Vader's Enterprise: A dozen derails of Star Wars

[Jedi Master Spock]

Saving the Empire's butt with the Enterprise

As an exhibition of how useful Treknology is, I'm going to go through the original trilogy, scene by scene, and count the number of times that the plot would have been derailed had Vader simply had the Enterprise at his beck and call doing errands for him. Nothing to do with overwhelming firepower, mind, just all the little pesky details.

1. Three minutes into the movie, the Rebel blockade runner's main reactor is shut down. Its shields may have been compromised even before that. Darth Vader beams the Rebels directly to the brig. Two minutes later, a feminine hand would have slipped a little floppy disk (well, something flat and containing important Death Star data) into Artoo from an unseen bend in the corridor as C3P0 wonders where his short counterpart got lost; unfortunately, Princess Leia is now in an isolation cell.
2. Transporters would have been able to end the movie again when the stormtroopers located the Falcon - while people were just walking aboard. Han, the pilot, wasn't even on the ship yet.
3. The Falcon is able to nimbly fly right past Star Destroyers. Not so the smaller (and far nimbler) Enterprise - whose tractor beam has a long enough range to grab the Falcon at the sort of distances it was willing to close with them. In Star Trek, halting a small ship in its tracks is common for larger vessels trying to capture them. That's to say nothing of the fact that it would have also been able to blow the Falcon out of the sky with its superior accuracy - making three different ways in which the Imperials would have been able to stop the Death Star plans from falling into the hands of Rebels in a single incident.
4. Speaking of tractor beams grabbing the Falcon, we come to the next scene in which the Enterprise could have saved the Empire: Han and company hiding inside the Falcon. The Enterprise stationed as a Death Star escort would be within good ST sensor range of the Falcon, allowing the Imperials to track exactly what was happening with the life signs aboard the ship - or, again, simply beam them out and into the brig the moment Han powered down the shields to make it look good. (Indeed, had the stormtrooper simply had a tricorder chirp at him warning him he was about to get jumped from behind - as Data's did in Nemesis - this ploy would not have worked.)
5. We now come to Yavin IV. Here, a small passel of Rebel fighters engages the Death Star, taking more than five minutes to approach. The Enterprise would have been able to detect these (providing a report of the incoming starfighters well before the Imperials took any notice of them) and intercept at Darth Vader's command before they even began the trench run; here, it is important to note that Vader did not share Tarkin's confidence in the invulnerability of his station, and we said it would be at Vader's beck and call.
6. Having just one more ship - and, importantly, a fast agile ship with long-range tractor beams - would have allowed the Empire to make a much cleaner sweep of the fleeing Rebels right in orbit. The Falcon was a priority target and only narrowly evaded the slow-turning ISDs, just as it did in escaping Tatooine.
7. In the asteroid field, the Falcon hides inside an asteroid. The Enterprise, however, would have been able to track the Falcon on sensors, even from outside the belt.
8. When the Falcon latches onto the Star Destroyer, the Enterprise would know exactly where it went - unlike the poor confused slobs on the ISD.
9. If you have a transporter on hand, why march prisoners over half of Cloud City? Beam them straight to your holding cells. Lando never even has a chance to renege on his deal with the Imperials; Chewbacca and Leia are imprisoned immediately.
10. When Luke takes a dive down the airshaft: *chirp* "There should be a human lifesign somewhere below my position, falling rapidly. Beam him aboard. I want him alive."
11. On Bespin, the Falcon performs another act of daring flight. Unfortunately, Imperial incompetence is stunning in this case - the Falcon is literally right in front of the Executor's nose when it jumps into hyperspace. Perhaps they might have behaved differently if they knew - as the crew of the Enterprise would from their sensors - that the Falcon was powering its hyperdrive up just fine.
12. Locating and capturing Rebels on a forest moon: As simple as telling the Enterprise to beam up the Rebels from their landing site. They never even get to meet the Ewoks.

The worst part? I didn't even say which Enterprise. The only one there's any doubt about is the NX-01; the early NX-01 only had magnetic grapples, which, although actually used in combat against a D5 battlecruiser, might not work too well on the Falcon in these particular cases. The Vulcans presumably shared their tractor beam technology later, and the mirror universe NX had them to start with.

[Mike DiCenso]

1. Three minutes into the movie, the Rebel blockade runner's main reactor is shut down. Its shields may have been compromised even before that. Darth Vader beams the Rebels directly to the brig. Two minutes later, a feminine hand would have slipped a little floppy disk (well, something flat and containing important Death Star data) into Artoo from an unseen bend in the corridor as C3P0 wonders where his short counterpart got lost; unfortunately, Princess Leia is now in an isolation cell.

You probably already thought of it, but in the advent that a boarding party is still needed (made much quicker with widespread phaser beams in either stun or kill setting) to take the Tantive and Leia is still able somehow to get the plans passed off to Artoo, sensors on even the relatively primitive NX class should be able to discern with ease that droids are on-board the escape pod, thus the Imperials either shoot it down or tractor it back.

In the extremely unlikely event that the pod is able to land on Tatooine, Vader can quickly beam a party of troops and at the same time track exactly where the disembarking droids are meandering off to so they don't get too far.
-Mike

[2046]

This is pure genius work, by the way. It's the sort of thing we've all mentioned or thought of at times, but put in a list like this it just strikes one as incredibly overwhelming. It would be even better with TCW examples added on.

Pro-Wars folks could try to make a similar list based on the films and TCW, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. "Oh, stormtrooper armor would've prevented that flesh wound." Touché, but still not significant, especially in some interesting cases:

[Cocytus]

Oh, this is goooooooood.

I mean, my lord, you could do this for pages and pages.

In TESB, if the Empire had the Danube-class Runabouts instead of TIE fighters, they could have effortlessly pursued the Falcon through the asteroid field. The Danube demonstrated its superior manuevering through just such a field in "Change of Heart."

Given the 40,000 km range of the transporter, and observed instances of it beaming shuttlecraft such as "Nemesis" and verbal statements in other episodes, the Enterprise could have simply beamed the ship into a shuttlebay during the pursuit, before the ship ever got near the asteroid field.

Imperial walkers are big, ugly, unwieldy and slow. Since the shield obviously didn't stop the landing vehicles from penetrating it, ("Make ready to land our troops beyond their energy field, and deploy the fleet so nothing gets off the system.") I see no reason a few shuttles couldn't simply fly to surface level, through the field and lob a photon torpedo into the shield generator. No wait, scratch that. Into the base.

I'll come back with some more later. This is FUN :)

[Mike DiCenso]

Given the 40,000 km range of the transporter, and observed instances of it beaming shuttlecraft such as "Nemesis" and verbal statements in other episodes, the Enterprise could have simply beamed the ship into a shuttlebay during the pursuit, before the ship ever got near the asteroid field.

In this case I think you mean if the they have access to the E-D or E-E, since most other Enterprise's did not demonstate this ability. It certainly would have been one way for the Empire to get Threepio and Artoo's escape pod back without breaking a sweat. The Alt-E, on the other hand, if rigged with Scotty's transwarp beaming, could be used by the Empire to wreak havoc on the spacelanes and on Rebel bases by using the sensors on the Trek ship to determine where the Rebel ship is, then beam someone off or a boarding party over light years onto the target vessel.
-Mike

[Mith]

Well, I guess I'll do the Clone Wars Movie:

First off, Dooku's entire plan relied upon the Jedi landing on the planet and capturing the Hutt. With the Enterprise, they simply could have scanned for a Hutt lifeform, beamed it aboard, and then head back to Tatootine. And once they had gotten there, they could have just beamed down to his palace without having to deal with Dooku.

Ambush: With the help of the Enterprise or transporter technology, they could have simply beamed down to the planet at the exact location and saved themselves hours worth of trouble.

Rising Manevolence: If Grievous had UFP sensor technology, they would not have needed the B1s to go out hunting for them and they would have done away with an important Jedi Master. They would have also instantly detected the Twilight and beamed them into the brig, thus also gaining R2's vast knowledge of Republic fleet deployments.

Shadow of Malevolence: A Federation fighter could have easily made that mark with the Malevolence's bridge from the distance we saw and they could have crossed the distance at a quicker pace. Thus Anakin wouldn't have been forced for the alternate target and crippled CIS morale.

Destroy Malevolence: With Federation aiming capabilities, they could have actually hit the bridge more than once. With transporter technology, Padme could have been saved and a photon torpedo put in her place. Hence making quick work of the warship as it’s blown in half from an internal explosion.

Rookies: Nothing too much here, although better sensors would have alerted Rex and Cody that there weren’t any lifesigns coming from the base.

Cloak of Darkness: Again, could have beamed the prisoners onto the ship. Or with Federation tractor beams, they could have stopped the ships from ever landing to begin with. Or with faster, more accurate weapons, they could have vaporized them.

Lair of Grievous: They could have waited and beamed him into the brig, then gone home.

Jedi Crash: Could have just beamed them off with the transporter.

Tresspass: Would have detected the native lifeforms as well as the B1s. Could have thus of kept out of all sorts of trouble with a duct blind or even a low powered shield generator from Generations.

The Hidden Enemy/The Blue Shadow Virus: The CIS would never have been able to establish that base. All hostages could have been beamed out along with the evil scientist.

Mystery of a Thousand Moons: Could have just beamed the stuff they needed up.

Innocents of Ryloth: Could have beamed away the hostages and struck from orbit (ie, SW ships cannot make precise orbital strikes, it requires an orbital beacon to be set in the area).

Liberty of Ryloth: Could have beamed into the city rather than have to perform a risky operation to get the plasma bridge up. Fighters would have been easily targetd and shot down from orbit.

Hostage Crisis: Bane and his cronies would have been beamed into the brig and the senators set free. Or again, shot down the hover car when they were fleeing—or beam them back into the brig.

Holocron Heist: UFP sensors could have traced the intruders and beamed them into the brig.

Cargo of Doom: Bane and the Jedi would have instantly been detected as the only life forms, disabled, and then beamed onboard.

Landing at Point Rain: A massive difference. Transporters would have eliminated the risk of trying to land the gunships while still trying to establish air supority. It would also have allowed them to beam any groups that had crash landed or landed before the point. Not only that, but the ship would have been able to make an orbital strike against the large fortress. All in all, the entire battle plan would have gone off without a hitch.

Weapons Factory: With the shield down, they could have simply beamed the bombs in and watch it blow up sky high. Or if they wanted to capture it, beam in troops to take the factory.

Legacy of Terror: They would have easily been able to tracen and locate Poggle the Lesser, easily beaming him up to the brig.

[Mr. Oragahn]

It also shows that Star Wars would have sucked with all these gadgets at Vader's disposal.
Sometimes I prefer much less technobabble and plain bigger and louder engines.

[Mike DiCenso]

Yes, well that's in a manner of speaking similar to what Ron Moore said about writing for Star Trek when it came to things like not using hand phasers to their full demonstrated potential in combat. They're simply too powerful.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

It also shows that Star Wars would have sucked with all these gadgets at Vader's disposal.
Sometimes I prefer much less technobabble and plain bigger and louder engines.

Imagine a three minute long period of action followed by two hours of watching Luke tramp aimlessly around Tatooine and worry about whether or not he's going to get to go to the Imperial Academy.

There never would have been a sequel. Star Wars might survive as a small cult flick.

I think I much prefer a grand and epic Star Wars in which the Rebellion eventually overthrows the Empire, myself. Cheesy merchandising, the Holiday Special, and the occasional "Talifan" episode aside, I think that Star Wars is a nice thing to have around.

[Mike DiCenso]

Let's just be clear on this, though. No one is saying that Star Wars would have been better with all this technology and an Empire that is smart enough to use it properly to it's full potential, just that it is an interesting thought exercise in crossing over the Trek and Wars verses. Luke would wind up having to follow a different path to becoming a Jedi and overthrowing the Empire.
-Mike

[Mith]

It also shows that Star Wars would have sucked with all these gadgets at Vader's disposal.
Sometimes I prefer much less technobabble and plain bigger and louder engines.

To be honest, as an author, I would be much more interested in writing for Star Wars EU than Trek EU, though if given a chance to write for either shows, I'd choose the later in a heart beat.

[watchdog]

Somewhat more interesting to me is; how would the Rebels have faired with treknology on their side?
I suppose that the blockade runner would have beamed most of their personnel down to Tatooine once they realized that they were about to be captured by the Empire. Once down there Princess Leia and whomever accompanied her could have used a tricorder to keep track of any stormtroopers that came anywhere near them. If the rebels had an Enterprise at their disposal, Vaders ISD could never have caught them at sublight and with warp being useable without "precise calculations," they could easily outdistance the ISD with short warp bursts to confuse it and then warp out in any direction they choose.
Just a couple of thoughts to start with.

[Mike DiCenso]

If you want to go down that route, there are plenty of interesting things the Rebels can do as well. If the ship gets caught, they can beam everyone down to Tatooine right next to Obi-Wan's homestead, setting the ship to autodestruct with the full antimatter reserves just as the Stormtroopers are breaking through the Tantive's hatch, and hopefully take the ISD out. Alternatively, they beam a torpedo or two into the ISD as it lowers it's shields down to take the blockade runner into the hanger or engine spaces to cripple or destroy it.
-Mike

[Khas]

Or they could have put sensors in the torpedoes like Spock and McCoy did in Star Trek VI. Just fire it and let it lock on to the Death Star's exhaust port. I mean, that thing had a pretty big tail pipe.

[Mike DiCenso]

They only needed that type of sensor on the E-A's torpedo to track General Chang's BoP because it was cloaked, not because accuracy was an issue. For the Death Star, just having the torpedo find it's way to the exaust port is not enough; it has to actually fly all the way down through it to the reactor. So guidence on the torpedo is more of a must than simply letting it meander around until it finds the waste heat emanating from the port, and even then it would probably lock onto the bigger main port, or another "hot" target long before then.
-Mike