Starfleet Jedi

So the Death Star follows the tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to the rebel base. They jump out of light speed, and, for no clear reason, emerge on the far side of the planet Yavin from the moon where the base is. This light-speed jump takes a split-second, but now they have to wait minutes so they can clear the planet. Not only that, but the Death Star is capable of blowing up entire planets, not just moons, so why don’t they just blow up the entire planet of Yavin? Surely that would effectively destroy anything on its moons as well.

Maybe destroying Yavin would have destroyed the DS as well?
Maybe the DS doesn't have the power to destroy Yavin itself, but only Earth-like planets?
Maybe Tarkin is an idiot...
"Retreat? At the moment of our Victory?"

Isn't there a thread on this already, and isn't this the wrong place for this topic?

Moved...

There's obviously a reason why they didn't blows Yavin and then peppered the Rebel base on the moon with "low powered" shots.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's obviously a reason why they didn't blows Yavin and then peppered the Rebel base on the moon with "low powered" shots.

Of course... But what is it?

Praeothmin wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's obviously a reason why they didn't blows Yavin and then peppered the Rebel base on the moon with "low powered" shots.

Of course... But what is it?

It would make sense.

One of the original reasons given was that it takes an entire day to build up enough of a charge to fire the superlaser. Maybe popping Yavin would have taken too much power and then they would be forced to sit there watching random rebel ships escaping and only able to sent fighters to harass them, then again, considering the number of normal weapons the Death Star supposedly has, one wonders if it could BDZ a planet all by itself without the use of the superlaser.
There's a question no one's ever asked I'll bet.

Watchdog, if the DS really was that powerful, you do realize that popping Yavin would essentially destroy Yavin IV, so no Rebels would escape, right?

i just happened to read the opener here on some other site and just noticed i forgot to give credit where due. unfortunately now i can't remember where i read it. i think it might have been a wired article. anyway, sorry about that.

This video helps getting the problem we have at hands, in a way.

So, because they didn't know where Yavin IV would be at the time they'd begin orbiting Yavin Prime, they were left with a few options.

1. they couldn't shoot Yavin Prime because they'd also destroy themselves : it's a gas giant probably full of more "volatile" material, such as helium, which does nice things when brought to solar pressure and temperatures, and the heat at which the gas giant would be brought to by a local superlaser blast could easily turn this thing into a super fusion bomb.

2. assuming the DS could survive YP blowing up in her face, the DS couldn't have enough firepower to blast YP anyway, and had to go around the gas giant to get the Yavin IV moon in LOS.

It's often being asked why they didn't fire through the upper slice of YP, instead of waiting to clear the horizon. I think the superlaser would react with the planet's mass as a whole, more or less regardless of where it hits it. And again, with the fusion thing, perhaps they wanted to avoid taking risks.

Although the DS's main waepon is a Laser, and we know lasers can be affected by gases, even "deflected" by them, so perhaps by firing at the upper "slice" of YP they feared the beam being "deflected" and not hitting the base, and with a recharge time of 1 day for full power, they would not have had another chance at Yavin-IV before all the Rebels could flee...