execute a BDZ on your planet are significant higher if the Empire had build several million Star Destroyers instead of the Death Star.
   
   Let's look at your examples:
   
   Alderaan was not protected by a planetary shield. That means, that if the Empire had build several million Star Destroyers, a little part of this fleet would have been able to execute a BDZ on Alderaan.
   
   If the Empire had build several million Star Destroyers instead of the Death Star, the rebels on Yavin would have been killed. Because Yavin was not protected by a planetary shield and a small contingent of Star Destroyers could have destroyed the rebel base with ease.
   
   In both cases, the Empire could have accomplished the same: the total annihilation of the population of a planet. That would be impressive enough while the Death Star is overkill.
   
   Yes, in the first moment, the Death Star might be very impressive. But how long do you think do these people need to realize that the threat of the Death Star is relative low because it can't be everywhere everytime.

[Who is like God arbour]

Why is it impossible to consider that the absolute destruction of a single planet beyond anything people can imagine, in an age of information spreading across all four corners of the universe, under the supervision of the ever expanding and controlling Empire, wouldn't shock everyone?

It's the same way how media and propaganda can make the death of one single person on Earth appear important, and even have dire consequences for millions, on a planet populated by billions.

The destruction of a Core world is an extremely powerful act. It just cannot go unnoticed, especially when the Empire will make sure it doesn't get unnoticed.

In comparison a traditional deployment of a force, albeit large, wouldn't shock as much.

You are right.
But what do you think how long the people will be shocked? Soon they will start to contemplate the threat the Death Star poses. And then they will notice that the probability that they will ever meet the Death Star should they partake in a rebellion with thousand, hundred-thousand if not million other planets, is very slim and that the probability that their planet it BDZed is higher and would be even higher if millions of Star Destroyers were build instead of the Death Star.

It is, as Leia has said: The more the Empire tightens its grip, the more star systems will slip through its fingers.

Unless the Star Wars galaxy is so small that the threat the Death Star poses, is significant. And that is only possible in a small galaxy.