Starfleet Jedi

As a relative newcomer to the Trek/Wars debate (and someone entirely unqualified to participate in much of it), I was rather shocked when I first read about the Base Delta Zero order and the calculations derived from it. I apologize if this idea has been discussed before.

If a single Star Destroyer can "slag" the "entire surface" of a planet in "a single hour" (per st-v-sw) as many seem to believe enough to calculate ridiculous firepower figures, then what, exactly, was the point of building not one but two Death Stars?

Where is the tactical advantage that makes all the effort of constructing a space station the size of a small moon worthwhile? You could argue that the Death Star can take out a planet with less warning. This is true, but what can you really do in an hour? You can't evacuate a planet in an hour. The Empire would lose only those ships that were ready to take off when the order was given, lucky enough to be taking off from a location far from the initial bombardment, and fast enough to avoid the swarm of TIE fighters that would certainly be deployed if the Imperial commander has half a brain.

After all, when you're standing on a planet marked for destruction, the difference between "surface slagged" and "blasted into little pieces" is merely an aesthetic one.

Certainly the Death Star is harder to take down than a Star Destroyer, but is it harder to take down than "half the fleet?" I think not. In fact, the tactical advantage of having that kind of firepower on a number of smaller ships is far greater than putting it on one giant target. As the films show, the Rebels focused all their efforts on destroying the Empire's superweapons.

The Death Star doesn't do anything special other than the superlaser. We've seen mobile command and carrier functions carried out just as well by Star Destroyers, and the Battle of Yavin proves that the giant death ball isn't going to be blockading anything.

If Star Destroyers can do what people think, I just don't see the Rebels crapping their pants about the Death Star, it makes no sense.

"Oh gee whiz, the Empire has created another planet-destroying monster, only this time it's huge and slow."

I never thought about that comparison before. The best I can come up with is instilling fear because it's so big, but I still don't see that fear being such a big determiner in the populace. Maybe it's fear when dealing with people one-on-one, like with Leia, but that's it.

"I blew up your planet, bitch. Now, feel the guilt of not selling out your friends."

That's certainly a lot of effort for an entirely theatrical purpose.

Besides, it would have been far worse to force Leia to watch Alderaan destroyed over the course of an hour, TIE fighters blasting the few ships that manage to take off.

That's pretty cruel.

According to Dodonna, the whole starfleet probably has a firepower almost worth of two Spheres of Fear (approx).

I have a fresh example of a thread that derivated towards a BDZ centric discussion.

Clicky (the whole page - 11).

If a single Star Destroyer can "slag" the "entire surface" of a planet in "a single hour" (per st-v-sw) as many seem to believe enough to calculate ridiculous firepower figures, then what, exactly, was the point of building not one but two Death Stars?

The general argument I've heard was that the deathstars,instead of being terror weapons like they said in the movies, were infact siege platforms designed to overwhelm core world plantary shields.

Which in and of itself indicates just how little control the Empire had over the "wealthy" non-hickish inner systems if they couldn't even control plantary shields.

The basic problem I see is that with the sort of yeilds the BDZ crowd likes to throw around basiclymeans a single shot on a planet from a medium turbolaser would effectivly kill it. You add in cloaking technolagy, even if you can't see while it's up, and it's not that hard to imagine how easy it is to score atleast one shot on the planet. Thus brute forcing the shield is a pointless endevor from the get go.

This brings up the question of just what role Star Destroyers are supposed to fill. The only time we see them acting as Destroyers in the naval sense is in ROTJ, and only then because the rebels engaged them.

Admiral Ackbar says that they "won't last long against those Star Destroyers," but this doesn't really give us much in terms of their use against enemy capships, seeing as how the rebels were severely outnumbered.

When we see Star Destroyers, they are almost always used for space superiority missions and as carriers. In order to respond to your siege weapon comment, we'd have to open up the nasty can of worms that is the question of planetary shielding. Since we have really no idea how sturdy these planetary shields might be, and how they would stand up to Star Destroyer turbolaser fire, it's hard to draw any conclusions. Instead of going there, I will grant that if planetary shielding exists then I could see why they might need to build a Death Star.

CrippledVulture wrote:This brings up the question of just what role Star Destroyers are supposed to fill. The only time we see them acting as Destroyers in the naval sense is in ROTJ, and only then because the rebels engaged them.

Admiral Ackbar says that they "won't last long against those Star Destroyers," but this doesn't really give us much in terms of their use against enemy capships, seeing as how the rebels were severely outnumbered.

When we see Star Destroyers, they are almost always used for space superiority missions and as carriers. In order to respond to your siege weapon comment, we'd have to open up the nasty can of worms that is the question of planetary shielding. Since we have really no idea how sturdy these planetary shields might be, and how they would stand up to Star Destroyer turbolaser fire, it's hard to draw any conclusions. Instead of going there, I will grant that if planetary shielding exists then I could see why they might need to build a Death Star.

Even granting planatary shield exist that really doesn't justifiy a Death Star. Besides the fact that no shield can be kept on continusly unless the planet wanted to remain in isolation forever and a single shot will cause a global killer meanign that an old obsolete transport could be used to guard a rebellious world. Besides all that, how could it be cheaper, or easier for a "Galatic Empire" to build the death star instead of say simply removing these defenses from the conqured worlds? I mean the Empire had no external threats as far as I know in it's entire history, and rebels should not be running around in grand fleets attacking your settlements. So the whole shieldbuster idea for the deathstar doesn't really add up. there is no reason to have the shields in the first place.

Very true. The mechanics of hyperspace don't give you much time to circle the wagons, so to speak. The Rebels only pulled it off on Hoth because they somehow outsmarted the technological marvel that is the Imperial Probe Droid and were prepared for the invasion. Not to mention the Imperial officer in charge bungled the approach.

On a civilized world with an economy and civilian ships and things, the shields are almost totally useless.

So basically, we agree that BDZ is nothing short of a big old wank wankeroo.

I'm glad we've made progress.

The Dodonna firepower statement:

"The battlestation is heavily shielded, and carries a firepower greater than half the starfleet. It's defenses are designed around a direct, large-scale assault. A small, one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense."



Can be argued alone that Dodonna might be refering to the superlaser, but when taken with the information provided in the ANH novelization:

"Take special note of these emplacements. There's a heavy concentration of firepower on the latitudinal axes, as well as several dense circumpolar clusters."


The nature of it is changed to one of Dodonna discussing the defensive anti-capitalship and starfighter turbolaser emplacements.


There is also Han Solo's statements in ANH where he expresses absolute shock at the idea that the entire starfleet was capable of destroying Alderaan at all.

Even the idea of slagging a planet's surface (read melting it in an hour) was never in the original BDZ concept:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWbd0.html

Just the idea of three ISDs attacking and slagging a rebel base on the planet of Dankyo (no specifications given on the planet's size or anything else), while leaving the rest of the planet's surface evenly cratered, and all in an unspecified timeframe.
-Mike

Beware, though, not castrating Star Wars just because we would ponder the point of a Death Star, because even with enough time, a fleet firing multiple kilotons per second will end killing a world anyway.

Plus, even if the Death Star is a single object, you can't make me believe that it would require less maintenance than a fleet of an equal volume. What it gains, though, is that as one entity, the decision of one affects the whole, and thus makes the courses of action much more rapid to put in place and effective.

You want to destroy a planet, you move that giant hurt ball and boom.

The most incredible fact about the Death Star is that now, thanks to the prequels, we can't say that it was purely made as a caprice of the Emperor.

It really was, intially, a weapon meant to give the Confederation of Independant Systems the upper hand, possibly through the use of fear, which would be the common point between the CIS and the GE.

That said, when you want to attack a sector, a planet, you need to move a fleet, and with the defenses seen in Star Wars, the defender can have weaponry able to retaliate (big ass ion cannons for example, or even massive turbolasers, missile silos and whatnots) anf move ships.

Plus for the Imperials to move a certain number of ships guarding a sector, it means a certain level of coordination... though I'm not fond of that argument.

First, because the rebels, back in ANH, were far from being a menace like the CIS was.
The CIS had a galactic army.
So there wasn't much of a risk, for an imperial fleet, to stumble over an enemy fleet of equal, or near equal power.

Secondly, I don't see the point of the Death Star, at that moment, since the whole galaxy was at relative peace. Maybe the rebellion, as an insidious force, couldn't be eradictated with brute force, so the whole starfleet was pointless, and the only way to reduce the number of collaborators and pro-resistance worlds, would be, from the Empire's point of view, to use fear at an unimaginable level: the Death Star.

But really, I don't buy it. Once again, the sheer ability of a few ships to slag a whole world is more than enough to have seditious systems comply, especially as the Empire controls the galaxy.

However, as one said, it's funny how a force which supposedly controls the galaxy, couldn't make a world like Alderaan kneel. Anderaan was said to be well defended, but come on, no matter the political or economical important of one world, when the Empire controls so many territories that it literally outweighs any alliance of worlds against the Empire, when the Empire has enough industrial ressources to build a Death Star and several instances of starfleets, one world like Alderaan, no matter how well defended, could not pretend to be able to be a menace and be able to repel whatever fleet the Empire could place there. Ultimately, a siege would have reason of the Alderaanians.

Eventually, you could argue that the Death Star was there to pierce shields, but the EU has come with torpedoe spheres - the BDZ is an EU product, and those who defend the superfigures are EUphiles.

Again, the Death Star is a super massive wasteand utterly pointless.

The only advantage that the Death Star is, besides fear, is that it concentrates an insane amount of total firepower and defenses at once, and that is the point. It does not need to engage a fleet. It can aim at a world, shoot it, and buzz off, with shields barely dented.

But, well, that would have made much more sense in the context of a war against the Republic, with a necessity to mount quick terror attacks.
Imagine the battle of Coruscant. The CIS launches the Death Star. Say the Republic has all of its forces there. Let's even pretend, for a moment, that all of the Republic's ships could destroy the Death Star, after some lenghty battle.

Point is, a lenghty battle, or at least a prolongated exposition to enemy firepower, is not expected with the Death Star. It's really a question of come here, shoot and au revoir everybody.
Eventually, the Death Star can curbstomp a couple of enemy ships in the process.

Now, the Death Star's construction was started like 30 years ago. The Empire was fragilized, and it would be logical that the Emperor and his pals would look at the Death Star like a necessity, in case another galactic scale war would occur.

However, as a relative unthreatened peace was instored, the Death Star progressively turned into a moderately fancy toy, more than anything else, and probably an affair of symbolism, self esteem and pride when it came to the construction of another Death Star, as the Empire couldn't tolerate that a bunch of miserable rebels could destroy the grotesquely huge fruit of decades of work.

To conclude.

Strictly military wise, the Death Star had the only advantage of being a ALL IN ONE system, with such brute force and toughness that it could move and attack unhampered.
The ultimate weapon platform, much more efficient with its powerful long range weapon than any possible fleet could hope to achieve, even of equal volume, the pet project in a climate of galactic war. It's quality versus numbers, basically.
This would become a tool of terror as well.
What makes it odd is that the whole dogma behind the Death Star became outdated by the time of A New Hope.
Then, the Death Star really became an affair of pride and ego, a "toy", which grew so much in importance, to the Emperor's eyes, that its destruction would symbolize the fall of the Empire. This could not be tolerated, and thus was fueled with absurd chain reaction of building even more dumber big ass stations, when the enemy was all but as small as rats.

GStone wrote:I never thought about that comparison before.

Really? That’s odd. The first time I heard about it I thought pretty much the same as CrippledVulture, perhaps because like him I am also relatively new to the whole versus debate thing, no offense but you guys seems to have very preconceived ideas about it, maybe because you have been debating for so long. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a little too much but that comparison seems obvious to me. Although Mr. Oragahn comments are very interesting.

Us old heads in the debate are gonna miss a few things.

GStone wrote:Us old heads in the debate are gonna miss a few things.

Well, on the other hand you have experience at debating…err, stuff and the like and are bond to know the old and tired arguments of our stubborn pro-Wars/anti-Trek friends and able to refute their claims faster than us less experienced geeks…err, debaters.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Strictly military wise, the Death Star had the only advantage of being a ALL IN ONE system, with such brute force and toughness that it could move and attack unhampered.
The ultimate weapon platform, much more efficient with its powerful long range weapon than any possible fleet could hope to achieve, even of equal volume, the pet project in a climate of galactic war. It's quality versus numbers, basically.
This would become a tool of terror as well.
What makes it odd is that the whole dogma behind the Death Star became outdated by the time of A New Hope.
Then, the Death Star really became an affair of pride and ego, a "toy", which grew so much in importance, to the Emperor's eyes, that its destruction would symbolize the fall of the Empire. This could not be tolerated, and thus was fueled with absurd chain reaction of building even more dumber big ass stations, when the enemy was all but as small as rats.

One thing is certain though, despite what some site wants us to believe, space stations on the scale of the Death Stars are not by any stretch of the imagination a standard construction for the Empire, otherwise the reactions of our Rebel friends wouldn’t make sense if the Empire can church out moon-sized space stations with regularity. They were all dumbfounded at the sight of such a monstrosity. Compare this with the reactions or lack thereof every time that the E-D docked inside a mushroom-type starbase, no one commented anything along the lines of “we are on one of the biggest starbases on the entire Federation” or “there are only a few starbases this big on service” or something like that. For them it seemed like the most natural thing to do which heavily implies that such starbases are a fairly common sight across the Federation and a normal occurrence on the life of a Starfleet officer.

While it's true that even some of the long-time Versus debate particpants will miss some important bit of information here and there, the superlaser to Imperial starfleet one is necessarily one of them. It's been a old staple of some of the early pro-SW crowd in justifying insane firepower and or huge numbers of ships in the Imperial fleet.

In general the idea is that the Death Stars are so powerful that there can be no defense what-so-ever against them. Many pro-SW debators have argued that because the planetary shields (speculation really without the benefit of the EU material) of the Core Worlds are strong enough to take the punishment of even a long term bombardment by a number of SDs, that it became necessary to build the Death Stars, which had the power in the form of the superlaser to punch through even the strongest of planetary shields, while at the same time hold off and destroy any defending capital ship attack.

Unfortunately, as the RoTS movie and novelization have it, there do not appear to be any such planetary scale shields, as there was not one in operation for Courscant, and the only shield seen thus far is the one employed by the Rebels on Hoth, which did not seem to be larger than a few tens of km in radius. Meanwhile planets like Naboo did not even possess that much, otherwise the Trade Federation would have had a much more difficult time landing it's forces there. Total planetary shields for Naboo also would have rendered such an invasion absolutely impossible, and the blockade seige would have to continue as it was.

AFT, you are also right about the reactions of the various characters to the first Death Star. The first movie makes it clear that normal space stations in SW are no where near as big as the 120 km DS1. Also interesting to note is that when the Republic cruisers (Venator SDs to those wishing to use EU designations) were seen being readied at Courscant in RoTS, they are shown on the surface in massive slips, and not docked to any kind of space station. So space stations are existant in SW by Han's statement, but they are probably not more than a very few tens of km, as the servicing of a large starship can take place on a planet as well as in space.
-Mike