The reason for the deathstar

[sonofccn]

@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.

[Who is like God arbour]

@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.

That's a bad analogy. Hostages are hoping that the robber will let them free and they can continue their life. But if you live in a dictatorship, the situation will never end unless you rebel. And the people who rebel know that they can get annihilated - regardless of the existence of the Death Star. That's the risk that the people of Alderaan or of Mon Calamari have taken. Who is ready to take that risk, will not be deterred only because there is a Death Star.

[sonofccn]

@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.

That's a bad analogy. Hostages are hoping that the robber will let them free and they can continue their life. But if you live in a dictatorship, the situation will never end unless you rebel. And the people who rebel know that they can get annihilated - regardless of the existence of the Death Star. That's the risk that the people of Alderaan or of Mon Calamari have taken. Who is ready to take that risk, will not be deterred only because there is a Death Star.

Its a fine enough analogy since it demostrates humans don't react to problems in the way you are suggesting. It is a rare individual who will knowingly sacrifice his life for the good of the others, be it eating a bullet from a gunman or rebelling against the Empire, which is what you are arguing each individual world to decide on. That they should sacrifice thier planet, their people, for the good of the galaxy assured that if everyone rebels the Empire will lose.

I just don't see that happening. The average world is going to look after its own interests first and formost and kneeling before the Emperor is more appealing than becoming another asteriod field.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Rebels there were, and that was as far as you could go. Only capable of guerilla, 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.

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.

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.

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. 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).

[Lucky]

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.

I'm pretty sure that to be a Sith you have to be insane, but Vader was getting better by the time of A New Hope.

Palpatine was crazy from Episode One, and got worse.

[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.

Also it's tougher to control a million ISD's, what with your best pilots and other officers turning against you as soon as they graduate the Academy to join the rebels, like Wedge and Biggs did. Centralized control requires centralized POWER, like with the DS; meanwhile ISD's can be taken over and used against you if you have too many of them.

Finally, there's the matter of shield-power; an ISD got taken out by a single meteor, whereas the DS was unaffected by an entire planet blowing up right in front of it.

As for the DS's weakness, it's over-stated; the thermal exhaust-port was impossible to hit using any normal means.

[KirkSkyWalker]

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.

I'm pretty sure that to be a Sith you have to be insane, but Vader was getting better by the time of A New Hope.

Palpatine was crazy from Episode One, and got worse.

You're talking about a galactic civilization that's ruled by MAGIC, so "crazy" is a rather relative term when their whole world is batshit-cfrazy. I blame the midichlorians, ala "Day of the Dove."

[KirkSkyWalker]

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.

[Lucky]

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.

I'm pretty sure that to be a Sith you have to be insane, but Vader was getting better by the time of A New Hope.

Palpatine was crazy from Episode One, and got worse.

You're talking about a galactic civilization that's ruled by MAGIC, so "crazy" is a rather relative term when their whole world is batshit-cfrazy. I blame the midichlorians, ala "Day of the Dove."

Here we go again, what proof do you have that The Force is doing anything beyond getting rid of an imbalance caused by mentally ill Force users? Megalomania and a hell of a lot more is what Palpatine suffered from, and it seems most Sith do as well. It got so bad that the Force seems to have created Anakin to destroy him/the Sith.

From what I've seen in G-canon alone high midichlorians counts are only a sign of potential when it comes to Force powers.

[Who is like God arbour]

Its a fine enough analogy since it demostrates humans don't react to problems in the way you are suggesting. It is a rare individual who will knowingly sacrifice his life for the good of the others, be it eating a bullet from a gunman or rebelling against the Empire, which is what you are arguing each individual world to decide on. That they should sacrifice thier planet, their people, for the good of the galaxy assured that if everyone rebels the Empire will lose.

I just don't see that happening. The average world is going to look after its own interests first and formost and kneeling before the Emperor is more appealing than becoming another asteriod field.

You are right insofar that most people are not willing to take a risk to fight for their freedom from oppression.
But we are not talking about these people.

We are talking about people, who are willing to fight, although they know that there is a Imperial Navy with thousands of Star Destroyers from which every one is allegedly able to BDZ a planet and that the Emperor has no qualms with punishing the population of a whole planet for the misdeeds of a few.

These people are already willing to risk their planet and the people on it - even those who do not want to participate in a rebellion.

The question is, what changes with the appearance of the Death Star.

And the answer is that there are no significant changes. Because on the bottom line, the Death Star can not do more than a Star Destroyer. Both can kill the population of a whole planet. Only that the one does destroy the planet, and that is an overkill, while the other "merely" glazes the surface of a planet.

If there hadn't been a Death Star, the population of Alderaan could have been wiped out with a massive attack by Star Destroyers, Star Destroyers that could have been build instead of the Death Star.

If there hadn't been a Death Star, if millions of Star Destroyers were build instead of the Death Star, the Imperial Fleet would have attacked Yavin with a fleet of Star Destroyers and could have killed everyone on the planet.

Darth Vader expected to be able to wipe out all rebels on Hoth with only a handful of Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer). If there hadn't been a shield, he would have succeeded. If there had been more Star Destroyers, they could have overwhelmed the shield or at least could have been prevented the escape of the rebels.

I admit that the Death Star has a greater shock-effect. But that can last only so long before people who are willing to take a risk start to analyse the advantage the Death Star gives the Empire and notice that the Death Star is insignificant in a galaxy with 200 billion habitable planets and over 20 million inhabited planets.

[Lucky]

As for the DS's weakness, it's over-stated; the thermal exhaust-port was impossible to hit using any normal means.

And you will provide proof? What I saw in the movie ran counter to this argument. It would be difficult, but far from impossible. The Rebels would not have even bothered if they had not thought they could do it. Vader would not have taken fighters to engage the Rebels had he thought it impossible, and the Rebels nearly do make the shot before Luke takes his shot.

The Force can only make the unlikely more likely.

[Who is like God arbour]

Rebels there were, and that was as far as you could go. Only capable of guerilla, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

[sonofccn]

We are talking about people, who are willing to fight, although they know that there is a Imperial Navy with thousands of Star Destroyers from which every one is allegedly able to BDZ a planet and that the Emperor has no qualms with punishing the population of a whole planet for the misdeeds of a few.

I would counter that Star Destroyers can be fought with strike craft, with ion cannons, with starships. An assault against a prepared core world could turn into a graveyard for you inciting further rebellion as the worlds sense blood in the water. Against the death star none of this matters, it literaly drops into your system out of reach of everyone of your weapons and blows your entire planet sky high.

If there hadn't been a Death Star, the population of Alderaan could have been wiped out with a massive attack by Star Destroyers, Star Destroyers that could have been build instead of the Death Star.

Possibly. As has been pointed out the crew requirments alone skyrocket if you build destroyers instead of the death star much less more nebulas concepts such as how much a million hyperdrives cost compared to one really,really,really big one.

Darth Vader expected to be able to wipe out all rebels on Hoth with only a handful of Star Destroyers (including a Super Star Destroyer). If there hadn't been a shield, he would have succeeded. If there had been more Star Destroyers, they could have overwhelmed the shield or at least could have been prevented the escape of the rebels.

True. On the other hand see what the rebel defenses did to the Imperial fleet? Now imagine instead of a podunk rebel base with hand me down gear it was instead a major world with legions of turbolaser batteries, ion cannons, tons of fighters and maybe a few capships. You'd win in the end but I don't think it would be a bloodless victory.

I admit that the Death Star has a greater shock-effect. But that can last only so long before people who are willing to take a risk start to analyse the advantage the Death Star gives the Empire and notice that the Death Star is insignificant in a galaxy with 200 billion habitable planets and over 20 million inhabited planets.

By the same logic one could argue a million ISDs are insignificant against 20 million inhabited planets, where is this number from if I may ask?, where even the most backwater planetiod could mount a few ion cannons and a couple of squadrons of strike crafts which are utterly devestating against capships across the Expanded Universe.

[KirkSkyWalker]

You're talking about a galactic civilization that's ruled by MAGIC, so "crazy" is a rather relative term when their whole world is batshit-cfrazy. I blame the midichlorians, ala "Day of the Dove."

Here we go again, what proof do you have that The Force is doing anything beyond getting rid of an imbalance caused by mentally ill Force users?

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

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.

[KirkSkyWalker]

As for the DS's weakness, it's over-stated; the thermal exhaust-port was impossible to hit using any normal means.

And you will provide proof?

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.

What I saw in the movie ran counter to this argument.

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

It would be difficult, but far from impossible. The Rebels would not have even bothered if they had not thought they could do it.

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!

Vader would not have taken fighters to engage the Rebels had he thought it impossible,

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

and the Rebels nearly do make the shot before Luke takes his shot.

And MISSED-- hello?
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!

The Force can only make the unlikely more likely.

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.